Black Market Discussion (in-game, Pandaria)

[Mortox]

Hey guys, I'd like to start a bit of a discussion here on the Black Market Auction House (BMAH) that was added in-game in MoP.

For those that don't know what this is, Blizzard basically added an NPC-controlled AH as a gold-sink. It's found in the Veiled Stair, near the Tavern in the Mists and is run by an NPC named "Madam Goya." (screenshot of zone+ below)

Basically it's a novelty shop where you can buy a huge assortment of rare items for large sums of your hard-earned gold. Things like previously-removed T3 Naxx gear can be bought (NO class restriction!), hard-to-obtain mounts like Ashes of Al'ar, rare companion pets, random crafting recipes (some new to MoP, some old), level 90 epics, and even trading-card-game items. There's a fairly extensive list of obtainable items on wowhead (/npc=62943) in the comments tab.

I'm interested to find out how the system actually works - how often the item list is refreshed, how the auction time is handled (wowhead claims that the total bid timer resets when a bid is made, is this true?) If you only compete against other players, or if NPCs will make 'bids' against you as well? Is the list is server-wide or level/player specific? Do I see the same list as everyone on my server? As everyone my level? A lot of unanswered questions at the moment -- answering some of these will help us better understand the system and potentially capitalize on it.

Now if there's already extensive research into this topic then disregard, and I would appreciate a redirect but if not lets put our heads together and try to collect some data.

Below is a screenshot of how to get to the BMAH from the MoP starting zone, as well as a beta-screenshot of the BMAH showing Ashes of Al'ar among other items, and a screenshot I took myself on the retail-version on my level 86 character.



Attachment 10472

[aamlord]

I think it's refreshed at midnight server time. It starts very long when I check in the morning, then it becomes short near midnight.

So far I've seen older tier gears, Drake of the North Wind, and *snicker* a pet for 10k gold that can still be bought from vendor in netherstorm for 60s The drake was going over 25k gold when I went to bed early