Auction House Updates and Other Blue Posts

Today Blizzard broke their strange silence and posted a few interesting updates that are on the way. Most if not all of these things will be in the upcoming 1.0.4 patch.

First of all, they are going to be adding more affixes to search for on the AH! So instead of just 3, we will have 6 preferred stats that we can search for. As most of you know by now, selling some items that have 4+ great affixes is kind of tough because to figure out the price you have to go through pages of items just to find a similar one. Item value calculators and other tools work, but still when you want to put it up for final sale, it is nice to check the AH and see if it's a good price to list the item.

This is by far the most important and helpful update they could do, so I am really glad it's on the way. Now we will be able to search for up to 6 affixes, so buying and selling items with many useful affixes won't be such a headache anymore. Less time spent at the AH, more time actually playing the game.

Another major change is coming to the AH, we will soon be able to see the stats of the items we sold! No more trying to remember, or having to log each item before putting it up on the AH. And the ability to cancel auctions is also on the way.

Below are the posts from blues which include additional affixes, searching for legendary stats, and more. The source of some of the blue posts can be found in this thread.

Blizzard blue tracker, August 2, 2012:

More Searchable Affixes:

Thanks for the feedback! We're looking to bump the number of Preferred Stats slots from 3 up to 6. We're also looking to bump the number of digits in the "Min Value" window from 3 to 5 (so you can search for Preferred Stat values higher than "999").

Searching for Specific Legendary Stats

We're definitely working on filling the missing gaps. On a somewhat related note, we also want players to be able to search for stats on Legendary items.

Stats of Items Sold in Auction House

You mean stats of items in the Completed tab? If so, yes -- that is functionality we're looking to add. We're also looking to make it so that you can see the listing price of unsold and cancelled items in the Completed tab, as well. 

Searching for DPS on Weapons

This is also something we want to do.

Gems, Potions, Crafting Pages, and Tomes all getting their own unique color

Changing the text color of gems (as well as potions, crafting pages, and tomes) has been something we've debated doing and not doing for a while now. We've finally come to an agreement, though, and decided to change the ground text color for these items from white to light blue. This is something we looking to implement in a future patch. 

(We're also looking to make the gem drop sound much more prominent.)

Canceling Auctions

We like this solution also. We definitely want to provide players with the option to cancel an auction (at any point after it's posted) so long as it does not have any bids. Right now, we're looking at this for 1.0.4, but that of course may change depending on implementation and testing.

On followers: Reduced follower dialog and followers auto rejoining in single player

We agree that, for newer players (or for players who are new to playing in multiplayer games), it can be confusing the first time you leave a multiplayer game and discover that your hired follower is no longer following you. Most players assume that your follower should automatically rejoin you when returning to a single-player game, and it's not really communicated well in the UI that it doesn’t work that way. 

We also agree that having to return to town each time you leave a multiplayer game to re-hire your follower is annoying. We already have plans to change it so that, after leaving a multiplayer game, your last hired follower will be restored automatically for you. It would work this way even if you left a multiplayer game and then logged out; the next time you logged in and picked up your single-player game, your follower would be waiting for you. (Of course, you’d still need to go back to town if you wanted to change followers, same as now.)


Oh, and PS - we're also looking to reduce the frequency of follower dialog. While we don't have any plans at this time to allow players to turn off the dialog completely, we have heard your feedback that you feel followers should be a bit more...terse. :)

1.0.4 Release Date?

Soon™.  (Thanks blizzard)