Alpha Project Finds AddOn that Prompted the Auction House

Live Posted 2021/03/31 at 3:28 PM by Paryah

Alpha ProjectWorld of WarcraftReddit

We were going through old beta screenshots in our Alpha Project Discord and noticed that some of them showed what appeared to be like a primitive Auction House.

The primitive Auction House, named \"Autotrade\"

At first we thought that this was indeed official, but after a while we concluded that Autotrade was a player created AddOn that was extremely popular during beta days. It was so popular, that it's even mentioned in John Staat's The WoW Diary.

As you can read, turns out that this AddOn was most likely what convinced Blizzard to implement the Auction House as we know it today.

The WoW Diary, page 281twenty-seven versions of the AddOn Package

We are really happy to have found this historical AddOn, game preservation is important (that's what Alpha Project is about at the end of the day).

Discord

Comment by KanegasiOh man, I remember Cosmos. I couldn't play without it and I had to take a break after each broken patch. I guess that was my ElvUI back in the day. Now, with years of Lua experience, I just patch stuff and update later.Comment by DeatheyesCovering a discovery that is related to a WoW emulator? Color me surprised, and very happy! This is such a cool discovery, and I LOVE seeing things like thisComment by sorrowdemonicaimo, they devs could have retained the "person-to-person exchange of goods" where rather than automating the auction house process where the item/gold is removed from your inventory and sent to the other person's in-game mailbox, thus being an impersonal/anonymous exchange of goods, if instead it acted more like this beta addon, where you go to the auction house to bid on posted items, however the exchange of item/money must be done face-to-face, where you have to meet up with the seller/buyer in world, at the very least arrange a CoD via mail.Comment by ramajukoimo, they devs could have retained the "person-to-person exchange of goods" where rather than automating the auction house process where the item/gold is removed from your inventory and sent to the other person's in-game mailbox, thus being an impersonal/anonymous exchange of goods, if instead it acted more like this beta addon, where you go to the auction house to bid on posted items, however the exchange of item/money must be done face-to-face, where you have to meet up with the seller/buyer in world, at the very least arrange a CoD via mail.Comment by AlakeiThancanimo, they devs could have retained the "person-to-person exchange of goods" where rather than automating the auction house process where the item/gold is removed from your inventory and sent to the other person's in-game mailbox, thus being an impersonal/anonymous exchange of goods, if instead it acted more like this beta addon, where you go to the auction house to bid on posted items, however the exchange of item/money must be done face-to-face, where you have to meet up with the seller/buyer in world, at the very least arrange a CoD via mail.Comment by MrCrowlyHoly hell Ropetown! I remember those guys back in the TBC days! Seeing them in Shattrath the top tier gear inspired me to get into raiding back then. I miss the sense of community from those days, especially on the realm forums and such.Comment by Deathforsale"This belongs in a museum!"Comment by ZigguratHoly hell Ropetown! I remember those guys back in the TBC days! Seeing them in Shattrath the top tier gear inspired me to get into raiding back then. I miss the sense of community from those days, especially on the realm forums and such.Comment by Kanariyaimo, they devs could have retained the "person-to-person exchange of goods" where rather than automating the auction house process where the item/gold is removed from your inventory and sent to the other person's in-game mailbox, thus being an impersonal/anonymous exchange of goods, if instead it acted more like this beta addon, where you go to the auction house to bid on posted items, however the exchange of item/money must be done face-to-face, where you have to meet up with the seller/buyer in world, at the very least arrange a CoD via mail.Comment by MrCrowlyHoly hell Ropetown! I remember those guys back in the TBC days! Seeing them in Shattrath the top tier gear inspired me to get into raiding back then. I miss the sense of community from those days, especially on the realm forums and such.Comment by NulgarAuction House is definitely preferable to only player-to-player trade, or similar implementations - I once played an MMO where you could set up a shop where others could buy selected items from you - but you had to stay online for that! (Fishing was similarly automated, but again, you had to stay in the game) At the time, I was still on an internet connection I paid by time spent online, so, yeah... The main "city" was basically plastered with those shops, you couldn't even find the regular NPCs anymore.Comment by mrlogato

This is (mostly) how it worked back in EQ and it was terrible. You'd have to go AFK all night in the Bazaar, which was the dedicated AH zone, to sell anything.Comment by BullseyedHoly hell Ropetown! I remember those guys back in the TBC days! Seeing them in Shattrath the top tier gear inspired me to get into raiding back then. I miss the sense of community from those days, especially on the realm forums and such.Comment by FaerondilI mean I get what the Devs were going for with the social aspect, but that would have been terrible. If you wanted to sell stuff how would you have any time to enjoy the rest of the game?