How Does Your Realm's Auction House Compare?

Today I was poking around on Wowuction and found some sections that have some really interesting statistics about how one server/faction' auction house compares to other server/faction's auction house.

In particular the "Reports > Realm Overview" page. Have you ever wondered how your particular realm and faction compares to other realms? Read on to learn how to find out.

What is Wowuction?

Wowuction is an auction data website that collects auction information across all servers and presents that data (along with some analysis and suggestions) on a website so you can use it.

(It is somewhat similar to The Undermine Journal but lays out the information in different and useful ways.)

In this post we will be focusing on the Realm Overview page but be sure to explore the rest of the site for some great auction house data and information.

Finding Your Server

In order to find information about your particular server/faction you first have to select it as the current server/faction on Wowuction.

There are a few ways to do this. The first is to do this head to Wowuction.com and click the "Click to choose realm!" on the upper right side of the page.

Wowuction > Click to choose realm!

This will take you to a screen where you can start typing the name of your realm and Wowuction will present you with a list of server/faction/region names. Select your server/faction/region from the list of supported realms that appears.

The second way is to go to the Wowuction' Realm List page, find your server/faction/region and click its name.

The Realm Overview

Now that you have selected a server and faction (its name will now appear in the upper right of the site) we have to find the Realm Overview report.

We do this by mousing over the "Reports" menu item at the sop of the page and selecting "Realm Overview" from the drop-down menu that appears.

Wowuction > Reports > Realm Overview

Once you select "Realm Overview" you will be taken to the Realm Overview page for your server and faction. This is where the magic happens.

Example Realm Overview

What You Think You Know

If you're like most gold-makers you might have an idea about how big the population of your server and faction is and roughly how it compares to other servers.

In my case, for example, I have often felt that my server is (roughly speaking) a low-to-mid population server with a fairly close mix of Horde and Alliance characters.

Granted, as someone who's been using tools like Wowuction and Realmpop (from the creators of The Undermine Journal) I have probably looked at my actual server population and its relation to other servers more than most players.

That said, it is still interesting to see where my server lays in relation to other servers.

Server/faction size (and I use "server/faction" rather then simply "server" because factions on the same server can have vastly different populations and should be considered separately) can really effect your gold-making.

What may work well on a high population server may not work on a low population server/faction and vice versa.

So, you may have a rough idea of your own server/faction population. You may even have an idea how that could affect your sales but what is the truth of your server/faction's auction house size.

This is where Wowuction's Realm Overview comes into play.

Looking At The Data

Below is a sample of the information that Wowuction's Realm Overview page contains (in this case this is my main server and faction).

Both [Example] Auction Houses average daily 9,182,350g.
US - [Example] / Alliance alone averages 5,007,285g. which is 54 % of the realm's total, ranking this faction's auction house #47 out of total 492 auction houses in the region. 

A total of 7,071 different items have been seen on this WoW auction house over the past 14 days.

The Realm Overview page tells us:

• The average daily amount all the auctions on the auction house are worth
• The amount your specific faction's auction house is worth
• The percentage of the total server auctions your faction put up
• The ranking of your server compared to all the servers auction houses in your region
• The total auctions that have been seen on the auction house over the last 2 weeks

Of this information I find the ranking of your auction house (#47 out of 492 in my case) to be the most informative number.

(The other numbers are really hard to gain relevant information from unless they are compared to other servers.)

The ranking gives you a fairly good idea how your server/faction auction house compares to others and gives you a much better idea if you are on a server/faction with a low, medium or high population auction house.

A Comparison

As a quick example I looked up the server and faction size for the three servers/factions that I have characters on that actively work the auction house.

We'll call them Server A, B and C. Below is the Realm Overview Information for each server.

(I should mention that I'm only going to be using the information at the top of the Realm Overview page. There are other tables on the page that list "Top Items" in a few categories that can alto be fun to look at.)

Server A:

Both [Server A] Auction Houses average daily 10,715,692g.
US -  [Server A] / Horde alone averages 4,605,262g. which is 42 % of the realm's total, ranking this faction's auction house #67 out of total 492 auction houses in the region.

A total of 10,233 different items have been seen on this WoW auction house over the past 14 days.

Server B:

Both  [Server B] Auction Houses average daily 5,905,699g.
US - Argent Dawn / Alliance alone averages 3,833,739g. which is 64 % of the realm's total, ranking this faction's auction house #111 out of total 492 auction houses in the region.

A total of 8,557 different items have been seen on this WoW auction house over the past 14 days.

Server C:

Both [Server C] Auction Houses average daily 9,182,350g.
US - [Server C] / Alliance alone averages 5,007,285g. which is 54 % of the realm's total, ranking this faction's auction house #47 out of total 492 auction houses in the region.

A total of 7,071 different items have been seen on this WoW auction house over the past 14 days.

How They Compare

Looking at the numbers above a few interesting things stand out.

Server A has had 10,233 items seen in the last 14 days with a daily average of 4,605,262g. How does this compare to the other servers? A think a bit of math is in order.

Model Price Per Item

If we divided the total items seen on Server A in the last 14 days (10,233) by the number of days (14) we might come to a rough idea of how many items are seen in a day (10,233/14 = 731).

Given that 48 hours is the longest an item can be up for we can assume that the current faction auction house gold total could include 2 days worth of auctions so we can multiple the daily total by 2 (731*2 = 1462)

If we took the faction daily average auction house gold amount (4,605,262g) and divided it by the rough numbers if items per day (731) we could get a rough idea for the average sell price of an item (4,605,262g/1462 = 3,250g). We might call the resulting price the "model price per item".

So for Server A the rough model price per item is 3,250g.

(There may me massive problems with the math above. If you know how to better model finding an average price let me know in the comments below.)

While the above match may not be perfect if we apply it consistently we should be able to see how prices compare server to server.

Applying the above math to the other two servers we get the following:

• Server A model price per item: 3,250g
• Server B model price per item: 3,137g
• Server C model price per item: 4,957g

Analysis

From the rough match results above you can see that Cerver C (my home server/faction) has a much higher price per item than the other servers.

This means that for any given item you could expect to be able to sell it for more on my home server/faction.

Why might this be? Why would one server's items be more expensive than another server/factions?

While there are many reasons why any given server/faction's prices may be higher (more active gold-makers, smaller population etc.) for this last analysis I'm just going to compare server/faction population and see if there is any correlation.

Using data from Realmpop recorded the 1-90 as well as the 90 population by itself for the server/populations we've been using for examples above.

Server A: Total Population: 67,266, Level 90: 14,218
Server B: Total Population: 62,843, Level 90: 10,175
Server C: Total Population: 46,955, Level 90: 9,040

From the above server/faction population data you can see that Server A and B share roughly the same population size and make up.

They also have a much larger total character population than Server C.

With that said, you can see that even though Server C has nearly 16,000 less total characters it has only around 1,100 less level 90s.

The Role-Playing Effect?

I also should mention that Server A and B are both Role-Playing PVE servers whereas Server C is a normal PVE server.

Perhaps the increased total numbers of characters on Server B is due to roleplaying characters?

Interestingly I've had success selling transmog items on both Server A and Server B (both role-playing servers) and not so much on Server C (my home server which is a normal PVE server).

Fun Facts

Just as a fun experiment I used Realmpop to find the absolute highest population US faction/server and the absolute lowest server/faction and pulled data from their Wowuction Realm Overviews.

Below are the Realm Overviews for the highest and lowest population server/factions in the US:

Highest: Illidan (Horde) - US

Both Illidan Auction Houses average daily 14,484,220g.
US - Illidan / Horde alone averages 14,255,494g. which is 98 % of the realm's total, ranking this faction's auction house #1 out of total 492 auction houses in the region.

A total of 11,623 different items have been seen on this WoW auction house over the past 14 days.

Lowest: Cho'gall (Alliance) - US

Both Cho'gall Auction Houses average daily 3,130,458g.
US - Cho'gall / Alliance alone averages 118,530g. which is 3 % of the realm's total, ranking this faction's auction house #486 out of total 492 auction houses in the region.

A total of 941 different items have been seen on this WoW auction house over the past 14 days.

How do they compare? Well, Wowuctions has seen 11,623 auctions on Illidan Horde over the last 14 days. Cho'gall Alliance? 941.

Illidan ranks #1 of 492 auction houses and Cho'gall ranks #486 of 492 which, surprisingly, isn't last place (go Cho'gall Ally!).

Doing the similar type of math we did above to get the "model price per item" we get the following.

• Illidan (Horde) - US model price per item: 8,578g
• Cho'gall (Alliance) - US model price per item: 774g

Looking at the above numbers it seems that the average price per item on the highest population servers is significantly higher than the average price per item on a low population server.

(This makes me think I need a better model for that calculation.)

Double Checking

The math above seemed fairly significant as far as the disparity between item prices. I think that may have to do with my failure as a mathematician.

Either way I decided to do a few price checks on a few items that a gold-maker may use in their daily routines across both of these servers.

For these results we picked prices where there was significant volume (ie. the place where I can buy a full 20 stack of cloth, etc.). All prices are per item (ie. the price for one Windwool Cloth etc.).

From just the short list of items above we can see a problem already. Three out of the five items weren't even currently available on the Cho'gall Alliance auction house at all.

For the two that were we can see that the prices are less on the higher population server but the amount of buyers is likely higher as well.

Conclusion

Well we went into a bit more analysis than we had intended to. This post was originally meant to be a short introduction to Wowuction's Realm Overview pages.

Even thought it went a bit long I hope it got you thinking a bit about your server/faction size and how it relates to other server/factions.

Unless you happen to be on a realm that becomes a Connected Realm (for more on Connected Realms listen to our interview with Blizzard's World of Warcraft Technical Director Marco Koegler on Episode #071 of the podcast or read the transcript) other server/factions don't have a direct impact on your own economy.

That said, you can learn a lot about how various population sizes effect the in-game economy by actually dabbling in the auction houses of other servers.

If nothing else you can at least use the Wowuction Realm Overview pages to see how your individual server/faction's auction house stacks up against the rest.

Super Bonus Tip

On a side note, if you're interested in this kind of analysis you might want to check out a site that a livestream viewer pointed me to today that also has comparative realm auction house data: World of Auctions.

This site is new to me and looks a bit sparse at the moment. (The link above links to US English realms but you can change it to eu by replacing "us" in the beginning of the URL with "eu".)

I couldn't find a good way around the site other than poking a few links and the main page's "Learn More" button didn't seem to lead any where.

Nevertheless, it may be worth looking around to get a different perspective on server/faction auction house data.

How does your server/faction data match up to other servers? How did the actual results match your preconceived ideas about your server/faction?

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