Friday 28 October 2011

Tradeskillmaster Auctioning - Quick Setup Tutorial

This is the first in a series of quick setup tutorials to help new TSM users get the most used modules up and running quickly. I'll be covering basic setup and configuration for the 4 most commonly used modules, Auctioning, Crafting, Mailing and Shopping-Dealfinding. I won't go into detail on every possible setting or option, just the important ones. This first post covers setup and configuration for TSM Auctioning.

Before starting make sure you have a few items you want to post in your bags.

To open the configuration window, either click the TSM button on the minimap or type /tsm


TSM Auctioning

The module that handles posting auctions is probably the first module most users will want to get up and running. It's one of the most complex modules to configure but we're just going to worry about basic settings to get you up and running and ignore the rest for now. First some definitions:

Threshold - the lowest price you want to post at.
Fallback - the highest price you want to post at.

Category - Categories are the first of 2 levels of item organization in TSM.
Group - Groups are second level of organization in TSM.

There are 3 levels of override settings, global default settings, category overrides and group overrides. Global defaults apply to any setting that hasn't been overridden at the category or group level. Category overrides apply to any group setting that hasn't been overridden at the group level. Any group settings without values set will use the values from the Category the group is in and any category settings without values set will take their values from the global default settings.

Configuration settings order of precedence: Group > Category > Default

Ok, moving on to doing the actual configuration.


Default Settings

We need to set some global defaults. While it might be tempting to skip this step it will help prevent expensive mistakes later. You don't want to forget to set the price range for a new group some day and wind up posting an item worth 40 or 50k gold and losing thousands of gold because it sold for 100g before you noticed the configuration gaffe. To prevent that from happening set your global default prices high enough to cover the most expensive things you sell. I recommend global defaults of 40k Threshold and 60k Fallback to cover high end BoE gear.

To change the global defaults type /tsm,  click "Categories / Groups" in the list on the left side of the window and select the "General" tab. This tab has a lot of options you'll have to scroll down to see them all. The most important thing here is to set your threshold and fallback settings to high values.

Other settings you might want to change are:

Post time - How long auctions will be posted for
Post cap - How many auctions to post
Per Auction - How many items in each post (stack size)
Undercut by - How much to undercut by
Price threshold - The lowest price you want to post at (per unit price)
Fallback price - The highest price you want to post at (per unit price)
Reset Method - What to do when prices are under your lowest price

Suggested values that should work for most players are:

Post time 12 hours
Post cap 1
Per Auction 1
Undercut by 1c
Price threshold 40000g
Fallback price 60000g
Reset Method - whatever suits your posting style best

Again, if you change nothing else in this part of the configuration, I recommend at least setting Price threshold and Fallback price to very high values.


Categories and Groups

Now we need to set up some Categories, Groups and put items into the groups.

Click on "Categories / Groups" in the list to the left and select the  "Create Category / Group" tab.

First make a Category by entering the name you want it to have into the "Category Name" box at the bottom of the window and hit enter to save it. If the category is going to contain gems, you might name it "Gems". A new category named Gems will appear in the list to the left.

Now create a group, let's use "Cut Inferno Rubies" for example purposes. Creating groups is the same as creating categories except you use the "Group Name" box at the top of the window to enter the name. A new group named "Cut Inferno Rubies will appear in the list to the left. Create more gem groups named for example, "Cut Ember Topaz", "Cut Demonseye" and so on.

Click on "Gems" category > Add / Remove Groups. Two lists will appear in this tab, "Uncategorized Groups" and "Groups in this Category". All the groups you just created should be listed in "Uncategorized Groups". Highlight all of them by clicking on them and then hit the "Add>>" button near the center of the window. All your gem groups will be moved into the "Groups in this Category" list and should now be listed under the "gems" category in the master list on the far left.

Move to the master list on the far left (the list with "Options" at the very top. Click on the "Gems" category and  select the "Category Overrides" tab.

Right clicking on an override setting will toggle the override for that particular setting on or off (off meaning it uses default settings from the level above it, on meaning it's overriding the default setting with a value specific for the category or group you're in).

Now set category overrides for the following settings to be more specific to the category. For a gem category (with cataclysm rare gems being the best gems at the time of writing) I recommend something like the following:

Post time 12 hours
Post cap 2
Per Auction 1
Undercut by 1c
Price threshold 100g
Fallback price 200g
Reset Method - Whatever suits your style

Click on each gem group in turn, go to the "Add / Remove Items" tab and "Add>>" items you want in the group. At least one of each item you want to add must be in your bags to add it. For single item groups if you give the group the exact same name as the item, the item will be automatically added to the group for you upon creation. In that case you can simply shift-click the item into the group name box when creating the group.

Finally click on each group within the "Gems" category in turn again and override the same settings to ones more suitable for the appropriate gem type in each group. Mostly you'll want to adjust Price threshold and Fallback price values here. For example you might want to change Demonseye and Ember Topaz to 20g threshold, leave Inferno Rubies alone and change the other 3 rare gem colors to 5 or 10g threshold and 25-50g fallback.

If you like to camp a lot a post cap of 1 or 2 with high fallback price is probably best. If you tend to leave your auctions up until they expire then a post cap of 2-5 with fallback around normal market price on your server and a threshold of 10-20% over your cost will likely work better for you.

The more categories and groups you split things up into the more fine control you'll have over posting settings later. I like to split my gems up into several groups for each color with individual groups for the very best selling cuts like Purified, Reckless, Puissant, another for gems that sell well and another for the ones that sell more slowly. Inferno Rubies just get 2 groups, one for the 3 cuts that sell like crazy and another for the other 2 cuts.

3 comments:

  1. thank you for spending time in doing this. downloaded this add-on a couple of weeks ago from an interest in learning the AH and have been averaging about 1000 gold a day. However, I didn't know the value of this tool yet and had thought about removing it.

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  2. Using TradeSkillMaster_Auctioning v0.3.4Beta - opened /tsm - don't see the Options on the left side - on the right side see - Auctioning Groups/Options - clicked on that - General Tab - don't have the option to select Threshold and Fallback - What am I doing wrong?

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  3. My bad, I made a mistake there, it's fixed now.

    Click "Categories / Groups" rather than options to set the global defaults.

    Sounds like you did do that though since you got into the general tab... The tab is scrollable, just scroll down and you should see Fallback and Threshold.

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