I have used Auctioneer for almost 2 years now. I have found it useful and easy to use. Unfortunately the push to AucAdv has been somewhat disappointing. I understand the need for the rewrite to address the lua over run issues, however I think you have lost sight of the AVERAGE user in an effort to load up bells and whistles. Do I really need 18,000 color codes? Do I really need to know the std dev, the confidence level, are you taking into account Chebyshev's inequality or have you considered using the Yamartino method? The point being while yes, these are useful and interesting data, they are not useful or necessary to the AVERAGE user. This information should be in the background. I don’t need to see the engine of my car or understand how fuel injection systems work to drive it to the store. I just want to know is it a good market to sell my item in or should I consider buying? I need arcane dust today, what is the best price I can buy it at? I use cobra scales what is the best price they are selling at today and is that price good enough to justify me buying today or is the market a little high today and I would be better served checking the price again in a day or two?

My most used feature in Auc is the search tab. I do a general search based on percent profit of all items with a minimum expected profit. I also have saved searches for mats that I use on a regular basis, such as cobra scales. My saved variable file has finally hit the 99.4% full. Over the last several weeks I have been seeing references to a search feature being added to AucAdv. This morning I d/l the newest version of the AucAdv/Classic suite. Only wanting to install it on one of my bank alts I selected Auctioneer Advanced Documentation from your Documentation main page. Wanting to make sure I had all the correct addons checked for my character I then went to Setting up your AddOns in WoW. This led to a wonderfully documented page on setting up the AddOns for Auctioneer Classic. Why is AucAdv not documented as thoroughly as AucClassic?

Anyway, I installed the AucAdv/Classic suite and logged in. I was pleasantly surprised to see a familiar looking search tab and thought to myself. Wow, AucAdv is looking pretty good. Imagine my disappointment when I find the search tab is nothing more than an overlay of AucClassic on AucAdv. I still have to do 2 scans for the data to be available in the search tab and this did nothing to address the lua over run concerns. Going back to the forums I find that I have to turn the slide bar back on to find the “NEW” search tab. Come on guys, this is ridiculous when I have to read forums to even find out where it is. KISS. Alright, while a little put out by this point I’m like well let’s see how it works. I type in Arcane Dust in the search tab and start the search to have it error out.

I donated to the previous Auctioneer at least once and maybe 2 or 3 times. But when I went to D/L your AucAdv/Classic suite I will quote your on website “Sorry, there are no release quality downloads available at the moment. Please feel free to try our preview downloads for Auctioneer 5.”

I think your efforts to address excessively high and low buyout prices are commendable. I think your improvements to how the data is processed and handled are appreciated. If you could figure out a way to integrate this program with ebay that would be awesome. But this is a game, and your AVERAGE users do NOT have strong backgrounds in BusStats. Yes, I personally have tracked certain mats for months and yes I have a spreadsheet that I set up using a standard formula to detect outliers only values in the dataset that are more than Q1 - (1.5*IQR) AND less than Q3 + (1.5*IQR). But when my wife wants to know if this is a good price to buy Large Prismatic Shards she not only doesn’t care less about how I got my answer, but she also doesn’t have the background to understand it if I explain it. (BTW a 3-5-7 day average is totally inadequate for determining a trend. I think you need to include at least 3 weeks as in a 7 day period you might have an anomaly of someone cornering or flooding the market for a weekend. Plus weekend prices fluctuate considerably from weekday prices on a lot of items.)

Your discussions on your methods and efforts to improve them are great. The forum is the perfect place for that. But the program should be simpler and more intuitive. I at least don’t want to spend a weekend reading a 300 page manual or sifting through forums for answers on how to use Auctioneer or any other program that I am using for fun.

As someone who did more programming than I wish in COBOL, Fortran, Basic etc… I am surprised at the apparent difficulty in setting up a simple search by item name and sort by buyout price each or bid price each.

Before I begin, I'll state that the answer to most questions about awkwardness is that we are still in alpha, and making sure the features work is more important to us than making them as intuitive as possible, largely because we acknowledge the fact that we may have to change some of these features significantly. Now on to your thoughts.

Posted By: AnjinDo I really need 18,000 color codes?

While this is hyperbole, I'll just address the question: color codes are there because they have been asked for and found useful by a number of average users. You may not find them useful, but many other average users do.

Do I really need to know the std dev, the confidence level, are you taking into account Chebyshev's inequality or have you considered using the Yamartino method?

I believe some of the names are slightly misleading or confusing, but again, we're in alpha and I expect some of that will change. Std. Dev. information in the tooltip, for example, I believe isn't actually just a display of standard deviation, but a pricing mechanism based on standard deviations. I believe it can be easily turned off from the configuration screen, as can every other stat, if you're not interested in seeing the information in your tooltip.

The point being while yes, these are useful and interesting data, they are not useful or necessary to the AVERAGE user.

Again, while this may not be information useful to you, it is useful to many average auctioneer users, and most of it has been asked for by users in one way or another. None of this information is displayed mandatorily, every piece of it can be turned off if you're not interested in seeing it.

I just want to know is it a good market to sell my item in or should I consider buying? I need arcane dust today, what is the best price I can buy it at? I use cobra scales what is the best price they are selling at today and is that price good enough to justify me buying today or is the market a little high today and I would be better served checking the price again in a day or two?

And for each person who needs to know this, the appropriate stat to look at will be different. Heck, the best stat to look at even varies by type of item. Strategies, and thus appropriate pricing models and statistics, differ greatly from enchanting mats to armor, from buying to selling, and from high-volume markets to low-volume markets. Many, many people have talked about using just about every different stat we provide, and how it's helped them. I don't know anyone that uses all of them, except when testing them, but all of them seemed to be used by someone. Again, none of these need by used by you, Auc Advanced is modular, and most of the stats function completely independently from other stats, meaning they can be disabled if you're not interested in seeing them. I know that right now knowing which you want and which you don't can be daunting because of the lack of documentation, and that will get worked on as the addon gets more finalized.

My most used feature in Auc is the search tab. I do a general search based on percent profit of all items with a minimum expected profit. I also have saved searches for mats that I use on a regular basis, such as cobra scales. My saved variable file has finally hit the 99.4% full. Over the last several weeks I have been seeing references to a search feature being added to AucAdv. This morning I d/l the newest version of the AucAdv/Classic suite. Only wanting to install it on one of my bank alts I selected Auctioneer Advanced Documentation from your Documentation main page. Wanting to make sure I had all the correct addons checked for my character I then went to Setting up your AddOns in WoW. This led to a wonderfully documented page on setting up the AddOns for Auctioneer Classic. Why is AucAdv not documented as thoroughly as AucClassic?

Rock already covered fairly well why the documentation exists as it does, but it basically comes down to: we're working really hard to try to move an alpha product to a release product. As that comes more and more to completion, more documentation will be made because the features will be more fleshed out and we'll have a more solid featureset to be documenting.

Anyway, I installed the AucAdv/Classic suite and logged in. I was pleasantly surprised to see a familiar looking search tab and thought to myself. Wow, AucAdv is looking pretty good. Imagine my disappointment when I find the search tab is nothing more than an overlay of AucClassic on AucAdv.

It isn't really an overlay of AC on AA, it is AC, pure and simple. It uses data from AC's scans, and is a part of the AC package.

I still have to do 2 scans for the data to be available in the search tab and this did nothing to address the lua over run concerns. Going back to the forums I find that I have to turn the slide bar back on to find the “NEW” search tab. Come on guys, this is ridiculous when I have to read forums to even find out where it is. KISS. Alright, while a little put out by this point I’m like well let’s see how it works. I type in Arcane Dust in the search tab and start the search to have it error out.

Having to read the forums to find where brand-new features are and how to use them is less ridiculous when you consider that you're using an alpha product. It isn't that unusual there. In many cases, alpha products aren't available to the general public, largely for this reason. After Blizz changed their API and broke a lot of the functions we used to interact with the Auction House, enough people wanted Auctioneer in whatever state it was in that a decision was made to allow people to download and use the alpha releases. We are sorry things aren't slick, polished and intuitive. We really are, but it is being worked on as much as possible.

I donated to the previous Auctioneer at least once and maybe 2 or 3 times. But when I went to D/L your AucAdv/Classic suite I will quote your on website “Sorry, there are no release quality downloads available at the moment. Please feel free to try our preview downloads for Auctioneer 5.”

That's our first indication to our users that this is not a finished product, it often changes a lot from one build the next. We wanted to make sure that everyone understood that.

I think your efforts to address excessively high and low buyout prices are commendable. I think your improvements to how the data is processed and handled are appreciated.

Thanks!

But this is a game, and your AVERAGE users do NOT have strong backgrounds in BusStats.

And though it may seem confusing right now, they don't need backgrounds in BusStats to make use of any of the features of the addon. I don't have a background in BusStats, all that means is that if I have to mess with the code that computes the statistics, I'll need to talk to a dev who does understand stats before I do, but I can use every feature without that knowledge. Again, I know, as do the other devs, that it isn't obvious how each statistic should be used right now. That will come, we are hearing people ask for it, and it will be worked on more when the statistics are finished and completely working as intended.

(BTW a 3-5-7 day average is totally inadequate for determining a trend. I think you need to include at least 3 weeks as in a 7 day period you might have an anomaly of someone cornering or flooding the market for a weekend. Plus weekend prices fluctuate considerably from weekday prices on a lot of items.)

Thanks for your thoughts on this, you're welcome to start a separate post to discuss this with us more, as input is always appreciated. You're also welcome, as is anyone else who'd like to expand the functionality of Auctioneer to look into writing a module for it yourself.

Your discussions on your methods and efforts to improve them are great. The forum is the perfect place for that. But the program should be simpler and more intuitive. I at least don’t want to spend a weekend reading a 300 page manual or sifting through forums for answers on how to use Auctioneer or any other program that I am using for fun.

You're right, the addon should be simpler and more intuitive, and it will be. That will become the focus of the team more and more as more of the bugs in the code are worked out, and as it gets closer to working perfectly. Right now, getting it working is the priority. To use your car analogy:

Auctioneer is in stage where it's like a car that was pretty nice, and in pretty good shape, people liked the car and most recommendations were requests for abilities that would make the car even cooler. Then someone came along and took the frame of that car, and gave us a different frame to fit everything on and in. We're still in the stage where we're getting the engine timing correct, making sure all the parts connect to each other appropriately, making sure everything works, figuring out the new frame with little help from the people who made it, and in general trying to get the car to behave as it should when the gas or break is pressed, and trying to stop the alarm from going off when people try to roll down the windows. We know it doesn't look as wonderful as it should, but any cosmetic or user interface work really needs to wait until the mechanical work is done, as there's strong potential for mechanical necessities to force a change in the cosmetics of the car. We want the car to be beautiful again, we want it to be useful to the largest number of people possible such that they can use the features they want and only the features they want, taking pieces off and out of the car easily if they don't want them there, but we really can't make any meaningful work on those aspects until all the pieces are working closer to perfectly.

As someone who did more programming than I wish in COBOL, Fortran, Basic etc… I am surprised at the apparent difficulty in setting up a simple search by item name and sort by buyout price each or bid price each.

Many people are, but you have to remember that we are working within the constraints, in the form of an API, that Blizzard provides for us, and when something doesn't fit well with the API or the API fails to directly provide something we need, we have to figure out a way to work what we want into what we have without breaking any rules, and that becomes very, very complex, sometimes surprisingly more complex than would seem obvious. We're not only building a car, but we're building it in someone else's shop, with their tools, their rules, and we're only allowed to test drive it *in their shop*. It is difficult. When you consider that it's being done by volunteers, and a lot of them, working with parts and tools that were there when they joined the project, and that all of those volunteers have many, many other things that demand their attention, I hope it becomes a little clearer why the progress we're making towards a final release doesn't always seem apparent.

We do appreciate your thoughts, and this response isn't intended to be be a rebuttal as much as an explanation of the circumstances. We want most of the same things you want, and we're getting there as fast as we can.

i feel i must chime in . i think auctioneer is a bit bloated in parts and to the "average" person it is overwhelming but after you use it for a while and ask questions it becomes very friendly. i will admit i am STILL finding new things that i haven't noticed before or haven't used before just for the pure fact that i did not know what it was. i asked a couple questions and lo and behold i figured it out. it seems like most people are a bit scared of trying new things and are afraid they will "break" something. this is not the case. there is nothing that you can do that cannot be undone with a simple reinstall.

If you have questions there is a great forum here in which to ask them. the entire team as auctioneer will be more then glad to answer any question or point you in the direction if we do not know the answer. we all volunteer so we are working as well as we can.

Rockslice,

The error I received had already been reported and while my tone may have been overly critical I am quiet confidant you have already started addressing the problem or perhaps may have already fixed it.

If I am mistaken about an earlier report of a bug in the general search feature I will gladly re-install AdvAuc and try to recreate it for you.

Otherwise I wll wait and d/l the next patch.

<grin> I truly wish you well on this stage of the project as this is the most improtant to me. And if we end up being able to save more than 20 defined searches that would be great also. Truthfuly this one missing feature is the primary reason I have only been running AdvAuc on one of my toons.