I don't get why people are so hung-up about this auction house, there's be question after question since otm mentioned it. It doesn't make the game more or less fun it's just somewhere to sell and buy things not any content really added it just makes things a little easier. Personally I'm more interested in the crafting and what that's gunna be like bc it brings something new to do in the game
It's because for many it would be a huge improvement to the game. In ways people don't even imagine. I don't know how many times I've had nubs want something too valueless to bother with trading, like a glimmer wing bow or tusk dagger. The auction house will let nubs sell to nubs and make some money farming.
I have thousands of low value items it dosent make sense to shout sell. Event hats of all kinds, lower value tomes and rings, etc. the auction house will make that all more liquid and enable me to sell and people to get what they want more easily.
When oTM adds crafting we will need an auction house more than ever. Everyone will want to trade materials on a day to day basis. Other mobile mmo I could mention the auction house trading volume is about half crafting materials and is the main staple for trading in that game.
Adding an auction house isn't much harder than adding a mail system. Some games use the mail system for the auction house as an add on and all items arrive through it. It's not hard there is no balancing you just need to debug it.
Adding crafting means changing the properties of all items in the game or adding tons of new items all over. It involves tons of planning and balancing to get right. It's going to be an absolute ton of work.
I want crafting too but an auction house is low hanging fruit people have been asking for for years now. Personally I already reserved up all the good auction house names on my world like "auction house" "auction trader" "best deals" and so on. I would park them at the AH and trade 24/7/365 probably playing more at that than bossing.