Cross realm trading is coming! (Patreon)

https://vimeo.com/840396093/1d906a4729?share=copy

With 10.1.5 Blizzard is making another BIG change to the economy of World of Warcraft. We will now be allowed to trade items freely with characters on other realms in the same region!

Opportunity and misfortune

Any change like this will shake up goldmaking methods across the board. The best methods will change, particularly if you are doing anything that focuses on making gold across multiple realms. Cosmetic markets will likely see the largest impact, as you can now hunt down rare cosmetics from any realm.

Trading discords and other methods to find the items you want or to find sellers for ultra rare items across the entire region will likely spring up. And if you are someone who loves spending time cultivating clients or speaking to people and you are into cosmetic markets you will likely stand to gain a lot from this long term.

Price equilibrium

In general we would expect prices to get closer between realms. Typically this means lower population realms will get cheaper, and high pop realms will stay the same. That being said, this is not true for all items. A lot of convenience items are already cross realm on the region wide AH, but for anything you need right now, let's say bags or the zapthrottle soul inhaler, there's no way you can be bothered finding some cross realm guy to get the item. You'll just go to the AH and get it instantly. I expect the effect will be by far most pronounced for very expensive cosmetic items, and smaller for cheaper items. Saving 500 gold on a 1500 gold battle pet is not a huge deal for many players. Saving 100 000 gold on a TCG pet is worth quite a bit more effort.

Another step

This is another step towards integrating the economy between realms. Honestly I think Blizzard is trying to remove realms from the game, or at least the impact realm choice has. I expect cross realm guilds and full integration to be on their road map. This started with the AH revamp in BfA, which laid the ground work for making all stackable items region wide on the auction house. Now we get full cross realm trading. Exactly what the next step will be is anyone's guess, but the trend is VERY clear.