Well, I really wasn't expecting to be making this post here today. I've considered signing up before, but specifically to chat strategy with I Am Alpha, since we've had similar levels of success.
I'm done botting the AH at this point.
So let me tell you about the bot I ran.
I made my bot with Perl, and it ran as "index.cgi", to simulate being a simple web server. The bot would take screenshots of the AH, and use those screenshots to read the information about 1h Weapons. I was able to get it to correctly determine what the DPS/Name/Buyout of an item were, as well as make calculations based on the selling price of similar items in that range. The bot would not simply buy the top item if it popped up based on stats, it made decisions based on the profit margins I was hoping to acheive (basically I'd buy items if they were 60% of their value). Additionally, my bot would read attributes of items by mousing over them, and ranking certain attributes higher than others.
All of the information I provided to blizzard was legitimate, I didn't fake anything. Once the RMAH started, I didn't even waste "time" selling things on the GAH, I'd always sell it on the RMAH. To "fuel" the bot, I bought gold from gold selling sites for far cheaper than I could find in the trading forum. Basically even if I just bought everything on the screen, I'd be able to break even, since a 5M gold item would sell for $30. So when you take into account the profit margins the bot insured, nothing it bought wouldn't make me money.
Some of the rares it bought (specifically with sockets), would make insane profits. I bought numerous items for <$15 that would sell for over $150. My bought played both the RMAH and the GAH, by switching back and forwards between the two. It would also "treasure hunt", by searching through rares with specific attributes.
My technique for effectively searching the AH was to not deal with pages, but rather buyout amounts. So rather than flipping through all the pages, it would only look at the first page at a certain price point (100k, 500k, 5M) etc. It would also stagger the amounts it would look at, in order to statistically get the most good deals at any given moment.
My guess is that my bot was one of the more complex, because I assumed most didn't do calculations per say. I base this on the fact that my bot almost never "missed" an item that it saw. It's success rate for buying somethng it found in search was above 95%.
The bot also would leave the AH, and go into a game, walk around for a bit, and then go back to AH botting every 20-30 minutes.
The only reason I'm posting this is because I think AH botting is done. Based on some of the very simple scripts people got banned for, I can't see it being profitable. Additionally, the AH economy was tanking anyway (though I was still making $100/day).
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So here is what I want to hear about. How many people are still "selling" items in the RMAH, even though they are banned? I've had over 4 items sell since I got banned. This contradicts the email stating all auctions would be canceled. I've additionally gotten paid for 2 items since my ban. I've got over $200 transferring, so I'm hoping I still get paid on all of that.
All in all, I started with 500k gold, and wound up with over 4k in gross. I netted over 3.7 with the cost of buying gold.
So.... I Am Alpha, you gonna share your secrets too?
Edit: Oh right, I've been running basically 24/7 for the last few weeks.
Edit2: It would do basically one search every 1.5 seconds or so