Blizzard has rolled out the first phase of the remote World of Warcraft auction house, allowing players to browse auctions on the web or via iPhone, with subscription-based bidding and auctioning coming soon.
Earlier this year, Blizzard revealed that it was working on a remote auction house, allowing players outside of the game to browse, bid, and post auctions from the web and mobile devices like the iPhone and iPod touch. Now that service becomes a reality, with the 2.0 version of the World of Warcraft Mobile Armory now available as a free download via iTunes, along with a page on the web-based Armory dedicated to auction stuff.
Players can browse auctions, get notifications on when their items sell, and view the status of their pending auctions for free. Anything more than that, is going to cost you.
Coming soon, players will be able to pay $2.99 a month for the premium features of the Remote Auction House. Subscribing will allow players to bid on auctions, create new auctions from items in their in-game inventory, and collect gold from items sold, all without ever having to log into the game.
The pay service is currently in beta, with a limit of 25 transactions per day, with plans in place to up that to 200 once the service goes live. For more information on the beta visit the Remote Auction House Beta Test FAQ page.
I'm curious to see what effect this new functionality has on the in-game auction houses. Who'll be hanging out in Ironforge now that you can check your auctions from your iPhone or a web page? Will peeople line up to pay for these premium features, or is browsing good enough?
Remote Auction House [WowArmory.com]