Using TSM 2.0: Basics, Sources, and Problems with AuctionDB

     TradeSkillMaster 2.0 was just released to the public and if you aren't currently using it, you should be because it saves an absolutely absurd amount of time on auctioning. For current users, I have a slightly different take on it than most people on one particular point. In short, it's about time for me to put together a guide for my fans on how to set up auctioning with TradeSkillMaster, and go in depth about something a little closer to the SOURCE of my heart. Get it? Cause sources are the...alright, let's just...

     If no one has ever answered the question "what is TSM?" for you, well in a nutshell, it's a rather complicated program to setup that, once you do so, allows you to queue, craft, and auction everything potentially profitable with (ideally) one button click each. Version 1 was amazing, but they just completely reworked and improved the program, flipping all of us on our heads. One of the biggest additions to TSM 2.0 is Operations. These are interchangeable sets of rules for the groups and subgroups that you set up (categories/groups have been replaced). While we're just going to be concerned with the Auctioning module in this post, operations are used for every module and are the foundation of 2.0. To set up a maximum price point in 1.X, you would type in either "50g" or "150% DBMarket" or "Max(20g, 100% Crafting)". DBMarket and Crafting are called sources and let you determine what system you're going to use to set any given price. To see a list of all available sources that TSM can understand, type into chat "/TSM sources" and you should see a list of things that you can put a XXX% in front of. Note: If you download Auctioneer, TSM_WoWUction, Auctionator, TheundermineJournalGE, or TheUndermineJournalRE, you will unlock additional sources not viewable when you first install TSM 2.0.

Prerequisites:
TSM Suite
TheUndermineJournalGE

     For starters, let me just say that, if you walk away from reading this post with anything, let it be this: use "tujgemedian" for a majority of your selling, rather than DBMarket. There are caveats and rules to this but it's a good general rule to follow. Alright, so, what do I mean by that? TSM scans your auction house (btw, you can download the TSM app here, so you don't have to scan the AH it manually) and builds a pretty awesome and reliable price average. It's fantastic, but unfortunately, it only relies on your AH's data, which can still be skewed (low seen count, one seller posting the same thing over and over for too much, etc). With TUJ GE, it looks at every realm, every hour, and gives you various averages for data from the past two weeks for worldwide data; this is much more reliable data when you're talking about supply and demand on non-realm specific or time-dependent goods - a majority of what you will be selling. I am a fan of efficiency, and when you're trying to sell something, your post price is trying to mimic demand. The only demand information we have is from supply though: sellers (when demand rears its head, a buyer removes that item from the AH, and that datum goes away). In other words, I use TUJGE because I feel much more comfortable taking aggregated minimum market price and trying to interpret demand based on 1000 sellers, than based on the 3 people on my realm, but that's just me. I do recommend you follow my lead though.

Ok, enough overview and theory for now. Let's get into some guides for people new to TSM!

So, let's say you have some items in your bags that you consider Transmog worthy, and you want to put on the AH. Here's what you should do in ten easy steps:

Update 11/5/2014 With the revamp of TheUndermineJournal, TUJ GE is currently down, for an alternative that works just as well, download the Tradeskill master app, and substitute the following source/tag "Wowuctionregionmedian" where you see the TUJ source"

Auctioning Items: Creating Groups and Operations for Inventory

1) After opening TSM with "/tsm" Click Groups (the crystal tab at the top), and make a new group for whatever is in your bags, then [next slide]

2) "Create Auctioning Operation" for that group.

3) Give the operation a name. This is my "Catch-all Operation" so "Catch All" is a good name. I use Transmog Operation here.

4) Yep, add this to the group you just made. Isn't that a nice feature?

5) I like to ignore short duration auctions; after thirty minutes you'll be the cheapest, so there's no need to undercut those. Also check "ignore operations on characters." You don't want to sell a Haunted Steel Headguard on your main by accident before you equip it, just because you forgot to put your Main Toon on your Blacksmith operation ignore list (wow, what a specific example..../sadface).

6) Click on the Post tab. Change duration to whatever is comfortable. I've never found a situation where "stack size as cap" isn't useful; always check that. Keep undercut by 1c, (unless you're dealing with high priced items, then do 1s, no more).  Minimum price: 50% TUJGEMEDIAN, Normal price: 120% TUJGEMEDIAN, Maximum Price: 200% TUJGEMEDIAN, Post at Normal Price. 

7) Click back on Groups->[the group you made]-Items. What you see is everything in your bags that isn't in a group so far. Click on everything you want in the group and hit add.

8) Click Module Operations/Options (3rd tab up top)->Auctioning, and the big button at the bottom. Make sure you don't have anything bound to Ctrl+mouse up/down, and that you have two free macro slots. 

9) Go to the Auction House, click on the Auctioning tab, and click "Start Post Scan." [If errors came up, 1. you haven't downloaded the data from TUJGE for your realm. TUJ updates realms for manual download more often than they do for the curse download. 2.) it's a craftable that you either don't know how to make or is crafted from something soulbound like spirits of harmony that doesn't have a price on TUJ, 3.) it's something like a caged battle pet that can't be seen by TUJ, for this, you need to scroll down to the rest of the guide, geez, keep your shorts on!]

10) Press ctrl+scroll, and you should be good to go.  

Now that we've done that, let's set up your professions.

Auctioning Items: Creating Groups and Operations for Professions

1) Open the profession, go ahead and click yes. This will create a Profession group, a subgroup for that specific profession, and furthur subgroups for Crafts and Materials, with all crafts for that profession in crafts and all materials used in that profession under materials. 

2) You're done here. Open the main interface with /tsm.

3) Go to groups, click on professions, and assign your TSM Catch All group, whatever you named it.

...annnd, wait, that's it?

     Yep! That's actually it...well, almost. But, that's how powerful TradeSkillMaster is; set it up once and you just swap in the operations. But, with professions, the whole goal is to click the restock button to queue up profitable crafts, and here is where TheUndermineJournalGE falls short. Take Alchemy, for example. If I want to see if my Transmute: Eternal Earth to Air is profitable today, I don't care at all about global market prices. I want to know how cheaply I can buy Earth for on my realm's AH. The moral? When you're dealing with Crafting operations, as opposed to Auctioning operations, use realm specific Sources like "AucMinBuyout," "DBMinBuyout," "WoWUctionMarket," or "matPrice."  I recommend the following price catch all pricing method for crafting: "min(100g, 120% DBMinBuyout, 120% matprice, 120% tujgemedian)" Feel free to adjust the numbers lowers or higher to your needs. Lowering it to "min(10g, 100% DBMinBuyout, 100% matprice, 100% tujgemedian)" Once you do this, open up your crafting profession again and click the "restock selected groups. For this step, it's really important to play around with it on each profession, and get comfortable with the sources. Do a little research. What you choose to craft is going to play a huge role on your profitability, and since you're automating the threshold of what you're crafting, it makes it that much more important to get it right the first time.

     As a final thought, it may sound silly, but I'm a big fan of deleting all your groups and operations every six months or a year and starting fresh. You really learn a lot about how you function and what you really want out of your program, and end up with a lot more efficient grouping when you redo everything.

Hope this was useful to everyone in getting up and running. If you haven't downloaded it yet, stop procrastinating and do it now. TSM 2 is amazing! You can follow me on Twitter here, YouTube here, and Facebook here. Until next time remember that the best way to make gold in WoW is to 

Search. Craft. Post.

Every Day.