This thread talks about Enchanting in WoW, and how the experience of enchanting suffers because players cannot sell enchantments at the Auction House.

And the problem with this is that the market functions poorly because of the enchanting market design: there is no marketplace, so the best you have is an open outcry system; there is no way to advertise; there is no way to connect services to the consumers of that service; etc etc. Perhaps other MMOGs have a better service economy, and I’d be happy to hear how they handle services. But I haven’t seen any where there is an active service economy.

The ironic thing, of course, is that in my experience crafting in WoW, enchanting is the one that most feels like a profession. The reason is that it’s the only one of the crafting professions that really feels personal. All of the other craftsmen simply put their gear up for sale in the Auction House, where it is sold, sight unsold. Other than an easily ignorable tag, you don’t know who crafted it, and skill is somewhat irrelevant. As such, there was very little of ‘asking for a certain craftsman by name’.

Enchanting, on the other hand, required you to find a real live human being and interact with him. You were forced to find an enchanter, and as such, you often had to ask for the name of one. Or simply put, there was some notion of customer service involved.

Of course, even enchanters don’t have to worry about trust issues. Enchantments are all pretty much identical, you don’t have to give your item to the guy for it to be enchanted, and you are asked permission before the enchantment is applied. This makes for a very safe experience and reduces CS calls, but it also removes one thing that UO crafters really enjoyed trading on – their reputation for fairness and quality.

The original comment thread is here.