MMO News Weekly #7 — WoW Retail S2 Eve, FFXIV Ingots Crack

Edition #7 · Week of August 17 – August 23, 2026

Three of the five markets we track spent this week resolving bets they placed in July, and all three resolved the same way: early, and violently.

Market Movers

WoW Retail's Season 2 gear market capitulated a day early. WoW Retail's Midnight Season 2 opens August 18 (NA) / August 19 (EU), a week behind patch 12.1 "Curse of Ula'tek," bringing the item-level reset that guts current-tier BoE values. Traders didn't wait — the Tarnished Dawnlit gear complex bled out on heavy volume before the Venomous Abyss raid and Altar of Fangs dungeon even opened. Two mechanics to price in: leftover WoW Retail Season 1 Nebulous Voidcores convert directly to gold at the flip and the raid bonus-roll cost halves to one Voidcore, so a hoarded stack becomes spendable gold on Tuesday. Patch 12.1 also grants WoW Retail crafters a one-time Profession Knowledge Point reset. (Icy Veins)

FFXIV's ingot complex handed back the entire Switch 2 spike. A week ago Final Fantasy XIV's reagent board was the loudest tape we track, ripping both ways on 400-trade volume. This week it picked a direction: every high-volume FFXIV ingot in our movers is off 60–85%, the materials group down 84.2%. Consumables held up (+18.8%), consistent with FFXIV's Moonfire Faire 2026 running August 12–26. The bigger catalyst is ahead — FFXIV Patch 7.5 Part 2 in early September, then FFXIV's 7.56 with Beastmaster on September 8: two crafting sinks aimed squarely at the mats that just capitulated.

Albion Online's Dragonfire trade went vertical — and turned on mounts. The Albion Online Market Index closed at 1,114.8, up 11.4% on the week and 63.9% on the month — a new high, and the strongest reading of any market we track. Carrying capacity is bid at every tier while riding mounts get dumped, and Albion Online's Dragonfire update lands August 31 handing out Drake Eggs that hatch into flying mounts. Nobody wants to be long a horse two weeks before dragons. Sandbox Interactive also shipped an Estimated Market Value fix discarding far-out orders, so recalibrate before pricing off EMV.

What Our Data Shows

On post-patch and mid-league tape we weight item-level moves and trade counts over headline index percentages.

• WoW Retail's current-tier gear is being marked to the reset. Across the WoW Retail realms we track, the Tarnished Dawnlit complex sold off in unison on 218–227 trades apiece: Tarnished Dawnlit Loop at 4,000g (−46.7%), Band 2,400g (−52%), Defender 64g (−80.8%). One went the other way: Sentinel's Armguards at 149g, +275%. July's froth also hit bottom — our WoW Retail index's worst faller is a "Lost Thunder Fist" at a flat −100%.
• WoW Retail's vanity shirts are ripping, and we can't fully explain it. Cheap cosmetics posted our biggest WoW Retail gains on real volume: Stylish Black Shirt 15g (+673.4%, 226 trades), Purple Martial Shirt 5g (+400%), Embroidered Shirt 35g (+85.3%). Transmog and housing demand into a WoW Retail season flip is the candidate — a watch, not a thesis. One for the Flip Finder.
• FFXIV's ingots capitulated together. Across the FFXIV worlds we track, Ra'Kaznar Ingot — 1,212g and up 102% a week ago — is 900g, −85%. Black Star, our highest-volume FFXIV item at 7,799g, is 275g (−68.9%); White Gold Ingot 250g (−74.6%) and Rose Gold Ingot 150g (−74.5%) complete the set, all on 221–250 trades. Lone high-volume riser: Lar Ingot at 2,500g, +55.2%.
• Albion Online's bags are the whole trade. Across Albion Online's royal-city and Black Market boards, Master's Bag is 53,999 silver (+28.6%) and Adept's Bag 7,697 (+61.1%), against Journeyman's Riding Horse 15,491 (−55.7%) and Adept's Riding Horse 26,490 (−33.6%). The running joke lives: Adept's Rune, declared dead at 8 silver two editions ago, is at 11 (+22.2%). Worth an alert for the comedy alone.
• Path of Exile's chase tier is still inventing its own prices. Across the Path of Exile leagues we track — Standard, Hardcore and the 3.29 Allflame league — Chaos Orb holds its 1c anchor while Foulborn Void Battery (Prophecy Wand) prints 154,427c and The Golden Charlatan (Lion Sword) 154,003c (245,966c last edition) — each on twelve trades. Read direction, not decimals.
• GW2's Trading Post is thin, but the split is informative. Guild Wars 2's global Trading Post index is up 10.9% on the week, consumables +10.7% against armor −7.6% and materials −6.1% — the shape you'd expect three weeks into GW2's Festival of the Four Winds.

Around the Games

WoW Retail — Midnight patch 12.1 fully rolled out August 15; the gear market has priced Season 2, so the consumable ramp is the trade left. FFXIV — Square Enix's latest enforcement report (August 6–12) terminated 461 accounts for RMT, plus 12 for botting and 47 for RMT advertising. Guild Wars 2 — Four Winds runs to September 1 with a free Black Lion Chest and Key through August 31; the real date is September 15: GW2's Code of Creation, the final Visions of Eternity update, bringing new legendaries and a Wizard's Vault refresh. Start watching precursor mats now. Path of Exile — 3.29 Allflame mid-league; the socket-color rework still has Chromatic Orbs scarce, and GGG confirmed another Path of Exile league before Path of Exile 2's 1.0, expected around ExileCon on November 7–8. Albion Online — Season 33 in its back half, everything pointed at Dragonfire. WoW TBC Anniversary — the dated event of the week: Arena Season 2 ends 05:00 UTC August 18, unspent Arena Points convert to Honor at 1:10, and Season 2 gear discounts through a two-week offseason before Season 3 opens September 1; Phase 3 follows August 27, bringing Epic Gems in via Mount Hyjal and Black Temple. WoW MoP Classic — settled in Phase 5 (Siege of Orgrimmar), Ghost Iron Ore and Golden Lotus the staples. WoW Season of Discovery — in maintenance mode; the live story is the community "Fake Fresh" event, which hit Naxxramas content August 10. WoW Classic Era and Hardcore — quiet. RAID: Shadow Legends — Echoes of Oz and the Cowardly Lion fusion open August 19, where the shard hoards go.

The Wider Market

• Path of Exile 2's 0.5.5 event league is a from-zero economy, and it now has a window. GGG is at Gamescom, running August 26–30 with Opening Night Live on August 25 — the expected date-reveal slot. Path of Exile 2's 0.5.5 ships a month-long event on a completely independent economy: everyone starts with nothing and Runes of Aldur currency cannot be carried in, though permanent Runes of Aldur characters and stashes are untouched. A parallel fresh economy is a demand vacuum, and Runes of Aldur values look soft into it — how soft is unknowable, since the two third-party Divine-to-Exalted trackers disagree wildly (~333 vs ~598 Exalted per Divine) and both are gold-seller sites. Path of Exile 2 isn't on AuricDB yet. (Gamescom dates)
• Lost Ark split its gold in two, and merges its servers in nine days. Lost Ark's August update shipped Bound Gold, usable only inside progression systems, converting faucets including Una's Token chests and Solo Mode raid gold — a wall between progress currency and market currency. Then the hard date: Lost Ark's NA/EU consolidation begins August 26, 12 servers into 5, with auction hall listings cancelled and mailed back and currency-exchange orders refunded. Clear listings first. (Lost Ark)
• Black Desert dropped a trillion-silver tier onto the Central Market. Black Desert Online's August 13 NA/EU patch made Inner Edania items newly tradeable with set bands — Apeiron accessories from 5 billion up to roughly 1.02 trillion silver at max enhancement — and reset orders and listings on flagged items, which reliably triggers days of price re-discovery.
• RuneScape 3 ran the first free-to-play Leagues while OSRS reflated on bot bans. RuneScape 3's Leagues II: Equilibrium (August 10 to September 21) is the first RS3 Leagues season open to free players; since RS3 Leagues characters run Ironman no-trade rules the money isn't in it, so the effect is thinner volume on the main RS3 Grand Exchange. Separately, in Old School RuneScape — a different game and an unrelated system — Jagex's 2026 bot campaign (6.2M+ bans, RuneMate shut down August 7) is still lifting previously-botted resource prices 40–90%, and OSRS's "Beyond Max Cash" overhaul allowing Grand Exchange trades above the 2.147B coin cap remains on the late-summer slate.

Storylines to Watch

• WoW Retail Midnight Season 2 (August 18) — the item-level reset arrives with the gear market already sold off and a Voidcore-to-gold conversion releasing hoarded currency.
• Albion Online's Dragonfire (August 31) — bags bid at every tier, riding mounts liquidated, index at a new high.
• FFXIV's Dawntrail wind-down — the Switch 2 reagent spike fully unwound; FFXIV's 7.5 Part 2 and 7.56 are the next catalysts.
• Path of Exile 2's 0.5.5 fresh-economy event — a from-zero parallel league expected shortly after Gamescom, Runes of Aldur currency locked out.
• Lost Ark's server merge (August 26) — 12 Western servers into 5, listings cancelled and refunded, separate auction pools colliding.
• WoW TBC Anniversary's Arena season flip — Season 2 closes 05:00 UTC August 18 into a two-week gear discount window; Phase 3's Epic Gems land August 27.
• Guild Wars 2's Code of Creation (September 15) — new legendaries give the Trading Post a precursor story once the Four Winds flush clears September 1.

Industry Notes

Amazon hands Western live-ops of Throne and Liberty back to NCSOFT in Q4 2026, and the cost is already visible: the Colossus Vegamor update slipped from August into September, delaying gear and materials that would have entered Throne and Liberty's Lucent auction house.

The Week Ahead

• WoW TBC Anniversary — Arena Season 2 ends, 05:00 UTC August 18
• WoW Retail — Midnight Season 2 begins, August 18 (NA) / August 19 (EU)
• RAID: Shadow Legends — Echoes of Oz and Cowardly Lion fusion, August 19 UTC
• Lost Ark — event cutoff before the merge, August 19 UTC
• Path of Exile 2 — GGG at Gamescom Opening Night Live, August 25 UTC
• Lost Ark — NA/EU server merge begins, August 26 UTC
• Throne and Liberty — Talandre / Snowsoul crafting materials, August 26 UTC
• FFXIV — Moonfire Faire 2026 ends, August 26 UTC
• WoW TBC Anniversary — Phase 3: Epic Gems, Black Temple, August 27 UTC
• Albion Online — Dragonfire update, August 31 UTC
• Guild Wars 2 — Festival of the Four Winds ends, September 1 UTC
• WoW TBC Anniversary — Arena Season 3 opens, September 1 UTC
• FFXIV — Patch 7.56 (Beastmaster), September 8 UTC
• Guild Wars 2 — Code of Creation update, September 15 UTC
• Dune: Awakening — console launch, September 22 UTC

Next edition opens with the first read on WoW Retail Season 2's consumable ramp, whether Albion Online's bag trade holds into the final Dragonfire week, and whether FFXIV's ingots found a floor or just a ledge.