MMO News Weekly #8 — WoW Retail's Gear Tape Hits −99%

Edition #8 · Week of August 24 – August 30, 2026

Resets are supposed to be violent and then over. WoW Retail's Midnight Season 2 arrived on August 18 and did the violent part on schedule — but the gold didn't leave the auction house, it just changed aisles. The same rotation showed up everywhere we look this week: out of the thing that got reset, into the thing you need to rebuild. And the next seven days queue up four more of them.

Market Movers

WoW Retail's Season 2 gear reset finished the job — and paid the crafters instead. WoW Retail's Midnight Season 2 opened August 18 (NA) / August 19 (EU) behind patch 12.1 "Curse of Ula'tek," and the Tarnished Dawnlit complex we watched capitulate last edition went all the way to the floor: Commander's Greaves at 50g, −99.8%, Warboots −99.3%. What replaced it is the interesting part. The six highest-volume items on our entire WoW Retail board are now Sin'dorei profession tools, trading 215–249 times apiece. Patch 12.1 handed WoW Retail crafters a one-time Profession Knowledge Point reset, and a market full of re-specced crafters is a market that has to re-tool. That bid is week-one behaviour; the consumable ramp into Venomous Abyss progression is the trade with legs. (Icy Veins)

Final Fantasy XIV's ingots found a floor on one world and kept falling on another. Two weeks ago every high-volume ingot in Final Fantasy XIV was off 60–85%. This week the bounce landed — on the FFXIV world Adamantoise, where Lar Ingot is +137.8% and Palladium Ingot +440.5% — while the FFXIV world Gilgamesh spent the same week selling Deepgold and Titanbronze down 24–27%. This is what a per-world market board actually looks like when a capitulation ends: not one turn, but a dozen worlds arguing. Both are trading into the same catalysts — FFXIV Patch 7.5 Part 2 in early September, bringing the Auxesia Cosmic Exploration destination and new custom deliveries, then FFXIV's 7.56 with Beastmaster on September 8.

Path of Exile's Allflame chase tier has now halved three editions running. Path of Exile's 3.29 Curse of the Allflame league is in week five and its high end is still deflating in public: the Foulborn Void Battery printed 245,966c two editions ago, 154,427c last week, and 88,843c now — every one of those on twelve trades. The league's engine moved underneath it. PoE's 3.29.3 patch (August 12) added Cursed Ducats, six socketables for the Voyage Planner worth +20% quantity and rarity apiece, and PoE's 3.29.2 quietly doubled the Offerings to the Deep altar conversion rate from 4% to 10% — Charts and Voyages are now the consensus currency strategy, and the Essence of Desolation nerf in the same 3.29.3 patch shut a high-value crafting niche that a lot of players had built strategies around. (mmoexp)

Albion Online's bag trade unwound one week before Dragonfire. Last edition, carrying capacity was bid at every tier in Albion Online while riding mounts were dumped. On Albion Online's Americas Black Market board the trade has come off hard — the index there is 723.11, −10.2% on the week, with Adept's Bag −36.2% and Master's Bag −11.1%. Albion Online's Europe Black Market did not get the memo: its index sits at 1,116.24 and Elder's Bag is +12.5%. Albion Online's Dragonfire update lands August 31 with Drake Eggs and flying mounts; if you positioned in bags three weeks ago, the Americas board just gave you the exit and Europe hasn't.

What Our Data Shows

On reset weeks we weight item-level prints and trade counts over headline index percentages — a week-one tape is noisy by construction.

• WoW Retail's current-tier gear went to zero, precisely. Across the WoW Retail realms we track, Tarnished Dawnlit Commander's Greaves is 50g (−99.8%) on 212 trades and Commander's Warboots 87g (−99.3%) on 208. Commander's Gauntlets are 100g (−80%) and the Tarnished Dawnlit Signet 1,190g (−72.1%). The Band — 2,400g when we flagged it last edition — is 700g. Our WoW Retail index's top gainer is a Tarnished Dawnlit Corsair's Hood at +1,546.8%, which tells you the reset is being priced by nobody in particular.
• WoW Retail's profession tools are the busiest market we track anywhere. Sin'dorei Rolling Pin at 1,599g on 249 trades, Alchemist's Mixing Rod 1,999g on 237, Enchanter's Crystal 2,899g on 232, Jeweler's Cover 2,311g on 219, Forgemaster's Cover 2,511g on 215. Prices barely moved; volume tripled the rest of the board. The outlier is Sin'dorei Scribe's Spectacles at 2,899g, +222.1% — Inscription re-specs bidding for the same tool. One for the Flip Finder while the knowledge-reset window is open.
• FFXIV's ingot bounce is real but world-specific. On the FFXIV world Adamantoise: Lar Ingot 1,543 gil (+137.8%), Titanium Gold Nugget 1,400 gil (+337.5%), Palladium Ingot 600 gil (+440.5%), Rose Gold Ingot 100 gil (+66.7%). On the FFXIV world Gilgamesh the same complex is mixed-to-lower — Deepgold Ingot 580 gil (−24.2%), Titanbronze Nugget 131 gil (−26.8%) — with the bid instead in soft mats: Molybdenum Ingot 750 gil (+650%), Golden Silk 305 gil (+246.6%), Boar Leather 3,000 gil (+200.6%). Note that Black Star, FFXIV's most-traded ingot for us all month, reads 674 gil on Gilgamesh against an eight-trade Adamantoise print in the millions — that print is a listing artifact, not a market. Price your FFXIV ingots per world.
• Path of Exile's chase tape is still inventing numbers, and the claws prove it. Across the PoE leagues we track — Standard, Hardcore and the 3.29 Allflame league — Chaos Orb holds its 1c anchor on 16 trades while Foulborn Void Battery (Prophecy Wand) prints 88,843c. Two Foulborn claws, same twelve-trade window: Hand of Thought and Motion at 32,023c and Hand of Wisdom and Action at 96c, our index's worst faller. That is not a market, that is four people guessing. Oni-Goroshi (Charan's Sword) at 17,305c is the most legible print on the board.
• Albion Online's bags split by region, and the running joke survives. On Albion Online's Americas Black Market, Adept's Bag is 4,460 silver (−36.2%) and Master's Bag 46,198 (−11.1%); on the Europe Black Market Elder's Bag is 339,895 (+12.5%) and Grandmaster's Bag 278,995 (−3.1%). Meanwhile Master's Knight Helmet trades at 19,992 in Albion Online's Caerleon (Americas, +43.9%) against 18,999 on the Europe Black Market — a live spread worth an alert. And Adept's Rune, which we declared dead at 8 silver three editions ago, is 9 silver (+28.6%) on 18 trades, the busiest line in Caerleon. It refuses to die.
• Guild Wars 2's Trading Post is one item wide. Guild Wars 2's index closed at 1,741.86, +0.1% on the day, and the only GW2 item on our board with real volume is Iron Ore at 79 trades, −12.5% and still priced in copper. Everything else prints seven times. Three weeks into GW2's Festival of the Four Winds that's the expected shape — festival gold flows through Boss Blitz, not the Trading Post.

Around the Games

WoW Retail — Season 2 week one, plus an August 18 hotfix batch with a genuinely odd liquidity note: shirts from the Free T-Shirt Day event are now vendor-sellable, which may finally explain the vanity-shirt rip we couldn't account for last edition. The same hotfix raised the Tidal Spark Dust cap from 1 to 3 with retroactive grants and fixed Jewelcrafting and Tailoring knowledge books. August's "Showdown" Trading Post rotation is Tender-gated cosmetics only — no gold impact, but new mounts and transmog suppress demand for comparable crafted appearances. Final Fantasy XIV — Moonfire Faire 2026 closes August 26; the live speculative story is Market Board accumulation of Thavnairian Onions ahead of an undated FFXIV Patch 8.1 chocobo-companion change, which is a single-source rumour and priced like a certainty on some worlds. Guild Wars 2 — Four Winds runs to September 1, the free Black Lion Chest and Key is claimable through August 31, and GW2's Code of Creation lands September 15 with new legendaries. Path of Exile — 3.29 Allflame week five; the gold fee on Chart purchases was cut, lowering friction on the league's main currency sink. Albion Online — Season 33's back half with double scoring live; Dragonfire August 31, and the Referral Season closes the same day at 23:59 UTC. WoW TBC Anniversary — the dated event of the week: Phase 3 opens 22:00 UTC August 27 with Black Temple, Mount Hyjal and Netherwing, and Epic Gems enter the economy for the first time via 375-skill Mining inside Hyjal and rare Black Temple drops. Indormi's Jewelcrafting designs are the chokepoint; the consensus speculative call is yellow gems, since Haste Rating enters play in Phase 3 and yellow sockets are its primary source. Blizzard has PTR-tested vendor-sourced Haste and Destruction Potions via Marks of the Illidari, which would compress alchemist margins the moment it ships. Arena Season 3 follows September 1. WoW MoP Classic — Phase 5 (Siege of Orgrimmar) in its plateau, Spirit of Harmony still the barter currency and profession daily cooldowns the reliable income; the 90% transmog cost reduction is now fully reflected in-game, releasing gold players had earmarked for a sink that no longer bites. WoW Season of Discovery — maintenance mode at Phase 8 "Scarlet Enclave," no further phases, GDKP banned and incursions nerfed; a settled economy, not a trading one. WoW Classic Era — concentrated on the Whitemane (NA) and Nethergarde Keep (EU) megaservers, where a level-60 epic mount runs about 1,000g; the community-run Wild Growth EU fresh server reached Phase 6 on August 10. RAID: Shadow Legends — Update 11.70.0 (August 15) added Anomalous Accessories and all-Legendary Faction Relics and raised artifact and accessory storage to 2,200 slots each, and the Echoes of Oz event with the Cowardly Lion fusion opened August 19 and runs to November 10 — the shard hoards go there.

The Wider Market

• Old School RuneScape is having its loudest market week of the year. The OSRS Granite Hammer is spiking because its Golembane passive makes it the weapon of choice against the Mad Angel in the new Worms Graeg content, while Chambers of Xeric mega-rares sold off on speculation about proposed drop-rate changes and the new Slayer Master Mortimer's easier Superior drops softened Imbued Heart. Historically-botted skilling resources — bowstrings, grimy herbs, red chinchompas — kept trending up on Jagex's 2026 bot campaign. Then the August 19 OSRS Summer Sweep-Up wave overhauled birdhouses: nest rolls per run fell from 10 to 5 but the per-roll success rate tripled, netting roughly +50% nests per run, against Hunter XP cuts of 15–60% by tier. That is a straight supply shock to nest derivatives. The OSRS Bond holds around 11.9M GP, and OSRS's "Beyond Max Cash" Grand Exchange overhaul is still slated for late summer to autumn. (OSRS Wiki)
• Lost Ark's server merge is 48 hours out and the auction hall is being emptied for you. Phase 1 runs August 26 — in NA East, Nineveh into Balthorr, Luterra into Vairgrys, Brelshaza into Thaemine; in EU Central, Ortuus into Arcturus and Ratik into Elpon — with phase 2 on September 2 folding Balthorr into Inanna. Every active Auction House listing is cancelled and mailed back (claimable 30 days) and all Currency Exchange registrations are cancelled with Royal Crystals or Gold refunded. Previously separate Lost Ark supply pools collide on the far side; clear your listings first. (Lost Ark)
• Path of Exile 2's 0.5.5 fresh-economy event gets its reveal window this week. GGG is at Gamescom, with Opening Night Live on August 25 and the show running to August 30 — the expected slot for a date on PoE 2's 0.5.5, a one-month event league on a completely independent economy where everyone starts from nothing and Runes of Aldur currency cannot be carried in. Roughly two-thirds of the patch is balance work, which means every build meta moves at once. Third-party trackers put PoE 2's Runes of Aldur league near 375 Exalted per Divine with a Mirror around 4,898 Divine — directional only; those are gold-seller sites and they still disagree with each other. Path of Exile 2 isn't on AuricDB yet.
• Dune: Awakening is fighting duplication and tightening spice at the same time. Days after patch 1.1.15.0 closed the first confirmed dupe, players found another method replicating Spice Melange and repaired gear, flooding the Dune: Awakening Exchange with free supply — Funcom treats duping as ban-worthy, but the damage runs through Landsraad turn-ins and PvP balance alike. Separately, the August 12 update added Deep Desert Titanium and Stravidium nodes while removing the safe low-risk spice and flower-sand spots in Hagga Basin, and a PvE/PvP instance split now pays PvP harvesters a 2.5× resource yield as a risk premium. Third-party markets price Solaris near $2.35 per 500M. Console launch is September 22, and the economy has a month to sort itself out first.
• Black Desert Mobile merged its regional markets into one. The new Merged Market system puts North America, Europe and Asia on a single economy with a shared price chart, plus a Market Storage system for cross-region trading. Regional arbitrage in Black Desert Mobile is now a closed trade; price discovery on rares restarts from a much deeper book. On PC, Black Desert Online took the Central Market down for maintenance on August 21 after a 231-change content patch on August 20, with no market-rule specifics published. Meanwhile EVE Online's July Monthly Economic Report — production up, mining down, ISK money supply contracting on summer seasonality — is still the latest read, with PLEX settled near 4.5M ISK; CCP's August report is the document to watch.

Storylines to Watch

• WoW Retail's Midnight Season 2 reset — current-tier gear finished at −99.8%, and the volume moved into Sin'dorei profession tools as crafters spent their one-time patch 12.1 knowledge reset.
• FFXIV's Dawntrail 7.5x wind-down — the ingot capitulation found a floor on Adamantoise (+137.8% Lar Ingot) and didn't on Gilgamesh; 7.5 Part 2 and the September 8 7.56 Beastmaster patch are the next catalysts.
• Path of Exile's 3.29 Allflame league economy — Cursed Ducats made Charts and Voyages the currency engine, the Essence of Desolation nerf closed a crafting niche, and the chase tier has halved three editions running.
• Albion Online's Dragonfire (August 31) — the bag trade unwound on the Americas Black Market (−10.2% index on the week) while Europe's held; Drake Eggs and flying mounts land next Monday.
• WoW TBC Anniversary Phase 3 (22:00 UTC August 27) — Epic Gems enter the economy for the first time, Indormi's designs gate the cuts, and vendor-sourced raid consumables are on the PTR waiting to compress alchemist margins.
• Path of Exile 2's 0.5.5 event league — the from-zero parallel economy expects its date at Gamescom this week, with Runes of Aldur currency locked out of it.
• Lost Ark's server merge (August 26) — 12 Western servers into 5, all auction listings cancelled and mailed, currency-exchange orders refunded.
• OSRS's Summer Sweep-Up and Worms Graeg rotation — Granite Hammer bid on new-boss demand, Chambers of Xeric rares sold off on drop-rate speculation, and birdhouse nest supply up ~50% from August 19.

Industry Notes

Amazon is out of the MMO publishing business, and two economies we cover inherit the paperwork. Throne and Liberty's Western live-ops move to FirstSpark Games, an NCSoft subsidiary, before the end of Q4 2026, with Lucent, Loyalty Points, Sollant and Ornate Coins migrating automatically unless players opted out from August 12 — and FirstSpark has warned that major Throne and Liberty content may be held back until the transition completes, which is already visible in the Colossus Vegamor update slipping from August into September. Lost Ark goes to Smilegate in early 2027, with normal operations expected through the handover and its August 26 server merge unaffected.

The Week Ahead

• Path of Exile 2 — GGG at Gamescom Opening Night Live, expected 0.5.5 reveal, August 25 UTC
• Lost Ark — NA East / EU Central server merge, phase 1, August 26 UTC
• Final Fantasy XIV — Moonfire Faire 2026 ends, August 26 UTC
• Path of Exile 2 — Gamescom show floor, August 26–30 UTC
• WoW TBC Anniversary — Phase 3: Black Temple, Mount Hyjal, Epic Gems, 22:00 UTC August 27
• Albion Online — Dragonfire update, August 31 UTC
• Albion Online — Referral Season ends, 23:59 UTC August 31
• Guild Wars 2 — Festival of the Four Winds ends, September 1 UTC
• WoW TBC Anniversary — Arena Season 3 opens, September 1 UTC
• Lost Ark — server merge phase 2 (Balthorr into Inanna), September 2 UTC
• Final Fantasy XIV — Patch 7.5 Part 2 (Auxesia Cosmic Exploration), early September UTC, date TBC
• Final Fantasy XIV — Patch 7.56 (Beastmaster), September 8 UTC
• Guild Wars 2 — Code of Creation update, September 15 UTC
• RuneScape 3 — Leagues II: Equilibrium ends, September 21 UTC
• Dune: Awakening — console launch (PS5, Xbox Series), September 22 UTC