The strategy that finally worked was to use army of the dead for the pull along with all of my other cooldowns in sequence over the first 45 seconds.  Downing the healer first is key, interrupting all of her heals.  Her heals come every 8-10 seconds, so you will have one that cannot be interrupted with Mind Freeze (10 second cooldown).  For this, save Death Grip until this heal, backing up just a bit before you use it.  This should buy you enough time to use Mind Freeze again on the next.  If she heals once, you are pretty much wiped.

Worse than the healer was Lord Crispin Ference and his 10 second disarm ability.  Death Strike requires a melee weapon, which means the disarm effectively shuts down your main healing for the duration.  He cast disarm every 20 seconds. To be able to burn the healer down, it is imperative you avoid all of the disarms.  To do so, start the fight by casting Chains of Ice on Ference.  This will aggro your ghoul and your army of the dead onto him, holding aggro and taking disarms as long as they live.  Chains of Ice is the best ability to use because its aggro is easily overcome by your pets.  While your pets fight, drag the priest as far away as possible. As soon as your pets die, cast Chains of Ice on Ference again and proceed to kite him.  Two chains later, I was able to down the healer without getting disarmed.

As the priest goes down and you begin to burn Ference, you will need to begin using your cooldowns to survive.  Moroes will have his Garrote on you at this point, doubling his DPS.  Don’t forget to use Empower Rune Weapon to get 4 Death Strikes in a row as part of  your cooldown chain. The next burn target was the Fury Warrior, whom I found best to kite when he cast his Whirlwind ability.  After him, the Shadow Priest fell quickly.  With just Moroes left, I found my Death Strike alone was enough (barely) to keep me alive, and after five minutes of DPSing, I found myself with a new dead boss, but no Moroes’ Lucky Pocket Watch.

As the fight progressed, I considered swapping in a Titanium Weapon Chain, but did not because that would drop me below being uncrittable.  In retrospect, I need a second weapon with a chain for fights like these.

SUPER SECRET EXTRA BONUS! Maiden Down as Well.

The Maiden of Virtue was so easy, that she does not deserve a full post. Her 35g was greatly appreciated.

Next up, the fun and drama of The Opera Event.

For preparation, I specced into a 33/0/38 spec for this attempt.  I will not be reading any guides for this solo project, so I may well have made some mistakes in the spec.  These attempts come before the expected buff to Improved Death Strike in patch 3.1.2 which will boost its healing by 50%, and so I’ve created a hybrid build that combines many of the self healing abilities of Blood with the 3rd disease of Unholy, which will also boost the healing of Death Strike by 50%.

Attumen Trash

The trash pulls  leading to Attumen are well designed, each pull is a step harder than the last, starting with a single Spectral Charger, leading to pull of 2 Spectral Chargers and 3 additional humanoids.

The best way to approach these pulls is to Death Grip one of the humanoids and back-peddle as you Icy Touch and Plague Strike him.  This lets you get both up so you can Pestilence before the additional mobs reach you.  Don’t be afraid to use Rune Tap to fill the “Death Strike Gap” you create with using your runes to get the diseases up.

Taking Down Attumen

Time to face down my first real boss attempt.

As I quickly learned, the make-or-break point of this fight is Attumen’s curse: Intangible Presence.  An additional 50% chance to miss means you might get a string of Death Strike misses that could leave you hurting.  Worse yet is when you have a series of Pestilence misses, find your diseases fall off, and then need to waste even more runes (while missing) to get them back up.

My first attempt I wiped terribly, but I figured out what to do.  I do not read any information or strategies about a fight, so my attempts require on-the-fly decision making and adaptations.  Clearly, I was not quick enough the first time.  On my second attempt, I applied the rule of using a cooldown every time I had 3 Death Strike misses in a row, first using Rune Tap, then Icebound Fortitude, then if needed, one of the more potent cooldowns.  By timing them in this way, I could reliably counter the strings of misses from each curse.

And so, 700 dps later (curse you, curses), I had downed my first raid boss as a solo DK.

Attumen dropped 35 gold and 2 epics which vendored for an additional 15 gold.  This easily repaid my repair bill and hinted at the potential for significant cash-farming from boss drops.

Step 1: Initial Quests: Start your attunement by talking with Archmage Alturus standing outside of Kara.  He will send  you on two simple quests in the vicinity, followed by some more lengthy traveling quests.  The slowest part is getting to the Archmage located at the (now ruined) location of Old Dalaran.  PROTIP: Use your Death Gate to get to Acherus, then fly to South Shore/Tarren Mill.

Step 2: Shadow Labyrinth: This was my first real attempt at any old-world content, but it still went quite well.  Some of the packs of magic casters gave me trouble when they would flee, but otherwise getting to Murmur was quite easy.  Murmur himself required paying attention to his Sonic Boom ability, which I found out took off about 70% of my health.   Just run out of range when he starts to cast, but get back in ASAP.

Step 3: Steamvaults and Arcatraz: These instances only require partial clearing before you get to the Key Fragments.  For the Steamvault fragment, just keep to the right when you get in and jump in the first water  body you come to and swim to the bottom.  For Arcatraz, continue until you come to a ramp going upwards, the turn a u-turn to the right at the first open room.

Step 4: Caverns of Time: Curse whichever Blizzard designer that decided anyone doing the Caverns of Time must first do a quest that consists of following an excruciatingly slow NPC around the cavern for 10 minutes.  This aside, Durnholde Keep was a blast with freeing Thrall.  Running instances solo allows you the freedom and time to explore the surroundings, stop and listen to the music, and enjoy things at your own pace.

The Black Morass was challenging only in that I couldn’t speed up the timer and get to the next packs quicker.

Conclusions:

I can already see that adds and magic users will be harder than single, melee bosses.  A tank’s physical mitigation scales much more than magical mitigation.  Perhaps an unholy build will help on this front with added magic damage reduction and anti-magic zone.

Perhaps more difficult will be “gimmick fights.”  Blizzard often adds mechanics that are very easy to handle with a standard group, but more difficult if you don’t have the specific ability to counter the mechanic.  While I may be a tank/healer/dps rolled up into one, I am not a decurser, crowd controller or kiter.  We’ll see how this plays out.

Until then, on to Karazhan!

With my current guild, I find my main character, a rogue, progressing nicely through Ulduar.  However, the limiting factor on our progress is not needing better gear or even needing better execution–it’s mostly just needing to get over the logistics of gathering 25 people on a consistent basis.  Long story short, Ulduar isn’t satisfying my desire for endgame progression.  THAT is where DK Soloing comes in.

I’m a Freshly Dinged Level 70 Raid Group:

I have about the same DPS as a terribly geared group of ten 70s making their first foray into Karazhan, sitting at around 1500 DPS.  I don’t have quite the level of healing 3 level 70 healers would bring, but at the same time, I have much more armor than a level 70 tank.  My [Death Strike] Heals me for between 2400 and 3300 on average every 4 seconds, along with my “big heal” (Rune Tap) every 30 seconds.  All this put together, and I have a fully formed 10 man raid group, ready to progress into Kara.

I have almost no idea whether I’ll be able to down any bosses at all.  I’m guessing that Atumen will be doable, but that Moroes will be nearly impossible, at least based on my estimates for the damage I’ll take versus my healing capabilities.

All I know is that I have a world of potential for this little DK to make his impression on the level 70 raid scene.

Am I a Freshly Dinged Level 60 Raid Group?

Not yet at least.  I attempted Ysondre, the emerald dream dragon in central Duskwood and found myself  quickly splattered.

Then again, I humorously forgot to level my mace skill on my new [Titansteel Destroyer] before attempting it.  Nonetheless, it seems raids tuned for 40 level 60 characters are a tad above the difficulty of raids tuned for 10 level 70s.

My Self-Imposed Restrictions to Build My Own Progression:

Before really attempting any progression raids, I want to curtail what my little Rankled can do.  If I signed him up for one of our remaining Naxxramas 25-man runs, he would be showered in very good gear, probably tripling his DPS and quintuppling his effective health.  But I’m not going to do that–Rankled will not run ANY level 80 raids.  The gear-treadmill that Rankled will run will be:  Run Kara  –> make gold from bosses (35g per boss) –> buy better gear on the Auction House.  Clearly, this is not the ideal way to gear a Death Knight, but it has the benefit of tying gear upgrades to success in raids (just like how it is in real raids).  In addition to the Auction House, Rankled will run any other content that is easily done by a guildless, non-trade-channel-pugging, solo player.  This will include Heroics found from the LFG tool, soloing level 80 group quests, casual pvp, and rep rewards.

Where Will I Go Next?

Karazhan is on the docket, and we’ll quickly find out if the purpose of this project is for naught.

Specifically, I’ll start by seeing if I can solo the Karazhan attunement chain.  I wonder how many DKs there are with [The Master's Key]?

Meet my newest character, Rankled the Death Knight (DK).  Rankle’s sole focus will be to push the limits of what old-world raid instances a DK can complete by himself. Rankled hit level 80 moments before this picture was taken.  Immediately thereafter, he put on a crafted tanking set he bought from the Auction House, and now sports 23,500 health and is defense capped.

Will this be enough to solo Zul Gurub, Molten Core, Karazhan, or Zul Aman?  We’ll find out.

First let me present an aggregate of all items listed on the Auction House, sorted by type of item. Note that all figures are represented in Gold, with the decimal places representing remainder Silver and Copper.

Sum of Buyout Prices by Item Type
Type	Sum of Buyout in Gold
Armor	70039.8719
Consumable	23358.8791
Container	2445.3044
Gem	47931.1272
Glyph	10725.5583
Miscellaneous	2130.7305
Projectile	408.8389
Quest	32137.6646
Quiver	369.96
Recipe	30138.5143
Trade Goods	69960.0365
Weapon	31296.9946
Grand Total	320943.4803

Nothing surprising here, except that we can now see the sum of all buyouts on all items in the Auction House is 320,943 Gold, 48 Silver, and 3 Copper at this particular point in time.

I expect that the calculation of this value, while uninteresting by itself, will become very useful for identifying changes in a server’s economy over time, tracking inflation, and comparing one server’s economy to another.  And more to the point of todays article, finding this figure is the first step towards measuring a server’s GDP.

In addition to overall GPD, I expect to be able to find sector-by-sector values.  The following table is a derivative of the table above, but breaks down the items into subgroups.

Type and Subtype of Item with Sum of Buyout
Type and subtype	Sum of Buyout
Armor	70039.8719
Cloth	21045.4729
Idols	210.2952
Leather	16843.0403
Mail	8509.3164
Miscellaneous	14734.6428
Plate	6892.2313
Shields	1804.873
Consumable	23358.8791
Bandage	63.1764
Consumable	72.7867
Elixir	1618.017
Flask	35.5407
Food & Drink	2414.4204
Item Enhancement	15449.8228
Other	733.3774
Potion	2293.5101
Scroll	678.2276
Container	2445.3044
Bag	1583.0437
Engineering Bag	155.31
Gem Bag	61.5
Herb Bag	519.99
Inscription Bag	3.7635
Leatherworking Bag	50
Mining Bag	71.6972
Gem	47931.1272
Blue	5146.0353
Green	4301.6676
Meta	6222.8292
Orange	6509.88
Prismatic	31.1744
Purple	8543.6341
Red	9199.1135
Simple	2634.9168
Yellow	5341.8763
Glyph	10725.5583
Death Knight	496.199
Druid	2214.0928
Mage	1546.2229
Paladin	1148.2079
Priest	627.5763
Rogue	900.8655
Shaman	1524.7049
Warlock	1586.4794
Warrior	681.2096
Miscellaneous	2130.7305
Holiday	53.45
Junk	316.3309
Other	1593.4134
Pet	76.8958
Reagent	90.6404
Projectile	408.8389
Arrow	80.04
Bullet	328.7989
Quest	32137.6646
Quest	32137.6646
Quiver	369.96
Ammo Pouch	363.75
Quiver	6.21
Recipe	30138.5143
Alchemy	1428.9197
Blacksmithing	6867.7532
Book	1073.8336
Cooking	995.0474
Enchanting	4541.3618
Engineering	2370.0679
First Aid	114.2065
Fishing	27.225
Jewelcrafting	6779.6602
Leatherworking	3453.8882
Tailoring	2486.5508
Trade Goods	69960.0365
Armor Enchantment	3.6054
Cloth	5979.1744
Devices	767.5765
Elemental	10910.8582
Enchanting	18010.4966
Explosives	29.882
Herb	5710.5765
Jewelcrafting	46.8442
Leather	4728.083
Materials	1014.5043
Meat	384.4169
Metal & Stone	8897.0247
Other	10742.7059
Parts	2734.2879
Weapon	31296.9946
Bows	739.6056
Crossbows	191.5898
Daggers	3099.9228
Fist Weapons	145.68
Guns	4130.3708
Miscellaneous	3
One-Handed Axes	1097.4225
One-Handed Maces	3938.9103
One-Handed Swords	2354.3544
Polearms	1000.0112
Staves	4327.5878
Thrown	107.799
Two-Handed Axes	7155.0013
Two-Handed Maces	843.2646
Two-Handed Swords	1651.6771
Wands	510.7974
Grand Total	320943.4803

While that may have been more information than most people need on the issue, I wanted to show the level of granularity that total-market scans can unveil.

Even just in presenting these numbers, I already can see the many difficulties that must be addressed before a firm methodology for establishing server GDP.  In these numbers, I found two outliers that more than doubled the overall value of the economy.  These items were simple Copper Bullets, selling for 180,000 Gold — an item that normally sells for 15 Silver.  A clear method for identifying these outliers must be found, preferably one that does not require looking at data sets one by one. Other factors that need to be identified is how to determine what items successfully sell, which items are re-listings from previous scans, and what time frame to use for measuring GDP.

But before we get on to that, I wanted to share some more types of information that can be gleaned from these data.  Below is a table that compares total value of buyouts for goods, sorted by the level of quality of the item.  For the non-WoW players here, Common items are generally items found by gathering professions and drops off of minor mobs while Epic items are those that drop off the most difficult raid bosses and from high end crafting professions.

Sum of Buyout Price by Quality of Item
Row Labels	Sum of Buyout
Common (white)	77006.9874
Uncommon (green)	64049.214
Rare (blue)	96213.0551
Epic (purple)	83674.2238
Grand Total	320943.4803

The surprising find here is that each of the four gradients are relatively near each other in sum of buyout values.  I would have expected that epic items would have represented a great majority of the Auction House’s value.

If you have any questions, or want more details about these data, please feel free to leave a comment and I will get back to you!

]]> http://www.mmo-econ.com/?feed=rss2&p=27 2 http://www.mmo-econ.com/?p=28 http://www.mmo-econ.com/?p=28#comments Wed, 12 Nov 2008 18:09:59 +0000 Roboticus http://www.mmo-econ.com/?p=28 I have finished programming a desktop application for exporting Auction House scans from the add-on Auctioneer.  Let the data analysis begin!

As I discussed in my Data Extraction Methodology post, I needed to find a way to reduce the amount of time and computing power necessary to process and parse the gigabytes of information that will be collected.  My solution was to use the desktop application programming language PHP-GTK2 to create a program that directly parses Auctioneer scans and formats the data into a pooled dataset.  I created this application to be able to scan multiple Auctioneer data files from multiple servers over time, creating 4-dimensional data, including:

• Cross-sectional data of each item up for bid in the Auction House with all auction details (first two dimensions)
• Time-series data, relying on the completion of Auctioneer scans at regular intervals (third dimension)
• Cross-server data, comparing Auction House data from each of the 473 discrete server economies (fourth dimension)

These data will be saved in a file structure I’ve created for this task, but will also be readily usable in traditional applications like Excel, Access, or GRETL.

The choice of using PHP-GTK2 to parse the data offers the additional benefits of compatibility with MySQL databases and ease of integration with online data sources (such as Blizzard’s Armory wowarmory.com). Additional features, like live-scanning of the Armory and incorporating it with the Auction House data, would be relatively simple to add to this application.

That’s enough of a description for now, but if you have any questions, please feel free to leave comments on this article.  Expect another post today displaying some of the first scans I’ve completed.

• Entirely new input factors into crafting professions.  New types of leather, stronger metals, and exotic herbs all will be introduced with the expansion.  Watch for shifting demand patters, initially focused on primary inputs required for skilling-up one’s professions, and later focused on providing high-end items for entry level raiding.

• Shift from developed economy to developing economy.  Low quality items (greens) became nearly unmarketable on well-developed servers now that we are nearly two years through the first expansion, signifying a developed economy with most players focusing on high-end raid and player-versus-player (pvp) content. Expect the prices of greens to skyrocket as people focus on leveling through new content again.
• Increased time-productivity from players.  As with last expansion, expect to see an informal truce between opposite factions as players focus on self-improvement instead of world pvp.  At least on pvp servers, the truce will allow greater productivity for the first few weeks of the expansion, growing the economy at a greater rate.
• Decreased wealth reserves and savings, but increased investment.  Many players have been saving gold for months to get an edge in the first few weeks of the expansion.  Once the expansion hits, gold reserves will be emptied out and invested into character improvements.  While this will certainly result in a short term contraction in the economy, in the long term, players will become much more efficient at generating wealth through better gear and more powerful skills.
• This list could go on indefinitely…

With that list in mind, we can see clearly that much change is afoot.  MMO-ECON is excited for the expansion for all of these listed reasons, but perhaps even more excited because we now have a solid data collection methodology that will allow for complex quantitative analysis of the changes that will happen during the expansion.

What will be the first question MMO-ECON focuses on in the expansion?  I want to set a uniform method for determining the size of a server’s economy, measured by the total sales of final products in the Auction House.  While this is a rudimentary measure, given that all sorts of exchange happens outside of the Auction House, I believe this will be a valid measure of the activity in a server’s economy.

I will calculate the size of the economy by taking scans of the Auction House at set intervals over several days and then calculate the value of all items sold.  This value can be extrapolated over time to yield a yearly GDP figure, though I suspect that given the quickly fluctuating nature of online economies, a shorter duration would be most appropriate.  This measure of GDP can then be compared across servers and across time to identify trends as the markets develop from their post-expansion inchoate state to the established end-game markets we saw towards the end of The Burning Cruasades (the last expansion).

I have already started taking scans of the Auction House even though the expansions has not yet hit so that I have a base state to which I can compare the changes.  At the moment, these scans are quite minimal, and are only on one server.  I expect to increase this as I improve my data collection methodology and hopefully get more computing power.

Check back soon as the first results start coming in!  And as always, please feel free to leave your comments about how I can improve the blog or if any economic revelations come to mind.

The stereotype of video gamers all being 15-year-olds with over-aggression problems is patently false. In actuality, online games also are populated with older, intelligent, and rationally-capable people who, surprisingly, can discuss economic patterns in a clear fashion. The populous world of WoW blogs, such as WoW Insider, sometimes hosts…enlightening…conversations.

From a recent discussion on WoW Insider, players were discussing in the comments section what sorts of market trends would change with the impending release of WoW’s second expansion pack, Wrath of the Lich King (LK) (heavily edited):

Galtus said…

PREDICTIONS ON THE AZEROTHIAN ECONOMY REGARDING THE DEMAND SHOCKS BROUGHT ABOUT BY THE DEATH KNIGHT CLASS (Death Knights are a new type of character soon to be introduced into WoW)

Professions supply the economic markets of Azeroth. So, when making an analysis of the virtual economy at any time, it makes sense to analyze the conditions of professions first.

Additionally, the addition of the Death Knight (DK) class brings with it the largest shock of all the content to be released in Lich King (LK). So, the changes brought about regarding professions by the Death Knight class will constitute the most fundamental and significant economic changes to the Azerothian economy immediately following the release of Lich King.

Blacksmithing, Engineering – Price Increase of Low/Mid Level Ores and Bars

Blacksmithing has always been a popular profession for plate wearers and melee DPSers, and engineering has played a similar role for melee DPS and support classes (and all those that want roflcoptrs). Each of these professions is well-suited for a new Death Knight, and each of these professions require the resources gathered by mining to level. Starting from scratch, DKs going either of these routes will need a large amount of low to medium level ores and bars, driving up the prices of these goods immediately following release.

Mining – Price Increase of Low/Mid Level Ores

Surely some of these new blacksmiths and engineers will choose to gather their own resources. However, building this skill on its own would require the DK to waste valuable leveling time in starting areas plinking away at copper veins—not a very appealing option.
However, it is possible to level mining to an appropriate level for a level 55 character entirely by smelting ores purchased off of the auction house. This method raises the DKs mining skill to match that of a typical level 55 blacksmith in a minimal amount of time, with a little more gold invested, and further increases the demand for low to midlevel ores.

Market Reestablished at Level 80

Time commitment is a problem here as well, and these professions likely won’t even be started until most DKs have finished leveling. Essentially, the market for cooked goods will need to be reconstructed around level 80 endgame, just as it was in the case of level 70 endgame content.

Inflation and Increases Prices on all Goods, Predictions still hold

With the release of LK, markets across servers will be volatile as equilibrium price levels are established. Because of this, all predictions made here will be greatly exaggerated in initial market prices, before settling down. Expected inflation of 225-275% will over time, however, act to curb this volatility of prices, with stable levels forming within the first few weeks following release.

Cat said…

That’s a nice post, but you make one fundamental wrong assumption: that all the players driving DKs around appear from nowhere.

Take your comment on enchanting mats for instance: More DKs leveling professions = more green items on the market = lower enchanting materials prices. Fine, but each of those DK’s is being driven by a player who is not playing on their main.

Where do low-mid level greens come from now (thus setting current prices)? Mostly, I would guess, from people leveling alts. What will those people be doing in Wrath? Working on a DK 55+ or their main 70+, not working on an alt. Ergo, dearth of low-mid level greens on the market.

It’s not as simple as you make out.

Galtus said…

That’s a good point, but I doubt that that will really have that large of an impact on the market prices, especially in relation to all of the other predictions in my post. Sure, people wont be leveling low-level alts, but on most servers, the few I play on for sure, there aren’t an insane number of low/mid greens for sale anyway. So, I think prices will fall some, or at least stay consistent with their current level.

Your observation also accounts for a further increase in low/mid ores and bars, with no low level alts running around to farm it all–I hadn’t considered this in my original post, but it does serve to back my prediction on the goods.

As far as the other comments made here regarding the value of Outland-level herbs and ores/bars goes–
Leveling these professions takes a good deal of time, which most new DK won’t want to waste not leveling.
Mining can for the most part be bought (but to level 55 skill anyway), but herbalism can’t. Expect stable and high prices on ores and bars, and a return of high prices on Outland herbs.

Kyudo said…

I agree with your general evaluation Galtus, however with some caveats regarding non-metal resources. You take good account of the effect of an influx of DK players, but make little or no consideration of people changing professions. Many players will re-evaluate their profession choices come wrath, and many, particularly min/maxers will change professions on their mains. Similarly to DKs they will not want to waste time leveling skinning/herbing etc so I also predict a temporary rise in the cost of ALL general profession leveling mats, not just ores. This is particularly the case for leather, as the fur lining enchants are being touted by many as some of the best profession benefits around.

My point in posting these comments is simply that players are able to discuss economic happenings in a moderately rational way, certainly in a way higher than gamer stereotypes would suggest. I believe that it is completely appropriate to analyze online behavior of people such as those discussing above from the point of view that they are all Rational Consumers

The approach for extracting these data can also be repeated over set intervals to construct pooled data (combines cross-sectional data with time-series data).

Once pooled, the data set could be analyzed for auction results, tracking what was purchased, how bidding wars developed, and even to construct a picture of how the economy shifts in real time with exogenous factors (such as changing game mechanics or content updates).

Additionally, the process for pooling these data could be quickly replicated on a multitude of server, creating the rather interesting prospect of analyzing parallel economies.  While our real world is set in its singular existence, and therefore a system-wide anomaly or macro outlier or war can throw off an otherwise balanced analysis, the gaming world has several hundred separate servers, each with their own economy, but following an identical set of rules.  Presumably, the surfeit of economies would allow cross-sectional studies that could account for economy-wide outliers.

The Data Extraction Method

The World of Warcraft is designed to allow third-party software authors to create add-ons that work as separate modules within the game (like an excel plugin, for instance).  Software authors have access to Blizzard’s API via published LUA interfaces.  For the purposes of creating my data sets,  I have used the add-on Auctioneer, a tool that quickly scans all auctions available on the Auction House.  While the add-on is intended for in-game users to quickly post their auctions at appropriate market prices and to know when auctions are undervalued (and therefore, offer potential profit taking), it also creates an exhaustive data set that, with concerted effort, can be exported and manipulated for the purposes of econometric analysis.

The data created by Auctioneer are stored as a text file which is rewritten with new information from each scan.  By running a scan and then moving the data file out of the Auctioneer folder before rerunning the scan, it is possible to create a series of market-scans that can be pooled into a 3-dimensional time-series and cross-sectional data set.  Once the scans are complete, however, there is still the onerous task of transforming the data out of the obscure and poorly documented data structure used by Auctioneer into something resembling a more traditional data set.  An additional problem is that the data set is extremely large and unwieldy with traditional computing power.  To address both of these problems, I created a custom online PHP program that runs a series of transformations to de-serialize the data and morph it into rows and columns and then output it as a file readable by Excel.

My next step will be to develop this procedure into a desktop application with the hopes that I won’t cause my web host to block my site due to excessive data processing.  Additionally, creating a desktop application will bypass some of the processor-intensive steps that have a tendency to heat up my small apartment.

The final step, of course, is to analyze these data with traditional econometric programs such as GRETL.  Check back for my results as they start to come out.