Curse

Yellow_lid · Aug 04, 2005, 11:29 PM // 23:29

Quite honestly I was hoping that the 2 week wait for the update was them getting ready to implement a TH. Oh well.. maybe they will be nice enough to include it with the summer expansion.

My opinion on how the items should be auctioned:
VERY similar to the traders in towns. A specific NCP would be the guy to talk to if you wanted to trade/auction Bulk materials for example, then you'd have a seperate NCP for the runes, dyes, ect...

Irongate · Aug 05, 2005, 02:29 AM // 02:29

I agree, an auction house is a good idea. I'm even happy with the current rune, material, and rare material traders. But an auction house for weapons is crucial.

In my view, the downside of overstocking of cross-town-stock-sharing, is fixed by filtering. There should be several layers of filters in the auction house window including:

gold/purple/blue/white;
elem/warrior/necro etc;
warrior - sword/axe/shield etc;
max damage/other;
elem - wand/off-hand/ etc;
$ - 10k+/20k+/30k+; and
any others?

That way I can look for a 'godly' sword by filtering a gold/warrior/sword/max dam/100K+ and see what's available.

Bwsk8 · Aug 05, 2005, 04:57 PM // 16:57

I agree that the aution house would not be effective unless you could filter and search through items.

Ex. Categories:

Weapons
1. Sword
2. Axe
3. Hammer
4. Wand
5. Staff
6. Bows
7. Ect
Shileds
Foci/Artifacts
Runes
Materials
Weapon Upgrades
Quest Items
Ect

Maltare · Aug 07, 2005, 09:23 AM // 09:23

I strongly oppose anything that makes the pve environment of this game any more extensive than it already is.

ifuwerepbandj · Aug 08, 2005, 08:05 PM // 20:05

What is that supposed to mean? You don't want the PvE'ers to have fun or you in some way think this will create more grind? It sounds like you are prejudiced against the grind in the game and are taking it out on the PvE community. This in no way will adversly affect your PvP.

Yellow_lid · Aug 08, 2005, 08:21 PM // 20:21

Quote:

Originally Posted by Maltare

I strongly oppose anything that makes the pve environment of this game any more extensive than it already is.

What are you afraid of? I love the complexity of this game. COMPLEX but simple to use.

Yen-lo-wang · Aug 08, 2005, 08:41 PM // 20:41

Quote:

Originally Posted by Maltare

I strongly oppose anything that makes the pve environment of this game any more extensive than it already is.

Mind giving us some reasoning behind this argument? Honestly, a well-set-up auction house, like the one detailed in the OP, would probably fix the economy on it's own...

Deinonychus · Aug 12, 2005, 04:30 PM // 16:30

I see today that they helped with the NPC trader pricing but I hope they are considering an auction house. I even made a character just to hold stuff so I don't have to put up with Trade spamming and ripoffs. I really want them to put in a trade system as suggested here.

benmanhaha · Aug 12, 2005, 11:20 PM // 23:20

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bwsk8

I agree that the aution house would not be effective unless you could filter and search through items.

Ex. Categories:

Weapons
1. Sword
2. Axe
3. Hammer
4. Wand
5. Staff
6. Bows
7. Ect
Shileds
Foci/Artifacts
Runes
Materials
Weapon Upgrades
Quest Items
Ect

I completely agree with you. I think that you should be able to auction off anything not just weapons because you would still get the selling balck dye and sup rune for blah blah blah in the trading chat.

I only have one problem with this system. You say that when you put something up for auction it should be removed from their inventory, well people could auction stuff for ridicoulilsy(sp?) high prices and just use the AH as a new storage device. I also firmly beleive in the buy it now button for a specified amount above the starting price. Whoever crosses that line first gets the item.

I love this idea and i think all the prices should be the same in all the cities.

consider it signed!

Galatea · Aug 13, 2005, 05:43 AM // 05:43

Quote:

Originally Posted by benmanhaha

well people could auction stuff for ridicoulilsy(sp?) high prices and just use the AH as a new storage device.

not necessarily. maybe some might try and use it as a temporary storage, but throughout the other posts, we've mentioned setting some sort of limit (24 hours? a few days? 1 week?) as to when the auction would expire. say the time runs up and no one has bid high enough, the item is then returned to the seller.

Lampshade · Aug 13, 2005, 06:30 AM // 06:30

wow nice job! (I like the lil animation)
Very detailed and complete, hope its looked at buy someone higher up.
You should work a at ANet lol.

benmanhaha · Aug 17, 2005, 09:43 PM // 21:43

Quote:

Originally Posted by Galatea

not necessarily. maybe some might try and use it as a temporary storage, but throughout the other posts, we've mentioned setting some sort of limit (24 hours? a few days? 1 week?) as to when the auction would expire. say the time runs up and no one has bid high enough, the item is then returned to the seller.

Ur right my bad.

Khazan · Aug 17, 2005, 10:08 PM // 22:08

Wow, very nice post. And having played games with AH's before(FFXI and WoW, though I much preferred FFXI's system), I'll definitely support this.

Agelaus · Aug 18, 2005, 04:24 AM // 04:24

If you do the auction wont it get rid of the need for the traders?? I mean if I can go bid on dye and get it for cheap I will get it from auction not the Trader. I think that its a good idea. But to make it so that you can only put non trader items on there(weapons). Also dont forget that there is a website. guildwars.gameamp.com that has an auction link.

trelloskilos · Aug 18, 2005, 04:34 PM // 16:34

Great original post!

I had been thinking of how Anet would implement the auction house into the game, then discovered this thread. Many ideas are superb, but if you'll alow me to play Devil's Advocate....

1. I'm not sure if an NPC within the district would be sufficient. You would initially see overcrowding as players constantly price-check. Maybe it would work better if it was an instanced area, maybe somewhere that all players could visit (like a guild hall), or a portal off Lion's Arch or any other major city. - Have the "Trade" button completely removed so that this area remains a strict "Auction-only" area and stops undercutting traders. In fact, it might be a good idea to cut off the chat messages with exception of guild members, team members or whispers. This means that Traders won't spam the public chat if they can't use the trade chat, and also means that the public chat window won't be filled with clutter like people greeting eachother etc. - Only relevant auction info is there, but you can still contact other players or guildies to inform them of anything of interest.

2. I think it would be a prudent idea to introduce a tarriff for each item put on auction, and also to allow the seller only a limited amount of items on auction at any one time (say 5 items, for instance). Otherwise, what's to stop everyone from just spamming the auction with every single weapon or item that they pick up from every single monster they encounter? They wouldn't even need their Xunlai Agent Storage. Charging the seller a percentage of the initial starting price will also stimulate a more interesting auction market, and encourage sellers to set a decent start price too, otherwise, all we'll see are listings of "Godly Max Damage Ya da da 100k", and it's unlikely anyone would bid. However, if there was, say, a 10% start-off charge, we might see those same "Godly" weapons start off cheap, and be bid on.

e.g - Player A has "Max Dmg gold item" - 100k start bid, player A is charged 10k to list
Player B has same "Max Dmg gold item" - 10k start bid, player B is charged 1k to list
Player C has same "Max Dmg gold Item" - 1k start bid, player C is charged 1k to list.

Player C is most likely to sell his item and will have paid least. However, if there is someone who wishes to place a bid on player A or player B's items, their respective investments, final sale prices and profit may be higher.

Having items on the auction in this way should also mean that if a player decides to withdraw their item from auction before the allotted time (due to lack of interest, a change of mind etc.), they may have to incur the penalties - this is typical of auction house trading.

3. Commission v. In-House

OK - this isn't a "Devil's advocate" moment, but an idea that kid of seeded before I read this post. Having an instanced area would also yield another advantage. Let's assume that Player A has placed an auction item on sale. Player B can view the item and its price at the auction house. Now, player B can, if they want, place a commission bid (Which will not be displayed or come into effect until the actual item is "Up" on auction). They can then leave, and be notified ingame if they have won the bid or not. - Each item in the auction house is held for a 30 second period, by which time, the price, with commission bids is revealed. Anyone wishing to place an "In-house" bid can simply hit a "Bid" button (Maybe the replaced "Trade" button) within that 30 seconds if they wish to register a bid.

(Yeah, I know - there would have to be a lot of coding and work on Anet's part to get my vision here implemented - too many awkward factors - how to shut off the messages, how to register commissions, etc., but if they can implement something like the Xunlai agents, and trigger flags based on environment and infusing armour etc., I'm pretty sure that the vision is not an excessive stretch....)

4. Finally, back to playing Devil's Advocate again. What could be done to prevent non-paying bidders or auction wreckers? How would item/money transferrence work? What about potential practices of guildies & colleagues trying to "Shill" the price? What if you had sufficient funds to place a commission earlier on in the week, but were not able to pay for the item later on? Would that mean there would be several playyers suddenly in debt?

(sorry - In real life, I work with auction houses and use Ebay a lot...)

Otherwise, a lot of what the OP said has a lot of potential! A good and well-implemented auction house will make it easier for the majority of the GW population who don't fancy standing in LA for hours shouting "WTS", while still making it perfectly feasable for traders to still do it if they wished. It would DEFINITELY discourage the "Outrageous" sellers from charging stupid amounts for lacklustre weapons just because the text is in purple or gold, but also offers potential buyers and sellers for all items (especially the purple & gold items) a reference point that is very badly needed for weapon trading!

Galatea · Aug 21, 2005, 07:15 PM // 19:15

trelloskilos:

Thanks

1. I agree, a single NPC per district would definitely not be enough because of crowding. It was just easy to illustrate by turning the merchant into an auctioneer, lol. I do like the idea of having an instanced area that players could visit (such as, one of the neighboring islands to the Guild Hall) that could be labeled as some sort of trading city. During the betas, before I even knew of the world outside Pre-Searing Ascalon, I had thought of Wizard's Folly as a trading city, because of the little tents and people gathering with their "WTT Purple Dye!" messages.

2. Definitely some sort of Listing Fee, as well as limit as to how many items. Anywhere between five and ten items listed at a time (and each listed for only a week or so before being returned to the seller), and a % fee to put it up -- paid at the time of listing, and non-refundable.

4. Item/Money Transfer would have to be taken care of by the system. The way I have the auction house pictured, is that Player A has an item and places it on sale. He pays a fee, lists it for 500 gold, and the item is automatically removed from his inventory and placed into the auction house for the remainder of the week (or until the item is purchased).

Player B comes along and goes "oh, goody! just what I've always wanted!" and bids the necessary 500 gold or so. Since he has bid high enough to win, the money is automatically deducted and held in the auction house, and the item is placed into his directory.

Player A logs on later one evening and checks the auction house. Instead of seeing his item listed as "On Auction" or some similar message, he'll see "Item Sold for 500 G!" and then can press maybe a "collect money" button which will then transfer the 500 gold that the auction house was holding for him into his account.

Of course, later when ANet implements a mailing system (as it has been suggested, and also mentioned in previous Fansite Friday interviews), the money can be delivered to the player via the mailing system, attached to a letter from the Auction House saying "Your Item xx sold for nn amount."

medikamen · Aug 21, 2005, 10:11 PM // 22:11

A log of the events would be nice, just to know how things are going. This log of course would only store information about the items you have dropped in the auction house or items you have bid for (ex: player xxx proposed 5k for the obsidian shard 11:55 GMT+1; player yyy proposed 5.1k for obsidian shard at 15:00 GMT+1)

Armada Hunter · Aug 22, 2005, 12:33 AM // 00:33

Just put one in every main town. (Ascalon city, Lion's Arch, ect). All those citys are quite empty and could probably make room for another building.

Dwayna's Tears · Aug 25, 2005, 09:16 AM // 09:16

First of all hats off to Galatea and all those who contributed to this thread in detail. There are some amazing suggestions out there.

In general I don't like AH idea (highest bidder wins) and prefer the idea of a fixed priced system. Why? Simply because the number of items listed for auction would be a lot and I mean A LOT. Some people (a minority) play GW on a (heaven forbid) dial-up and others play with a capped broadband talking to the auction NPC would then mean that the player must connect to the auctioning system that collects items from all auction houses around Tyria, this might slow those poor souls to death before they even get the auction screen up. May I suggest a fixed price system to iron out this problem?

A fixed price system will allow items to sell fast thereby relieving potential buyers from having to scroll down the lists of available items up for sale. However the fixed item trade also has its flaws such as the buy-cheap-sell for more strategy. To preventing this form occurring a customizing like attribute should be implemented. Say person A buys a max damage sword for x amount of gold the item is then customized to the player's account meaning that only the player's characters may wield/use the bought item. If the above suggestion does not tickle your fancy then I still have a few ideas to help with fine tuning the AH.

From what I read I can still see the Auction House issue still raises problems about inflation and whatnot. There was a solution on commissions and paying a fee to have your items up for bidding. I agree that there must be some sort of way to take out the gold from the game’s economy and instead of NPC commissions I suggest that the gold that was supposed to be lost in the process of buying/selling be used for PVP purposes. Therefore lowering the amount of gold in a severely inflated economy. How? Well… Imagine an item of notable worth; say a perfect gold chaos axe with the best of mods goes on auction. The gold lost in the process should go towards newly implemented guild gold storage for the player’s guild. This gold can only be used in a new GVG event. The gold may for example hire uncontrollable mercenaries to help attack/defend the guild's guild hall. A new siege type GVG event is the basic idea. This is just a rough idea to deal with the loss of gold.

cheers!

pappayaponta · Aug 25, 2005, 05:35 PM // 17:35

Thats a really nice idea! if just someone like you could come with a good idea like this about a new class =D