Originally Posted by TB_

Many people have posted about Auction Houses and so forth and all seem to have the same basic idea, a place people can goto bid on items for sale. This post is about an alternative way of doing this which is more practical and less prone to abuse. (the important stuff is at the bottom)


Now, while I personally prefer a user interface solution, many users want an actual location for the trading, especially the role players. Most suggestions for this so far have been 1 house accessible from the city in each region on the map. I believe this is flawed for several reasons:

1. Who is to say all cites will be near the start of all regions? Henge Of Denravi is a great example, and in the future I expect others as well.
2. What about regions without cites at all such as the Underworld and Fissue Of Woe?

Instead I suggest a system where by a trading location is available to that user when they enter the region (given conditions which I shall explain below). Once a user has access to this location they can venture there via the map or perhaps as a one way teleport from the first house be it city or otherwise.


Each region could have its own, and rather than each offering the same goods, each could offer a set of good related to that region based on drops, lvls or anything else the developers may wish to assign. For example, the Ascalon Trading Post might only offer things such as Charr hides, and low lvl weapons. As each trading location is unlocked the player then has access to more and more items and of higher lvls so they don't need to goto the ascalon post for Charr hides and the Maguuma post for Spider Legs etc.


While this is all well and good, it can be abused and so the developers could impose a access requirement on each house such as lvl, regions visited or even ascension in the case of droknars. I have already heard rumors of the developers considering this for other NPCs.


Now, for the good stuff <---------


At each house there could be a group of NPCs spread out (for the role players) which allow access to the trading system, once in the selling player follows these steps:

1. Item
2. Amount to trade
3. Maximum and Minimum price range
4. Urgency Of Sale

Once in the system, the items are removed from the players inventory and the process begins. First the items are added to the que for sales due in the next 10minutes. I suggest 1 round of sales happen every 5min, so a gap of 2 sale periods should be enough for most tho if the player has suggested a high urgency this can be reduced. (tho all this is of course a suggestion)


On the buyers side, they check what is for sale. This could be done buy a simple search engine where the player matches item type, quantity, dmg/defense numbers etc. Once they have found something they wish to buy they sign up to the auction and wait till it starts.


Now, this is the heavily alternative bit. While the average joe is familiar with the auction system used to sell paintings and other art work, there is another auction system used every day to sell everything from carrots to horses. Here is how the system would apply in game: When the auction starts the price of the item starts at the highest price (Min and Max prices were supplied when putting the item into the system) and then slowly drops down to the lowest price. First person to bid, wins the item at the current price its dropped to. Thats it. No bidding wars, it comes down to sheer demand. And thats a very good thing as:

1. Items are purchased by demand, not simply by the rich.
2. There is next to no chance to abuse the system. In the traditional system other players can hike the price by false bidding, or crowd out another user by imposing a buying force.

So, lets say no-one buys the item and it hit the minimum price. Well depending on how urgent the sale was set to, it could simply restart again in several minutes, or restart with a lower top price until its sold.


I'm sure by now you're either asleep or thinking of other ways this can be tweaked or used, so tell us... or stop snoring


So, comments?