Detailed Proposal for an Auction House System

Many of us know that the current trading system we have in-game has lots of room for improvement. The auction house is a suggestion that has been covered quite a bit (see for yourself). Some simply suggest a need for it, others go into more depth.

First off, I want to thank ArenaNet for taking the time to read through Fansite Forums and taking our suggestions to heart. The addition of the Rune Traders in the most recent patch definitely shows that you guys listen to us. I hope that the current trader system is only a temporary fix, and that an Auction House will be implemented in the future. Right now, it is extremely difficult to trade/sell efficiently. Let's face it: the major trade spot of the game is Lion's Arch, District 1. District 2 and District 3 are often filled with trade spam as well, especially when District 1 is so full no one can enter. Ascalon City appears to be a big trade city as well, although if you really want something, someone in Lion's Arch almost definitely will have it.

However, even so, it is so difficult to find what you are looking for. Your "WTB" or "WTS" messages get lost between the 99347823748732 million other WTS/WTB messages being spammed over and over. Even harder to do is to guess the current going price. Upon asking, "How much does xxxx go for?", I can receive anything from no answers at all, or people trying to sell to me at obviously outrageous prices. There are also people who are willing to pay 500 gold for a rune, while others will tell you, "No way, that goes for no more than 100 gold." Also, the current system requires players to stay online for n amount of time in order to sell or buy, whether sucessful or not.

So without further ado, here is my detailed proposal for a trade system involving an auction house, with eye candy included:

-----
THE MAIN TRADE SOURCE: The Auction House

The Auction House should consist of anywhere between 3 and 5 NPCs, who will stand in/at an allocated Auction House building. There should be five Auction House buildings, each one located in the main cities (gold dots on the map): Ascalon, Lion's Arch, Henge of Denravi, Amnoon Oasis, and Droknar's Forge.

Auction Houses aren't really required in the mission cities or in the small towns, but that's really up to the devs/community if it deems necessary.

Districts should not affect the stock or prices of these auction houses. Players should only be able to sell n amount of items at a time, and each item should only stay on auction for a certain duration of time (if at the end of this time, the item is not sold, then the player can re-auction it, or take it back). Players do not need to be online to keep their items in the auction house. There is anonymity in that buyers do not know who the seller is.

Now, there are two options, each with their own pros/cons (which others are free to address, if not yet already mentioned):
a) One Single Institution
Under this option, the stock of the five auction houses is shared. This means that a player in Ascalon City can bid on the same items available to a player in Amnoon Oasis. This also means that if I place an item on sale in Lion's Arch, then anyone can buy it from any of the other auction houses.

Some pros:
- items are available across Tyria
- prices remain stable across Tyria
Some cons:
- overstock of items
- demand might not meet supply

b) Individual Institutions
Under this second option, each auction house will stand as its own. This means items on sale in Lion's Arch are only available in Lion's Arch.

Some pros:
- incentives to visit all of the five major cities
- items generally won't be overstocked
Some cons:
- players may decide to sell items like superior runes only in droknar's forge auction houses, making it nearly impossible to attain one until after ascension
- player may need 200 of a crafting material and might have to travel to 2+ auction houses to meet his demand

-----

The Structure of the Auction House

Two tabs - one for buying, one for selling.

Selling
Under the selling tab, player will select an item from their inventory and enter in a price. They can check the current prices by going into the BUY tab and selecting am "Auction Log" button for a certain item, which can show the past 10 winning bids on the item. Let's say a player wants to sell a Minor Rune of Vigor, and he sees that the past 10 winning bids were 250 gold. The player then will have an idea of how much to place theirs for sale.

Player A places his rune on sale for 250 gold.
If Player B places the same rune on sale for 200 gold, then player B's rune will sell more quickly, because his had a lower reserve price.
Player C decides to be greedy and places his on sale for 500 gold. His most likely will never sell, or will sell once the supply runs out and demand is still high.

Certain items should be stackable and stacks should be listed separately for bidding. Currently, we have stacks of 10, but perhaps introduce stacks of 50 for those that need a lot to craft armor.
Example:
- Bolt of Silk
- 10 Bolts of Silk
- 50 Bolts of Silk

Generally, buying in bulk will cost less than buying a single silk.

After an item is sold..
Since we currently don't have a delivery system, the seller can go to the Auctioneer to pick up his earnings.

Buying
Here's some eye-candy:

*I noticed I made a typo, and also forgot to include an "Auction Log" button as I mention below, but.. pretend those little mistakes aren't there, because I don't feel like making a new image. 0_x

Under the buying tab, players should have the ability to toggle on/off various categories (Weapons, Dyes, Runes, Salvage Items, Unidentified Items, Miscellaneous, etc...).

Listed underneath these categories should be the items, which players can choose to be organized in any fashion - by class, alphabetically, by rarity, etc..

The number in stock should show up next to the the item's name.

Player will select the item he/she wants. I forgot to include this in my image (^_^), but there should also be a button that says "Auction Log", so that players can see the 10 past winning bids on the item, and have an idea of what the going price is.

If player decides to purchase the item, he will then enter in the amount he'd like to purchase, and then select a BID button. Player will then enter in an amount he wants to bid. If he bids too low, he can continue increasing the amount of gold until he wins the item.

-----
THE TRADERS:
I don't feel that traders need to be removed. I feel that certain items, such as dye and runes, should still be available for purchase from a trader/merchant NPC, as well as drops from monsters. However, I feel that the Auction House will help regulate prices, allowing buyers the option to see what others buy/sell for, and avoid new players from getting scammed.

Prices will always continue to fluctuate. On one day, black dye might cost 5 platinum at the trader, and only 3K in the auction house. However, the trader might be buying them for 4K. The next day, it might be cheaper to just buy/sell at the Auction House, without the trader's assistance.

=====

Meh, there is of course, lots of room for development with this idea. I'd like to see what others think, and see what suggestions they too, have to offer. I have already written this out once, but somehow lost everything I wrote, so what you have just read is a re-written version, with some details missing because they've slipped my mind. ;_;

It'd be nice too, if we could have one official Auction House/Trade Center thread, so that the devs won't have to jump from thread to thread to see all the suggestions being made.

(Closed to prevent random thread resurrection. Please PM a mod if you wish to open this thread.)

are you going to apply for a job at Guild Wars?

very nice. I like how you think.

good job. auction house please! oh and yeah it would be nice if people talking about auction houses would just post under this one. maybe anet would notice how badly we want one.

While I don't see the NECESSITY for an auction house, I agree it would be a bit more orderly and convenient, even if it were a pain to implement.

Also, you put up a hell of an argument.

Wow, that's very detailed indeed, and I love the idea! I hope anet will do something like this in GW in the near future.

Here here. Less stupid WTS/WTB chat spam. Less time spent looking for an item you want. Less noobs being ripped off. Most excellent idea.

--Nokomis

/signed

I think they do know how badly everyone wants one, the only thing is I guess it's something that more complex to implement, I read from an interview that they probley will put one in, but didn't give an actual time frame...maybe they want to surprise us or something...?

Yup, thats awesome, i like idea A better.

Thanks everyone - I'm glad everyone is responding well to my suggestion. ^_^ I put a lot of thought into this one.

An Auction House would definitely make trading much more organized and easier for everyone, and it would eliminate unnecessary hours spent spamming WTS/WTB and trying to find that one item that you so desperately need.

I read on one of the Fansite Fridays a hint towards an Auction House, but I'm not sure if they will actually go through with it, what kind of system it will be, and when it will be implemented. They said they are still working on Observer Mode, but I really do hope that an Auction House will be the next big update on their agenda.

Everyone, please feel free and continue to make additional suggestions in this thread or critique the suggestion I have made in my original post. I left a lot of room still for it to be developed more thoroughly, and hopefully we can mold it into an Auction House that everyone, or at least the majority of the players, will be satisfied with, and one that the Game Devs will be able to accomplish.

Well done and a good idea.

The first thing that came to my mind was this: make it function closer to eBay.

When putting an item up for auction you select the amount of time you want to leave the auction open from several predetermined selections. Then you can set a reserve price if you wish or choose to have no reserve. The buyer's can see the item, the current high bid, whether or not the reserve has been met and the auction log, but not the reserve price.

Very good suggestion; very detailed.

That seems like the better idea. After the first week (if we had system B), the sellers would just find the auction house used the most (most likely LA out of habit ), and they would all go there. Then the others would be vacant.

I love the idea of an auction house.

Ba Ne:
The eBay idea is good, but I think takes too long, and if you decide not to set a reserve price, then the item might sell for less than you intended.

Under the system I suggested, you set the lowest price you are willing to let the item go for, and if someone bids the exact price or higher (and no one placed their item on auction for 1 gold piece), then your item will be sold instantly; no waiting around for the next x amount of days to pass for you to get your money. This means you could place something on auction, such as a stack of 10 iron ingots, and it might be sold within a matter of seconds, due to the high demand.

I noticed with eBay, prices aren't always stable. Someone might be selling, say, a video game for $50 while another sells it for only $25. Also, the eBay system allows for multiple bidders on one item. While this might be good with some of the more rare items (max damage weapons with super awesome built-in mods, gold fiery dragon swords, etc.), this may annoy the buyers of craft materials who just want their items right away, and don't want to stand around outbidding other players.

Manadar:
Yeah, that came to mind - that people might just decide to stick around at one auction house, and never another. When I played FFXI, each auction house stood as its own institution - and because you had to travel (by foot, chocobo, boat, etc.) to other towns, I would have to ask people on my friends list or linkshell to see if they were near the major cities and do price checks for me. A crafting material I might need in one city might cost me 400g, while in another city the going price might have been 100g due to overstock. If we have a single institution (choice A), then the prices of items would be stable across Tyria, and I think this would be best for our economy. I think no matter which choice is used, most will probably still hang out around Lion's Arch, but I expect that the other cities won't be so underpopulated. Amnoon Oasis, Henge of Denravi, and Droknar's Forge are surprisingly empty, as opposed to Lion's Arch and Ascalon - which is quite sad to say, because the designs of those cities are stunning (especially Henge of Denravi; I love that whole rainforest feel of the map).

thanks for the info johnny. i guess its all just a matter of time

/signed

The only thing I think that was done well in FFXI (Final Fantasy XI) is the Auction House system. Trust me, when you try the AH system out you won't know how to play without it.

I don't think either of the cons actually exist. If there would be an overstock worldwide, wouldn't there just be smaller but equal overstocks in each of the smaller cities? The supply and demand are simply combined. If there wasn't enough demand in one small auction house, that will translate to the single house. Having a single house would help smooth the localized effects that might otherwise occur, too. (i.e. Lion's Arch might have a short supply, while Ascalon might have short demand, which would be "fixed" by combining them.)

Maybe I'm missing something, but I have no idea why overstock would be created by combining both supply and demand in one place.

- Players who really want to see everything don't need to go to every city
- Players might just always sell in Ascalon anyway (making it like a single house), because that's the place where everyone can see it.

I don't necessarily oppose a more complicated system, but here's an idea for a simpler system:

When you auction something, the auctioneer NPC immediately pays you the vendor buy price for the item. The item goes up for auction at a minimum bid at that price. After the end of the auction (however long that is), if the item sold, the player gets the extra money. If it didn't sell, the item just ceases to exist. The player already got some money for it (same as selling to a vendor), and doesn't have to think about it again. Either money appears for them later, or it doesn't. =)


Pretty much everything you had for "buying" seemed pretty good and basic. Well done.

@ first post: Yea, it would be awsome if the auction houses in the cities only showed the items that were put up in that specific city (which I think you were suggesting in B), so the more you progress the better the items in the different city AH's are.

I LOVE this idea; Signed.

Edit: also perhaps include a minimum price option (I didn't see it in the image but saw you suggested it).

Auction houses seem like a very good idea to even out the prices for items, although it would give people a way to get all they need to unlock stuff without needing to farm.
(people could put unidentified runes and weapons up there so other people can get unlocks easy)

Signed

JoDiamonds:
What I meant by overstock is say, with common items such as.. wood planks, for example. Because all the wood planks would be sold in a single place, then the stock might actually read "3749 wood planks" available. Prices would then drop quite low, from the current 7-10g per, down as low as 1-4g per. I suppose it would only be temporary though, once the supply starts running low, prices would rise again.

As far as the simple selling, I don't know how some would feel about a system like that. What if I were trying to sell some fancy shmancy sword, that I would want at LEAST 3k for, but the going price at the moment was around 10k. Let's say no one bids on it, and I only receive a vendor price of, hm, maybe 500 gold.. I'd be pretty bummed out. Heh.

arnansnow:
Well, the Auction House would be setup by ArenaNet from the start.. so they could probably setup a system in which Unidentified Items can NOT be sold. This would prevent easy unlocks from occuring, but would help regulate the prices of items that are already identified, as well as make them more easily attainable.

I guess unid'ed stuff will still be sold in Trade Spam Chat, but it would be nice to be able to get everything else from an auctioneer npc.

^_- Thanks for the comments & /signs!

Bump!

you could have just wrote "Incorporate WoW's AH system" and saved some time

/signed

I loved FFXI's auction system, and it certainly seems to be your model. Just remember, in FFXI we also had mog houses and travel involved. So really, only model A is viable, because let's say someone gets some whoopy-de-doo sword. Following model B, they could choose to put it up in an area where other people might find the sword themselves... or they could put it up in Ascalon where they know people are going to want it... bad. In effect, people are going to put the items where they know they'll be sold, so model A just saves them the time of having to warp to Ascalon to do it.

As to the unidentified items being put up on Auction... um, why not? If someone would rather attempt to farm for gold, so they could buy the item, and then ID it to find out it that they already had it unlocked... why not let them? The beautiful thing about GW is that people don't have to "play for hours and hours... etc" to get whatever. If one person wants to spend their time hunting for those items, and someone else wants to just be able to buy them... then it's in both of their interests to let the items be sold on the Auction. If GW had intended to not let people trade purple or gold items, they would have probably implemented a system similar to FFXI's EX and Rare items.

Right now you either spend time trying to hawk items (and on the other end, be annoyed by endless spam), or you just salvage/sell your items to vendors. Or you're nice and you donate your power items to guild members. In the end, an AH system would just clean up the WTB/WTS spam. Hopefully they'll implement this sooner rather than later.

i like my idea better, http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...ad.php?t=23399

Oh? I never played WoW. I only played it during the Final Beta before it was released, for maybe a couple of hours. If there was an AH then, I don't remember ever seeing/using it.

Auction house would be cool and everything, but you have to take into account the state of inflation it would put the Guild Wars economy in. Since it will no longer seem logical to sell anything to merchants for a fraction of the cost that you could get by setting in the AH and leaving it, there will be more and more gold going into people's pockets and less coming out of the game. Therefore, things you used to buy from vendors would have to have prices increased to reflect the inflation. Also drops would have to yeild more gold so that newer players that have not reached the point in the game where they can farm the rarer items to sell in AH would still be able to afford the items sold by merchants, ect. I guess the point I'm trying to make is that as it stands now, money is not extremely difficult to make in GW like it is in other MMORPGs, and while your idea does sound fun and convienent, it also needs to come up with a way to solve the problems that inflation will cause before it can really be looked at as a serious option. But I think you're on the right trackhere; it would make places where people like to sell their junk (Ascalon, Lion's Arch, ect.) a little more bearable, that's for sure.

Reminds me of the Auction House in FF11. It was a great way to sell almost everything you didn't want. I always looked forward to seeing the status of my selling items, how much I got for them, and looking at new Items I needed that were up for sale. Overall it was a blast and I wouldn't mind giving up the chaos known as our current trading system for an Idea like that. As for selling things to NPC's I'm sure the Dev's of GW can think of some other money sinks that are worth while. They've done a great job at everything else. Anywho, great post.



Calgar.

Maybe limit the auction house to certain items? Like, only weapons, upgrades, collector's items, etc. Runes would still be sold to traders, and crafting materials likewise (although I would put in a bulk version for the auction house, that way people could buy from the trader for only a few, and the auction house for a whole lot).

There are many ways to solve inflation in general, and some in particular have already been suggested for the Auction House. I think this would actually be a relatively small contributer to inflation, and in general I'm hopeful that ArenaNet is paying attention and will be able to deal with the apparent inflation in the game. (Runes have already come down a great deal, to the pleasure of most and indignation of others.)

Luna Thirteen Oh, good point about the inflation. When I wrote up this AH system, it was mainly to a) rid of the annoying trade spam b) make trading easier and c) everyone would have a general idea of how much items go for (no more 'I'll sell it to you for 20k', 'but someone sold me another for only 3k!')

LouderthenSeth noted that the Devs would probably come up with something to help with inflation, but since they are constantly browsing our forums to see what we like/dislike/suggest, I'm sure we could come up with good suggestions to assist them, as well.

Seth Oriath - yeah, a limit to the items. I should have mentioned that, but I had it in my head already. So, if a Runes Category is unavailable, then Runes won't be accepted by the Auctioneer. A simple "The auctioneer refuses to auction this item." message will do, when someone attempts to place it up for sale.

Definitely include bulk stacks for crafting materials - maybe stacks of 50, or stacks of 100.

Not to knock your idea because I think its great.

But personally, if I want to sell a white sword that has 7-10 damage on it, I'll just save my time and sell it to a merchant. Because what is the absolute highest that sword will auction for? 20 GP max?

Or even better, put all things on auction. Each item will have a certain value assigned to it (usually the value that merchants give out). And if your item doesn't sell, it automatically gets sold back to a merchant at a merchant's value, if you so wish (you will have the option to pick this before its placed up for auction).

This way, you could still maximize the amount of GP you take in for better items/runes/materials etc, but for the lousy items that no one wants? They go right back into the money sink.

Of course, this is depending on if most people are like me, who pick up everything no matter what it is and sell it to players or merchants. GP is GP

Well I'm hoping very few people will try to auction off junky items, but ya never know. Sometimes, especially in the earlier game, the "whimpy" items may actually be much better than what they're currently using, so shelling 20 gold for a 7-10 damage sword wouldn't be too bad. I like the idea of selling unbought items to a merchant, but please no set value. Set value means runes are gonna be going for 100 gold and good weapons like 200-300 max.

Wow good idea! I like the fact that you actually thought it out. Some people post their ideas with no details at all or not enough details...*cough*king of fools*cough*

Personally, I would love to see that 7-10 damage white sword in the Auction House. Not every character can use the max damage due to its requirements (such as lower level characters). If I'm a level 8 character, and I can't find that 'perfect for right now' weapon as a drop, I'll want to buy one from someone. However, with the current system, my "WTB cheap plain weapon" will get lost between all the "MAX DAMAGE RARE GOLD OMG CRAZY COOL SUPER AWESOME MUST HAVE WEAPON!!!!" And sometimes, even at level 20, you might just want some 'whimpy' cheap bow with low requirements & decent damage for pulling, but can't find one you like.

drowningfish999, I agree - I'd hate to see set values. The Auction House prices should fluctuate to represent what the in-game economy is like: higher prices if the demand is high and supply is low, lower prices if demand is low and supply is high. Generally, items shouldn't fluctuate too much. Wood planks for example will probably never go lower than 6 gold, or higher than 15 gold per.

And zman_acura, thanks.

Posted this on www.city-of-atlantis.net (GW section) before reading these ideas, similar idea:

"The other idea i had was that for player to player trading system you could set up a system where when you want to sell something you right click it (or something) (this also means that the exact stats will be displayed when a buyer looks at it), then say how much you want for it or whether you want to auction it (like ebay) and it gets advertised (kind of like putting it in the local paper).

Then when you want to buy something you open up the "buy menu" and you fill in the details of the item you are looking for and it searchs and displays all the items that fit the requirements of what you want and all the prices, you can then instantly whisper the seller with your offer or leave a msg if they are offline, when they come back online the offers are waiting and the seller can then accept the best offer and it is instantly sent to the buyer (if they have no room it is held and the buyer is told they have 1 item waiting and tomake space in their storage or you could even have a postal system so that you can send items to players who arent online).

The reason i suggest this is that it will allow all the prices to be seen and it will also allow you when you want to sell something to see how much you should sell it for. It will also make it a hell of a lot easier to buy things. You could also say if you wanted to search foreign language servers as well so it would open up far more areas. It would also save a hell of a lot of time when you want to buy something and stop spamming of the trade channel. obviously you would keep the private walk up to someone and trade function as you may want to give something to a friend."

Maybe add a listing price of either 10g or like someone said, the person gets the price they would get from the merchant (which would set the minimum price) and they loose the item or they can purchase insurance (maybe 20% of the mercahnt price) so that if it doesnt sell then they get it back

As for money sinks:

"My idea (that i think i told fion about) was either a slot machine type game or a card game against the computer (maybe even PvP for cash) where you pay a certain amount of money to play and have the opportunity of winning wicked stuff like superior runes, 5:1 vampiric hilts/strings, gold weapons, dye etc (possibly make the game based purely on luck so that know one can hack it/be wicked at it). You could also have three different levels of the game that cost different amounts of money (so newbs can afford to play and get decent stuff for the levels they are at) and the more money you spend the better the prizes that are available."

If the gambling game is fun then people will play.

Apologies for any grammtical/spelling errors as I wrote this in a rush and still havent had time to fix it.

a suggestion i have is theirs a limit of a certain amount of items a player can place to sell at a time and also the NPC charges a small fee for the service

just my opinion

Nope, I do not agree with this viewpoint.. if ANet adopt JoDiamonds' model (where the seller receives merchant selling price immediately, and bidded price when auction is closed, or no more when it failed to sell) this would not occur.

Also realise that no "new money" is created in this system, under the auction model gold is transferred from one player to the next.

Let's just face it, using merchants as "gold sinks" are a bad idea :P

Definitely a good idea. Perhaps a Listing Fee of xx amount of gold, paid at the time you place the item on auction, and non-refundable. And then a limit on how many items can be placed is a good idea, too. What sounds reasonable? 5? 10?

Bloody great idea Galatea, hope something like it gets implemented eventually!

jsmp01: The Anet guys have already done their best to shut down gambling that was going on in the game, so I highly doubt they'd throw in a developed system for it.