Detailed Proposal for an Auction House System

Billiard can tell me he's the next best thing since Sliced Bread. Doesn't mean I'll believe him just because he's leader of some big flashy guild and a Guru Mod (No offence to Billiard, of course).

I reserve my right to laugh at everyone when GW2 comes out and ANet still has no plans for an Auction House.

However, if Billiard does speak truth, then you can 1-up me and tell me I was very mistaken.

on a different forum me and many other people suggested it already on 01-17-2005... so already in january that suggestion along with many others was around.

here a link to that thread... might be interesting for some to browse through that very old list.

by the way: MANY of the things suggested there are actually implemented by now. so, the ppl at anet DO read suggestions and they really listen to us.
but they have a very strange way to set their priorities

It makes me sad that no auction house is planned or being worked on for Guild Wars.

Yes, being leader of XoO is a lot more impressive to me that in would be to you, I won't bring that up if I link to that post again unless someone asks me why I trust him. Being a guru mod, it shows that the guru admins trust him at least, especially since they chose him to represent them at the Developer Roundtable. But regardless of what that makes you think of him, it doesn't change the fact that ANET hasn't said anything to contradict him yet.

As for who that James person is. I'll admit this is all from Billiards posts in this thread, but again I haven't seen anything contradicting him here.
So James seems to be one of the higher ups among the developers, and they are the ones who will be actually coding the auction house. Now while he might of been talking about coding it for GW2, however it seems likely that the interfaces between the code modules in GW and GW2 will be similar enough in some areas that they can reuse parts of the GW codes with only minor tweaks. For instance the trader NPC's code might only need changes in the items they handle, and changes to accommodate a change to the limit of gold you can carry (if that limit is being changed). So this means its looking likely that the auction house they are coding might be for both games.

Or... ANet might not really care what he says.

Example: If I was really busy making an Physics study guide for all of my friends and one of them told everyone else "zomg hes working on Math das so cool", I wouldn't really care. I'd finish my Physics study guide, hand it out to all my friends, and probably turn to the next best thing at hand. At no point did I work on Math. That's just something one of my friends decided to say.

It's understandable you might admire this dude for being the leader of some guild, but I find it odd that you'd trust his word over Gaile Gray's words concerning an Auction House.

No disrespect towards you, however.

What makes me sad is people have been asking for this for OVER 2 YEARS and in that time ANET couldn't do anything to make the situation better. Other games before GW came out had auction houses, yet anet couldn't be bothered to find some way add this little feature.



If this isn't one of the features in GW2, I hope ANET will understand the rage they will be recieving. I wouldn't want the fans to getr angry over something like this, but I could understand the fusteration they will have if we have to put up with another 3-4 years of no auction house.

Okay, i've been pretty quiet about my view on this for awhile... but i'm truly fed up at this point. Developers, if your not going to add an Auction System like this (or any other significant improvements) then give us a detailed reason WHY. Now i've supported Anet for a long time, and I understand almost everything they do when it comes to updates but, developing and releasing hardmode before fixing this existing problem was a poor choice.

Going to go off topic here for a minute. Now I like hardmode, I do (somewhat). But here's the issue. Giving us Hardmode doesn't make it excuseable for not giving us the new 6 month content we have come to expect. Yes hard mode is free, but i'm more then willing to spend my $50 on something NEW. Now I'm going to have to wait until around september for something truly new and interesting? For your casual players thats fine with them I'm sure, but for those of us who play constantly we are losing interest fast. The biggest reason why the veterans of guild wars left was because they played it out. Now you expect people to continue playing while it takes you even longer to give us new things to do? Hard mode was a dissapointment to me for the following reasons.

*The AI wasn't really improved they just cut corners by bumping stats and levels. So the funfactor hasn't been increased it in fact is deterring to play.
*Hardmode isn't a replacement for new content.
*Most importantly, Hardmode has made almost everything unsellable.

Now I can understand that Anet wanted to change the economy by making everything less expensive so there wasn't so much gold floating around. But what they've done in return is made everything so easy to obtain that even selling things at rediculously cheap prices doesn't get it out of your inventory. Trust me i've tried. I have a clearance account post on perfect Inscriptions and Mods in the trade forums and my prices are very reasonable yet nothings moving. I'd like to have crafting material traders for my Guild Hall but at 100k per NPC that's totally rediculous.

So getting back on track here. We NEED some way of getting rid of our belongings at a reasonable rate and the current system is not working anymore. We NEED this Auction House more then ever.

So /Signed. Please do something very soon Arenanet.

/not signed

If you whining noobs cant even sell a bit of junk in kamadan and learn how to read spam for hours on end instead of playing the game then tough luck.Spamming w.t.s for hours to make a tiny bit of gold is what makes the game so intresting and challengin,stop with the QQ./sarcasm off

/signed

For a million obvious reasons.I wont be holding my breath tho,it seems anet is slowly shutting down GW1 bit by bit (broken pvp due to skill balancing and now destroying the ingame economy).However if they do pull the rabbit out of the hat ill be the first to eat humble pie and say gg.

Yes, please do. It shouldn't take a lot of time to write up a concise explanation. At least we'd have one.

I also don't understand how some features like hard mode were put ahead of something so critical as a better trading system .

Well, here is the reason Gaile gave as to why they might not be saying anything until its near completion:

See this thread

You're missing the point. The question we're asking is why it hasn't been done already and why put - in some ppl point of view - less critical/needed/important features ingame instead of an auction house or other significant improvement to trade.

I'm not worried here about they not saying what they're going to do, I understand their reasons. This is about a huge silence about the reasons why we never had any real trade improvements in 2 years.

We def. need an AuctionHouse, and this is a very nice detailed description of how it should be IMO.
The latest farming nerf encourages ppl to sell their few, but more valuable golds, instead of just going for merchant food. So this is def. needed seeing as selling golds/greens is hard as hell atm.

def signed.

Wow, this thread is still up? Even though Anet has already said that they won't put an auction house in GW1, and MIGHT put it in GW2, Im still going to...

/sign

i would also like to know WHY there were no trade improvements for such a long time.

the thread to which i linked earlier contained the suggestion of a trade chat as a temporary solution.
adding the trade chat was a nice but tiny step in the right direction, but how long since that was added?

and the search tab might have helped too, but it didn't because it doesn't offer enough room for a detailed description of what you sell. and it doesn't allow you to put multiple sale offers.

the auction house suggested in this thread would be a very nice and advanced solution. but if you (ANet) can't come up with one, then at least give us more of those tiny steps like the trade chat was. allowing more characters for search tab messages would be a start, not a solution, but a start.

couldnt help but to Lol...ahh seriously though...will anything EVER be done?

/signed (for what its worth)

A man can dream...my dreams are of auction houses, where be they?

/signed

Anything's better than the current system!

Trade improvements would indeed rock.

Exactly what I wanted to say...

/sign

/signed, and the pvp community says they aren't listened to. LOL

/sign

An auction house is perhaps the most useful tool for successful trade in an MMO environment -- it's efficient, it's fast, and best of all, it's the least painful. You don't have to engage in long negotiations with the seller/buyer for a price. Instead, simple demand drives the prices. People who are willing to pay a higher price for an item will.

It's fair to everyone, and efficient. I can't possibly see why they never thought of it in the first place, and will only possibly include it in GW2.

/SIGN x1,000

We SO need this, I can barely read my own Trade Channel submission due to the sheer volume of things being sold !! An auction house would a saviour to in-game trading, something Anet is trying to encourage, well.......they know what to do

I hereby submit this to the appeals court of a-net, or whoever. I feel that the introduction of an auction house would be a serious boost to the economy of guild wars. It will help new farmers and veteran farmers, It will help new players, and it will help casual players, This is one of the most requested updates to the guild wars game as a whole, yet it fails to be implemented. We have been told that there were no plans to include an auction house in GW1, but just look at this thread, and countless others on this topic, this is something that the community wants, as a whole, this is something that we are all pretty much in agreement about. How can that not be a good thing?

of course /signx1000000

we all KNOW this is needed in game


but lets be realistic here, been nearly 2 years since the OP, and nothings happened....

Doesnt mean we should give up though, A-net might see that as a sign that there is no interest in an auction house anymore, we need to stay on them about it, as a community.

?sign for sure

would have agreed 2 years ago and will still agree years in the future.
please do something about ability to sell stuff in game - this is an excellent starting point IMO

Oh wow, I wasn't sure about this idea because I thought it'd be even more spam, but I really like this setup.

Excellent work on the 'shopping, and /signed. It'd be much better than the constant WTS/WTB/WTT we see now, and I personally would love it and use it often. I just don't like to compete with everyone else in the trade channel when all I have are a few cheap mods and holiday items.

I think the idea of an "in-game" auction sounds great.

It would cut down on seller's/buyer's spam across the chat board.

I also like the idea of not chasing down a player that may never log on again.

The item being sold would have to have some kind of 'electronic hold' put on it so you couldn't sell it outside of the auction without a penalty. I've bid on a couple items in the GWGuru auction house that were sold before I could ever meet up with the owner by way of side, in-game sales.

Maybe inside the auction house there could be a training room to check out weapons you are thinking of buying. You would only have access to them in that location and would disappear from your character when you leave.

The usual solution to this is that when an item is put up for auction, the seller is unable to do anything with that item unless the auction is closed. However if another player has bid on the item, then closing the auction will cause the transaction to happen instantly. The buyers will also have some of his gold locked away until either he gets outbid or the auction ends, just to ensure he is able to pay the bid he made.

thread necromancy can be so much satisfaction...

did i sign this? i guess i did... but ... i have to do it again!

/signed

Yes! This is really needed

Signed

/signed, good idea and well put together.

this was posted in 2005, and still no auction house.
LAAAAMMMMEEEEE

Yeah, its not going to happen, but...

/Signed...

/signed.
/SIGNED.

DAMMIT, A.NET! Are you paying attention?

have I signed this before? hmmmmm maybe.

Is this thread ancient? yeppers.

is it still the BEST MOTHER F*CKING IDEA ON THIS ENTIRE FORUM!?!?!

Hell yes.
/signed

Auctions only increase prices.
AFK shops it's the way to go.

And how did you come to this conclusion ?

Easy.

Auction:
- 1 character offers one item. Many see it. The one that pays MORE gets it.

Shop:
- MANY characters offer different items. Some see them. For the items that are alike or the same, the one charging less gets it sold sooner.

With auctions the 'ones that pay more' decide prices.
With Shops the 'ones that charges less' decide prices.

So shops decrease prices, and auctions increase them.

/signed


It is quite boring to sit around and try and sell something. Even a couple of extra NPC's That work like the rune trader only for weapons and upgrades would help. A place if you need a icy bow string you could pick one up if it was in stock.