Detailed Proposal for an Auction House System

After playing FFXI for a long time, I'm really not sure how any MMO can live without an auction house. I love the idea! It makes buying/selling items much easier.

I play on 56k. I will admit I've played MMO's for many years now (all on dialup) so I've adjusted to this. In FFXI the auction house was a highest bid wins system. I had no noticeable lag. Instead of loading every item for sale all at once they saved on bandwidth by organizing every item into specified catagories. When you first go to the auction house you get the very general Category screen and then filter down to what you want. For example if I want to buy a Fiery Dragon Sword I would choose options like Weapons >>> Swords >>> Magical. So the only info I have to request would be swords for sale. Saves me a little time since it is organized, saves A.Net servers a lot of bandwidth not having to spam all the unnecessary info to my computer.

I totally agree with this. Some players will still use the AH as an extra (5? 10?) storage slots no matter what. Putting a limit to the amount of items saleable at one time will slow this down quite a bit. Charging a nominal fee to place items on auction will further slow this. The balance must be this, however: how much is nominal? I think charging 10% of the selling price may be a bit high. Sure I'll sell my ecto for 10k, but am I willing to accept only 9k for a 10k item? I'd rather spam WTS for an hour. Likewise, charging a set fee (say 10 gold to sell single items, 25 gold to sell stacks) seems a little unfair. I won't pay 10 gold to sell one wood plank for 10 gold. Perhaps a smaller percentage (maybe 2%-5% of your asking price, min 1g) is the way to go.

Well, the AH in FFXI did not get rid of the need for traders. Of course, the NPC vendors in FFXI sold many, many more items than the traders of GW. The Auction House actually coexists with the traders. Here's what I mean. I want to buy a black dye. I see the trader is currently selling it for 9k. I check the auction and notice they are only 6k. I will obviously buy it from the auction. Later I need another black dye. This time the trader is still at 9k but the auction is up to 10. I'm buying from the trader this time. Most people will see the obvious distinction and adjust their prices accordingly. Also, you'll have many folks that will "play the market" so to say. If I can buy a black dye from the AH for 6K and sell it to the trader for 7k, I'm buying out all the dyes I can for 6k to make a profit. This will cause the trader to purchase dyes for less and eventually drop prices at the trader slightly. Also, the less expensive dyes will sell out at the auction and eventually prices will rise again. There will still be price fluctuation with an auction house in place, but it is generally more stable.

This is where A.Net would have to do a little coding. For the screen where you can see the last ten winning bids, also put who sold the item and who purchased it. Obviously, on the "Buy" screen don't show who has listed items or how much they are asking. Allow players to bid what they think is reasonable. But please include the buyer/seller names in the winning bid area. Anyone can see that PlayerA in SuperRichGuild just purchased 10 black dyes for 50k each from PlayerB, also in SRG. Hmm... that seems a little fishy as they were selling for 10k just yesterday. S/he is obviously price gouging and those bids cannot be used for an example. On the flip side if 10 different buyers won bids from 10 different sellers, you can rest assured they are probably the current selling point. This makes it much more difficult for a single player to mess up the auction house.


Back to the original post of a worldwide auction vs. a city based auction. There are more pros and cons to each. Worldwide would probably be best for GW. Simply put, except for rare drops, all the zones contain the same item sets. I'll repeat that because I think it is important. All zones contain the same basic item sets. I understand it is much easier for me to get a nice gold item in the Desert than it is outside of Ascalon. I'll never see ecto/shards if I don't run around in FoW/UW. However, I am not speaking of those items. They are rare drops and specified drops respectively. What I'm talking about are things like crafting materials. From Ascalon to Crystal Desert and even on the Fire Islands: if it salvages into wood planks here, it salvages into wood planks there. While Shiverpeaks is the only place to loot Shiverpeak Armor, all the different armors salvage into the same crafting materials. The major difference is that higher level zones drop loot which salvages into more crafting materials per salvage. If it's all the same type of item all over the world, why shouldn't it be sold all over the world? Drok armor costs more to craft than Ascalon armor, but materials are more readily available in Drok. Prices should even out anyway. Also the traders are currently worldwide (both in game and in real life), therefore it would probably be easier to code a worldwide auction.


I completely agree we could use an auction system, and the sooner the better. It will cut down on trader spam and will eventually set up a more stable economy.

I've played EVE Online and I like their auction system. When I play GW I find all kinds of Uber leet items, but I can never sell them because I have to spend 5 hours in LA to find a buyer. So I end up selling at the trader for far less than what it's worth.

I think they should install the Auction system, but keep the trade channel also. You'll always have someone yelling NEED ONE SILK. Auctioning one silk would be annoying. Think of the Auction system like Sam's Club and the trade channel like Wal-mart.

good point, heh Walmart and Sam's club

Ever since reading this topic the first time I've thought that this might be a good idea but damn, now I wholeheartedly /sign this. I just got my first farmworthy character to a point where I can actually solo and get some decent items. So I'm trying to sell them at Ascalon City. Simple enough ad if you ask me:

"WTS poisoner's/ebon bowstrings, icy/fiery hammer hafts, 14-21 fellblade"

The whispers I got:

"what are the blade stats?" - after I reply, the person starts swearing

"what bow strings you got??" (x2, different guys) - after I reply, the other says nothing and the other "nevermind".

"show me your bow and those strings"- This is when I got to actually trading. But the offer was crappy and i was called "patronizing" for suggesting that the price wasn't quite right.

The best thing to do is probably stash everything and wait for a solution, WTS-chanting seems like a complete waste of time.

Really REAlly REALLY detailed... I likie... very very likie... =D lets just hope.. A.net puts it up.. and lets hope you get a job working for A.net.. XD =P

Star Wars Galaxies had the best auction/trading system. You had two ways you could do it, either purchase some NPC's for your house, different NPC's could be setup to sell different type items or put up to 25 items in the global auction machines. You didn't have to be online to sell any items and you could either have a set price or set it up like an ebay auction. Perfect system and I play on dialup also and had no problems with lag.

When you wanted to buy something globally then you just clicked on the type of item you were looking for and then all those would show up in page lists and you page through them looking for the best price and then purchase it then and there.

The other system auction independent houses you had to travel to that house to buy the item, for me this wasn't very popular, took too much time locating the dam house because of all the houses that there were. So really an auction machine is the best means and way for trading in the quickest amount of time.

Of course there were still the spam bots, people selling Doc buffs and stuff like that. But, I was very happy with just the auction machines. Only rarely did I ever use someones NPC house and that was for leet weapons/armor only.

Once again though the greatest thing about it was the ability to sell your items whether online or offline. Having to stand in some boxed in area just won't do, that's just as boring as hawking the items as they are now.

/signed. I loved WoW's auction house system except for the fact that each auction house was local.

I definitly agree with your post,Galatea. they should put a auction house in the game because I dont think people really like beggin in lions arch for a half an hour about a black dye. This auction house would allow people to put a item up and not having to worry about asking a thousand people to buy it.they should also make the auction house a map warpable place, so at certain days,a GW designer could go to a "stage" of some sort and post special news and new items that will go up for bid.I like your idea!

/signed

/signed

I like part of your ideas but from what I have seen especially in SWG (Star Wars Galaxies).

I would limit each account to 5 auctions. Keeping a limit helps on computer storage space, and make it so that someone does not dump everything.

A minimal fee to list (there are lots of newbies), with a % taken by the auction house (Similar to Ebay).

And have auctions and buy it now types of things so that higher priced items can go for what they are worth.

/signed

/signed

Although i think when you put an item for auction, it stays with you but is "greyed out".

That way, you cant delete it, salvage it, etc, but it still remains in your inventory/vault space. That way, IF the item didn't sell, it will be un-greyed. This is in case someone puts up 5 items for auctions and then in the course of the auction, gets 5 more items. What if those 5 items didn't sell? Then you wouldnt have any space to take them back.

/signed

An auction house would also have the lovely side effect of making towns more social/interesting, because they wouldn't be swamped with WTSWTB spam.

On the topic of individual auction houses for cities:
If, say, you could only put up 3-5 items per auction house, then people with a lot of items for sale would be encouraged to spread them out, and put (for instance) the lowbie items at Ascalon, and the more expensive stuff at Droknar's. It could possibly give the cities a bit more of their own value, and encourage people to visit different ones. I think that's about the only interesting activity the Henge of Denravi will ever see (except for the titan quest).

An extra touch would be having an NPC per item category, ala Rune Auctioneer, Dye Auctioneer, Axe Auctioneer, Materials Auctioneer.

hi all



i think auction house is great idea as final fantasy did but still not enough as i see.

i have another 2 ways to sell and buy items easily and without even waste hours to find a single buyer he even will not buy only giving u advices about ur prices for himself only.

http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...012#post699012

auction will let prices too expansive for new player. for that its only for items which are very rare. for example for items that = 350g if u want to sell it to the merchant.

/signed

/signed

I think this is a good idea. The items that you are trying to auction should still take up inventory space, but be unusable.

__________________________________________________ _______________

How about these ideas:

- I think that the mechanics of an auction house would make its implementation unnecessarily complicated.

- I think that you should be able to put items up for sale and Guild Wars should automatically categorize them for you, to cut down on mis-categorized items for people who are searching.

- I think that you should be able to field offers on the item instead of setting a price for it and setting a bid time for it. You should be able to have a log of, say, ten bids on an item with an option to accept or reject them.
[cuts down on memory and bandwidth usage]
[cuts down on auction spam, since you will still have to manage your auctions]

- I think that when someone makes an offer on your item, then their money would be taken from their account and held in reserve until you accept their offer or reject it.
[prevents people from making fake offers]
[prevents people from spamming offers]

- I think that users should only be able to make ONE offer on an item
[prevents rich people from filling up a queue]

- I think that if there is a bid queue, then items with a full queue should disappear from the auction list, helping to keep the interface clean.

^ Personally, though I may be wrong, I think that these ideas make the system easier to implement and keep the economy more fluid and open to opportunism. However, I don't necessarily think that they are better than the original ideas, just some suggestions along the way.

I agree with auction house. There just got to be a better way than spamming LA for 5 hours to sell something. The other day I was "playing", which meant spam for 3 hours WTS and then killing more stuff. It got me thinking about the purpose of why am I playing this game if I spend half the time spamming LA, Drok's, etc with WTS.

A-net please fix the trading system so I can actually play the game!

If we have limited storage so that we have to make decisions, then please give us the trading system to go with that limit!

What about the balancing of the game? Quite a few people will end up with awesome weapons and runes at the start of the game if they can get enough money?

I have a lot of gold items that I can't sell because no one around wants them or can afford them.
I am in Australia and to be up at the times when the servers are the busiest means being up from 1am to 9am.
Most people can't really stay awake at that time just trying to sell.

That aside I think an AH is desperately needed but local auction houeses would be better. If some one gets a runner to Lions Arch thats okay. Let them buy. The local trade houses just maintain the balancing I think.

/signed ....

the pros outweighs the cons greatly

/signed bit late i know but hey a good idea deserves mention.

My quick version in MS Paint.



Buying
When you request quote, It'd show how much the item with the closest stats was sold for last. You also have categories to search under.

Selling
You would request quote under the category of your item with the closest stats to it, and then base your min and max bids off of it on the item you wish to sell.

Procuring Gold
When ever you make a sale a notice pops up saying the gold has been deposited in your storage. (Message can be disabled) If your gold is at max in storage a notice pops up, saying that your gold is at max and you can go to the Auction House; in which there will be a special option stating "Obtain Gold". (Message cannot be disabled) For every 24 hours it takes for you to obtain your gold, it reduces by 5%. (Like a holding fee)


Over all, I loved the FFXI Auction House. I'd like to see it recreated in GW.

What about you can only Auction items in your Storage? This would prevent auction abuse and at the same time wouldnt make AH act as a 2nd storage spot.

Well, I'd be happy with any auction house with a global stock. But ANET will probably keep the traders and make trader items unsellable over the auction system to ease their server load.

/signed

Ah, a very good aution house idea, im up for anything that will eliminate the clutterness of the current buying/selling system.

/signed

i know we gettin an auction house comming factions but ill sign anyway
hope there's a way 2 auction 100k+ though

/signed

Auction house should have be included at at launch.
I rather see player housing where you got to setup a store and there be broker fees to get the item

The AH in FFXI was very good. I would also like to see GW have something remotly close to as good as it was.

Great idea--I'm for the single institution.

/signed

Is this currently being worked on by ANet and is there any idea when it would be ready?

/signed

Great idea but I think it will make several changes on GW economy. :/

/signed anyway ^^

/sign

Devs, please play WoW. You'll understand why the Auction House is a neccesity.

yes. i would love to see this!!

Why haven't they added this yet? :P It's been nearly a year!

/signed , gg scammers

the person who started this thread almost 1 year ago.. sure was smart !

I would LOVE to see a way of newer players being introduced to the economy this way. For now its farmers, old players (who had means to get rich very easily when the game started), or getting lucky with rare drop... It would be nice to be able to play normally and not need to farm to enjoy the economy of guild wars

Great idea!
/signed

/signed, for this being those most agreed/signed concept feature i've seen yet on this forum, i can't believe Anet hasn't added it in yet. They say they want to make their fans happy. Why don't they do something about it already.

/signed.

Anet hurry up already.

/signed.


So how many /signeds were they ?

/signed.


So how many /signeds were they ?

Any word at all from Anet in regard to the Auction house?
What are their thoughts about the concept let alone the wonderful work put into this thread to explain it?