Re-design Auction House

I believe trading to be the most important aspect of this game. It brings all player activities together making them all possible. It needs to be simple it needs to give buyers and sellers the best deal and of course it needs to generate income for MA to run and develop the game.

I was surprised how little functionality there is on the AH and how badly (imo) it has been designed, although you can get some good information out it, i think it could be greatly improved and increasing the number of transactions.

Key things I think need to be addressed:

Buy orders - If I sell to an order I would like to sell to an order, at the rate they are offering, not make a sell and align it as close as possible with a buy order for an instant sale. This will get sellers value for money so encourage them to use orders more and hopefully will encourage more orders to be set up if they get filled quicker. It will also help them get slightly better MU returns from loot, so they will have more money to spend.

Sell orders - In the same way Buy orders work, players should have the option to put stacks up for sale, and players can buy from these in the amounts they want and the rate offered. This will make it greatly easier to sell stackables, with less risk for the seller. Huge benefit for buyers as they can get the amounts they need. I think this will really encourage trade.

Fees - To support the above, but as general principles I think the following presents fairness for users of the AH.

• Remove minimum fee of 0.5 PED (This just means the people who need money the most, people who can't cashflow large stacks have to TT items.)
• Fee's should be 1% of the transaction up to a maximum of 10ped's, with no increase for markup. (The fee is for the use of the AH system and should not be a barrier to trade.)
• Order fees I think should just be 1% up to a maximum of 10 ped's on sale for buying and selling rather than 1 ped a day.
• For non orders I think fees should be refunded if the item doesn't sell.

Add a new column in the UI. Price per Unit - This would just make life so much more simple when you sort on it.

Would this have a big impact of MA's revenue is the big question, which would need to be answered. I believe increase the number of transactions with smaller fees should keep it the same.

I would love to see orders for every item in game (unless they are redundant ofc) even if only a little mark up, so that no items that are needed by players are destroyed in the TT.

Along with the new player experience/retention I believe this is the top priority to fix.

I'm sure some people will have some opinions on this, hopefully some good ideas to. The objective is to improve the wealth of players and MA while improving the supply of items.

May the Hoff be with you all.

Starbuckx said:

Buy orders - If I sell to an order I would like to sell to an order, at the rate they are offering, not make a sell and align it as close as possible with a buy order for an instant sale. This will get sellers value for money so encourage them to use orders more and hopefully will encourage more orders to be set up if they get filled quicker. It will also help them get slightly better MU returns from loot, so they will have more money to spend.

Click to expand...

This would remove 90% of the drama about auctions. Some people put orders just hoping for other players mistakes. You know, people putting way too little MU on something by mistake and it being instantly bought by an order.

I know I know, completely legal bla bla bla. Still a very lame thing to do, to take advantage of other people mistakes.

I hope they change some aspects of the auction house sooner or later.

Auction does need a redo.

However it works, do not change what works.

I'd rather they focus on other elements personally.

Starbuckx said:

Fees - To support the above, but as general principles I think the following presents fairness for users of the AH.

• Remove minimum fee of 0.5 PED (This just means the people who need money the most, people who can't cashflow large stacks have to TT items.)

Click to expand...

I was thinking about the fees yesterday, and while I don't agree with your full proposal, I do think fees need to be adapted to enable low-value transactions as well.
As things are now, for some items, the auction is useless. Think starter guns. Or other items with a low value. Or low quantity stackables.

If I have finally gained 20 pec worth of oil (or whatever), the auction is useless for me, as the minimum fee is higher than the MU I may expect to gain.

It would be better if the fee were composed of:
1) The current MU based fee
2) A startup fee, which is tiered. Or maybe a small percentage of the tt. Don't know which figure would be best, but it should be extremely low for very low items (maybe even zero) and should never exceed the current base fee.

The idea here is not to reduce income for MA, nor to increase the cost of the auction, but to make the auction accessible for ALL transactions, which would benefit us all, but newer players the most.

Of course, it should then also be possible to set buyout in decimals. So don't force us to put 0,10 PEC at a 1 PED minumum buyout, or 1,05 at 2 PED BU. But make it possible for us to set 1,05 in the auction with 1,23 buyout.

Or maybe give us the option to not set the buyout in PED, but in MU for objects of which the MU is given in %

About auction fees:

There is a disparity for all of the +1 and +2 items... the auction fee is .50 which consumes a substantial percentage of the total markup of the item. BUT it also creates person-to-person trade opportunities that would evaporate with a lower auction fee.

For crafted (L) items, auction fees reinforce the need for shops

For medium and higher value unlimited items, something that I focus on with my trading, over roughly the last year, i have spent more than 16,000 PED on auction fees. 16K ped is a lot of money but my feelings on those auction fees is that they are 100% worth it.

Many of you will remember the days of the 1 ped auction fee. This created a lot of problems and was a significant contributing factor to the hyperinflation that we saw in EU. This is because it was next to free to list items on auction and as a result it was too easy to simply buy something on auction for whatever price, then turn around and list again for a higher price... it didnt matter how many times the item needed to be relisted because the auction fees were only 1 ped per week. This resulted in everyone buying and then reselling to eachother over and over again, each time for a higher price.

Overall I think the auction fee structure is balanced pretty well atm, except for the lowest possible value transactions, but there are other things with the auction that need to be overhauled.

I love it when a newbie comes in and starts pronouncing that major game changes to core mechanics need to be done.

The auction house is fine.

Actually, if I had it my way I'd get rid of the auction house entirely. Force the sales out on the street, or in the shops where they belong. The auctioneer takes sales opportunities away from folks that invest in shops, and sends the money right back into MA's pocket, bypassing the player economy.

Magyar_Republic said:

I love it when a newbie comes in and starts pronouncing that major game changes to core mechanics need to be done.

The auction house is fine.

Actually, if I had it my way I'd get rid of the auction house entirely. Force the sales out on the street, or in the shops where they belong. The auctioneer takes sales opportunities away from folks that invest in shops, and sends the money right back into MA's pocket, bypassing the player economy.

Click to expand...

Getting rid of the auctions would be disastrous to the game.

YES...

I would like to see this or similar change to auction house. Curently it is coutner-intuitive and has many limitations.

Removing minimum fee + making fee based i.e. as static 5% of markup (so i.e. 100ped stack sold at 110% would yeld 0.50ped fee). Curently fee is 0.50 + 5% scaling to 0% at 75peds max fee so MA would rather gain more on this change.

Normal auction house that supports free market economy does not force players to buy whole stacks at designed markup but actually allows to buy prefered stacks at lowest BO as part of stack. This would nearly eliminate market history manipulation and would make the market actually "free" and based only on supply/demand.

Curent AH with artifical prices and how system works with +1ped increments i see only in this game and it is VERY inconvinient.

Falagor

• For non orders I think fees should be refunded if the item doesn't sell.

Click to expand...

That would be a bad idea in my opinion. When I started playing the auction was free to use. A good thing, you might think. But in reality it lead to a metric ton of items for resale - the same item, if not sold, would just be put up there again and again.

You can argue for and against it in terms of any morale issues with reselling items that way. What's worse is the spam it creates. Back when a fee was first introduced the general economy of Calypso was small compared to today, yet still there was spam. Even if the economy of today is not as larges as it was four years ago, it is still a whole lot bigger than in 2003. The spam would be insane.

I'm all for no fixed starting fee (just a %), but not no fee.

Magyar_Republic said:

I love it when a newbie comes in and starts pronouncing that major game changes to core mechanics need to be done.

The auction house is fine.

Actually, if I had it my way I'd get rid of the auction house entirely. Force the sales out on the street, or in the shops where they belong. The auctioneer takes sales opportunities away from folks that invest in shops, and sends the money right back into MA's pocket, bypassing the player economy.

Click to expand...

I am not sure what's worse. Newbies presenting radical ideas, or longer term players presenting radical ideas.

Remove minimum fee of 0.5 PED (This just means the people who need money the most, people who can't cashflow large stacks have to TT items.)
Fee's should be 1% of the transaction up to a maximum of 10ped's, with no increase for markup. (The fee is for the use of the AH system and should not be a barrier to trade.)
Order fees I think should just be 1% up to a maximum of 10 ped's on sale for buying and selling rather than 1 ped a day.
For non orders I think fees should be refunded if the item doesn't sell.

Click to expand...

Can you rewrite that without completely fkn over all shop owners?
We are taking a hit already with the new transport system..

Spawn said:

Can you rewrite that without completely fkn over all shop owners?
We are taking a hit already with the new transport system..

Click to expand...

I dont think the new transport system will hurt shop owners, i actually think it will help them long term.

Starbuckx said:

Buy orders - If I sell to an order I would like to sell to an order, at the rate they are offering, not make a sell and align it as close as possible with a buy order for an instant sale. This will get sellers value for money so encourage them to use orders more and hopefully will encourage more orders to be set up if they get filled quicker. It will also help them get slightly better MU returns from loot, so they will have more money to spend.

Click to expand...

Agree to this, would be nice to just select a order and sell to that, at exactly that price.
The need of placing a sale if you like to sell to an order is kind of stupid.

Starbuckx said:

Sell orders - In the same way Buy orders work, players should have the option to put stacks up for sale, and players can buy from these in the amounts they want and the rate offered. This will make it greatly easier to sell stackables, with less risk for the seller. Huge benefit for buyers as they can get the amounts they need. I think this will really encourage trade.

Click to expand...

No, definately NO at auction!
Smaller stacks sell at higher markups, I don´t want to lose this little advantage to sell small stacks above actual lowest MU available.

If MA would like to implement something like that, then please limit it to shops, not at auction!

Starbuckx said:

• Remove minimum fee of 0.5 PED (This just means the people who need money the most, people who can't cashflow large stacks have to TT items.)
• Fee's should be 1% of the transaction up to a maximum of 10ped's, with no increase for markup. (The fee is for the use of the AH system and should not be a barrier to trade.)
• Order fees I think should just be 1% up to a maximum of 10 ped's on sale for buying and selling rather than 1 ped a day.
• For non orders I think fees should be refunded if the item doesn't sell.

Click to expand...

Remove minimum fee, no never! Don´t make it easy for resellers to relist items again and again to manipulate the MU history at low cost. They should pay for it, every trade done to manipulate MU history.
It happens anyways, but at least its not for free!

Fee based of transaction value?
Sell 1k PED of stackable X at 101%
Sell price 1010 PED actual fee somewhere around 1 PED
Your idea, 1% of the volume thats a fee of 10.10 PED for that sale, oh shit, fee eaten up the 1% profit totally LOL
No thanks, better keep that actual fee we have!

Starbuckx said:

Add a new column in the UI. Price per Unit - This would just make life so much more simple when you sort on it.

Click to expand...

Well, that would be nice!

Never change a working system!
Orders got used and work fine, I sell regularly to orders. The fee´s are definately not to high!
I am good with the actual max. fee in place, only get close to it if you sell something really expencive.

For low value items, well people do PvP trades!
When I was new, I sold most lowish items at swamp camp, as auction fee would have been a waste, but the 10% markup collected in PvP trades was great (for pixi parts, just an example)

If an items sold at 1 PED at auction generates a MU of 1666%, well can´t care less, its still just only 1 PED

add 'planet of origin' column to allow sorting.

add 'planet' column and subsections to estates column so it's easier to tell which planet estate is on that's being bid on, etc.

Add subsection to estates for each deed type, i.e. aud, cld, compet, etc.

Add market history subsections to estates... so that apartments only affect apartment markup, shops only affect shop markup, etc.

Add sections to auction for each blueprint book that exists so you can focus only on the books you want, etc.

add a 'find other auctions by this seller' button

add a 'find seller's estates' option that lists the estates that seller owns in game.... along with this update the estates system so that the current holder of deed is listed as owner, not the last avatar that 'claimed' the place...

add option to 'add seller to friend list'

Add option to sell pet deeds... i.e. deeds should show up under misc items -> pets instead of just the pet name tags.

Along that line, also allow pets to be spawned on any planet, not just the planet they were tamed on... that restriction is really limiting things way too much. Similarly, allow us to spawn multiple pets like we were able to do pre vu-10.0

add shop directory to auction that lists all items in every shop, shopkeeper, or booth in game and has in shop price as the 'buyout' price with instant delivery transport fee option available so auction won't crush shops when the universal auction goes live next month.... add a 5 minute delay on shop price setting to shops so that shop owners don't have an accident and underprice themselves when setting up the shop... i.e. if shop directory is made to exist, make there be a delay of a few minutes so shop owner isn't hit with auction hawks sitting and waiting for them to make a mistake. Basically buying a shop would give you free item slots on auction that don't go away in addition to normal stuff that shops already do.

Team up with some real world 3d printing place, toy making place, etc. and start putting 'real world items' in that section of auction more... I know there's at least one 3d printer out here in the community that made some 3d prints of stuff like guns and mobs... Also that there was real world mob models given away by Mindark at one point in time many years ago... there's lots of potential there... utilize it.

HardWrath said:

About auction fees:

There is a disparity for all of the +1 and +2 items... the auction fee is .50 which consumes a substantial percentage of the total markup of the item. BUT it also creates person-to-person trade opportunities that would evaporate with a lower auction fee.

Click to expand...

Such person-to-person trades are a created opportunity for the resellers, but usually negative for the noob trying to get ped for his loot. Because such traders tend to over a lot less than auction MU. It is a one-sided deal, which -when it evaporates- I shall not shed a single tear about.

Some good thought's on this.

Firstly I'm sorry if some people are upset by these suggestions. I am a noob who's played for 6 weeks but this stuff has bugged me from day one so I though this section of the forum was the right place to share and discuss.
I think things need to be discussed by the player base, as without the players this game would not exist and I just feel a game like this should always evolve and improve to continue in perpetuity. When I retire (hopefully within 20 years) I'd like to play this game.

Note I'm already a big fan of this game and planning to be in it for the long term having already made some commitments wisely or not.
I just think it could be improved and I'm sorry to say some other ideas might come out, so hope this is ok.

Some very good points have been raised in this thread. I've posted some ideas, based on what I can see from my perspective. I don't play every aspect of the game...I just hunt so I can't see all the impacts and I shouldn't need to. If anything is considered for change in this game I would hope every aspect would be fully thought though to avoid a negative impact on players. As this is a real money game I feel this is vital.

A very good point was made about shops. Personally I hate shops, I've been to some but I will never go "shopping" in this game as its such a time consuming activity. Maybe I'm doing it wrong but it doesn't do it for me. I want to get what I need quick and get back to hunting.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and make another suggestion for AH change.

- List items from shops on the AH.

They are going to link other planets items (Although I'm a Calypso man), I'm surprised this wasn't done from the start. I just hope the fees don't block trade. But I'm expecting they will.

I don't see why they can't do this as well. As I understand it. Shop owners pay a lot of money to have a shop they should have a better way to sell it and I think the transaction fees for those sale should got to the shop owner. I just don't see the point of having a shop otherwise, unless its on an OLA Spawn point maybe or right next to the tp of somewhere like Twin Peaks.

PS Thanks to the person who gave me negative reputation points for this thread.

I posted this elsewhere but it apples to this thread as well

HardWrath said:

Well, for EU I believe that there should be a Shop Directory that lists all the items with prices for all shops in the whole planet. Shop owners should have the ability to opt out of that directory of course. There would also need to be some kind of minimal fee structure, paid by the shop owner. Probably what would make the most sense is an "opt-in" system where the shop owner pays a little bit to have their items listed in the directory.

With a directory of items in all shops on the planet, the most logical place to put that directory is in another tab at the auctioneer. It could show all the item info and give buyers an option to get a waypoint to that shop so they can go there and buy the item.

Click to expand...

Exactly - I'm not a shop owner, but if something like this were implemented it would make owning shops more attractive.

As a consumer I want to know what every item is in every shop, maybe there is one for me, but I'll never find it.

Some people might like the idea of window shopping. My girlfriend can spend hours doing it in real life, however in game, while people spend time running around shops they could be spending money, hunting, mining, crafting or whatever else it is they like to do in game.

HardWrath said:

I posted this elsewhere but it apples to this thread as well

Click to expand...

I think a shop directory would be a very bad idea. I mean, it would turn shops into a slower form of auction, where the shop owners have be benefit of a lower fee.

But besides the "fair or unfair" view of things, I am not sure it would benefit shop owners at all. Because with it in place you would suddenly take a major step towards a "perfect market" (in an economical sense), because information would suddenly be freely available. In short it would lead to increased competition and lower prices of wares.

Konve said:

I think a shop directory would be a very bad idea. I mean, it would turn shops into a slower form of auction, where the shop owners have be benefit of a lower fee.

Click to expand...

Wait... so that's not what shops are already?