Petition: Remove auction listing fees and remove the nonsensical limitation on not being able to choose stackable MU % freely

I've tried to sell items on the auction house maybe 2 times in my 18 months of playing (neither sold, even though the mu was very buyer-friendly ). Mostly my stuff just rots in the storage. Why is that?

selling things on the auction in this game is bullshit when you

a) can't even set the % on stackables the way you want (i.e. pec) and

b) two-part auction fees prevent the auction house from portraying the actual existence of goods in people's possession!

ergo

setting up auctions must be free, only actual sales must incur fees!

until that is done, playing the market in entropia is a joke compared to another game I've played where people could put everything they wanted in the auction at no cost which lead to an abundance of goods being available (good for buyers) and dynamic prices just waiting for you to invest into at the right moment (good for sellers). esp. during events when new items would come out and market prices would change by the minute that was some of the most fun I've had in my gaming life! (I'd like to see that concept wholesale in Entropia, as it would give massive newbie retention, but that is another matter for another time)

now some of you might go "but this is RME!" - but that doesn't change a thing. I've seen the concept work. giving players easy access to the resources they need to hunt, mine and craft speeds up the economy and benefits everybody. more auctions means more sales, so MA would very likely benefit too. I literally can't see anybody have a disadvantage by this change!

if you believe like me that market activity in Entropia is artificially crippled by the abovementioned things, sign this petition!

[x] Thomas LMTR14 Reisinger

listing in Pecs should be in there, either in muliples of 10 or 25.

It would empower the smaller planets auctions but the problem with no listing fees is the final value fee would likely be higher (if not double) to cover the loss in listing fees (like ebay did) and also the MUs will likely raise as the risk of not selling is gone. a smaller fee would be better first

No fees = easy auction manipulation + lots of auction traps (regular items posted for tt price SB and huge buyouts ,hoping someone misclicks.

Fees must be there to keep the auction fairly clean (although there are some flaws with current system, removing fees would be bad way to deal with them).
+ au fees pays for MA, if au fees would dissappear then hunters,crafters, miners would have to pay for it with lower returns (atm traders are paying unholy amounts of peds each year as fees)

The pec idea is good (but only if fees stay the same) as it would lead to never ending undercutting war. Right now undercutting costs money (removing and relisting item), so ppl think twice before doing it.

what about a longer time, let's say 15 days. Some times 7 days are short to sell some thing.

Without fees auction would be filled with crap to the brim, 99% of positions being like 1 hide or stone.

Pecs would benefit resellers so I'm against it.

The only change to auction that I'd love to see is ability to see who created an order before selling to it, so I could sell only to those whom I recognize as actual crafters.

I def think we should be able to list pecs
I have to disagree with the removal fees, however I wish the fee was a % of the markup instead. Just like credit card companies that usually charge 4%.

No preliminary fee.... Just 4% of the item.

Also we should be able to sell ANYTHING in auction

Being able to list pecs is about the only good idea here.

I'm not going to rehash why removal of listing fees is bad... it just is. Also, MA would never remove one of their own sources of revenue.

You guys are missing one key thing that the OP said.

Apply an auction fee only AFTER the item is sold.

Which I think is a great idea. Nothing would change from now except people will more freely put items on auction knowing that there is no fee to do so until it's sold.

Also being allowed to set pec on bids would be fantastic especially with stackable loot. This would be great for new players as well trying to sell low amounts in stacks.

The ability to set pec I guess is open to exploiting by resellers, but I'd say there's more advantages than negative.

Zanathos said:

Which I think is a great idea. Nothing would change from now except people will more freely put items on auction knowing that there is no fee to do so until it's sold.

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Where the fee will be taken from if the seller has no money at all and what was sold is worth less than a min auction fee? And changing min fee to a fixed % of markup would result in fractions of a pec for most of the crap that would flood the auction, essentially like having no fee at all.

Fees are just fine as they are, as others pointed out no fees would floot the auction with useless items and manipulation attempts.

I am also a fan of adjusting the price down to pec value, should allow better auctioning efficiency. Especially stuff like low tt value beginner weapons where sometimes it's impossible to set a rational MU.

I would like to mention one big problem I have with auction and that's item limit. Any serious crafter needs more than 30 slots considering each item takes a slot. Sure hunters and miners don't have such problems as you can stack most loot into one slot, but most crafted items don't have that option. Therefore I would highly recommend removing item limit because not only it's limiting crafting but it's also stimulating crafters to use alt avatars to sell all their items thus putting crafters with alts at an advantage over those who respect ToU.

Asqius said:

Fees are just fine as they are, as others pointed out no fees would floot the auction with useless items and manipulation attempts.

I am also a fan of adjusting the price down to pec value, should allow better auctioning efficiency. Especially stuff like low tt value beginner weapons where sometimes it's impossible to set a rational MU.

I would like to mention one big problem I have with auction and that's item limit. Any serious crafter needs more than 30 slots considering each item takes a slot. Sure hunters and miners don't have such problems as you can stack most loot into one slot, but most crafted items don't have that option. Therefore I would highly recommend removing item limit because not only it's limiting crafting but it's also stimulating crafters to use alt avatars to sell all their items thus putting crafters with alts at an advantage over those who respect ToU.

Click to expand...

you could add a trader skill, all p2p or sold auction trades can increase the skill, higher skill = more slots. would allow real traders to get more slots and new alts not to

Zanathos said:

You guys are missing one key thing that the OP said.

Apply an auction fee only AFTER the item is sold.

Which I think is a great idea. Nothing would change from now except people will more freely put items on auction knowing that there is no fee to do so until it's sold.

Also being allowed to set pec on bids would be fantastic especially with stackable loot. This would be great for new players as well trying to sell low amounts in stacks.

The ability to set pec I guess is open to exploiting by resellers, but I'd say there's more advantages than negative.

Click to expand...

Also a bad idea. People are already retarded on undercutting. This just makes it worse.

You are trying to find ways around the glaring problem of lack of demand of resources. There is only one way... recomplete the circle between professions.

Mindark was supposed to release premium accounts for more storage and perhaps more auction slots.

Bad idea i think. Manipulation will spread like wildfire over more items than we see right now.

I agree auction list fees is good to prevent manipulation and all.
Current system works like
Base listing fee = 0.50 ped + (extra fee if start bid is above tt )
i.e if i want to place an item worth 100ped tt with start bid at tt then i pay only 0.50 ped as listing fees.
but if i have an item worth 100ped with mu of +30k and i want start bid with +20k i have to pay 0.50ped 60-70 ped in listing fees. So for this extra fees on start bid either i will start bid at tt and let the item go to a trader or loose the auction fees if not sold .

My point is charge the base fees when listing but extra fees on mu should be deducted when item is sold.

Svarog said:

Without fees auction would be filled with crap to the brim, 99% of positions being like 1 hide or stone.

Pecs would benefit resellers so I'm against it.

The only change to auction that I'd love to see is ability to see who created an order before selling to it, so I could sell only to those whom I recognize as actual crafters.

Click to expand...

and that is a good thing! I don't want to buy 100 ped of a mineral every time I want to craft a lil.

and the old paradox "resellers are evil" droning! this is THE capitalist game! picking up goods priced too low and undercutting the next best price, buying up stocks and setting your own price before the next guy repeats the process is FUN goddamnit! you, the buyer, lose absolutely nothing from that, since you still would get your goods way cheaper than now where it's not even guaranteed to get what you want on the auction at all! a commie mindset of "people mustn't be ripped off" is RIDICULOUS in this context when it's 100% caveat emptor eat or be eaten BY DEFINITION. this isn't communist pet!

people are doing all of the above right now in private trades. only they aren't given the proper tools to actually make this game's market interesting enough for EVERYBODY to invest time into. trade must flow, all else is unimportant.

ps: the 0.01 you get for one stone would be eaten wholesale by the successful-auction-fee. nobody would do that

LMTR14 said:

ps: the 0.01 you get for one stone would be eaten wholesale by the successful-auction-fee. nobody would do that

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you would be surprised at just how many morons list things at a total loss because fees and in some cases negative MU under TT on top of fees with todays auction platform. filled skill implants is a prime example of people deleting skills at a loss they buy esi at 900% lose 10% of the tt in the extraction and lose 10~ ped in fees to list and only at 999%.

i think there should also be a difference in listing fee between 1 day and 7 days... right now there is not really any value in doing it for 1 day except misclicking it. when there would be a base fee per day it would be better. you can set fast moving goods for lower fees and items and stuff with higher value for some more days but paying more auction fee for it. and let us decide the days as well then. why not 30 days or something? when each day costs like it does on orders it would be a lot fairer imo.

sidxx said:

you would be surprised at just how many morons list things at a total loss because fees and in some cases negative MU under TT on top of fees with todays auction platform. filled skill implants is a prime example of people deleting skills at a loss they buy esi at 900% lose 10% of the tt in the extraction and lose 10~ ped in fees to list and only at 999%.

Click to expand...

that's an absolute loss, but as you can't sell skills to the tt, it might be a necessary one if you want to score a sale at all costs I guess

LMTR14 said:

this is THE capitalist game!

Click to expand...

You don't understand what capitalism is.

The auction fee keep prices reasonable because you have to sell your stuff or pay extra. When the auction fee was at 1 ped no matter what you sell long ago it sucked even more as it do now. Everything had unreasonable high prices and some stuff was just relisted over and over and with each sale it was relisted a few peds higher than before. This was the blissful days of reselling , bleeding out the player base.

I dont want this back no thank you

LMTR14 said:

(Cut) some stuff about communism and capitalism (cut)

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Entropia is no free market, all things are regulated by mindark and by drop rates they are free to set any price they want for any item. All i can read is that you want to play the market big style without any risk of losing peds while doing it. If you szenario become reality you wont be able to play the auction because Bots will do, who are faster and more accurate than you or any human can ever be. They are already here and removing the fees would amplify their impact.

There is a lot in this game that needs an overhaul.

Fees should still exist for auctions but be greatly reduced for items that don't sell.

Pricing to the pec is needed...

More available auction listings needed as well.

However, empowering people to list more items for practically no cost will lead to even more undercutting as all items in the game are the same. Now it will be I list my L gun at 125%, you list yours at 124%, 5 minutes later i cancel auction and relist for 123%, 5 mins later you relist for 122%...etc till ALL items are listed for 100.01%

jambon said:

There is a lot in this game that needs an overhaul.

Fees should still exist for auctions but be greatly reduced for items that don't sell.

Pricing to the pec is needed...

More available auction listings needed as well.

However, empowering people to list more items for practically no cost will lead to even more undercutting as all items in the game are the same. Now it will be I list my L gun at 125%, you list yours at 124%, 5 minutes later i cancel auction and relist for 123%, 5 mins later you relist for 122%...etc till ALL items are listed for 100.01%

Click to expand...

simple solution: make them uncancable. when they r in auc they need to wait if they sell or if not. so u still gotta think twice at what price u put em in and considering higher fees for more days etc you need to think how much fee u r willing to pay for how many days.

jambon said:

There is a lot in this game that needs an overhaul.

Fees should still exist for auctions but be greatly reduced for items that don't sell.

Pricing to the pec is needed...

More available auction listings needed as well.

However, empowering people to list more items for practically no cost will lead to even more undercutting as all items in the game are the same. Now it will be I list my L gun at 125%, you list yours at 124%, 5 minutes later i cancel auction and relist for 123%, 5 mins later you relist for 122%...etc till ALL items are listed for 100.01%

Click to expand...

welcome to supply and demand....
isn't this was free trade is all about?

The market dictates the price, not the chosen few

swampymonster said:

welcome to supply and demand....
isn't this was free trade is all about?

The market dictates the price, not the chosen few

Click to expand...

It has nothing to do with supply and demand. It's all about "I want my shit to sell first". Otherwise everyone would just list at the same price rather than ALWAYS undercutting whatever the lowest price is regardless of anything else. If everyone listed at the same price people would have no choice but to buy it at that price and all sellers get top markup for items. People bitch about nothing having markup anymore but this is why... because everyone just undercuts the shit out of everyone else till markups are 100.01% and people just shrug it off as "supply and demand".

Supply and demand / freetrade... if we were talking about shopping IRL or on eBay I would tend to agree with you but even then there's a lot of other factors in the real world that come into play even for the exact same item being sold in many places:

...this place is super cheap but its and hour away
...this place is a closer but costs a little more
...this place offers some form of loyalty points
...this place offers a 60 day money back guarantee
...this person has a higher feedback rating
...these guys offering free shipping
...these guys have a cheaper no-name alternative
...this place offers bundles

Entropia it's very much a dumbed down economy and this notion of supply and demand is flawed as the users have no control over the drop rates of items. Nor do they (or the items) have any real distinguishing characteristics to justify a variance in price. In the real world supply and demand can be corrected by supply being reduced to meet demand or demand being reduced by increasing price. This is simply not possible in EU.

You punch in the name of a L gun in auction and you see 20 listings - as a buyer you just nab the cheapest one cause wtf not? MAYBE you look to see if any have tier rates in the thousands otherwise you buy the cheapest one because it's the EXACT same as the rest. Where's the motivation to pay more?

As a seller you list for 1 ped under the lowest priced one because SHIT... you just lost your ass on that last hunt (and everyone before it) and you've got 12 peds in your account until this shit sells so you need it to sell now Now NOW!. Where's the motivation to try to sell for higher?

Recently, I listed a piece of L armor in auction - when I looked there were NONE in auction but the markup showed they had been selling pretty regularly for a nice markup of about 139%. I decided to list at 137% - a fair price. Over the next 6 hours 12 more of those EXACT pieces made it onto auction each undercutting the other until the cheapest one was 117%. Needless to say as the week went on the items sold and continued to be listed. The cheapest 5 or 6 sold everyday and those of us that had listed at the regular markup never had our stuff sell. Now, if everyone would have just sold at the same markup everyone could have sold their stuff inside a couple days for max markup - but no, everyone just need to sell FIRST regardless of the loss and what it does to the market. "supply and demand"...BS "greed and lack of patience" is more like it.

Anyways, here's a couple questions as food for thought...

• What if sellers had reputations like eBay?
• What if sellers could issue you loyalty points for buying from them?
• What if all L guns had some variable differences within certain ranges. IE gun can increase your hp 0-10 points...etc.
• What if delivery wasn't instant and it was on the avatar to manually complete the transaction there would be more weight on buying from a seller with a good reputation to ensure they deliver fast.

I agree with others that no fees will be problematic.
But I also agree the current clumsy auctions system needs some serious streamlining done.

So here's a rehash of others ideas condensed with some other random crazy creative concepts for haters/fanbois to bash. Enjoy!


1. If the minimum of 1 Ped Starting Bid is kept.
Then listings and bids should be incremented by either 0.25 or 0.50 pecs.
And if the TT value OR Starting Bid is over ~100 Ped then no bidding in pecs.


2. Cost to cancel is 50% of listing fee


3. Should be able to add several of the same items (with full TT) into 1 auction listing.
For example 15 Rubios all with full TT simply dragged 1 at a time into auction window.
But with 4 limitations: Only items with full TT value can do this type of bulk item selling. Only for weapons or any non-stackable items with a full TT value under 1 ped. A maximum of 25 items could be added. Cost to cancel this type of multi-item listing is 100% of listing fee.


4. Automatic 7 day relist feature that costs 0.10 pec/relist, +Plus the regular AH listing fee.
When posting have all peds withdrawn for post plus for all reposts, and refund the difference if it sells before the last automatic-repost iteration. Perhaps start with just a 1 time repost check box to test the waters. If it's working then later on include a number-of-times counter (like crafting) with a maximum of around 5 or 10 times.


5. Remove long dormant categories like "Real World Items" and "Currencies"


6. Add categories like "Pets" and "Pills".


7. Add the option of a "Reserve price" to ensure a minimum selling price and MA charge 4% of the reserve price up to a maximum of 1000.00 ped, but it only appears as an option for items with TT or Starting Bid value 1000 ped or more.


8. Add 15 day listing option for ships capable of warp drive, land areas, and mall type estates.


9. Trading skill concept is interesting, but would be easy to farm and often.


Smaller planets auctions is a problem.
10A. Random thought, perhaps change 12hr delivery fee?
ie. Delivery from Caly=2ped; Ark=1.5ped; RT/Monria/Cyrene/Toulan/NI=1ped
Or change 12hr delivery fee based on planet population And # of pages on that planet's auction?

10B. Alternative random, at top of AH planet list add one called "All Planets" and make it default viewing.
But add a player setting to toggle between all or local planet as default viewing.
Also it would need a new column showing Planet name where item is.


11a. Allow crafters with autolisting on to not count as their 30 selling slots.

11b. Add option in webshop to buy 10 additional AH selling slots for ~ $25.00 USD?

wish they would remove it if stuff doesn't sell. Becomes quite expensive when your selling skills although some are not even worth putting up on auction because the fees alone kills any tt you have in certain skills.

I have had a wish for a long time, and that is to split auction in to two separate type of trading.
One traditional auction, with startbid at TT, and the other a place for trading with fixed price.
Doing this, the issue to have PEC in auction is solved, sort of.
Fees should be based on per cent on what the final price will be.

If we keep having it as it is today, we could have 5 slots per player with fee based on percent only,
last slots with same fee as today, and option to buy mor slots.

MA used to say fees are used for e.g larger globals (HoF and HoF:ATH), event rewards and so on,
i.e stuff that they "give" us ingame (could be through lootmechanism or given manually) .
It has nothing to do with RL value equal to ingame value thou'.

insertion fees help prevent abuse and the ah getting cluttered with junk.

Aeris_is_back said:

insertion fees help prevent abuse and the ah getting cluttered with junk.

Click to expand...

Sadly it also prevent small stacks to be sold, so question is how to solve both problems.
Percentage fee only for resources and materials, but not on items maybe?

EDIT: Forgot one thing: When Startbid and Buyout is same, PEC should be activated
in price. If we change BO after PEC is set, it should be reseted and we have to start over again.