Petition against the Auction House approach. -- (Dev) Replied

I think WoW-style global AH is a very boring solution. Instead, a local AH could be a viable choice, making these places a place where people gather to sell and buy things, make every town and city have their own. It is how trade was often done anyhow, through wholesalers, brokers, who buy commodities to sell to the professionals. In general the function of wholesalers would be to transform several shipments of small quantities into fewer shipments of larger quantities.

Wholesale markets could be defined as physical places, where professional (NPC-AH?) agents purchase products to sell it forward to other professionals (players). Perhaps a solution would be to sell the products to professionals, instead of "general public" (non-professionals).

Wholesale markets could be divided into two different types of wholesalers, the rural- and the terminal markets in the cities and towns. The rural markets may be described as assembly markets, where the products would often be sold in bulk through an auction system. The latter of the wholesale markets would be located in the cities, delivering their products forward to merchants and their customers.

However you could choose to use these markets or not, but it could be a way to have your merchandise sold.

 

I would find it frustrating sifting through inventories of multiple merchants while looking for a specific item. I feel that there should be some kind of tool to aggregate items and show them to me. It should allow me to sort search results based on item type and properties. If this is going to be a modern MMO, there should be some way to find what you are looking for quickly, and get back to playing the game.

Dark Age implemented a notice board at the entrance to the housing areas where you could search for items. If you wanted to pay the posted price, you found that person's house and bought it. If you didn't want to make the trek, you could pay an extra handling fee and it was delivered right to you.

While not perfect, it is a heck of a lot better than running around from town to town, interacting with various merchants, hoping to get a particular rapier that no one seems to carry.

 

I'm against auction house too.
Like many have said, why would anyone like to own a store or be a merchant if people only buy stuff from auction house.

 

I'm torn....
Housing is going to be even more limited than it was in UO...and the playerbase will likely be larger. So...the majority of people will not be land owners, giving land owners a stranglehold on the vendor market. Landless crafters need somewhere to peddle their wares, of course people who are backing Lord tiers and other housing tiers are going to be against an AH, they already have a piece of land secured. That leave's those of us crafters who can't afford to drop 500 bucks at a significant disadvantage without a place to sell. It would also decrease property value, but a lot of value will come from the entire functionality of the houses. That's a topic for another thread though.

However...Auction Houses really take away from the charm that was in UO of having player vendors all around. I loved finding player run websites promoting their UO vendors, having to run out there, possibly in danger, seeing all the cool stuff for sale.

Surely their must be a middle ground that doesn't leave landless citizens with no way to peddle, yet retains the charm and value of player vendor houses.

 

Global auction house sounds bad. Many solutions here sound great.

1. Hirable NPC vendors for landowners - This would be perfect as the crafter could then focus on his craft while the NPC sold basic wares to people in every instance. For a nominal fee, players could place work orders that the crafter could then try to meet. This is better than a global auction house because you still have the experience of going to a store to buy things.

2. Actual auction houses - Players with lots of valuable things to sell could pay a fee to rent an auction house for an hour or two. You schedule what time you will have your auction begin, and you'd be able to get up to maybe... 50 players in the house? You'd enter the auction house from the street in whatever instance you are in, seeing only a limited number of players, but in the auction house you see everyone who is in there.

I'll add one...

3. Street stalls - Players can rent these by the day to sell their wares without necessarily being landowners. These would be ideal for people who want to create things but don't have the funding or connections for a building lot.

 

I agree, an auction house would not benefit a player economy. It would hinder the social, personal and community aspects of a game that is so rooted in those 3 tenants. AH just mess up game economies anyway. There is always a group of people who turn AH speculation into a job and ruin the economy just like the Stock Market. However an AH is mighty convenient. I propose this:

A classified ad listing system. The interface and listing structure works like an AH, but it is maintained by sellers who want to get their products out there. You can pay for ad space just like the classifieds.

Example:
Visit my Armor Shop across from Dupre Manor. We have Elite Dragon Armor and Perfect Stat starter armor, as well as everything in between.

No products are sold and no spam is uttered. People can find what they want and sell what they want easily.
The listing would fall under Armorsmithing and the shop owner would pay based on the detail, size and listing time of the ad.

 

The thing is, not everyone will have property to place a vendor on. We know housing will be limited. Without this basic requirement, player crafts(wo)men will have no place to sell their wares. If not an AH, then something has to be set up. If space has to be rented from another PC, that would eat all the profit that the player would make, creating a useless endeavour.

There has to be some system in place to accomodate everyone, not just the house and shop owners who will be extremely limited in volume.

Perhaps a town level bulletin board system would work, where you could put your wares up for sale, but only in that specific town. If you want to sell elsewhere, you would need to hike to the next town and post on those boards so that people could have visibility to your wares. You could cover quite a few towns, cities, whatever if you were willing to do the legwork.

 

I like the idea of street stalls and having those rented via auction/bidding system to help gauge nearby real estate values.

 

Great news from Update 13:

"For crafters who elect not to own a house of their own, there will be bazaars available to sell the goods for a percentage of the profits. The bazaars will only carry goods listed at them and not from throughout the lands. The exceptionally talented homeowners will likely be able to turn a profit by buying low demand goods from one city and reselling them through their house vendors in a city with higher demand."

Looks like we're on the right track and they are DEFINITELY checking these forum posts daily. Great to see!

 

I agree no AH. It would be nice if you could have a guild house to place a vendor. I would also like it if we can program the vendors to walk around, and program there speech our self.

 

*Begins drawing his "No AH!" banner*

I too am solidly against the AH model. There are so many downsides to them, just their being in Wow is enough to NOT have them in SOTA. I like the bazaar concept, especially with people buying shops, being dedicated crafters, let them sell their products directly. I wouldn't oppose having NPC vendors, especially if they can be placed anywhere. I think that would bring back the spirit of a medieval game.

Now perhaps in cities with technology, they could have a market list of goods for sale in the city, that would be something that's possible, but I would NOT want any sort of global item listing. If its going to happen, please have it like Eve so only goods in your region are seen. That way traders could make money buying and selling goods in areas that need those goods.

I would love to see crafters hire players, or even NPC criers to extoll the virtues of their goods. I love crafting, and would love to see it done right.

 

I'm against the AH model as well. The bazaar will work well.

Having the ability to filter out vendors might be necessary. And it might be OK to combine a search with filter (show me all vendors with X). Moving from one vendor to another could get tedious, when you are looking for something particular.

Regional markets are a very important element, rather than a central location. Players may very will come up with a central market on their own though. But I would really like to see viable local markets.

I'll use Everquest as an example. Before the Bazaar zone was added, players would meet in a certain spot to trade. This varied from server to server (Faymart, Commons tunnel, and a nod to North Freeport). This was ad-hoc. Players could have created regional markets, but they chose to have a central location. Having more buyers and sellers in one spot was to everyone's advantage.

What allowed this to function was fast travel. If I had to walk to the market, I might be more inclined to use something nearby.

 

Is that not what a trade channel is for? request who has certain things for sale.

Im against a world/universe auction house, but i think it would be great fun to have an auctioneer in cities or towns that will at certain times open to receive couple items per person and a certain amount of space, than at a set time announced, we run into the auction house and do a silent auction or if capable an actual auction styled event just for the 30 items or so put in.

Hopefully that makes sense lol

 

Though most of what I would like to say has been said already, and much more eloquently than I could have, I would like to sum up the subject (in my humble opinion) in one sentence.

Most game these days choose accessibility over immersion.

Some examples of this are hand-holding during quests, ability to solo to level cap in MMOs (I realize this is not applicable to this game) and the introduction of Auction Houses. While accessibility certainly has a place in many games these days and there is absolutely nothing wrong with it, I enjoy immersion and community more. Perhaps it is because I am predominantly an acheiver on the Bartle scale, but I feel that it is much more satisfying when you have to work for rewards.

One problem, as I see it, with Auction Houses as it exists in many games today is that it is just too darn easy to use. The rewards for those that are very interested in the role of a trader and those that are just emptying their pack from a day of adventuring are far too similar. This is not to say that either role is necessarily better than the other. Because of this, those that do want to fill the role of a trade can be left feeling unsatisfied. This is of course a fairly small part of the community and balancing this with the needs of the larger part of players is no easy task.


It appears that the developers of this game have decided to put immersion a bit more ahead of accessibility in this game, and that is why I am attracted to it and have contributed.

 

I agree that an Auction house = bad.
Some good Ideas are already around Glad that Update 13 shows they are listening and thinking properly.

Maybe some land holders could be able to have a vendor who can sell on consignment as the land owner, another way that you can make a coin if you own land. Also would allow players to sell through a friend so they get some benefit.

Another thought is maybe some people can advertise on newspapers or sign posts at other towns if they have an product/service. Then you can find out what is happing in another town if you are after something specific and are playing a bit more towards the solo / limited multi-player side of things.

 

No AH please!

What I would like to see are ingame marketplaces where one can rent vendor spots.

 

Just chiming in with my own suggestions

Auction House - I earnestly feel this would be a really bad move. It encourages price fixing, kills interaction and turns the economy into a faceless void.

Bazaar/Marketplace - I think renting a spot in a marketplace could be a system that would work really well. For this to be fair and functional the rental times should be very short to avoid dead spaces with empty vendors. Also, alongside rental fees the vendor fees in a marketplace should be quite high to encourage a trader/crafter to take the cheaper option of actually populating their stall themselves. This encourages bartering, interaction and role-play.

House Vendors - if implementing a marketplace system care needs to be taken to avoid killing the home vendor system. One way to approach this could be to have marketplace vendors have very limited space for goods but will have a sign by the stall detailing that crafters full available items and where to find their house for more great deals. This would also add further feasibility to owning a home - unlimited inventory.

 

I don't like AHs at all. I prefer shops and vendors instead.

 

Instant access to information (price, availability) is a game changer. In a pure stall-based market, one must move from vendor to vendor to see what is available. This is tedious in a large marketplace. But having a sortable/filterable list of what is available along with the price may be providing too much information for some people's taste.

Consider the "Computer Shopper" approach: Once a day, vendors pay a small fee to have their names and wares listed in a newsletter, which buyers can then purchase for a small fee. Since prices can change without notice, there is no benefit for including this information (everyone would list a low price then raise it after publication) Along with each entry is some indication of where the vendor is (address, or a market on a local map). The newsletter could have a sort/filter interface for convenience -- analogous to an index.

 

@Mugly.

I like the idea of consignment shops. It potentially places more "risk" and possibly greater reward on selling unwanted items, especially if a global list of all shops and all consigned items is not available.

The risk would be that a smaller number of players, those in the vicinity of the shop, will be in the right place at the right time to acquire the consigned item but also the potential for greater reward because overpriced items still have the potential of being sold under the right circumstances where typical AH's make this almost impossible.