(No) "Auction houses"

[Kreeper]

Its fine and dandy all these ideas but straying to far away from whats common in MMO's today can be the demise of an MMO.

It really just doesent make sense to NOT have an Auction House in the game, but what does make sense is really putting time into how it functions and all the many options that can be implemented into it.

It doesent matter what type of MMO your playing as long as the Auction House is well thought out and implemented, having something as nice as Ebay in a game Auction house would be amazing, but fit for the genre of the game. The devs can make a high tech auction house in a "Fantasy barbaric world".

Look at AoC's HORRIBLE AH system, its absolutely barbaric....why have such an archaic way of AH's implemented in such a new age game, stop back peddling.

The bottom line is without having an AH in game youre just back peddling, try to improvise and make better without going way to out of line where people are like this is dumb.

[Virusu]

I'm with the people who are against "global functions" in the game. In fact, i'm against automated AH systems altogether. In EQ, when you wanted to sell your items, you actually had to be able to market them in regional chat. Even selling items took a certain element of skill and intelligence, which made it enjoyable, and the immersion of being in the game world was still there. You would haggle with people in person, and competition between sellers would actually be true competition, and not just putting your item up for 1 copper less than the next guy in the AH window.

I'm also sick of developers screwing things up just so they can claim they were "innovative." Stick with what your confident with and what seems fun. If something isn't broken, don't fix it. Failed attempts at innovation are often game killers. On the flip side, ;ook at Diablo 1 and Diablo 2. D2 is practically a clone of diablo one, but no one had a problem with that. Sometimes people want more of the same, and even today D2 is still a highly populated game and it came out back in the 90s.

The sad truth of this, however, is that without all the ez-mode functions you see in MMOs such as WoW, you probably won't get the massive 12 year old demographic that makes those types of MMOs so successful. It's a good thing for most of the people on these boards, but as a dev who's goal is also to turn a profit it can hurt a little. But if the devs are truly passionate about creating something that they themselves would enjoy playing, they should stick to the plan of a hardcore pvp mmo as they've stated thus far.

[hotix]

With the wow generation it has to be that way, they dont know about games where you would lose an item that took 2 weeks to get then be pissed, or get to laugh at the person you did that too. They also dont know what its like to have your house rampaged, so to them ez mode is neccessray.

Unfortunetly that is how games are now, for people like me and virus we just have to go with it, and kill everyone to fuel our anger.

[melanko]

When player run towns come into the equation of Auction houses, I'd love to see items being taxed to raise money for the guild town.

City builders can build auction houses/bazaars for players to sell their goods. But depending on the type of items, they may be taxed to sell to other players.

[Arxon Havenloft]

Vendors I'm ok with. Hell, even player shops where you place a shop over the top of your character's head I could handle. But auction houses, never! In fact, I don't think that I'll ever play another game with an auction house.

[Lachrymose]

Originally Posted by hotix

With the wow generation it has to be that way, they dont know about games where you would lose an item that took 2 weeks to get then be pissed, or get to laugh at the person you did that too. They also dont know what its like to have your house rampaged, so to them ez mode is neccessray.

Unfortunetly that is how games are now, for people like me and virus we just have to go with it, and kill everyone to fuel our anger.

just call this a hunch, but hotix, i think you and blade would get along really well.

[Kreeper]

Originally Posted by Arxon Havenloft

Vendors I'm ok with. Hell, even player shops where you place a shop over the top of your character's head I could handle. But auction houses, never! In fact, I don't think that I'll ever play another game with an auction house.

An auction house makes good sense, why you would never say you would play another MMO that has an Auction House again? If you arent aware its almost become an industry standard to have an Auction House in game.

I'm definately not against an AH but if someone comes up with another form of it that might not be so "automated" I'm down with that too. As a previous poster mentioned in EQ1 you had to spam your wares and AH were never around which isnt a bad concept but why..

Honestly I don't find it to amusing having to read some guy spam the same thing over and over, it turns into just that, spam.

[Shinzon]

There is absolutley no problem with Auction Houses, as long as they stay regional like the economy. That means each auction house is different in each single city. That way all they do is increase efficency...

Though certainly they can be replaced with some other more organic features, like a "Commerce Column" in an ingame newspaper that the players themselves create every day....

[Traceur]

you know, while i am all for local economies, no global banking or global auction houses...

but if the game supports instant-teleportation or even limited city-to-city teleportation, then we loose the local economies and the trade routes etc' anyway and all of these just become an annoyance: there's no reason to have local auction houses and banks if all it means is that people need to do teleport-rounds going back and forth.

so i'd say have it all or non. if they have instant teleportation then they should probably have global auction houses and global banks. however if they make the right choice and go without instant-teleportation then we kick the globalization out of the picture.

[Voodoo_Snake]

**************I love Auction houses***********. There I said it!

After playing Guild Wars for 2 years and not having one and then going to Archlord (shooosh it's quite fun if you like grinders :P) and having an Auction House, I wouldn't want to go back. EVER. Seriously, having to go to several different forums to buy something is just horrible, not to mention that you generally have to be online to trade and being Australian................
Well let's just say timezones really are a pain in the arse. When you have to login to a game at 6.30am, after countless emails to the person who wants to buy your item, you appreciate having an AH.

Did I mention that I love auction houses?

Those little player shop things...........pffftt so annoying. People littered everywhere lagging up the towns. Say no to those squatters!

<3 Auction House

[Lxx]

I think AH should be exist. Some ppl do not like global AH..well (EVE has AH that show all items you looking for and also information in which zone this item is located...ie you can buy it, but then you have 2 go there and get it)This way you can take some load from the single city with 200 ppl and reduce lag.
Well just an idea

[Shinzon]

I think AH should be exist. Some ppl do not like global AH..well (EVE has AH that show all items you looking for and also information in which zone this item is located...ie you can buy it, but then you have 2 go there and get it)This way you can take some load from the single city with 200 ppl and reduce lag.
Well just an idea

What I meant by "Local AH" is that each city, has it's own city wide auction house, and the goods are different from city to city.

[Myst]

I can understand why some of you guys do not want any AH.

But I personnally want one. Why ? Just because I never never enjoyed spamming for hours (or even for minutes).

So an AH is usefull yes, because I can focus on what I like on the game (PvP ?) instead of losing my time.

[Isil]

I like more selling from your own house like un UO , it was fun also to explore the world looking for good player vendors , look around for PKs before buy it and runing away like mad after u buy so u dont get killed and lost everything :P

Also there will be more pvp if people is looking for vendors around de world and not 100 players in the ah all day long...

[tisch28]

[quote=Sarkon;14979]Okay, at first I was against the fact of NOT having an auction house. But now, I realized I really wanna know "Who the hell made that frickin' awesome sword?!"

Heh, let's put it that way : No auction houses, it's bad publicity for people trying so hard to get known around the world. BUT maybe there could be a way to commercialize your crafted items or crafting skills. quote]

i totally agree with ya on this part but i think for simplicty sakes if u craft it ur names on the description then so u know who made that sickness :P

[cybin]

What about a local anonymous auction house? Player can put some stuff in there, but without an auction. Just the price and everyone will go to this 'vendor' and buy your stuff.

This way it looks like a local vendor and anybody can sell their wares, anyway. If rumors say that someone sells your item far cheaper just one village further, people will go there and one of your friends will probably tell you about.

[woodoo]

I am rather for player vendor.malls and bazzar stuff like in SWG so players can search that vendors and malls.

[Shinzon]

The thing with AH is that it reduced the redandency of going from player stall to player stall just window shopping, and lets be honest, do you actualy ever miss the store tag spam whenever you enter a city?

[cybin]

Another idea would be an auction house where you can browse the items global, but the items are being delivered by caravans. Of course, these caravans can be raided. So the player have to set how secure their items will be delivered and set the amount of guardians, for example. These security settings will stack by the number of items and settings the sender set. The caravans will travel at different times and routes, but if you talk to a certain NPC in a village on their route, it will tell you when the caravan will pass this village. This NPC might be random.

It would be nice to talk to a villages people and listen to rumors that a high treasure caravan will pass it in an hour, or two days, whatsoever. As the caravan will travel in 'game-time' like everyone else, you might catch them with enough people to raid them.

Hm... what do you think about that?

[Bad Influence]

- No to AH-
I think Ultima online had a good system for trading goods, player controled npc vendors. The player would just buy a deed for a npc vendor to stand at his home and sell his stuff that he put in , simple effective.
Theres also something about going into a square loaded with people selling there stuff ''most time near a bank'' to haggle down a price on something you want.
Auction houses would only take away from the social dynamix of this game

[Isil]

Originally Posted by Bad Influence

- No to AH-
I think Ultima online had a good system for trading goods, player controled npc vendors. The player would just buy a deed for a npc vendor to stand at his home and sell his stuff that he put in , simple effective.
Theres also something about going into a square loaded with people selling there stuff ''most time near a bank'' to haggle down a price on something you want.
Auction houses would only take away from the social dynamix of this game

Agree 100% !

[Shinzon]

Most of the people who are selling through the traditional means usualy do the following: Have a second charachter and a second box; or they run 2 instances, so they use one charachter just as a perminant mrechant. Or they simply sell on their charachter while they are AFK/asleep/school/work, so most of the time it is rare to find any "Stall Merchant" that you can actualy talk to to haggle anything down.

[SkirmCard]

How about when you set up your character as a merchant, it hooks you up to a system where players can browse only merchants that are in that city and hooked up to that system (so basically a local auction house system).

I am a big fan of local economies, but I have to say that I'm the type of player who does not want to spend a large portion of time going inbetween different little booths trying to find cheap potatos to finish my self given vodka quest.

[cybin]

According to this statement taken from the overview page 'Devote your life to crafting, combat, magic or trading' I guess that there will be no auction house at all. Otherwise, how can you devote your life to trading? ;-)

[skeaser]

I miss personal interaction. I think that the best system would go something like this:

I need a new sword, so I head to the nearest crafting hall, approach the forge and ask the gentleman working there if he can make me a 2h bastard sword with blah blah blah. He replies with either aye or no. If he can he tells me the mats and charge, we haggle, come to an agreement and agree to meet back at a certain time after I get the mats. Sometimes you won't find someone to make your stuff, sometimes you won't get your way, sometimes you'll have to wait, I'm okay with all of this, because the instant gratification of auction houses and the like kills the interaction of players. It's an MMO, you should have to talk to people to play.

[Shinzon]

Without a local "General Store" that ties all of the players together into a coherent organized whole where a traveler can see the immideate price difference, the "Local Economy" quickly degenerates into a free for all, so the price of "Steel Sword" will be set to a server wide scale, and it woulnd't matter if it was coming from a random player or from a crafter. Because there is no organizing whole.

You need something to glue each region together. If players are the actual party selling the goods, it's a flee market, not an economy.

[y2mattitude]

Another no on Auction Houses, at least in the sense that they are done in other MMOs out there today.

Perhaps something like a 'Crafter's Bulletin Board' where as a trader you could post directions to your shop and your most recent stock?

Slap it up in the merchant district of the cities.

Yes, no? Maybe so?

[dawnofdeath]

Honestly I think AH/traders are vital in a mmo to build a steady economy and helps crafting and whatnot. Not to mention convenient.
And for those worried to get attacked while browsing, is there any difference from talking to any other npc? Besides guards at place to fix that problem.

[Hardwire]

Imho players selling from their house where you have