Suggested Auction extension

[Dragoth]

It would be really cool, to have something like a public board in the format of an auction, where people could express their desire to purchase a certain item.

To avoid spam, reduce the items desired limit to 1-3

I suggest the following format:

Item Requests
===============================
Item | Offered Price | Days elapsed | Name

Thunderbolt | 2,000,000 | 5 | Anrok

===============================

When you place an offer, an amount of cash equal to your offer is taken by an auctioneer as a deposit.

If someone has a thunderbolt that they are willing to sell, they can just accept the offer and the item will be shipped automatically to the the person who placed the offer (or given to the auctioneer) and the deposit is passed on to the seller.

The reverse-auction would run for a certain ammount of time after which it will expire so as to not clutter the board.

[Dragoth]

If it's not possible to automate this suggestion due to complexity of item_name_matching, maybe we can just make a board of requested items, without any actual transactions but with an ability to leave messages for potential buyers?

auction channel, finger and title are good, but it would be nice to have a little more exposure when we are offline.

[Shryker]

I like the premise, especially as an individual who logs on very sporadically on a daily basis. Even if I were to put something in my title, few people would notice it before I rent again.

Perhaps just a tweaking of the current auction system, where players can set a timeframe for how long the item that is desired is left on the boards. At least that way, most of the scripting would stay the same, I would think, with possibly the "consign" keyword changed and a minimum bid taken out.

Additional piggyback suggestion - Incorporating into this imaginary system a way to have multiples of the same item be sold to a single player. For example, this could potentially be a system where someone can post once that they are buying hex tokens at 160,000, and place a maximum of 50 tokens, and players can sell the tokens on the new system to that player through the auction house until all 50 has been purchased. Could make building up tokens for rolling easier.

Also, current system is fine, and works very well for what it is intended. This could possibly be a nifty addition if it isn't too much work.

Shryker

[*Breeze*]

This would be very difficult to do. the auctioneer doesnt actually care about item names, it cares about item virtual numbers.

having said that, the auctioneer exports it's list of items to the website every ~10 minutes.
that code could easily be adapted to allow a user to ask for something and it show up on the
website.

on my side it would take a bit of work since i would have to make sure that the output is safe to display on a
webpage, and of course i would need to constantly monitor it to make sure someone doesnt write profanity etc
on the wanted list.

of course i can charge a fee to get listed.... hmmm

[jezer]

You're all missing the real question here, what would the consignment lag be!?

[*Breeze*]

i am not removing consignment lag that's there for a reason. mainly so some idiot doesn't do
a ton of consign which would spam the mud with auction messages going up and coming down.

i probably wouldnt put a lag on the wanted thing but then again i would also not send auctioneer
message on those anyways

[jezer]

With all due respect Breeze, considering the other things in the mud that "spam" - like myself on gossip, the lag to prevent - lets say 3 or 4 lines of "spam" is a little over the top. But don't change it, I enjoy making fun of it. But either way I'll always find something little to have a good laugh about - that's just me. Self amusing.

[Shryker]

I think any application of this idea whatsoever could be interesting, Breeze.

As for the consignment lag, it makes sense to me, albeit the cases where it makes a difference are likely few and far between.

When I was rolling, I usually acquired at least 20-30 tokens before heading off to roll away. I'm sure many players accumulate far more, especially if their current stats are more than decent. If that "amazing" roll happens in the first half dozen rolls, and another 100 tokens are sitting in their inventory that they originally planned on blowing through, it would be far to easy to spam those into the auction house without a consignment lag.

Other than that, it likely is not usually a problem, but I can see why it is in place.

Shryker

[*Breeze*]

glad someone does.

[jezer]

Breeze had to wait 10mins before he could make that post!

[*Breeze*]

half true. i have a ton of patience but a nasty temper

[Dragoth]

People always find shit to complain about dont they.
You completely rework an auction system and people complain about consignment lag.
You completely rework a website with a ton new features and people complain about the delays.
Patience goes a long way in this world.

On the topic, any way you can implement my idea would be extremely helpful to everyone on this mud, start simple and go from there ?

[jezer]

At least the consignment lag is shorter than Dragoth's whining about whiners!

[gor]

not whining, just wonder if people are happy with the fact that somebody who watching the auction end can easily win it even if others could pay more and just missed the very moment.
I think it could be solved by postponing auction end to be at least 6-12 hours later the latest bid time.

[Shryker]

Well, gor, when it comes to last minute bidding on items in the auction house, the increase in bids are usually by very small amounts. At that point, it isn't about who is willing to offer more, it is about who is paying the most attention to the auction and manages to get the last bid in.

Putting in a lag that extends the auction by any margin of time longer than a minute or two would be ridiculous IMHO. Imagine waiting to sell an item, thinking it was going to end that night because it already has a bid, and coming back the next day seeing it still have 8 hours remaining, and the total amount bid has gone up by 3 gold.

If a postponing feature were to be put in longer than a minute or two, then an minimum increase would also have to be put in (say a minimum of 5% increase of current bid to place a higher bid), to at least keep the auction moving. You can postpone an auction indefinitely, but if a 10 million gold item is moving up one coin at a time in the hopes of snagging it at a lower total, then it can take months for that items to sell.

Just my two cents.

Shryker