dorotea said:It never fails to amaze me that people are upset that the proposed design lets different people play in different ways.
Instead of saying NO broker or auction house those that prefer the bazaar approach (unlike the great majority of us I suspect) should be focusing on how to design a broker or AH that preserves some use for "the tunnel" rather than arguing that "the tunnel" should be the ONLY permitted means of selling things. We have had quite a few suggestions along those lines in various threads. For that matter those may be obsolete since the idea of regional markets in an of itself does more to help "the tunnel" than some of us might have wanted.
Exactly, VR as made their decision, they'll have local AH and we need to accept that, now isntead of fighting and bickering about what's best based on opinion, we should come up with ways and comprises to help make viable both playestyles.
My suggestions to allow player to player trading and AH to coexist without one overtaking the other are :
Seller penalties - 5% item listing fee of original price (paying up front to post an item the AH), and 20-30% item selling value tax (when you sell an item that tax goes to the AH).
Buyers penalties - an item buyout needs to be atlest 120% of common vendor price, When an auction item is won its delevery to the players takes 10-12 hours.
Local AH penalties - Faction does not alter AH taxes, (i.ex: Human selling items in thronefast as a 30% item tax, Ogre selling in Thronefast as a 50% item tax, faction standing don't affect city taxes).
With these penalties, players that don't care about trading still have a way of selling their wares, but trading person to person is still the preferred method if you want more value. This will encourage players to actively try finding player sellers because of it's benefits, but still gives an option for those that hate person to person trading.
Just wanted to point out quickly, when I told my husband there would be regional auction houses he got very excited. He has had a bumpy ride getting to know Pantheon, and the change to include the regional auction house has just made it easier for him to fall in love more with this game.
I think its fun to journey to another city to see what different things there will be. Or, if one AH is filled up with something, take my trade to another city and use their AH. Just seems fun and realistic.
-Todd
I think the local auction house decision was that perfect medium which satisfies both the EC tunnelers unassisted, person-to-person trade (me, admittedly) and the AH crew. I think local auction houses will create amazingly interesting sub-economies on Terminus based on the items found in their respective regions. It creates a space for emergent, player created tradeskills, like hauling items from one region to another to take advantage of supply/demand differences for profit at the expense of traveling. Yeah, I'm on board. Nice compromise VR.
Syntro said:I think the local auction house decision was that perfect medium which satisfies both the EC tunnelers unassisted, person-to-person trade (me, admittedly) and the AH crew. I think local auction houses will create amazingly interesting sub-economies on Terminus based on the items found in their respective regions. It creates a space for emergent, player created tradeskills, like hauling items from one region to another to take advantage of supply/demand differences for profit at the expense of traveling. Yeah, I'm on board. Nice compromise VR.
Well if you say it like that ... sign me up. Traders will have a field day playing the market with supply and demand based on region.
Crazzie said:Nothing really stopping you from using the "EC Tunnel" just dont spam general chat and we will all get along.
I will most likely enjoy the AH, as i am used to that now. I remembered the days in EQ in the EC tunnel.
This ..keep your spam to an Auction channel (hopefully the Devs will have an Auction channel) and that will be fine. If people persist in spamming general chat with their wares, they go on my ignore..and I "might" some day remember to remove them...or not. :P Spam general chat...NO SALE. :)
CanadinaXegony said:Crazzie said:Nothing really stopping you from using the "EC Tunnel" just dont spam general chat and we will all get along.
I will most likely enjoy the AH, as i am used to that now. I remembered the days in EQ in the EC tunnel.
This ..keep your spam to an Auction channel (hopefully the Devs will have an Auction channel) and that will be fine. If people persist in spamming general chat with their wares, they go on my ignore..and I "might" some day remember to remove them...or not. :P Spam general chat...NO SALE. :)
C you did play in 99 right? because i am forgetting those days when you where active in the forums etc...
The EC tunnel was a great way to see what items where available... but... we never really saw what it looked like unless put into trader window, slowed the game down, and over priced. I rather enjoy the AH because we can dictate the true prices, search for 100's of items, objects etc without being bothered. I am all happy to run 5 zones to get that special sword etc.. but not at the cost of spending a 5000 markup.
I wasnt one of those that had millions in EQ. I wasnt one of those that recorded every penny either. But i had fun with all the modes in EQ except those Gold sellers spamming the game, and buying characters. To this day i remembered 5k was offered for my necro. It was true but i was scared to lose my account with SOE. No lie people paid much more.
jpedrote said:Exactly, VR as made their decision, they'll have local AH and we need to accept that, now isntead of fighting and bickering about what's best based on opinion, we should come up with ways and comprises to help make viable both playestyles.
My suggestions to allow player to player trading and AH to coexist without one overtaking the other are :
Seller penalties - 5% item listing fee of original price (paying up front to post an item the AH), and 20-30% item selling value tax (when you sell an item that tax goes to the AH).
Buyers penalties - an item buyout needs to be atlest 120% of common vendor price, When an auction item is won its delevery to the players takes 10-12 hours.
Local AH penalties - Faction does not alter AH taxes, (i.ex: Human selling items in thronefast as a 30% item tax, Ogre selling in Thronefast as a 50% item tax, faction standing don't affect city taxes).
With these penalties, players that don't care about trading still have a way of selling their wares, but trading person to person is still the preferred method if you want more value. This will encourage players to actively try finding player sellers because of it's benefits, but still gives an option for those that hate person to person trading.
This is the right idea, but a 5% penalty is nothing. Nobody will bat an eyelash at utilizing such convenience at such a low price. If traditional trading is to exist, the tax on selling via auction must be higher.
Higher taxes for outsiders without the proper factions is a must if players will be inclined to sell in their own region, rather than in one common market.
Dullahan said:This is the right idea, but a 5% penalty is nothing. Nobody will bat an eyelash at utilizing such convenience at such a low price. If traditional trading is to exist, the tax on selling via auction must be higher.
Higher taxes for outsiders without the proper factions is a must if players will be inclined to sell in their own region, rather than in one common market.
The 5% is just to post an item up in the AH, so lets say you're selling a sword at 100pp, you pay 5pp to post the item, 30pp goes to the auction house tax and 65pp is you final proffit, but if you don't sell the item in time you loose 5pp.
I don't like the idea of the listing price fee being proportionate to the listing price itself. There should be a flat fee for listing items with potential variables depending on item type and duration of sale. There is already a % based cut when an item sells. I understand that some folks want to make using the AH as painful as possible in order to encourage player to player trading, but please remember that not everybody wants to get involved in that kind of trading! Rather than trying to impose crazy fees to discourage people from using the AH, think of ways to encourage player to player trading while leaving the AH in tact and healthy. Traditional selling can still exist with auction house transactions. In fact, there will be plenty of people who shop the auction house for good deals so that they can then flip them for a profit via traditional selling!
The good deals generally come from traditional player to player buying/selling. I think there at least needs to be a 15-20% tax for using the convienance of an auction house. If a robe is going for 1,000p via player to player then that should be their profit for spending their time selling in person. If someone wants to list the same robe on the AH and use their time doing something else (that possibly is making them money in the meantime) then they should either have to list their robe at a higher price to make the same for themselves or just take the 850/800p for listing at 1000p.
If there is no significant tax for using the AH then there is little incentive to unloading your goods via /auction.
@oneADseven
Having fixed listing prices for certain types of items is another option, probably even better than my 5% listing fee.
I don't see many ways to encourage player to players transaction other than making penalties for using the AH, player to player trading is less effective in all ways and the majority of the players base tends to gravitate towards the more effective option in this case the AH, so making the AH have disadvantages seems like a good compromise. Open to suggestions though.
Paying a flat listing fee and a 10-20% sales tax (15% base, can be reduced to 10% with max faction, 5% variable for instant delivery option) are big enough of a penalty, in my opinion. Perhaps beyond that, players might also have to pay some sort of monthly brokerage subscription fee to be able to sell on the auction house at all? One benefit of standard player to player selling is that you can actively advertise your wares. When it comes to an auction house, you rely on people using the proper search parameters to find your goods. Also, you can actively haggle with player to player trading. There will be plenty of times where someone has something up for sale on the auction house and players contact the seller and offer to split the difference on the fees so that both the buyer and seller come out ahead. There are plenty of ways to encourage player to player selling while still utilizing the auction house. I've been doing it for years and honestly believe that having an auction house promotes player to player trading because it arms the entire server with information. The more information you have, the more opportunities there are.
@oneADseven
Actively advertizing and hagling are no doubt advantages but also inherent results of player to player trading, they're more a result of player interaction than anything else.
Actively advertizing you wares is an advantage, but it's also only effective if players are searching/looking at the chat, in this departmant (imo) AH comes out ahead because it advertises 24/7 the items you're selling, and you can easily make yourself the top stop in the list by undercuting the competition.
I don't agree with 2 things you said about the tax variables, 5% for max faction, and 5% for instant delivery.
5% for max faction would work againt the local auction-houses VR are trying to create. If in thronefast an ogre can use the auction house as well as a human, then he as no reason to go to Broken maw, and a "global AH" will more than likely be established by the players. I believe that a race selling wares outside their home city should have a heavy tax penalty 40-50% tax and it cannot be reduce by faction.
5% for instant delivery, this actually encourages the usage of the auction house as the best option of trading for buyers, if there's no waiting timer for the wares you bought then it's clearly the best option. 5% is nothing because most things you will choose to fast buy are cheap items, like common mats, or cheap conssumables, that you want to acquire as fast as possible, you would never send an extra 5% if the item costed 1000PP, but if it costs 5pp fast buy is a no brainer.
The use of the AH to contact sellers and buy the items for a cheaper price is a great example of how the AH promotes players to player trading, but it only happens because the AH has these penalties in the first place. I never, in 8 year of world of warcraft contact a seller from the auction house (and I was a really cheap **** xd), there was no reason for me to do so, because the seller had no disadvantage in using the AH, so my offer meant nothing to him.
I can't think of anything that encourages player to player trading other than penalties to the auction-house. The auction house has the huge upside, convenience, just that alone is enough to make it the best option for the majority of players. While on the other hand player to player trading has no other upside other than it's (probably) cheaper for buyer and more profitable for sellers, but this advantage comes at the cost of a big time sink, that most will not bother with.
jpedrote said:dorotea said:It never fails to amaze me that people are upset that the proposed design lets different people play in different ways.
Instead of saying NO broker or auction house those that prefer the bazaar approach (unlike the great majority of us I suspect) should be focusing on how to design a broker or AH that preserves some use for "the tunnel" rather than arguing that "the tunnel" should be the ONLY permitted means of selling things. We have had quite a few suggestions along those lines in various threads. For that matter those may be obsolete since the idea of regional markets in an of itself does more to help "the tunnel" than some of us might have wanted.
Exactly, VR as made their decision, they'll have local AH and we need to accept that, now isntead of fighting and bickering about what's best based on opinion, we should come up with ways and comprises to help make viable both playestyles.
My suggestions to allow player to player trading and AH to coexist without one overtaking the other are :
Seller penalties - 5% item listing fee of original price (paying up front to post an item the AH), and 20-30% item selling value tax (when you sell an item that tax goes to the AH).
Buyers penalties - an item buyout needs to be atlest 120% of common vendor price, When an auction item is won its delevery to the players takes 10-12 hours.
Local AH penalties - Faction does not alter AH taxes, (i.ex: Human selling items in thronefast as a 30% item tax, Ogre selling in Thronefast as a 50% item tax, faction standing don't affect city taxes).
With these penalties, players that don't care about trading still have a way of selling their wares, but trading person to person is still the preferred method if you want more value. This will encourage players to actively try finding player sellers because of it's benefits, but still gives an option for those that hate person to person trading.
I could get behind this idea. The only thing that concerns me is I don't always have enough free time to stand around and sell things. Sometimes I am tired and just want to go to bed. Sometimes I need to go outside in RL for a visit to family or friends for instance. So for a quick and easy way to sell a local auction house with taxes would be great and if I want to maximise the amount of money that I will make I can stand around and sell in the equivalent of EC tunnel in Pantheon.
It is just all about giving players the choice of what they want to use. I would request that the local auction houses show you all the costs and figures before you sell though. Even though I do have a calculator on my desk if I am selling a lot of items I'd like it to just give me the tax costs before I sell so I can see exactly what it is going to cost me versus selling directly to players.
jpedrote said:@oneADseven
Actively advertizing and hagling are no doubt advantages but also inherent results of player to player trading, they're more a result of player interaction than anything else.
Actively advertizing you wares is an advantage, but it's also only effective if players are searching/looking at the chat, in this departmant (imo) AH comes out ahead because it advertises 24/7 the items you're selling, and you can easily make yourself the top stop in the list by undercuting the competition.
I don't agree with 2 things you said about the tax variables, 5% for max faction, and 5% for instant delivery.
5% for max faction would work againt the local auction-houses VR are trying to create. If in thronefast an ogre can use the auction house as well as a human, then he as no reason to go to Broken maw, and a "global AH" will more than likely be established by the players. I believe that a race selling wares outside their home city should have a heavy tax penalty 40-50% tax and it cannot be reduce by faction.
5% for instant delivery, this actually encourages the usage of the auction house as the best option of trading for buyers, if there's no waiting timer for the wares you bought then it's clearly the best option. 5% is nothing because most things you will choose to fast buy are cheap items, like common mats, or cheap conssumables, that you want to acquire as fast as possible, you would never send an extra 5% if the item costed 1000PP, but if it costs 5pp fast buy is a no brainer.
The use of the AH to contact sellers and buy the items for a cheaper price is a great example of how the AH promotes players to player trading, but it only happens because the AH has these penalties in the first place. I never, in 8 year of world of warcraft contact a seller from the auction house (and I was a really cheap **** xd), there was no reason for me to do so, because the seller had no disadvantage in using the AH, so my offer meant nothing to him.
I can't think of anything that encourages player to player trading other than penalties to the auction-house. The auction house has the huge upside, convenience, just that alone is enough to make it the best option for the majority of players. While on the other hand player to player trading has no other upside other than it's (probably) cheaper for buyer and more profitable for sellers, but this advantage comes at the cost of a big time sink, that most will not bother with.
The 5% variable was relative to the 15% base in my example, meaning that at most, someone (with max faction) could get the tax down to 10% (from 15). I like the idea of faction related penalties, perhaps somewhere between 5-25%. Perhaps delivery speed could be used as a service from the AH and have it's own tax and range from 0-10%, or some sort of flat fee? Maybe the seller can cover a portion (none, half, all) of the tax/fee for various delivery speed options as a condition of the sale as a way to promote their listing? I'm not so much against fees in general as I am percentage based listing price fees for a chance to sell something.
Mystifi said:I can see the regional tax based system and delivery fees, but I would be opposed to a flat fee. As someone who loves to harvest, a sunflower should not have the same fee associated with it that a rare helm has.
Maybe players could have a choice between flat or percentage, depending on what they are selling?
Dislike any AH, but they think regional will somehow "work"
oh well. it is what it is, I will just use the one i'm closest to at that time.
or just use /auction channel.
Naim said:Dislike any AH, but they think regional will somehow "work"
oh well. it is what it is, I will just use the one that's the biggest and most popular all the time. more customers that way.
I'm sure plenty of folks will use the convenient/easy route ... and that's perfectly fine, as it will create plenty of opportunities for those who dedicate themselves toward trade craft.
oneADseven said:Naim said:Dislike any AH, but they think regional will somehow "work"
oh well. it is what it is, I will just use the one that's the biggest and most popular all the time. more customers that way.
I'm sure plenty of folks will use the convenient/easy route ... and that's perfectly fine, as it will create plenty of opportunities for those who dedicate themselves toward trade craft.
sorry edited. i spoke without thinking it out. i remembered, travel won't be fast / easy so i'll use whatever is close or /auction
First off, there's nothing new here that wasn't part of the massive locked AH thread. So, I'd be quite surprised if this changes any of the current view of the devs. In that other thread, Kilsin made the point that they have in mind what they want to do, and will consider changes once it's tested in alpha/beta.
That said, the problem of an AH is fairly fundamental... automating an in-game function. I think most of us can agree we don't want that in other aspects of the game, so why ask/want it for trade? Most of the arguments for an automated trade (AH) system are based around either lack of time, convenience, or player choice. These ideas can easily be applied (and have been by all the games we "denigrate") to other systems in the game.
For example:
1) Travel - "It takes me my whole play session to get somewhere, and I don't want to talk to another player to help me out... give me a portal stone to let me get where I want quickly. Those who don't like fast travel, they can run!"
2) Raiding - "I'm not a fan of raiding, takes too much time and it's not really my style. Why not set me up with an NPC I can request to go raiding for me? Those who want to raid can. More player choice is better!"
3) Dungeons - "I'd rather spend time in RL than putting together or finding a group to run a dungeon with. Can't we have some in-game tool that will just find people for me? Those who want to form their own groups can use chat like in the EQ days. And while we're at it, just put us at the dungeon."
4) Crafting - "Crafting is too tedious and boring. Don't know why anyone would want to craft. But I sure would like some of those crafted items. Rather not talk to players, so can we have an NPC that will craft things for us? Maybe you could make it so the more I use it the more xp they get..."
And on and on...
The one question that was never answered in that mega-thread was exactly this: Why should the ideas of automating a system that you don't enjoy/have time for not be applied to other aspects of the game?
It isn't about "automating" anything ... it's about equipping the server with information. Information is power. You still have to manually submit every AH listing or purchase. The server economy is something much deeper than a single player's preference on how they spend their extra time. Making the economy more accessible allows more people to interact with each other in more ways. I enjoy the AH grind, as do many others, should we be denied the right to enjoy it because other people don't like it? Person to person trading is still possible while an AH exists ... this is called a compromise folks, a compromise that allows multiple play styles to benefit, and at the end of the day, still promotes the idea of player to player trading. If you truly enjoy the trading game then you should have a blast utilizing the various regional AH's to your advantage ... I know I will. I will spend a TON of time working the economy / market ... just as I always have, and feel that the current path is a wonderful compromise. As someone who will be extremely dedicated toward player to player trade-craft, I am 100% pleased with the idea of having regional AH's.
oneADseven said:should we be denied the right to enjoy it because other people don't like it?should you be denied instances cause other people don't like them? should be denied dying without penalties because other people don't like it? should you... the list could go on forever. and the answer is: yes. it's impossible to add all features that anyone would like to have in the game, so we'll have to live with the fact that some, or actually all of use, will not see everything exactly to their liking.
the only reason why the automation argument holds for pantheon is, that is goes against what many perceived as VRs vision of this game. if this was just any other game that focused on making everything as easy as possible for everyone, of course it needed an auction house. but pantheon wants to be different.