Some Kind Of Auction House? [Megathread]

[DxAdder]

For anyone interested and especially for those saying an Auction House won't hurt the economy and the game, check this article.

 

http://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2014/03/18/diablo-3-finally-exorcises-its-demon-the-auction-house/

 

Basically to summarize, the Diablo Auction house had a huge supply of awesome items at very low prices.  This incentivized the player base to just buy items instead of grind them in the game.    The game became all stick and no carrot.  Last year Blizzard shuttered it's auction house for good.

 

A cautionary tale.

 

I read it and it makes sense but allot it had to do with drop rates and they were selling there items for $$$$$.

 

Drop rates can be tweaked and they could add more event only mods.

[(PSN)lupowolfen]

I read it and it makes sense but allot it had to do with drop rates and they were selling there items for $$$$$.

 

Drop rates can be tweaked and they could add more event only mods.

 

True.  As for selling items for real money in Diablo, Plat is closely related to real money.  To get it initially, someone has to spend money. But I see what you are saying that maybe there would be less people grinding for auction house fodder if they are not being rewarded for real money.  Still I think plenty of traders will be incented by the platinum.

 

And because of the huge supply of items in the Auction House, Blizzard's drop rates were tweaked extremely low.  All this did was increase the grind for players and make them want to use the auction house more.   Event only mods is a good idea that might help, but I don't think it will solve the problem for all the other items becoming extremely cheap at the auction house and not worth grinding in the game.

[RedDirtTrooper]

For anyone interested and especially for those saying an Auction House won't hurt the economy and the game, check this article.

 

http://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2014/03/18/diablo-3-finally-exorcises-its-demon-the-auction-house/

 

Basically to summarize, the Diablo Auction house had a huge supply of awesome items at very low prices.  This incentivized the player base to just buy items instead of grind them in the game.    The game became all stick and no carrot.  Last year Blizzard shuttered it's auction house for good.

 

A cautionary tale.

The problem was caused by the fact that items good enough to actually do high level content only dropped in that content. Players were basically incapable of gearing up for later difficulty without using the auction house. Player drops were purposefully bad, in order to keep the AH in check. Nobody could self find the gear to advance their characters, and the all the Diablo games are essentially item finding. They're all about the loot. It wasn't the AH that killed it, it was balancing drops around the market, rather than letting the market balance itself around supply and demand.

[(PSN)lupowolfen]

The problem was caused by the fact that items good enough to actually do high level content only dropped in that content. Players were basically incapable of gearing up for later difficulty without using the auction house. Player drops were purposefully bad, in order to keep the AH in check. Nobody could self find the gear to advance their characters, and the all the Diablo games are essentially item finding. They're all about the loot. It wasn't the AH that killed it, it was balancing drops around the market, rather than letting the market balance itself around supply and demand.

 

And the difference is?  Diablo is about item finding and so is Warframe.  Blizzard could not fix its Auction House by letting supply and demand balance it.  They tried to figure out a way to fix it but could not and ended up basically nuking it from space.

 

Hey an auction house might work but I'm very skeptical.  It didn't work for Diablo which has a similar grind based engine.  There is a real risk of an auction house hurting the Warframe economy.

 

And even if the economy ends up being ok, I for one will miss the ability that the current trade system offers to those that want to look for good deals, both buying and selling.

[RedDirtTrooper]

And the difference is?  Diablo is about item finding and so is Warframe.  Blizzard could not fix its Auction House by letting supply and demand balance it.  They tried to figure out a way to fix it but could not and ended up basically nuking it from space.

Because it wasn't just a matter of getting around RNG to get a specific item, or cutting down on grinding time. In that game, just getting basic gear to advance to the next difficulty level REQUIRED you to use the AH, no amount of time spent grinding at the highest level difficulty the next tier down was going to get you equipped, and prices were kept artificially high, not low, because of the way drops were adjusted based on the AH. It really was a monumental pile of stupid that you had to play to realize the frustration level involved. It wasn't just one thing that made it bad, it was mistakes on top of bad design decisions, on top of basic misunderstandings, on top of more mistakes.

[KiteoHatto]

And the difference is?  Diablo is about item finding and so is Warframe.  Blizzard could not fix its Auction House by letting supply and demand balance it.  They tried to figure out a way to fix it but could not and ended up basically nuking it from space.

 

Hey an auction house might work but I'm very skeptical.  It didn't work for Diablo which has a similar grind based engine.  There is a real risk of an auction house hurting the Warframe economy.

 

And even if the economy ends up being ok, I for one will miss the ability that the current trade system offers to those that want to look for good deals, both buying and selling.

D3 had real money involved with AH, you could even buy gold directly from AH with real money. It got to the point where people would just play D3 to make real money, hence so many farmers and bots and server overloads, people were using it to make a living.

It also killed any progression(you could buy perfect rolled end game items with cash) and progression equals player time, player time equals income for Blizzard.

 

Blizz wasn't getting enough money themselves from this deal, that's why they decided to nuke it.

 

 

 

Guild wars 2 is pretty instance based and its all about farming, it also has an auction house and it's fine. it's MUCH better than it was in GW1 which is what we have in warframe, just a trade chat and people trading each other.

 

GW2 is doing fine and AH is nice there. People are using both trade chat and auction house to trade.

Edited August 4, 2015 by kiteohatto

[Hypernaut1]

and buyers trying to take advantage of ignorant sellers, usually so they can flip and try to take advantage of an ignorant buyer.

I dont think they understand this AT ALL. There are living in some fantasy world where sellers will bottom out prices just to make a sale, like some kind of  buyers paradise. no.

 

if a rare item is put in an auction for cheap, resellers will snatch them up and raise the price for the highest profit. This is basic common sense. Only trash items will drop in price. If rare items are truly rare, then you will almost NEVER get a deal, you will always have to pay max price- unless you want to babysit the auction just like you do trade chat.

 

I dont see why this is such a complex concept. It baffles me that people dont understand this.

Edited August 5, 2015 by Hypernaut1

[GregoryGalahad]

I think it would be a bad idea, based on my own experience. I admit that i used to manipulate various crafting element prices when I played Star Wars The Old Republic, acquiring huge piles of Sick Ca$h ® in the process.

[ADM-Ntek]

as someone who hasn't bin playing for so long let me tell you the current system is confusing as hell. also this far i haven't seen a single post in the trade chat when i´m playing. the only other online game i have played so far was Star trek online and i think they had a very nice and easy to use trade system.

[Twistedsparkle]

yes for auction house

[ralphusmaximus]

A Clan Trader would make better sense.  You build a room in your Dojo for the Trader, this will give you access to Equipment/Mods that is provided to the Clan/Alliance by your Clan mates.  In exchange, for your donations, you could gain ranking in the Clan/Alliance to gain benefits from Dark Sector beyond what the standard bonuses are, like a Sigil or Regalia that grants Affinity Bonuses while operating in a controlled Dark Sector, or something along those lines.

This will do two things.  It will help with recruitment and building a strong Clan/Alliance player base.  Newer players will have a place to go and purchase mods or parts from their Alliance for Credits or Plat (prices dictated by DE) to help sidestep the horrible RNG tables we are currently dealing with.  And it will give a further reason to compete for the Dark Sector locations, I imagine Dark Sector Archwing missions coming in the future and those would be something to get your hands on.

[ADM-Ntek]

A Clan Trader would make better sense.  You build a room in your Dojo for the Trader, this will give you access to Equipment/Mods that is provided to the Clan/Alliance by your Clan mates.  In exchange, for your donations, you could gain ranking in the Clan/Alliance to gain benefits from Dark Sector beyond what the standard bonuses are, like a Sigil or Regalia that grants Affinity Bonuses while operating in a controlled Dark Sector, or something along those lines.

This will do two things.  It will help with recruitment and building a strong Clan/Alliance player base.  Newer players will have a place to go and purchase mods or parts from their Alliance for Credits or Plat (prices dictated by DE) to help sidestep the horrible RNG tables we are currently dealing with.  And it will give a further reason to compete for the Dark Sector locations, I imagine Dark Sector Archwing missions coming in the future and those would be something to get your hands on.

 

but this would lockout all the people who are not in a clan.

[Sines314]

For reference, here's a link to a blog where someone described the problems with a perfect information economy (that provided by WoW style auction houses)

 

http://www.raphkoster.com/2012/03/20/do-auction-houses-suck/ 

 

It's more about the fun of running small shops, but it applies pretty well to people wanting to sell a few small items just because they can. With platinum having an absolute value in terms of the cash shop (for slots, potatos and cosmetics), reducing prices in general, for both selling and buying is bad, since while you might still be able to trade Mod A for Mod B at the same rate, you'll now need to trade several more Mod A for a Catalyst.

 

Auction Houses are probably best avoided. Some kind of non-perfect information economy is needed, especially since Warframe has a very finite economy. It's not actually all that hard to own every item in the game, which can result in low demand, which a perfect information economy would have some problems with.

 

The Heroes of Villain consignment house (and the identical FFXI Auction House) are good systems, as they allow relatively easy sale and purchase, while avoiding the perfect information that can result in market manipulation, at least to some extent. Star Wars Galaxy style 'personal shops' that have to be browsed one by one might also be good. As long as you can't just type "Life Strike" into a search engine and immediately find and purchase the cheapest one for sale in the entire game, there will be some limit to manipulation.

 

One other possibility is provide an in-game message board that can be searched. You set up your own personal 'store', and people can do a quick search for people selling an item and at what price. This is perfect information, but you would still only be able to trade in person, preventing it from being perfect access. Market Manipulators couldn't buy all the Life Strikes on the market at once, and people might be willing to buy more expensive copies of a mod from a player who is actually online right now, compared to someone who has the cheapest price but hasn't logged on in the last couple of days. I'm not sure of any game that has done this method, but it might prevent the AH problems as well.

Edited August 5, 2015 by Sines314

[DxAdder]

Why is knowing what an item is worth a bad thing ?

 

Yes in Wow you could find out what an item has sold for past day/week/month/year by server.

 

All this does is create a stable economy based on supply & demand.

 

But what is important here is both buyers/sellers know what an item's value is.

[Etsoree]

Honestly they did talk about an 'auction area to buy your weapons at' awhile ago, but those were supposed to be in relays.

[VocalMagic]

I say yes to Auction house, but make it so once something's gone through an auction house, it can't be traded again.

[Judgebanks]

D3 had real money involved with AH, you could even buy gold directly from AH with real money. It got to the point where people would just play D3 to make real money, hence so many farmers and bots and server overloads, people were using it to make a living.

It also killed any progression(you could buy perfect rolled end game items with cash) and progression equals player time, player time equals income for Blizzard.

 

Blizz wasn't getting enough money themselves from this deal, that's why they decided to nuke it.

 

 

 

Guild wars 2 is pretty instance based and its all about farming, it also has an auction house and it's fine. it's MUCH better than it was in GW1 which is what we have in warframe, just a trade chat and people trading each other.

 

GW2 is doing fine and AH is nice there. People are using both trade chat and auction house to trade.

Warframe Platinum will be the money involved in your equation. Buying 4300 plat at $50.00USD could easily destroy the market for something like Ash Prime Systems. Sales restrictions would have to applied to items after they're sold. As the items being sold are directly related to progression, for instance Concealed Explosives makes Hikou Prime one of the best secondaries in the game. Where as in GW2 items that make the most money are skins such as Ghastly Grinning Shield.

 

I still vote yes to an AH, but resale restrictions will be a must have when RMT is involved.

[Cubewano]

Why is knowing what an item is worth a bad thing ?

 

Yes in Wow you could find out what an item has sold for past day/week/month/year by server.

 

All this does is create a stable economy based on supply & demand.

 

But what is important here is both buyers/sellers know what an item's value is.

The issue isn't knowing all prices but the results of it, which would be massive price drops/loss of value. 

 

And should you really use WoW as an example? From what I've been hearing that auction house system eventually crashed hard. 

 

As for stable economy, that isn't quite the case, that would require that this game has a balanced amount of supplies for demand, but in warframe supply is always high, so with an auction system the supply would become leagues larger than demand, which is problematic as it would result in a massive loss of value. The current situation warframe is in manages to keep the supply in balance by putting restrictions on availability of this surplus of supplies, by requiring you to be only and actively trying to sell the wares for it to work, and it works, it might be less convenient but it does work. An auction house would not. 

 

I would also disagree with you here, the primary concern should be making sure warframe maintains a functional economy, otherwise both buyers and sellers will wind up suffering in the long run. 

 

I suggest you read some of the posts in this thread and their counter arguments before just making blind claims. 

[Hypernaut1]

Why is knowing what an item is worth a bad thing ?

 

Yes in Wow you could find out what an item has sold for past day/week/month/year by server.

 

All this does is create a stable economy based on supply & demand.

 

But what is important here is both buyers/sellers know what an item's value is.

because prices of rare items will skyrocket, while the price of common things will plummet. The auction house hurts buyers the most.

 

It benefits those with a lot of plat and sellers with a lot of rares.

Edited August 5, 2015 by Hypernaut1

[DxAdder]

The issue isn't knowing all prices but the results of it, which would be massive price drops/loss of value. 

 

And should you really use WoW as an example? From what I've been hearing that auction house system eventually crashed hard. 

 

As for stable economy, that isn't quite the case, that would require that this game has a balanced amount of supplies for demand, but in warframe supply is always high, so with an auction system the supply would become leagues larger than demand, which is problematic as it would result in a massive loss of value. The current situation warframe is in manages to keep the supply in balance by putting restrictions on availability of this surplus of supplies, by requiring you to be only and actively trying to sell the wares for it to work, and it works, it might be less convenient but it does work. An auction house would not. 

 

I would also disagree with you here, the primary concern should be making sure warframe maintains a functional economy, otherwise both buyers and sellers will wind up suffering in the long run. 

 

I suggest you read some of the posts in this thread and their counter arguments before just making blind claims. 

 

I did read the many posts:

D3's AH didn't work since people were making a real money playing the AH

SWG was a crafting heavy economy.

 

WoW's economy is while not 100% based on drops is the best example I have seen.

 

Rare item's (1% or less global drop rate) were always valuable, other items drops mostly depreciated as new expansions came out.

 

I haven't play Wow In awhile and I'm sure after Bliz decided to Sell gold themselves for RL $$$ there would have been a period

where the AH prices were totally out of wack.

 

What I want is convenient system where i can browse for what I want, pay for it and it shows up in my inbox.

 

The first time I saw the trade channel , my first thought was OMG this is soo 15 years ago.

 

I think the both can exists, an AH where items are sold for Plat only and the trade channel as it is now.

[Yezzik]

D3's AH didn't work since people were making a real money playing the AH

 

D3's AH didn't work because you HAD to use it to get past the fact that all the gear you'd had drop was rubbish and you couldn't progress any further.

[JVargo]

No idea why so many people think an auction house would be the end of the world. I've actually played several MMOs over the past decade and always made a decent in game living grinding and selling mats plus the occasional rare drop. Spending a few hours in Warframe's trade channel, at least in NAEast, I see nothing more than the same 20 guys all spamming the same stuff for an hour or more. When the odd WTB message gets posted it is almost always for some mod or weapon that is no longer attainable. Under cutting doesn't even seem to get things sold anymore. At the very least we need some way of selling this stuff without having to be personally present so nobody has to sit around spamming and we can just get on with playing the game. And frankly if an auction house or a market stall drops the prices of things I'd still rather sell the numerous sets I have for a pittance than hang out in trade for 5 hours trying to out spam people.

Edited August 6, 2015 by JVargo

[Pizzarugi]

I'm all for it. There's problems with auction houses, but you guys are all crazy if you don't think the current system is horrible too. No one knows what things are worth, and everything is either greatly overpriced or deflated to nothing. All an auction house would do is the exact same thing, either deflating or inflating things in the same way, and at least it would come with not having to deal with a horrible chat.

I wish people had this logic in Path of Exile, where it's much worse.

But I support.

[Arenzo4]

diablo 3 has instant gifting? im jealous  now.

only console version does, on PC they had to be in the game the item dropped in for you to give it to them

[Cubewano]

I did read the many posts:

D3's AH didn't work since people were making a real money playing the AH

SWG was a crafting heavy economy.

 

WoW's economy is while not 100% based on drops is the best example I have seen.

 

Rare item's (1% or less global drop rate) were always valuable, other items drops mostly depreciated as new expansions came out.

 

I haven't play Wow In awhile and I'm sure after Bliz decided to Sell gold themselves for RL $$$ there would have been a period

where the AH prices were totally out of wack.

 

What I want is convenient system where i can browse for what I want, pay for it and it shows up in my inbox.

 

The first time I saw the trade channel , my first thought was OMG this is soo 15 years ago.

 

I think the both can exists, an AH where items are sold for Plat only and the trade channel as it is now.

Then why have you yet to see the large issues than auction system could introduce? Or do you think possibly destroying a games economy is worth saving you an hour or two of browsing trade? 

 

And WoW's auction system while more reliant on rng drops like Warframe was in a far more ideal situation and still bombed. So how would it possibly turn out better for Warframe? 

 

We all want a more convenient trading system, nobody here is vouching for inconvenience, but there comes a point where you have to decide to take what works over what is easy. I'd love to be able to just plop open a window to find the listing for everything I want dirt cheap, but I also know that such a situation would destroy the games economy and that it is not worth it for some temporary satisfaction/ease. 

 

Was trade chat an old concept? From what I've seen and heard auction houses are the system that used to be all the rage, until games realized they usually ended in massive failure and started to walk away from it. 

 

And sure both can exist, but that wouldn't change the impacts the auction house would have on the games economy or the massive drops in everythings  value.