Some Kind Of Auction House? [Megathread]

[KiteoHatto]

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. 

Wow's economy is terribly inflated due to how many people are buying gold from goldfarmers. It's stupidly easy to buy gold and blizz are really soft on their subscribers. I used to play with a guy who bought gold all the time and whenever his account got locked he just submitted a tickets with "i got hacked plz unban ty!1" and was back in the game in the next 2 days .

 

You cant really get gold farmers in warframe, you cant trade money or materials and you can't directly trade plat. There is very little point of running a goldfarm in this type of game, there is just no profit in doing so.

 

Plat is the only economy and only thing that has value in this game and DE has full control over it, the only solid way to get it is to buy from them directly.

[3lackrose]

I have so much stuff to sell but don't really enjoy investing much time in the trading chat, so i keep piling the stock up.

 

An auction house or a similar system would help me so i can put some of my stuff on sale while doing my missions or whatever.

 

EDIT: Fixed typos

Edited August 5, 2015 by 3lackrose

[Soju.]

Incoming wall of text.

 

PLEASE NOTE THAT I DIDN'T WRITE THIS, MY CLAN'S WARLORD DID AND I'M JUST BRINGING THE IDEA HERE. I TAKE NO CREDIT.

We already have a bunch of asshats creating a bunch of accounts farming for 75% off discounts then buy it cheap and sell it for real dollars to other people <--- this not only leads to those asshats making a bunch of money, also making DE not making as much money because why would they buy from DE's website when they could buy it cheaper from those asshats who got 75% off and bought it then re-sell it for a bit cheaper price but still makes profit for themselves?

 

This Aunction house system would only make it worse for the market. People who buy are in a better position than the people who sell, which will effectively go back and kick you in the nuts since you're asking for "easier" ways to sell items, let's make an example, you put an item up for sale (i.e ash prime blueprint) for 100platinums, then another asshat comes and see it and he undercuts you and sell it for 90. Which one do you think people will choose? Yours or the cheaper one? People who sell will step on each other just so they could sell it faster.

 

Items that have little value now will have even less or none at all => harder for newbies to even get to know trading or people looking to make easy plats.   

 

And just think of the people who will abuse the system, make another example, if you have one of the rarest mod (i,e legendary cores, primed chamber, buzz kill, etc), and there are only 10 on the AH up for sell and they are on a really high demand, those 10 will sell real quick, meanwhile those asshats wait for their chance and put it up after the previous 10 have been sold, but for an excessive price, a wayyyyyyyyyy bigger cost than the last 10. => He makes a bunch of plats since he's one of the minority who still has the mod and the buyers will have no other choice but to buy it if they want it. Which will leads to a series of price increase in that item, because the demand keep getting higher and higher, and it will get to a ridiculous price (even 10,000 plat maybe) if the demand is high enough and the chain continue.

 

We've seen many similar cases like this in Warframe and they do not do any good for the players. Remember Solar Rail Conflict? When a lot of Alliances got a lot of rails on their hands and put on a ridiculous tax and screw all that isn't in their alliance? If they are challenged, the Alliance that has the control of the rail could do dirty tricks to keep the rail while maintaining the ridiculous tax, like "hire" another clan to take the right to challenge the rail instead or split the Alliance so they could challenge each other, so the other clans and alliances who wanted to take the rail won't be able to. 

 

I can see that happening again if this Auction House idea come to live, there's no no guarantee that the other players/alliances won't manipulate and sway the market to their advantages and make mad profits from ridiculous pricing, quackery, and tricks. Just look at other games' markets that have this features, E.V.E maybe.

 

Newbies won't be able to play (buy warframe slots, weapon slots, etc) without buying platinums with real money (and may I make a remark on this, they won't buy plats from DE but instead from the asshats that re-sell it after they got 75% off reward from farming it with a load of accounts). New players will be forced to use real money to continue to play the game, because they won't be able to trade since other people will undercut their prices on the items they put up for sale, and no trade mean no plats, and no plats mean you can't buy slots or anything. Which mean they won't be able to make plats to buy anything just by playing the game and farming for prime items anymore => Leading to people quitting the game.

 

If people who don't put money into the game to buy plats quit the game, then the players who put their money into the game will also quit the game. Why? Let's make an example.

 

A plane has 2 section: 1 VIP section and 1 regular section, of course, the people in the VIP sections have the advantages the people in the regular sections don't have, so they will continue to pay for the VIP sections because they felt it was worth it because they have the advantages the people in the regular sections don't have. The people in the regular section gives a smaller amount of profit, and some people might buy their ticket for the VIP section next time because they want what the VIP section has to offer. But if the plane managers and assistants treat the people in the regular section like crap and people in the VIP section like gods, then the people in the regular section will switch to another plane brand, which will then also affect the people in the VIP section because they're the only one left there and what advantages do they really have, over no one? Which will then make them feel like their money isn't worth it. They will then also switch to use another plane service/brand. That situation also applies in video games. If this game makes them feel left out because they don't have enough plats, they will migrate to another game, and the population will slowly/quickly decrease. And if the people who don't want to use real money to buy plats (people such as myself and I know tons others who don't), leave the game, that leave the minority who use real money to play the game, which will then also quit the game because there are too few people.

 

That's only about the players, now about the developers, they will also have to waste man power, money, and work 10x harder to even try to control this system. Why would you pay $150 for Prime Access when someone else is selling it for 500 or 600 in the Auction House? Then they will proceed to nerf the drop rate, increase wait time for crafting items, etc, even more so they could encourage players to pay to make enough money to keep the game going and still profitable for the publisher.

 

Conclusion? No, Auction House will do more bad than good, in Warframe, and in any game, even with a tight security control.

Edited August 5, 2015 by AlphaWolf003

[(PSN)lupowolfen]

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.

Not seeing trade posts? Something is not right unless your region is set to Oceania or something. Check you region. It should be north america east or west or europe. And then bring up trade chat tab and leave it up. You should see it populating with ads.

[Alice-Proxy]

3. NO AUCTION HOUSES. They kill economies.

 

Tell that to Steam marketplace.

[(PSN)lupowolfen]

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.

ow 

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.

 

The posted blog link is relevant and I think you made a very solid analysis in your post above.  Interesting how having perfect information could take all the fun out of being a trader and also take all the fun out of being a buyer looking for a good deal.  

 

And good point about catalysts and slots having a fixed price in the market which means when AH causes item prices to go down, everyone selling items is going to get a lot less plat then they get now.  People trading in the AH to get platinum for slots and catalysts are going to have to do a lot more work trading or they are going to have to buy plat using money on the market. And forget about day trading.  With perfect information causing stable and defined prices, flipping items will be near impossible.  

Edited August 5, 2015 by (PS4)lupowolfen

[styxonfire]

Auction Houses?

Tell that to Steam marketplace.

Tell that to a fuckton of other MMORPG's

Edited August 5, 2015 by styxonfire

[Avenwing]

they can buy out all the lowest item then set it up at a high price rinse and repeat.

There's an easy fix for this. Make anything bought through auction house untradeable.

 

Also the majority of the reasons I see for not having an auction house are as follows.

 

"No, because then I couldn't rip people off anymore."

Edited August 5, 2015 by Avenwing

[Buzkyl]

Auction Houses?

 

 

Tell that to a fuckton of other MMORPG's

 

 

And yet if other's manage to do it successfully, why shouldn't warframe try?

 

Like another poster said, make items bought through the auction house be untradable, now you buy an item you can't just resell it for profit.

[Stratego89]

Tell that to Steam marketplace.

I do. I even use that as an example. Steam community marketplace (auction house) singlehandedly destroyed TF2's economy- and it still hasn't recovered.

[Soju.]

Tell that to Steam marketplace.

Yes, and look at the ridiculous pricing for a skin for CSGO.

[Schrenk212]

FFXI had a great trade system, they had an auction house and a personal bazaar. You could list on the AH, or put items in this "open for sale" inventory where people would click on your character, check the to see what you have and buy directly from that inventory screen. No opening a trade window, no chat spam, and no AH, unless you wanted to of course.

[styxonfire]

And yet if other's manage to do it successfully, why shouldn't warframe try?

Because of the mere concept of how auction houses work tons of Eastern based/made MMORPGs and even a number of Western based/made MMORPGs have become pay to win. How do you NOT make it pay to win? Carefully construct a way that nothing in-game will break the game and be VERY METICULOUS about it. What happens to Warframe if it does have an Auction House? Well... we have a fair lot of event-exclusive mods (timed or not), the RNG is horrid from time to time, and do you know how much a mere Fleeting Expertise mod can cost with an Auction House? The price will SKYROCKET, MAXED OR NOT!

[styxonfire]

"No, because then I couldn't rip people off anymore."

Imagine an environment in which a mere unranked Fleeting Expertise can cost.

[Cubewano]

Also the majority of the reasons I see for not having an auction house are as follows.

 

"No, because then I couldn't rip people off anymore."

Have you actually taken the time to read the majority of the posts in this thread or are you just assuming you know what the majority wants?

[Judgebanks]

There isn't a single example of an auction that actually ruined an economy in any "MMORPG". Most "MMORPG" economies have been killed by RMT for gold or other goods. Any situation in which a player can create an infinite supply of self replicating currency for himself will undoubtedly lead to an economic collapse.

 

So far this thread has provided nothing in terms of proof that Auction Houses create economic collapses, when we all know there are plenty of games that have functioning internal auction house styled systems.

 

Currently the systems we have in play are all subject to creating massive inflation, look at the price of Ice Spring or other Jump mods, and how said mods went from 170p to 35p as soon as reddit got a hold of the info. All fears exclaimed in this thread exist already, the difference is that you don't realize how S#&amp;&#036;ty prices are, and how much worse they can get. Your current trade system is already being exploited to hell and back, yet it offers nothing to the players benefit except to spread misinformation to newer players.

 

An auction house could at the very least provide clear and visible information to all players new or veteran.

An auction house can allow for items to flagged as sold through the auction house, so that they may never be relisted on the auction house or traded to another player.

An auction house can limit listing to prevent players from flooding the market with hundreds of extremely undercut items, or should a player attempt, he or she would waste all their listings for nominal return.

[TheEIIimist]

Im all for AH. Current system is S#&amp;&#036;.

[Soju.]

There's an easy fix for this. Make anything bought through auction house untradeable.

 

Also the majority of the reasons I see for not having an auction house are as follows.

 

"No, because then I couldn't rip people off anymore."

You do realize people getting rip off 10x worse from Auction House, right? And I'm not even sure if you've read the majority posts in this thread or you are pulling something out of your arse. Making items bought from auction house untradeable will eventually lead to no other sources to buy event mods and other mods. Making it even rarer and those asshats that have been waiting for the demand to rises sky high to RIP PEOPLE OFF 100x OVER. Do you even think before you write these? I can see little to no thinking at all from you.

 

 

 

There isn't a single example of an auction that actually ruined an economy in any "MMORPG". Most "MMORPG" economies have been killed by RMT for gold or other goods. Any situation in which a player can create an infinite supply of self replicating currency for himself will undoubtedly lead to an economic collapse.

 

So far this thread has provided nothing in terms of proof that Auction Houses create economic collapses, when we all know there are plenty of games that have functioning internal auction house styled systems.

 

Currently the systems we have in play are all subject to creating massive inflation, look at the price of Ice Spring or other Jump mods, and how said mods went from 170p to 35p as soon as reddit got a hold of the info. All fears exclaimed in this thread exist already, the difference is that you don't realize how S#&$ty prices are, and how much worse they can get. Your current trade system is already being exploited to hell and back, yet it offers nothing to the players benefit except to spread misinformation to newer players.

 

An auction house could at the very least provide clear and visible information to all players new or veteran.

An auction house can allow for items to flagged as sold through the auction house, so that they may never be relisted on the auction house or traded to another player.

An auction house can limit listing to prevent players from flooding the market with hundreds of extremely undercut items, or should a player attempt, he or she would waste all their listings for nominal return.

Yes and RMT in Warframe is platinums, you are aware of people farming for 75% discounts and buy plats then sell them to make profits and rip off DE, yes? I don't see the idea of Auction House - letting people name ridiculous price for high demand mods (but ain't even worth that much) to rip people off will help.

 

Ice Springs and other jump mods drop in price because their farm location was revealed, I don't see anything wrong with that, especially since those mods aren't even that great beside for good looking visual effects and are a pain in the ! to max to R10. Did Buzz Kill drop in price because DE included it in the last event's drop table? No. Yes I know it's still one rare drop. Did Vermilion Storm drops in price because now you can farm them easier with all these manic bombards from Tyl Regor? No. Mods: Utility > Cool looking effects (But if we can have both Utility and cool looking effects, then that'd be great too).

 

Every new mods that come out got a ridiculous price whether it's useful or not, because dumb rich people have plats they pay what they want, I don't mind that, until people know that it's not that all around great, the price starts to drop. It's a common thing. Do you really expect those mods to stay on that cost forever? Currently Lightning Dash is the only mod that still cost a lot as of now since its farm location is still nowhere to be found, and that's the only reason its price is still high, not because it's great or whatever. You talk of benefits but did you think of how many more exploits there are going to be with Auction House? Every feature has an exploit, it's a choice whether you choose one with less exploits or more.

 

What's my input on this? The current system is fine, and definitely better than Auction House.

Edited August 6, 2015 by AlphaWolf003

[Avenwing]

You do realize people getting rip off 10x worse from Auction House, right? And I'm not even sure if you've read the majority posts in this thread or you are pulling something out of your arse. Making items bought from auction house untradeable will eventually lead to no other sources to buy event mods and other mods. Making it even rarer and those asshats that have been waiting for the demand to rises sky high to RIP PEOPLE OFF 100x OVER. Do you even think before you write these? I can see little to no thinking at all from you.

 

It works great in every game I've seen it in.

[Soju.]

It works great in every game I've seen it in.

Yes, and it works terrible in other games I've seen it in. Steam marketplace is a pretty good example, with all the CSGO skins going for a price of an entire AAA game and even $400. Yeah I'm sure it's great.

[Daaaddy]

let me explain this simply and without prejudice since i am a new (1.5 week old) player.

 

The current situation:

1. People find it hard to find the "current" price of items

2. They make trading decisions based on 3rd party websites which are in line with many "WTS" prices

3. This creates an impression that this is the correct market price

4. They get disappointed when people low ball them with offers less than half their stated price or when they cant even get any offers on their items

 

The reality

5. There are more items in the market than there are plats

6. There is low market liquidity

7. There is imperfect information

 

The Holy Grail Proposal: Auction Houses will

8. Create a fair value of items

9. Make it easier to sell items

10. No more scams or underpriced selling

 

The Auction House reality:

11. Merchant Clans will form and attempt to manipulate prices

12. The real fair value of items will be very very scary. 95% of items will be worth 1p or less (in short only worth DuCat value) and supposedly sought after items like Ash P Systems will only drop by the day not rise.

13. People will spend more time auction sniping than playing the game

14. People will realize that since it is so easy and cheap to get items, there will be less incentive to farm

 

Conclusion:

Auction houses is the logical proposal but its not necessarily the correct one. Be smart. The current system is not perfect but there is no way to make a "better" alternative without sacrificing something. To get fair valued items, you need a liquid market. This means more players (new or otherwise) who buy plats. The state of the economy is pathetic. USD 200 gets you 4300 plats which can singlehandedly buy every frame and weapon with some spare change for mods on the market? I'm laughing really.

 

Edit: on people getting ripped off? Get a life. There was an offer, there was an acceptance. There was consideration. That is as much of a business contract (virtually) that you can get. If you didn't like the offer, or you didnt know what your item is worth, don't accept it. Who asked the seller to sell if he didn't like the price. You cant go to a pawnshop to sell your watch for $10 and scream "BLOODY SCAM!" when the pawnshop sells your stuff to the public at $50 now can you? So whats the problem when this is in game?

Edited August 6, 2015 by Daaaddy

[Soju.]

The Auction House reality:

11. Merchant Clans will form and attempt to manipulate prices

12. The real fair value of items will be very very scary. 95% of items will be worth 1p or less (in short only worth DuCat value) and supposedly sought after items like Ash P Systems will only drop by the day not rise.

13. People will spend more time auction sniping than playing the game

14. People will realize that since it is so easy and cheap to get items, there will be less incentive to farm

Exactly. That plus many more horrible things it brings.

 

 

I want to hear Lotus says "Chaos, is spreading." on this matter.

Edited August 6, 2015 by AlphaWolf003

[ACorpse]

how can anybody control the price of any item when you are the ones who set the price?

 

This is not like real economy where the government can give lesser tax and somebody can get unfair advantage

 

Spotted the guy who's never played Eve.

[DiBBz]

here. http://warframe.market/

 

theres your dam auction house

[HalfDarkShadow]

-snip snip-

Beautiful post! Saves me the trouble, since you put it way better then I ever could haha.

 

But auction houses just remind me of some of the older games I used to play and love, but ultimately left, with some being the sole of reason of their auction house systems really cripping alot of players like myself. I mean hell, the game I played for over 5 years, Dragon Nest; not sure how it is now, but 2 years ago, you could just go to their marketplace and you'll know exactly what I'm talking about lol. Three major guilds heavily running the marketplace with all the legendary raid gear and accessories, buying off every other person selling their gear and whatnot, so they can sell it for a higher price; beyond the newest raid and top-level gear and the few sellable costumes, about 94%-ish (give-or-take) items the rest of the market place holds are worth as low as a few bronze (i.e. 100 bronze = 1 silver, 100 silver = 1 gold), despite how difficult or not it is to obtain that certain item or weapon, which ties back to newer items loosing value by the day instead of either going up or staying consistent, etc etc etc.

I seriously could go on all day about this, but generally is just an easier example I can give, that the marketplace (auction house) fluctuates and spikes radically, in a very unnatural way.

Hell, there's a reason why a few years back another game I can think of, Elsword, had to redo their whole marketplace system due to exploitations and issues such as these. Or another one, is to look at what happened to Eve online before. Not throwing any of these games under the bus or anything; I love a lot of these games, and are fine in their own right, but the reality of it, is that making a "better" market, is always going to cost some compromises, and in many cases, even worse ones then what we currently have 

 

here. http://warframe.market/

 

theres your dam auction house

 

For some reason, this made me laugh my &amp;#&#33; off out loud over here hahah xD