I love this game but there's one thing

[CrudShuzKong]

14 minutes ago, ObscureName said:

I completely understand the logic behind how creating an auction house would ruin the economy, that's what happened to the server I played on in WoW. I agree that the auction house could turn out really bad but that was just one idea, just think whenever you go to the relay to trade it could be more organised because as of right now, it's just a bunch of people standing around with their hand up. I mean, it's not a major problem but it is a minor annoyance. Thanks for taking the time to read my OP and responding to it without threatening or insulting me lol. I really enjoy this community so far.

the biggest problem compared to wow is that this game is free to play, while in wow it was only S#&$ty for players to have their auction houses flooded with bots, here it would destroy the income of the devs as well...

[KIREEK]

DE deploys several strategies to keep you playing the game, they know the grind is something that may make players stop playing so they use small tricks to make sure you will be playing the game today and tomorrow.

You know exactly what i speak of, from the login rewards, extractors, nitain, argon, foundry timers, alerts, timed exclusive content,.....

An auction house would be the exact opposite, players would become very lazy and skip gameplay by just checking if the item is available there, you can still do the same now, but it requires time, negotiation and often a great cost, in other words you invest time into aquiring the item instead of using a fast and basic interface.

Edited March 30, 2016 by KIREEKPSO

[Hatzeputt]

Trade was ok in 2014 it took a huge step to the worse starting in 2015 and today......well. If I´d have to buy everything I spend plat on again in 2014 today I would have to pay 3-5 times as much even though the player base has noticeably increased. Yeah economy, supply and demand my bu** every single one tenno who is against an auction house is a scammer in disguise. I know quite a lot of people who will not trade for plat but mod for mod saying that trading for plat is just scamming while trading mod for mod, item for item is a fair exchange. There is a lot of truth in that and I decided to make that my preferred method of trade awhile ago as well. 

[Xaelroa]

To everyone saying it would drive the value of things down to 1p, DE has already pretty much stated that players have been charging WAY too much for most of the "rare" and current "high end" items, like the slash/impact/puncture sets, as evidenced by adding them to baro, and even addressing it on various of their media sources. The problem here is not that an auction house would actually hurt anything other than the price gougers currently flooding the game and making it more difficult/impossible for some people who have perpetually terrible luck with RNG on drops to acquire things that are already considered "must have" to be worth anything.

[clemza]

It's better the way it is, without AH.

With an AH, all prices will go down, which means you will be able to buy most of the prime for nothing wich means,there won't be reasons to farm the void anymore unless you wants to sell for like nothing ...

No need to farm mods anymore, or anything which would kill that game.

Plus i like the contact with the players in the trade chat, its better than a notification saying "you sold your items". I usualy ends giving some mods when the players are new, helping them with missions / alerts, and adding as friends.

When i came back in that game after a while i asked to buy mods in the trade chat and some guys just invited me and gave me these mods for free, and answered my questions.

Of course some people abuse it, and are selling for high prices to new players, and they aint polite, but well ...

I think that an AH would be a really bad idea in that game.

Edited March 30, 2016 by clemza
engrish :X

[Soulden]

52 minutes ago, (PS4)UltraKardas said:

Not necessarily, Lets say there is an auction room, A bot could buy every loki prime chassis under 100 plat then sell em in the auction house for 300 plat. You would need to buy the loki prime chassis faster then an automated bot if you wanted a reasonable price for it.

 

Prices could go down... or be purposely manipulated

 

47 minutes ago, CrudShuzKong said:

People would write automated scripts that automatically buy up all items rising in price and sell them higher later, while normal players would have to sell their items low enough for those bots to accept them in order to sell them at all (at the very least they would have to sell under the selling price of the bot-users which would be pretty low as well since they only snag the best deals.

This would be the biggest issue. About all games with auction houses suffer from bot/manipulators forced economy inflation.

Most people think the bigger the number the better, but you are not making any money when bots and manipulators are selling for 3 times the plat your price, and on top of that go around spamming region, recruit and trade trying to get you to buy plat, that you have no need to buy outside of DE on the first place.

And yes, you can argue listing sites can affect the market, after all, you can list your items as high as you want on a fake account to force a sale on your current account.

But currently the amount of people participating on those is so large that you can see prices ranging so greatly it remains fair at the moment. 

Note: the following does not apply to all, but for most.

Just skip buying from people who list for 30 times more than the medium price. You know those are the ones trying to manipulate the market, giving hope to others that their items could sell that high or close to it. 

 

Edited March 30, 2016 by Souldend78

[Stratego89]

1 hour ago, Bouldershoulder said:

 

So the solution? Let the sellers on the Bazaar put things they are willing to sell in their private market without prices attached, instead of just rising an arm and "shouting" hey I wanna trade. Simple

That would be fine. I see auction house and immediately assume (and I KNOW I'm right) that people want to be able to just walk up to a board, put their item there with a price, and walk away and let someone else come along and buy it any time of day just like that. THAT is what would break the economy. If it was literally just a list that people could put up saying "I'm buying this item" or "I'm selling this item" in the bazaar (that'd be a great reason to go there, actually) but prices were not allowed and people would still have to message each other, discuss prices there, and meet up to trade- it would be fine. That's the ONLY iteration of a trading board that I could see working. There's no such thing as an "auction house" that doesn't sell items while you're away- as far as I'm concerned.

[(XBOX)Snicket002]

I love the fact that people buy stuff for 1000 plat, if you do the math to real money (off the top of my head I don't know how much 1000 plat is in real money) and my thought is "really you spent that much on an in-game item that has no tangible benefit outside of this fictional game?"

PT Barnum: "There's a fool born every minute"

 

Edit: This does not have to do with the market stuff since that is how DE makes their money and is able to keep this game going and I'm ok with that, this is to do with the trading between players.

Edited March 30, 2016 by (XB1)Snicket002
Addition

[TeaBegging]

Reason why I won't support things like auction houses is:

1. Easier selling makes everything less worth. No competition left. Because face it everybody will have to sell lower to compete.
2. Earning Plat with little effort and being offline while doing so can make the entire market oversaturated.
3. Auction houses will take plat fees, in most cases this one will do to.
4. Requires no patientce or effort to actually gain platinum.

I do agree with the trade chat been a clunky way to buy sell things. The Trade chat should be divided in 2 Alternate chats. one for buying other for selling.
I would tell that warframe market is a great place to buy and sell aswell. Don't know why WF themselfs didn't come up with this idea but oh well.


 

[CrudShuzKong]

2 minutes ago, (XB1)Snicket002 said:

I love the fact that people buy stuff for 1000 plat, if you do the math to real money (off the top of my head I don't know how much 1000 plat is in real money) and my thought is "really you spent that much on an in-game item that has no tangible benefit outside of this fictional game?"

PT Barnum: "There's a fool born every minute"

well if you are a lucky no-lifer then you can make that much in a few days of farming as well. Some people also dont know what else to do with their salaries, and I dont mind them spending it for my favorite developers around...

[(XBOX)Snicket002]

Just now, CrudShuzKong said:

well if you are a lucky no-lifer then you can make that much in a few days of farming as well. Some people also dont know what else to do with their salaries, and I dont mind them spending it for my favorite developers around...

Yeah I added in a edit to my post where I said I don't mind it if it's for the market since that supports DE which is cool, I'm talking about people in trade who sell stuff for astronomically high prices (I've seen Piercing Caliber go for 4000(!), I mean I don't care how good the mod is, it is not worth that much. Say you trade someone 100 dollars worth of plat, that's no different then throwing them a 100 dollar bill and saying "here you go"

Again the market it's fine since DE makes money that way and their stuff is reasonably priced.

[TeaBegging]

52 minutes ago, Xaelroa said:

To everyone saying it would drive the value of things down to 1p, DE has already pretty much stated that players have been charging WAY too much for most of the "rare" and current "high end" items, like the slash/impact/puncture sets, as evidenced by adding them to baro, and even addressing it on various of their media sources. The problem here is not that an auction house would actually hurt anything other than the price gougers currently flooding the game and making it more difficult/impossible for some people who have perpetually terrible luck with RNG on drops to acquire things that are already considered "must have" to be worth anything.

And yet they release those mods only on events, the reason that people sell them high is that they know that these mods aren't obtainable untill they get added to the droptables. Besides people selling those mods often buy other things they need, plat eventually circles around that how the economy works.

 

[(XBOX)Snicket002]

4 minutes ago, TeaBegging said:

Reason why I won't support things like auction houses is:

1. Easier selling makes everything less worth. No competition left. Because face it everybody will have to sell lower to compete.
2. Earning Plat with little effort and being offline while doing so can make the entire market oversaturated.
3. Auction houses will take plat fees, in most cases this one will do to.
4. Requires no patientce or effort to actually gain platinum.

I do agree with the trade chat been a clunky way to buy sell things. The Trade chat should be divided in 2 Alternate chats. one for buying other for selling.
I would tell that warframe market is a great place to buy and sell aswell. Don't know why WF themselfs didn't come up with this idea but oh well.


 

I would be all for separate buying/selling tabs (since it wouldn't clutter me as I removed the cancer that is region chat) it would certainly cut down on the clutter

[CrudShuzKong]

5 minutes ago, (XB1)Snicket002 said:

Yeah I added in a edit to my post where I said I don't mind it if it's for the market since that supports DE which is cool, I'm talking about people in trade who sell stuff for astronomically high prices (I've seen Piercing Caliber go for 4000(!), I mean I don't care how good the mod is, it is not worth that much. Say you trade someone 100 dollars worth of plat, that's no different then throwing them a 100 dollar bill and saying "here you go"

Again the market it's fine since DE makes money that way and their stuff is reasonably priced.

Well even if it is used for trading the money is already spent and the chances that the platinum will go towards the market rise the richer the person gaining them is (they most likely already own all they want) or get taken out of circulation by hoarders (which essentially is the same as being spent on the market from de's point of view.

 

3 minutes ago, (XB1)Snicket002 said:

I would be all for separate buying/selling tabs (since it wouldn't clutter me as I removed the cancer that is region chat) it would certainly cut down on the clutter

Now THAT is something I really want. It would half the clutter immediatly removing only things that you dont care about anyways.

One trading chat for the pokemon kind of people, one sellers tab and one buyers tab.

Edited March 30, 2016 by CrudShuzKong

[(XBOX)Snicket002]

4 minutes ago, CrudShuzKong said:

Well even if it is used for trading the money is already spent and the chances that the platinum will go towards the market rise the richer the person gaining them is (they most likely already own all they want) or get taken out of circulation by hoarders (which essentially is the same as being spent on the market from de's point of view.

 

Now THAT is something I really want. It would half the clutter immediatly removing only things that you dont care about anyways.

One trading chat for the pokemon kind of people, one sellers tab and one buyers tab.

Imagine them adding in a wonder trade thing like Pokemon, you give a random prime part you receive a random prime part...wait no I've said too much ahhhhh

[CrudShuzKong]

7 minutes ago, (XB1)Snicket002 said:

Imagine them adding in a wonder trade thing like Pokemon, you give a random prime part you receive a random prime part...wait no I've said too much ahhhhh

Last generation pokemon trainer spotted, if I had line of sight, you would be in deeep trouble right now :D

Also random trading wont really work since even scrap is worth quite much in Ducats.

[(XBOX)Snicket002]

Just now, CrudShuzKong said:

Last generation pokemon trainer spotted, if I had line of sight, you would be in deeep trouble right now :D

Also random trading wont really work since even scrap is worth quite much in Ducats.

Not gonna lie I am more of a gen 1 guy myself (gen's 5 and 6 were awful in terms of pokemon designs)

[(PSN)atalefke]

imo it would be perfectly fine if you had an "auction house" that only displayed items, not prices

like warframe.market already literally is that (with prices, which aren't necessary for this), this would just make it an ingame thing and make trading more approachable and streamlined by removing the out-of-game step and making it completely ingame with search functionality

and besides, as long as they keep the thing where you have to go to dojo or the bazaar to trade, there's basically no way to abuse that, even if they did let you show prices

like, S#&$ dude, i got adhd and trade chat is fuckin hell on my focus tbh, having some level of accessibility to trading would be fantastic

[EinRyu]

Though I agree the trade system in Warframe could definitely be streamlined, I disagree with any sort of Auction House. 

Auction House's suffer far to much from people who have no clue how economics work and jack prices super low or super high because they have no patience and wanna sell it fast, or see if someone's actually stupid enough to buy it for a much higher amount. Newer players will disregard generally accepted community values for the items, and cause price deflation. (Anyone who has seen other games AH's has seen this, it's that guy selling for 50 while everyone else is selling for 150, now the next guy who wants to just sell fast is like "Oh this guy listed 50, and everyone else did 150, let's put it for 45!" And suddenly the items price dropped in a matter of a day.) In the mean while the smart or veteran players with market and flipping skills will gradually inflate the prices of more in demand or rarer items making them harder and harder to get for newer players.

Auction Houses are treated either like the $1 menu at fast food resturaunts cheap, instant gratification or a 5 star resturaunt where quality trumps quantity and some patience and knowledge is needed to gain access to.

[Stratego89]

2 hours ago, Senpai-Pie said:

Okay, I used the wrong term. Sorry about that.

I'm genuinely trying to understand right now, what's so special about Warframe when it comes to the market? So many other games that are grindfests have auction houses and people are able to sell things just fine. Yet here, everyone says how the market will fall apart. Why does it work for other games yet for Warframe it would be bad?

NP m8. At least you accept the difference unlike... most people.

I'll try to elaborate here on what makes warframe special when it comes to the economy. There's a lot to go through cause it's not really just one thing. I'd say what makes it special the most is the combination of three factors- that I've never really seen any other game do.

Those factors are:

• A free market set up, where there is no guidance or interference from an outside source (eg DE) to "keep the market stable". Players determine all the prices and it keeps itself in check. If people don't like what someone tries to charge- they won't buy it. If someone doesn't want to sell below a certain price, they won't. This means that every trade is different, everyone decides their own prices and it allows items to move between players very quickly and easily for the most part. If you are patient and skilled, you can get better deals and are not restricted by some sort of "set price". This also means that players can do the old buy low sell high trick, allowing even the least-skilled trader to make a profit over time without having to go grind something.
• The ability to trade the premium currency for the game. Plain and simple- not a lot of games do this because it usually hurts their income. In warframe's case they found an alternative source of income through prime access, which they've stated in previous devstream is in fact their main source of income from warframe (unless that's changed but I seriously doubt it). This is very VERY good for driving the economy. Why? EVERYONE gets involved. If premium currency cannot be traded, that substantially limits the amount of players who will do it and how frequently people will trade overall. Everyone wants the shiny cosmetics- everyone. But they cost plat. Not everyone has money to spend on plat directly, so the rest of them eagerly go and trade to obtain it instead. This means people who don't want to work for stuff can get it easier, and people who are willing to work for stuff they'd normally have to buy will be there to supply those things for them. It balances out supply and demand of both currency and actual products, and is how DE made this free market in warframe possible in the first place.
• An easy, quick, infinite source of all the items to sell. This is the last factor- and frankly is the mistake that doomed any chance of a proper auction house functioning properly in warframe- but I'll get into that further down this post. This easy, quick, infinite source of items to sell allows the market to operate in a very strange way. It means there is always a source of something when buyers come around, which keeps prices low enough to keep even casual players able to trade and get the things they need, or make a bit of money. At the same time that it ends up causing a minor stagnation naturally in the amount of sales possible for many items, it also keeps people from easily obtaining all of the platinum-only items they want. Platinum is what drives the market in warframe, if people don't need it anymore, the economy will die. But since it's own stagnation prevents that, it creates a balanced system that doesn't die but also doesn't burn itself out by becoming too lively in a short period. Every time a new item is added to the game, it surges the economy. It's like the ebb and flow of the tides. People need platinum, so a need to get items to sell is created. People work to get those items- in warframe's case usually the rare ones- and have then to sell. The buyers come along and give the people their platinum, and they no longer need as much platinum so the economy slows down slightly- preventing people from getting all the platinum they need total before the next item that surges the economy again comes around. It's a very delicate balance that makes the whole system EXTREMELY stable when left alone, but extremely fragile if agitated.

 

Now onto what all that means for an auction house in warframe:

• Free markets and auction houses. Can it work? Yes. Does it always work? Absolutely not- and it depends on outside factors. A free market and an auction house fundamentally work against each other. A free market is all about everyone- the buyers and the sellers together, as a whole, as a community- "setting" the prices for goods, but without actually SETTING a price. Auction houses allow the community to set a price- but it's basically set in stone. There is very little fluctuation. A good example to look at is steam's community market. Take a look at basically any item. EVERYONE sells for the same price, and that price does drift up and down slightly at a slow rate, but as a whole at any given time, every item basically has a set price just like walking into a walmart. That hurts economies' natural momentum because there's no competition and there's no reason to go to one person over another, making it hard to actually make a sale. There is a way to circumvent the difficulty of making a sale- lowering your price. Everyone will lower their prices until eventually it's not worth it to do it any more. This is how an auction house stabilizes it's economy.
• Why this specific free market dilemma hurts Warframe specifically. As stated earlier, warframe's economy is extremely fragile when agitated. It's reliant on being left undisturbed frankly. Auction houses is like putting a choker around every single trader's neck and not giving them any wiggle room, stopping the ebb and flow that makes it work, effectively killing the economy's momentum. It's no longer a balance of stagnation followed by flourish, it's just purely stagnant. Also as stated above, an auction house stabilizes it's economy by causing the sellers to compete with each other in pricing until it's not worth dropping the price any further. In Warframe- however, it's the literal opposite. Warframe's economy stabilizes itself by getting buyers to compete with their offers until it's not worth it to the majority of them to go higher- at which point people start selling and the price essentially sets itself at an average point. Fluctuation comes from buyer/seller circumstances per trade and the supply/demand around the buyer/seller at that moment in time. Adding an auction house to warframe's specific free market setup is literally putting two complete opposites together- and it would just not work. In another game- perhaps. But warframe's balance is just too fragile from outside sources for it to work. It would have to be a LOT more stable- which could only happen from extremely gradual and extended outside influence. That would take a long... long time, and not be worth it to the developers frankly.
• Premium Currency trading and auction houses. Can it work? Yes. Does it always work? By itself- probably, actually. There's not really any direct issues between a free market and premium currency in the same system. If an economy fails that has a premium currency trading and an auction house as well- more likely than not it is because of some other factor. Therefore there's not really anything to explain in terms of "how this combo could hurt warframe".
• Infinite sources of quickly, easily obtained items and auction houses. Can it work? No. It just cannot. This is the ultimate nail in the coffin and what without a single doubt breaks any chance of auction houses working in warframe. This is economics 101, supply and demand. In order for an economy to function there needs to be a balance of supply of items, and demand for those items. In warframe- that balance does not exist. There is an infinite number of items that people can buy at any time. If people were able to post those items on a board that someone could walk up to at any time and buy- they would compete to infinity to try to get the buyers until everything was selling for 1 plat (save for a VERY few rare items). Not only is there an infinite supply of items to be sold to a limited number of sellers- creating an imbalance, there is ANOTHER imbalance in the supply and demand. There is a ever increasing amount of supplies- causing said infinite number of them- and there is then a growing number of sellers, and a number of buyers that almost always is decreasing due to the speed of trading in this game. If an auction house came along and sped it up more it would accelerate that decrease of buyers as well as the increase in number of sellers until there would be absolutely no buyers, and everyone would be selling. Everyone would have everything because they obtain it near-free incredibly quickly after joining the game, and there would be no one to sell to, and no one could profit. The economy dies, sellers no longer have a reason to do so, DE stops selling platinum. Everyone suffers, eventually even very VERY few people who would benefit from it initially for a short time. The game itself would be drastically damaged by the collapse of it's economy.
• Now lets compare that real quick to a game with a functioning auction house in it's economy- with an infinite amount of items, premium currency, and a free market. EVE Online. EVE Online's economy is so realistic and complex that actual economic analysts will look to it for hints of what will happen to stuff in the REAL WORLD's economy. Here's why it works in EVE but doesn't work in warframe: in eve, the number of resources are technically infinite, but it's very very difficult and time consuming to obtain them. This is why the source of infinite products does not break the economy with an auction house like it would in warframe. The supply is infinite but the speed is limited, and there is ALWAYS a need for each item. There's always something to use everything on- forever. No matter what point you are at, no matter how rich you are. In warframe, you get it once and you never need it again, you go to the walmart that is trade chat, buy your loki prime, then come back the next day to set up your own walmart selling a loki prime set you got 5 minutes later. EVE Online's economy is also a free market but is extremely stable even with outside influence because of the way the game is set up. Huge losses or profits at any given moment due to player interactions with each other- such as someone blowing up someone else's huge ship, which actually made major news headlines from this game once- is a frequent happening in EVE. Players can literally kill each other and loot the goods. While it's an in-game influence, these are technically "outside" influences because they are not purely economic. All of these outside influences hardening the stability of EVE's economy combined with the fact that EVE STARTED with an auction house (as far as I know, I'm not 100% on that so don't quote me) to begin with means this factor doesn't affect it's economy with an auction house either.

I hope this clear up for you what makes Warframe's economy different, and why an auction house would be detrimental to it's economy when it can be so incredibly successful in the economies of other games. I know it's a wall of text but it's important that you read it all to understand so if you've skimmed through, find some time to go back and read the entirety at some point even if part by part.

Quick edit and ending thought: other people have said above (and are correct) that a trading board (which is NOT an auction house) in the form of ONLY displaying that people want to buy or sell a certain item and did not list any prices or allow automatic purchases, requiring players to still message contact each other, discuss prices, and meet up to trade whilst they are both online would work PERFECTLY fine- and would also help the people who tend to ask for an auction house for the SOLE reason that they do not like staring at trading, which is understandable. There is still the potential that said trading board could impact trade chat's vitality in a negative way, but I do not personally seeing it having a major influence for a long period of time. Better opportunities and for-sure responses would easily be found in trade chat that would not be found on a trading board for the major items that drive warframe's economy at any given moment.

Edited March 30, 2016 by Stratego89

[Genoscythe]

1 hour ago, CrudShuzKong said:

People would write automated scripts that automatically buy up all items rising in price and sell them higher later, while normal players would have to sell their items low enough for those bots to accept them in order to sell them at all (at the very least they would have to sell under the selling price of the bot-users which would be pretty low as well since they only snag the best deals.

DE could just implement a way of ingame-captcha. Works on the forums so why not in-game? A lot of games have working auction houses, I think the bot argument can be solved rather easily. You could also limit purchases and sells to one per day or depending on mastery.

 

Well, it does not have to be an auction house, but maybe a more regulated trade system, the trading in Warframe is synonimous to anarchy at the moment.

Edited March 30, 2016 by Genoscythe

[MopUpCrewman]

10 hours ago, Stratego89 said:

NP m8. At least you accept the difference unlike... most people.

I'll try to elaborate here on what makes warframe special when it comes to the economy. There's a lot to go through cause it's not really just one thing. I'd say what makes it special the most is the combination of three factors- that I've never really seen any other game do.

Those factors are:

• A free market set up, where there is no guidance or interference from an outside source (eg DE) to "keep the market stable". Players determine all the prices and it keeps itself in check. If people don't like what someone tries to charge- they won't buy it. If someone doesn't want to sell below a certain price, they won't. This means that every trade is different, everyone decides their own prices and it allows items to move between players very quickly and easily for the most part. If you are patient and skilled, you can get better deals and are not restricted by some sort of "set price". This also means that players can do the old buy low sell high trick, allowing even the least-skilled trader to make a profit over time without having to go grind something.
• The ability to trade the premium currency for the game. Plain and simple- not a lot of games do this because it usually hurts their income. In warframe's case they found an alternative source of income through prime access, which they've stated in previous devstream is in fact their main source of income from warframe (unless that's changed but I seriously doubt it). This is very VERY good for driving the economy. Why? EVERYONE gets involved. If premium currency cannot be traded, that substantially limits the amount of players who will do it and how frequently people will trade overall. Everyone wants the shiny cosmetics- everyone. But they cost plat. Not everyone has money to spend on plat directly, so the rest of them eagerly go and trade to obtain it instead. This means people who don't want to work for stuff can get it easier, and people who are willing to work for stuff they'd normally have to buy will be there to supply those things for them. It balances out supply and demand of both currency and actual products, and is how DE made this free market in warframe possible in the first place.
• An easy, quick, infinite source of all the items to sell. This is the last factor- and frankly is the mistake that doomed any chance of a proper auction house functioning properly in warframe- but I'll get into that further down this post. This easy, quick, infinite source of items to sell allows the market to operate in a very strange way. It means there is always a source of something when buyers come around, which keeps prices low enough to keep even casual players able to trade and get the things they need, or make a bit of money. At the same time that it ends up causing a minor stagnation naturally in the amount of sales possible for many items, it also keeps people from easily obtaining all of the platinum-only items they want. Platinum is what drives the market in warframe, if people don't need it anymore, the economy will die. But since it's own stagnation prevents that, it creates a balanced system that doesn't die but also doesn't burn itself out by becoming too lively in a short period. Every time a new item is added to the game, it surges the economy. It's like the ebb and flow of the tides. People need platinum, so a need to get items to sell is created. People work to get those items- in warframe's case usually the rare ones- and have then to sell. The buyers come along and give the people their platinum, and they no longer need as much platinum so the economy slows down slightly- preventing people from getting all the platinum they need total before the next item that surges the economy again comes around. It's a very delicate balance that makes the whole system EXTREMELY stable when left alone, but extremely fragile if agitated.

 

Now onto what all that means for an auction house in warframe:

• Free markets and auction houses. Can it work? Yes. Does it always work? Absolutely not- and it depends on outside factors. A free market and an auction house fundamentally work against each other. A free market is all about everyone- the buyers and the sellers together, as a whole, as a community- "setting" the prices for goods, but without actually SETTING a price. Auction houses allow the community to set a price- but it's basically set in stone. There is very little fluctuation. A good example to look at is steam's community market. Take a look at basically any item. EVERYONE sells for the same price, and that price does drift up and down slightly at a slow rate, but as a whole at any given time, every item basically has a set price just like walking into a walmart. That hurts economies' natural momentum because there's no competition and there's no reason to go to one person over another, making it hard to actually make a sale. There is a way to circumvent the difficulty of making a sale- lowering your price. Everyone will lower their prices until eventually it's not worth it to do it any more. This is how an auction house stabilizes it's economy.
• Why this specific free market dilemma hurts Warframe specifically. As stated earlier, warframe's economy is extremely fragile when agitated. It's reliant on being left undisturbed frankly. Auction houses is like putting a choker around every single trader's neck and not giving them any wiggle room, stopping the ebb and flow that makes it work, effectively killing the economy's momentum. It's no longer a balance of stagnation followed by flourish, it's just purely stagnant. Also as stated above, an auction house stabilizes it's economy by causing the sellers to compete with each other in pricing until it's not worth dropping the price any further. In Warframe- however, it's the literal opposite. Warframe's economy stabilizes itself by getting buyers to compete with their offers until it's not worth it to the majority of them to go higher- at which point people start selling and the price essentially sets itself at an average point. Fluctuation comes from buyer/seller circumstances per trade and the supply/demand around the buyer/seller at that moment in time. Adding an auction house to warframe's specific free market setup is literally putting two complete opposites together- and it would just not work. In another game- perhaps. But warframe's balance is just too fragile from outside sources for it to work. It would have to be a LOT more stable- which could only happen from extremely gradual and extended outside influence. That would take a long... long time, and not be worth it to the developers frankly.
• Premium Currency trading and auction houses. Can it work? Yes. Does it always work? By itself- probably, actually. There's not really any direct issues between a free market and premium currency in the same system. If an economy fails that has a premium currency trading and an auction house as well- more likely than not it is because of some other factor. Therefore there's not really anything to explain in terms of "how this combo could hurt warframe".
• Infinite sources of quickly, easily obtained items and auction houses. Can it work? No. It just cannot. This is the ultimate nail in the coffin and what without a single doubt breaks any chance of auction houses working in warframe. This is economics 101, supply and demand. In order for an economy to function there needs to be a balance of supply of items, and demand for those items. In warframe- that balance does not exist. There is an infinite number of items that people can buy at any time. If people were able to post those items on a board that someone could walk up to at any time and buy- they would compete to infinity to try to get the buyers until everything was selling for 1 plat (save for a VERY few rare items). Not only is there an infinite supply of items to be sold to a limited number of sellers- creating an imbalance, there is ANOTHER imbalance in the supply and demand. There is a ever increasing amount of supplies- causing said infinite number of them- and there is then a growing number of sellers, and a number of buyers that almost always is decreasing due to the speed of trading in this game. If an auction house came along and sped it up more it would accelerate that decrease of buyers as well as the increase in number of sellers until there would be absolutely no buyers, and everyone would be selling. Everyone would have everything because they obtain it near-free incredibly quickly after joining the game, and there would be no one to sell to, and no one could profit. The economy dies, sellers no longer have a reason to do so, DE stops selling platinum. Everyone suffers, eventually even very VERY few people who would benefit from it initially for a short time. The game itself would be drastically damaged by the collapse of it's economy.
• Now lets compare that real quick to a game with a functioning auction house in it's economy- with an infinite amount of items, premium currency, and a free market. EVE Online. EVE Online's economy is so realistic and complex that actual economic analysts will look to it for hints of what will happen to stuff in the REAL WORLD's economy. Here's why it works in EVE but doesn't work in warframe: in eve, the number of resources are technically infinite, but it's very very difficult and time consuming to obtain them. This is why the source of infinite products does not break the economy with an auction house like it would in warframe. The supply is infinite but the speed is limited, and there is ALWAYS a need for each item. There's always something to use everything on- forever. No matter what point you are at, no matter how rich you are. In warframe, you get it once and you never need it again, you go to the walmart that is trade chat, buy your loki prime, then come back the next day to set up your own walmart selling a loki prime set you got 5 minutes later. EVE Online's economy is also a free market but is extremely stable even with outside influence because of the way the game is set up. Huge losses or profits at any given moment due to player interactions with each other- such as someone blowing up someone else's huge ship, which actually made major news headlines from this game once- is a frequent happening in EVE. Players can literally kill each other and loot the goods. While it's an in-game influence, these are technically "outside" influences because they are not purely economic. All of these outside influences hardening the stability of EVE's economy combined with the fact that EVE STARTED with an auction house (as far as I know, I'm not 100% on that so don't quote me) to begin with means this factor doesn't affect it's economy with an auction house either.

I hope this clear up for you what makes Warframe's economy different, and why an auction house would be detrimental to it's economy when it can be so incredibly successful in the economies of other games. I know it's a wall of text but it's important that you read it all to understand so if you've skimmed through, find some time to go back and read the entirety at some point even if part by part.

Thank you for taking your time to explain everything. Now I understand the situation much better.

[(PSN)PillarOfWar]

2 hours ago, (PS4)robotwars7 said:

I think it's time for DE to drop the hammer on this and say NO during a Devstream or Prime time. maybe hearing it from the horse's mouth will reduce the number of Auction House requests.

That is so true. 

[(PSN)Void_Girl]

38 minutes ago, Genoscythe said:

the trading in Warframe is synonimous to anarchy at the moment.

That's a good thing.

[Stratego89]

40 minutes ago, Genoscythe said:

Works on the forums so why not in-game?

A lot of games have working auction houses

You could also limit purchases and sells to one per day or depending on mastery.

Well, it does not have to be an auction house, but maybe a more regulated trade system, the trading in Warframe is synonimous to anarchy at the moment.

Because forums are not in game. In game is the issue with a standard trading board in warframe- on forums it works because usually people are doing it to meet up with people at other times, not just try to get an item quickly and easily without searching for it.

Yes- and those game's auction houses are incredibly different, complex, and had an auction house to begin with in most cases. See my above wall of text for an in depth review of why auction houses work in other games but wouldn't work in warframe.

Unfortunately despite popular assumption- this would not in any way slow or let alone prevent the failure of an auction house in warframe.

Anarchy would be EVE online where you can go kill and loot people. This is simply a free market. Anarchy is a type of free market, but not all free markets are anarchies- warframe's for example is simply a free market. I see the comparison though and it's a pretty good one. Regulated trade system still wouldn't help though. The only thing that could work is an oversimplified trading board in which you can simply and ONLY post that you WTB/WTS and item. No prices. No automatic purchases. You still have to contact, discuss prices, and meet up to trade with the other person. That would not break the economy.