3-Phased Auction System (Rivens)

[Athens]

(Note:This Auction system was thought of with Riven mods in mind)

After a few riven trades i quickly noticed the level of distrust and animosity around what the supposed price of a riven mod was.

Sellers wouldn't know what they were worth and buyers couldn't know if the "other offers" a seller was claiming were credible, even when given the names of said bidders.

So below is the result of 10 minutes of thinking.

Phase 0: Advertisement

The seller puts the item up for auction with an overestimation of his selling price, places will be open for 120 seconds during which players are required to have 250,000 credits and possess the maximum Platinum price to participate.
Why the steep credit requirement? To filter out empty accounts that could be used as fake bidders.

Phase 1 : Initial Offers
A Heat map window appears showing prices from the maximum price to zero. The names and ranks of each buyer is made known and their initial offers are displayed, showing where the offers are congregating. This informs the buyer where he must bid if he is to win above the majority of offers. This phase lasts 60 seconds and players who did not make an initial offer are removed from the auction.
Why show ranks? Would you find it suspicious if all the highest initial offers were from low-ranked players? Displaying ranks ensures that buyers are confident in knowing that the low-ranked offers gathering near the maximum price are fake bids.

Phase 2 : Hidden Bid
The buyers that made initial offers must now place a bid that is hidden from everyone else. After 60 seconds the highest bidder wins the round, pays the collateral and gets the item while the losing bidders do not pay any collateral. However in the unlikely event that two or more bidders have the same price, this initiates phase-3 of the auction.
Why Hidden bids? This way the seller cannot force the auction to go to phase-3 to trap buyers into a bidding war.

Phase 3 : Bidding War
The contesting buyers must now bid up from the contested price. A 15 second timer appears that resets when a buyer raises the bidding price, meanwhile every platinum higher than the contested price increases the collateral cost by 1,000 credits. This continues until the timer runs down to 0 or if all other buyers have folded their bids. Everyone who participated in this phase must pay the total collateral cost of the auction.
Why must everyone pay for the collateral? Its highly unlikely that any two buyers will have exactly the same price, because of this the only way a seller can force an auction into phase-3 is to use fake accounts. Lets say an unscrupulous seller wanted to set a price that the auction in phase-2 would not go below, taxing his efforts with 250,000 credits per fake account disincentives this strategy by imposing a fee on all participating accounts.
But wouldn't that leave only rich scammers? On the contrary, those players who can afford spending that many credits on fake accounts often don't need the platinum in the first place.

 

That's it, this is all I am going to say on the subject.

Discuss it, Expand on it, Make your own Suggestions.

[paul5473]

45 minutes ago, Athens said:

The seller puts the item up for auction with an overestimation of his selling price, places will be open for 120 seconds during which players are required to have 250,000 credits and possess the maximum Platinum price to participate.
Why the steep credit requirement? To filter out empty accounts that could be used as fake bidders.

Well wouldn't MR stop fake bidders anyways?

[NeithanDiniem]

18 minutes ago, paul5473 said:

Well wouldn't MR stop fake bidders anyways?

you mean MR2, something you can practically trip over without trying?

[low1991]

If auction house ever implemented... Why only for Riven then?....

[Qianna]

Limiting auction time removes the purpose of the auction for whoever hosts it. Time should be limited to the length of the item being eligible to be bid on.

Filtering accounts by credit assets is unrequired. Requiring platinum to place an initial bid is substantial enough. Having no platinum to place a bid just doesn't allow it. Same goes for displaying ranks, that's reduntant.

How can you bid higher than other players if the bid is hidden? What's the point of creating a bid if the value is unknown? That's the core of auction houses.
Avoiding same bids can be as simple as allowing players to only bid higher than the current highest bid.

-

1. Creating a host auction by a player, placing an eligible item for a selected period of time, no less than 2 minutes and no longer than 24 hours. Forcing the auction to end before time expires reimburses participants and closes the auction, penalting the host by forbidding to place another auction for 15 minutes. Each cancelled auction doubles the penalty time up to no more than 2 hours, after which hosting is forbidden for 24 hours.

2. Placing bids requires to invest platinum immediately as a pledge by the client. Bids vary from min. allowed bid by the host to the highest current offering by the buyer. Players who participate in the auction are eligible to raise bids as progress goes. Clients can cancel their bids no longer than 30 seconds before auction expires.

Placing bids higher than current bid is allowed for as long as bids are unlocked. Canceling a bid prohibits the same player to participate in the same auction again.

Edited October 29, 2017 by Qianna

[paul5473]

12 minutes ago, NeithanDiniem said:

you mean MR2, something you can practically trip over without trying?

No i mean rivens are MR locked