So Auction philosophy thread.

[Cerrera]

Was supposed to write this in auction thread, but yeah, guessing it wouldn't be appropriately.
but i typed and thought for so long, that i don't want it to just poof

What i see from reselling auction items, is that person still keeps the main goal of taking out gold from economy, but he keeps fun of being higher bidder in he's own hands. Gold being generated from people work (you cannot sell ed directly in some vendor stone) so at auction level, you need others to work for you.
From buyers perspective it feels and is unfair, fact that he must buy so wanted item for more than it was sold in auction, just because he couldn't afford that in right time.
But from highest bidders perspective, he must keep he's competitiveness somehow, and when it goes to level when donations cannot satisfy all needs, he is involving other tools.
So i see point on a wish of acc bounding items from auctions, to make bidding for items tempting just for people really willing them. But from other side, it would be unfair to completely take away a chance for someone, to get that so wanted thing, even for higher price, just because someone decided to bid higher lets say, just for fun.

[Silent]

This is that exact line where a game will not solve real life. Nothing that you see here is any different from a real auction. You can even make credit on a bank to have more money to bid which here I think Muolke offered that service once but it is, in general, unavailable. Regarding the post auction sell, again, this is quite common in real life so why would we change it here?.

Lets say someone donated a substantial amount of money to get ED and then trade for gold:

1) ED become cheaper to the avarage joe who doesn't have the means to donate so often.
2) ED is sunk by these players who use the premium coin to buy items needed.
3) All players labour on making money is more valued because many items drop in price.
4) The shard keeps running because someone is donating.
5) The player sells the item again, gains back the gold spent, ED has already been flushed (possibly sunk) and is most likely in higher value again.

We need auctions and vets willing to flush the economy down in order for the shard to be attractive for newcomers. Sure they can make money on an item that they bought, but that is supply and demand all over again isn't it?

If items are account bound and they result in lower bids (if no one were to raise you just because "yes") what would be the benefit to the economy? Besides ED selling, you can accumulate really a lot of gold between auctions. Alternatively, if gold isn't sunk (even in the hopes of post-auction sell) the most important items could sell for a "gazillion gps" - making them even less accessible.

The way things are I think are functional. Severely changing the economy is very risky.
What if no one wanted to sell a single ED? how much would a buy offer be? Would people donate? Would the shard stay up?

As for the last part, it is an auction, not a raffle, not a live vendor and definitely not charity, you don't get what you want here, you get what you can pay for.

[GreenBar]

I'd rather see a 120 day account bind, like relayers have, on grand auction items. Except no paying ED to remove it early. Resellers will still bid but not as much since all their gold will be tied up for 4 months while the account bind slowly decays.

So i see point on a wish of acc bounding items from auctions...

[Geriatric]

im with silent on this..

IF IT AINT BROKE DONT FIX IT


the auction items keep coming around and around
there has been a noticable price drop in the sale price of alot of these items (i think its due to the balron fix)

if theres a particular item you want
start saving

[Geriatric]

also...
economies are suppose to be competitive

not everyone gets a trophy

[Yuki]

I'd also like to point out that inflated auction price items will cause people to save more gold for auctions which is actually good for the economy since then they'd have to play more and produce more goods to sell. All the while they are hoarding all that gold for the auction so it's not causing inflation which serves the purpose of the auction.

The only real problem is if people feel like they can't compete and quit but to me that seems like they were close to quitting anyways since they're not willing to play the game to make the gold for the higher prices.

My opinion is bias though since I don't participate in grand auctions. The yard wand gets all my gold.

[Alibaster]

All very good points. I would mention a small point of order.

1) In a true free market, the barrier to enter it is obtainable. Auctions are creating a monopoly for a select few. Since the only way you can get certain items is at auction and the same few people are buying them, there is no way for anyone else to participate.

2) Playing the game to grind gold is not the best way to play and, if that is what you want to do, then playing 6-8 hours a day to grind gold is not realistic. That will create burn out and cause people to leave the shard.

I like the idea of 120 day account bound. I also think some items should be available in game either as a reward for a tough boss or purchase in the ED room. With the ED room options, you sink more gold. Selling an item for 300 mil each auction and there being maybe 10 auctions per year is less gold sunk then selling the same item for 100 mil and more then 30 people buy it.

I am reconsidering my stance on all this and enjoy hearing everyone's perspective.

[Geriatric]

yeah in a free market the barrier to enter is obtainable, theres been plenty of items going for 10 - 15 - 20 mill
thats not that hard to grind out

it also takes money to make money
the more capital you have to invest the more of a return you can see in your investment

you just sound like your complaining about buying a 2nd hand jeep for your first car when you really wanted a lamborghini

[Alibaster]

you just sound like your complaining about buying a 2nd hand jeep for your first car when you really wanted a lamborghini

You have no idea how much that made me laugh. I've worked in the car dealer environment for 34 years and I can total relate to this statement. Definitely put it into perspective for me and I humbly agree.

[Johnny Warren]

im with silent on this..

IF IT AINT BROKE DONT FIX IT


the auction items keep coming around and around
there has been a noticable price drop in the sale price of alot of these items (i think its due to the balron fix)

if theres a particular item you want
start saving

Firstly, there's an edit button, no need to double post

I tend to agree with you in this, and other posts on this thread. Auction items were slowly dropping, I think the Balron nerf definitely helped there. Astute observation.

As we all saw though, the "good stuff" actually went the other way. There's a bunch of us who are only at auctions for the ATHs and weapon upgrade deeds. We saw the +20 spend points deed spike to over double what it normally does. This ATH was most expensive yet, 190m more than the second most expensive. So, the last part of what you said: "if theres a particular item you want
start saving" isn't great advice nowadays, given the last 2 auctions. For the record, I did save. I didn't buy anything major at auction all year last year. I thought I might have had a chance at one of the good items. No way. That's why Deckard quit on the spot, in this brave new world, no amount of saving can beat someone who can reload a billion before each auction. We are dealing with a new paradigm where if you want one of the "good items" you have to hope that the pay-to-win player(s) decides to let you have it, or pay double what it is "worth" (e.g. inflation - even if it is only on the good auction items) as even with 18 months of saving and grinding you cannot compete.

The only real problem is if people feel like they can't compete and quit but to me that seems like they were close to quitting anyways since they're not willing to play the game to make the gold for the higher prices.

This is very valid. For me, and multiple other vets, including Deckard, auctions are the "fun" part of the game. Where your year(s) of work can pay off and you might get something nice. I've done the grind, plenty of it, more than I would like to admit to myself lol. After seeing the Dec reauctions, hearing from some of the vets what they went through bidding in reauction, then witnessing the Feb auction saying "since they're not willing to play the game to make the gold for the higher prices" is a bit hard to swallow. You should be able to buy something with 650m at an auction... as stated above, I (and other vets I've spoken with) have saved and scraped and played many long hours to finally get a sum that should get us that item we've been after for 5 years... bam, not today. Not moving forward. Pay-to-win trumps any amount of gameplay. Perhaps Deckard was smarter than me and put himself out of his misery as soon as he saw the writing on the wall. I am hopeful there will be attitude or rule changes to address this, because if the same is repeated time and time again at auctions there will be little reason for older players to continue, knowing that you cannot play-to-win anymore.

How to fix? I do not know. That's also part of the problem, it all depends on the attitude of those that can throw thousands of RL money at a 30 year old dying game, as I don't think any amount of rule changing or account binding things will be able to fix it. In this way, the power no longer is in the hands of the community or even the admin, it's now like the real world, the only power is in real life money...

[Muolke]

This is very valid. For me, and multiple other vets, including Deckard, auctions are the "fun" part of the game. Where your year(s) of work can pay off and you might get something nice. I've done the grind, plenty of it, more than I would like to admit to myself lol. After seeing the Dec reauctions, hearing from some of the vets what they went through bidding in reauction, then witnessing the Feb auction saying "since they're not willing to play the game to make the gold for the higher prices" is a bit hard to swallow. You should be able to buy something with 650m at an auction... as stated above, I (and other vets I've spoken with) have saved and scraped and played many long hours to finally get a sum that should get us that item we've been after for 5 years... bam, not today. Not moving forward. Pay-to-win trumps any amount of gameplay. Perhaps Deckard was smarter than me and put himself out of his misery as soon as he saw the writing on the wall. I am hopeful there will be attitude or rule changes to address this, because if the same is repeated time and time again at auctions there will be little reason for older players to continue, knowing that you cannot play-to-win anymore.

How to fix? I do not know. That's also part of the problem, it all depends on the attitude of those that can throw thousands of RL money at a 30 year old dying game, as I don't think any amount of rule changing or account binding things will be able to fix it. In this way, the power no longer is in the hands of the community or even the admin, it's now like the real world, the only power is in real life money...

Donating money isn't a problem just like farming Balrons wasn't a problem. Excessive donating is a problem like excessive Balron farming was a problem.

You obviously can't cut off donations (well you can but +C wouldn't like that) but what you can do is put some kind of limit or spread out the reward for a donation over time.

Let's say you could limit it to 500eur in a 30 day period. Or, you could limit it to 5,000ed in rewards every 30 day period so you could theoretically donate 3,000 euro all at once and then get 5,000ed each month for the next 6 months.

I'm not overly concerned with 1 player donating a ton of money all at once and then spending 2 billion at auction...as long as Colibri recognizes that there would be a need to have another similar sized auction within a couple of weeks to make up for the "lost" items that 1 player won. It was a little concerning to watch the price of EDs on ExEx drop below 30k per...shows how fragile our economy really is.

[Cerrera]

Guy is just catching you all, will come day when all achievable will be reached, and your turn will come again.

[Melkor]

I believe more auctions would help. How many “whales” do we really have come through here? Run an auction a month for awhile and let everyone burn their gold, when prices start dropping too much, slow the pace back down a bit. We might even get Deckard back with that strategy.

[Melkor]

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My phone went nuts, sorry

[Melkor]

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