Why are you, as a player, against an auction house similar to D3's?

EDIT: I am not necessarily pro-AH, I am just anti-everythingwehaverightnowfortradingbecauseitfuckingsucks.

First of all, let me clarify what I exactly mean: I am not talking about a real money auction house, I am talking about the 'normal' auction house. I see that the vast majority of players is against this concept for reasons unclear to me, thus I am making this topic in order to get a better understanding.

Buying Greater Multiple Projectiles without an auction house (true story, this actually happened, nothing is exaggerated)

Quite a while ago I was trying to buy the 'greater multiple projectiles' gem. Being new to the game and not having much time invested in the whole trading community (because I play games to play games, not to daytrade), I had absolutely no idea what it was worth. I had to spend quite a bit of time googling/searching the forums/asking for price checks to confirm that the value at that time was around 3 gemcutter's prisms if the gem was 'vanilla' (unleveled, no quality). Then I had to find someone who was willing to sell one for approximately this price. This was very hard to do and when I finally found someone after 30 minutes of advertising in chat that I wanted to buy GMP, someone showed up with one that was leveled to high 50s. I couldn't use that at all at the time + the value is less, so I didn't trade for it. After about an hour I got annoyed and alt+tabbed to this forum to search through the topics and ended up PM'ing 3 people who, of course, all 3 were offline and probably already sold it anyway. I alt+tabbed back to the game and proceeded with advertising in the trade channel. Finally, after more than 2 hours, I got my hands on GMP for the value of 3 GCPs.

Buying Greater Multiple Projectiles with an auction house (hypothetical scenario)

Quite a while ago I was trying to buy the 'greater multiple projectiles' gem. Being new to the game and not having much time invested in the whole trading community (because I play games to play games, not to daytrade), I had absolutely no idea what it was worth. I went to the auction house and searched for GMP and immediately got an idea how much GMP was worth in all its variations (quality, gem level). 5 minutes later I am the owner of GMP and can continue playing.

Selling Chain (support gem) without the auction house (again, true story)

Woohoo, chain dropped! Unfortunately I cannot use it and it is quite valuable, whereas I am in need of some other gear. I should sell chain and then buy items that are useful to me. Let us try and sell it on the trade channel.
WTS Chain
WTS Chain
WTS Chain
WTS Chain
WTS [stale link]Chain
WTS [stale link]Chain
spswolfman22022 whispers: hi what's the price
SEXYSUPERSATAN: 3 gcp or make offer
spswolfman22022 whispers: wats gcp?
SEXYSUPERSATAN: gemcutter's prism
spswolfman22022 whispers: sry don't have
spswolfman22022 whispers: chaos orb ok?
spswolfman22022 whispers: ???
WTS Chain
WTS Chain
WTS [stale link]Chain
WTS Chain
casualcunt404 whispers: hi wanna trade for blood rage?
SEXYSUPERSATAN: no
casualcunt404 whispers: cleave?
casualcunt404 whispers: ???
casualcunt404 whispers: ???????????????
WTS Chain
WTS Chain
randomtrader666: dude can you stop spamming the channel plz
SEXYSUPERSATAN: sorry there are no clear guidelines as to what is considered spamming and what is considered an acceptable amount of advertising so I am using my own frame of reference to decide how long the intervals between my messages should be
WTS Chain
WTS [stale link]Chain
lowboblowballs whispers: price?
SEXYSUPERSATAN: 3x gcp
lowboblowballs whispers: don't got 3x gcp but I'll give you 2x gcp 1 chaos and 2 alchs it's about the same
SEXYSUPERSATAN: ok
------------------------------
At this point I abandon my party and quest, knowing that I will have to run the area again as well as find a new party who is specifically doing the quest I was doing. Upon entering the game, LowbobLowballs has changed his mind and wants it for 2 gcps and 1 chaos, because 'shit I thought I had the alchs'.

So I decide to stop the advertising and leave trade chat on. It is very obnoxious and distracting to me, but there is no other way to sell Chain. I'll wait until I see 'wtb Chain' and jump on it. After 5 hours, I finally managed to sell Chain.

Selling Chain (support gem) with an auction house (hypothetical scenario)
Woohoo, chain dropped! Unfortunately I cannot use it and it is quite valuable, whereas I am in need of some other gear. I should sell chain and then buy items that are useful to me. Let me go to the auction house, put the price down and then continue playing the game and checking back whenever I feel like it to see if it has been sold yet.











EDIT: a lot of people have given their feedback so far (8 pages in), so I would like to edit my post with certain problems raised and solutions:

OP here, I've been reading up on some posts and see some legitimate concerns:

1. An AH would take a considerable amount of time away from playing the actual game if the AH is too effective in terms of gaining wealth relative to actually playing the game. If you can get a value of 2 chaos orbs from AH'ing for an hour but the value of only one chaos orb from actually playing the game for an hour, incentive to play the game decreases. People may not find it easy to disregard AH'ing despite finding it troublesome due to their competitive nature or urge to take the optimal way. This takes away enjoyment.

Solutions:
- put limitations on how much you can use the AH. An example would be allowing you to buy and/or sell only [x] amount of items every 24 hours. This would counter 'playing the AH'.
- put limitations on for what you can use the AH. An example would be only allowing skill and support gems to be sold and bought. Probably don't want things like only currency being able to be traded to avoid FOREX/valuta trading.
- only have buy-outs, taking away the 'A' from 'AH'. It was very frustrating to me as well to have to be online at a specific time (sometimes even cutting into my other activities, i.e. sleep) just to make sure someone doesn't overbid you at the last minute. Then you always have the nagging thought 'was it just a bot programmed to snag the item away from me at the last minute?'.

2. I don't know if I should consider this legitimate because it's pretty retarded IMO but a lot of people seem to raise this argument so I'll humor them and list this reason here. Apparently, having an auction house takes away social interaction between players and potential haggling. My trades usually don't go much further than 'hi' 'act1 norm' 'ty' 'bye', but maybe I'm just an autistic little kid with no manners who is trading with other autists.

Solutions:
- instead of an AH, have a noticeboard where you can submit a brief explanation of what you want to sell/buy and approximately for what. You could have something like this: 'hi, looking for greater multiple projectiles, willing to trade for currency or other skill gems that I may have lying around, hope to hear from you soon'. There would obviously be search functions, but it would be much more personal as you'd still have to meet up with the person you're trading with in-game and there is always room for haggling (and if you dislike haggling or barter, you can just add that to your notice and say that the price is strict and not debatable).
- ???

3. Item progression will happen too rapidly. This is a very legitimate concern and I do not have any good solutions. I do have some general ideas, however:

Solutions:
- if an auction fails, the item is destroyed. This makes sure that people with very high value items will not auction them off, as the risk of nobody being interested (or having enough currency to be able to purchase it in the period it's up for auction) and the item getting destroyed is disproportionate on a risk/reward equivalent base. This is a pretty toxic mechanic, however, and may promote hostility towards GGG in the same manner the (retarded) loot system has.
- similar to the above, but instead of destroying the item making it unavailable to put up for auction again.
- only allow some items to be traded, much like the solution from the first point.

I agree with everything you said. However, all of that is outweighed by one single truth. The second you add an AH to an ARPG the games becomes about playing the AH. An AH will make it so the best way to improve your character is playing the AH, and not playing the game. That is a deathstroke to a game like this. The difficulty in trading sucks, but its good because it forces you play instead of just trading all day. You can still trade, and its worth it for big items to go through the hassle. However, most of the time youd be better off playing the game instead of sitting in town trying to trade. That is a GOOD thing. The alternative is far worse.

"

Mugaaz wrote:

I agree with everything you said. However, all of that is outweighed by one single truth. The second you add an AH to an ARPG the games becomes about playing the AH. An AH will make it so the best way to improve your character is playing the AH, and not playing the game. That is a deathstroke to a game like this. The difficulty in trading sucks, but its good because it forces you play instead of just trading all day. You can still trade, and its worth it for big items to go through the hassle. However, most of the time youd be better off playing the game instead of sitting in town trying to trade. That is a GOOD thing. The alternative is far worse.

Leave the trade channel and everything as it is now but introduce an AH but with a restriction on how many transactions you can make. Lets say you can buy and sell one item a day. This would largely solve the 'playing the AH = most effective way to improve' problem.

It will kill the community that has been created by having to actually trade with people using words. Sometimes you get ripped off and sometimes you do the ripping off. It's fantastic.

Also the way the economy is set up without using gold or one standard currency an ah makes no sense at all.

I hated the AH in D3 but still I spent as much time browsing it as I did playing the actual game. It felt like I HAD to buy stuff on the AH in order to make my character as powerful as possible, if I limited myself to only using self found gear I would just be so far behind everyone else who were using the AH. I have no self control, and I want to be up there competing with the top geared players. Another big thing was that I'd rarely give or get any items from friends, because there was always some big upgrade on the AH we were saving up gold for.

If they implemented a trade hub similar to an AH in PoE I fear it would just be the same, everyone would put up dozens upon dozens of shitty rares for equally shitty orbs, and people who want the best possible gear would spent many hours just scanning page after page for possible upgrades.

Short answer; automatic trade hubs are bad.

Why blight PoE with the disease that is AH?

"

Mugaaz wrote:

The difficulty in trading sucks, but its good because it forces you play instead of just trading all day. You can still trade, and its worth it for big items to go through the hassle. However, most of the time youd be better off playing the game instead of sitting in town trying to trade. That is a GOOD thing. The alternative is far worse.

I don't really get your point there. If there was an AH, no one would have to sit in town and trade all day because the AH would handle it for them. Honestly, if I am spamming or watching trade for an item, I am actually playing less, as I am more occupied with the trade channel than the game itself. Whereas an AH would automate that process leaving me to much more time to play.

That said, there is one aspect to this I don't like, and thats the social aspect. Personally I'd take the barter system any day over an AH, because it helps the game feel more social and alive then just letting the AH do the talking and negotiating for me. Thats why, personally, I'd take the barter over the AH any day. Even with the chance of meeting garbage people all the time.

Because auction houses have worked out so well for other aRPGs......

Buying and selling stuff can be an exercise in wasted time and frustration. There are hundreds of thousands of players trading millions of items. A chat channel and forum section for trading is not an effective way to put one in touch with the other. It's no wonder there are ludicrous prices going down people are offering big bucks to get items without the pain of spending hours of wasted time locating them so they can actually play.

I have spent hours on the forum locating an item (load web page which is slow because of all the images mouse over one by one etc.) only to be gazumped in the time it takes to meet with the guy online. Grrrr.

Instead of writing "WTS Chain" and waiting for a reply, put your offer in chat? If you're just gonna tell everyone that pm's you that you want 3 gcp for it, why not post something along the lines of:

WTS Chain 3gcp.

An auction house promotes (ironically) less social behavior and interactions as all you have to do is click a button and browse. It can still work with a barter system, but i like the current system better. It fits well within the theme GGG are going for, and it's not boring.