Trade Help Suggestion. Limited AH

It is a popular topic today that trading in POE is not a very well received prospect in the current iteration of itself. Between Price Scamming, AFK, general douchiness, and the mandatory use of a 3rd party site, people just plain do not like it.

Cons:

1: AH tend to bring a faster power creep to games like Diablo and POE due to the nature of those games.
Power Creep is already an issue in POE trivializing content for many builds, having better access to better gear easier would in fact make this issue more prevalent. Especially considering how many of the player base do not currently participate in the current trading system.

2: It would cut down on social Interaction between players and isolate many more players into the solo only game. (not that many players actually party ATM anyways but whatever.)

3: It could devalue specific unique's and rare items. This is kinda a trope for many hardcore players to latch on to. The stick of it is, is that they feel a more easily accessible trading system will lead to a flood of ultra rare unique's like (Shav's) that exist in the game but currently only a small number of people actually trade due to not using the system. The fear here is that all of these players will list these unique's that are not currently available in the trading system and flood the market, making the prices drop drastically. The problem with this notion is that nobody actually knows the rates at which these items drop in the game, compared to how many of them are listed. It could be that nearly 100% of these items that are found are listed, and prices wont fluctuate at all, or it could be that only 10% of the items are listed and the prices would in fact drop drastically. Until further numbers are gathered though, this reasoning behind not using an ah to not devalue items is mostly a red herring.

Why do you not want these items to be more readily accessible to the general public. Because you want those items to feel like wow this is awesome, because you wish to feel elitist in your ability to clear maps better then Joe public, or because devaluing of these items would cut back on the RMT value and hurt peoples ability to gain real money via playing. Id assume its a bit of all 3 but mostly likely the last one more than anything. Alas, until specific numbers are shown that say these items are in fact much more common and are simply not listed this argument is really invalid.

*feel free to list any other cons I haven't readily listed here.

Now lets talk about the Pro's of what an in game AH System could bring.

1) Reduction of wasted game time, AFK interactions, and removal of use of third party site.

2) Wider availability to the general player-base and easier accessibility.

3) Generally more stable market for all and easier to determine price points for similar items.

*list any other reasons why its a pro below and ill add*

My Suggestion however is not specifically an AH system like ones most people are used to in today's current MMO's. I would like a system integrated into the core game that allows players to search items based on stats ilvl price etc nearly identical to that which exist on Poe.trade. That allows players to insert items into it and set buyout and bid prices. This system would also come equiped with its own integrated mailing system much like WOW etc, but that is only accessible in the AH Menu. i.e Completed Auction Tab. / Current Auctions Tab.

This is where the similarities to WOW would stop. Many people are against having an AH due to its lack of social interaction, the in ability to fight market gouging and influence, and the ability to haggle. What if when a player searched for an item it prompted them to make an offer for the item (haggling) and after that offer was made it notified the seller via small pop up window what item is being sold, what listed price was, and what the current offer is. The Seller could then click this offer and either choose to A) Accept B) Decline Offer or C) Counter offer. This would then notify the buyer of any changes (accepted, declined, countered) and they could repeat the process until a deal was struck off the offer declined. This system would require the currency that is offered be to be quarantined and unavailable to the buyer until trades are completed. For those who are worried about AFK's you could allow the buyer to set an available trade window where they could set the time they allow the seller to accept or counter the offer. Anywhere from 1 minute to 4 hours. This system would allow users to haggle prices, post or decline deals, and be an integrated system into the core game making trading a more widely available option for many of the player-base.

It should be noted that when a trade is completed (accepted/Agreed upon) the item will automatically be transferred into the Completed Transaction tab where a player can access it of their leisure at any time. The Currency from sale will also transfer to the Completed Auctions tab Alleviating the need for Sellers to leave or stop maps to sell their items.

Interested in Player base Feedback on this. Pro's and Cons that I did'nt list for a traditional AH, and possible pro's and cons of my proposed Limited AH.

There are no pros to an auction house especially not in a free to play game. Youre using anecdotal evidence as a reason to implement something completely unneeded. Just because once a week someone on reddit posts some screencap doesnt mean that shit happens often, it doesnt. Generally speaking whenever they do post screenshots both parties are being complete assholes from the get go.

Bots galore instantly buying out items, you have zero chance of finding a good deal ever again, wow such an attractive feature. If Blizzard cant handle bots in a PAID SUBSCRIPTION BASED GAME, then its pretty clear GGG wont be able to either.

Know what else on top of that ? More incentive to RMT. An auction house is not only a Bots dream but its also an RMTers dream. People are free to RMT all they want with an auction house because RMTed currency will get circulated and the sources will be lost and extremely difficult to track. On top of that it makes RMTing directly significantly easier than a "trust" based system between said RMTer and user.

Auction Houses are literally THE WORST thing that could happen to Path of Exile and its honestly in GGGs interest to keep to their ideals of not implementing one, ever.

Ok, so you have cons for standard auction houses.. but what about the limited auctions houses.. that prevents bots from just buying items.. and still requiring trade and acceptance as opposed to the automatic bullshit that is in wow.