How would an auction house be worse exactly?

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Ygidua wrote:

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Bone2flesh wrote:

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SouthCoast wrote:

Well, an AH would actually create more player retention . Speaking from my D3 days , I would log in at least twice a day to see what had sold, and what I could buy. Of course while you are logged in , might as while play for a bit....

SO for Tencent, more players online would be a good thing. But there is a cost with running any added feature. The business model may not work in Tencent's favor.

D3's Real money AH ran a profit for Blizz. So costs were not an issue (in my opinion), until the crackdown on internet gambling by the USA. The RMAH on D3 was in a grey area for the new laws and ran the risk of Blizz possibly being shut out of the US market ( Pokerstars etc.).

So.... a free AH, set up by Tencent/GGG would not run a profit? It would have more players logging in, but.... In this FTP business model, would more people buy Supporter Packs ? GGG has most likely ran a business model on this, so I think the answer is no.

Anyone have any smashing ideas??? GGG do listen. And I would welcome an AH.

Here's two ideas for discussion....
They could run it as a separate client and have advertising on the site. I'm ok with this. Not sure how the player base would react though.
How about buying it ,like an extra stash tab? (as mentioned previously)I don't like this at all, but GGG has shown in the past that selling tabs is what they love to do!

Using D3 as an AH success story in a ARPG is simply making a point why GGG should never ever consider it. It ruined that Franchise.

I would instantly quit and stop buying their supporter packs if they ever implemented an AH. But that should not even matter that much. It will ruin the idea of the game especially the way it's designed:

- market will be flooded with everything
- people would spend their end game trying to snipe items instead of playing the game
- prices would plummet and you would not be able to sell anything but the best items
- with no soulbound gear they will have to nerf drop rates to make loot still rare and seem like a reward. I play the game to find shit myself and not stalk it in an AH.
- I paid real money for my premium tabs and and AH would most likely make the useless. GGG needs to thread carefully how they mess around with stuff people bought.

GGG listen but the community does not clearly. Read the dam trade manifesto and listen to them: there will never be an AH implemented. The trade is fine as it is from their perspective.

The AH at D3 was certainly not the reason why the game went downhill. D3 actually had it´s best days with the AH. I honestly never had as much fun with D3, like I had when Inferno was brutal and weapons from there costly.

That the was shut down had more to do with laws than with free will. Blizzard as a company did not want to risk going on court, which might would have happened or not.

The AH most certainly hurt the game and I request you offer a source for them shutting down due to legal reasons. I find that idea laughable. If that was the case they could have just removed the RMAH and kept the gold one.


Blizzard has been very clear that the AH was very harmful to the community and game. It was an interesting experiment by developers that didn't understand or really like ARPGs. They took zero precautions

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lunshea wrote:

Eh...there wouldn't be a problem to implement a pay pr slot/tab system in an AH? So; from a business point of view, GGG would probably be able to do good money on selling tabs/space in an AH.

So, our arguments to this discussion are actually relevant indeed, you're posting above not so much.

yes there would

making an AH special tab would restrict trade for only those who bought said tab, making the game really steps into the pay to win domains
making it in a way that can be circumvented through acquisition or some other programs, kinda defeats the purpose (remember we are talking about a system here, not just a convenience)
giving free slots/space in hopes of selling more for convenience would leave a very sour taste in the mouth of a bunch of people who already bought tabs for trading, as have already been mentioned in the thread

due to the model of business they chose, its hard to find a way to change things without BOTH making the community angry AND in a way that is profitable enough to pay for the development of said system and still make profit from it
specially when you consider the profit they make from just making a simple texture for some wing, or changing the color of 1 skill/explosion

when I said that what is being discussed in this thread is irrelevant is because most posts are only taking into consideration the gameplay. balance, economy and all on the player side
in the end what it really matters is the money, they'll do what makes them money
everything else is indeed irrelevant

This is easy... simple....

First of all, there is already trading in the game, don’t change anything about it, except make the actual transaction automatic... get rid of whisper spamming.

Secondly, if it’s all done in game with an “auction house” and people are complaining that it’s too easy to gear with trading, as well as concerns about price flipping... a simple solution would be that the seller only gets 1/3 of the price the buyer pays... solves price flipping and whisper spam in one go...

Thirdly, this game has leagues... why not have next league implement an auction house, and see how it goes? The beauty of this game is you can just remove it if it doesn’t work out...

Personally, I don’t trade, because tabbing out to spam 100 whispers is absolutely adds... but I have to play trader league to play with my friend.. i play an alt with him, main play is on HCSSF

(Btw)

I hate myself a little bit for responding to one of the whines of week threads, but what would life be without a little self loathing.

I'll start with my opinion up front to get that bias out of the way. I think a fully automated AH for all items would be bad for the game. That being said, I would love for them to find a way to make an automated AH for low currency trade items with a cap around 3-5C (And I believe that is easily abused as well).

Here is the issue with a fully automated AH which many have stated, but I'll just reiterate. No human will ever be as fast as a bot when it comes to an automated transactional system like what is being proposed. The ways to abuse it don't require much imagination, especially for items like maps. You don't have to buy up all maps and then reprice to be successful, you just have to buy up one specific map to do well. If you fail to buy one before another player/bot, that's ok because they're consumable so you'll still have the market cornered on maps that were not consumed in short order. Other bots can't undercut you, because you'll just buy those maps up too. If another bot buys up your maps and marks them up again, you've already won. Maps are an easy way for a bot to ruin the AH, but it's not that hard to imagine it happening with popular cheap uniques or targeted common rares.

I will concede that bind on [whatever] is a possible resolution for that, but I hate bound equipment personally. It's the sole reason I left D3. I have no technical response to this being bad other than every ounce of my being hates binding equipment in a game of this genre.

Another option being that an item has a cooldown on being traded, max of one trade per (day?...week?) so that people are only buying things they intend to use as most items tend to lose value as the league progresses.

Another option is limiting the amount of trades an account can do, whether be active trades at one time or total number of trades in a specified time. That's not workable in a game where accounts can be made for free and without limit and also where shared guild stashes and dropping items can occur.

I think the outcome will be simple as a summary. Maps will become very hard to buy if they are being monopolized by a bot army. Currency probably in the same boat. Most rares and uniques will lose any value they had due to everyone selling them because it's so easy to do now. Anything of value will likely be bought out instantly, and then repriced instantly at higher prices. The drop rates of items will likely be reduced in the game, causing those of us who only trade when absolutely necessary to have to trade more in a system that I believe is simpler to use, but also frustratingly expensive for consumables, expensive for chase items, and owned by bots.

I would love a low value AH, but I think it would be easily abused. (Buy items automatically, re-list them manually)

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Drinkinthepink wrote:

This is easy... simple....



Thirdly, this game has leagues... why not have next league implement an auction house, and see how it goes? The beauty of this game is you can just remove it if it doesn’t work out...

BINK!

There's the answer.... 1 three month trial... If it's unpopular, Not added to the main game.
GGG does this all the time, and it should be no issue to the the AH haters, as it's only temporary ....And as they are positive that AH is bad, they have NO reason to fear the AH ruining the game.... Beastuary didn't ruin POE.... and if it's that bad ,another Flashback would be ok too lmao

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Drinkinthepink wrote:

This is easy... simple....

First of all, there is already trading in the game, don’t change anything about it, except make the actual transaction automatic... get rid of whisper spamming.

Secondly, if it’s all done in game with an “auction house” and people are complaining that it’s too easy to gear with trading, as well as concerns about price flipping... a simple solution would be that the seller only gets 1/3 of the price the buyer pays... solves price flipping and whisper spam in one go...

Thirdly, this game has leagues... why not have next league implement an auction house, and see how it goes? The beauty of this game is you can just remove it if it doesn’t work out...

Personally, I don’t trade, because tabbing out to spam 100 whispers is absolutely adds... but I have to play trader league to play with my friend.. i play an alt with him, main play is on HCSSF

(Btw)

It's clear that you don't trade because you have the false impression that it takes forever to find a seller, where in most cases it does not.

I disagree with most of what you said, but I do think it could be someday worth making a league option with an AH test only for that setting and only for softcore. So for this league there would be one additional league called Incursion AH. But that assumes they don't sacrifice too much time implementing it, which is unlikely. A single and separate league for testing would be interesting. the caveat would be that any items acquired would be deleted at the end of the league for that specific setting.

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Luy wrote:

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lunshea wrote:

Eh...there wouldn't be a problem to implement a pay pr slot/tab system in an AH? So; from a business point of view, GGG would probably be able to do good money on selling tabs/space in an AH.

So, our arguments to this discussion are actually relevant indeed, you're posting above not so much.

yes there would

making an AH special tab would restrict trade for only those who bought said tab, making the game really steps into the pay to win domains

No, there wouldn't - you need to pay for premium tabs today to use poe.trade, what's the difference?

There are probably much better ways to improve the current trading model - than making this game into the terrible auction house simulator D3 once was. If this game goes that path, I will sure go somewhere else...

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Drinkinthepink wrote:

Thirdly, this game has leagues... why not have next league implement an auction house, and see how it goes? The beauty of this game is you can just remove it if it doesn’t work out...

This is actually a brilliant idea - "Auction" league. Will be the best league ever!

Do people even realize what the problem with the D3 auction house was? You could purchase gold with real live money to buy items.

No one that I know wants this. That is true pay to win.

Anyway, the solution is very simple - pretty much any person with background in MMO's understands that an auction house is good if implemented properly. What is that magic solution? Limit the number of trades per day per account. How about 1 trade (either sell or buy). Charge a fee to trade that increases with price.

Let's face it. The only downside of an AH is that people will try to arbitrage the market all damn day long. This would stop it, and it would also force people into making proper trading choices. In fact I will go one step more....have a bonus "selling" of up to 5 currency items and maps per day per account that has at least a level 85. That would solve the shortage that is acute currently in the game. Only selling, no bonus buying. Make the buying strategic again - so one day you might buy fuses, another day an item, another day that damn map that you just can't seem to get.

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lunshea wrote:

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Luy wrote:

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lunshea wrote:

Eh...there wouldn't be a problem to implement a pay pr slot/tab system in an AH? So; from a business point of view, GGG would probably be able to do good money on selling tabs/space in an AH.

So, our arguments to this discussion are actually relevant indeed, you're posting above not so much.

yes there would

making an AH special tab would restrict trade for only those who bought said tab, making the game really steps into the pay to win domains

No, there wouldn't - you need to pay for premium tabs today to use poe.trade, what's the difference?

There are probably much better ways to improve the current trading model - than making this game into the terrible auction house simulator D3 once was. If this game goes that path, I will sure go somewhere else...

I just stated what the difference is

and you are wrong, you dont need to pay for premium tabs to use poe.trade

the pay tabs right now give you a convenience but they dont enable or disable trading
making an AH in-game is a system, not a convenience, if you NEED a special tab to be able to use the system, its not a convenience
if anyone can use the system and the tab just makes it easier, then it would be a convenience

and like you just stated, if they enable it for free for everyone, plenty of people would have the same reaction as you and just leave the game
so like I said earlier, due to the model of business they chose, they cornered themselves in a position where its not a good business idea to even touch this subject