How would an auction house be worse exactly?

Does not need to be an 'auction' house, at all, ever.

The *trade* system/interface, however, *NEEDS* to be improved to get rid of the AFKs, never-replies, DND, et all and sundry. When an item is listed it should be available to whomever wants it at the presented price.

Person A - puts item in public tab at X price. It shows up on the PoE trade interface and, when the API updates, third party sites.
Person B - is looking for said item, finds it listed by person A on some site or another. They decide that the price requested is suitable.
Person B - initiates a copy/paste whisper to Person A, who never sees it. The client parses said whisper as a transaction, and opens a trade window, placing the item in it. While person A is mapping, or in the lab, or anywhere that is *not* AFK/offline, person B reviews the item presented (which, being gathered up by the automated system, is always the correct item), places their currency in the bottom of the trade window, and selects OK.

Person A receives a whisper notification that item X has sold for Y currency. They never have to leave their map, the lab, or what have you. If they're AFK (active, not just running circles in their hideout on a script. There must be a requirement for zone changes, actions taken, ect, to establish 'active'), DND, or offline they will disappear from the sales interface.

It's not an auction house. It's merely a streamlined trade interface. THAT is what is needed, badly.

Bad enough to get multiple DMCA takedown notices.

Bad enough that Diablo 3 had to get RID OF IT (alongside their Trading system & subject I will not discuss here.)

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Shagsbeard wrote:

The game to many of us is about finding items.

Coulda fooled me.

19 Pages... Geez imagine if these folks were in the D2 days without a trade api and no standard currency....

Meh, mispost.

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Shagsbeard wrote:

Nothing new is being said here... we do this about once every other month or so. You don't agree with their hypothesis. Great. Convince us. Don't just keep saying we're wrong.

To answer your question... because it takes 9 minutes, only a few of the players are willing to do it. There's a cost. Without that cost, the market would be flooded with items that were being held by players not willing to pay that cost. You would find that nothing you wanted to trade in the AH would sell for anything near what you would want for it simply because there's tons of people out there who would underbid you. You would be able to get "good enough" gear for alch shards. Maps would be free. Nothing would hold any of its value and the game would collapse.

Because it takes 9 minutes, I play SSF. Not just for bragging rights, but to remove anything even remotely resembling temptation to try trading. I know that if I try to trade with people I'll get pissed off and just plain quit the game because trading in this game is so far beyond shit it's ridiculous.

In other words, the current trading system isn't just hedging out sellers, it's hedging out buyers, too. Possibly more of the latter than of the former.

EDIT: Now that I think about it, I think having a short-term league (1 month or less) with an AH might give data that will put an end to this argument.