I want a *silent* auction house.

No instant buyouts.
No sniping; unlimited duration, until seller accepts a bid.
No ability to see how big the current bids are.
No type-your-own description where the seller types "b/o 2 Exalt."
Not even the ability to know whose item you're bidding on to message them to determine the buyout.

Just search up the stats you want, and bid what the item is actually worth to you. The game holds your bid until the auction is either completed, retracted by the seller, or retracted by you. When the seller selects your bid as the winner, the seller gets your entire bid, and you get the item in a remove-only stash tab next time you log on.

Edit: The twist: To make up for the difficulty in knowing what the seller might want, a single bidder could place multiple bids on the same item. If the seller doesn't like Showcase #1, he might like Showcase #2. Or #3. Or #4.

Such a system would actually be more anti-buyout than the trade forums are currently. Since we hate buyouts and this replaces their functionality, take down the trade forums when this is implemented. Sayonara, poe.xyz.is.

It's fucked up that D3 has made it so when people hear "auction" they think "buyout." The two things are actually mutually exclusive; real auctions don't have buyouts, they have bids.

I am sick and fucking tired of buyouts on the shop indexers and trade forums. Fuck all buyouts. Make new systems to prevent that shit forever.

That's pretty much what Chris said he planned to do in the Gamespot interview.

Except it's not an auction house, but a public stash tab.
Their idea would be to store items for sale in the public stash tab and simply receive offers for these items. You could check all that ingame or through the website and even do the trading through the website.
With such a system, there wouldn't be a B/O, and you wouldn't be able to tell what other people offer (unless the seller tells you).
It would also put negociating back on the table.

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Bobbyblind wrote:

That's pretty much what Chris said he planned to do in the Gamespot interview.

Except it's not an auction house, but a public stash tab.
Their idea would be to store items for sale in the public stash tab and simply receive offers for these items. You could check all that ingame or through the website and even do the trading through the website.
With such a system, there wouldn't be a B/O, and you wouldn't be able to tell what other people offer (unless the seller tells you).
It would also put negociating back on the table.

That's nice and all, but I'd like more mechanisms which prevent the seller from telling them, and I would also like to see functionality that allows cross-timezone trading (one of the two players being AFK).

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

That's nice and all, but I'd like more mechanisms which prevent the seller from telling them, and I would also like to see functionality that allows cross-timezone trading (one of the two players being AFK).

You should listen to the gamespot interview, there's more details as to what's planned.
I'm pretty sure Chris said you would be able to trade with an afk player, because his offer would be stored in a way. But don't take my word on that. Plus, it's just ideas for now.

Personally, I don't really mind the seller being able to tell the buyer about other offers. But maybe if this was all done in an anonymous way, we could prevent it (mostly).

your doing it wrong...


u want d3 auction house and RMAH

Why are buyouts bad?

Because he cant afford them

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batteryacidcake wrote:

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Yogsothoz wrote:

Why are buyouts bad?

Because he cant afford them

No, because I shouldn't know whether I can afford them or not.

The joy in finding items has a lot to do with not knowing how much they are worth. When you are not skilled in item valuation (or there is no economy), an epic ax is an epic ax; when you are skilled in it (and there is an economy), an epic ax is 40 Exalts. Item valuation reduces everything you find to a number. You are no longer collecting diverse pieces of gear, you are now accumulating currency.

Like many things in game design, item valuation is a player versus designer thing. The goal of the player is to solve the game, come up with the Grand Unification Theory, perfect theorycrafting and strategy, and dominate the game. The goal of the game designer is to through up challenges to the player which impede progress and make winning an effort worth being proud of. Thus the goal of item valuation from an ARPG design perspective is to impede the efforts of a vast network of players, communicating through the Internet, trying to pin down the exact value of items. The difficulty setting of the economy is just as important as the difficulty setting of end-game monster-slaying, and should be addressed the same way: not through arbitrary UI restrictions, but by increasing the amount of player skill required for success.

Searchable buyouts destroy item valuation difficulty, and as a result destroy loot-finding enjoyment. Searchable buyouts allow both buyers and sellers to compare prices and determine value without having to buy or sell anything themselves; they can then use this information to make correct market decisions with minimal difficulty. By making item pricing as easy as a Google search, difficulty is reduced to zero, loot-finding is reduced to a number, all mystique is lost. Searchable buyouts, in tandem with oversimplistic itemization, are what destroyed Diablo 3.

In today's internet, there is no difference between a buyout and a searchable buyout. There is a search engine for anything there could possibly be a demand for, assuming it's publicly available. Data parsers already provide the ability for searchable buyouts at sites like poe.xyz.is, and sites like poetradechat.com prove that any medium with the ability to type your own string is susceptible. Such indexers will inevitably have a destructive effect similar to what happened to Diablo 3 unless efforts are taken to stop them.

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

Searchable buyouts, in tandem with oversimplistic itemization, are what destroyed Diablo 3.

What I don't like about D3, is devs telling me, where the fun is. Don't mimic them, Scrotie.

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tmaciak wrote:

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

Searchable buyouts, in tandem with oversimplistic itemization, are what destroyed Diablo 3.

What I don't like about D3, is devs telling me, where the fun is. Don't mimic them, Scrotie.

In terms of whether my own understanding is perfect or not, you have a point. I don't believe in democracy, but I do believe in human error; it is possible I am wrong. I also believe in logic; challenge my premises if you believe I'm wrong.

In terms of determining "where the fun is," utter nonsense. Determining what is fun and what isn't is an important aspect of game design, and if the developer doesn't understand it, then they don't understand their own creation. Answering "where the fun is" is not meaningless, and should be explored.