Trading system suggestion : Not an auction house

Right, first time of posting here....

Having played PoE for quite a while (since open beta) I find trading to be a bit of a ball-ache...

1) Advertise on trade channel or forum
2) Wait for PM
3) Join party
4) Try to find each other at town
5) Do trade
6) Leave party (something I forget to do sometimes... :/ )

So, maybe some kind of auction house would be better? - wrong - This has been suggested before and has been dismissed just as many times for various reasons I won't go into.

So we need something that is close to the current trade system of PoE, but without the tedium. That is what I am suggesting:

New "trade" screen with 2 screens. Buy and Sell.

Buying
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Buyer can search for or browse by item type

Buyer finds something and clicks on it. This opens up the "offer" window. The item description, along with the sellers text for that item is shown.

Buyer moves items from inventory to "offer" window. This is what they want to purchase the item for.

Buyer can no longer directly access items they offered as they are moved to the "trade" system. They can cancel an offer to get the items back.

Buyer can cancel offer at any time. Canceled offered items are moved back to stash - creating a read-only stash tab to put them in if necessary.

It is then up to the seller to accept or refuse an offer (or the buyer can cancel the offer as I mentioned above)

Selling
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To sell item, move item into "sell" window.

Select options on how long to display item for sale (item listing duration). Seller can also type in a comment on what they want for that item ( e.g: "I want 2c for this item - no less" )

Item is moved from inventory into "trading" system. The seller can no longer directly access this item. To get the item back, cancel the selling of the item.

Seller can cancel at any time. If they do this, all offers are moved back to the appropriate buyers stash and the item for sale goes to the sellers stash - creating a read-only stash tabs to put them in if necessary. Maybe a pop-up on all buyers window saying "Selling of Item xxxx has been canceled"

If the item listing duration expires - the trading system will cancel that item automatically. Maybe an option to automatically vendor an item if the duration expires?

Seller can refuse offers - Refused offered items go back to the buyers stash tab - creating a read-only stash tab to put them in if necessary. Maybe a pop-up on the buyers window saying "Your offer for item xxxx has been refused"

Seller can accept only one offer - Accepting an offer moves the offered items to the sellers stash and the item for sale goes to the buyers stash - creating a read-only stash tab to put them in if necessary. Maybe a pop-up on the buyers window saying "Offer for Item xxx accepted". Once an offer is accepted, all other offers are automatically "refused" / canceled.


RMT Prevention / Misc
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Some notes about helping prevent real money traders using this system:

Seller does not have access to player names / account names of the offers - they just see a list of offers and the ability to accept or cancel offers.

Buyer cannot add any text / description with an offer. They just select the items to offer and press "ok".

Buyer must at least offer one item - they cannot offer nothing.

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EDIT - 24/04/2014

Only one offer per account (not per character, but account)

Minimum level before putting things up for sale - 10, maybe 20.

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So - is this a crap idea, or is it something that people would want to use?

I have tried to consider various possibilities on how the system could be mis-used, as well as allowing ease of use and integration into the current PoE. I may of missed big gaping holes, so let me know if this is the case :)

Other constructive criticism also welcome,

Thanks for reading :)

poe.xyz GO!

So if there is xyz - auction house - and pretty much everyone use it, why everyone is against in-game auction house? And to prevent genius comments like 'i dont use xyz' - you can not use in-game auction house too.

So with poe.xyz, as far as I can tell, you still need to find the player, PM the player, hope they respond, join party, find each other in correct town / difficulty, do trade, leave party.

I've not used poe.xyz, so apologies if I have this wrong.

My suggestion gets rid of most of that faff, and just allows for putting up an item for sale, getting people to offer stuff, and (the seller) accepting / refusing those offers. No need to find players. No need to join party. Offer can be made when seller is off line

And my suggestion is not for an auction house - there is no bidding here.

If anything, its kind of like an escrow house??? Maybe??

Actually bidding is great. You no longer need to price check your garbage and worry if you sold it too cheap or bought it for too much. Just put it on ah or see whats the current bid is. Simple as that.

Good point.

However, for the bidding process to be automatic (to prevent lower bids, for example) with my idea, the game would need some idea of what the item for sale and the items in the bids/offers are worth in the current economy. As my idea is not just for offering crafing / currency items, but for actual equipment as well.

I could, for example, put up a rare two handed sword that did 60% extra physical damage, quality 20%, and a bit of extra attack speed. But my build is duel wield. So thats why I'm selling the item - but I want one or two decent one-handed weapons with decent damage and attack speed.

Some buyer sees this and offers a rare rapier with 30% extra damage and 10% extra attack speed.
Some other buyer offers a rare axe (one handed) with 25% extra damage and 20% extra attack speed.

For a fully automated auction - the game would need to know which of these two (or more) items I prefer over the other ones, and/or what the actual currency value is for each item offered.

This would be quite difficult to implement (I imagine) for an economy that changes all the time, as well as needing to know what my preference would be - damage or attack speed....

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However....

Buyers could view the current offers for an item, and attempt to top it with what they think is better.

It would still be up to the seller to pick the best offer (for them) and accept it - or let the thing expire. Or cancel it.