Auction.

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kurosaru wrote:

Im not sure if it counts or the idea/notion has been entertained but. After reading the posts in this thread all ive seen is.

RPers : AH is bad
Wower : AH ftw

yes both have clearly made good and bad point for/not having an AH in a game, but ive not seen anything id consider a compermise so to my own point.

The funny thing is I am not a "wower".

I am not even saying that it has to be an AH.

All I am saying is that a trade system has a purpose and function in facilitating trade in an economy and facilitating trade brings about substancial benefits to a well functioning economy which is what every Dev wants for their game.

The Dev already indicated they have their own ideas for a complex trade system but not yet announced. I am quite happy hearing this and just hope that their trade system will have adressed the 2 key points I made in earlier posts which is

1) centralized listing of WTB and WTS whether it be an NPC, AH, website etc etc

2) ability to complete transactions without the parties meeting (ie Seller and Buyer not having to be logged-in and in same instance at the same time in-game).

I am open minded enough to wait and see what they have planned for this crucial part of the game economy and I am sure some of the issues I mentioned went through their minds already.

Also their concept of league is an already available and built-in compromise : those who are in Iron Man league for example can be restricted from using the more complex functions of the trade system.

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Taurus1979 wrote:

I hope they do an auction house like they are doing in Diablo 3, with both ingame and real money, so the player can get something out of the game if the player plow down some effort.

I hope that is exactly not the case.

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PsychoRomeo wrote:

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Taurus1979 wrote:

I hope they do an auction house like they are doing in Diablo 3, with both ingame and real money, so the player can get something out of the game if the player plow down some effort.

I hope that is exactly not the case.

If such a feature were implemented I would leave PoE in an instant and I'm confident many others would follow. The RMAH in Diablo 3 has split the community right down the middle, has pretty much killed hope for "fair" PvP and has totally destroyed any prestige gained from other players for having top tier loot.

It would seem GGG have been pretty clear that they will not support the buying of power ingame which I praise them for to no end. The number of F2P games I see that are god awful due to the terrible balancing of real cash against ingame items is absurd.

GGG seem to be a group of relatively hardcore gamers who want to develop good headroom in their games for other hardcores. An RMAH dashes that at the most basic level.

An AH of some kind would be much appreciated, there is no fun in spamming trade forums/chats to get the one item you're hunting after. Of course, providing said AH was reliant purely on ingame currency.

Edit: Also you seem to be under the illusion that people will genuinely make fair amounts of cash with such a system. Please, for the love of gaming look at some Diablo 2 loot farming websites and see what they are selling items for - end game loot is selling for a dollar in many cases. So ingame when we have millions of effective gold farmers trying to sell goods we could expect things to be selling for next to nothing.

Hardly a reward, more like an insult.

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Piggy wrote:

An AH of some kind would be much appreciated, there is no fun in spamming trade forums/chats to get the one item you're hunting after.

I completely disagree. You speak of hardcore gaming as if you are a hardcore gamer, I don't understand why you would start wanting some easymode thrown into your game.

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PsychoRomeo wrote:

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Piggy wrote:

An AH of some kind would be much appreciated, there is no fun in spamming trade forums/chats to get the one item you're hunting after.

I completely disagree. You speak of hardcore gaming as if you are a hardcore gamer, I don't understand why you would start wanting some easymode thrown into your game.

There is absolutely nothing testing in spamming trade chats, it's not hard, it's not complicated, it's certainly not skilful and it doesn't promote actually playing the game itself. If anything it's entirely the opposite of hardcore.

The lure and challenge of PoE should be tough boss fights, fast paced PvP (with wagers I hope) and trying to push your ranking higher. That's what makes a game hardcore, the ability to clearly measure top level players against each other, not based on who is willing to spend hours and hours repeating themselves in a chat but who is the better player.

I would go as far to say that having no AH promotes real world transactions for ingame items as well. When players are faced with paying $0.50 to a website for an item or 3 hours of typing in trade channels for just a chance of getting what they want I think it's safe to say many players will pay the dodgy website. As a legitimate player I definitely do not want that.

It's not even like the loot is appearing from nowhere, someone somewhere had to get it. Perhaps an AH which relies on bidding only, without "buyouts", would be preferable. That way players would have to firstly have to wait the bid time out and secondly have to actually have the winning bid. Or maybe an AH where you are only allowed to make a certain number of purchases per day/week.

Regardless I feel having to rely on channels/forums for trades is wildly outdated and while definitely oldschool certainly not hardcore or skill based.

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Piggy wrote:

There is absolutely nothing testing in spamming trade chats, it's not hard, it's not complicated, it's certainly not skilful and it doesn't promote actually playing the game itself. If anything it's entirely the opposite of hardcore.

Well, here's the other thing, I don't think trade channels are a good way to deal with trades either.

Also I don't understand how you can say that investing time in trading not a skill. Time spent not grinding to get gear to make grinding better, more efficient, or faster is a skill. It is possible to do it wrong, it is possible to do it effectively, and it is possible to get better at. Taking that out and replacing it with easymode auction house is removing an aspect from a game. If the premise of the game was to be 'how many hours are you willing to spend running a dungeon over and over again to win', then maybe an auction house would compliment that nicely. However, some people are good at trading and use that skill to compete with other people who are good at grinding.

And I'll make a note here, I am not particularly good at trading. I'm not doing this to give myself an advantage.

Why not take a page out of the escrow system of EVE Online. This is by far the most versatile and convenient trading system I've ever seen in an MMO.

Option 1) WTS and WTB contracts for a specific sum of money.

Option 2) Auctions

Option 3) Barter contracts

And much more is possible through that system. Now PoE doesn't have a single currency so Options 1 and 2 would have to be adapted.

A WTS contract could look like this:

Item offered: Sword of Ownage +1
Payment option:
* 100 Scroll of Wisdom
* 50 Jeweler’s Orb
* 24 Chaos Sphere
* Or any proportional combination thereof

So you could fullfill that contract with 50 Scroll of Wisdom and 25 Jeweler's Orb

An auction could work similarly. You specify a relative desirability for various currency items and players can bid on your auction with any combination of those items.

I believe the introduction of some kind of formalized selling and buying system is essential for any game with a significant player base. Such a system must be convenient to use. Realism is fine but it never trumps convenience.

Convenient means:
* Players should not have to be in the same ingame location
* Players should not have to be online at the same time.
* There should be a way to approximately determine the relative value of the various currency items without much effort.

@Kempeth: genious!

I couldn't figure out myself, that to simply determine the relative values of currency items its enough to set the total amount of each item accepted seperately.

Now that is finally an idea that I can actually see working in the game!

Still curious what GGG have planned so far ^^

Edit: You deserve the cookie from cybrim ;D

Kempeth, there are a few things I see flawed in your logic.

One, that is EVE online, a game that is far different than PoE.

Two, define 'significant player base'. I do not think PoE has a significant player base, and frankly I don't think it will ever have a significant player base, simply because the player base will be divided up into the different leagues. The default league may get kind of big, but aside from that I don't think a significant player base is to be expected. I think the leagues page even states 'small, localized economy'.

Three, you're not convenienced to such a degree when you're dungeon crawling. You don't go to a dungeon house and apply to fight against a specific number of monsters or a particular boss.
A convenient auction house system probably works in EVE because there are other factors regarding trading that make it complex.



Am I really the only on on the PoE forums that doesn't accept that there are things that I will not be good at? Instead, should I try to get those things removed instead of trying to get better or work around them?

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PsychoRomeo wrote:

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Taurus1979 wrote:

I hope they do an auction house like they are doing in Diablo 3, with both ingame and real money, so the player can get something out of the game if the player plow down some effort.

I hope that is exactly not the case.

I 100% agree psycho and with the fact that the devs are making this game free apart from afew superficial things I think we can rest easy that it won't happen.