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Discussion: "Auction House" Do we REALLY need one?
novercalis
Member, Founder, Kickstarter
I'm a boomer - I grew up to EQ. I know most people have gotten used to AH from WoW who made it the standard but I still gotta ask - Do we really need it?
Everquest did not have AH and IIRC Ragnarok either. EQ later in the Luclin Expansion created "Traders" aka Stalls like Ragnarok.
But during its classic days - Players who wanted to sell their fancy loots normally convened to East Commonland Tunnels to auction off their loot. This was organic and became a thing. A ritual - basically every Sunday the entire zone would show up to this area to sell their stuff. It was beautiful, it was also at the time CHAOTIC with dial-up modem and having 2000 players in a zone. But it was fond memories.
Where as AH - it removes the social interaction and it creates another mini-game. Playing the AH game, buy low sell high.
Now, I highly doubt something like that will happen in AOC But we can still do away with a official Auction House in cities and do more of a stall / Trader.
Let's look at Ragnork Online and even Ultima Online.
Nothing is global and if you wanted to buy goods - you would have to go to the city of your choice. Many times people would designate a city to be the MAIN HUB for trading / selling and sets up their cart to sell.
This makes sense with out caravan system. They shouldnt just drop their stuff to a NPC and have the NPC sell. We are creating jobs (crafter, processor, gatherers, smithies, etc) thus we should create sellers, vendors, carts. Let the players sit in town and sell their wares personally imho.
Actually let's look at Ultima Online (UO) which is probably the better one that aligns with AoC. In Ultima Online - you were able to place a home/castle/tower anywhere in the world. You were also able to purchase "NPC" who would sell your stuff at your home. So many players turned their little homes into shops. Able to use their anvil, and check each type of NPC, who sold different things (armor, swords only, spell component only) etc and decorate their stuff. While the owner can do his thing and/or also be in the city to sell his top shelf stuff.
Should AoC have a traditional Auction House like World of Warcraft that is localized to the city they are in or
Should we allow to organically create our space, market, bazaar - location of where we trade/sell?
Would you prefer a Cart to sell your wares or perhaps a NPC to sell your wares in town?
Would you prefer a cart in town and NPC at your own property?
how would you like to see AoC deal with players selling their goods.
Everquest did not have AH and IIRC Ragnarok either. EQ later in the Luclin Expansion created "Traders" aka Stalls like Ragnarok.
But during its classic days - Players who wanted to sell their fancy loots normally convened to East Commonland Tunnels to auction off their loot. This was organic and became a thing. A ritual - basically every Sunday the entire zone would show up to this area to sell their stuff. It was beautiful, it was also at the time CHAOTIC with dial-up modem and having 2000 players in a zone. But it was fond memories.
Where as AH - it removes the social interaction and it creates another mini-game. Playing the AH game, buy low sell high.
Now, I highly doubt something like that will happen in AOC But we can still do away with a official Auction House in cities and do more of a stall / Trader.
Let's look at Ragnork Online and even Ultima Online.
Nothing is global and if you wanted to buy goods - you would have to go to the city of your choice. Many times people would designate a city to be the MAIN HUB for trading / selling and sets up their cart to sell.
This makes sense with out caravan system. They shouldnt just drop their stuff to a NPC and have the NPC sell. We are creating jobs (crafter, processor, gatherers, smithies, etc) thus we should create sellers, vendors, carts. Let the players sit in town and sell their wares personally imho.
Actually let's look at Ultima Online (UO) which is probably the better one that aligns with AoC. In Ultima Online - you were able to place a home/castle/tower anywhere in the world. You were also able to purchase "NPC" who would sell your stuff at your home. So many players turned their little homes into shops. Able to use their anvil, and check each type of NPC, who sold different things (armor, swords only, spell component only) etc and decorate their stuff. While the owner can do his thing and/or also be in the city to sell his top shelf stuff.
Should AoC have a traditional Auction House like World of Warcraft that is localized to the city they are in or
Should we allow to organically create our space, market, bazaar - location of where we trade/sell?
Would you prefer a Cart to sell your wares or perhaps a NPC to sell your wares in town?
Would you prefer a cart in town and NPC at your own property?
how would you like to see AoC deal with players selling their goods.
{UPK} United Player Killer - All your loot belongs to us.
1
Comments
There wont be any other AH in AoC.
And that's how it should remain.
personally I say remove it - the Economic nodes can have many different indentities but AH shouldnt be one of them.
Auction house locations
-Auction houses accompany unique node buildings in Economic nodes.[1]
-Markets in Village level economic nodes have auction houses that allow raw resources and processed goods to be posted.[1]
-Exchanges in Town nodes have expanded auction houses that allow all goods/items to be posted.[1]
-Economic nodes that have reached the metropolis stage unlock the linked economy superpower.[1]
-Up to two economic metropolises may be linked in this manner.[3]
-Metropolis level economic nodes enable worldwide sale prices for auction houses across Verra.[1]
Items listed in one linked economic node can be bid on from any other linked economic node.[1]
-Linked economies also connect an economic metropolis and its vassal economic nodes.[10][1]
It's bad for the goods transportation and rarity if raw mats per region, as well for the stability of the prices.
Could be right, but its leading to another question which I am going to make a discussion about in a few.
Essentially, traders can go to economic nodes to buy cheap then travel 2 nodes over to sell high at premium.
Do they have to use caravans?
How does that help the citizens of the eco nodes?
Takes the same time to gather/produce, but now you have to sell cheaper and cheaper and cheaper? How does that help?
Path of exile is the same way without a AH, people just use other websites.
I've played both types of games. The market in games without AHs and only stalls is usually more interesting and allows for some crazy flips, however the downside is that you need to waste time in your stall or have a second account for that.
So, mostly for that reason, I'm against not having a Marketplace/AH because I don't want to have to pay a 2nd subscription to realistically be able to sell items and I definitely don't want to have my main sitting in a Stall doing nothing. If you're able to hire an NPC to run your stall, then I think it's fine.
Regardless of that, I believe that having an AH as the Economic Metropolis' superpower is a good thing, it'll be a reason to build and protect that Node.
They say you can set up a shop, but i think that is going to be limited on the amount of people that can do it as well if you need land. AH lets everyone have a shot at it, they could add a 20% tax so it still gives reason to use other others shops over the AH.
Im also fine with only some towns have it, will add variety and weight for different places, though people might complain about balance with certain towns making more money based on activity.
Those who gather are typically fighters. They like to sell fast instead of spending their time watching prices and managing their inventory.
Those who trade or produce, need the raw materials. Better to be able to work continuously than waiting somebody to come with a caravan. Or somebody to buy my expensive product.
If demand is low, I increase price, to have time to go gather the drops from bosses myself. But I can do that only if I am good at fighting, which probably will not be the case if I will have to choose between being a very good crafter or a very good fighter.
Can players be very good at both at the same time in this game?
I dont expect gatherers to stay in eco nodes. Nobody wants to get undercut all the time.
Guess it depends on what your aim for being a citizen of an economy node is.
- Competitive pricing means cheaper access to some resources for levelling processing and crafting (I think only gatherer's get screwed here)
- Stability in expected revenue with average market prices
- Ability to track and follow market trends for popular items in demand
- Access to bulk sales/purchases for immediate threats (guild v guild, node v node, world events)
- Easier access to exotic item availability - items from opposite ends of the world may be brought and sold here (caravans / players travelling)
I think the benefits if you're playing from a merchants perspective are quite good.
I can also see why some people may be against an AH in an economic node since it would discourage people from buying/selling outside of these locations.
But that's also the great social element, depending on where you are, are you really going to travel with expensive items across the map just to list your items in the AH?
On the flip side, are you really going to travel all the way with tons of gold in your pockets just to buy some potions 5 gold cheaper than where you are now?
@George_Black you still have to pick up the goods from the node you have bought it. Its not teleported to you.
This had been clarified by Steven .
The auction house of a metroplis merely allows you to see all goods listed in the AH and player stalls as well as lets you purchase them from any node in the network. You still have to pick the goods up there
How much gold can you carry?
Just double checked the wiki.
It's infinite. Sadly you don't actually drop any when you die...
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Currency
How could a program track what people are selling in their stalls?
I get it in esos case, where the traders are localized AH, but I dont see how this can be the case for player made shops.
Hmm, but unused gold is also useless.
If you need materials to repair your legendary, you may not be able to gather gold fast enough to keep it shiny.
Maybe having resources will be more important than having some gold.
If the players opt-in to a 3rd party addon that can take their listings and place them on a virtual market it should be possible. all the addon would require is the item id and the prices listed for buying/selling. It would literally be on your screen so im sure someone can take that information (plus location), load it up into a website, and create a global market for each server with just that. I expect this to happen even if there is an in-game AH.
to clarify I understand that "addons" are not allowed according to steven. What im talking about would be more like ACT for ff14. Its not in the game with you, its a 3rd party program that extracts information and slaps it into an excel spreadsheet to tell you the dps. Another program that does something like this is PoE Overlay.
Any GM using that program could track and Ban everybody.
This is not required, in the standard implementation of 'stalls' and similar. It is less work to broadcast all information and changes relative to stalls to a player in the area than to set up a transactional check server for every time a single player actually interacts with a shop other than to make a purchase. Saves load times, for one thing.
That information can then be interpreted. Another method is simply to have an account walk around and check the stalls and screenshot what they find for less up-to-date information, which is sufficient for most users of these sites.
Both of these are generally undetectable and do not interfere with the game client. Auto-shopping is also simple depending on the way the player stall is implemented.
Workarounds for this exist, but most are equally easily defeated.
I am a player and I want to use that illegal website to quickly track some animal bones. I type animal bones in the search bar and I find GeorgeBlack, selling 50 animal bones for 2g each at the Cavern Node.
A GM can do the same and ban GeorgeBlack, if AoC chooses to prevent the use of 3rd party tools to circumvent the fact that there won't be any AH except for eco nodes.
What workarounds are you talking about, and what kinda of player is going to use them to attract mass attention to the goods they sell?
I am telling you that the player stall can be checked without any third party program being involved. You the seller just put up a regular stall, but the website still has your data because it can be obtained by any player in the vicinity.