DeletedUser
Just to clear the thread, and get a fresh opinion on this:
EDITED
EDITED
sdjx22 said:New summary:
The Problem
Many, many people are crying out for trade to be implemented, as a way of being able to buy items off other players and sell unwanted items to other players.
Other Ideas
There have been many ideas about trade on here, but none that sufficiently solve the abuse aspect. Hopefully, this one will.
The Proposal
That an 'Auction House' be implemented, allowing players to purchase items off other players.
The Set Up
The initial set up could be one of two ways:
1) It is just an inbuilt system that everyone has access to at all times or
2) It is a new building or an upgrade of the general store and must be built by a town to allow members to use the auction house.
It would be very difficult for this to work if you have to visit a specific town, so the idea is that this 'Auction House' would link to a central system that is accessible from anywhere. Anyone wishing to sell anything would drag and drop the item into the 'auction house' in their town. The item would then go into a central pool of items, visible to anyone. Anyone can then bid on any item.
Those wishing to buy would then be able to see those items and be able to place a maximum bid on them [just like ebay] The money would be taken from their account. If they were unsuccessful it would be returned.
The Auction Rules
- No 'groups' of items, or multiple items. Each item must be an individual lot.
- The auction would not show the name of either the seller nor the bidders.
- Each person would just see what the current bid was, and be able to put their own bid in.
- Each item would have to be in the auction for 24 hours minimum, and 72 hours maximum, with the seller being able to choose how long. At the end of this time (and there would be a timer for each item, to allow for last minute out-bidding) the item goes to the highest bidder.
- Every auction would have a minimum starting price of it's sell price.
- Items that are usually purchased from shops have a maximum bid of their foreign purchase price. Items that can not be purchased from shops have no maximum bid.
- Items put up for auction would be un-retractable, but items with no bids after the time runs out would be returned to the seller's inventory.
- The bidding system would work in the same way as ebay's, with maximum bids being used to bid on behalf of the bidders.
- The item would automatically start at it's minimum sell price.
- Items would have a 'minimum increment' rule. For example, up to $100 you can raise the bid by a minimum of $5, but after $20000 you can only raise the bid by $250.
The Auction House
- You can drag items into the auction house. It asks you to confirm (in the same way it would if you were selling to the general store) and also to put your minimum sale price in. It would cost to place an item for auction. This could either be a set fee, or an incremental one based on an items value. This money is swallowed by the system and is non-returnable regardless of the item selling or not.
- Each item would be in it's own category to try and ease congestion and make it easier to find what you want e.g. you click on 'Neckgear' or 'Melee Weapons'. You would then click on which type of item you are after, as shown in these excellent Diggo mock ups:
- Each item would then be in order of type of item and then by price. Note the colouring to indicate whether it is above, below or equal to shop price. Items with under an hour to go have a bold font.
- To see/do anything on the item, you would click on the item. You can hover over each item and see the details (as you can in the general store/gunsmith/tailor).
- To bid, you click on the item you wish to buy. A box comes up (like the tick/cross one when you buy/sell in a store) asking you what your MAXIMUM bid is.
Other Points
- When a player bids on an item, the money for that item is taken from their cash/bank account. If they do not have enough money, then no bid is placed. They get their money back as soon as they are outbid. If they win the item they of course get the item, but they also get any change leftover from thier maximum bid. This money would be taken as if it was already spent i.e. they cannot spend that money elsewhere. Nor is it robbable in a duel.
- Players can bid on as many items as they like, as long as they have the money to cover those bids.
- As an addition to the proposed sorting system, it would be nice if there was some sort of filtering sytem whereby you can search for all items that give a bonus to certain skills. Maybe also a drop down list of all the products within each group, so you can jump to just those items as well.
Potential Abuse
IMPORTANT NOTE
- To help prevent abuse, items placed on auction would not appear on the auction screen until after a random amount of time between 30 minutes and 25 hours has passed. This is to prevent multi-account cheaters from easily identifying thier items on the auction.
- Players would not be able to see thier own items. If it just stopped you bidding on your own items (as lots are anonymous) then it would be easy to identify which item is yours, and therefore helpful to a multi-accounter. With no viewing of this, and with the point above, we believe we can prevent most multi-account abuse.
- The minimum and maximum sell prices listed above will also help prevent abuse of the system.
- Another suggestion to help prevent abuse is to only allow players to trade with the same player once in any 24 hours, much like the 1 hour duel rule.
Items purchased in a shop will NOT be allowed to be sold. Only items found by doing jobs will be allowed to be sold at auction. This is to prevent everyone buying up the best items to auction off. This would need some kind of coding that when a player purchased an item, it becomes 'bonded' to the player, but items found would not.
ADDITIONAL STUFF
Does everyone agree with my new refined summary?
- As an addition to the proposed sorting system, it would be nice if there was some sort of filtering sytem whereby you can search for all items that give a bonus to certain skills. Maybe also a drop down list of all the products within each group, so you can jump to just those items as well.
- It would be nice if we could have some statistics to go with the auction house as well such as: Highest Amount Paid, Most Items Sold, Most Items Bought, Most Trades between the same two players (This would help to spot abuse), etc.
- It may be helpful to restrict the number of items a player can have up for auction at any one time, as this would help to reduce the 'clutter' on the auction house.
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