The Catastrophic Problems with Server-Wide Auction Houses


Pathfinder Online

51 to 72 of 72 << first < prev | 1 | 2 | next > last >>
Scarab Sages Goblin Squad Member

Thanks, Nihimon.

If the market will resemble EVE's market that much, then there probably won't be auctions at all, unless they're conducted manually in the Local Chat channel, or over a voice chat program like TeamSpeak or Mumble.

If there is also a contract system as robust as EVE's, then barter will be possible without the risk of opening a Trade window. The EVE contract system also allows sellers to set restrictions like Only Sell to Settlement Members, or Only Sell to Charter Company Members, that aren't available when placing goods on the general market.

Given Ryan's statement above, I guess I'll shelve the player-run store idea until EE or OE, when the market system is up and running.

Goblin Squad Member

1 person marked this as a favorite.
Nihimon wrote:
There is nothing at all stopping the players from staging their own real-time auctions. I expect Hobs the Short is already working on an Event Template for just that sort of thing.

*Feels all warm and fuzzy that Nihimon mentioned me in a post*

Actually, the auction template is the first one listed in this sampling of templates. :)

http://pfopublicsquare.guildlaunch.com/gallery/gallery.php?gid=306484

(sorry - tried linking it but couldn't get the coding to work)

Just click on the "File Library" tab to view the PDF templates. These are presented as outlines for running player-made events, especially for those with little or no experience at doing so. They include time management tips, who to contact, and other hopefully helpful "how-to" suggestions. If anyone has other templates they'd care to post on the site, feel free to contact me and we'll get them up.

Goblin Squad Member

Personally, I plan to be harvesting and selling my goods either directly to other players (allows for deals, haggling, increased interaction, etc.) or even bartering. I've used auction houses in the past only for selling off bulk odds-and-ends that my clients didn't need. I tend to find such institutions impersonal and detrimental to building a more interactive, close-knit community.

Goblin Squad Member

The Pathfinder Online Public Square

Linkified

Goblin Squad Member

This tech-inept community networker is in your debt.

Goblin Squad Member

Looks like a nice site, Hobs.

Goblin Squad Member

Thank you, sir. Just trying to offer a common spot for event planners and story arc creators to plan fun things for us to do.

Goblin Squad Member

1 person marked this as a favorite.
KarlBob wrote:
Need a Holy Avenger sword with keywords for advanced paladin abilities, crafted by a master smith? Auction house.

This sort of thing could either be fulfilled with a buy order (place a buy order with a given price and anyone with the appropriate item can sell it to you), or a bidding contract (the inverse of an auction, where sellers try to underbid each other to fulfill the contract). I've not seen the latter implemented in a game, but it could be interesting - and not just for specialty items.

Goblin Squad Member

Tuoweit wrote:
KarlBob wrote:
Need a Holy Avenger sword with keywords for advanced paladin abilities, crafted by a master smith? Auction house.

This sort of thing could either be fulfilled with a buy order (place a buy order with a given price and anyone with the appropriate item can sell it to you), or a bidding contract (the inverse of an auction, where sellers try to underbid each other to fulfill the contract). I've not seen the latter implemented in a game, but it could be interesting - and not just for specialty items.

I really like both those ideas. Given that I have worked for contractors in RL, I love the contract bidding. That would be really cool to see in an MMO for crafted goods.

"I want X Weapon/Armor made. Who wants to compete for my business?"

Goblin Squad Member

ooh yea contract bidding sounds really good. It would be nice to apply and send messages and things too, so rather then a auction that keeps going lower, you get say 3 bids, 1 is from someone whos at say 2k another at 1k, or another for 1.5k with more experience then the 1k bid, and possibly offers some sort of guarantee to sweeten the deal and you decide to take the 1.5k bid. I really love the idea of a bidding contract.

Goblin Squad Member

Vereor Nox wrote:
ooh yea contract bidding sounds really good. It would be nice to apply and send messages and things too, so rather then a auction that keeps going lower, you get say 3 bids, 1 is from someone whos at say 2k another at 1k, or another for 1.5k with more experience then the 1k bid, and possibly offers some sort of guarantee to sweeten the deal and you decide to take the 1.5k bid. I really love the idea of a bidding contract.

Or perhaps he has higher reputation? Maybe even implementing reputation earned by fulfilling crafting contracts?

Goblin Squad Member

Vereor Nox wrote:
ooh yea contract bidding sounds really good. It would be nice to apply and send messages and things too, so rather then a auction that keeps going lower, you get say 3 bids, 1 is from someone whos at say 2k another at 1k, or another for 1.5k with more experience then the 1k bid, and possibly offers some sort of guarantee to sweeten the deal and you decide to take the 1.5k bid. I really love the idea of a bidding contract.

aye, come to think of it no matter what lowest bidder without human oversight, is a recepie for disaster. IE with price as the only factor, one could cripple the orders by throwing level 1 alts to bid to do contracts for 1 copper, with no intention of ever completing them.

Goblin Squad Member

1 person marked this as a favorite.
Ace-of-Spades wrote:
Vereor Nox wrote:
ooh yea contract bidding sounds really good. It would be nice to apply and send messages and things too, so rather then a auction that keeps going lower, you get say 3 bids, 1 is from someone whos at say 2k another at 1k, or another for 1.5k with more experience then the 1k bid, and possibly offers some sort of guarantee to sweeten the deal and you decide to take the 1.5k bid. I really love the idea of a bidding contract.
Or perhaps he has higher reputation? Maybe even implementing reputation earned by fulfilling crafting contracts?

Oh yes, I would like to see that, like a upfront value on contracts and then a penalty. Like say I will pay you 2k for 200 Ore in say 3 days. you take the contract and I will give you 1K upfront, after completion you recieve the other 1k and 500 rep. or something, if you fail, you owe me 1k or 1.5k and lose 500 rep. Or something along those lines.

Goblin Squad Member

Vereor Nox wrote:
Ace-of-Spades wrote:
Vereor Nox wrote:
ooh yea contract bidding sounds really good. It would be nice to apply and send messages and things too, so rather then a auction that keeps going lower, you get say 3 bids, 1 is from someone whos at say 2k another at 1k, or another for 1.5k with more experience then the 1k bid, and possibly offers some sort of guarantee to sweeten the deal and you decide to take the 1.5k bid. I really love the idea of a bidding contract.
Or perhaps he has higher reputation? Maybe even implementing reputation earned by fulfilling crafting contracts?
Oh yes, I would like to see that, like a upfront value on contracts and then a penalty. Like say I will pay you 2k for 200 Ore in say 3 days. you take the contract and I will give you 1K upfront, after completion you recieve the other 1k and 500 rep. or something, if you fail, you owe me 1k or 1.5k and lose 500 rep. Or something along those lines.

I think the system you're shooting for there sounds a bit overcomplicated and way too prone to outside game influences. Someone loses power, or internet for a couple of days, and they face the threat of taking both a rep and money penalty. Seems wrong.

Goblin Squad Member

I agree Doggan, but not if it wasn't tied directly to the games mass reputation mechanic.

Perhaps it could be made a separate crafter "Contract Completion Reputation." Make it a percentage. Say you're really consistent at fulfilling your contracts and you have a 100% delivery rate. Something comes up, you can't make it IG to deliver your product so you take a hit. Maybe you now have a 97% delivery rate. Not a terrible thing to see when you're looking at bids and their reputation for delivering products.

Goblin Squad Member

I still enjoyed Ultima Online's system more than anything else. You own a house/have friends with a house/have a guild with a house? Well then you can set up a vendor there to sell your items. You set the cost, and the vendor at that point basically becomes an NPC vendor. People can come to and browse the items on any given vendor. It let to a bit of hunting, and having to really dig deep for the best price on something.

This also led to certain things like vendor malls. Well placed houses that saw a lot of foot traffic where you'd essentially pay the owner a monthly fee and be able to place your vendor in his house. You had to travel there to deliver the goods to the vendor, and collect the money. There was no centralized list. No collected data. What you could see on any given vendor was what you could see. There was also no level 1 alt issue which pops up with auction houses in different locations.

Scarab Sages Goblin Squad Member

Ace-of-Spades wrote:

I agree Doggan, but not if it wasn't tied directly to the games mass reputation mechanic.

Perhaps it could be made a separate crafter "Contract Completion Reputation." Make it a percentage. Say you're really consistent at fulfilling your contracts and you have a 100% delivery rate. Something comes up, you can't make it IG to deliver your product so you take a hit. Maybe you now have a 97% delivery rate. Not a terrible thing to see when you're looking at bids and their reputation for delivering products.

The biggest danger in establishing contract completion reputation would be people using alts or friends to establish an artificial reputation, using that to qualify for a big contract, then taking the rep hit and the resources they were supposed to craft into products. It's a crooked world out there, sometimes.

Goblin Squad Member

KarlBob wrote:
Ace-of-Spades wrote:

I agree Doggan, but not if it wasn't tied directly to the games mass reputation mechanic.

Perhaps it could be made a separate crafter "Contract Completion Reputation." Make it a percentage. Say you're really consistent at fulfilling your contracts and you have a 100% delivery rate. Something comes up, you can't make it IG to deliver your product so you take a hit. Maybe you now have a 97% delivery rate. Not a terrible thing to see when you're looking at bids and their reputation for delivering products.

The biggest danger in establishing contract completion reputation would be people using alts or friends to establish an artificial reputation, using that to qualify for a big contract, then taking the rep hit and the resources they were supposed to craft into products. It's a crooked world out there, sometimes.

Touché sir, touché.

Welp...
[Goes back to the drawing board]

Goblin Squad Member

@KarlBob well everything we are discussing works really well in a free form contracting system similar to EVE. So you might learn that its not smart to put resources into the contract and instead put up some money that would be returned if failed. OR have the person who picks up the contract pay some up-front insurance money that is returned upon completion.

Contracts in EVE are wonderful, they allow you to contract pretty much anything but you do need to read the fine print because the Pen can be used to deceive. So yes this would allow some mechanically sound scamming or underhanded business practices which is countered by being a smart player and reading the fine print. Once you get burned you will learn to read.

Goblin Squad Member

KarlBob wrote:
Ace-of-Spades wrote:

I agree Doggan, but not if it wasn't tied directly to the games mass reputation mechanic.

Perhaps it could be made a separate crafter "Contract Completion Reputation." Make it a percentage. Say you're really consistent at fulfilling your contracts and you have a 100% delivery rate. Something comes up, you can't make it IG to deliver your product so you take a hit. Maybe you now have a 97% delivery rate. Not a terrible thing to see when you're looking at bids and their reputation for delivering products.

The biggest danger in establishing contract completion reputation would be people using alts or friends to establish an artificial reputation, using that to qualify for a big contract, then taking the rep hit and the resources they were supposed to craft into products. It's a crooked world out there, sometimes.

Remember that characters require time to build up skills. If someone has built up enough skill to do something with quality resources, then they have significant time (and therefore real money) invested in the character. If you're giving quality resources to a newbie character, then you should be more skeptical of potential cons.


KarlBob wrote:
Ace-of-Spades wrote:

I agree Doggan, but not if it wasn't tied directly to the games mass reputation mechanic.

Perhaps it could be made a separate crafter "Contract Completion Reputation." Make it a percentage. Say you're really consistent at fulfilling your contracts and you have a 100% delivery rate. Something comes up, you can't make it IG to deliver your product so you take a hit. Maybe you now have a 97% delivery rate. Not a terrible thing to see when you're looking at bids and their reputation for delivering products.

The biggest danger in establishing contract completion reputation would be people using alts or friends to establish an artificial reputation, using that to qualify for a big contract, then taking the rep hit and the resources they were supposed to craft into products. It's a crooked world out there, sometimes.

But, all you need is to add a safety payment worth more than the item to be crafted. So the crafter needs to pay a million gold to get your resources, then he gets 1.2 million back when he returns it to you. If he cons you then you get to keep a million gold so you are happy, if he doesn't con you you got your deal so you are happy as well.

Goblin Squad Member

Having played Eve for a few months now I must say the Eve region based market system does work reasonably well.

I have too issues with Eve markets.

- bots (you sometimes place a buy order for minerals and the instant you click the previous high bidder updates his bid to be just 0.01 ISK higher than you)

- the unrealistic implementation of the margin trading skill whereby there are no consequences for defaulting and no margin calls. This results in a lot of scams that would not work in the real world.

51 to 72 of 72 << first < prev | 1 | 2 | next > last >>
Community / Forums / Paizo / Licensed Products / Digital Games / Pathfinder Online / The Catastrophic Problems with Server-Wide Auction Houses All Messageboards

Want to post a reply? Sign in.
Recent threads in Pathfinder Online