Open Discussion #1 - Auction.

[e-lite]

Originally Posted by Marco|MindArk

THE AUCTION FEE

Why?
The auction fee needs to be modified to address the following problems:
* The 1 PED fee is generally very low, which makes it extremely hard for participant-owned shops to compete fairly.
* Shops should have advantage over the Auction based on price. The auction should have advantage in the form of easy access from almost everywhere inworld, but at a higher fee.
* A fee of 1 PED makes it hard to sell low profit items.
* For items with high market value the current 1 PED fee is negligible. Participant at Club Neverdie therefore use the auction as a substitute for storage facilities. Some avatars have ‘constant’ auctions at very high buyout just in case someone is crazy enough to pay so much. These auctions make it harder to browse the auction, cause strain to the backbone system, and pollutes any attempt to analyze market prices.
* Many of our users want to put up more than the maximum limit of objects on auction. They feel that they could do more business we would also get more turnover in the auction system.

How!
* A general reduction of land tax for shops (probably at 50% of today's 5 PED, to 2.5 PED).
* An increase in fee for putting items for sale in the auction. The new fee will be somewhere along the line of: Reduce base fee 0.5 PED. Dynamic fee equaling a small percentage (5% or less) on the markup. The "markup" is the difference between the opening bid price or final sale price (if item is sold) and the item TT value. The seller pays the fee based on the opening bid price when the item is put up for auction. The dynamic fee is capped at a maximum of 100 PED.
* Increase the number items a seller in the Auction can put up for sale (undetermined number at this point).

After thinking this part through a bit I think it's actually an awesome idea. The seller pays the high fee.. This is brilliant actually. I mostly buy items, I rarley sell, but if I do sell I wouldn't mind paying that fee. The fee could even be higher, and why even have a cap at 100 ped? Let's consider a cap at 5000 peds, or even no cap at all. This is one of the best ideas I've seen so far.

Aight, be back again, need to think more.

[Nea]

I just say thank you Marco for starting these threads and making more communication (hopefully it will last) with this vibrant community ,-)

Voting booths are good idea.

[Aika S Tears]

Originally Posted by Witte

IMO if auction fee is high enough, reseller will lose too much to be able to compete with shops. Auction should be for the rich, and shops should be for the people.

amen

all I want to know if these changes take place will more shops open up, hate using the auction as a shop.

[Rooney]

great job marco! i think this is what we want and this open communication is certainly gonna be very very beneficial to EU

[SB2]

Marco -

All good ideas... Especially the bidding agent... I, for one, hate being in the middle of nowhere hunting and finding out that I have been outbid.

One other suggestion though... Allow the listed items to be sorted when viewing them. Sort by time, price, tt value etc... This will help streamline the auction immensely... Also, I think it would be a good idea to expand the listing of items on the web site... Perhaps something as simple as an "Items Put On Auction in the past 30 minutes" as well as the "Item Auctions Ending" listing.

Overall, good ideas and I am now cautiously optimistic about improved communications between MA and the playerbase. Please, take it as the compliment it is meant to be. I do look forward to being able to recommend EU to my friends once again.

[Dalas]

Wow...I think has been too long delayed

First thing's first (just a comment about the Intro). I remember the old Vote System and it was a cool idea, but I never thought you actually looked at the results (Weather and Day/Night 4 years ago? I don't think so! ), so hopefully this time around it will be more efficient! Also, about the old knowledge and truths...I'm still here (since November 2002 - Commercial Trial)!

As a non-regular user of the Auction, I think the propositions you have made are very good and will help a lot of people out (maybe because I don't know any better!) and maybe it will help me get into the Auction more. It seems great that you're doing this until you get the Votes up and running. Just make sure you keep it up, and address subjects that MATTER (not that this doesn't). Thanks Marco!

[Witte]

And another little suggestion to make shops more usefull: Make an advertising terminal where you can browse all the ads. The bulletin board is ok, but not realy good if you have a certain item in a shop for sale. It would be good to be able to see all ads whenever you want. And maybe even categorize them.

[kygon]

Originally Posted by Witte

And another little suggestion to make shops more usefull: Make an advertising terminal where you can browse all the ads. The bulletin board is ok, but not realy good if you have a certain item in a shop for sale. It would be good to be able to see all ads whenever you want. And maybe even categorize them.

shop search function would me me use them (I dont have the time to go hunting round apps shops for things that might not even exist in the shops

[Witte]

Originally Posted by kygon

shop search function would me me use them (I dont have the time to go hunting round apps shops for things that might not even exist in the shops

Then use auction

[Niovara]

Bidding agent sounds very very good idea!!!! But limit the number of auto bidding items for each user. (lets say auto bid in only 5 items)

Totally agree with the fees of an auction. Just don’t make the % fee too high.

Suggestion:
You should be able to sort the items by any column in the auction (price, time, name etc.). this would facilitate us since there is not search function available in the auction.

the idea of open discussion is perfect! Keep on the good work Marco!!