Why is there a timer on recently relocated plots?

[Packetdancer]

It seems idiotic to design a system that requires a player to wait 4 days to even start bidding, then wait an X amount of days for that bid to end.

This game loves regular schedules/patterns. Maintenance is targeted to end at the same time every week (by 3am Pacific time Tuesday morning). Weekly limits et al reset at the same time every week. We know exactly what levels of gear are likely to release with any given major patch. We know how many endgame dungeons there are likely to be when an expansion first launches (3, one MSQ one and two optional, all of which drop accessories of an ilevel identical to the job artifact gear). Etc.

The idea behind the auction, so far as I can tell, is that people all have the same amount of time to bid on things. If the houses opened for bidding and then ran for X days and then closed, people would still need to be running around trying to figure out which houses were open when. (This one opened on a Monday, so the winner would be drawn on Friday, while this one opened on Wednesday so would have the drawing on Sunday, etc.)

This way, folks know when they can start bidding and when the drawings will happen.

It also has the benefit that you can scout out which plots are available ahead of time, then figure out which one you want to bid on when it opens up and go straight there, rather than always running around to figure out if a plot you liked better opened up and if you should pull your bid from one and put it onto another... which, I suspect, might even be a factor in why it's got a set, cyclical window for bidding.

Almost like going to a theme park to ride your favorite roller coaster, but in order to ride, you need to wait in line, but before you can wait in line, you need to wait in another line to get to the waiting line. Like what?

No, it's more like saying "the theme park is open Wednesday through Sunday", and then showing up on Monday and going "But I want to ride my favorite roller coaster now, why should I have to wait until Wednesday? I'm already going to have to wait in line for the coaster, I shouldn't have to wait until a specific day to get in line!"

Whether or not you like that the theme park is closed for two days of a week, the fact is that it is closed on those days.