Auction House Idea...BLOW YOUR MIND

[ScapeZero]

You say that armor prices are being driven down because you have 10+ people selling it...

That just didn't happen in FFXI. Crafting was tedious and dicy, because generally only HQ items were any good or the ones with rare NM drop ingredients.

What you're describing to me is still market factors that are not influenced by the method that players trade with each other. Items in FFXIV are extremely easy to obtain compared to the server population we have now, and with our top heavy userbase (meaning, almost everyone is at end game now), everyone is more or less farming the same items.

Take a look at low to mid level items. Prices are more stable there, and the items themselves are more profitable to farm in some cases.

Again, the way in which players trade with each other has nothing to do with price fluctuations and inflation/deflation.

Inflation and deflation is another topic all together, Im not talking about any of that. Im talking about instability in the market.

I would actually argue the items few people are using, are the most unstable. Im not at endgame, but looking through the armor lists, the end game armors are more stable. NM drops, and items used to level crafting have been the most out of whack thing Ive ever seen. The prices are literally all over the place. This is because you get people who just walk through an area, kill an NM, and then see it goes for 100k, and then go "Ill just put it up for 70k, I dont care, its more money than I had before" and then everyone else does that, and then next thing you know the item is 5k.

This. Did. Not. Happen. In. FFXI. At all. People didnt try and compete as hard, because you couldnt see the exact amount something was up for. You assumed the lowest undercut was about the price the item was going for, you had no evidence to support that the item was undercut 20k less than its going for, when the last 10 sales are all 100k. People now undercut in an attempt to stop other people from going lower than their sale, and to make sure theirs sells first, however, everyone just undercuts the item to next to nothing anyways.

Why do you want this system like this? Do you not sell things on the AH at all? You want to put something up, and then have it sit there for days because everyone else is beating your price? You want to constantly observe, and then readjust the price on your items? You want to put more effort into selling an item, just so youll end up making many times less money than you would have if it was just blind?

[Wolfie]

I honestly don't think you played FFXI at all or you have your rosy nostalgia glasses on, because there is nothing that the blind bid system did for people. The smart buyers, meaning basically everyone, wouldn't bid "just under the selling price", they would start the bid at like 50% or 75% the item's price and go up.

There is zero advantage that the blind bid system provided for those that were savvy. It only proved to be a pointless waste of time for people looking to get the most out of AH, and a way for smarter sellers to occasionally be the first whose item sold. Prices crashed and fluctuated all the time, especially since RMT could manipulate the history, or if ingredient items for rare items became commonplace (hint: Igqira Cuirass or whatever it was).

I can list half a dozen MMOs where a buyout system works fine, with minor variation in day-to-day prices for items, because they're games where the devs spent some time actually looking at the rate that items and money enter and leave the economy.

But no. I'm sure FFXI's blind bid system was so awesome, every other development firm just shat their pants since its unveiling, and have been committing design suicide ever since because they couldn't handle the fact that they weren't the first to think it up.

[Alhanelem]

I want a AH like FFXI, I want to pay a set price and get my item strait away, I don't wanna bid and have to wait or risk being outbid.

We have this already, the only problem is we're forced to move to another area to do it (you used to be able to search for and buy stuff @ the entrance, but I guess they made us go inside to ease ul'dah server load)

I don't understand why people keep tlaking about an alleged auction house coming when we already have one. Honestly, almost every flaw int he markets has been ironed out. They have all the features of an AH that you would want (I suppose the UI is still rather slow). You don't even have to go to the wards to set up your retainer anymore. Beyond the slight inconvinence of having to go to the mercantile house (which is a temporary solution for the current version as far as I understanding), I don't even see the difference between what we have and an FFXI type auction house (not the WoW type one).

[Nakiamiie]

Okay maybe not blow your mind...

But remember the AH in FF3/6...when items are present for live bidding. Why don't we have a live bidding house?

I mean live bidding not the mere act of putting it up on a list and post hours for it to be up for sale.

So it should go like this:

All items should be given a rating and the public auction houses broken up by the rating so peeps know which live house to enter and bid.

If you want to put an item up for auction you go to the auction line and wait your turn to approach the NPC and present an item in the auction house. You can see the number of people in the house by the seats filled. (Or make it Special NPC items only)

When a buyer enters the auction house they sit down in a seat. At any time during an auction of an item if they emote raise hand they have made a bid for said item. NPCs may also end up buying and bidding on items. Items may also have a reserve which especially for rare items means the sale will not happen so easily. This could also be a way to introduce rare items into the world that can't be obtained normally by any other means.

I like the idea, it could be restricted to certain items only: very rare items, unique/exclusive items, past event items, etc.

[Alhanelem]

As amusing as a real-life style auction could be, I really don't see anybody lining up to participate in it. You wouldn't even need to restrict it to certain items, its very nature would limit its use to exorbitant items.