Is auction houses necessary for WoW?

gaeria84 · July 2004

For me it's 50-50. On the good side, it can help players to get really rare and neat stuff through the auction house npc. On the other hand, I still feel it really isnt necessary. Otherwise why would we need the trade channel to sell/buy stuff if we could just go to any auction npc and auction for the things we need/dont need for a good price? In any case, the trade channel would be just redundant....

For more info, go to

http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/basics/auctionhouses.shtml

*anticipating WoW*

tu_uilwen · July 2004

I agree with you...but then again I like the auction house alot because then instead of watching for a shout of the item you want or need.....

you could just open a window and take your time looking or take your time finding the item(s) needed....

but either way doesn't matter to me

Uilwen
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Waiting for
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Everquest 2
World of warcraft
Half-life 2
Guild wars

Everquest--Uilwen 45 ranger

syndakit · July 2004

Originally posted by gaeria84

For me it's 50-50. On the good side, it can help players to get really rare and neat stuff through the auction house npc. On the other hand, I still feel it really isnt necessary. Otherwise why would we need the trade channel to sell/buy stuff if we could just go to any auction npc and auction for the things we need/dont need for a good price? In any case, the trade channel would be just redundant....

Simple:

Trade Channel = free

Auction House = small fee

Rikimaru_X · July 2004

Well in SWG it reminds me of the bazzare and just trading with another person. I say that the auction houses is necessary for wow.

note: What do you mean by trade channel? Do you mean as in trading with another person?

jubbincake · July 2004

Ok, first off. I think an auction house or anything of that sort is a YES! Some games have gone the path without it, i.e. Savage Eden ect. It sucked! You had to walk around for 5 hours trying to sell the damn items! Now with this auction house you set up your sale, and walk away. It's not like Eq where you leave it on, you just WALK away. And you won't have to worry about it until it's sold and you need to pick up the money or something. And one of you said, "Why would there be a trade channel if there is an auction thing." Ok, well if you can;t find anything in the auction in any of the cities or your own, just switch to the trade channel and look for it there, or say you are looking for it. I'm sure tons of people could see it and meet you. Also, the trade channel keeps people off the REAL channel, don't you hate it when you are trying to talk to some one and you here "Buying blah blah 150k blah!". It is really annoying! Well, that's just my opinion.

Axel_karef · July 2004

Meh, yea it'd be awesome to have auction houses because the player economy would be self-served. Players would beable to control prices and markets for the most recent "uber loot." And FFXI did it and it was awesome. Only bad part is that game wasn't awesome. Not at all. It was un-awesome.

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"If you ever fall off the Sears Tower, just go real limp, because maybe you'll look like a dummy and people will try to catch you because, hey, free dummy." -Jack Handey

Dracius · July 2004

It's not "it'd be awesome" it IS awesome, they're already in the game.

I don't see anything BAD about them, just good things. The main being I usualy never trade, I just hit the FAQ pages and get all the items I want-need on my own. However I can see myself using the auction system, faster and cheaper. Glad they put it into the game early.

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With every post I lose just a little bit more of my sanity.

Peace,

Dracius
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Chaosas · July 2004

Auction houses are absolutely cool. Easier to find items, easier to sell items, fun to bid and fun to win ::::28:: I don't understand why you want WoW to be without this cool feature? ::::12:: Give any arguments, reasons?

gaeria84 · July 2004

*mumbling*

"I can see clearly now...................."

lol

*anticipating WoW*

flabair · July 2004

i like the idea of an acution house to sell rare or hard to find items, wouldnt like it just to see a rusty dagger selling there.

Blaxus · July 2004

I think they will be great. If you have a rare item, you can easily get more money then it's worth by increasing the duration and letting people outbid each other. Even for the not so rare items like common minerals/herbs/skins. If no one is online atm to sell, you can see what is resources (or anything else :P) are available and snatch them up.

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The only thing wrong with doing nothing is that you never know when you're finished.

Quinncint · July 2004

I think the more options we have when trying to sell/buy stuff the better. It worked well in FFXI, in my opinion. I didn't nearly see as many WTB/WTS messages spamming the channels while in major cities (might have just been the server I was on).

"A scar is just another polaroid."

LoStCaUz3 · July 2004

The auction house could have something that other players might not have and vice versa. Also, the auction house could be seeling the same item for less than other players selling the same thing. If the bid gets higher than the price of the PC, you can always pull out and go use your money to buy the les expensive item. I say yes to auction houses because it also adds a fun way to strut your stuff by out bidding someone for an item.

_______________________________
If you get up one more time than you fall down, you will make it through.

Annekynn · July 2004

Auction houses help make eBay far less useful, and make it easier to sell items instead of spamming "WTS Flaming Long Sword" in the chat channels.

Personally I think it is a superb idea which will also help balance the economy by clearly showing which items are in demand and for what prices. If some dood goes "WTS Flaming Long Sword for 10 gold" and someone replies "erm, you know that in auctions they dont sell for more than 5 gold?" then that will go a long way to stopping inflation and helping people avoid being ripped off.

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Played: AC1, DAoC, E&B, SWG
Tested: AC1, AC2, DAoC, Eve, Planetside, Rubies, Lineage 2

iddmitri · July 2004

It is a solid idea that will improve the economic system of WoW for sure. Auction is kind of price maker. If some1 sold an item on auction for certain amount of money then other players would like to have same amount of money for the same item.

∙name: EViLD0G
∙clan: [EXE]
∙playing: EQ, SIMS, AC, AC2, DAoC, FFXI, AW, RS
∙planning: WoW, GW

Thrift · July 2004

I think the auction houses is a very good idea, but im sure theres going to be private trades going on aswell

Axel_karef · July 2004

It's not "it'd be awesome" it IS awesome, they're already in the game.

Well I'm talking about it would be awesome for the LIVE servers to form their own economy and what not. Plus.....I'm not in beta.....*bursts into tears*

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"If you ever fall off the Sears Tower, just go real limp, because maybe you'll look like a dummy and people will try to catch you because, hey, free dummy." -Jack Handey

Omol · July 2004

Originally posted by Dracius

It's not "it'd be awesome" it IS awesome, they're already in the game.

I don't see anything BAD about them, just good things. The main being I usualy never trade, I just hit the FAQ pages and get all the items I want-need on my own. However I can see myself using the auction system, faster and cheaper. Glad they put it into the game early.

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With every post I lose just a little bit more of my sanity.
Peace,
Dracius
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Bad point #1- You loose money (deposite) if your item(s) dont sell.

Bad point #2- The more valuable it is considered the more money you have to put in for a deposite, which leads to Bad point #1. Same goes for the amount of time you set for the auction. The longer the auction the more your deposite becomes.

Bad point #3- Since they are currently not linked together, only a few will prolly be used since that is where everyone will prolly go since it is more popular than the far away ones. This brings lag into the picture with everyone standing around selling/buying items.

I am sure I could go on.

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Omol da'Ox
The Blooded

Zafar · July 2004

I Agree with u Omol, but I would prefer nearly anything to walking around and getting bombarded by sales pitches. Its understandable to get talked to in a marketplace about such things but without an auction house or a server-wide eBay type system then if often falls to the ever persistant spammers to do the dirty work which annoy me even more than a little lag. Below is how sad I have seen it get without a good trading system

-Chat Window-

"Hey Dude whatsup?" "LTB SEAFOAM ROBE PST OR PSM""LST LVL 17 WARRIOR ARMOUR QUEST ITEMS PST W/ OFFER 20K PLUS""LST LVL 17 WARRIOR ARMOUR QUEST ITEMS PST W/ OFFER 20K PLUS""LST LVL 17 WARRIOR ARMOUR QUEST ITEMS PST W/ OFFER 20K PLUS" "LTB SEAFOAM ROBE PST OR PSM" "Not much how about you?" "LST LVL 17 WARRIOR ARMOUR QUEST ITEMS PST W/ OFFER 20K PLUS""LTB SEAFOAM ROBE PST OR PSM""LST LVL 17 WARRIOR ARMOUR QUEST ITEMS PST W/ OFFER 20K PLUS""LTB SEAFOAM ROBE PST OR PSM"" Ah same here wanne help me with this tweaking quest, I can't find the MOB anywhere?""LST LVL 17 WARRIOR ARMOUR QUEST ITEMS PST W/ OFFER 20K PLUS""LTB SEAFOAM ROBE PST OR PSM""LST LVL 17 WARRIOR ARMOUR QUEST ITEMS PST W/ OFFER 20K PLUS""LTB SEAFOAM ROBE PST OR PSM""What, I did not catch that last one?"LST LVL 17 WARRIOR ARMOUR QUEST ITEMS PST W/ OFFER 20K PLUS""LTB SEAFOAM ROBE PST OR PSM""I said, do you want to quest?""LST LVL 17 WARRIOR ARMOUR QUEST ITEMS PST W/ OFFER 20K PLUS""LTB SEAFOAM ROBE PST OR PSM""LTB SEAFOAM ROBE PST OR PSM""Oh yeah sure cya tommaro"

*logs off*

Dam them, esspesially u ILoveCupcakes, and don't think I have not forgotten about you MrMuffinMan

Zafar Blightwing

Chaosas · July 2004

Fees for auctions are not SO big. Aucions are great. You can see how much item is really worth from other players biding if you are not familiar with it's price. You can quickly buy ingredients for alchemy/enchanting!! (I plan to be enchanter/tailor with no gathering skill) sooo... Of course herbalists can put herbs in auction... No need to run all day around screaming WTS something... And whole system of mail and auction houses is so realistic and nice ::::28:: Hooray for Blizzard ::::20:: Now if only they'd make game cheaper for poor countries... $50 is like 1/10 of my salary ::::12:: $10 a month is ok but still very much ::::15:: Well I hope I'll get a chance to play it... ::::11::

bmd32 · July 2004

The auction house will greatly increase trade in the economy. And the auction house in Booty Bay (as of this writing) will allow trade between Alliance and Horde factions which will be a big plus.

~ bmd32

syndakit · July 2004

Originally posted by Dracius

It's not "it'd be awesome" it IS awesome, they're already in the game.

I don't see anything BAD about them, just good things. The main being I usualy never trade, I just hit the FAQ pages and get all the items I want-need on my own. However I can see myself using the auction system, faster and cheaper. Glad they put it into the game early.

So true. I myself HATE trading, Im not the type to bargain, so I usually end up getting ripped off because I just want to get it over with. With this auction system, it will allow me to not worry about it till someone finally is willing to put up the money that I set for it.

Dracius · July 2004

Originally posted by Omol
Bad point #1- You loose money (deposite) if your item(s) dont sell.
Bad point #2- The more valuable it is considered the more money you have to put in for a deposite, which leads to Bad point #1. Same goes for the amount of time you set for the auction. The longer the auction the more your deposite becomes.
Bad point #3- Since they are currently not linked together, only a few will prolly be used since that is where everyone will prolly go since it is more popular than the far away ones. This brings lag into the picture with everyone standing around selling/buying items.
I am sure I could go on.

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Omol da'Ox
The Blooded

You're right about point #1, you will lose your money, however I have no idea where you got #2 from. Here's the direct quote from the Auction FAQ

"If your item sells, you will receive your deposit back. If no one buys the item, you'll lose your deposit. Generally it's good to set a very short auction time (several hours or less) to reduce the risk. However, if you don't set the auction duration long enough, people won't have a chance to see your item in time."

I don't see anything about if the item is more valuable the bigger the deposit. Also, you know this, but if it sells you get the money back, so set your starting bid at a realistic price, odds are you're going to sell it.

Now as for point #3, you're only partialy right. Yes people will use 1 main auction house, atm they prefer Booty Bay. Why? For those of you wondering, booty bay is the only place horde-alliance can trade with each other atm. HOWEVER on the PvP server, people get killed at BB, so very little trading gets done there. It also takes a long time to reach. So though it's "prefered" it's so hard to actualy trade there on the PvP that it's rarely used. So they do only really use 1 main trading spot besides that. Another thing is, you don't have to stand there while your item sells "This brings lag into the picture with everyone standing around selling/buying items." you just place the item up for auction, then go about your buisness elsewhere. Though I'm sure you know that and by 'selling/buying' you probably meant just that. Even still, that's far better than everyone standing around in one major sitting spamming "WTB/WTS". Even without linked auction houses, players gather in one or two main cities to trade. So before the auction system, players can and DID travel to a central location to find the best deals-trades.

There should even be some cities they shouldn't bother putting auction houses in but all major cities should have them, because there's different cities people go to based on their level, and the quests they're doing. It's not always practical to travel accross the island just to buy some fish. Also, odds are that if an item drops in a region near a certain auction house, I bet you'll be more likely to find it at THAT auction house. I for one, after xping in any other mmorpg, just hit 1 city and sell my stuff to vendors, and bank any major items for sale later, then go back out. With the auction houses, I'd do my vendor sales then just place it up on the auction and go back to what ever I was doing. I'm one of those people who just wants to get the item sold rather than waste time looking for the best price on the server. It really depends though, and I think it'll be nice to have that option.

So in conclusion, yes there are pro's and cons to the system, but that's done to keep normal trade existant. Don't want to pay the deposit fee to set your item up for auction? (which you get back later) then just use the trade channel. The deposit fee itself is actualy something of a postive though, mmorpg's need money sinks so that regular currency remains valuable, or it turns into Diablo where gold is worth nothing, and if you want something, you have to trade for it.

EDIT: Your post made me think Omal, so after researching a little then posting, I kept researching and my overal view is that they should be linked. I read through my post for in-consistancies, and I think even there I didn't even attempt to give a reason why they shouldn't, only reasons why "they're fine how they are". The lag issue isn't so much effecting the cities, as it is when you walk by those 100 people standing there using the auction house (which I suspect might be more people's comp performance than anything else). Also in reading my own post, it's apparant that linking the auction houses would help players like me, who don't want to travel to the main city all the time. With travel being how it is, the ONLY pro I could think of to having it broken up, is supply and demand, buy low at one place, go to a place where it's rare and sell high. However that's not happening, so there's no reason NOT to link them. The lag is still an issue that needs to be addressed regardless, because if there's issues with 100 people on screen, imagine a raid on a PvP server with tripple that.

So in FINAL conclusion, unlinked auction houses "work", but would make things better for EVERYONE if they were linked, and it would solve a lot of the problems such as players gathering to trade in one major city (which they do without auction houses anyways). I know you didn't really touch on it that much, but I felt as though I praised the unlinked auction houses over linked ones. I wanted to clear that up, that I myself would have no problem should they be linked.

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With every post I lose just a little bit more of my sanity.

Peace,

Dracius
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jubbincake · July 2004

I think the deposit fee is a good idea, this way you don't see people spamming the auction house with Rusy Dagger or something of that sort. Thats one of the pros to it. And I like how auction houses are not linked, this is World of Warcraft we are talking about, not Starwars Galaxies. But even in Starwars Galaxies they weren't linked, you could buy it from naboo and be cornelia or what ever. But then to get the item you had to travel to that planet to pick it up. This way it is a little more realistic "world of warcraft" speaking and you won't get noob items in certain areas. In the noob cities i am sure of it that you will see tons of noob items for sale. But i the further away "L33t" cities you will see tons of "L33t" items. No cons all pros as far a sim concerned.

Brutux · July 2004

I like the idea of a auction house it can help you get really rare items or get a new weapon I just hope unlike FFXI the prices aren't a complete rip off and people put up a fair one. I though hope it didn't add lag to the server (i doubt that though). I was wondering how exactly the system in WoW works anyone have screenshots of it if they do please post them thanks.

heinricho · July 2004

that's how I'm gonna sell my crap and crafted items off. screw selling it to merchants who rip you off. throw it to the wolves and let them fight over it.

Heinricho
Plainsrunning Demo!
http://www.weebls-stuff.com/toons/16/

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Is auction houses necessary for WoW?

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