Suggestion for Overbloated AH Prices

[DSC]

I still stand by my suggestion of a fee of 4% of the minimum bid plus 1% of the buyout (5% min bid if no buyout), plus a 20% fee on the item selling. It keeps top-level items on the AH (except the few truly uber ones that noone would ever part with for 2m PP), makes spamming the AH with trash unviable, so the Vicious Quarterstaves of Weighted 3% go to the vendors where they belong, and will help people who want to find quality items within their toon's price range do so easily.

The only better suggestion so far is to allow text-based database searches so you can search for Holy+Silver or Transmuting+Outsider or Banishing+Rapier or Smiting+Keen or whatever floats your goat.

Fully agree. Adding some kind of noticeable (but not massive) cost to posting would get rid of a lot of the space-wasting items on there now. And adding more functionality to the search is of course always good (though harder).

[JakLee7]

We will always have gold farmers in the game; and the market will never truly be free as long as you have this as a game instead of a job. As it is I think the AH is a bit too restrictive and needs a few more search options.
1. search by name
2. search by race
3. search by broader type (say bludgeon or slashing)
4. search by price
5. search by seller
Come on if Craigslist can do it it cannot be THAT hard, LOL.
Other than more options for the AH in the searching and bigger limits on the high end for items I see nothing wrong with the way it is setup currently. Some items will ALWAYS be in demand.

*example* Wound/Punct SS - if there are only 150 currently on Khyber (where I play; and yes this is an imaginary number but follow with me for a minute) and there are actually 550 toons that want one the price will be very expensive because it's worth it the people that want one. if someone wants to charge one billion dollars (que pinkie to corner of mouth) for it (in game gold, not real money, but the joke would have been less funny that way) then that is what it is worth. Does that suck for me if I want one since I am new and don't have a very high level toon and 2 mules with billions of gold & items? Yes but if we are turning this into socialism why don't we all just start with an option that lets us create our first character already at level cap with any gear we want? (/sarcasm for just that last statement).

I personally like AH just the way it is, with just a few additions mentioned up top. I have made some money selling some things & have bought some things. I have tried to offload some of my junk & have sold things I found out later were WAY more valuable than I posted the buyout for. But my opinion is it is a great tool.

[Tanka]

My idea on this issue (because we all have one, right?)

Restrict the Minimum Bid and Buyouts as follows:

For items with a Value:
- Minimum Bid cannot exceed the Value
- Buyout cannot exceed twice the Value

For items without a Value (such as ingredients, collectibles, etc.):
- Minimum Bid cannot exceed 10,000 gold
- Buyout cannot exceed 20,000 gold

NOTE: Players can still post an item with a Minimum Bid and *no* buyout, to "let the market decide the price they are willing to pay", thus potentially still earning 20,000,000 gold for a sale.

You might ask, "if the item can still sell for ridiculous amounts, why bother with this idea? What will it accomplish?"
Good question.

Ask yourself this question: If an really good item is sitting at 12,585 gold, are you going to bid just enough to get "high bidder" or are you going to drop a huge bid down, like 10,000,000 ? Yeah, you might bid a bit more than the minimum to get "high bidder" but you are unlikely to drop 10 mill on it.

Most items that are driving up our inflated prices have a "Minimum Bid" and/or "Buyout" that is too high. By restricting the Minimum and Buyouts, you force the item thru a longer, bid-oriented process if huge payouts are to be gained. If you want "fast cash", your profit margin is limited and the economy drops accordingly, without removing the option of that big payday if you really have a nice item to sell.

That will drive most sales (if not all) to the forums and the user-created trade channels, making the AH entirely useless.

Grinding for the money to twink a lowbie with some starter +1-+2 gear is easy. If you want to be able to buy +2 tomes and W/P weapons like candy, then it's gonna take time and effort.

[Zaodon]

That will drive most sales (if not all) to the forums and the user-created trade channels, making the AH entirely useless.

Grinding for the money to twink a lowbie with some starter +1-+2 gear is easy. If you want to be able to buy +2 tomes and W/P weapons like candy, then it's gonna take time and effort.

I think you missed the "NOTE:" part

[branmakmuffin]

If it's an overbloated price don't pay it. Done.

Why is someone always willing to post this, as if it actually addresses the underlying issue?

How'd you get so smart, Treerat?

[Galapas]

Inflation has nothing to do with the existance of plat sellers. If AH prices were lower, it would be because it took more work to make that much money. Consequently, plat sellers could get more dollars for in game plat.

Inflation is controlled by total money supply. The auction house, unlike player-player trades, eliminates money from the supply. One third of each transaction vanishes. The auction house reduces inflation.

In these games, the best way to counteract inflation has always been to find ways of decreasing the money supply, but cutting into the money supply does nothing about plat sellers. The only way to get rid of plat sellers is to eliminate the possibility of standardized transactions. That means no money. In addition, you can't have anything the players would use as money. All commonly used potions, all desireable collectables, would need to be made non-transferable, or soon you'd get people selling stacks of CSW potions for dollars, and other players using CSW potions to buy WoP rapiers from each other.

On the whole, as much as I dislike plat sellers, I don't like the alternatives.

[HumanJHawkins]

My solution isn't perfect on buyouts, I'll agree with you on that.

The solution to **** on the AH is not to make it harder to post ****. It is to revise the UI to add a real search feature. And, to put results into an easily sortable grid view (all together) with columns for all the important info someone might want to sort by.

For example, if I want a finessable vorpal, I could search for vorpals excluding vicious. Then I could sort by weapon type then buyout and quickly scroll to the hand axes and kukries. The page would only have about 20 items on it because my search only included potentially good stuff. But even if there were 300 items returned, I could still scroll straight down to the hand axes and look at the 2 or 3 that might be there toward the top before the prices got stupid.

[JakLee7]

The last two posters hit it right on the nose.
we can always make it more difficult for plat sellers to do business if Turbine really wanted to.
As for prices - artificial price caps on what something is worth is not the answer. In any game an item that is particurly uses and desired and in limited supply will constantly be in demand. Nothing wrong with that.

[krud]

Suggestion for overbloated prices on the AH? IF YOU DON"T LIKE THEM, DON"T PAY THEM!! - problem solved

The AH is just fine as it is (except for a decent search filter). Leave it alone.

Actually, it is not the people who are posting stuff at high prices that are the greedy ones, it's the idiots who buy plat to pay those inflated prices that are the greedy ones. There is no reason whatsoever that anyone needs to buy plat. Only the lazy, impatient, and greedy will shell out money to plat farmers to buy that shiny little object in the AH window. You can get by just fine without buying plat. Many people do, and if they want to pay lots of plat for something, why limit them, or the sellers who pulled the items?

[Vardak]

I do not agree that AH prices are bloated.

When an item actually sells, the price is must be fair.

Sure its likely that someone occasionally makes an unwise purchase, yes items are often posted at prices the reasonable man would consider excessive, and yes items are posted and reposted, so what?

They underlying assumption that AH prices are incorrect is plainly false. No argument can be made which proves otherwise.

[krud]

When an item actually sells, the price is must be fair.

not entirely true. The prices are partly based on the amount of money floating around the economy. Due to plat farmers the amount of gold floating around in stormreach is more than normal. How much is due to plat farmers? 10%? 20%? 50%? That extra plat contributes to the inflation. How much it contributes is anybody's guess.

[Vardak]

not entirely true. The prices are partly based on the amount of money floating around the economy. Due to plat farmers the amount of gold floating around in stormreach is more than normal. How much is due to plat farmers? 10%? 20%? 50%? That extra plat contributes to the inflation. How much it contributes is anybody's guess.

The fact that inflation exits does not add to the argument. The total amount of plat available in the economy rises every moment of every day. We loot, convert that loot into GP, and use the GP to purchase consumables. However the amount spent on consumables does not come close to maintaining a stable gold supply. So as the supply of gold increases the value of gold decreases. This means that for any given item (which is more time consuming or difficult to obtain than gold) the price must continue to rise.

It would be more logical to suggest that the price we pay for consumables is far to low.

[FluffyDucky]

I don’t think AH prices are bloated but it does not make sense to base the listing fee on the meaningless ‘base value’. I think a listing fee of 5% of the starting bid and 25% or the final bid (if the item sells) is fair and would eliminate the garbage postings with 2,000,000 g starting bids (unless they though they would actually sell at that price.) I would prefer to not put any extra fees for having a buyout.

Of course the best solution is improved searching abilities.

[boldarblood]

Ironic - those of us who actually played games with an AH system knew that bringing it to DDO would just increase the already rampant inflation. Did anyone listen to us? Oh no - you were all too **** busy living in your "rosy scenario" to look around and see where the problems were going. Now you complain about the plat farmers and about people not caring to pay prices orders of magnitude greater than what they were 18 months ago. Guess what - you wanted an unregulated system, now you get to live with all its consequences.

Oh and for you arm-chair economists - no MMO comes close to a real economy so all your "free markets always work" bullcrap can just take a hike. Real economies have governments controlling the supply of money (limits on new printing & destroying old currency), taxes and costs for storage of goods and materials, and a lot of other rules and regs that give companies lots of incentive to not wait for someone to come along and meet an insane asking price. Maybe when a game sets meaningful fees for items people sit on waiting to get everything they think can instead of selling at the first actually reasonable offer we'll start seeing the basics of actual economics take over. Until then - bring on the regulation. I trust a book of rules more than the judgment of 80% of the MMO community. Rules don't change on a whim - people do.

The difference is that the brokers/pawnshops had nothing of value in the past, they were pretty much a place where you can dump off worthless equipment. All trades were done through forums/signatures. With the AH it gave the everyday player a chance at this equipment, at higher prices. Back prior to the AH you would NEVER see +5 bursting weapons, banishing weapons, +5 mith FP, etc in the AH (or equivalent loot to the era played in). The AH was a great addition to the game. If you start setting more limits on these fee's then AH would become worthless, and the pawnshop/brokers would still be worthless. It would go back to the forums only, and character signatures. If you don't like a price in the AH, dont pay it. It's that simple.

[boldarblood]

I think you missed the "NOTE:" part

Because sometimes I dont want to wait 3 days for an item, a lot of people are impulse buyers. They see something they need, and its not to unreasonable of a buyout, they buy it then.

[Tanka]

not entirely true. The prices are partly based on the amount of money floating around the economy. Due to plat farmers the amount of gold floating around in stormreach is more than normal. How much is due to plat farmers? 10%? 20%? 50%? That extra plat contributes to the inflation. How much it contributes is anybody's guess.

The fact that we can repeat quests an infinite amount of times (theoretically) over a Module's lifetime contributes more to the amount of plat floating around rather than plat farmers.

[Arlith]

not entirely true. The prices are partly based on the amount of money floating around the economy. Due to plat farmers the amount of gold floating around in stormreach is more than normal. How much is due to plat farmers? 10%? 20%? 50%? That extra plat contributes to the inflation. How much it contributes is anybody's guess.

It is true. If someone pays 20 million gold for an item, it was worth it to them. That reason may not make sense to us, but it did to them. Whether they go earn the plat the hard way, or buy it is a different problem. A Ferrari is worth what it is worth, doesn't really matter if the buyer earned the money, or robbed a bank for it. The issue isn't the price, it is the method obtained to use funding.

[krud]

It is true. If someone pays 20 million gold for an item, it was worth it to them. That reason may not make sense to us, but it did to them. Whether they go earn the plat the hard way, or buy it is a different problem. A Ferrari is worth what it is worth, doesn't really matter if the buyer earned the money, or robbed a bank for it. The issue isn't the price, it is the method obtained to use funding.

I'm not arguing in favor of any limitations on the AH. I agree prices should be left to the market. The AH should be left alone.

I was just pointing out how if you pump more plat into the system prices will go up, that is all. Inflation is inevitable as more and more loot turns in to plat day by day. How much of that plat floating around is due to plat farmers is unknown, but it does have an effect. It could be as little as 10%, could be more. If these guys are farming the game 24/7 it has to be adding something. More than what the average player can generate.

Now, say you got 100 players with 1 million plat. Add to that 20 plat farmers with 1 million plat. If some of those players buy up half the farmer plat, you've got 1.5 million plat in the system. I'd bet most of that farmer money is used to buy high end items on the AH. Much of that will find it's way to the rest of the players thru lesser items on the AH. Overall players have 50% more plat (minus AH fees), so they now can afford higher prices on the AH. Simplified, but you get the idea. It's only "worth what it's worth" if the people have the money for it.

[Hoogly]

One way you could completely get rid of gold sellers and keep prices resonable would be to put some sort of cap on the prices of items being sold. Now for most MMO's this suggestion wouldn't work as items in most MMO's don't really have a listed market price. But for this game it would be very easy to implement. Just set cap of 2x the actual market price of the item. Gold would no longer need to be bought from gold sellers as prices would finally be reasonable and you would no longer see insane high prices on weapons that are effectively +3 or higher. There's really no reason anyone should have to pay 100k on a freaking +1 Holy Keen Adamantine weapon when it's market value is only around 9k.

The only people who would really complain about such a bold move would be the Gold Seller's as no one would need them anymore. Give gold back it's value and stop the recession.

Burn down the AH. Remove the ability to trade money from the game. Items are either aquired adventuring, found on a vendor at set prices or passed on by friends or traded for other items. The nicest items should be bound so you either go earn them or you don't have them. The flow of gold and items can and should be fully encapsulated within the game as it is in single player RPGs. Then the focus hopefully returns to the adventure and shared fun, instead of virtual stuff. That would be a good first step. That and removing the time sinks like grinding raids for virtual junk at great expense in valuable time that every single one of us has a finite amount of. This game with those changes would approach what I like to think of as a real next step in these kinds of games. DDO decends from an experience that far outshines existent MMOs. It can and should further break the mold, not try to placate those who'd seem to prefer a blend of D&D and WoW. It can and should be much better than that.

It ought to be about the journey, not the destination but when you pollute the experience with stuff like an auction house a little too much real life makes it's way into my fun time to suit me. Was there an AH in pnp? Was there email? Gold sellers? Was it about itemization when people got together around the table to have some fun together?

You're getting there Turbine but no cigar for you. Get back to work.

[Scipio]

Burn down the AH. Remove the ability to trade money from the game. Items are either aquired adventuring, found on a vendor at set prices or passed on by friends or traded for other items. The nicest items should be bound so you either go earn them or you don't have them. The flow of gold and items can and should be fully encapsulated within the game as it is in single player RPGs. Then the focus hopefully returns to the adventure and shared fun, instead of virtual stuff. That would be a good first step. That and removing the time sinks like grinding raids for virtual junk at great expense in valuable time that every single one of us has a finite amount of. This game with those changes would approach what I like to think of as a real next step in these kinds of games. DDO decends from an experience that far outshines existent MMOs. It can and should further break the mold, not try to placate those who'd seem to prefer a blend of D&D and WoW. It can and should be much better than that.

It ought to be about the journey, not the destination but when you pollute the experience with stuff like an auction house a little too much real life makes it's way into my fun time to suit me. Was there an AH in pnp? Was there email? Gold sellers? Was it about itemization when people got together around the table to have some fun together?

You're getting there Turbine but no cigar for you. Get back to work.

The permadeath guilds do something like what you say. No AH, no trades with people outside of the guild. If you dont like the permadeath part of them just form a guild with rules of your choice.