Central Bank (in General)

Well, maybe there is a reason against this, but why not just make it so that if the Central Bank has the intention of bidding, it does so within an hour of an item coming into the auctions.

This way a person still gets the money they want, but they can go somewhere else for a minute without worrying about Central Bank "sniping" their auction.

I know this probably won't happen, but I decided just voice it as an option anyways.


For the Improvement of Wolf:
Any complains?

That central bank waits until 15 minutes before ending the auction and then bids on the item is very annoying. Just yesterday i made a bid on a AoM. I made the minimum bid. I stayed up last night until 1 o clock the auction ended in 40 minutes so i thought i would be fine. Everything looked great until i woke up the following morning and saw that i was over bid. I looked and yes, central bank "sniped" the AoM right under my nose.

The whole central bank idea is great. However its timing needs to be altered.
Im in Europe so getting items auctioned by someone overseas is pretty much impossible.
Now don't come with remarks like: you can stay up longer or set an alarm clock.
Those are not real options. I have college the next day so i can't afford to miss any sleep.

Another remark like: why don't you bid the appropriate market value straight away?
If you place a minimum bid, you would expect it to already be on the appropriate marketvalue. And if not, don't say you never tried to haggle a bit of the price? Same thing.

Anyway the timing of central bank should be looked at. It's getting rather annoying

It's removing items that are most certainly in demand, this is not what it was setup to do...FIX IT!

Henk: central bank didn't snipe anything at all.


1: you made the minimum bid, anyone could have just bid higher
2: you left yourself while 40 minutes were left on the auction


Psywolf: not doable imo, if there is no auction, no items will be spawning in auctions...

ow please shade, check that auction again no one else bid on that thing.
And central bank has the great habbit of bidding on items if they are 10 to 15 minutes of ending.
And read that pat again over the 40 minutes. ill quote: "Now don't come with remarks like: you can stay up longer or set an alarm clock."

uhm read?

GW says if the auctions is placed. If the central bank would bid on that auction, the central would so within an hour of placing.

So what does this sentence: "if there is no auction, no items will be spawning in auctions..." has to do with it?

Did I come with any of those quotes?

And oh come on, everybody half sane knows that central bank WILL indeed bid on auctions selling for a much too low price.

There just wasn't enough interest in it and central bank got rid of the non interesting item, you should have bid more instead ;)

So why be angry at me while I state the obvious?

Instead of whining, why not take your luck on this one?

"And oh come on, everybody half sane knows that central bank WILL indeed bid on auctions selling for a much too low price. "

Of course i know that, but this post is not about the price is about the TIMING central bank has. The timing sucks. Nothing else just that.

Central Bank has no timing, all it knows is to bid on items 15 minutes before an auction closes IF the item has a current price which is well below market value...

Instead of making this a personal problem, why not try to actually bring up a solution for your problem, one which everybody could think about and say that it works.

One simple rule: If you want to win an auction be there until the end.

Some of the auctions that occur do so in times that are good for those people living in Canada and the US. Some of them are good for those living in the Far East or Australia.

And *whisper* there are plenty that are good for those of living in Europe. There are a few in Auctions now that will end around the time I'm arriving at work for instance. Which is about 3am server time. Not that many people online at that point. Perfect to get the winning bid on an auction.

You just have to be there to do it. It's not like it's a secret that Central Bank bids at very close times to auction end..

see up in my original post

Henk: would you be whining in this same way if somebody else, besides Central Bank, 'sniped' that auction instead of you winning it? Don't think so...

Anyway, back to topic:


I've just gone through expired auctions for a variety of items. I couldn't tell you an accurate figure across the board but approx half of those I looked at the winning bid was Central Bank. Now, I know CB's bid is based on the average winning bid previously. But if so many items are being bought by CB then taking the last few as an average price is a bit off mark. Perhaps that bid should be either a) an hour before the end to allow other people to get in a bid on top, if they're prepared to pay the 'market' price. or b) A lower bid than the previous winning bids for that item. Perhaps about 90% so that the next (winning) bid might be the 'market' price?

In addition to you Johnny perhaps:


Does Central Bank's auction sniping result in prices going up or not?

If yes, then something has to be changed.
If not, then people will have to take more chances to win an auction.

These "Kill the autobidder" complaints seem to come up pretty often. Maybe someone should add a wiki pages describing why the autobidder is good for you, why it should be bidding at the end, and about how Jon has repeatedly refused and ignored requests that it be removed. Maybe add links to the original threads where he actually bothered to reply.

The whole point of auto bidding was to prevent a market crash of "rares" correct? Why is central bank even bidding on supporter items? I assume the auto bid was set for 15:01 to give users as much chance as possible to bid market value for the items in question, outside of that (and I still think it should be bidding earlier) there doesn't seem to be a single reason for these bids to be placed so late. I'd also still like to see items bought by auto bid resold for the price the bank payed, either via the store, or additional auctions.

Alternatively, a proxy bid system would solve most of this...
Scripting this on the user side wouldn't work (it's a bot), but Jon could dain to include it as part of the auction system. Simply pick an auction set your max amount bid and whammo, no more snipers!

Take a look at Jon's original answer. The autobidder is there in part to protect sellers, to ensure that their items sell for a decent amount. Of course, this doesn't apply for auctioneer sales...

so buyer don't need to be protected? ^_^`

Oh well our poor poor buyer...lol

It is an auction...why would you protect the buyer? And from what...someone bidding higher? Then it is no longer an auction.

Hmm... if you read the whole post, I don't think they are talking about "Someone" more of something or "it" (maybe)...lol Agree =)?

look at this from the sellers point of view, he doesn't care who buys his item, and if CB wins it then thats a higher bid than the one before...

Like I said in the thread I created last month, I have no problem at all with Central Bank bidding. I totally understand WHAT it does and WHY it does it. But...

1. I don't think CB "snipes" auctions...the same result would happen if someone else bid on the item while you were gone- you'd lose the auction.

2. I like the fact that CB bids towards the end of an auction. If it bid at the beginning then it wouldn't do its job of attempting to maintain an item's market value, unless of course it made a crazy bid to start off. If that were the case, you'd wind up paying just as much as if you had to re-bid to outbid the Bank.

The only problem I had and still have with Central Bank is that it bids with UNDER 10 mins left in the auction, automatically extending the time back to 14 mins.

My logic is this: if I'm not paying market value or close to it, fine, use CB to up the ante. HOWEVER, don't use it to add time to an auction, giving people extra time to enter the market who weren't paying attention to the item earlier. Thats just wrong.

Though it has never been clearly stated, I think the extra time (resetting the auction time to 14 mins when a bid is placed with under 10 mins left) is given so that the people who are still interested in the auction can duke it out. I totally understand and agree with that concept. This allows the buyer to get market value, instead of having people bid last second to get the cheapest deal.

CB extending the time of an auction does not achieve this purpose. In fact, I really don't see the purpose except to give people who did not pay attention to an auction time to "care" and bid.

I guess the changes I would propose would be for both Central Bank AND the auction system overall would be this:

1. Central Bank no longer bids with under 10 mins left.

2. When time IS extended, only the people who previously placed a bid can rebid for that item. If someone has not placed a bid yet and time has not been extended then by all means, they should place their bid. They could even be the ones EXTENDING the bid. BUT after the auction has been extended once, bidding to outsiders should be closed. The overall auction should move from a public one to an inhouse with those who showed previous interest.

I realize this slightly hurts the seller by limiting who can enter the market after a time extension, but come on. They can't have everything.

My original point was kind of ignored after the first few posts by bickering. This is not a personal attack on anyone and shouldn't be taken as such. (Because I reformed I can say this without being a hypocrite ;)

Basically, the addition of the immediate bid from Central Bank when an item enters would stop all the complaints on sniping.

I KNOW it is necessary and I would hate if it left. But I do think that a change to let people know exactly what is going on with the item would be nice.

Now, to address any issues of being lazy and just looking at price, keep in mind any new players or stupid (hehe) players will not realize this and it would simply be easier to pot ahead of time.

Now, some would say this takes away the motivation to haggle and to bid at all. But I would say that knowing the price ahead of time and the knowledge Central won't just outbid you would make things easier on everyone.

Also, if you want to haggle, there is always FS/WTB.

Okay so any comments on the idea and not your comments on someone else's comment? Or, at least try not to directly insult them ;)



For the Improvement of Wolf:
Once again, any complaints about this post?

the problem is, if CB bid what it thought it was worth at the start of the auction, prices wouldn't be able to drop naturally.

that is why it waits til near the end of the auction, then places bids up the minimum increment.

In other words: be very careful what you ask for...

Wolf, if your idea were implemented, item prices would be fixed to specific amounts.

As it stands, CB doesn't know how much it will bid until within 10 minutes of when the auction will close. If at that time the current bid is less than the average value CB will bid the next increment. It does not bid a specific amount.

In this way, the bidders are able to influence the value of items. If no one bids, CB will bid the min amount, provided that that amount is less than the average value. Afterwards, the average price may decrease slightly.

If people bid according to the market value, and if the current bid is greater than the average market price, CB will not bid. Afterwards, the average price may increase slightly.

Thank you Jon. I knew there was a reason for it.

But then why not do the same thing with 5 hours left to go? I imagine most "snipes" are made when people think there is about an hour left.

This -should- cut down by a large amount on complaints, but still let the prices drop where they will. Most auctions are coming to a close around that point, except by the people monitoring their winning bid.

I hate it when Central Bank outbids me with 2 minutes left in auctions and forgets to reset the timer.

it used to be a longer period. 2 hours? 3? I forget. But too many bids happen in the last hours for the price to stabilize that early, and CB almost never won anything.

"I hate it when Central Bank outbids me with 2 minutes left in auctions and forgets to reset the timer."

I'd be happy to look into bug reports referencing a specific auction.

Then my issue is cleared up.

Thanks for giving me a reason and not just flaming.

Personally, I prefer economy over myself hehe.



For the Improvement of Wolf:

Any comments on how I handled the thread itself? I am, quite seriously, trying to improve.

Hint: when people refer to older threads that describe the reasons for how things are done, search for those threads before repeating yourself.

One possible way to solve this problem would be to implement a system similar to eBay where you can set a minimum bid, and then choose the maximum you are willing to pay. If someone outbids you, then your "character" will automatically re-bid, up until the maximum value you set.

I think this is a much better system for several reasons:
1) It will help players who can't log on (at the end of the auction) to bid to maintain their bidding while still giving them the potential to get a better deal than just outright bidding the maximum amount they are willing to bid.

2) It will help sellers in two situations:
a) If CB bids with 15 minutes left, and someone still has a "higher" maximum, they will auto-bid and win the auction, giving the seller a higher price, and also allowing the buyer to win the item (rather than Central Bank).

b) If two players are bidding on the item, and one player is unable to log on at the end of the auction, the bidding war can continue with the auto-bidding (up to the maximum price), thus giving the seller a higher price.

3) I think this will also help generate a better idea of the "real" value of items, since there will be bidding based on how much a player is willing to pay, and not based on which player(s) happen to be online at the end of the auction.

Anyways, that's my idea (kinda, since I borrowed it from eBay). Let me know what you think.

Kultur, i love it.. never woulda thought of that though.

I'm pretty sure proxy bidding has been suggested a few times before. I'm also pretty sure it's been shot down every time.

I don't know where it is now in the Wiki, but I believe there used to be a page in the old Help describing features that were on Jon's "to do" list. EBay style autobidding for players was on this list of things Jon wants to add, but doesn't have time for.

I believe it was mentioned that if Jon received "motivation", he might find time for those things... ;)

I'd be willing to pitch $50.00 USD (maybe more -- you'd have to bribe me to bid higher, though) Jon's way to see something of that style implemented...

Someone go find out if he's interested. :)

I'm supporting this, hopefully if more people want it, it can act as a bit of "motivation", probably not the motivation he is looking for though :P

Ill pitch in 1 mil cbd, which can hopefully be converted to 10 usd for the implementation of an Ebay-like bidding system.

I think I remember an addendum recently about Jon not being interested in bribes so much any more...

Maybe not, but this idea solves whole lot of problems.
And makes cb just more userfriendly.
I love it

Whats to stop a rich player from just setting in insanely high bid on every item in auctions?

Lack of money wouldn't really be a major factor and this would really hurt the weaker players who RELY on other players not putting all their attention on an item.

Just curious how players with less money could compete if another player wants it. This way a person is permanently on and all the items high players need will be there always.

"Whats to stop a rich player from just setting in insanely high bid on every item in auctions?"

Why would a player waste money on items they don't need? And if they do need it, and are willing to pay through the nose for it, then let them have it. More items come up all the time.

If we're going to pay for feature implementation, I'd rather pay for the consignment selling that's been suggested so many times. Heck, I'd pay $50 for that easily.

* $1,575,000 bid by Central Bank (Mr. Chairman) on October 14 2006 8:22 PM EDT
* $1,500,000 bid by Glory (Flavor) on October 14 2006 11:30 AM EDT

Only two bids, I even checked past auctions for TSA and 1.5 mil what MORE than it had been selling for. Why did Central Bank outbid me in this case Jonathan? Also, it is not like the auction started at a dollar. If a players puts a large starting bid, Central Bank imo should just butt out of those auctions.

Glory...welcome back!

Actually, Central Bank doesn't bid until the last minute or two of the auction. You can say that he bids with "15 minutes left" but that's only true because the auction runs 14 minutes longer than it would have otherwise.

But yes, my biggest difficulty is that between working a full time job and the fact that I have to sleep, it is very hard for me to be online when an auction ends. Winning an auction is all about being online when it ends (or else being willing to pay significantly more than an item is worth through Buy-It-Now, which I have done before.)

So, for someone with database access - how many auctions has Central Bank won between, say, 5pm and 10pm server time?

"Actually, Central Bank doesn't bid until the last minute or two of the auction."

wrong. CB never bids when less than 15 minutes remain.

MWUHAHAHAHAHA! Just you all wait till I've paid off my loan and got my grubby mitts on a pair of Exec's. ;)

People should learn to bid whatever a sniper would have bid.
If they do, then 2 things may happen:
- They win the auction.
- A sniper does outbid them, but this time at a higher bid then he normally would have gotten it.

If people only learn to adjust to this, snipers will become extinct.

But then you never get the "Wow! I just nabbed this cool rare uber cheaply! :D" feeling. ;)

Bart:

One problem I have is that I do not know what an "appropriate" bid is.

When selling stuff, I have little idea on the minimum I should put to get the most money out of central bank.

IE: My large axbow. I have no idea how much CB would bid on it. I have tried selling my 61M NW axbow for as little as 25M cb2. But that did not even seem low enough. So how are "snipers" going to know that information?

If there was some hard and fast guidelines on the cb2 CB would bid, then sure, let the current system stay. However, one never knows what a good bid actually is.

I have many times bid what I thought was a good bid, only to lose the auction since I was not online at the time. And as always, one does try to get the item for the cheapest price one can.

You're still focusing on other persons' idea of what a good price is. Determine what for *you* a good price is. Use that as a guideline for what to bid.

Something that also may help deter snipers are flexible bid increments (if Jon chooses to implement them). Have the auction start with low bid increments, but have much steeper bid increments near the end of the auction. This way, the longer you wait to snipe, the more expensive it is.

Flexible bid increments would be a good thing. I've lost count of the amount of auctions I've lost, even though my bid is good, because somebody bid an extra 1k on top.

Yeah, I like that one... ;)

My question above has still not been answered. I was bidding on a TSA and the starting bid was quite high, imo a Buy Now price when comparing past auctions. However, Central Bank swooped in and outbid me, I thought it only bids when it perceives an incorrect value to bid comparison. I actually spent some time pulling past auctions and creating an average and then bidding accordingly. What are we to do in these cases? Just accept that Central Bank is going to snipe us in a lot of cases and move on?

Sorry for the double post but here is the link
TSA Auction Link

Well jon i had instances with Central bank bidding on items when there was less then 20 minutes remaining.
So it might not be 15 minutes. But the time span is short.

Bart:

I think you fail to see the problem.

I do have an idea what a fair bid for an item it. However, if CB does not think that bid is fair it swoops in and takes the item.

If your not on when CB decides to do this, your out of luck as there is only a 15 min "window" to outbid CB.

It would be far better, and I have stated this numerous times, if CB would let people know what IT thinks is a fair bid, with more than enough time remaining for others to have a chance to outbid.

CB's bids are always less than what it thinks the item is worth. Are you sure you want a pre-emptive CB bid at a higher price than what it's doing right now?

"It would be far better, and I have stated this numerous times, if CB would let people know what IT thinks is a fair bid, with more than enough time remaining for others to have a chance to outbid."

Now that is an outsatnding sugestion! :D On the auction page, why can't we have this value shown. It would notify buyers that unless they bid this amount CB will place a bid. lso, poeple could still 'low ball' and make sure they wait until CB bids to try to get a super cheap item.

But for that 'must win' item, you could bid enough to be sure and safe that you're only going to lsoe the item if another player wants it more than you.

:D

GL and Ranger, don't you both think that CB will drive up the prices?

if CB lets people know what the fair price is by bidding it, then anyone wanting the item will have to bid higher than the fair price, and that will only extend further and further, driving up prices if CB relates the fair price from past auctions.

So Shade:

You think the current system is good?

That is you putting what you think is a decent bid on an item. No one else in the game bidding more, that is no one in the game thinking the item is worth more than what you do. Only to have CB, believe the item is worth more and overbid you.

Then, if your not online on CB at the time, have no time to react to CB's decision?

IMO that is not a good thing. Many time I see bids that I think are fair only to have CB overbid and take the item from someone.

this does seem like a real economy in small scale/ toy scale. What we need at the moment are more consumers, i.e., more entrants to the game who will buy stuff. That way, the market will always ensure prices stay high through competition, and the Central Bank wouldn't have to intervene that much.
As for how to ensure more entrants, I am at a loss. I recently posted some info about our nifty chat window in the cricket manager game forum, lotsa people read it and repliied, but not one has logged here through my referral link :(

Ranger, atm a new bid is just a bid a bit higher, hardly anyone bids what they truly think it is worth (I'm not).

Thats how people get items at a lower value than what is considered fair, even if it's only a few k...


The new system you propose could work, but the only thing which worries me is that prices will slowly gradually (if CB bids the value which is the average of the past auctions)

example:

item x is auctioned 4 times, all of which are 1 mil bids which got the item.

CB then bids 1 mil, and you need to bid higher, 5% higher = 1.01 mil

Average that and the value CB bids is slightly higher than what it did before.

I hope that this will be corrected however so that CB doesn't drive the prices up.


in general, after some thoughts, your system could indeed work.

"Then, if your not online on CB at the time, have no time to react to CB's decision? " - Ranger

My new idea to fix this:
If only you and central bank bid on an item, and you lose the auction, Central Bank sends you a chatmail that allows you to purchase the item for the value of whatever the next bid would have been. The money Central Bank makes from that could simply just be deleted.
I dont know if this would work if multiple people are outbid by Central Bank, but it might be possible.

"GL and Ranger, don't you both think that CB will drive up the prices?"

No.

No one watns to buy the item for that price, CB will still place a much lower bid (the lowest increment when the tiem comes) and prices will lower.

If the price is fair and someone pairs the CB fair price, then so be it. Natural slight inflation until the items get too expensive, no one bids the know expensive, there is a lesser price bidding war, like there is now, and the item finishes for lower. Price starts to depreciate.

I can see no problem with an auction showing the CB buy price.

Miandrital has a good idea... and, in fact, the money you send to CB it could then just send to whomever posted the original auction.

It's a good idea, but i think it would be difficult to program.
But there has to be some alternative for the central bank.

What i found strange was that central bank didn't bid on this thing: AoM

You would think it was clearly under the market price.
So central bank has to stay! Central bank does more good then bad.
Only real problem again here is the lack of alternatives

The best one i heard was the E-bay idea with automated bidding.

That was a glitch in which cb got shot down and couldn't bid :p

"Actually, Central Bank doesn't bid until the last minute or two of the auction."

"wrong. CB never bids when less than 15 minutes remain."

I can say with 100% certainty that I have seen an auction that would have ended in under 5 minutes, and that CB had not bid on. But I place a bid and immediately CB has outbid me! Ok, the auction now has 15 minutes to go because of my bid pushing the auction time back, but that seems like splitting hairs.

Take a look at auction 63602, which according to auctioneer's page started at:
July 30 2006 4:35 AM EDT A Rune of Solitude lvl 20

This was due to end at 4:35 on the 31st, I bid at 4:29 (with 6 minutes left) and CB immediately outbid me.

Or look at auction 71949 for a more recent example. It shows deifeln put it up at 12:12, so for an 8 hour auction, it would have had an end time of 8:12. If Lans bid at 8:07 it should have had 5 minutes left... CB's bid at 8:10 would land it at 2 minutes before the original auction close time. Searching expired auctions for HoE says that it ended at 8:22, which would be exactly 15 minutes after Lans's bid (and a mere 12 minutes after CB plunked a bid down.)

Look at auction 71945; it has an end time of 10:58, but CB's bid is at 10:48.

I have seen this plenty of times when watching the auctions. I could come up with more examples, but they're there in the logs for anyone to see.

Wow! Real data presented objectively! Hard facts!

GP, kudos.

GP, did you send that information to Jon for evaluation?

There is only one explanation for this unruly autobidding by Central Bank. It has obviously developed intelligence, and now bids whenever it thinks is the best time to do so.

Beware, the war between man and machine is nigh!

the intelligent machine is just a better camper

"Let me put it this way, Mr. Amor. The 9000 series is the most reliable computer ever made. No 9000 computer has ever made a mistake or distorted information. We are all, by any practical definition of the words, foolproof and incapable of error. "