"Want to buy" auctions ? :) (in General)

How would it work ?

You will specify FOUR things (other than time and minimal decrement):

* maximum amount of CB$ you're willing to pay for the item - default min { (average item NW + average CB$ over NW), CB$ on hand on char }

* the rate at which NW is taken into account (between 50% and 100% for most items, between 20% and 100% for tattoos) - default is 100% for items, 20% for tats

* the rate at which item naming is to be taken into account (measured in CB$ per remaining day) - default is 0

* the price you're willing to insta-buy the item for (OPTIONAL - default 0)


When you place such an auction, the "maximal" cash is automatically deducted alongside a fixed listing fee (say 2,000 CB$ per day), leftovers are returned at the end.

Bidders (well, sellers, actually) will have to have a matching item in their posession.
They will bid LOWER and LOWER, and the one offering it at the lowest price wins.
_________

EXAMPLE :

I plan to buy one Amulet of Might somewhere betwen base and 500k NW.
I have 1,513,591 mil CB$ in my pocket.
Average AoM NW is $1,458,835, and on average the sell price is $974,112 higher than NW, so the default max bid is more than the cash I have on me right now.

The default "want to buy" auction page will say...
Maximal price : 1513591 [CB$]
Increment : 1000 [CB$]
Duration : 24 [hours]
NW rate : 100 [%]
Naming rate : 0 [CB$/day]
Buy it now : 0 [CB$]

Now, let's say I manually change max bid to 1500000, minimal decrement to 50000, NW rate to 80 [%], enter 2000 [CB$/day] for the naming rate and a BIN of 800000 [CB$].


What this means is that anybody that offers me an AoM (no matter what stats) can potentially get 1.5 mil for it if nobody else comes along to offer another "lower bid".
They can also use the BIN option and sell me any AoM for 800k, if they're desperate for cash.

Now, in case there's more than one willing seller, IF the items would all have identical stats, it would have been very easy... they'd just offer to sell it for less, and we would have no need for those extra fields.
However, since the items are very likely different in stats, we do need those extra fields.

Let's say two people are trying to sell me an AoM, one of them is a +5 (78607 CB$) with 120 days of naming left, the other is +9 (824328 CB$) and not named.
The system will compute an "equivalation" scheme for the would-be seller.
The first one would have an "additional" value of 78607*80%+120*2000 = 302885, the second one an additional value of 824328*80%+0*2000 = 659462.
The difference between them is 659462-302885 = 356577 in favor of the +9 one.


Now, say the +5/named guy is first and takes the initial 1.5 mil bid.

The second guy (the one with the +9) could directly replace the offer with his AoM while keeping the exact same 1.5 mil bid.

The first guy comes back, sees that, and wants to sell his anyway... he would have to lower his bid to 1.5 mil - 50000 (the minimal decrement) - 356577 (the advantage the other guy's item has) = 1,093,423.

Now, the +9 guy comes back. He wants to sell his too.
The fun part is that he can set a "winning" bid of 1,093,423 - 50,000 - (-356577) = 1,400,000... as you can see, that's precisely two times the minimal decrement.
But let's say he's quite agressive (but not very smart), and sets HIS bid to 1,100,000 instead (300k instead of 50k lower).
The first guy now would have to bid 1,100,000 - 50,000 - 356,577 = 693,423 to become the winner, even if that would put him UNDER the BIN price... would he have used the BIN from the start, he would have gotten more for it... so he most likely decides not to lower his bid that much, and withdraws from the bidding... the +9 guys wins, gets 1.1 mil, and the one that put the auction up gets the +9 AoM and 400k CB$ back.

Uh... yeah I know I probably went overboard with the description of the mechanism and methodology... but still, the base concept is easy as pie : a reverse auction.

You put your money down, say what you want, whoever gives you the most valuable item of that type for the lowest price gets the cash he bid for (ok, ok, minus a fee similar to the transfer fee).

Any feedback ?

Any particular reason? What does this achieve that regular auctions cannot?

Cool idea, though.

Well, it would let you basically make a WTB auction. It'd work, but I'm not sure if a lot of people would use it; my bet is that it wouldn't be worth the effort put into making it.

"What does this achieve that regular auctions cannot?"

Well, you can't exactly buy an item nobody put up for sale :)
You have to use the FS/WTB section, you have to be lucky enough to get the one who has such an item read your thread and be willing to part with the item for a certain price, you STILL have to use public record and trust the other party will send the item, etc.

So, while it doesn't do anything regular auctions don't already do, it certainly cuts down a lot of waiting time, and reduces (the already low) risks of failed transactions.

Actually, and I know ya'll are going to hate this, but Runescape has a very similar system (relatively recent too)

Works very well and helped out a huge amount of people.

Basically, you say the item you want and the amount you're willing to pay.

Would be a bit more difficult here. You'd have to specify the NW range of the item you wanted. But it seems doable.

Would be great to have.

"Would be a bit more difficult here. You'd have to specify the NW range of the item you wanted. But it seems doable."

That's why the OP was so long, I explained the exact mechanism that could be used here.
Hmm, optionally, you could also set "min NW" and "max NW" of items you're willing to accept, I guess.

i think several things need to be done to revamp the system. your idea would work in well with a new trade system entirely.

some other things that need to be done:

add tats back to rentals

kill of transfers of items, only allow characters and money to be transferred


as of now we have duplication with fs/wtb and the auction system. the auction system is pretty scam-proof and traceable. the above changes would basically reduce admin intervention and allow for safer trades in genereal.

actually it would be ideal to have characters handled through the auction system as well.

if we ever do see a population boom, due to facebook or something else,
having less ways for people to be scammed and less admin time spent enforcing rules would be crucial if not required.

The "Grand Exchange" that GW talks about is nice in theory, and would be a *great* addition, so long as the gross limitations on market fluctuation were removed and we had enough players for it to be actively used (we're ~10 million or so players /week short)... But for right now, it is likely way too much work than it's worth =/

I like the idea. Let's start a petition! =P

However I don't think Jon would care if everybody on CB signed the petition or not, he does what he pleases... No offense or anything.

I'm pretty sure Jon would care if everyone on CB signed a petition.

As you said, Jon does what he pleases. However, petitions are a great way to show Jon support for an idea, and in the past, he's paid attention to them (whether he did what was requested or not) because believe it or not, he wants people to stick around. ;)


As for me, I think it's a cool idea, but I am cool with or without it. I might would sign a petition, but I don't find it to be a "drives me nuts not to have it" thing like, for example, timestamps.