Auction Forum

[trollson]

Just been browsing the scamming and market forums...

 

Would it solve a lot of issues to implement an eBay-like service linked to EL? Either through commands, or through a seperate web service (or both).

 

Implementation:

• elBay login as EL character (if a seperate web service).
  
• Items put up for auction moved from the character's storage to a holding area.
  
• Similarly, bids are taken (in gold) from bidder's storage to holding area. Losing bids can be returned from holding to normal storage.
  
• Transactions resolved at end-of-auction.
  

Observations:

• Don't need anything like the eBay "feedback score", since all transactions can be guarenteed.
  
• Dutch auctions useful for selling bulk quantities.
  
• Could impose a small "2.5%" tax on transactions, to take money out of the economy.
  
• There must be space in character's normal storage to complete a transaction (otherwise what?).
  
• Only storable items can be auctioned off.
  

Pros:

• Goods and gold must exist for an auction to be placed, and are then 'locked' until auction is over.
  
• Quality of goods is authenticated by the EL server; no passing off lesser items.
  
• Get a record of the value of goods.
  
• Player's don't have to be logged to catch an auction.
  

Cons:

• Can't barter (gold only payments). But still use face-to-face for bartering.
  
• Not very role-playing-ish?
  

Extensions:

• No reserve prices, system bids minimum automatically, taking unwanted goods out of the game.
  

Update 2006-06-05 as a result of cross reference

• Implement as a bot ("elBay") within range of storage, and using storage trading (1) (requires special permission).
  
• Bidders must have some credit (in gc) with elBay, and must be able to cover 10% of any bid they make. If they do not honor a winning bid within some period (1 RL week) they lose this deposit.
  
• No reserve prices; the system (the game) always makes a low bid for any item (cf. NPC purchase prices). Any items bought by the system are removed from the game.
  
• Bids are of the form "5 gc each for 50 Thingies" (ie, 250gc total, 25gc deposit), see details below.
  
  

(1) Store trading was not available when this posting was originally made.

The following explaination of auctioning multiple items is paraphrased from eBay:

You have 50 Iron Swords, that you'd like to sell. You would list them as a quantity of 50, and and the system will automatically bid 125gc for each (based on NPC prices).

• Bidders specify both their offered price per unit, and the number of items they want.
  
• Winning bids are selected in order of bid price per item - that is, a bid for 5 units at 220gc per unit is ranked above a bid for 10 units at 210gc per unit.
  
• If two bids have the same price per item, the earlier bid is given priority. Winning bidders will pay a price equal to the lowest winning bid.
  

For a listing with 10 available items and 2 bidders:

• Bidder A bid for 8 items at 50gc each.
  
• Bidder B bid for 3 items at 60gc each.
  

In this case, the lowest successful bid is 50gc. So the outcome of this listing is:

• Bidder B wins 3 items at 50gc each.
  
• Bidder A wins 7 items at 50gc each.
  
• Bidders cannot lower their "total bid value" (the bid price per item times the number of items on which they're bidding) when they raise their bid in this type of auction-style listing.
  
• Winning bidders cannot refuse partial quantities. This means that if you win some, but not all, of the quantity you bid for, you must still pay for any items won. In the above example, Bidder A bid on 8 items, but won only 7 of them. Bidder A must complete the purchase, even though Bidder A did not win the quantity he or she bid on.
  

Edited June 5, 2006 by trollson

[kl4Uz]

I'd like to see that ingame. There's something very similar to your suggestion in WoW and it's really usefull.

[Aislinn]

I think it's a great idea, not counting the fact it totally is out of character with the game lol. To me that is the only con. (If it's even possible to do, of course)

[ttlanhil]

I think it's a great idea, not counting the fact it totally is out of character with the game lol.  To me that is the only con.  (If it's even possible to do, of course)

163897[/snapback]

oh, I dunno, an official auctioneer doesn't sound that far fetched for the period

[trollson]

Quick search (unvalidated):

Most scholars agree that the earliest recorded account of auctions was written by the Greek historian, Herodotus, around 500 B.C. He described Babylonian wedding auctions where women were sold for the purpose of marriage. These were descending auctions. The offers for brides started high and went down until a bidder accepted the maiden. Less comely women had to pay a dowry to be accepted and thus the price could be negative.

History of Auctions

[Aislinn]

Yes auctions in general have been around but the orginal manner suggested (an ebay format) isn't exactly the same thing as an ingame auctioneer. Thats all I meant about it being out of character in the game.

[gilthanas]

sounds cool to me

[trollson]

Yes auctions in general have been around but the orginal manner suggested (an ebay format) isn't exactly the same thing as an ingame auctioneer.  Thats all I meant about it being out of character in the game.

163935[/snapback]

 

Yes, sorry. I wasn't replying to you persay, but to the comment about the historical precedent for auctions (which sparked my curiosity). I was busy at the time, and didn't property explain the context.

 

I don't know what the server implementation is like, but I wouldn't have thought that this would be a huge problem data-wise. Only one additional storage structure would be needed per character, regardless of the number of auctions they are active in (buyer or seller). The purpose of that structure is only to "lock" the assets.

 

A web-frontend to show the current auctions (grouped as per the storage interface?) would be a must, but needn't be interactive (at first), if an in-game command system is used (NPC "Auctioneer" to represent the interface?).

 

This would proved a trusted market area, free from scamming, which I think (IMHO) would be a big advantage. It does not stop any aspect of personal face-to-face (avatar-to-avatar) trading, which would still be necessary for non-storable items.

 

What aspects are out of character with the game? It isn't role-playing directly, but it is a real-world activity which did exist in medieval times (in some form or another). Its consequences on the EL economy would be interesting...

[general_garisn]

maybe this is a nice thing to implent at EL.net.

[trollson]

maybe this is a nice thing to implent at EL.net.

164097[/snapback]

 

Maybe that would be the right place. However, it would have to interact with the EL server directly (and securely!) to manage transactions. If auctions could be managed through this interface, then user accounts would have to map to EL character accounts.

[kl4Uz]

I'd love to see that ingame. I used to play in windowed mode and alt+tab alolt while playing EL.

 

But I switched to fullscreen, since that really gives me a better playing experience and everything I would have to do outside of the actual client would interrupt the gaming flow.

 

And btw. I guess it would be rather hard to code such a system, that recognizes items from the game, places an auction online and then delivers them ingame again.

[trollson]

And btw. I guess it would be rather hard to code such a system, that recognizes items from the game, places an auction online and then delivers them ingame again.

164106[/snapback]

 

If the auction was purely through a web interface then there would be a break in the flow of the game for those in full screen. However, an initial implementation could be done through the chat screen (cf. some bot implementations such as MadameYes).

 

Actual implementation would not be as hard as you may think, but would require changes to the EL server to support additional queries (limited to being from trusted sources).

 

Recognising game items should be trivial, since this would only be dealing with game items, it could use their item ID numbers (I am assuming that this is how it works?). There are no "unique" items in game at the moment (are there?), which would require special handling (and probably these would not be storable anyway).

 

Data wise, each player would have a second storage structure, accessible only through the auction service.

• When they place something up for auction, the quantity of the item is transfered from their normal storage to the auction storage, and an auction record created.
  
• When a player bids, their maximum bid in gold is transfered similarly (and is transfered back if they are outbid).
  
• When an auction ends, the service would deduct the quantities of item from the seller's auction store, and credit the buyers' normal storage, while doing similar with the buyers' gold to the seller. Unspend bid money is also returned.
  

An auction item would need to record:

• Seller Character ID.
  
• Item Type ID.
  
• Quantity.
  
• Deadline.
  
• Current bid per item.
  
• List of winning Bids.
  

where a Bid consists of:

• Buyer Character ID.
  
• Quantity desired.
  
• Timestamp.
  
• Maximum bid per item.
  

where the list of winning bids is sorted by maximum bid (secondary ordering by time stamp), and truncated where the sum of the quantities equals or exceeds those on offer. The lowest maximum bid then defines the current bit per item in the auction record.

 

Each character would have to have a list of their current auctions (as seller) and bids, for reverse lookup.

 

It would also be interesting to keep a track of the final prices for the various commodities over time...

 

(lunch time over... back to work...)

Edited May 28, 2005 by trollson

[Placid]

Never gonna happen im afraid (web-interface wise). The character files (for in-game) are stored on a different server to EL.net, and even if it were possible, it would take weeks of development and testing (both functionality and security wise).

 

As for an in-game automated auctioneer, can't be too hard to develop, or implement - I can't comment on this however.

 

Nice idea though...

[Aislinn]

I was also under the impression we don't use item ID numbers...we use picture recognition?

[Placid]

I was also under the impression we don't use item ID numbers...we use picture recognition?

164145[/snapback]

I thought it was only item ID's that were used, im probably wrong though

[Learner]

The server tracks at the item ID level, the protocol tracks at the picture ID level and the item ID is never passed to the Client.