Auction Bot?

[nicky]

Hi,

 

I've got a decent framework for a bot completed in VB.net and am working on the routines to create an Auction bot. I'm wondering if people would be interested in using an Auction to buy or sell items, or if they have reasons that it would be a bad idea to create one.

 

To help people make thier decision, i'm going to outline the ways in which my auction bot would work, this is a plan on paper and it isn't proven that a bot could or would work this way, so my idea's may change based on techical limitations or the opinions of others, but this is what i would like to see:

 

3 levels of interaction to create auctions:

1 via PM commandline, one command line to define what you want to auction and how, just drop off the item to start the auction. (this is for power users) Syntax like: "/Auction (Make|create|new) Auction AuctionType, itemname, startbid, buyoutbid, LengthOfTimeToAuction, on and on and on.....

 

2 via guided PM's, you pm auction (anything he doesnt understand, or HELP) and he'll return some help text that describe the MAKE AUCTION command. Submit "/Auction Make Auction" and he'll ask you the various questions needed to create an auction, just pm him back the answers.

 

3 via web interface. When you PM auction with HELP or any command he doesn't understand, he'll PM (along with the info from #2) a URL and a one time use PIN to a webpage that guides a user thru the auction creation process, with lots of detail about the options and how the auction works. The one time use PIN works to make account management unnessisary. Web interface can access any of your past auctions, stats on your auctions in comparison to other auctions.

 

 

Types of auctions available:

 

Auction Type 1: Standard Auction:

You define how many hours to auction for (item has to be given to auction to start on time)

You define starting bid and if you want a buyout bid, what that amount is

You can end the auction and take your item back (haulting can be done via PM or web interface) but once a bid is made, you cannot end the auction, it must run it's course.

The item or Stack of items are sold as one unit

 

 

Auction Type 2: Dutch Auction

You Define how many hours to auction for

You Place a stackable item on auction

The stackables can be bid on in different quanities at different prices, example:

You place 1000 FE on auction

bidder 1 bids 1500GC on up to 500 FE's (3gc each)

bidder 2 bids 1400gc on up to 500 FE's (2.8gc each)

 

in this case (after the time expires) they would both win, and all the FE's would be sold, the buyer would get 2900gc for 1000FE

 

If bidder 3 was to bid 580gc on up to 200FE (2.9gc each) would knock the 2.8gc guy down to only 300FE's and the sale would look like:

 

bidder1 pays 1500 for 500FE

bidder3 pays 580gc for 200FE

bidder2 pays 840 for 300FE

 

Basically we take all of the stackable item, take all the bids on how many someone will buy and at what price, and figure out the best deal for the seller. Once the time is up, the winning bidders pick up the amount they won at the price per unit they bid.

 

Other rules for Dutch Auctions:

Auction can be canceled until someone makes a bid, after that the auction must run it's course

Auctions may have buyout prices (bid the buyout on half the stack, you get it immediately without waiting, other bidders continue bidding on the rest of the stack)

Bids (and min bid and buyout bid) are done in whole GC amounts, the gc per unit is calculated based on that.

 

 

Auction Type 3: Standard Set Auction

Same as standard auction, but for sets of items that go together like Summoning kits, armor sets, manufacturing kits, crafting kits and other things that go together. The kits will be defined by the auction, but anyone can supply a kit to sell as well as propose other kits to be available in the auction menu.

 

 

Auction Type 4: Person to Person (p2p)

The auction (type 1 or 2, dutch auction will not be available for p2p) is carried out while the seller holds the item and the buyer pays the seller directly for the item. This type of auction will have a reputation system that allows the seller of an item to rate the buyer and vice versa. Too much neg rep will prevent someone from using the p2p auctions. If you take too long to pay, don't deliver on your end of the bargain, or try to change the terms of the deal after the auction is complete, you can get bad rep from the other party. People banned from P2P auctions will not see the p2p auction listings, nor will they be able to bid or sell via p2p.

 

 

 

Issues raised by others i have spoken to:

 

(Some of these notes do not aply to p2p auctions)

 

Q:What if the seller backs out? A: The item must be dropped off for the auction to start. For expensive items, i am considering implementing a collateral system (if the gc is available) for sellers who may not fully trust my bot. Collateral amounts will be set based on market performace, but can also be negotiated.

 

Q:What is a buyer fails to pay? A: There are a few ideas i have for dealing with this.

 

1. Buyers must bid in person, or pm the bid which will take effect once GC is paid to the bot

2. Buyers must have credit with the Auction, either by depositing, or buy having credits from items they sold.

3. Buyer must be a VIP buyer to have "Credit on the House" which allows the bidder to use available gc owned by the bot to make the bid, so if the buyer defaults, the seller is still paid, the auction keeps the item (to be resold), and the buyer is blacklisted. Senior members of my guild will be VIPs as well as people who buy and/or sell alot using the bot. (say the top 5% or buyers and top 5% of sellers), so this will be a moving target. If the bot does not have available gc to issue credit, it will not be available.

 

 

Q:If it's too complex, people won't use it. A:I'm going to make it as easy as humanly possible to perform a Type 1 (standard) auction. The 3 different ways to create an auction also allow for a novice to walk thru the steps. Even though a level of comprehension is needed (what price should i sell at? whats a good length of time?) it should be simple enough for a newbie to walk thru it without hitting a roadblock that causes them to end the process before an auction is created. And using historical data, i could even propose high/low values for newbies to start with.

 

Q: How will you handle the limited Carry Capacity and inventory slots? A: This is the most challenging problem, one which i am still working on, and you can be sure, this will be the hardest code to write. Because of the lack of slots, some items will not be auctionable, flowers, harvestables, low value unstackables will all need to be done via p2p auctions. I am going to create a sliding scale system that allows for a % of EMU/slots that can be used for almost anything, a certain number of slots will be reserved for high demand essences and stackables (think raw meat). If there are alot of HE sales, the bot will allocate more EMU to those, and all will take only one slot, if there are less DeathEss sales, it will reduce the maximum amount of those you can auction at once (via non-p2p auctions) to make room for more HE's. All of these allowances will be apparent when you create an auction and will be queriable to determine what they are via PM. As people post items for auction, those numbers should change dynamically, but there should always be enough EMU to fill other slots with reasonably sized auctions. As more is bought and sold, this code will be refined to make it better, perhaps in the beginning these numbers will be static.

 

Additional Notes:

 

All auctions and historical data will be stored in the SQL server, making large amounts of detailed statistics available, i'd like to make the data available to those that buy and sell, a higher level of data available to VIP's and i'l be constantly monitoring trouble points at which people quit a session because of a percieved roadblock or misunderstanding of the input required to that i can be sure the bot returns help that is useful to what you are doing.

 

I'm still determining what privacy options will be available, or whether i'll display the buyer and seller names at all (excluding p2p auctions).

 

I would like to have special events where we have a very high quality item (CoL, CoM, Thermal Serp) up for auction where only local chat bids are taken. The auctioner bot will announce current bids and the next increment in the bidding just like a real auctioner would. For this, i think i'd like to have the bot inside of a building. I am looking for other types of events that could be held this way.

 

 

The reaons i am detailing these plans before having a working bot is because this will require a blessed bot, and i don't want to pay for it until i understand the opinions of the players and mods. If any of these functions would break the bot rules for a paid blessed bot, please make me aware of this.

 

You're comments would be appreciated, especially with a quickness, as i took this week off work to work on this bot.

 

Thanks,

 

crosis [iRON]

[Link]

Sounds sweet to me, i'd likely do more of the bidding than the auctioning, but i'd still auction with it, assuming enough people used it to make it worthwhile.

 

I think a good place for it would be

 

1) Outdoors: The smithery in votd

 

2) Indoors: The nearby house of the dragon clan in votd

[Cycloonx]

Sounds very cool

[trollson]

Have a look at the topic on an elBay implementation (and the follow-up references below). Since storage trading has been implemented, the elBay concept could be implemented as a bot within range of storage (requiring a special exemption from on High).

 

References:

• Auction Forum (now we have storage trading, this is feasible as a bot).
  
• Auctioning for EL
  

Edited June 5, 2006 by trollson

[nicky]

Have a look at the topic on an elBay implementation (and the follow-up references below). Since storage trading has been implemented, the elBay concept could be implemented as a bot within range of storage (requiring a special exemption from on High).

 

References:

• Auction Forum (now we have storage trading, this is feasible as a bot).
  
• Auctioning for EL
  

 

I wonder what extraordinary circumstances would have to be met to get approval for such a thing.

 

[trollson]

I wonder what extraordinary circumstances would have to be met to get approval for (bot in range of storage)

 

There is at least one trade bot in range of storage (near Raven, WS), so its not unheard of. It would depend on whether you could present Entropy with a convincing case.

 

Update: I've updated the head post in the Auction Forum/elBay thread with additional detail for bot/storage trading implementation, and auction process details paraphrased from eBay.

Edited June 5, 2006 by trollson

[Ujio]

i dont know if its still valid to post here...being as there are others, but hey

 

er well if you do do it, i sugguest definately not in c2, but somewhere not already crowded (in the case of lag), but relatively close to a storage. DP maybe (outside it would have to be)

 

also, if its possible, to help with the problem combatting the winning bidder not actually paying up, you could have the auction-maker put the item in the auction bot's inv/storage as you say, but make the winning bidder trade with the auction bot for the item, at the winning amount etc, and give them a few days/a week or so to make the transaction, or message the second highest bidder and tell them the item is theirs. implimenting a deposit system is your call.

 

this could work with any of the above auction methods i think

 

 

 

also, if this goes through, if this goes ahead, or if theres gonna be a elBay or whatever, i strongly disagree with automatically setting a minimum price as the NPC price for 2 reasons:

 

1) you might as well go get it from the npc and cut out this altogether cos it will probably cost you more and there is an unlimited supply from the NPC

2) you can get it cheaper on the market channel. thats why it was invented. so better prices can be charged than by NPCs or everyone will get them from there.

 

at least set it at a half reasonable price, like 60% of market/NPC value.

 

if this was a waste of time posting, please disregard my insane ramblings

[nicky]

 

also, if this goes through, if this goes ahead, or if theres gonna be a elBay or whatever, i strongly disagree with automatically setting a minimum price as the NPC price

 

I agree with not attempting to control prices in any way. the EL mods do not implement controls around what prices can be, and i too want to retain that spirit in an auction bot. the users will set their minimums and buyouts, no price controls of any type would create the widest versitility for the users.

[dns_server]

For a bot to use storage it would require special permission to be in range of storage.

i'm not shure if adarah has permission to use storage or not, i think bots are restricted to only useing thair limited ammount of slots. It is something that will require a lot of testing before it is implemented.

 

A fiew suggestions:

- Users should be required to "register" with the bot, this could be something simple like getting the person to pm "register password". then you have a username/password for the web interface instead of just a random session key.

- It may be a good idea for users to be required to have "credits" with the bot before use, so players would be required to trade gold with the bot before they can participate in the auction. the user should be able to put in money at any time but only allowed to take out any money not being used as the top bid.

 

 

 

How will you make money off it? (if you are planning to)

- The starter the auction pays a standard fee (say 50gc) for any auction.

- The starter places a deposit of 10% the initial starting price, if the starting price is not met, you take this fee.

- you collect 2-5% off the sucsessful auction.

etc.

[nicky]

For a bot to use storage it would require special permission to be in range of storage.

i'm not shure if adarah has permission to use storage or not, i think bots are restricted to only useing thair limited ammount of slots. It is something that will require a lot of testing before it is implemented.

 

A fiew suggestions:

- Users should be required to "register" with the bot, this could be something simple like getting the person to pm "register password". then you have a username/password for the web interface instead of just a random session key.

- It may be a good idea for users to be required to have "credits" with the bot before use, so players would be required to trade gold with the bot before they can participate in the auction. the user should be able to put in money at any time but only allowed to take out any money not being used as the top bid.

 

 

 

How will you make money off it? (if you are planning to)

- The starter the auction pays a standard fee (say 50gc) for any auction.

- The starter places a deposit of 10% the initial starting price, if the starting price is not met, you take this fee.

- you collect 2-5% off the sucsessful auction.

etc.

 

yeah, i was not originally planning on asking for special permission to use storage, and as this is my first bot, i'd rather not go there just yet. I didnt want to use user/pass for the web interface because if a user can PM my bot for a one time pin, i know that they are who they say they are when they log in using the pin (it would expire pretty quickly too) and there would be no need for account management.

 

As for profit, i planned on making it free for a while until I understood how it worked for real, then look for the most appropriate ways to charge. I can think of ways of to charge seller or buyers, and i was also considering flat fee's over a week/month for unlimited use of a reserved slot with x EMU's attached. Maybe have 3 slots in use this way and auction them off

[Llywar]

I was thinking about this topic independently and came up with another concept for an auction bot (very similar to what you're proposed in many respects). I'd have a web interface to allow for historical price tracking and some fancy graphics (hey, this is all concept so it isn't like I actually have to write it!).

 

The bot could operate as a service to players, not necessarily drawing a profit (this might convince Entropy to give it a storage trading exception). Or somebody could code this and draw a profit (probably would be treated as any trade bot).

 

Rather than just handling individual orders, it would batch like items and operate on a set schedule - such as every 12 game days (3 IRL). Buyers and sellers would list orders, and at execution time the bot would determine the selling price and email fulfillment notices. Essentially it would become an auction-based exchange where a historical price chart could be made, and this could easily become the backbone of the game economy much like any stock exchange is in real life.

 

To prevent abuse we'd probably require traders to have level 20 or something like that. Failure to perform would result in a ban. Ideally I'd have all items and cash traded to the bot at bidding time, but that could be inconvenient to users and might overload the bots storage (unless implemented as an NPC or something like that where there are no rules).

 

Orders might look like:

 

Buy 50 FE for 5 (or less - I need some in a hurry and I'll pay a premium)

Buy 300 FE for 3.5 (or less)

Buy 500 FE for 3 (or less)

Buy 10000 FE for 2 (or less - hey, maybe I'll get lucky)

 

Sell 200 FE for 3 (or more - gotta clear out storage)

Sell 500 FE for 3.5 (or more)

Sell 10000 FE for 6 (or more - if the price hits this level sell it all!)

 

Other players orders would be combined on the same item and the actual accounts would be settled every 12 games. This would result in an efficient market with fewer ups and downs in prices.

 

In the above case a price of 3 would bring 200 sales and 850 buys (200 trades), a price of 3.5 would bring 700 sales and 550 buys (550 trades), and a price of 5 would bring 700 sales and 50 buys (50 trades). Not sure exactly how we'd set the rule (favor more trades or higher/lower price - probably most trades first and highest price second). In this case the price would then be set at 3.5, and ALL orders meeting that criteria would get that price. In this case we have 700 offers to sell but only 550 buyers - the sellers would be prioritized first by order of willingness to sell at a lower price, and then by order to market. So the guy selling 200@3 would sell his whole order, and the guy selling at 3.5 would sell 350.

 

I'd give everybody one more cycle to settle up their trades. All trades would be via the bot to allow enforcement of the trade, and also for convenience.

 

The website could sport fancy historical price charts, lists of orders, lists of past winners, graphs of supply/demand charts (as price rises supply rises and demand falls).

 

Most likely players would tend to reference this historical market when setting prices for trades - just like how in real life when you want to know the price of gold you look at an exchange - you don't call up 47 friends and ask their personal opinions.

 

Some other ideas:

 

1. Implement as an NPC - then you could have a one-button settle-me function that takes your gold and deposits your items (or vice versa - either directly in storage, or whatever you can carry). The NPC could also have an enforcement role of some kind, dispensing curses for failing to perform. The NPC could also broker trades by creating items out of thin air if the seller hasn't shown up yet, saving the buyer a second trip. To prevent abuse we might limit this to established traders.

 

2. Assuming storage doesn't get crammed you could have a rating system allowing untrusted players to deposit cash/items in advance but allowing established players to just post their orders on the website and settle up later. If implemented as a limited bot you might want to avoid having people deposit stuff in advance - somebody might give you 50k FEs for sale at a price of 10 and you'll end up being their personal storage. If you wanted to take stuff in advance you might limit the max selling price based on historical data.

 

3. You could have a fast cycle auction for high-volume items like FEs/etc. That might be only a few in-game hours with items deposited in advance. You could tweak such things as volume ramps up if the service becomes popular.

 

Just some random ideas - this would be like a real-life market and would greatly increase economic efficiency. It might put trade bots out of business, although they would still fill the need for instant purchases (and the trade bots could query the current prices on the market to be more dynamic with less likelihood of abuse - if the trade bot could track the market efficiently it would appeal to people who want their money right away at a slight premium).

 

I think this service would be best run as a non-profit to benefit the whole game, with official Entropy endorsement. Anybody could just do this on their own and tack on a trading fee, but if 15 people do that we lose the whole benefit of a single efficient pooled market.

 

Oh, and while I know enough php/C/SQL/etc to be dangerous there is no way I could pull this off on my own. So feel free to take the ball and run with it if you can!

[LabRat]

http://www.eternal-lands.be.labby.is-a-geek.com I wrote an Eternal Lands auction site for a long time ago.

 

The auction site is still up, but like all new things, the novelty wore off rather quickly.

 

If people want to use it, feel free

[Llywar]

Not bad, although some of the downsides to this sort of system are that since you aren't combining auctions for the same item the volume is low and prices can vary due to luck/etc. Plus it is much easier to game systems like this since there is less competition on a single item. Plus, if 10 people are selling 100 of an item each, and I want to buy 1k, it is hard for me to do so without lots of bidding and geting 10 separate prices.

 

A dutch-style auction that is pooled gets buyers and sellers the best price, and it will tend to be efficient if the volume is large. That is how most real-life markets of this sort work. If volume gets high enough you could go to instant trades anytime sell/buy prices intersect, but that doesn't work well if volumes are low.

 

Also, if you toss in a bot it gets rid of he-said/she-said when somebody doesn't pay up or gets scammed (not noticing an item is damaged, etc - the bot wouldn't be fooled). And nobody has to track anybody down to settle the auction - bots are convenient since they're always-on. That's the whole reason that trade bots make a fortune - they connect buyers and sellers and people are willing to lose a few gp just to not have to play phone-tag with gossip...

[LabRat]

If someone tries to scam on one of the auctions, they get their bidding rights revoked.

 

If someone doesn't pay, it goes into mediation (I find out what the problem is, and again depending on the circumstance, they get their buying/selling rights revoked).

 

I have hosted quite a number of auctions on the site and I never had one single complaint of attempted fraud or non-settlement at the auction end.

 

The auction site was (and is) comission free, it is provided purely as a service for the EL community.

 

People know who the seller is, and can see who the bidders are. All buyer/seller accounts have to be verified by myself to prevent fraud, and that is why I am the only player ingame (EternalBroker is a bot) allowed to post advertisements on behalf of other players.

 

It takes but a second for me to do a search of the forums to see if a member has a reputation as a scammer, and as the site is owned and operated solely by myself and has nothing to do with Eternal Lands itself I can refuse to set up accounts for players (or remove existing accounts) if the necessity arises (it hasn't arisen thus far).

[Llywar]

Oh, I didn't mean to imply that you weren't running a reputable site, or that nothing could be done to moderate a forum like that. Just that all things being equal it would be a better design if all that weren't necessary.

 

Also, you still have the problem with individual listings. If 10 people offer 100 FEs for sale, and I want to buy 100 I have the following options:

 

1. Bid on one of them. Maybe I get outbid, and now I need to come back and bid on one of the other auctions (defeating the purpose of proxy bidding).

 

2. Snipe. I can wait until the last minute and only bid on an auction I'm likely to win. This is a pain, and nobody seems to like it.

 

3. Bid on all 10 whatever I'm willing to pay. Then I might end up with 1000 when I only wanted 100.

 

The advantage of a pooled auction is that all similar items get sold together and so you don't have to keep track of 50 little auctions (just one big one). This allows proxy bidding to work without fear of sniping. It doesn't work well in real life since you might want to bid only on reputable sellers and real life items are often not identical in quality. However, in a game it works quite well - a FE is a FE, and if the bot is holding the goods then reputation matters not.

 

Why do you think your auction site isn't popular? How can these problems be corrected? It certainly isn't because nobody buys or sells stuff, and it certainly isn't because in-game prices are perfectly efficient. I frequently find myself selling to bots for hundreds of gp less than I could get from a person - generally because I don't want to have to hunt specific people down. Guilds alleviate this by bringing people together.

 

There is a reason people use exchanges in real life when trading goods of a known quality that are traded in volume - it is more efficient than millions of individual sales and auctions.

[LabRat]

Why do you think your auction site isn't popular? How can these problems be corrected? It certainly isn't because nobody buys or sells stuff, and it certainly isn't because in-game prices are perfectly efficient. I frequently find myself selling to bots for hundreds of gp less than I could get from a person - generally because I don't want to have to hunt specific people down. Guilds alleviate this by bringing people together.

The auction site is not unpopular, the main reason it has no auctions is that I don't bother advertising it. Like all things, including an auction bot, novelty is a short-lived thing by its very nature.

 

I have better things to do ingame than advertise an auction site all day, but if I did the auctions would start again, of that I have no doubt.

 

People are currently making a number of threads in the forum making auctions for items, my site is no different to that. People will use whatever methods they have at their disposal to sell their wares.

 

And remember: EternalBroker puts buyers in contact with sellers.

[Llywar]

And remember: EternalBroker puts buyers in contact with sellers.

 

I use it all the time. I also use the Riva market site, which I think is actually a little more convenient. Essentially with such sites you're doing your own legwork to find the best price, and you aren't certain to get it unless you let your order sit out for a long time and keep revising it upwards/downwards until you get a hit. An automated system would be convenient.

 

And you still have the pain associated with actually tracking down the buyer/seller. It can take days to do this, and with a bot it takes minutes to walk over to it and just do the trade.

 

I think that something like what I proposed would be very useful to the community, and I think it would get a lot of use if it were developed. Obviously somebody has to develop it, but I figured I'd toss the idea out and see if it got too shot up before going to the trouble to actually start working on something like this.

 

But, I've been meaning to teach myself ruby on rails so maybe I'll just toss something together and see how it works out...