Topic

Smarter design safeguards for auctions

I made a really dumb mistake the other day that cost me tens of thousands of currants. I own up to doing dumb things regularly, but this one stung pretty badly. Though it is entirely my own fault for being careless, a game's design interface should help reduce or eliminate the chances of players 'hurting' themselves.

I'd like to propose four suggestions for improvement. I love the game and I can always recoup the currants, but new players may leave if they lose everything when a good design could have prevented it.

1: Consider making buying in bulk "opt in" instead of "opt out". It is far better for a user to accidentally sell a single item of something than to sell all of something. The vendors do this correctly by initially assuming you only want to sell 1 of something and provide a "max" button for users who need it. The auction, however, assumes users want to sell things by the stack.

2: Consider removing default prices from auctions. Rarely are the default prices even close to how the items are valued, and their presence allows users to mistakenly sell for that amount when they wish to sell for a different amount. Requiring users to always enter their own price eliminates this problem.

3: Expensive items should have small stacks. Gemstones are a perfect example of the right way to do this, as the more expensive stones have smaller stacks. Highly-valuable items (2000c ?) should sell like powders- only one a time, if at all.

4: Consider allowing the option for seller to 'Confirm' if the seller is online when someone tries to buy. This confirmation would display the item, the amount being sold, and the sale price. It would give sellers more control over who buys their items, and allow mis-auctioned items to be retrieved before being swept up by auction-bots.

It's my opinion that implementing any one of these would greatly improve user experiences with the auctions and possibly result in higher player retention rate. The last thing glitch needs is more public rage-quitting in the forums.

I'd love any feedback from players or staff :)

Posted 7 months ago by Zen Biped Subscriber! | Permalink

Replies

  • I am in agreement with almost all of this!  I'm not so sure about #4, but it is an intriguing idea.

    But I too have been bitten by carelessness when setting up a sale.   And it sold before I could cancel and reset it.
    Posted 7 months ago by Carl Projectorinski Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I totally agree with #1 and #2 -- and I suspect those would be fairly easy to implement.
    #3 is mostly taken care of the way it stands, and I think the first two changes would make this issue disappear, or very nearly so.
    #4 is the really tricky one -- If I am setting up a lot of auctions, I'm not sure I'd want to be pestered with a "confirm sale" prompt. I also suspect this would require a lot more coding than it might be worth.
    Posted 7 months ago by kastlin Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Thanks Carl and Kastlin for your comments concerning #4. I realized that some people would be bothered by confirmation notices, which is why I was careful to suggest it should be an option (not a requirement), for those who would prefer it. Also, I'm thinking that the notifications should not be like the auction frog notifications, but rather like the ones you get when someone invites you to a party chat.
    Posted 7 months ago by Zen Biped Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I think all could be solved by implementing #2. :)

    I do think #4 is troublesome: this one could cause griefing. Also the prompt would probably get really annoying.
    Posted 7 months ago by Hen vla Ham Subscriber! | Permalink