Topic

Auction Tweaks

As a finance major, I love the potential of the in-game auction house. I think it could add a lot of interaction between characters, since many items cannot be purchased at the street vendors. As the game expands, with more characters, skills, and items, the "economy" of the game will only become more important.

My thoughts (in order of priority):

1. I think there must be an in-game interface to list items AND request them. The fact that I must open a new tab to see the auction page is a big turn-off.

2. We should be seeing many more items posted to the auctions. In theory, shouldn't I be able to buy every single item (even the ones that can be purchased from street vendors)? There will always be someone too lazy to walk across the street to buy their eggs and milk.

3. Allow the purchase of individual items on the auction page. Right now, if someone lists 400 cheese, and I only need 1, why do I have to buy all 400?

4. In a typical financial market, you have the "market price." I think it would be a cool idea to easily see the current "market" prices of key items. Also, in-game, the option to list an item for "market price" or "market price - 1 currant" etc. Obviously, you don't want to make this too complicated, but I think you have a lot of options.

5. I've purchased a couple items from the auction page. Some of them came in a mailbox; others came by frog mail. Is there a logic to this?

Overall, I've been surprised by how few items are listed on the auction page. If I need tortillas, why can't I buy them anywhere? Do I really need to learn an entire skill just to make them? The fact that a lot of these items aren't listed is a sign that the auction system isn't easy enough to use yet.

Let me know what you think. Thanks.

Posted 18 months ago by Fortibus Subscriber! | Permalink

Replies

Previous 1 2
  • I'd be in favor of some sort of "requests" system.  With the recent implementation of listing fees, I think people are reluctant to craft and post things that may or may not sell.

    If there were a request system in place, I would likely hang out and craft for requests almost as frequently as I hang out at project sites.
    Posted 18 months ago by Krikket Subscriber! | Permalink
  • My opinion to your well thought out post:

    1. I agree that having to go to another page is cumbersome.  However, I think I'm willing to deal with that trade off if it is to keep the main interface from bogging down. Hopefully, they will eventually be able to figure out an in game interface, but I hope it doesn't sacrifice performance.  So for now, I'll deal with the annoyance of it being on a separate page just like my wardrobe changes, vanity changes, real estate, leader boards, and skills lists. I'd rather they be integrated into the main playing platform, but not at the expense of performance issues.

    2. I'd disagree with your theory.  Currently all items are available from vendors or via work in game.  The auctions are really a marketplace for the players, not necessarily an alternate one stop shopping/vendor location.  So, if no players want to sell their tortillas, then they aren't going to be on the auction page. Most players that cook will provide the meals, but since they need the basics like tortillas or buns to make the meals, I'd think you'd not likely to find them in the auctions.

    3.  I like this idea.  I would be nice to buy a subset of what the player is marketing. Then players could post in bulk and if someone wants them all they can purchase all of them, or if someone only wants a few, they can purchase a subset.  Would clean up the postings in the auctions to quite a few less lines to look through.  Right now, I try to post in small quantities, so that people can purchase a couple bundles of items if they want more.

    4.  Yes, it would be nice to see the market/vendor price of items since some over-inflate the price.  It's listed in the item description, so it could be pulled from there, and posted at the top in the title of the item.  However, people need to realize that some items will be listed at much higher than the 'market' value due to supply and demand.  When there is a high demand due to projects, items are often bought at double, triple or more than 10x their market value.  Trophy pieces are listed way way higher than their market value because they are in demand by those who don't work in the street projects or don't seem to even have enough inventory for the projects.

    5. Interesting.  As of late, mine all came by frog.  Is it possible that mailbox is the option when the game has been closed or you were offline after purchasing?

    Side notes: 
    To me, in some cases, the auctions (and vendors) facilitate players who are just plain lazy - don't want to learn skills to do things, just want to buy them - part of the game is learning the skills to help yourself first and then others.  However, this may become a necessary evil since there is promise of so many skills players will have to specialize vice having a broad knowledge.  But frankly, base skills such as frying a tortilla shouldn't be that big of a deal to learn, and if you don't want to learn to fry a tortilla, you really don't need to purchase them individually since you won't be able to make the rest of the things that you need the same skill for.  

    In other cases, the auction system facilitates teams of people working together to get items to street projects rather quickly.  For this, it is great.

    I really don't see how the auction system could be made much easier (other than embedding into the main play area)...it's really not that difficult to use at this point.

    ETA: Krikket, like the idea of a request system...someone requests and you fill the request.  That is a unique change to current system. Would like to keep the system we currently have, but add this as an option for those that are looking for something specific.  Of course, they would have to state what they are willing to pay for it up front, and their money would have to be held in escrow until the item is provided, so they have enough to pay for it when it is done.  Maybe they should be able to designate how long they are willing to wait (for projects, someone might be willing to wait no more than a couple minutes, but for other items, getting it a day later might be fine).
    Posted 18 months ago by ~Pink Flamingo~ Subscriber! | Permalink
  • 3. The listing and commission fees make listing individual, low priced items (like the cheese you mention) unlikely. With a 1.5% listing fee (3 currant minimum) and a 8% (1 currant minimum) commission per auction, it would be challenging as a seller to make a profit on selling individual items. An 8 currant bun would need to be sold for 12 currants to break even. So say I mark it up by 25% (2 currants) to make a profit. Will you pay 14 currants for that bun? I know that I would not go to the effort to list that item for your spending convenience to net 2 currants for myself.
    Posted 18 months ago by MaryLiLamb Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Thanks for the replies.

    From what I can tell, the developers plan to expand the game in a huge way. Lots of skills, lots of items, lots of players. A robust auction would greatly improve the "feel" of complexity, with access to so many different items, each with a different use. A level 1 player who sees "Extremely Hallowed Shrine Powder" in the auction wants to find out what it is--and wants to keep playing. Or a player who sees a 30k house for sale wants to save up and buy it. That's a good thing for the game.

    Requests: I agree with you, Beach Bum, that there need to be protections in place, such as escrow and time limits. I can see people easily forgetting that they placed a request.

    Also, you bring up a good point that the players that are most likely to use tortillas are the ones who would have the skills to make it. The reason I referred to tortillas, specifically, was that I had a quest to make an item with tortillas in it. I couldn't find any, and wasn't willing to pursue the skill. Obviously, the purpose of quests are to make you experience more parts of the game, so maybe I was looking for a shortcut there.

    To Mary's point: I agree that the fees are too high. In fact, I think there should be no listing fee, only a fee if the item sells. Right now, the auction is essentially punishing people who list their items. That is not the incentive we want. No listing fee means no-risk to put your items up for auction. Since requests cost nothing, those will also flood in.

    In-game interface or not? I guess it's not a huge deal at this point. My idea was simply that if it was quicker to use, more people would use it. Also, maybe add "Auction" next to "Skills" on the top bar? Right now, you have to go into your home page and then find the auction link. Also, if i'm not mistaken, the real-estate link is at the very bottom of the home page.

    (Perhaps integrate the Auction and Real-estate market someday?)
    Posted 18 months ago by Fortibus Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Fortibus, the listing fee is in place to discourage using the auctions as a temporary storage system. The fees are very recent. They also discourage sellers from listing exorbitant prices for items, which did happen.
    Posted 18 months ago by MaryLiLamb Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Yes, I won't list many items in auction, often due to the listing fee and commission. Also, to me.. it isn't really an auction. If there were bidding, it would be an auction. As it stands, it is simply a market.

     It would be cool if there was something like Ebay, where you can start an auction at a price where you would "break even", or  allow someone to buy it instantly with a "Buy it Now" price. Also, if you had settings for automatic discounts when purchased in bulk. Like say, you can have 3 tiered pricing. If someone buys 1, an item could be 15 currant. If they buy 10, it could be 14 currant each. If they buy 100, then it could be 12 currant each. Then you can have creativity from the sellers trying to create market incentives. 

    I also think the listing fee should go away and the commission reduced to about 3%. This would encourage usage of the auctions and discourage people from such high markups. To balance out the lack of fees for the seller, an added fee for the buyer ought to be "shipping and handling", ie delivery!  There should be different pricing for delivery based on speed of delivery. Perhaps even have a cheaper "deliver it to my house" option. 

    1 thing to note if there is no listing fee, if you are full of slots and you want one freed really quick, you can always put something on auction for a ridiculously high price nobody will buy it for in order to free up a slot, then later cancel the auction. Auctioned items should remain in your slots until sold if listing is to become free. 

    1 final note about the auctions, is that they do not have their own easy access link. Whenever I just generally want to find the auctions, I go to one of my items and hit info, then I go to find auctions for that item, and then I look up what I want. I haven't found any other way to access the auctions. If there is another way, then it needs to be more obvious. If not, then they need to add it. Even with the auctions being on the website, there should be an easy and obvious way to get to them in 1 or 2 clicks. So, there should either be a button to the auctions showing on the screen at all times, or the first click you make on an item or a vendor should show the auction button, without having to go through the info page.
    Posted 18 months ago by Purple Haze Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I see no problem with the exorbitant prices. If they're overpriced, nobody will buy it.

    The temporary storage is a little more difficult. Two things: why not put a limit on the number of auctions you can have (for example, max of 10 different items). Also, put a delay on receiving the item back if it doesn't sell (so I post something, then cancel it later, but I have to wait a day to get it back).
    Posted 18 months ago by Fortibus Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Of course, there could be no fees at all. The only thing that the fees do is make the auction items more expensive. I'm assuming that the developers did this to encourage more interaction with the street vendors.
    Posted 18 months ago by Fortibus Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I don't think the Vendors pay enough. Plus, if you really want something that players provide, it is almost impossible to determine which Vendor might actually have it. I don't fancy running around to 20 Vendors looking for something that might not even be for sale at all. 

    I think the temporary storage is 100% solvable by keeping Auction items in your slots.  This will limit your auction ability. 
    Posted 18 months ago by Purple Haze Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Frankly, the listing fees are very reasonable - lower than a previous game I played. It's the commissions that are slightly high probably, but still rather reasonable, IMO. And people in other threads are complaining they have too many currants and need places to spend them like on fees, etc. LOL.

    Honestly, it appears overall that the prices have dropped significantly since the fees were introduced, so that has helped to keep those people from pricing a 10 currant item (like a bun) for a 1000 currants. Maybe the lower end prices are slightly higher to cover the costs of the extra fees, but it's minimal overall. There needs to be something in place to penalize those that are just trying to scalp other players, and this seems to have been rather effective, though you will still see high prices when there is no other player offering competative pricing for an item.

    Note that different vendors pay different amounts...from 80% of value down to 50% of value (avoid Helga or the gardening vendors) - You just need to figure out the biggest bang for your buck. When posting in an auction, I think it recommends listing at around 80% of value, but then allows you to change the price you charge to either higher or lower - often times now, the 80-70% vendors pay out more for an item than the lowest listing for that item. You just have to watch both. Also, for items sold by vendors, there is a finite numbers of types of vendors. Figure out what each type sells (I have a list that I keep), and you should know exactly where to look for items, it's not that challenging since they don't change the items they sell.

    Agree, this is more of a market than an auction, but we already had another thread on that.
    Posted 18 months ago by ~Pink Flamingo~ Subscriber! | Permalink
  • (oops - deleted accidental double post)
    Posted 18 months ago by ~Pink Flamingo~ Subscriber! | Permalink
  • The vendors don't sell everything. Lots of things are created by players. If you want a player created item, you aren't likely to find it at a vendor. The high pricing can also be tamed down if u make the listing fee refundable if the item sells
    Posted 18 months ago by Purple Haze Subscriber! | Permalink
  • @SourGrapes - find a link to auctions on your Home page, on the right. 
    Posted 18 months ago by Zany Serendipity Subscriber! | Permalink
  • @Zany- Thanks. The way th page is designed immediately draws my eyes upwards and to the left.
    Posted 18 months ago by Purple Haze Subscriber! | Permalink
  • @Fortibus - you kind of lost me when you defaultes to this statement:
    Two things: why not put a limit on the number of auctions you can have (for example, max of 10 different items). 

    If you're wanting to see auctions in smaller quantities (for ease of purchase on the buyer side).. how is limiting the number of open auctions going to help? 

    ...a delay on receiving the item back if it doesn't sell (so I post something, then cancel it later, but I have to wait a day to get it back).

    Already in place... the item stays available for purchase for 24 hours, then comes back to you. If you cancel it early, the item comes back to you. In both cases you take a loss on the listing/commission fees (your fault for not pricing the item to sell), and it comes straight back into your inventory. If you're asking that it be delivered by Parcel Frog or to your Mailbox... how does that solve the 'endless warehouse' situation? If I auction 1000 gnomes for 10k each - I now have an on-demand supply of Giant donations sitting in my in boxes all over the world when they don't sell.

    The way the actual listing of an auction works gives you a boatload of information. 
    The top line shows the the average selling price per unit of all auctions of the item currently for sale. If there are no items for sale, the price per unit shown is 80% of vendor price.
    It then also does a lot of math for you in showing the price per unit based on your units and asking price... you can adjust the price up and down to adjust the selling price per unit. 
    The fees are over and above your listing price and not calculated into the price per unit... so when you adjust the selling price to include the fees, the fees go up as well. You can figit with things to find the area with the biggest break points... or you can just chalk it up as the cost of doing business.

    If you take a second to look up the 'item worth' (either from the info button in the item itself, or via the Items section of the Encyclopedia)... it will tell you the general cost to purchase the item at a vendor. For food - that cost is *usually* the amount of energy you get when you eat the food, but there are exceptions. For things that can't be purchased, the Encyclopedia value is somewhat arbitrary and you really need to work from what everything else is going for.

    I think the biggest pain point I'm hearing from this thread is that the market is not yet mature enough to really truly be a 'shopping center'. That will come with time. As more people garden and cook, more 'finished' food will become available. I doubt you'll ever see a surplus of ingredients or raw materials on the market. 

    If you run into a cross-dependency for a basic item, like flour or tortillas or proper rice - your best bet is a little networking. Find one of the sellers making something using that tool and send them a message (in the post or via IM) asking if they could perhaps make some for you. Also - good fix for your 'requests'.

    (Secondary thought: Add the 'info' link to the items within the Auction page itself - just saves the two look-up steps of digging through the Encyclopedia for the same info, and provides an easy way to figure out if you're getting a good deal when buying items available at vendors.)
    Posted 18 months ago by Travinara Subscriber! | Permalink
  • @Travinara

    What I wrote was kind of confusing. I'm not looking for auctions in smaller quantities. I think players should be able to buy any amount of an item that is listed, any subset of the quantity listed. Essentially, what I think would work better is a true market, not an auction, and with the developers acting as brokers, not as an auction house.

    What I meant by suggesting a minimum of different items (not quantities) was to try and fix this problem of warehousing your items. The delay on getting the item returned is for the same reason: to make it slightly more inconvenient. SourGrapes made a good suggestion of simply keeping the items for auction in your slots.

    I agree that I am mostly complaining that the market is not mature. But let's be clear: it's not yet a market.

    1. There is no way to gauge demand. A "bidding" or request system would allow that.
    2. I can't buy arbitrary quantities. There's not even a minimum trade size. It's all or nothing, which doesn't make sense to me.
    3. The entry fees are too high, and the market is not implemented into the gameplay. Why not create a market-oriented quest? I think as the game expands it would be very interesting.
    Posted 18 months ago by Fortibus Subscriber! | Permalink
  • @Fortibus

    I like what you just said
    Posted 18 months ago by Purple Haze Subscriber! | Permalink
  • It is a market, it is not an auction house or grocery store. It's essentially a farmer's market... a seller's market as opposed to a buyers market. The mechanics have the capacity for it to be both - at the same time depending on the offering.

    As a grower... I pay a certain amount for a permit to vend annually, as well as a certain amount to take part in scheduled 'farmer's market' festivals. fairs, or days. I'm also able to sell by the roadside or put a sign outside my house to avoid those fees and haggle or trade with someone (yes I trade produce for beef with a neighbor in the real world folks)... I also pay city, state, and local taxes on my business transactions - no matter where/how I sold it. I judge demand and pricing based off of sales, and forecast for next year... if I ran out of cucumbers too fast one day, the next I price it higher... if I ran out of squash for the season, I plant extra next time.

    I get the desire to select a 'quantity'... but even in the real world, I'm not likely to let you purchase just one ounce of strawberries from a full flat of them. The quantity is set by the seller - a minimum of 1 and a max of whatever the stack size. As a seller, I could auction cherries one at a time and take a huge loss... or auction the whole 250 for a fair price and hope someone has the bulk cash to pay it... or parcel it out for a fair price in batches of 50 and charge a little more per sale because of the extra fees.

    I'd be happy to break it into smaller quantities (and sell it at a higher cost per unit)... but that is a seller-discretion. You as a buyer have the option to buy the bulk at the bulk price or not. If you don't want the excess... there is nothing wrong with selling it at a higher unit cost to recover the 'fees', that's a pretty standard business practice everywhere.

    Keeping auction items in your inventory will dissuade sellers from selling. Limiting the types of items someone can sell will dissuade sellers from selling. Putting a cap on the number of auctions per day will dissuade sellers from selling. The logic still doesn't add up. If you want people selling flours and tortillas and cherries and honey and gems and music and cooked foods and fully prepared drinks, clipping their wings is not the way to encourage participation. You can't limit selling without limiting buying, or you'll always have an empty market and people will only ever sell at the max possible quantity. 

    The 'sellers' are going to always be people with the time, energy, skills, and inclination to participate in the marketplace, and there will always be more buyers than sellers. That's to say - the same people selling that cooked food instead of eating it, are also the ones selling the music and gems... because they don't need it for themselves.

    No, the 'auction' system doesn't let you auto-pilot. If you want a better price on something, you're more than able to contact the seller and negotiate. You are also welcome to visit a vendor if you don't like what the market has to offer or the prices on the market.

    Somewhere around here there was an idea thread on player-stocked store fronts in lieu of vendors. Perhaps that concept will help you visualize just what the Glitch marketplace is - a store accessible from anywhere in the world... stocked by the players who get to set the price/quantity when they put stuff on the shelves.
    Posted 18 months ago by Travinara Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Why did they decide to call it an auction? Just wondering.
    Posted 18 months ago by Purple Haze Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Someone longer term than I am would have to confirm, I arrived with the Auctions labeled as such... however:

    Once upon a time, in a Groddle long ago.... Glitch used to have a live-exchange market stall system. It went away for reasons. It also had a Market Hall, which appeared to work out a little better but eventually was replaced for reasons. Somewhere in between, 'Auctions' were added in the mix. I suspect the name is/was to separate the two as the transition was made, but that happened just before I arrived (people were grumbling about it in chat).
    Posted 18 months ago by Travinara Subscriber! | Permalink
  • SourGrapes- It sounds like the "Fixed price format" used by eBay which allows for a Buy It Now price without bidding.
    Posted 18 months ago by Simplin Subscriber! | Permalink
  • @Travinara

    Some main difference between Glitch auctions and a real life farmers' market:

    In Glitch, you can't see what other people have sold (without some very heavy sleuthing), and you can't see what people are requesting. Therefore, you can't see the demand. In a real life market, you can plainly see which business is doing best (not to mention how many people visit your stall) and adjust to meet that demand.

    In the real world, taxes pay state and federal revenues. In Glitch, this doesn't matter. As far as I can tell (and other people have suggested), fees are included in the game to fix the problem of temporary warehousing. I'm beginning to think we should just have a designated amount of "market slots," say, 5 or 10. (Do I hear Bureaucratic Arts?) We can stack items to an infinite quantity in those slots, and anything we drag in there are automatically up for sale. This makes it very easy to list and cancel items without the need for fees. Of course, this doesn't solve the problem, and i'm not sure you can without placing costly restrictions or setting a maximum price per item.

    I disagree that there will "always be more buyers than sellers." In terms of quantity, a market at equilibrium should have an equal amount desired and sold for any given item. That's economics 101. The fact that there is inventory expiring on the market for some items (i.e. not selling), while at the same time no inventory for others (like tortillas) actually indicates that the market is not efficient. One likely cause, as I indicated above, is that sellers can't figure out what people want, and I can't tell anyone that I want tortillas!
    Posted 18 months ago by Fortibus Subscriber! | Permalink
  • In the real world, my permit fees are over and above taxes... as is the cut an organized event takes. Auction houses often have a listing or transaction fee on top of a % of the sale, and you still owe taxes on the earnings (pre-fees I might add)... and you go into those blind and hoping for buyers willing to pay near the assessed value (or you're out the fees). Even stock brokers charge a per-transaction fee on top of a % of the profits. Yes, all those taxes and fees go to pay for various services and what not. Would it make you feel better if you pictured the free cash at each level as a tax return? Would it be better if there was a finite amount of cash/items and we're left to balance? Perhaps the buyer bearing the cost of all the fees is more your style. Simply put - there are always costs associated with doing business. Don't like em, deal directly.
     
    If you've ever worked a busy or big market, you have no idea what other people are selling and for how much unless you walk around and look with your own two eyes. You can do as much in Glitch. As for the more buyers than sellers... there are. There always will be, such is the nature of games. Generally speaking, such is the nature of human beings too - most of us consume far more than we'll ever produce. You buy what my farm sells, and so do a number of other people - more buyers than sellers. It's a market, not a co-op. 

    The Glitch auction system is not intended to be the sole source of items and materials going forward. There's been talk of 'street spirits' becoming shop fronts in places and going away in others. MMOs rarely have a market in equilibrium and typically have some sort of vendor or NPC based supply mechanism for basic items. Part of the suspension of disbelief involved in playing a video game is the unlimited supplies and resources free from the constraints of many real world issues. It allows people to relax, enjoy, and be amused.

    Edit:   I can't tell anyone that I want tortillas!
    Did you try asking in Global Chat if someone could make them? IM one of the cooks selling food? Send an in game mail with cash? Leave a message on a note in a public place with the request? Your problem has many solutions including learning the appropriate skill if solo-play is more your thing. Networking is a HUGE part of the finance industry, having worked in it for a very very long time. Your job is to learn the system and maneuver within it - not fix the world so it's a perfect utopia. Or if your bent is on analysis and trending, you'll soon find out how uneven the supply and demand in the real world markets are.

    Frankly, even with the complaints... I'm still not mixing a batch of tortillas and selling it.... just to keep the market supplied. I will if someone asks. I mix up tortillas to use in cold tacos. It make no sense for a cook to sell all of the base components. They have a much narrower profit margin.
    Posted 18 months ago by Travinara Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I often whip up a stack of something that someone has asked about in global chat.  If they ask in a group chat, , they get it for free via the mail system, or I'll use it as an excuse to meet them somewhere. 

    You're never going to have a grasp of the Glitch economic system if you focus solely on the Auctions. 
    Posted 18 months ago by WindBorn Subscriber! | Permalink
  • The ebay fixed price "buy it now" format allows you to select your quantity. Ebay also has a tiered fee system. Extreme Power sellers with high ratings pay less in fees. I wouldn't want to totally copy eBay though. Sellers are fleeing eBay due to the fees not allowing them to profit. There are low fee and subscription type auction services. I think the market needs more flexibility which includes a multilayer fee structure. For a higher fee, you can run your listing longer, offer shipping options, offer separate bulk and individual pricing for same item, etc. The listing fee itself can pay that part. If you drop the commissions lower and add a tax, you could have the game pool the taxes into a world fund. House taxes can go into a local fund. the players can vote on how the fund is spent, like street project type efforts. I think a classified ad section with a simple listing fee would be awesome.
    Posted 18 months ago by Purple Haze Subscriber! | Permalink
  • It would not be a happy day for me if auction items were not taken out of my inventory after I listed them. A lot of times I list things because I've run out of room, even with several Bigger Bags.

    As far as the fees go, I thought that was brilliant. The market did settle down after the fees were in place. Most of the overpriced items disappeared from the auction pages. Unfortunately, since the fees are taken for an entire lot as soon as an auction is listed, I'm thinking this would make your idea of buying 20 from a 400-lot auction unfeasible.

    I'm wondering if your idea (great idea BTW) about a requested items area could be put in place in the forums, with an update feature so the player requesting items can edit their original post once they've purchased what they needed.

    You're absolutely right about not having every item available in auctions. What's there, is there. It could go from no listings of an item to 20 listings two minutes later. I 'm not sure this is because the auction system isn't easy enough to use yet; I believe it's just the nature of auctions.
    Posted 18 months ago by ~Alice~ Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I like the simplicity of Glitch auctions (despite that they are not auctions) and prefer to view it as a market that is accessible throughout the real world.  Changing it to a real auction system seems far too complicated and not necessary in relation to everything there is to do in Glitch.  It's a means to get product from one player to another.

    Let's also remember that real world free market economics can not apply to Glitch for the following reasons:
    - the prices are mostly controlled by the state:
    ---- vendors set the value of the item - if you want to pay me below what a vendor will, I'll likely just sell to a vendor, so there is always a price floor
    ---- shrines set the favor value of an item at 10% of its value, so if the price gets too high and you're looking to use it for donations (ie gems), there will be a ceiling
    - there is an endless supply of currants
    - there is very little scarcity of raw materials - any scarcity that exists is a result of labor not collecting them or not collecting them efficiently because everything respawns if you give it enough time.

    I'd argue that this is just fine and dandy, because it works in the game.

    It would be great, though, if you could choose the quantity you wish to purchase on auction (I have made 250 cherries available, you only want 50, you can select 50 at a price I set per unit, which might be higher than the price for the bulk lot).

    It would also be great to have some sort of request system other than global chat.  A fulfillment board would be neat, where I 'pull' an order that someone posted and then I fulfill it within say 15 minutes (else the order goes back to the notice board). 
    Posted 18 months ago by zeeberk Subscriber! | Permalink
  • It's a nice concept, the entire 'request' mechanism... but it feels too point-and-click-easy-button-Ville-ish. I can just see it (and it sounds like a horrible movie tag line)... In a game with 50,000 people, 10,000 'requests' for Awesome Stews and trophy pieces. A couple hundred 'shout out's' begging for stuff every time you log in and look at it. Seriously, there would be a request board as long as the Auctions for certain things (loam, barnacles, fireflies, plain crystals, etc.). It won't be like craigslist (which doesn't work in most markets), because a 'request board' like that doesn't really open up a whole lot of player communication, whereas craigslist requires a bit of a dialogue. A request board would just lead to people going to it, filling requests, and dispatching them. Anyone got nails for my barn?

    There are other ways of asking for help, other than Global Chat. How about sticking a note on any of the Community Boards? Leaving it on the street near your home? A simple question 'how do I get tortillas?' in Help would have netted at least 3 cooks. I can give you half a dozen ways to ask for help in the existing framework of Glitch. The problem isn't lack of options for finding help, the whole thread feels more like 'fix the market because I don't want to use options A, B, C, D, E, or F'.

    The functionality and value of Groups is often pushed aside in favor of creating a solo play option as the solution. There's at least one Group just for chefs, and it's dead easy to pop into any of the groups to ask if there's a cook around. In truth, when the world goes live... people will slowly move into them, or learn to join/leave them. Don't think so? Look how quickly people flocked to them the last time Global became too busy. Ever seen a large chat program in peak times? People leave busy spaces because they can't see what's going, or they don't seem to be heard. Yes - we're a ways off from a good introduction to Groups (it's currently word of mouth) some of the visibility will come with Group Halls.

    As for sellers leaving eBay over the fees... in the last decade eBay has become a garage sale as opposed to Harper's Bazaar or Jenner's. It became over-saturated with sellers providing cheap junk (and a lack of buyers to consume the cheap junk), and the fees there are doing exactly what the fees here are doing - but instead of keeping people from putting stuff for sale at inflated costs, the fees at eBay are keeping the costs above a certain bubble. Smart business move on their part since all of the nickle and dime transaction fees from the credit card companies and financial institutions on the $1 sales add up and seriously eat into overhead and profits. Don't think eBay's fees are fair - price the cost of an online boutique.
    Posted 18 months ago by Travinara Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I have a friend who is a power seller on eBay. He is having me move his cheap stuff to his website because eBay eats away his profit margin. There will still be the 3% credit card fee, and the website hosting (which is not a fee per transaction thing, apples to oranges here). He's keeping real auction items in eBay, because people actually bid on them because they're hard to get. His overhead really isn't that bad. What that tells me is that cheap stuff, will probably be hard to find on the market due to lack of profit once fee and commission is added in... And people won't want to pay auction prices for it. What if fees could be waived for the cheapest items, or at least modified? If you want more interaction, create a bazaar with storefronts. (in world) and work in a player driven delivery system
    Posted 18 months ago by Purple Haze Subscriber! | Permalink
  • The bazaar with storefonts has been tried, didn't work. People don't want to stand at a stall all day in a game. That's work, the thing people do to pay for the game they're playing.

    Thank you for making my point though... if you don't like the fees, there are options... usually 'buy direct'. Fees prevent the selling of overpriced things, and cheap things. If the 'stuff' was of higher quality, there would be more demand, people would be willing to pay more, and the seller would have a higher profit margin. In short, they create a better quality of market.

    BTW: You may not realize it yet, but there's an ap out there that monitors the Glitch market and auto-buys if the price is below a certain point. So there's also a functional bottom end to the auctions.
    Posted 18 months ago by Travinara Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Bazaar of Vending machines. Buy or rent one. Allow live stalls too. Allow the hiring of shopkeepers and hawkers and delivery people. No need to make someone stand there. You can have slot space there and have a remote tie in. The main thing is the shopper goes there and shops, in a communal setting... And the fees are not per item, they're per stall or vending machine.
    Posted 18 months ago by Purple Haze Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Scratch that... It'd be cool just to have player owned vending machines!!!! as permanent as houses
    Posted 18 months ago by Purple Haze Subscriber! | Permalink
  • @SG - you should probably have a look for the threads on player-run shops/storefronts. The developers have voiced various concerns about why concepts haven't or probably won't work. There's also loads of ideas and discussion. Different concept than the Auctions. 
    Posted 18 months ago by Travinara Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Auctions have commission fees. Markets have stores. In a market, you pay for space, not per item.
    Posted 18 months ago by Purple Haze Subscriber! | Permalink
  • There is a market-oriented quest.  I think it's tied to one of the gardening skills, and it requires that you sell potatoes and other plants at auction.
    Posted 18 months ago by glum pudding Subscriber! | Permalink
  • SG, markets aren't stores, and they aren't boot sales. There's more involved financially than just renting out a space, not the least of which is taxes. Yes, I rent out space... no I don't pay a 'per item' tax - I pay taxes based on value, don't you? When you go to a market or store or auction, you aren't the only one paying a sales tax.

    With the Glitch Auction, you are essentially renting out space... that is the listing fee.
    You are also paying an 8% tax on the value of the item as well. Your choice to dump those fees onto the buyer or not.
    Posted 18 months ago by Travinara Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I don't know about where you're from, but here.. Food is tax free. Market space is not on a per item basis. Lusting fee is not the same as market space. You could do a listing fee with a real auction, or a classified ad. When you have a store, you can re-use that space for the same price. If the auction went as a market, you would buy or rent slots, and have unlimited transactions with that space until your time runs out (renting), or sell the slot. Taxes, when there is any, is paid at time of sale by the buyer
    Posted 18 months ago by Purple Haze Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Another thing about taxes... Sales tax applies on all transactions of that item.. No matter where u buy it. If u tax music boxes at market, they should be taxed in every other transaction too
    Posted 18 months ago by Purple Haze Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Raw food is tax exempt here, prepared dishes and boxed meals are not. Are you saying a complicated tax code within Glitch should be created to 'fix' something that isn't broken? I really don't get what the aim with the suggestions are except to turn the auctions into a global player-driven street spirit. If you don't want taxes and fees, go to a vendor, or trade directly. You're welcome to keep pushing storefront ideas... but again, it's a different concept (an in-game one) than the Auctions.

    PS: You can't purchase musicblocks or gems from the vendors so they *are* taxed the same everywhere.
    Also - *I* still have to pay taxes on my revenue, even when the product is tax exempt... the PTB always take their cut somewhere :D
    Posted 18 months ago by Travinara Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Why can't you have the on-line auction place set up as storefronts? Pay for your slots, not for every listing. Here, the tax on prepared foods doesn't apply to prepared packaged foods, unless they are junk food. We don't need a complex tax system, but any substantial fee for one market that doesn't apply to others, seriously skews things. People will use that market for convenience, if they have to. Otherwise, they'll be cheap
    Posted 18 months ago by Purple Haze Subscriber! | Permalink
  • So what tax is applying unevenly? The % fee in the auctions is the exact same for everything based on value. There is no more simple system than a flat fee. Is it the % that bugs you? Is it that game vendors are unfair because they don't pay taxes? (you technically pay a 20%-50% fee when you sell to a vendor based on an arbitrary price - vendors give you a max of 80% the item value). I still am not understanding what you're driving at here. Are you saying you want player run storefronts in place of the auctions, that the storefronts work like street spirits but with player stock, and that the auctions and vendors go away? Again... go see the shop/storefront threads.

    As stated way, way earlier... any limitations on selling reduces the utility. If I've only got 10 slots and you've only got 10 slots... that means I can sell 10 somethings then nothing else until that sells. I would be limited to 10 menu items of ~100, not including music blocks, food components, or other resources... not a good way to encourage participation in the marketplace. You may only be able to stomach auctioning off a handful of item/types at this point... but why should that prohibit me from selling a couple dozen differences dishes and whole line of music? If I can't sell it to either a player or vendor, that means donating it... which means it's removed from the world (and I gain xp even faster). It *is* a good way to fix prices at their highest possible rates, i.e. exactly what the vendor charges, less the fees. It *is* a good way to reduce diversity, as only the most popular items and those with the highest profit/energy margin are sold. So I can 'buy' more slots, because I can afford it.... how is that different than the un-slotted system now?

    Limitations on selling means less people utilizing the cooking/gardening skills because 'there's a cap on what they can sell in a day' and everyone will go right back to the mines. The experienced/networked players will trade with friends for food and drinks and the newer players will be left to fumble. As far as game play goes, limiting buying/selling cuts game play in half. It's already bad enough that money has no worthwhile value (I can use it to propel myself forward at an exponential pace), let's not devalue the skills too.
    Posted 18 months ago by Travinara Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Um, no one is going to stand in a Glitch storefront while they are playing, not a shopowner, not a 'store employee', maybe an automated street spirit that you could rent.  What about all the quests and in-game games and races and stuff?  If you are tied to a shop, you are not going to have a good experience playing the game.  Here, I agree with the devs - storefronts won't work. The market hall had zero activity when it was up and running.  Why spend development efforts on something that causes a player to stand still within the game or (worse) doesn't even get used?

    My experience with Glitch has pretty well shown me that people won't even travel 2 streets to a vendor to buy something for a project when they can just buy it from auction.

    The auction system works for buying/selling.  Perhaps just rename it to marketplace.  But whatever it's called, it works: I can sell what I like there, usually can buy what I want there, and I don't have to travel to a specific location or sit in one spot for hours to use it.

    Limiting sales?  What purpose would that serve other than driving people away from playing when they've sold their quota?
    Posted 18 months ago by zeeberk Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I didnt say either to limit sells or to make people stand there. Limiting slots isn't the same as limiting sales. One thing gets sold and another can be added, without an extra fee... For as long as you have the slot. Far from limiting. it's unlimited use of limited space. It can be done like any private online vendor that has it's own online store. You can have a real auction and an online storefront. It seems to be no problem in rl, to go online and buy almost anything without even leaving home. Im not limited to eBay to do that. If I don't want to pay shipping and don't want to wait for delivery, I go to a store.
    Posted 18 months ago by Purple Haze Subscriber! | Permalink
  • This isn't real life, is it?  All of these real world analogies are falling flat here, because I'm not seeing how they relate to what we actually have in Glitch.

    I also don't understand what problem 'slots' is supposed to solve.  There is no limited space in Glitch, except for your inventory, and part of the game is managing that inventory.  There are unlimited auctions.  What purpose does restricting auctions solve?  If I am about to leave the game for 12 hours and I have 20 bag slots of stuff I made that I'd like to sell (and that would be used quickly by projects), why should I be restricted to only selling 10 of them? Limiting slots is limiting sales.  With slots, if I needed to say, go to work and not play glitch, all the stuff I made to sell has to sit and wait until I can log back in.  How is that better than the current system?

    You also are saying that people should just stand in-game if you want there to be storefronts.  Or are you imaging something other than a storefront on a street?  If there is a storefront on a street, then someone has to stand there to sell the stuff.  Unless you install a robot street spirit, but - as with actual street spirits - you are still limited in sales to passers-by since everyone far away will just buy from auction. 

    I like ideas, really, I do, but I like ideas that solve problems the game has or that are just cleverly fun.  I'm not seeing how slots and stores improve on what exists or are fun, so help me out.
    Posted 18 months ago by zeeberk Subscriber! | Permalink
  • SG - online sellers aren't limited in the variety of items they can sell.. one of the benefits is you can sell a wider variety of stuff at a lower cost because you don't have the shop front expenses.

    Sorry, but it's only an unlimited use of limited space if you have unlimited time and can react quickly when an item type sells. Auctions function 24/7, and while someone may come up with an ap to automate all that... it means constantly logging in and checking 24/7 to if something has sold, to clear a backlog of items it took me 20 minutes of game time to produce. The present system allows you to log in, make your food/mine your rocks, put your goods up for sale, and go on about your day - a good thing for when the world is also live 24/7 and people have lives to attend to. The present system make buying/selling at your leisure, not stressful.. a good quality in a form of entertainment best enjoyed during leisure time.
    Posted 18 months ago by Travinara Subscriber! | Permalink
  • 1 more time, I'm not suggesting people stand around at stores all day. I'm suggesting online stores. I'm not suggesting limiting sales. I'm suggesting having a real auction, with real bidding, at the current pricing structure of fee + commission in addition to a store area with the same access as the auction area, with no per transaction fees but a storespace that's limited to the slots you own. If you can deal with slits for your items at home and bring carried, you can for a store too. An additional benefit of a store us pricing flexibility. If u have 100 of 1 thing u can put it in 1 slit and still sell 1 at a time. You could make it so the store has a physical as well as virtual location, or not. I don't care. Having a real market accessed alongside a real auction just seems like it'd satisfy all needs. All can be done on website
    Posted 18 months ago by Purple Haze Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Actually, what baffles me is people gathering and making things to just want to get rid of it quick because it takes too much space. I don't get it. if I'm going to make stuff and sell it, I am doing it for profits.... If I want to get rid of stuff, I can drop it
    Posted 18 months ago by Purple Haze Subscriber! | Permalink
  • A real auction would slow the market down - how long does one have to bid for? 24 hours? 1 game day?  Unless you add in a Buy Now feature, no one at projects is going to use auctions if they have to wait a game day or real day to use them.  Nor will someone low on energy who is far from a groceries, food or produce vendor wait that long for the item.  The only things an auction might benefit are sales of things that truly are hard to come by and that are only needed for achievements, such as DR3s, trophy pieces and easter eggs.  Those are fairly negligible.  I also know of players that just bypass the auctions for those items in favor of trading between players, which is cool.

    But if you do build in a Buy Now option to meet the needs of most players who have immediate needs, that will probably get used 90% of time, except in cases where the item is overpriced at Buy Now. Is it worth it to build a whole new system (real auctions) which would not get used except for edge cases, since the majority of sales are going to immediate needs like "I need energy now" and "the project needs 1000 loam".

    Players right now are using the auctions as 'online stores'.  I know players who specialize in drinks, powders, food and raw materials.   They set a fair price (remember, for most items there is a floor and ceiling) and they make lots of currants despite the fees. So, they still have their online store and it works for them and for the buyers.

    So, is the point of this just to have a way to avoid the current auction fees?
    Posted 18 months ago by zeeberk Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Yes, the point is to avoid the current fees as they stand. Another game I play allows you to be a storefront at your "ranch". We have live auctions. Your fee us based on how ling an auction you want. We have ads too, to facilitate player to player trading. We have free forum ads or in game announcement ads for a fee. Everything the players sell at ranch stores is listed at the city halls. You can compare prices there, then head to the cheapest store. People are actually very willing to go get stuff there, when they know it's a deal
    Posted 18 months ago by Purple Haze Subscriber! | Permalink
  • If there was a central listing of what each vendor and player had for sale, I'd be willing to walk.
    Posted 18 months ago by Purple Haze Subscriber! | Permalink
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