Just over-thinking things here, but shouldn't it be called a market if the sellers set the prices? "Auction" to me always implies bidding, which means the seller can set a starting price and get more for the item.
Yeah - but in auctions of those kinds, often the item is a one-of-a-kind piece. Glitch auctions are more like the ask or offer half of a stock market (which is also called an "auction market") where various sellers provide the exact same goods (shares of stock) in varying quantities for varying prices.
++Pedantry alert - I spent about 12 years working both for and with stock markets.++
The dynamics of these kinds of markets are interesting (to me) because of the quantity component. Usually, the lowest prices tend to get picked off first, though if someone only wanted one of an item and the lowest-price seller of a single item has the third lowest per-item price, that item might get picked off first.
For example, you want a single cherry. You have 10 currants to buy that cherry. The current auction looks like this:
100 cherries - 100 currants/1 currant per cherry
50 cherries - 75 currants/1.5 currants per cherry
1 cherry - 4 currants/4 currants per cherry
Despite the fact that the lowest per-cherry price on the board is 1 currant, that offer is made in a quantity which makes it unrealistic for you to buy, so you're going to buy the third-best priced cherry because you don't have 100 or 75 currants. Luckily you really only want one. You can also wait and see if someone steps in and fills that vacuum with a single lower-priced cherry.
If Glitch were going to reproduce a whole stock market style auction market, they could introduce the bid side - have people advertise what they are willing to pay for items and quantities. The system could (if they were really replicating that model) automatically match bids and offers to complete transactions. I'm guessing that some of the auction sniping software/plugins that were introduced a while ago sort of perform this function, but I haven't looked at them.
At least allow a "make an offer" option... That way, a seller might still be able to make a profit and sell an item even if the price listed isn't what the buyer expected to pay.
Well, since every seller's name is on their auctions, theoretically you could contact a seller with a counteroffer if you were so inclined. It's not built into the mechanism of the auction, but it's possible.
That being said, I'd be surprised if the auctions are immune from change in the future.
@Jasbo Sure, you could "contact" the seller, but if the seller receives multiple "offers" within the auction itself, they can choose the best deal for them. Besides, contacting someone requires additional work and considering people are about "instant gratification" and laziness these days, it just isn't feasible to do such when they can just as easily wait for another to come up in 5 minutes, find one or just stop caring.
"Besides, contacting someone requires additional work and considering people are about "instant gratification" and laziness these days, it just isn't feasible to do such when they can just as easily wait for another to come up in 5 minutes, find one or just stop caring."
Yes. From the seller's perspective it may also be a pain to get contacted with alternative offers when they've set a price they're happy with. So maybe the system works well as it is.
I think that once the game is out of Beta that will be an option but as it stands now there are simply not enough enough players.
Also I think the name "Market" is being reserved for an ingame market place that will be included after the reset and that from my understanding was there during alpha testing.That is to say a place ingame where numerous types of vendors could be found.
The presumption here is that everyone who has an item up for auction wants to sell it. I put things up for auction all the time, with the hope that the price is the lowest unreasonable one, so that no one will buy it and the listing fee will still be low. It is, for me, extra storage. If I want to work on a new street and want more stuff with me than I can carry, I put some of it up for auction and if I want it later, I just cancel the auction.
Crazy enough, people still buy my stuff. I wonder if there is a price so high people won't pay it.
Anyway, my point is, I know I'm asking too much, and I don't want to get in a discussion with potential buyers about the price, I just really want my stuff left alone.
The presumption here is that everyone who has an item up for auction wants to sell it. I put things up for auction all the time, with the hope that the price is the lowest unreasonable one, so that no one will buy it and the listing fee will still be low. It is, for me, extra storage. If I want to work on a new street and want more stuff with me than I can carry, I put some of it up for auction and if I want it later, I just cancel the auction.
Crazy enough, people still buy my stuff. I wonder if there is a price so high people won't pay it.
Anyway, my point is, I know I'm asking too much, and I don't want to get in a discussion with potential buyers about the price, I just really want my stuff left alone.