Topic

Staff Topic

Furniture auctions and auction posting upgrades

Hey everyone,

Because there's nothing like giving you new things to play with right before a 3-day weekend, we have just released the ability for you to auction any furniture you may have made. Hurrah! Note: you cannot auction any furniture that's "soulbound" (i.e., the stuff that came with your house).

In addition, your inventory is now better laid out in the auction posting screen, so that you don't need to remember which bag you put that pesky stack of no-no powder in.

The auction posting dialog itself has had a bit of a facelift, with some new features to make it easier to judge the market for your particular items.

Finally, we've revised the prices charged for auctions. Good news: no more pesky 8% commission. Bad news: the listing fee has increased to 7%. The minimum listing fee remains 3 currants.

I believe that's all the details for now. If I've forgotten anything, I'm sure someone will step in and remind me.

Happy auctioning! 

Posted 7 months ago by hitherto Subscriber! | Permalink

Replies

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  • Thanks so much for this update so we can now auction furniture.  Also thanks for the upgrade to the auction UI - so much easier to select things!  
    Posted 7 months ago by b3achy Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Syntax, the last time it was mentioned, upgrades to door are not transferable to the new owner. Have not heard that has changed so it makes sense to only be able to auction plain door since the upgrade would be lost and the credits wasted.
    Posted 7 months ago by Tibbi Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Upgraded doors are transferable.

    I have had upgraded doors transferred to me and I have transferred upgraded doors to other people
    Posted 7 months ago by WindBorn Subscriber! | Permalink
  • How did you do it, WB?
    Posted 7 months ago by Fnibbit Subscriber! | Permalink
  • When did it change, about doors?
    Posted 7 months ago by Tibbi Subscriber! | Permalink
  • IIRC, the other person did a drag and drop on my character.  Dragged the door from their inventory and dropped it on me.

    We did this for the Interior Design contest.  One of the donors upgraded the door, gave it to me, and I gave it to the winner.

    I don't think they "trade".  (which may be why they don't auction, either). 

    I don't know when it changed (if it actually did change).  But I did these transfers Wednesday of this week.  
    Posted 7 months ago by WindBorn Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I made a door with the intention of upgrading and then selling it. But since I already have three floors in my house, I can't drag the door to it, and therefore cant upgrade.
    Is there a solution?
    Posted 7 months ago by Spree Subscriber! | Permalink
  • First of all, I know listing auctions via Safari on an iPhone is not TS's prime concern, but I'll point out an issue in case it's easily resolvable.

    When I select an item to sell and attempt to change the quantity to less than the full stack size, the quantity switches to 1. The 1 can be changed to an 11 or 21 by adding another digit, but it cannot be replaced by another number (i.e. changed to a 5 or 9). The 1 cannot be deleted from the field.

    I know thats a bit hard to explain, anyone else confrim this?
    Posted 7 months ago by Koftun Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Thank you TS! Can we get some cue of soul bound items like different color or something? I know someone accidentally upgrade his soulbound item instead another similar item he supposed to upgrade.
    Posted 7 months ago by rosedragon Subscriber! | Permalink
  • rosedragon,  that's already been done.

    All locked items have a little red circle in the upper left corner of the image in your inventory.   When you mouse over them, they say "Cannot be sold, traded, or given away".  
    Posted 7 months ago by WindBorn Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Boom and Bust: we'll be making improvements to the suggested prices for multi-use items as soon as possible.

    Wilhelmina Pickles: the interface needs some tweaking to make it work in older browsers like Internet Explorer 7. Unfortunately at this point IE7 is a pretty old browser. In the meantime if you have an opportunity to switch to IE8 or 9, or try an alternative such as Chrome or Firefox, the auctions should work just fine for you!

    Becky (and others): counters are now classed as tables.
    Posted 7 months ago by hitherto Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Wall Segments seem to be in a lost category. I can only seem to locate them through a search, and they are in 'Other' which is not appearing anywhere in the category menu.
    Posted 7 months ago by Booradley Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Booradley: nice catch, thanks! 

    There's now a category for them.
    Posted 7 months ago by hitherto Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Thanks hitherto!
    Posted 7 months ago by foolbunny Subscriber! | Permalink
  • glad that got resolved with the walls.
    Posted 7 months ago by Soytoy Subscriber! | Permalink
  • In all honesty I really hate the new layout for auctioning your own items.  The screen is just a huge bloody mess : (  I'm a neat freak so I'll get used to it time I'm sure but I never had a problem auctioning before.  I never auctioned on the hop is why.  When I went to auction I knew what I had in my bags to sell and in which bags they were before I started selling.
    Posted 7 months ago by ~Arabesque~ Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I can't search the auctions on my iPhone. Is the search gone forever or might it come back? I know the forums aren't searchable, if the auctions are the same it's ok it's just more awkward.
    Posted 7 months ago by Octo Subscriber! | Permalink
  • What do the little green arrows on the furniture icons in the auctions mean?
    Posted 7 months ago by Spirit of Xanadhi Subscriber! | Permalink
  • @Xanadhi, it means that the furniture has extra upgrades attached to it.  Click on one that has 3 or 4 and it should show you the different styles that come with that item you care considering buying.
    Posted 7 months ago by ~Arabesque~ Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Is anyone else having trouble typing a decimal point into the Price Per Unit box? It won't accept the . character from either my number row or my number pad.
    Posted 7 months ago by Vortexae Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I am still having pricing issues. First the Nan issue now I cant delete the last digit in the price box. So if the price in the box is 6000 I can't delete the 6.
    Posted 7 months ago by Ziti Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Just write over the number in the price box rather than trying to blank it out first. the price box feels very upset and insecure about being completely empty.
    Posted 7 months ago by Fnibbit Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Octo: giving some much needed love and care to all corners of the mobile-web experience is something that's on our list... just a bit lower than some of the other things on our list.

    Lists, in short, suck. But to actually answer your question, yes, the intention is to make that very much better sometime soonish.

    Vortexae, Ziti: Both the things you identify are known issues with the price box right now. Sorry! 

    The price box will be made much less temperamental just as soon as our Chief Web Interface Wrangler has a chance to launder his Wranglin' Pants and put them back on (in other words, should be Monday afternoon at the latest, I'd imagine).
    Posted 7 months ago by hitherto Subscriber! | Permalink
  • " Finally, we've revised the prices charged for auctions. Good news: no more pesky 8% commission. Bad news: the listing fee has increased to 7%. The minimum listing fee remains 3 currants." 

    did anyone else almost have their brain explode after reading that...
    Posted 7 months ago by phelps.mike Subscriber! | Permalink
  • -==splat
    Posted 7 months ago by ~Kaydee~ Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Love the auction upgrades, thanks!!
    Posted 7 months ago by Herbina Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Thanks, hitherto -- glad to know it's on the radar.
    Posted 7 months ago by Vortexae Subscriber! | Permalink
  • 7% listing fee is ridiculous. Might as well go sell things on eBay. At least they charge reasonable rates!
    Posted 7 months ago by Bashere Subscriber! | Permalink
  • 7% listing fee is ridiculous

    Agreed.

    I think the secret to the auction house running smoothly is to have good liquidity... lots of auctions for every possible item so that if someone thinks "maybe I'll check the auction before I go to a vendor" then they'll get a successful outcome and be inspired to check the next time they want an item.

    But to get that, it requires many people listing many things that don't normally sell very well - just so that they're available in case someone wants one.

    I don't feel like listing an item if I might have to list it 3-4 times before someone buys it at a cost to me of over 20% of the selling price - I'll take the easier and more profitable way of selling it to a vendor.
    Posted 7 months ago by Snazzlefrazz Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Perhaps we could pay a slightly higher percentage and have a 3-day listing.  For example, I could post my parsnip seeds (not one of the best sellers in my inventory) and pay 10% for a 3-day listing.  

    Otherwise, items that only sell once or twice a week (broccoli seeds, parsnip seeds, rice seeds, for example) would have a 21% to 42% markup, which further depresses the demand.  
    Posted 7 months ago by WindBorn Subscriber! | Permalink
  • hitherto, 7% refundable would be more agreeable to me. :D
    Posted 7 months ago by Hellyeah Subscriber! | Permalink
  • 7% non-refundable, on top of a ten minute delivery delay?  *waves bye, bye to auctions*
    Posted 7 months ago by Mablem Tiipot Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Partly refundable works too. But then you might as well have Listing fees and Commission costs again...
    Posted 7 months ago by Rook Subscriber! | Permalink
  • From various things stoot has said, he is trying to get glitchen to do more in-person trading, reducing the importance of auctions and vendors. 

    Also, and I am just guessing here, the non-refundable listing fee may be a way to discourage listing auction items at unrealistically high prices. 

    For intrinsically high-priced items like furniture, it definitely makes more sense for a seller to try to meet a matching buyer in world and use the trade window. 
    Posted 7 months ago by Vocable Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Thank you Vocable for hitting the right points, if it's 100% refundable, then people will freely tinker with the market and survives unscathed.
    Posted 7 months ago by Rook Subscriber! | Permalink
  • So, wait. People are upset that instead of paying 3% + 8% (11% total) to sell an item we now only have to pay 7%? I'm confuzzled.
    Posted 7 months ago by foolbunny Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Well, I guess if it didn't sell, then you would only have to pay 3%. I  guess that's a nice refund rate.

    Or maybe you'd expect to sell something so expensive would have a lot of currants anyway?
    Posted 7 months ago by Rook Subscriber! | Permalink
  • A non-refundable listing fee keeps players from using the auction house as secondary storage.  This is less of an issue now that we have homes at our beck and call, but prior to that one way you could make room in your bags was to list items at a price that you were fairly sure wouldn't result in a sale.  Then you could pick the item up later when you had more room in your bags.
    Posted 7 months ago by Sue Chef Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Sue, wow I had forgotten about that trick, but now I remember I did use it to help move my favorite piggies from one house to another, way back when. I would just list them at a tiny bit over the top price, since the listing fee you paid was a percent of the asking price. 

    And then one time, to my dismay, somebody bought one of my piggies-in-transit before I could redeem him. Goodbye, Mr Pinktoes, I hope you enjoyed your new home, wherever it was!
    Posted 7 months ago by Vocable Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I use the arrow keys in the price boxes.  Its pretty fast for getting the price I want and it gets me around those problems with typing in the box
    Posted 7 months ago by Treesa Subscriber! | Permalink
  • We should be able to upgrade doors without dragging them to the wall, since we can auction upgraded furniture now (or we should be able to drag them to the wall, even if we can't do the project they require). Really, we ought to be able to upgrade anything (though I understand why it was changed) that is in our inventory without dragging it out, but at least furniture isn't really hindered by the requirement.
    Posted 7 months ago by Little Miss Giggles Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Its great and the new melty furniture is very cool.

    I do have to say I was disappointed to find out that I couldn't auction a chair that came to me with the latest housing update.   I had even upgraded it with credits specifically for the purpose of auctioning it to someone without a subscription.  I guess I should have used a chair I had made myself but I didn't want a chair (or a table - couldn't auction that either) so why would I have ever made another one?   I don't want or need the table either, but I can't get rid of it.    I'll keep the chair, its not too bad (but the chair style and upgrade style were not things I would have otherwise chosen for myself).   The table just takes up space.
    Posted 7 months ago by Treesa Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Too bad there's not a way to auction upgraded swatches. ;_; I just need dark wallpaper.
    Posted 7 months ago by Csophae Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Anything in your furniture inventory with a small red dot in the upper left corner of the image is locked to your character.  You cannot trade, give, or auction those items, and if you mouse over them a small announcement is displayed saying that.  

    Be sure you are upgrading furniture that does not have that red dot if you plan to give it away.  
    Posted 7 months ago by WindBorn Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Hello auctioneers!  Thanks for all the feedback and apologies for the oversights that you've pointed out.  We've made the following changes and fixes which should make your auctioning activities much smoother.

    Wilhemina Pickles, Sally Slingshot, and any others using IE7: auctions should now work just fine!

    Items with units of wear (such as tools) or charges (such as powders) now suggest prices and show active auction prices based on total cost rather than cost per unit of wear.  Sorry for the confusion!

    It is now clearer when an auction search is scoped to a specific category.  If you are in Latest Auctions or Your Auctions, search covers all auctions. If you are in an item category (such as Collectibles) or furniture category (such as Lights), your search is scoped to that category.  There's now a label that makes this more evident.

    Finally, all those pesky issues with the price boxes should be resolved!

    Happy sales!
    Posted 7 months ago by Sprot Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I haven't been using the auctions much for selling, and the pricing changes make the system even worse for me.  We don't have an auction history report, but I think I have about a 50% fail rate on the few sales I've posted.  I almost always list things below the lowest price, and then get undercut by someone else.  The higher listing fee is a great discouragement, since you lose it on a failed sale.  This is going to mean that I sell even more exclusively to Vendors, unless that ability gets taken away.  

    If the Devs are doing this for some kind of game balance, I don't see it yet.  In-game trading is always going to be a problem, since you have to hope to meet online at the same time.  It will also mean lots more spamming on Global chat from folks wanting to find customers.  This might be leading up to the gamer store fronts that have been mentioned here and there, but I have no idea whether that will work for me or not.
    Posted 7 months ago by KhaKhonsu Subscriber! | Permalink
  • So I am wondering about doors still - If we already have a door in our house and it already leads to a second or third floor, there is no way to replace that door with a new one, right? Like I couldn't buy an upgraded door from the auction and use that newly purchased one instead of the one I already have? It seems at this point if I want a different door, I have to upgrade the one I already have. I'm just wondering if I understand that correctly.
    Posted 6 months ago by Csophae Subscriber! | Permalink
  • That's how it is at the moment Csophae.

    Staff have said they are taking a look at how that works.

    If you have a 2nd floor but not a 3rd, you can still buy and use an upgraded door on the 3rd floor.
    Posted 6 months ago by WindBorn Subscriber! | Permalink
  • For those who missed the update, Auctions now last 72 hours instead of 24.  

    Thanks to TS for helping those of us who sell slow-moving items.  

    And the door fix is being discussed here
    http://www.glitch.com/forum/general/22113/
    Posted 6 months ago by WindBorn Subscriber! | Permalink
  • LOVE this update.  Thanks devs + TS team. <3
    Posted 6 months ago by ♪♥~ Auren ~♥♪ Subscriber! | Permalink
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