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Thursday, December 06, 2007
PotBS beats WoW
... in having a better auction house system for the trade in commodities. :) In most other respects World of Warcraft is superior to Pirates of the Burning Sea, and one can even argue that the WoW AH system is fine for trading loot gear. But for commodities, the trade goods that get bought and sold very often, the WoW auction house system is terrible.
Besides daily quests I make some money every day with my warrior, who is also an alchemist, by transforming a cheap primal earth into an expensive primal water. So when I put my primal water on the AH, I do what everybody does: I first check the current prices. And if the lowest buyout price is 20 gold, I put up mine for 19.95 and am sure to sell mine before the other guy. The people who put up their goods earlier are losing out, because I see exactly what their buyout price is, and can easily undercut them by 0.25% at insignificant loss to me to jump the queue and be first in line for the buyers.
Pirates of the Burning Sea has a blind auction house system. You see how many goods of one type there are, and you see recent prices, plus the average over the last 30 days in the region and globally. But you don't see the buyout price that the other players put up their wares on. You can theoretically find it out by bidding first 1 doubloon, then 2 doubloon, then 3 doubloon, and so on until you find the lowest buyout. But that takes too much time, and you'll end up buying one item from the competition which is counterproductive if you only wanted to sell a small quantity.
Apparently there are plans to make the PotBS auction house system even better in some future patch by introducing buy orders, just like EVE Online has. That would be interesting for World of Warcraft too. Imagine you could post an offer that you're willing to buy up to 5 primal waters for 20 gold each, log off, and find the goods in your mailbox the next time you log on. A system that shows both buyers and sellers offers, like a stockmarket, ends up giving much more reliable and less volatile prices. And you aren't punished for having put up your items at the wrong time, just 5 minutes before somebody undercuts you.
- posted by Tobold @ 8:11 AM Permanent Link
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Can you explain a bit more that Blind AH? If I want to buy something, I see recent prices and the number of items there (as per what you said), but how much will I be paying?
If, say, item X usually costs 1 doubloon but somehow only one guy lists a few and lists them all by 10 doubloons, how can I tell that I'll end up paying 10 instead of the "recent" 1?
If, say, item X usually costs 1 doubloon but somehow only one guy lists a few and lists them all by 10 doubloons, how can I tell that I'll end up paying 10 instead of the "recent" 1?
# posted by 
: 6/12/07 11:32
: 6/12/07 11:32
You make bids. If you see the recent sales at 5 db per piece and there's only one person that has listed a 2 pieces there for 10 db you can for example start by offering 4 db. You will get the message that that was a too low bid. Ok, then you try bidding 5, that will also be too low. You can keep raising your bid until you reach 10 at which point the purchase will go through.
There are a few other things to remember also. In my example above you might become impatient and offer 15 db instead, maybe you've got a lot of money and don't feel like spending the time upping the bid by 1 per bid. In that case the purchase will be at 15 db (your offer) and not 10.
Let's now say that you've got two people who have listed items on the AH, last sale is at 5 db. One person has listed at 6 db, hoping to get one extra db out of the deal per piece. The other has listed at 4 and just want to get rid of the pieces. You come along and decide right away that you can afford to bid 6 for some reason. Then the pieces listed for 4 will be sold to you at the price of 6. The one wanting 6 per piece will have to wait until someone else buys his pieces later on hopefully.
So in short, you can't really be sure what price you will pay until you try to buy but you get to choose which price you want to bid at. If you don't get it you can try again with a higher bid.
There are a few other things to remember also. In my example above you might become impatient and offer 15 db instead, maybe you've got a lot of money and don't feel like spending the time upping the bid by 1 per bid. In that case the purchase will be at 15 db (your offer) and not 10.
Let's now say that you've got two people who have listed items on the AH, last sale is at 5 db. One person has listed at 6 db, hoping to get one extra db out of the deal per piece. The other has listed at 4 and just want to get rid of the pieces. You come along and decide right away that you can afford to bid 6 for some reason. Then the pieces listed for 4 will be sold to you at the price of 6. The one wanting 6 per piece will have to wait until someone else buys his pieces later on hopefully.
So in short, you can't really be sure what price you will pay until you try to buy but you get to choose which price you want to bid at. If you don't get it you can try again with a higher bid.
Thanks for the explanation but it sounds like one looses more time on AH (buyer side) than in WoW. And for those that believe there's actually a game to be playing rather than spending the (limited) available time biding stuff, I more than welcome WoW's way of doing it: I can bid if I want, but I can also Buy Out instantly without paying more than needed.
If you factor in player time, I don't think this blind AH is better than WoW's one... That is not to say that WoW's AH couldn't use some improvements, yes, it very well could! :)
If you factor in player time, I don't think this blind AH is better than WoW's one... That is not to say that WoW's AH couldn't use some improvements, yes, it very well could! :)
# posted by : 6/12/07 16:14
: 6/12/07 16:14
This sort of system seems to be on the path to a standard feature for MMORPGs. City of Heroes introduced a similar system in one of their content patches this year (last year?), I think EVE has something similar, and now PotBS. I'll be interested to see what Warhammer does.
Buy orders are a great AH feature, and one WoW sorely needs. It saves time for both buyers and sellers and makes the player economy more reliable. As a buyer its good because you can check the AH for the item you want, see that there aren't any (or they're priced too high) and place a buy order for what you want and are willing to pay. As a seller its good since even if you post your items at 3 a.m. you could end up with an instant sale.
Another interesting feature of blind AHs is that they can essentially reverse the buyout feature. Instead of posting a buyout that's higher than your bid price and hoping someone will pay that, you post a buyout as the minimum you're willing to accept and if someone has a buy order for double your buyout when you place your items on the AH, that's what you get.
Buy orders are a great AH feature, and one WoW sorely needs. It saves time for both buyers and sellers and makes the player economy more reliable. As a buyer its good because you can check the AH for the item you want, see that there aren't any (or they're priced too high) and place a buy order for what you want and are willing to pay. As a seller its good since even if you post your items at 3 a.m. you could end up with an instant sale.
Another interesting feature of blind AHs is that they can essentially reverse the buyout feature. Instead of posting a buyout that's higher than your bid price and hoping someone will pay that, you post a buyout as the minimum you're willing to accept and if someone has a buy order for double your buyout when you place your items on the AH, that's what you get.
# posted by : 6/12/07 17:42
: 6/12/07 17:42
Thanks for the explanation but it sounds like one looses more time on AH (buyer side) than in WoW. And for those that believe there's actually a game to be playing rather than spending the (limited) available time biding stuff, I more than welcome WoW's way of doing it: I can bid if I want, but I can also Buy Out instantly without paying more than needed.
If you factor in player time, I don't think this blind AH is better than WoW's one... That is not to say that WoW's AH couldn't use some improvements, yes, it very well could! :)
Well it's all a question of personal taste of course. I don't necesserily think that it takes (At least not much) more time than in WoW. You learn pretty quick to check the sales history and get a rough estimate on what an item is worth and can bid with that information. If you stay around the last bid you usually shouldn't have much problem. If you want it to be fast make it a bit more than the last bid and then it's comparable to the buyout of WoW.
If you factor in player time, I don't think this blind AH is better than WoW's one... That is not to say that WoW's AH couldn't use some improvements, yes, it very well could! :)
Well it's all a question of personal taste of course. I don't necesserily think that it takes (At least not much) more time than in WoW. You learn pretty quick to check the sales history and get a rough estimate on what an item is worth and can bid with that information. If you stay around the last bid you usually shouldn't have much problem. If you want it to be fast make it a bit more than the last bid and then it's comparable to the buyout of WoW.
I'm having trouble visualizing how the PotBS AH works. It sounds interesting; I may try to find screenshots or a video.
I've spent a LOT of time over the past couple of months playing some categories of the WoW AH. The 2.3 changes to the AH are generally good, but the only one that really affected me much was the new listing time option.
If I could make WoW AH changes, I'd introduce:
-- Bulk bidding (and cancel auction): Such as being able to highlight the 8 individually-listed items I want and bid on (or cancel listing) and with all of them highlighted, bid or cancel with a single click
-- Bulk listing: Be able to list 40 foozle skins divided out into 40, or 20 stacks of 2, etc, without a million clicks to break the stacks and pull them all into the auction interface individually
-- Bulk receipt: You know those 40 foozle skins? They all sold, and now you get to click 80 times to get your money... please let me click ONCE to receive all AH sales proceeds out of the mail!
Maybe there's an add-on for some of this already...?
Or maybe I should write one.
I've spent a LOT of time over the past couple of months playing some categories of the WoW AH. The 2.3 changes to the AH are generally good, but the only one that really affected me much was the new listing time option.
If I could make WoW AH changes, I'd introduce:
-- Bulk bidding (and cancel auction): Such as being able to highlight the 8 individually-listed items I want and bid on (or cancel listing) and with all of them highlighted, bid or cancel with a single click
-- Bulk listing: Be able to list 40 foozle skins divided out into 40, or 20 stacks of 2, etc, without a million clicks to break the stacks and pull them all into the auction interface individually
-- Bulk receipt: You know those 40 foozle skins? They all sold, and now you get to click 80 times to get your money... please let me click ONCE to receive all AH sales proceeds out of the mail!
Maybe there's an add-on for some of this already...?
Or maybe I should write one.
# posted by : 6/12/07 19:56
: 6/12/07 19:56
An addon called Auctioneer Advanced handles Bulk Listing (and more) and an addon called Postal seems to handle Bulk Receipt.
Bulk Bidding would be a nice option to have.
Buy Orders would be a wonderful feature for WoW.
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Bulk Bidding would be a nice option to have.
Buy Orders would be a wonderful feature for WoW.
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