Posted by Beam on 09/28/96
Sorry i started here sometime or other after auction got changed but i have been playing on a mud with an auction system and its extremely cool. How exactly was the old auction system abused? And isn't there some way to get around this? bem ack beam
From: Ptah Thursday, September 05, 10:23AM
Auction was being used to transfer boats, gold, and in general just pass equipment. People would use the auction house as a dumping ground, or would sell bread for millions of coins in order to make gifts to people. It is quite possible that auctions will return under the skills tree code as part of a skill set related to merchanting.
It'd also be less abusable, of course. :)
-Ptah
From: Beam Thursday, September 05, 04:30PM
the mud i been playing has a lot of stuff that cant be auctioned
From: Ptah Friday, September 06, 11:10AM
It'd be impossible to make everything cheap be unauctionable. :) What the most common abuse was was people putting up something like zip up for auction and then having a high level bid a million coins for it.
From: Beam Monday, September 09, 10:54PM
This sounds kinda like high level gives newbie a million coins This isnt against any rule is it? I been playing on a mud with auction and it seems to work great. and they got a lot of no_sell flagged things etc. If your actually worried about people using it to transfer money, instead of just handing the money over, then put in a 15 or 20 percent tax.
From: Ptah Tuesday, September 10, 12:06PM
High levels giving stuff to a newbie, fine. High levels getting a mud feature that enables them to transport unlimited amounts of loot out of Hell or something, not fine. Rememebr that auction is mudwide and is free of weight restrictions. For that matter, high levels giving newbies millions of coins from anywhere in the mud is also not desirable. :P
And yes, many things are flagged as not auctionable. But the auction system was basically rarely used to hold AUCTIONS. If it is used only to transfer stuff, then we're not going to have it.
From: Beam Tuesday, September 10, 07:56PM
ok i see your point. This mud i play on you have to have the gold in the bank to use it to bid, is that a solution?
From: Ptah Wednesday, September 11, 11:32AM
We required that too. But everyone can easily get gold in the bank.
From: Beam Wednesday, September 11, 11:16PM
Hmm im still having a hard time seeing a problem. How about making an auction mob you have to take the eq too, and the seller has to ask the auction mob for it to get it? Or possibly just the buyer? Is it maybe just that getting auction to work is a low priority at this point?
From: Ptah Thursday, September 12, 10:30AM
The only problem with that is that it becomes a centralized auction system, which players may not want. It's far less abusable, but I can't see players getting excited about having a mob who does that,a nd which would lose the items in a crash. Hmm. Right now, I think our plan is to include auction in the skill trees again, tied to specific merchant skills, and with numerous features to make it less "free-wheeling" so that it cannot be used to merely transfer equipment and gold. So it IS a priority, but only as part of the skill tree code.
From: Beam Wednesday, September 18, 01:23AM
Personally as if the seller didn't have to go anywhere i think it would be great, maybe the buy could go to the closest inn? I usually dont sell anything because 1. I usually have to transport it to whereever the buyer is or wait for them to arrive. 2. Normally this puts me over rent. I think it would be a good reason to go out and get xp again if i could auction the stuff. It's one of my favorite things on another mud i been playing. beam
From: Bulk Saturday, September 28, 02:13AM
Could the problem be solved by having a mob-delivery service that'd charge comission in the sales? Like the banker, the mob will charge service fee. Of course, this, like Mika before the fix, could just be used to transfer items and stuff...how about charging the buyer xp instead? enough to deter low lvls using the mob too often, but not too high to make it entirely out of the question. Since the high-lvl to newbie transaction seems to be the problem, if you charge the newbie xp's, either the high-lvl, like n
ack. dumb client. strike out everything from 'either...'
ok, so if you charge the newbie xp's, say 400xp * lvl * lvl or something like that, it wouldnt cause too many problems, right? Alternate solution could be the seller placing the item in an inn, and the amount would be deducted from the buyers account, and the item would be available to the buyer after a certain number of ticks (the buyer would have to go to an inn and type receive, then stay there for that duration, otherwise the item would just pop up, fall to the ground if the innkeeper doesnt see the player, then become a free-for-all. It will save the sellers the pain of delivering it, but the buyer would still have to wait for the item to arrive...and the minimum cost of the item should be set at its rent * an arbitrary number to prevent just giving it away.
Yet another way of solving this problem would be having a mob that will save the item on a mob, with the min-price attached. This mob would deposit the money it earned by selling that item to the seller's account, but like the camel driver's son, it won't be a stationary mob, (there should be one in each era, or will have a set route and set schedule, moving a square every two ticks or something) Ppl can sell items to him from anywhere, but the buyer would have to seek him out...(actually this is just a fun idea i was thinking of..reading it now it wont solve anything, but still, think it would be fun to have a mob that'd trans and have a set route and everything)
Bulk.
