Title pretty much says it all; I was just wondering if any info was available about when the AH would be implemented
Auction House: Any recent updates on when it's coming out?
Thu, 04/28/2011 - 16:04
Thu, 04/28/2011 - 16:16
#2
Hold ze horses!
See Monday's announcement, which was a mere three days ago:
http://forums.spiralknights.com/en/node/5348
They just did a big release last night, so chances are that the auction house is a ways down the list of priorities. Honestly, I'd prefer that they hold off on the feature- weeks or months if necessary- until some other use for materials is added. Otherwise, prices will likely crash in spectacular fashion, making the auction house not very useful for the sellers.
Thu, 04/28/2011 - 16:35
#3
Guestimate
The announcement saying :-
>>>"While no specific time frame can be stated at this time, please know that we are developing an Auction House where unbound items "
"no specific time frame" ===>> Sounds like it will be a fair while before it comes out
It also tends to imply that its priority is low to medium.
I'm finding the current system (trade chat) relatively unusable, because it scrolls off the screen relatively quickly, faster than I can easily read.
And this is AFTER the 1 message per 30 seconds per player limit.
Thu, 04/28/2011 - 16:51
#4
"chances are that the auction
"chances are that the auction house is a ways down the list of priorities."
Alternatively, it could be a rather high priority, but one that they aren't at all sure how tricky it'll end up being to code.
Thu, 04/28/2011 - 16:57
#5
You don't want to have
You don't want to have auction hall as a low priority until there is an alternative use for materials, because that is a very VAGUE goalpost. Without having any ideas of some "other use" that means the longer you wait on the AH, the longer the sales crash will last. It won't take very long for the market to balance itself out once the AH is released (lots of people right now have tons of Crowns and Energy stockpiled, and will doubtless take advantage of the first days of the AH to gather cheap materials to spam UVs for sales).
And I agree with Leviathan. It is quite likely a project that has at least 1 coder dedicated to nothing BUT designing the AH. But you don't EVER announce timelines until something is 100% complete. Because you can encounter the most obscure little bug and have to overhaul the entire code base to remove it.
Thu, 04/28/2011 - 17:48
#6
>>Alternatively, it could be a rather high priority
I'm often surprised with how quickly, this company suddenly comes out with new functionality in this game.
So, hopefully, it won't be too long before we see player shops (auction house).
Possible quick fixes, in the short term
============================
As a rule of thumb, the NCP (shops) sell back values should be about a fifth or tenth of their trade values (going by other games).
But they are massively too low (in my experience). A single crown for (shards) materials that would trade for 30..70 crowns, why not 5 or 10 crowns.
Allow filter (purely a string based search on messages) command on the trade screen :-
E.g.
/filteron .... Only show messages which have been included in the filter string
/filteroff ... Show everything again (default)
/filter wtb ..... Add show looking to buy messages
/filter wts ..... Add show looking to sell messages
/filter Iron Gear ..... Add "Iron Gear" to the displayed messages
/filter Chrome ..... Add "Favourite weapon type" to the displayed messages
Thu, 04/28/2011 - 17:48
#7
Auction House/ Trade Chat
My opinion on the auction house is that it will not be an easy undertaking.
It appears that the game was designed without an auction house in mind. Whenever I am short a material, I am never short more than one or two. (Also note I am currently in 3* gear, so things may change later down the road.) When I call out in trade chat for my missing mat, I always receive several whispers immediately. It definitely appears there is no shortage in materials.
Now this is where the problem comes in. If at any given time when I log on there is never a shortage of materials from the current players online- What happens when everyone is able to place all their unwanted mats on an auction house and log off?
As for the chat interface... Please give me a whisper tab!. Whenever I ask for a mat in trade I have to immediately type "/leave trade" so I can manage my whispers and negotiate my trade.
Thu, 04/28/2011 - 19:24
#8
> If at any given time when I
> If at any given time when I log on there is never a shortage of materials from the current players online- What happens when everyone is able to place all their unwanted mats on an auction house and log off?
I was trying to bring this to everyone's attention during preview.
The economy is horrible here. Prices are high only because of the difficulty of getting together.
During preview, I paid for half of my trades; the other half was "I've got a ton, here take it".
Thu, 04/28/2011 - 19:42
#9
Better stuff will probably have a good price and healthy economy
>>During preview, I paid for half of my trades; the other half was "I've got a ton, here take it".
The price/value of common stuff will probably be ridiculously cheap.
But, recipes, weapons, armor, shields, especially unique variant ones and high * ones, and rare materials, will probably hold their value well, and sell for good/profitable prices.
The current situation, where you have to hang about for ages to trade, is not brilliant, so a AH would be a big help.
Thu, 04/28/2011 - 19:58
#10
People who are fearful that
People who are fearful that prices will "crash" are, frankly, looking at the situation from a skewed perspective. The truth is that they'll simply become more REALISTIC. As has been stated already, the supply for most materials is gigantic.
At the moment, the colossal, tedious bottleneck that is the trade channel is skewing the perception of 'supply.' It's like trading commodities on wall street ... ordinary commerce was never meant to function this way, haha.
What will end up happening is that TIME and EFFORT will end up being more profitable than simply dumping raw materials -- it will be worth it to craft premades for sale to the general public, which should become a bit more affordable to do because you're no longer getting yahoos that insist on 10k for a Mug of Misery.
Consequently, people will have enough crowns in liquid form after prices begin to drop that they'll be able to spend more of it on energy, thus lowering energy prices, thus stabilizing the entire market. People have said before there isn't enough money sinks in the game, but they're overlooking the fact that energy and crowns are interchangeable, linked currencies. You're spending 400 crowns every time you hit that "descend" button in the clockworks. 800 crowns every time you rez for 20. 100 crowns every time you open a room. You get the point. :)
Yes, prices will drop. So will the price for EVERYTHING ELSE. It won't all be equal everywhere, but it will be stable and consistent, and much better.
If supply is so huge and it really does become such an issue that nothing is even worth the AH tax to sell, drop rates can always be adjusted. It seems to me that Three Rings designed the game intending for the crafting feature to be primarily a self-driven tool -- you'd make most of your equipment out of mats you find yourself, with the potential for player-to-player trading merely a supplement. Current drop rates are what they are assuming most people will need to collect their own mats.
Predictable human behavior takes over when trading is allowed, though, and a lot of players are getting recipes, nearly all the mats, and even many premades from other human beings, rather than relying on the RNG that would control the rate otherwise. Thus, you may run into an overabundance of certain items, stuff that was never meant to have the entire game's supply of which available to the public at large in auctionable format. It could take some tweaking, but I want it ASAP even so.
I'd dump $50 on CE immediately if it was announced that this was being made top priority. I think most people would agree that while the new equipment is nice, they'd really rank an auction house as outstripping it as their most-wanted feature by about 10,000 miles.
Thu, 04/28/2011 - 19:57
#11
"The price/value of common
"The price/value of common stuff will probably be ridiculously cheap."
An opinion:
The price of 1-3 star *items* will be cheap, as the price of 1-3 star mats. Neither will get utterly ridiculous, because:
As the mats get cheaper, people will try for UVs by crafting in quantity (and sell the castoffs, thus the cheap items). Which will raise the price of mats, until the UV crafting also slows. Then, they'll bounce around a bit, and settle at some nice range of fluctuation.
This, of course, depends on what you call ridiculous. As a completely blue-sky guess, I'd say shards will go for between 20-40 crowns.
Thu, 04/28/2011 - 20:12
#12
Agreed and hopefully energy prices will not be badly effected
>>Then, they'll bounce around a bit, and settle at some nice range of fluctuation.
This makes a lot of sense, and exactly what I have seen in another online game.
Hopefully the energy prices will not increase when the AH arrives.
My thinking is that the number of crowns in the game will be unaffected by the AH, so the crown price that players can afford to buy energy with, depends on the average crowns per player.
I.e. The AH will just get crowns exchanged between buyers and sellers, but the total crowns floating about in the game will remain the same (except for a possible, e.g. 2% transaction fee, which may be charged, AKA current energy exchange machine 2% seller fee).
I wouldn't expect more than a vague "We're in phase X/Y", at most....
But still - Concepting? Assembly? Testing? Whatever the actual stages are? That'd be pretty groovy.