I've resisted using the Auction Forum until today, simply because I feel it has destroyed the in-game player merchant shops. Honestly, I -rarely- see an open shop, and I feel it's largely due to the Auction Forum. In the past several months I've seen -one- open shop.

Understandably, why would anyone bother standing around at a merchant's stall, waiting for other players to come by when they can simply post an auction in the forums and check it at their convenience?

But since I've never found the equipment I've been looking for at a shop because I've never found an open shop, I've had to follow suit and bid in an auction, with great reluctance.

Tthis post is an inquiry as to whether anyone else feels the Auction Forum has diminished the in-game experience by effectively removing the need for player merchants?

So as to not to just complain about something but also to suggest an improvement:

Why not change the Auction Forum to an Announcement Forum, where player merchants can post an announcement that their shop will be open, listing the time, place and items available?

I think this would increase the use of the many, now vacant merchant stalls all over the islands.

Maybe this has already been tried and discarded for the current system. If so, I'll just go with the flow.

Timezones. They really are a bitch. The auction forum fixes the problem of some players never being online at the same time.

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Gagis Silvarna, the Robocop with wings who shoots lasers from his fingertips
Lily Havthorn, the Waukeenar
Silwe, the elf

This is pretty much the sum of it all. Timezones suck, and this discussion keeps cropping up. That's really the end of it.

People want to get rid of the Auctions forum, but in the end that hurts people who play when the server is dead. The forum at least lets people have some semblance that they are going and seeing the items and such.


That said, your point on using it as an announce type deal would be great to see. Like a combination of what it is now and people using it in that way. Course, you would have to stick to just one thread for your show, posting when you are open again to keep it 'fresh'. I know one player, at least, does that. But I don't see her on often anymore.

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It ruins things for a lot of reasons, but fixes the timezone issue. Selfish of me, but I feel like people would manage without the auction board.

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Gahnn Bluetusk
Aleksandr Vespermouth II
"Malnutrition is scarier than any beastie."

Why no begin a movement to do this yourself?

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Davion Telemos - Monk of the Four Winds
Korthan Isharnos - Dragon Shaman of Thunder Spirit Zamasham

It didn't use to be like this. It might be that people do not wish to open a shop, if there only is twenty or so people online, most of them busy with RPing elsewhere. With new and fancy games being out, there is less activity in the market stalls.

Actually, making an auction poster is much more busywork than opening a shop ingame, and ingame barter is naturally much more fun.

Personally I like to open shop when I see a shizzleload of players online, so that the odds of encountering people are higher. Advertisement helps luring people in. Having several merchants active at a time is the best. Competition ftw.

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Personally, I never have a problem when opening a shop in-game. I always get people to show up, and I say that as one of the people who uses the Auction forums pretty frequently. Largely, I use the auction forums specifically so that more characters played by players in different time zones can have a chance at something nice. That's pretty much it, for me.

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Organize a set date every month so that merchants can all sell their wares within a 24-hour period at a pre-determined location in-game. I'm suprised nobody has done this yet.

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I don't have any PCs who've acquired the 'epic' gear sold on the Auction forum or in shops. Someday if I have enough to justify a shop, I'll post an announcement in the forum ahead of time.

I enjoy the interaction of trading with a player merchant, it's some fun RP and a nice way to meet other players, i just wish there was more of it.

I understand the timezone issue, often when I'm on there are less than a dozen others on the server. The auction forum just seems so OOC to me, it's a poor substitute for real RP.

Hardly need epic items for this. Low level people I could see truly enjoy these kind of things. Or odd n ends that are interesting.

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Lieutenant Belalad Feiwallyan

((Please take note if you PM me and you are ignored resend to me in 1-3days, it is likely due to not realizing I got mail))

I've personally never understood the argument, "Auctions help people from different time zones".

It's not really true....

Auctions always have a closing time, Whoever makes the highest bid closest to closing time wins, so it favors whoever the closing time happens to favor when they're most likely not asleep or at work.

There's hardly any time you can pick for closing time of an auction that's a fair time for everyone... There's always going to be advantages/disadvantages of being in different time zones. You can try to stagger your auction to close at varying times, I guess, but not sure if that's really fair either.

Maybe I'm missing something... But I think that's how it works.... I've only bought from auction a few times because I don't really like it myself...

OK so: No auctions, no chance of cross timezone interaction

Auctions, more available cross timezone interaction

35%(random number) > 0%.

Easy choice.

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Davion Telemos - Monk of the Four Winds
Korthan Isharnos - Dragon Shaman of Thunder Spirit Zamasham

I don't see it that way. I just see it as people going the easiest route to maximize profit.

I wish the merchant stalls would be used more and, if I had the inclination to hang onto every bit of loot I find, I'd be willing to start the movement myself. The problem there though, is that the only person I'm hurting in my movement is myself. People will still use the forums. Their goods will garner 10x the bids that mine in game will garner. Maybe these merchants in all of these towns where these auction postings go up should charge 10% as a finder fee. Hell, make it 20% or, call me insane, 50%.

I just wonder where the line's drawn. Letters are written and sent in forum threads and PMs, auctions are held with 2% of time spent in game as a merchant (to pass off the item to the winning bidder) and 98% of the time looting more stuff to sell on the auction forums. What's next? Conversations, all RP on the forums?

Come on, people. These stalls were added so the server would see traffic in game and there would be immersion in the game, not on a forum.

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Remember when I knew a boxer, baby

Hey, don't lump merchants all in one group! Not all of us only RP 2% of the time and hunt the rest!

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there has been a decline in tge use of the wiltun shops since the portal location was changed.

same happened when the cordor portal.changed.

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How about something like...

"Amia Trade and Goods Expo." or the "Grand Bazaar"

I've only ever seen one person using the markets, but I think the sort of atmosphere that would be best for those trade stalls would be like a big bazaar, if there's only one stall you might get passing parties stopping in to take a look at this stuff, and then the traders sit there alone for twenty minutes untill the next group's finished the local dungeon, not good; so you plot a big semi-regular event that's been planned ahead of time where everyone turns up to somewhere like the Cordor market square in with the magic shop, or the Wiltun courtyard where there's a bunch of merchant stalls in one place instead of just two or three. Heck, maybe get a DM to set up a bunch of merchant stalls for the event if you get enough people signing up for such a thing (if you can do that? I don't know, I'm paranoid that they will bite my face off if I bug them at an inconvenient time).

You get all these people, readying their stock for one special event, that's been planned ahead of times at a time most appropriate for those who want a go at selling, you can plot out times for merchants to set up and demonstrate their goods that they either made or obtained through face stabbings, have a live auction house for people to play around in, it's rife with roleplay opportunities, convention style booth babes for blacksmiths and tailors, two competing merchants glaring at one another from across the hall and shouting about how their brand of parchment/mythal tubes/leather goods/cabbage is superior to the competition, painters and artists showing off their work, seeing who can do the best sleazy car salesman impression in regards to a magical codpiece.

It might not solve the problems of auctions being more convenient and prevalent, but it'll still get the market stalls at least used, and this IS a roleplay server, so the question 'why bother running a market stall when I can run a noteboard auction?' should be answered 'Because the roleplay is awesomer', and if the roleplay isn't already awesome enough, we should just make it more awesome.

Heck, I might try and run that event myself now...

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Player of:
Asya Goodmonsdottir - Knight of Lesser Gods.
-Winner of 2014's "Razored Tongue" Award, and Emcee's pick "Authoritarian of the year".
Jannah Vindle - Mistress of Coin.

The Cordor stalls in the south district are bugged currently. Tried opening shop there not long ago. Due to the portal point in Cordor, both the south market and east market hall work, since they are on the way north. Wiltun still works fine, even though the portal is set to the beach.

@Derk.
If you hunt 98% or the time, you can't be called a merchant. That is something else entirely.

@Sundog.
Actually low level characters are the people who need magic stuffing the most. As Charles said, they will love it and there is plenty of RP to be had. Especially in Cordor.

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With the downfall of the two biggest RP hubs, Cordor + Wiltun, The number of player run merchant shops dwindled.
The two others hubs are in Amia forest and Kholingen - I do not know any merchant stalls there.

See the problem?

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Not really a huge problem, as there is a merchant stall in Bendir, near the edge of the forest and one in Kohlingen now.

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Two in Kohlingen!

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Not very close to the RP hubs, thought. We all know that people are laaazy

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Those 'hubs' shift about as the playerbase changes, and people make new characters.
For a while, Amia Forest, and the Shrine of Eillistraee were hot hot.
Now, it seems Bendir and Triumvir are hot, next month...?
I have seen a decline in merchant stall use though.

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Ah was wondering what happened there, first time I tried Amia in summer whenever my character logged in Wiltun there were people there and often both stalls occupied, since I came back in fall I've only seen them occupied twice (which was great )

This.

I've read several threads about how there's too much money floating around and how it's affecting RP. Seems to me the Auction Forum is just making it worse, encouraging epic hunting to rack up huge profits in the forum, at the expense of RP.

One of my char has probably acquired enough stuff to open a stall, none of it's awe inspiring, but I'll give it a try and see what happens. Some lower level chars might find it useful, and quite possibly some enjoyable RP will be generated, at the expense of greater profits. So be it.

The suggestions for a Market Day or Fair sound good. But it requires some coordination and effort. In the meantime, a market stall announcement forum seems like a step in the right direction.

By the way, the original "Forum" was a marketplace for gathering and trading ideas and goods, just saying....

Yeah... This definitely isn't the first "Rawr auction!" thread, for sure... On one hand, I feel like grinders and farmers are rewarded for grinding and farming for endless of hours, on the other hand, I've begun not to really care...

Boss farmers/loot grinders/whathaveyou will always be there. If they wanna spend hours of their lives not RPing and trying to get best loot they can, well, I guess that's their choice, really...

My only wish is that I wish some of us who RPed 80%-100% of our time here had a chance to buy some of the things that's on auction. I mean, it looks cool! xD; And as long as we're playing through a game medium, having cool shinies is still kind of a plus. I hardly ever PvP though so it doesn't particularly matter in that sense... But cool nonetheless...

I do think everything on Amia is just expensive overall. Even Copper Industries, who's doing a good job of trying to keep prices down, have things like "Minimum Increase Bid: 100,000". So if a second person bid, you're already double the original price. I have to go grinding even for purely RP privilege like a house rent. So who gets the houses? Farmers.

I think that allowing players to buy these things for gold or whatever instead of actually having to risk their own hide trying to earn them, it sets up an economy in which these supposedly difficult-to-obtain items eventually end up in everyone's hands.

Now on the one hand, there's not much point in banning auctions of items because they'll still happen, just not where we can see them, which will drive prices even higher. But on the other hand, maybe there is something to be said for making these items less plentiful to begin with, so that the market is not so much of an all-you-can-buy.

Some of you might rightly point out that making items rarer will drive prices up. Fair enough. But if we just keep things the way they are, eventually the market will become so saturated that nobody will want to buy. I myself almost never check the auction threads because:

• I know that whatever is going, it's likely out of my price range anyway
• I would rather find these things for myself than buy them with GP
• Whatever's being sold now, it's a sure thing that another item like it will be posted next week
• I have no in-game knowledge of these merchants

My exact reasoning as well. I can't even remember the last time I used the Auction forums if ever. I may have at one point though :\

I actually like the idea of making it so saturated it's not "epic" anymore.

Like make a third "epic" store that has ridiculous appraisal and price tag on items. Even if it's 1 million for (X), everyone just has a fair chance of getting them that way without being a boss farmer.

Gold itself is ... Doable...

Biggest slippery slope I've seen this week. I'm disappointed.



incorrect



This was the only acceptable answer to this topic, thank you for being the intelligent and forthcoming person with the most initative in this topic. To you goes my personal kudos.



PM Selmak.



"Downfall"? LMFAO could you exaggerate more?

No, there's no problem. You can't fix "lazy" but the alternative, killing the auction board, is worse than the status quo. And here, I'll even elaborate on it since everyone doesn't really seem to comprehend why.

1: People are forced into interactions solely within their own timezone. This is a Bad Thing (tm). It degregates the server across arbitrary RL lines that don't exist in game.
2: It hampers and harasses the PC to PC market. That's right: It hurts it. Because less interaction and less ability to get itneraction = less RP and less transactions.
3: It bores the merchants. If you force them to sit in game for hours as the flat only way to have a store and PC market interaction (and a persistent store is not an option, it cannot feasibly work, so do not suggest it), then you bore the people who are putting their foot in the door to give you the PC to PC market in the first place. Then instead of some people using the auction board and some people using the game, you get no one doing anything because one''s illegal and one's absolutely spacktardedly boring to them. So you know what? They're going to stop doing it.
4: It means the DMs have to babysit the IC forums to make sure no one's "breaking the rules" by putting up an auction post. This is probably thr biggest and most obvious and also the stupidest part of the etnrie suggestion. Do you folks remember what happened when the boards wer emerged? You couldn't find the event relevant IC among the auction boards. Now if your PC doesn't play the markets, you don't se eit. And if he goes shopping you got the boards.

IN the end it makes your PC market reliant on luck. And that's a terrible terrible thing.



As I said, you can't fix lazy. All I can say is: If you're that lazy, you DESERVE to not take part in the RP or have access to the PC markets. This is a community effort, not a single player game, and if you're not here to contribute to the community because you feel "lazy" and you demand that every spawn point by saturated with markets right next to it then GET OUT.



Do you folks realize this still happens? Except without the auuction frum, it goes round in OOC circles for even more gold than the auction forums do? I'm gonna let you in on a secret: The people with the real amounts of gold, about 95% of them, never use the forums. They don't use the auction forums because that cuts into their hunting and bossrunning time. They auction stuff in game to their OOC friends for the same exorbitant amounts of money and it all cycles upward.

That said: the auction forum has absolutely nothing to do with too much gold on the server. Do you know why? Because the PC to PC market is simply a shufflnig, not a creation of gold, ergo it is not a problem and is only beneficial to the server.



I am not making an entire usbforum for something that could be in one topic on the main IC forum (you know, the one EVERYONE reads? You stick it in a side subforum and no one will read it. Trust me.).



You realize DC gets you better than whatever sits in those boxes, right? the loot in the epic bins is purposefully designe dto be genericly decently good. DC gets you better and it gets you unique. O, and there's also this thing called "Make friends"? Together you get enough money or you make friends or you do something besides gold for the items. You act like your "RP 80-100%" of the time can't als involve rounding up your friends and going out fighting somewhere. Or are we back to "I RP in town so I'm a better RPer than you" now? If you go there then you lost already, I'm afraid.



Wrong on both counts. you know those auctions are CONSIGNMENT auctions right? that means CI puts them up for other PCs, who dictates the terms and, yes, the minimum bid increases. All CI does is get free advertising and a cut of the final profits. Also: As the guy who has access to the houses, I can confirm to you for 100% sure that the overwhelming lion's share of the houses areowned by people who go out hunting very very infrequently.



well of course "Eventually" everything is going to trend that way. Pardon my french but No Shit Sherlock. This isn't something to base an argument off of.



Congrats! You just singlehandedly 1: Made people farm 5x as more by lowering the drop rate and 2: raised the prices 5x because the time investment is so much higher and takes so much longer. You just killed gold, the people ytyou hate still got all the stuff and now everyone trades among theeir friends because the shit is so hard to get. You exacerbated the problem and made everything hellaciously worse.



See:



That will take so long it isn't something you can make an argument out of. You know what? Eventually the sun is going to burn out and this solar system is screwed.





You realize that without the PC to PC market it would take you longer to acquire the raw gold for a large amount of megatransactions like this than it would to get the item you want off a boss? And do you realize the activity you just suggested is for people to go out farming areas slightly below their acceptable cR for gold? (because that's the best way to do it: You don't farm actand for gold, you farm spires and barbarians. And now you're cutting into the lowbie's actual XP and RP. But hey, you need gold for yuor nex epik store item. Right? It's ok.)

~

Topics like this sort of convince me that people who don't understand how the game and its economy work just shouldn't be posting sggestions to overhaul stuff on the forums because it's really frustrating to hear the same thing a dozen times and tell you all the same thing a dozen times: Yes we know you "hate the bossfarmers" yes, we know they're bastards, how dare they have gold and items and yes we know we should just turn everything off.

We've explained what the fix for the economy is, and it wouldn't make any of you happy, trust me. Well, unless you got less than 10 thousand gold right now, because that's what I'd bring you down to if you were above it.

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Davion Telemos - Monk of the Four Winds
Korthan Isharnos - Dragon Shaman of Thunder Spirit Zamasham

Haha. I freely admit that my logic leap was a big one. Mostly I simply wanted to make my feelings clear. I don't particularly care about the bosshunters and their insane amounts of gold. I don't particularly care about the bosshunters who have 20 bags full of epic loot. And I don't particularly care about being bored in game as a merchant tending an in game stall.

I simply feel that the auction forum is a clunky band-aid that works in some aspects and doesn't work in other aspects. As for the time zone issue, I'm okay with there being time zone deficiencies (possibly because I tend to swing by during all hours, depending). As it is, there's too much closeness on this big expansive island that is Amia. Sure it's impractical, but I just think the idea of auction posting on the forums is cheap. It allows for minimum time buying and selling and trading wares and maximum time running around to get more.

So, in all, yes it works. No, there's probably not any better idea. But I still don't like it.

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Remember when I knew a boxer, baby

It is a Good Thing that as much of the playerbase can interact as possible in a community.

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Davion Telemos - Monk of the Four Winds
Korthan Isharnos - Dragon Shaman of Thunder Spirit Zamasham

Tormak's right, folks.... arguing with him is rather pointless.

This whole thing comes down to fixing the economy of Amia and there's only one way to do that.... and as Tormak said, "it wouldn't make any of you happy, trust me."

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"I once took the high road and it took me straight to hell and I stood there all by myself." -Hank III

I personally think everything is fine the way it is. It all depends on what you want out of the time and the effert you put into the game. If you like being a merchant and don't like the Auctions forum- be a merchant strictly IG. Don't complain because someone has a bag of epic items when you have hundreds of DCs. You get what you put into it, and nothing is all that unfair.

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Hmm...Not a bad way to look at it, come to think of it.

You just ranted at yourself...

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No. I didn't.

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Davion Telemos - Monk of the Four Winds
Korthan Isharnos - Dragon Shaman of Thunder Spirit Zamasham

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Look at the whole thing. The important part is colored.



He was quoting his own response to say the same thing to the quote above it. He then followed up with more to explain further.

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lawl!

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I think its the same principle....only with quotes...

BONK..still don't get it..BONK...no..still...BONK...

*scurries off into the darkness again*

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Ya see, long time ago, me father taught me somethin that be right true.
An amateur practices until they get it right. A professional practices till they can't get it wrong.
Dwarves are professionals at what we do.

It was brought up in another thread, but the idea of carpenters being able to make portable merchant stalls would be good on all accounts. Just not sure its feasiable on the development side of things.

I have tried multiple times to set up shop, down in the UD and up top..Never got any business at all.

It was asked about in the request forum once. I wanted a portable merchant stall as well, but it couldn't be done.

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For all the bickering here, all I could think was: There's an Auction forum?



The way you decide to spend your time can't be blamed upon a sub-forum - I log in plenty of times when it's at 60+ players and never see a single soul regardless of where I go (and I'll wander around most of the island for shits and giggles). I'm also pretty sure I never saw merchant stalls in the game until my third(?) rebound to Amia, so "removing the need for player merchants" seems really silly to say about a feature you could consider relatively new.

This reminds me though, props to that one dwarf that my blackguard used to pester a lot. You know, that one dwarf that wore his name on a sign around his neck and would inquire how many hundred times someone killed Maximus for their shiny rare drop. He was a good guy.

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Who are you. What are you. Why do you scream at me?

I use the Auction forum ALOT as most know.

I see the player stalls used some too and will wander over and look if I see one open.

I tend to do a bit of both...I use the forum for posting and then I do the RP of selling and buying as Krugan wanders.

I have had people find me in the Fire Giants, the Underdark, the Frozen Wastes as well as the cities. Some to get an item they saw on a board and some to inquire about an item and some to sell me something.

I honestly don't see the reason for a change...this is working so far as I can tell and I sell and buy alot.

I have IG signs I use for advertisements and a painting I put up of Krugan. I use the stalls occasionally and the forum a lot.

Frankly...I do this so much I am having trouble getting OUT of towns and hunting now...which is great...lol.

Just my 2 cents

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Ya see, long time ago, me father taught me somethin that be right true.
An amateur practices until they get it right. A professional practices till they can't get it wrong.
Dwarves are professionals at what we do.

Yeah, we tried to make it work, and Disco said there was a high chance of just straight losing items. So we ditched the idea.

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Davion Telemos - Monk of the Four Winds
Korthan Isharnos - Dragon Shaman of Thunder Spirit Zamasham

Thanks for trying.

Oh well. Wouldn't be fun with an item devouring chest anyways.
There are many shops available now, so it makes up for it. Didn't even realize until recently that Kampo's had two stalls.

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Making items less plentiful as random drops does not necessarily mean making five times more work for players. If you set them as rewards for completing certain quests, then players who seek a certain kind of item can do those quests.

Yeah, I know we don't have enough suitable quests to even start doing something like that, but it beats giving players carpal tunnel syndrome with hours of tediously fighting the same range of monsters over and over. Believe me, I've spammed my left mouse button enough times recently to know what kind of a hell that is, even if I haven't been playing NWN.

What this hopefully accomplishes is reducing both supply and demand at the same time, and makes the experience for players less about grinding through things in the hopes of coming across what they need, and more about acquiring things in a way that you would find plausible, if somewhat convenient.

For example, let's say that a quest rewards a weapon. Now, we could just spam a random weapon onto the PC, requiring them to do more than one quest or swap with a player who has what they want, or we could award a particular weapon depending on the Weapon Focus that a character has (or pick randomly if they have more than one of those feats).

Now I realise that randomness plays a big part in the core game, and that as a result you may not always get what you want or need. But some certainty can be a good thing. Rather than filling the economy with items that are unwanted, let's try and satisfy the needs and wants of the character by providing them with, for example, a weapon that they have focused in. That's not to say that the properties will be exactly the ones that they want, but it beats the snot out of waiting for the exact item type and properties to come onto the market as a result of someone traipsing through dungeons, or going there themselves to play the item lottery.

In my opinion, item lotteries are a big waste of everyone's time, and complete certainty of item specification is not particularly good either. We don't have to continue the tradition of rewarding more monster kills with more armfuls of items. I have nothing against giving players a reward for hard-won battles. I do have something against players farming loot when we have a system for acquiring special items without requiring wrist-destroying amounts of tedious clicking, and which many players do take advantage of.

I am thoroughly biased towards those 'forumites' who post Requests for items because they actually engage with the rest of the community. They have developed a sense of who their character is and what they need to be plausible and convincing in-game. And they are willing to do the work in-game to fill their request, instead of sitting back and expecting something. At least they're here and I can communicate with them in ways besides waiting for them to log into the game.

I am not going to tell you what system you're going to have for obtaining items, but I know that we can do better than has been done in the past, and if we're going to keep things fresh then we should look to make improvements here. Sod going and fighting illithids and their minions for random drops, I say, sod that.

I propose we reduce monster kill droprates... but increase chest spawn rates, and perhaps devise a way for more chests and/or treasure-like containers in non monster spawns.

For instance: If you spawn a group of kobolds who have not noticed you, you are more likely to maul them if there is a chest-- whether you're 30 or in range (potentially creating more low level loot circulation via treasure hunters). Chests are exciting, they are more than a roll and a message, and definately create more RP and usefulness for those who pick locks, detect traps, and soforth. If possible, it would be equally good to create different kinds of containers to reward players, like... maybe a strange looking rock could spawn as you walk by that your character "notices", a poorly buried hole in the ground, something along these lines... not neccesarily always accompanied by savage manbeasts.

I just imagine adventure-loot being more based on what's lying around, and not finding out what that spider ate earlier. This would make treasure hunting more about the treasure and hunting there-of, and less about needing a LEVEL 30 TORNADO OF STEEL to slay the vile fiends carrying that coveted Almost Depleted Wand of Fireballs. This may ALSO simulate the classic adventuring weaklings, those who have an eye for shiny objects but not an arm for a sword.

Would this be a cumbersome edit to the system? What are the limitations on the technical side of things?