Auction House

I don’t agree. I have tens of thousands, hundreds maybe from footfall, and no incentive to spend it. At the moment those coins are worthless. Not to mention everything is obtainable easily by yourself without spending single coin, you just need to know basic mechanics, and where to look for what.

I’m not saying AH is best thing i gamę, but real world shows, that having easy access to prices of commodities from your chair, drive those prices down instead of up. Same with democracy, it’s very shitty political system, yet still the best of those that are known to man.

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I’ve played 4 MMO’s before this one. FF, Trove, Neverwinter and ES. All of them completely different games, all of them have auction houses that are useless for average players. Don’t bother to try to buy things unless you are lvl 200+ with a bank account in the millions.

Right now in Boundless, if I need anything short of a power coil for a reasonable price, I can find it if I look long enough. I found raw gold for 75C yesterday and picked up a centerforge early on for 200C total (50 each).

Lets take gold. What is a reasonable price? Right now it depends on the market. The further you get from the hubs the more varied the prices get. Close to the hubs, they are vastly overpriced at 200c+. As someone mentioned, time is money. So an early player can spend a little extra time seeking out prices they can actually afford. This is invaluable in that period between lvl10-20 when you are not powerful enough to venture to T3 worlds but need the mats to gear up. (especially if you didn’t spec a hunter).

Now imagine you have an AH. Suddenly everyone in the sticks sees Gold ore is going for 200c each. No way I’m letting my go for less than that…or at the very least in the 180-200 range.

People in the hubs sees prices going up in the sticks. “Well, if they can sell it for 190, I can probably sell mine for 220”. And that pattern cascades until copper ore is selling 750c.

The problem with MMOs is that it isn’t a true free market. Demand is ALWAYS higher than supply for the top goods. The need to physically walk from place to place to buy, and even check, stock is the only thing that is keeping things like gleam under 50c.

I have a feeling most of the people pushing for the auction houses are lvl40+ and are just looking to get rich as quickly as possible, health of the game be da…erm…darned.

An AH would drive prices up, because people will start doing calculations on the exact price of items based off the price of everything else.

Right now, the price of an Iron Hammer can be anything. It can be 50c, 150c, 300c.

But as soon as an AH gets included, the price of an Iron Hammer becomes EXACTLY the price of it’s Materials to make it. If it’s lower, it will instantly be bought and sold for the set price. And if it’s higher, it will never sell.

Some items might lower in price, as their materials become more common world wide, but basic items like Copper and Iron tools, Slingshots, and so on that are ‘Basic’ but have a lot of minor little resources needed to make said item, those jack up the price VERY quickly. An Iron Hammer could probably be costing 300-400c each instead of the 100-150c it does right now. Because even if the materials are easy to find, that doesn’t matter. It has to match the price of the materials being sold. Because people are going to be buying and sell ONLY the items in the AH, and making money off the stupid that way.

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What you’re doing is taking advantage of players who don’t know an in-game items worth.

If anything, it sounds like you’re the one trying to stay rich.

Coins are limited, resources are not. If everyone sold hammers for 400, people would run out of coins, and sales would plummet, so traders would have’to lower the price of their wares. Because coins are limited, they automatically regulate the market behind the scenes preventing prices from becomin’ too high.

Exactly. Good points

You may be right that prices will be more uniform across the board, but not necessarily higher. You don’t get infinite money in this game, you can easily farm coin. Even footfall is once per beacon per player visited per day. You could try to make new toons, generate footfall, do first few levels some easiest feats, transfer coin, delete and repeat, but it wont give you much, not enough to shake economy.

Anyway, even if prices would go up, but be stable, I’d prefer it that way.

In game items HAVE NO WORTH. There is no NPC to sell items to, to GIVE them worth. The items, are only worth as much as someone wants to pay. He isn’t scamming people, because they CHOOSE to pay that amount. They also can turn around and find another store.

An AH tho, would be 100x worse, because unless you sell the item for the exact right price, or buy the item for the exact correct price, you get scammed.

And if everyone is pricing the exact same way, then randomly whoever is at the top of the list by however they list it, would be the only person making money. Cause when people buy an item, they always sort by cheapest, and buy from whoever is at the top.

With this system, many people can be making money. With an AH, only 1 person per item would be making money.

Then I’m really, really doing it wrong. Money is tight for what I need, as it should be. As it always should be for everyone in a healthy game economy.

I can tell you don’t use auction houses or even’ steam trading cards much.

You get to the top’of the list by pricin’ lower than competition. This drives prices down. The lower the price, the quicker your item sells.

Furthermore, I’ve never advocated for puttin’ a price up, I’m only suggestin’ a list of locations for resources be made.

Oh, you do understand how they work, but you didn’t take into account that it drives prices lower by encouragin’ people to price lower to sell faster.

It would stablize prices. Some items would cost more, some would cost less.

but again, I’m not advocating for prices to be put online or in an auction house, I’m advocatin’ for a list of where resources are sold.

edit

Let me be clear. I do not think I should be allowed to hit “esc” go to “auction house” pick “power coil” hit “buy” and then have a power coil instantly appear in my inventory.

I, and others, think at the very least, there should be a way to see where certain items are being sold. That’s my position. It would help remote shops get more traffic, and make it so the biggest shops didn’t monopolize the game.

I’ve said before that I would be in support of a settlement listing that you have to be in that settlement to read. That way you would still have to trek from town to town to see what is available

I dont think it’s fair to say prices just rise or fall from an AH. Generally prices average out, get bought out, and then prices increase. This cycle typically repeats itself over and over. I absolutely prefer no AH but if one was implemented only a handful of players would be making large amounts of coin. This is just a fact of an AH. Those of us with experience playing AH prices are going to make a killing. Everyone else will suffer. I dont think the player base is large enough to properly sustain an AH.

This I can agree with. In fact that was my first suggested way earlier in the thread, way back at post 16, on the bottom of the rant:

Second, the -

Is also a problem. Just look at Starwars, The Old Republic. That game also has an AH, and is filled with people that only undercut. There is no regulation, there is no standard. When you try to sell something, people just undercut, then undercut that, then undercut that, then undercut that, and so on.

I’ve seen items drop to half price within days, and that become the new standard for the next 3 weeks, because people drive the price lower and lower.

My saying it made prices go up, was based on the fact that items sold now, are set by what the owner feels the item is worth, and how much the customer is willing to spend. But with an AH, the prices of Base Materials are going to be set, and based on those prices, everything else will be set.

Example, say right now a Stone Axe is being sold for, lets say, 10c. But then AH comes out and the prices for the Materials to craft a Stone Axe comes out to costing 15c total. Guess what? The price of Stone Axe will suddenly jump to 15c. Cause that is now the WORTH of that item.

Anything higher than 15c is too pricy and expencive. And anythign below 15c will get bought and resold for 15c. You sold the item fast, yes, but you lost money. And lose money over time when you do it.

Some items will drop in price, yes. But others will skyrocket when people bring out their calculators and get to exact pricing of everything. This is something most people don’t understand. AH is basically a math problem. Crafted items’ prices are set to the price of their materials. If you know this price, you won’t get scammed and can even buy low and sell high. But a lot of people won’t understand that. Especially those that just undercut over and over, driving an item to become worthless over night if everyone does it.

Also, your suggestion is a LIST, not an Auction House. If your not buying an object, just viewing the store, it isn’t an AH.

Actually no forcing you to check every store is NOT giving you a real economy its allowing for rampant gouging and completely out of whack pricing.

ATM with the current setup a true price equilibrium is almost impossible to achieve as the value of the item or even the currency is damned near unknowable.

This is what causes 1 shop to sell an iron hammer for 50c and another to sell it for 300c.

Having an auction house would not destroy the economy anymore than having google destroys our real world economy.

What destroys an economy is non-scarce resources, items that NEVER leave the economy (One example is World of Warcraft Bags.), and rampant inflation through currency appearing out of thin air.

Thankfully all tools, food, etc in Boundless breaks over time or is consumed. Blocks and machines thats not the case.

Adding a AH would eventually crash the pricing of machines and coils but tools and food would stabilize at above cost once all the gathered materials pricing was sorted. We’d probably end up with a little inflation due to money appearing out of thin air. A lack of any true money sink would be the issue there. Allowing people to maybe buy cubbits or plots at very expensive price would probably fix that issue, but then we’d have the same problem with plots. (which we already have honestly as plots never leave the market and can continuously be earned.)

If each planet had an auction house there would be a boom of selling low on planets where a resource is common and selling high on planets where it is either rare or in demand, and a lot more buying.

I never buy at the moment because it just takes forever to shop on foot without being familiar with all the shops. And there is no way to find shops without tripping over them.

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Even a directory that players could list their shops in for X coins per day would be wonderful. And a great money sink that the game currently lacks.

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Good. Price equilibrium is what we want to avoid.

I am level 40 and would prefer not to waste my time traveling all over the universe to find something like refined iron. One reason some people might be against the exposing prices, locations and what is in stock is they are afraid of the competition. When the customer is operating without good information you can charge more and probably get away with it.

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And I want people having to travel around to find what they want. Make the shopping similar in effort to mining.

And I think that is a waste of time. Why should shopping require the effort of mining I get xp and resources for mining I get nothing for wandering?

Price equilibrium is really the only way to have an economy. Otherwise your just trading things you have no idea the value of for other things you have no idea the value of. Thats not an economy.

THAT is getting rich quick by rampant gouging

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