Auction House?

[sbn]

I seen mention several places that the developers mentioned the D2 "Ad-Hoc" trading system was not ideal, and there was mention of an "auction house". Does anyone know what this is about?

I would love to see a system where by items I find can be sold to a NPC for a currency to save up for better items a la jsp.

[Mivo]

The Auction House was introduced by WoW. Basically, there are NPC auctioneers that you can give items to. They are placed in the Auction House after you specify the duration (up to 24 hours), a minimum price, and a buyout price (optional). Other players can view what is in the AH (by categories) and bid on items or buy them directly with the buyout option. Much like a virtual eBay.

This works reasonable well in WoW, but the best items in WoW are soulbound, meaning that if you use or pick them up, they are bound to your character, so they cannot be traded. Gold in WoW is affected by inflation, but it's been relatively stable, so the AH works well for non-unique items and materials. An AH is limited to one server each, so every server has their own economy. A server usually has about 5000+ players.

I don't see it working for D3.

[FireFiend]

If you want a decent trade in Diablo 2, you lose a ton of time and gain a lot of frustration. Spending an hour in trade channels scrolling through pages of spam while also spamming your own items for trade was TERRIBLE.

Here's my proposed idea:





NO AUCTION HOUSE. Gold isn't a viable D3 currency, and no set currency // hard to accumulate currency (SoJs, runes and the like) does help to deter gold-farming / item selling sites.

NO TRADE CHANNELS (as main trade solution). Waste of time. In addition, Trading post games only help to guarantee a small likelihood of finding a trade at the price you want.

SOLUTION: Auction-House style listings, where players list individual items for sale with a link to the item (so stats can be seen), and a short description of what they're looking for in trade, along with an online/offline status indicator.




Assumed to be included is the same type of search interface in WOW's auction house that makes locating items a snap. Search by level requirements, by name, by category, by rarity, stats, etc.

The result is a system where trades are easily located. Take advantage of a barter system, but don't waste time with spam.

[Sequitur]

If you want a decent trade in Diablo 2, you lose a ton of time and gain a lot of frustration. Spending an hour in trade channels scrolling through pages of spam while also spamming your own items for trade was TERRIBLE.

Here's my proposed idea:





NO AUCTION HOUSE. Gold isn't a viable D3 currency, and no set currency // hard to accumulate currency (SoJs, runes and the like) does help to deter gold-farming / item selling sites.

NO TRADE CHANNELS (as main trade solution). Waste of time. In addition, Trading post games only help to guarantee a small likelihood of finding a trade at the price you want.

SOLUTION: Auction-House style listings, where players list individual items for sale with a link to the item (so stats can be seen), and a short description of what they're looking for in trade, along with an online/offline status indicator.




Assumed to be included is the same type of search interface in WOW's auction house that makes locating items a snap. Search by level requirements, by name, by category, by rarity, stats, etc.

The result is a system where trades are easily located. Take advantage of a barter system, but don't waste time with spam.

This is more or less what I was thinking.

Personally, I'd still like to see gold become a more viable form of currency though I don't hold high hopes. Still, Bliz has had a hell of a lot of practice at game economy since D2, and might be able to pull something together.

In any case, I think the system you suggested would be a fantastic idea. I completely agree that a trade channel would be more or less useless.

[sbn]

Well what does seem to work is jsp's fake gold. Almost anyone you ask online knows of jsp, yet ask them about Baron's or Amazon and they have never heard of it. Ask them about d2.net and a few might be aware of it. That place is popular as hell, if you can live with the immature behavior, the scammers, the dupes, the hacks, etc..

Point being though is that system works, and it works well. Alternatively we have here pgems. I collect enough pgems on ladder I can get Pul. 6 Puls eventually can get me a Hoz (when the ladder settles that is). But collecting Pgems and trading for Puls is in of itself a very time consuming and frustrating task that takes away from the game.

I would like to see a system where when I find a Tals mask I can sell it for say 10 gold pieces. Then find Butcher's Pupil and sell that for 15. Etc.. then eventually I have enough gold I can buy a Titan's or Jalals..

I think this would certainly cut down on the number of accounts/mules that people have now. More importantly, I believe strongly that if you do give majority of people the legitimate opportunity to move up they will use that method as opposed to others. Those item selling houses are the main reason we have dupes. And the fact of the matter is they do get lots of business. I think we all encounter consistently players who have Enigma, Sojs, Shako, Hoto, Hoz, etc.. and yet are as fresh as the spring rain.

[etslayer]

I don't care what they do with the trading as long as I can still bargain and haggle with people. I used to spend entire days doing that and if I can't do that in D3, a part of me will die.

[yukisho]

Call it the World Bazaar. And I don't think that you should have to visit an NPC to post them up. We are playing in a magical world, so let's make it magical. Have a tab or window that you can post them up from anywhere your at.

[SmittySixTen]

I think it would work rather well. You put an item up, say what you want at very least for it, and then people bid. Whoever wins at the end gets the item in exchange for currency. If you want specific items, you can assign a value to them and a person can use them in place of currency.

Think it would work out rather well.

[Swiffer]

Best bet would be to split the system into an AH style system (assuming gold is actually worth something) and a Trading type system when you can, essentially, make a wishlist that people can browse.

"I want <x, y and z>, i have <a, b and c> to trade".

[Morphinia]

I can just imagine the hacks that will come out if there is a Diablo Auction House.

[niet3sche]

Before it was abandoned and the mods stopped responding to all email, this very site had a subdomain - traders.dii.net - that did what you seem to suggest here.

IIRC, it had an online indicator and, of course, a feedback/reputation system. The latter is very helpful when running auctions, as it helps you figure out if you want to do a drop-on-the-ground trade or not.

I don't think this system is up and running these days, as the mods don't answer email and as the activity level is just about nil (at least on USWest SC non-ladder).

In short, yes, there is a real need for a system like this - and we had one on here that I was active on in 2000-2002. Better still would be to integrate something like this into a chat client - sort of like being able to run XFire / gamespy "outside" of connecting up to B.net (so that you can, for instance, block all accounts starting with "smile" and so on). It'd be interesting if this could run auctions on the side (Dutch auctions would be especially helpful).

If you create something like this, let us know!

[niet3sche]

The Auction House was introduced by WoW. Basically, there are NPC auctioneers that you can give items to. They are placed in the Auction House after you specify the duration (up to 24 hours), a minimum price, and a buyout price (optional). Other players can view what is in the AH (by categories) and bid on items or buy them directly with the buyout option. Much like a virtual eBay.

This works reasonable well in WoW, but the best items in WoW are soulbound, meaning that if you use or pick them up, they are bound to your character, so they cannot be traded. Gold in WoW is affected by inflation, but it's been relatively stable, so the AH works well for non-unique items and materials. An AH is limited to one server each, so every server has their own economy. A server usually has about 5000+ players.

I don't see it working for D3.

To add to my prior post, this sounds pretty much like an NPC consignment shop where you (the seller) outline the terms of the trade, and the item is held in escrow until payment is received. As I do not play WoW, I was not aware of this as an in-game option; this would be a FANTASTIC thing for D3 / bolt-on for D2.

That being said, I doubt that we'll see this in D2. Furthermore, I would rather D3 focus on improving the robustness of the client-server network communications before all else and hope that Blizzard learns from Ascaron (Sacred) with regard to setting up different areas for PVP and PVM play.

My $0.02.

[zionhuyga]

Still, Bliz has had a hell of a lot of practice at game economy since D2, and might be able to pull something together.
I'm curious. Does anyone know if Blizzard intended to make D2 gold worthless from the start or did it just happen?

[Sein Schatten]

I'm curious. Does anyone know if Blizzard intended to make D2 gold worthless from the start or did it just happen?

I think they just didn't think this through. They just added gold and be done with it. I have faith that in D3 Gold will be good to trade with.

[Apocalypse]

i agree, i think with how worthless gold became in d2 they will put alot of focus on gold for D3

[konfeta]

I can just imagine the hacks that will come out if there is a Diablo Auction House.

You mean none? I am not seeing how you can have an influx of hax0rs for something that would be hosted entirely on the company's servers.

[Zeek]

It all depends on a common currency IMO. Trying to barter through an auction house could get very ridiculous. Can you imagine all the "offers" you'll get that won't include anything you want. "cracked sash + diggler dirk 4 ur HoZ" I'd hate to try to wade through the offers and decide which is the best. If they tried to narrow it down by letting you create a list of items you'll potentially trade for it could take a long time to even set up your auction. List every item you're interested in and the stat levels the item needs. That could take a lot of work.

Currency is very important IMO.

[Legato]

They will learn from WOW were the currency will work, in fact i believe they will adopt the WOW system entirely with bronze and silver to collect when ur vs low levels and gold vs higher levels and even then, hell ball would only drop say 25 gold?
The key to making it a good currency is to make it rare! simply have less gold drops. IMO this is one system WOW has that is fantastic and should be adopted.

Also i dont doubt blizzard will have some sneaky scheme to prevent rushing teh same boss over and over again for gold to keep its rarity high

What if they make trading servers? 25 ppl with NPC's to buy items of/gamble with, nothing playable so casting spells cant lag u up haha

[redjellosux]

An auction house or something similair to it would be very interesting actually. They have much experience from WoW how things work now so I hope they do adopt some things of it to D3 and change some things with it.
Yes, sadly D2 gold is useless but it was ok in the beginning when it came out since people used it to gamble alot but then when people started mfing alot it became useless. As other have mentioned already I do hope it becomes useful in the game. Thou trading through forums like this I think will still work when people want to trade item for item and looking for items unless they can somehow adept it to a auctionhouse.
Will be interesting to see what they will do.