A reccomendation for any future auctions.

[Guardian 452]

This issue has come up in the past and I bet it will come up again in the future.... Last second auction bids / wins. In my experience 9 times out of 10 the person who losses out at the last second will be upset. They might have bidded more if given the chance to do so. Since we do not have a MAX BID system here (or that is indeed another idea one can use but a bit more work with PM's and such.

My idea which I have seen used here in the past with much success.

No auction will close untill 12 hours (of more if you choose) has past with NO bids.  Say your auction closes at 6PM CST and someone bids at 5:55 PM CST... that bid automatically extends the auction end time by 12 hours to 5:55 AM CST... and any more bids that follow extend the auction 12 hours from that bid time. This gives all parties who had bid chance to bid again should they wish to. Efectivly eliminating that last second bid snipe.

No one gets upsed they lost an item they had the bid on for 2 days only to loose out in the last seconds. AND!!! You the seller stand to possibly make more money!! cause the action will not close now before all active bidders get a fair chance at bidding again.

No this isnt a rule. No you dont have to do it. But it certainly can create less upset people.. and possibly create more coin for your pocket!!  


EDIT Another idea is to NOT disclose the exact auction close time. Example: Say what day the auction will close but NOT what time. It has been my experience however that this method can lead to thoughts of favoritism so I do not use this method here.


G-452

[Filatus]

Of course, like you said, the person putting up the auction can decide in whatever way he wishes to auction the item. That includes discriminating certain races or people with a certain faith.

I have sniped at an auction ones. People who don't like it only need to extend the bid with 6 hours after every bid, to prevent sniping.

I don't see why you want people to do it in any particular way though. It's their item, their PC and they know best how this PC would sell his item. This is not about the people bidding, it about the people who are putting things up for sale.

I've had people pull out of an auction of Daeron because he allowed anonymous bids. He might have made it open, but the anonymous bid he got was from someone he was friendly with, so did not want to break any trust. It might have cost him some coin, but it all went IC, so I don't see the harm right?

I think if Hardragh would put up an auction. He would make all bids secret. Just inform people of the amount of bids, not who is winning. So people will have to wonder how much coin is needed to win it.

[Guardian 452]

I dont want people to do their auctions any certain way... hence why I said this wasnt a rule and no one had to do it. It was just my two cents on a way to eliminate hard feelings when a person is sniped from a rare'ish item when he or she would have bid more given the chance.

All aspects of my idea would be open for the seller to tweak as they saw fit. Race restrictions, class restrictions, eye color restrictions? The times the bid would carry can be set at whatever length the seller wishes too. 1 hour extentions, 6 hour extentions, 24 hour extentions... etc.

It just seemed a simple way to:
1. Remove any hard feelings from a potential buyer who was sniped and never got the chance to bid themaximum amount he or she was willing to pay.
2. Possibly get the seller more money cause the interested parties get a chance to bid again (and again) instead of having said item sniped and ending before the other parties can re-bid.

G-452

[Acacea]

If Enzo or another character is concerned, maybe he can start a movement to spread auction awareness IC

[Guardian 452]

That really wasnt the goal of all of this... or I would have made a IC thread from the start, thanks

I was trying to offer my two cents on ways to keep people from loosing out because of what is much more of an OOC issue IMO.

In the end it is up to each and every person who wishes to set up an auction to do it exactly how they wish to do it. I thought offering some reccomendations on how to avoid what has in the past been a sore issue was a good idea.



G-452



,

[Chazzler]

Good points, which I try to use in my auctions, but sometimes forget to

Görm's Dorand's Brace auction does have the +12h rule on it now. Thanks for the reminder, heh

[Guardian 452]

If Enzo or another character is concerned, maybe he can start a movement to spread auction awareness IC

LOL  I can see it now... The Enzo G. Reynolt Auction Awareness Fund... everyone will be wearing little green ribbons, and people will be offering part of their sales to the fund to get people tp buy their products. LOL  

[lonnarin]

I agree that it can be frustrating to have an item yoinked out from under you at the last minute with plenty money in-hand to match the bid.  I have found a few method of auctioning that can help eliminate this pesky situation.

1. Bids extend the Bidding time:  Stipulate that the auction will last until a set time, or up to a certain number of hours after the final bid.  So if it ends on high noon Sunday and somebody bids at 11:59.59 AM?  The auction is then extended by 8 hours to 7:59.59 PM Sunday Night.  Any opposing bidder has reasonable time enough to check on that hot item and offer that counter bid.  This keeps serious bidders bidding harder, because it's no longer a time quest to hit the clock, but a war of attrition between who bank accounts.

2. Ebay style "Buy it now!" options:  Say I put up an Emerald on Auction for an entry bid of 5k to stimulate interest, I figure to myself lots of people will bid on that, I'm really expecting maybe 30-40k.  If somebody shelled out 60k, I'd do a happy dance, and I reeeaally wanna sell this emerald quick so I can finance my new guildhall...  So I'll say minimum bid 5000, or buy it now for 60,000.   Useful for offloading things quickly, and with an all around fair buyout option.  Anybody who feels slighted at having the other bidder beat them before the clock "should have bought it for 60k!"

3. When somebody makes a Silent Bid, an auctioneer should usually at least make an update post of the newest price to beat.  It's only fair, and you get more money that way.

4. Offering Services for Bidding: Silent Bids are good for bartering different kinds of services in exchange for an agreed upon value in gold.  So If I put up this Enchanted Longbow for auction and the bid's at 20k, some desperate archer might offer to gather 5 boxes of eggs for me.  Hey, I could use the cooking practice, and those egg boxes are expensive, I'll say that's worth 25k.  So both the barterer and the auctioneer agrees, and the auctioneer raises the bar to 25k.  Services and goods exchanges can range from loads of ore, gemstones, bodyguard contracts through areas you'd like to explore, the "G'ork does not rip out your heart and eat it in front of you after the auction" fund, etc.

5. There's gotta be some freeware javascript app that manages forum-friendly auctions somewhere.  If not, might be a nice seller for you coders out there.... (wink wink)

[lonnarin]

Hmmm, I bet Deliarite temples "collection plate" is actually more like an auction, where the donors all hold up coin "I'll give a true!"  "no no, here here! 10 true!"  "oi! Fifty! for I have sinned!" "five hundred!  Bless my investments, Deliar!"  Kind of an auction of blessings and indulgence, everybody trying to one-up each other's faith with visible wealth.

[Script Wrecked]

This issue has come up in the past and I bet it will come up again in the future.... Last second auction bids / wins. In my experience 9 times out of 10 the person who losses out at the last second will be upset. They might have bidded more if given the chance to do so. Since we do not have a MAX BID system here (or that is indeed another idea one can use but a bit more work with PM's and such.

My idea which I have seen used here in the past with much success.

No auction will close untill 12 hours (of more if you choose) has past with NO bids.  Say your auction closes at 6PM CST and someone bids at 5:55 PM CST... that bid automatically extends the auction end time by 12 hours to 5:55 AM CST... and any more bids that follow extend the auction 12 hours from that bid time. This gives all parties who had bid chance to bid again should they wish to. Efectivly eliminating that last second bid snipe.

No one gets upsed they lost an item they had the bid on for 2 days only to loose out in the last seconds. AND!!! You the seller stand to possibly make more money!! cause the action will not close now before all active bidders get a fair chance at bidding again.

No this isnt a rule. No you dont have to do it. But it certainly can create less upset people.. and possibly create more coin for your pocket!!  


EDIT Another idea is to NOT disclose the exact auction close time. Example: Say what day the auction will close but NOT what time. It has been my experience however that this method can lead to thoughts of favoritism so I do not use this method here.


G-452

First of all, twelve hours is far too short a time to allow a bid to stand. Layonara is played all over the world, chaps. To give everyone across all the different timezones a "fair" chance to respond to the current bid, the absolute minimum stand time should be twenty-four hours, preferably forty-eight.

Not disclosing the auction close time is potentially going to lead to accusations of favoritism; everything must be transparent.

This is why an only-one-private-bid system would not work as well (private, so that the first bidder is not at a disadvantage, unless... it was automated, and the auctioneer only sees the highest bid at the end of the auction...)

Also, its considered polite to give all times in GMT. That way, the "international" players don't have to do two time conversions each... time.

Regards,

Script Wrecked.