New Auctions

Tael

Sarapis said:

We're having a conversation at the moment about how to revise auctions to accomplish the two following goals:

1. Diminishing the impact of the auction end time on people across timezones.

2. Diminishing the impact of last-second bid sniping.

The Wikipedia article on auction sniping is good. I thought the Sorites Paradox was pretty interesting. In short, it just says that if the minimum bid increment is small enough, it is difficult/nigh-impossible for people to identify a maximum bid beyond which they are firmly 'out' of the auction. For instance, if you're willing to pay 3000 credits for an auction item, you probably want it badly enough to also pay 3005...and 3010....and 3015...Where do you draw the line? It's very difficult to do psychologically.

Some things we're discussing:
* Explicitly making the end-time of the auction random. You know which hour it ends in, but not when within that hour. This would make last-minute bid sniping much harder. 
* Auctioning off duplicates most of the time, and having those auctions end at different times. I think people might refrain from bidding on the item whose auction ends later until the first auction is finished, but I could be wrong.
* Automatically extending an auction by X minutes every time a bid is placed with less than X minutes left in the auction. This reduces bid sniping, but unless bid increments are substantially increased (very doable obviously), this is likely to turn into a "who can stay online continuing to place bids the longest?" 
* Increasing minimum bid increments.
* Possibly increasing minimum bid increments even more in the last hour of an auction.

Any thoughts?

Randomised end time doesn't solve things much - it just means that there's likely to be a flurry of incremental bids during that time period with the winner being the luckiest one. If anything, it actually promotes sniping since you don't have everyone trying to snipe all at some predetermined time.

I think a good solution would be this:
Make the minimum bid a function of two things - current winning bid and time left in the auction.

Personally, I would do this with a linear function for the current winning bid (a strict percentage essentially) multiplied by an exponential function for time left.

So time left has almost no effect on the auction until you start getting closer and closer to the end, at which point it starts getting more and more prohibitive to try to "snipe" at an ever-increasing rate. The problem with just doing a percentage of the current bid is that it doesn't make it any more prohibitive to put in a snipe bid than it is to put in a regular bid (just doing an exponential function doesn't work either since auctions can involve vastly different price scales).

Also, Sena's gold escrow idea is a very, very good one. It would go a long way to helping things I think.

Sena

Tael said:

Randomised end time doesn't solve things much - it just means that there's likely to be a flurry of incremental bids during that time period with the winner being the luckiest one. If anything, it actually promotes sniping since you don't have everyone trying to snipe all at some predetermined time.

I agree. With a known end time, I could bid everything I'm willing to bid just before the auction ends. With a random end time, I could have a trigger to automatically make incremental bids up to whatever my limit is, so I'm never outbid for more than a second or so. In that case, the randomness just adds a bit more risk.

Actually, it might be a good idea to make bidding take balance (or have its own separate balance) to prevent triggers like that. Or that might already be the case, I don't think I tried multiple bids per second in the last auction.

Penwize

Sena said:

With a random end time, I could have a trigger to automatically make incremental bids up to whatever my limit is, so I'm never outbid for more than a second or so.

Err, so, you could do with triggers exactly what the autobidding feature currently does?  I'm confused.

Sena

Penwize said:

Sena said:

With a random end time, I could have a trigger to automatically make incremental bids up to whatever my limit is, so I'm never outbid for more than a second or so.

Err, so, you could do with triggers exactly what the autobidding feature currently does?  I'm confused.

Almost the same as the autobidding. The main difference is that instead of attempts to outbid you automatically failing, they succeed, and then are outbid a second or so later (or a longer delay, but with a random end time that's pretty risky). It's not a huge advantage, depending on how other people bid, but it can easily make a difference.

Penwize

If two people are triggering their bidding, it's still the exact same only with client lag and a different message, no?

Yen

Trey said:

I think the cleanest solution to the sniping/time zone issue is to randomize the end time of the auction.  This would (hopefully) ensure that everyone who wants to bid does so well before the auction actually ends.

I'm positive this has absolutely nothing to do with me snaking that ship in a bottle away from you a few auctions back. (btw, 5.2 seconds between my bid and the auction ending)

It doesn't.  Believe it or not I actually do have a max value I'm willing to bid on something.  For the ship in the bottle, I was not going to pay more than 50% of what Chenubian wings would cost (at the time), because with Chenubian wings you could get two off-plane exits, not just one.

I deal with Sorites' paradox by just adding 15-20% to however I value the item, so if I lose I'm fairly sure I wouldn't want it at its actual selling price.

Is it frustrating?  Well, hearing that you don't even want the item for the price you paid for it is frustrating, but I don't regret not having set my autobid to 4k or whatever.

For multiple items it is more of an issue.  For instance someone might bid on A and B at a relatively low price, but if he gets outbid, he might want to make a higher bid on just one of them.  A sniper could snag both at a low price, leaving the original bidder unable to raise his bid on one of the items.

Sena

Penwize said:

If two people are triggering their bidding, it's still the exact same only with client lag and a different message, no?

And if two people are sniping by bidding everything at the last second, it's the same as no sniping at all. Pretty much any auction strategy is situational, and depends on how others are bidding.

Although if being instantly outbid by an autobid leaves your gold in your hands (I'm not sure if this is the case, since I didn't have a bank account while I was bidding), but being outbid otherwise sends your gold to your bank account, then that could be a pretty big advantage, since it could mean your opponent having to go to the bank, withdraw (with a fee), and return to a bidding room before they can bid again.

Kyrra

It would sense to be able to bid from a bank account in that case.

Xith

Regional auctions sounded like a really good idea for a minute. Like a Europe region, an Asia region, and an American region.

I guess on the one hand you could assign people to a region based on their IP, but you'd simultaneously give a new meaning to "proxy bidding". Har.

So you could let people register for only one region, but if I had to guess I'd say the asian players typically spend less on average than the european and american players, so regardless of closing times and sniping being inconvenient, I imagine they'd still have the bigger bargaining chips. (Could be wrong)

But since Achaean auctions aren't like penny auction sites, you aren't charged per bid, so you should set your max price 24 hrs beforehand and deal with it.

I understand "sniping" concerns in terms of competitive bidding, but if you didn't have your max set high enough to win or couldn't afford it to begin with, being outbid at the end just means you weren't going to win anyway. Unless I'm not factoring in the infamous impulse buy. 

But if I were intending to increase my artie value or buy credits I think I'd do it regardless and if I don't win the auction, that's just more bidding power to save up for next time. 2000 extra bound credits that I can store in the form of room credits so I don't think about them all the time. Or just buy a veil or transmutation or something to enjoy until it's escrow time again.

Kyrra

Room credits can't be traded in, last I checked. Unless that has changed?

Sena

You can sell room/halfroom/door credits.

Sarapis

Sena said:

It probably wouldn't make a huge difference, but implementing some form of escrow for gold auctions would help make it less necessary to wait until the end of the auction to bid.

Maybe unbound credits could be counted towards gold bids, with credits either valued at some low fixed amount (4k-5k) or a value based on recent credit market sales (they should be valued lower than the actual prices, to ensure that they can be sold for at least that value in a timely manner). Like with credit auctions, you would be expected to either sell those credits or get the gold some other way if you win.

We are very (to say the least) reluctant to interfere with the credit market by imposing or assuming an exchange rate for gold/credits, so we'd not do that. Gold auctions are intended to stimulate the demand for gold, and reward those who hold wealth in gold.

What we may do is allow for people to escrow for gold auctions based on bank accounts (still costing the standard withdrawl fee though), but not based on credits of any sort.

Silas

That leads to the same problem, though - buying credits to turn into gold that you then won't use. With credit escrows, you have your artefact value to bid with, whereas with gold, you have no set worth beyond the gold you have in your hands (or your bankaccount). If you don't want to interfere with the credit market, use the average selling price of credits that's already listed against unbound credits.

Admittedly, it's not a huge problem since gold is very readily available for people to save up for whatever auction items might catch their eye, but when you run a bunch of gold auctions shortly after an auction, it stands to reason people will have less gold on hand, and will be more likely to buy credits to sell which is what leads to frustration when there's a miscommunication on the end time of the auction.

Sylvance

Would it be out of the question to simply say that characters who have reached Logosian (ruling out lolalts) can bid any quantity of gold they like (whether or not they currently have it), but failure to pay up will result in serious zappage (like perma-shrub)?

Tvistor

That seems like a bad idea, because some people go to hilarious lengths to grief. Wouldn't put it past someone to hit 80, deliberately raise prices to something stupid, then get themselves shrubbed.

Sylvance

Tvistor said:

That seems like a bad idea, because some people go to hilarious lengths to grief. Wouldn't put it past someone to hit 80, deliberately raise prices to something stupid, then get themselves shrubbed.

Surely somebody would not grind to level 80 just to piss auctioneers off...?  Or am I once again showing a naive belief in the playerbase?  Honestly, I just can't see somebody doing that.

Iphis

Sylvance said:

Tvistor said:

That seems like a bad idea, because some people go to hilarious lengths to grief. Wouldn't put it past someone to hit 80, deliberately raise prices to something stupid, then get themselves shrubbed.

Surely somebody would not grind to level 80 just to piss auctioneers off...?  Or am I once again showing a naive belief in the playerbase?  Honestly, I just can't see somebody doing that.

Naive. 

Iocun

Not grind to level 80 to do that, perhaps. But someone who is already at level 80 and simply stopped bothering after that might still do it for lols. Even more so considering the fact that "perma-shrub" rarely means to be permanently shrubbed, in reality. A good portion of "perma-shrubbed" people eventually become unshrubbed anyways.

There's precedence of high level characters doing things that the admins warned against doing under the threat of perma shrubbing. There is also precedence of high level characters bidding more in auctions than they could afford.

Kyrra

Yeah but someone 80+ already did that

Sylvance

Kyrra said:

Yeah but someone 80+ already did that

Already did what? Screwed over an auction?

Kyrra

Yeah. If one person at that level is happy to do it for "lulz", imagine what someone having a pissy day and wanting to grief the player base might do?

Tvistor

Bonko would so grind to 80 if he had to.

Sylvance

Oh, right. I think I know what you're referring to.  Although he did pay up; the problem is for somebody who refused to pay.

Bonko

Tvistor said:

Bonko would so grind to 80 if he had to.

Zenui

With regards to the timezone problem, I'm reminded of a situation that comes up with housing lotteries for college dorms: You sign up for the lottery, and then at a certain meeting they'll draw numbers in order to select who gets preferred housing. You need to attend so that you can sign the legally binding housing contract if your name comes up. If you're not actually present when the lottery is held, you'll lose that opportunity. So, if you're not going to be able to attend, what you do is sign a document granting another person power of attorney: they'll go in your stead to the lottery and sign the housing contract if you're selected.

So my idea is that people who are interested in bidding on an auction item, but who know they won't be around when it'll end, be able to officially 'designate' someone else as their representative for the auction. The representative would be the one to submit bids for the auction; the designator would be the one to receive the auction item and would bear all financial responsibility if their representative places the winning bid.

This would have to be a hard-coded thing, since right now items from credit auctions can't be transferred from the person who placed the winning bid. And the amount of risk involved in choosing a representative is substantial: any problems between the bidder and their designated representative---either owing to accidents, malice, or simply aggressive bidding---could have major financial repercussions which the bidder would be obliged to bear. You'd have to -completely- trust your representative. But, however hazardous, it would give people with bad timezones an opportunity to interact with the auction, albeit in absentia, which they otherwise might not have.

Thoughts?

Horatio

Maybe it's just me, but I don't see any issues with absence near the end of auctions with the current system aside from the wonky early ending that Tecton and crew have said they've worked out.

Xith

Sylvance said:

Oh, right. I think I know what you're referring to.  Although he did pay up; the problem is for somebody who refused to pay.

Don't shrub them. Let them play but give their character a resetting spool of cloth and force them to sew shoes on a loop.

#ReasonsXithShouldn'tBeAGod

Anaidiana

Xith said:

Sylvance said:

Oh, right. I think I know what you're referring to.  Although he did pay up; the problem is for somebody who refused to pay.

Don't shrub them. Let them play but give their character a resetting spool of cloth and force them to sew shoes on a loop.

#ReasonsXithShouldn'tBeAGod

Yeah. Shoes are made with leather. 

Cahin

Next round of auctions will have 3 categories:

Gold

Credits

E-Bay

Xith

Anaidiana said:

Xith said:

Sylvance said:

Oh, right. I think I know what you're referring to.  Although he did pay up; the problem is for somebody who refused to pay.

Don't shrub them. Let them play but give their character a resetting spool of cloth and force them to sew shoes on a loop.

#ReasonsXithShouldn'tBeAGod

Yeah. Shoes are made with leather. 

Doesn't spoil the idea.