PlaneShift
Gameplay => General Discussion => Topic started by: Milana on July 15, 2006, 12:53:20 am
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I was attending an auction in the plaza held by Proglin following normal RL auction house procedures. He would describe the item then people would bid using auction channel. Suddenly people were silenced. It turned out to be Tarel. He then appeared in the Plaza and said that at a GM meeting 5 weeks ago, it was decided that auction channel would only be used for description of item and all other bidding and such should be done in tells.
First, where was this published to the players? You can not silence people for not adhering to a rule that was never published. That in itself is an abuse of GM powers.
Second, to keep bidding honest the bids should be public. While Proglin is an honest auctioneer who can say if the current bid published is a true bid or a ploy to drive the price up?
Third, have the GMs ever attended a RL auction? I have attended silent auctions, auctions with placards, and auctions done by voice only. The silent auction preferred by the secret GM meeting won't always work in the PS environment.
Please rethink this policy. If this policy is to remain, then publish it in the Player's Guide. If it isn't in the guide, it doesn't exist.
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This is a proper auction.......
16:14:08) Auction from Proglin: Come on people! A frosty small battle axe! D I hear 10 trias?
(16:14:15) Auction from Kankels: 10
(16:14:16) Vaice says: greetings Peacer
(16:14:17) Auction from Usarik: 500
(16:14:18) Auction from Biruno: 15
(16:14:20) Auction from Esserfin: 1k
(16:14:20) Auction from Parab: 10
(16:14:25) Bodacher says: 1000!
(16:14:25) Auction from Zopah: 2k
16:14:32) Auction from Esserfin: 3k
(16:14:41) Auction from Esserfin: 6k
(16:14:41) Auction from Proglin: I hear 5k!
(16:14:49) Auction from Proglin: Who's going to top that!
(16:14:51) Auction from Proglin: 6!!!
(16:14:59) Auction from Usarik: 6.5k
(16:15:01) Auction from Proglin: Come on people! A nice small battle axe!
(16:15:05) Auction from Zorbels: 7000k
(16:15:07) Auction from Proglin: Perfect for slaying rogues!
(16:15:10) Auction from Zopah: 2k and unlimited Slavery!
(16:15:11) Auction from Proglin: I hear 7000!
(16:15:13) Auction from Parab: 43
(16:15:21) Auction from Usarik: 10k
(16:15:29) Auction from Proglin: 10 THOUSAND trias!
(16:15:47) Auction from Proglin: Going once....
16:15:52) Auction from Proglin: Going twice,,,
(16:16:04) Auction from Proglin: SOLD to the proud brother Usarik!
Now my standing on this is .... I am fine and will follow any rules that Talad and the Gm's set down. Thing is this P.U.B.S Auction has been posted for about a month. Why wasn't it addressed before this event took place by the Gm's. Surely reading the post you would assume they would be using the auction box. Someone should have approached Proglin or Bodacher and spoke with them about this before this event took place. Not during!!!! The is completely disrespectful.
I also don't understand why I was muted without warning. I was right in the middle of bidding on an item! This was absolutely unacceptable. I should have had the proper notice, and had a warning so that I could send Proglin a /tell on my item instead of being muted.
Last but not least there should be a thread for the Gm's to post new rules added to the game that players don't have access to. No one knew of this rule found here New Aution rule (http://hydlaa.com/smf/index.php?topic=21538.msg271173#msg271173) which I might add was only posted today. Funny that! Now if it had I would have been more than willing to point it out to Proglin or bodacher so that they didn't waste time and effort into setting this auction up.
As far as I can tell before the auction was so rudely interupted it was going fine and not disturbing anyone. The logs listed above ARE what a real life auction would be like. I think Proglin and Bodacher are owed an apology and I think this could have been dealt with in a better manner. I agree with Milana, please rethink this policy or publish this. Do not spring new rules on the players in such a manner.
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I agree. GM's should not make new rules like this and not tell the players anywhere except in the middle of an auction. I believe the auctions channel was designed to be used like this anyway, so GM's probably shouldn't make such rules without consulting the developers who designed it (aka, Talad). If there's a problem with flooding then we can code a solution I think.
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OK I wasn't there, had to leave the pc with ps on it, i can follow the new rule fine, and agree with zorbels this thing ws mentioned ages ago, yet nothing was mentioned about this new rule. I can see why its used, as in the future, there will be too many people on and will aslo want to sell things at the time. Perhaps if in game auctions are to become more common the dev team (mainly graphics dep) could open up another building somewhere and make that into a small auction house (doesn't have to be very complex, just a small retangular building with a auction platform) where people can use the main chat to have the auction.
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In the GM-meeting a few weeks ago, the Game Masters agreed upon the following rule:
In Auction-channel it is only allowed to offer or ask for a trade.
The rest (like bidding and asking for more information) is seen as flooding the channel and should only be done in channels like Chat, Tells and Group.
This rule was not added to the forums yet, for some reason.
But now it is added in the Players Policy topic.
And besides that point, i was warning players in the auctionchannel, but my messages
were not shown to the public for some reason, while the did in previous version 14.
This was a reason why everyone was suprised about it.
I believe the auctions channel was designed to be used like this anyway, so GM's probably shouldn't make such rules without consulting the developers who designed it (aka, Talad). If there's a problem with flooding then we can code a solution I think.
and i also like to qoute from Talad's words:
* Developers are not GMs and are a separate structure.
* Developers have different goals and are not supposed to moderate the game.
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That post still doesn't excuse that this P.U.B.S event was posted over a month ago. I know alot of the Gm's saw it before it took place. Why wasn't it addressed then? Why left until last minute? Why could this have not been left to finish .... as I know we weren't disturbing anyone .... then following after the auction it could have been made clear that the system doesn't allow the event to take place as it did and further events like Proglin and Bodachers would have to be handled in a different manner? Over all it could have been handled alot better. You have a bunch of ticked off players as a result to the way it was handled. Not good, it discourages any type of ambition to set up an event. That is something this game cannot afford to lose.
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Dear GM's and Dev's or whomever goes over this,
You were very supportive with my ideas at the start, you even helped out at my tournaments in the beginning. but when my business attracted more RP, and becamebetter liked by the players, you stopped helping me.
I tried to create a newspaper, which was supported at first, but later one, when it took off, was destroyed cause we were no longer allowed to use our pets as sign posts.
Then I created an auction with my friend Bodacher, it went well, was fully RP, people liked it, people had fun, and once again, the GM's were very pleased to see the auction chaneel be used for an actual auction. But luckely... this RP auction was also destroyed by you guys, cause it is now called spamming.
All this leads to me wondering if it is really worth it. I try and create something, arround thegam mechanics, still involving loads of RP, and it gets more and more difficult cause of new rules, lame excuses and whatnot. Dear GM's and dev's... if you want me to stop creating, just say so. if you don't want me to stop creating, show a tad of supporthere and there.
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I was attending an auction in the plaza held by Proglin following normal RL auction house procedures. He would describe the item then people would bid using auction channel. Suddenly people were silenced. It turned out to be Tarel. He then appeared in the Plaza and said that at a GM meeting 5 weeks ago, it was decided that auction channel would only be used for description of item and all other bidding and such should be done in tells.
First, where was this published to the players? You can not silence people for not adhering to a rule that was never published. That in itself is an abuse of GM powers.
Second, to keep bidding honest the bids should be public. While Proglin is an honest auctioneer who can say if the current bid published is a true bid or a ploy to drive the price up?
Third, have the GMs ever attended a RL auction? I have attended silent auctions, auctions with placards, and auctions done by voice only. The silent auction preferred by the secret GM meeting won't always work in the PS environment.
Please rethink this policy. If this policy is to remain, then publish it in the Player's Guide. If it isn't in the guide, it doesn't exist.
i bet whoever told you to shut up was a dickhead.
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That post still doesn't excuse that this P.U.B.S event was posted over a month ago. I know alot of the Gm's saw it before it took place. Why wasn't it addressed then? Why left until last minute? Why could this have not been left to finish .... as I know we weren't disturbing anyone .... then following after the auction it could have been made clear that the system doesn't allow the event to take place as it did and further events like Proglin and Bodachers would have to be handled in a different manner? Over all it could have been handled alot better. You have a bunch of ticked off players as a result to the way it was handled. Not good, it discourages any type of ambition to set up an event. That is something this game cannot afford to lose.
I can't speak for other GM's.
But i follow the rule as they are agreed upon with the GM-team.
Everytime when i am around, i deal with the players the same way.
I give them a normal message in the auction-channel and explain what is and what is not allowed.
I have been doing this for weeks already.
You can ask around if you don't believe it.
I have spoken with Proglin and many others who contacted me.
Proglin and Bodacher continued in the Chat-channel as stated in the rules, so no harm was done anymore from that point.
And Game Masters can only see auctions, when we are in range of an auction.
When i am in Ojaveda, i can't see the auctions in Hydlaa.
If i was earlier present near the auction, i would have sent the auction-rule earlier in the Auction-channel.
If my message was shown, as it did in previous versions, you would have also known it earlier.
I now had to become visible to sent the message to the channel.
To conclude it.
When the system showed my message to everyone, as it did in the previous versions, then everyone would have known about it and did not receive the suprise of being muted.
Things would have handled better then and the result was the same.
No bidding or asking more information in the Auction-channel, but simply offer or ask for a trade
and move to normal chat.
Bidding is roleplaying and the auction-channel is a kind of bill-board in the opinion of the GM-team. Thats a reason why the bidding should be done in normal chats.
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i hate repeating others of what's already said, but i think this rule is quote riddicilous, we had to stuff together to head Prog and Bod in /say because they didn't want to spam anyone else not attending to it with shouts. It gave an odd situation which is not realistic as it wasn't secret nor poor on money making people go into a pack because there's to little space in the auction house for people to be spread out which weren't the situation here as it was in the open air on the middle of the plaza.
Yeah auction sends to the whole plaza too, but look what it says "auction from person" either bidding or offering, the text is normally red, you don't read it if you are notthere, shouts could intefer with others rp ginving a confusing little chatbox.
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Nothing wrong with the whole auction being carried out in /auction.
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This was badly handled..
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Nothing wrong with the whole auction being carried out in /auction.
Thats my thoughts exactly but we are being told different. This honestly makes no sense ...... to not have the auction in the auction box. For the love of Talad could someone please review this new rule and at least have it make sense.
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There are a lot of weird opinions, strangely the majority of which eixst within the GM team, that the developers have no say or need to have no say in GM work. There's no point in quoting back the GM Guide at Xordan - he helped write it, he knows precisely what it says. There was a mistake in not consulting with the devs before making rules about how to use game features.. It kind of flew by.
One argument in favor of this that I remember was that if five different offers were presented in the auction channel at the same time, it would not only be hard for players to follow bids on this or that, but it would indeed flood the chat for others. I think at this point if some solution can be coded, it would be welcomed.
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this P.U.B.S is like the first real auction system the game has ever had. so now, everytime we want to make a bid we have to do /tell auctioneer bid...thats a pain. its not as if we are disrupting anyone. in RL if you are standing near an auction, you could hear it also. then you would move away if you wanted to talk privately or without disruption. it shoul be the same in-game. if you dont want to hear the auction, go away. how does it flood the channel since thats like the only auction that has more than like 2 items. wait for it to be over, and you have a crowd already gathered! or go away to another area to auction in. i dont see any reason that you guys would want to destroy this but i see that you have...
There are a lot of weird opinions, strangely the majority of which eixst within the GM team, that the developers have no say or need to have no say in GM work. There's no point in quoting back the GM Guide at Xordan - he helped write it, he knows precisely what it says. There was a mistake in not consulting with the devs before making rules about how to use game features.. It kind of flew by.
One argument in favor of this that I remember was that if five different offers were presented in the auction channel at the same time, it would not only be hard for players to follow bids on this or that, but it would indeed flood the chat for others. I think at this point if some solution can be coded, it would be welcomed.
when has anyone ever seen five different offers posted at the same time...?
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One argument in favor of this that I remember was that if five different offers were presented in the auction channel at the same time, it would not only be hard for players to follow bids on this or that, but it would indeed flood the chat for others. I think at this point if some solution can be coded, it would be welcomed.
Is auction local or global? If its local then I suppose thats just realisitic, because in a real auction you could possible have alot of people bidding at the same time. If anyone in the city has to read all the messages, then it's pretty annoying.
What would be a nice feature would be some sort of a screen showing all those participating in the auction and their last, highest bid.
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when has anyone ever seen five different offers posted at the same time...?
What she is saying is it could happen. Never said it did. She is right though, it could very well happen. One suggestion I have is a roll with dice. Whoever has the highest role wins that bid and the others have to bid higher if they want the item.
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/auction is local, and I believe it has /shout range. Zorbels, is /roll local as well? That wouldn't work if people stood far enough apart - since the /rolls have to be seen to be honest.
What would be a nice feature would be some sort of a screen showing all those participating in the auction and their last, highest bid.
I'd like to see more suggestions like these. If anyone has ideas that don't involve actual auction houses, make them now and in as much detail as you can. For the screen/window, would it be specific to a single auction or would that work for all auctions in general? I think having several screens for separate auctions may become too much to follow, whether now or later. But I like the general idea.
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One argument in favor of this that I remember was that if five different offers were presented in the auction channel at the same time, it would not only be hard for players to follow bids on this or that, but it would indeed flood the chat for others. I think at this point if some solution can be coded, it would be welcomed.
(emphasis mine)
Actually, using the auction channel is the best way I can think of not to flood the chat. People don't even need to move away in order to carry out a conversation in /say, just switch from the "All" tab to "Chat".
Also, I remember from a while ago that DaveG was adding "reason" as a required argument for all GM commands that affect players. Did /mute get missed? Mute should show the reason for muting to the player as a system message, so they know what they did wrong.
My two cents.
josePhoenix
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Yes, Karyuu /roll dice is local. I think it is the same amount of distance that you would hear regular chat in the chat box. :)
[Edit] Just tested with Illori to make sure and yes, dice is only heard local. Not like the shout.
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Actually, using the auction channel is the best way I can think of not to flood the chat. People don't even need to move away in order to carry out a conversation in /say, just switch from the "All" tab to "Chat".
problem solved. thanks jose. if they dont want to hear the auction, switch. if they need to use all, tough.
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I think the easiest thing to do then (new-feature-wise) would be to be able to select which chat windows you want to see - for example you can make custom choices of "Chat", "Guild", and "Tell", and ignore everything else. Or "Group" and "Guild". That way you wouldn't be limited to just one, or all at once.
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Heres a few suggestions I have.
To start it off, rather than having a channel like most games I have seen, I'm thinking there could be an auction button one clicks on to see the various items up for sale. It would be another button similar to the exsisting ones we have now (along the top/side, the guild, shortcuts, info, petition butons, etc.) Upon clicking the button, it would bring up a window. One column in the window will list items currently up for sale. Maybe there coiuld be a text box where the player is able to type in keywords, with a filter button, so that it would filter out the items the player is looking for. Another column next to the item could be used for a minimal asking price set by the person selling the item. And while we are at it, this wouldn't really have to be limited to monetary funds either, to extend on it, people could offer up a series of goods in exchange for the item they want.
Upon double clicking the item the player finds interesting, a new window pops up. This is where the actual bidding for the item is done. Similar to the description box of an item we have in game now, the item's name is across the top, the body of the window could be something like this. The first area would have bid history of the item. What the first bid of the item was, the second and so forth. On the bottom, buttons, the first one could be 'add bid' which would bring up something like your invetory and another window similar to the existing trade window (this way you couldn't make false bids) The player would then select the items they wish to offer up, by dragging them from the inventory to the other window, and by selecting ok, the items offered would then be locked in the players inventory, so they can't get rid of them while the auction is going on. Also, the window with the bid history would then update to reflect the players bid. This would also trigger a system message to the auctioner, that their item they put up for bid has been bid on. More on that in just a little bit. Getting back to the bidder, next to the bid button, there could be a modify bid button, or perhaps, the place bid button changes into the modify bid button once they place a bid. This would allow the player to then update their bid, in case they get out bid for the item, of if the auctioner sends them a tell saying they like the offer, but would like the bidder to add/change/remove certain items from the bid for various reasons. Once a person places a bid, they can't withdral it to prevent people from inflating the auction. Once the person bidding is satisfied, they can then close this window and go back to the main auction window to browse other items and such. Also, to make it easier on the the bidder, the items they bid on could be in a different color/bolded/ or perhaps a check box in a third column to indicate which items they have bid on out of the list.
When a new bid is placed that outbids the old one, a system message could be sent to the other bidders, telling them that thier bid has been out bid. Then, they could go modify their bid if they wish to.
Another option is to not have a system where on bidder out bids another. Instead, players place their offer on a specific item, and then the seller decides out of the bids which one they like best and then accepts that one. Or, should they not find any bid acceptable, they close the auction without having the item sold. In this case, the second window with the bid history wouldn't show who got out bid, but rather it would just list all the offers that have been made by varios players for the item.
On to the the seller side of it. Once the seller decides that the satisfied with the offer, they can then mark thier item as being sold. This way no one else can bid on it. And the item then leaves the list of available items up for auction in the main window. Similar to how the trade window works, the seller could then accept the offer and the two players items would trade. I do see problems with this as with it this way, it would be more OOC than IC since the two players needent be close together to trade items. Then again, this whole setup is more OOC than IC since you're using this magical system to trade items with other people you may never see. Which is why, I'll propse a different solution to the /auction which is much less coding and more IC next. After the auction for the item is over, the people that lost the auction would then be able to use thier items again for other things. An interesting situation would come up though, if the seller didn't have the room for the items they got in return. So if this happens, there could be a check before the seller accepts the bid to see if they have the room/carrying capacity to accept it without dropping the traded items, and if they don't pop up a warning about it and ask them if they still wish to accept the trade.
There would also have to be a limit as to how long an auction can go on. Maybe, one week of IG time? The time limit could be tweaked later. This would prevent items staying in auction forever. To make it a bit more realistic, perhaps if the seller leaves teh game, any open auctions they have automatically get closed without anyone winning. And inorder to win, both the bidder and seller must be online to make the trade.
To be a bit fancy, each sector could have its own auctions. As in, if a player opens thier auction window in one secotr, they will have one list of items, but if they travel to another sector, they will see a different set of items in the auction window.
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Now that method may seem a bit complicated, but more importantly it takes away form the ICness and brings auction even more OOC than they are now. Really, the best solution is to have a in game auction house or an arean one can go to bid one items. Prehaps, incorporating the idea stated above with a limited area would work. As if someone tries to open the auction button outside the designated auction area, they won't see any auctions. This would bring the window version of the auction comand much more IC as the player would still have an easy way to filter everything for sale throught the auction window, but it would still be IC for the most part since all the auctioning is done in a single place.
The other suggestion I have is a much simpler one. But then again, it doesn't help to cut down on the confusion that the auction chat can have now, nor does it really help to bring the auction idea into more of a IC type of function. But here goes anyway.
Simply allow the auction tab to be optional. The system messages are optional, theres a way to not show them right in the settings inside the game, it could be done so that the player could have the ability to show/hide these messages as well. This way, only those interested in auctioning, would have the messages show. And reading other peoples posts while I have been typing all this out, I see similiar ideas like this have been suggested.
I think that's it for now. Feel free to rip this idea of mine to shreads, but I'd prefer structured critism if you can.
Oh, and let me know if you all need pictures, I can add diagrams to help understand the window concept better if you'd like.
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I think the easiest thing to do then (new-feature-wise) would be to be able to select which chat windows you want to see - for example you can make custom choices of "Chat", "Guild", and "Tell", and ignore everything else. Or "Group" and "Guild". That way you wouldn't be limited to just one, or all at once.
The online game Eternal Lands has a chat channel system pretty much like this, Karyuu... and it wouldn't surprise me if this sort of feature was on other games as well
http://www.eternal-lands.com/
Edit: Trying out link to a small screenshot of how Eternal Lands do their Chat Channels
(http://theimagehosting.info/out.php/t9467_EternalLandsChannels.jpg) (http://theimagehosting.info/show.php/9467_EternalLandsChannels.jpg.html)
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I had hoped that the outrage over this wouldn't have gotten so big and so public in so short a time. As it stands, I feel I have to step up and explain a few things about what happened prior to the auction.
While it is true that the idea for it and the announcement about the auction in the forums have been around for almost a month, I must point out that ONE of the GM's did approach me and discuss this situation a few days ago. I won't post the log as that is not allowed, but what I took away from that discussion was that the GM's had met and discussed introducing this new resolution. I was under the understanding that:
- Our advertising before the auction should be done in the /auction channel, rather than in /shout, as we had been doing.
- Bidding in the /auction channel was acceptable, as long as it was kept In Character but that it was slightly frowned upon.
- The test auctions that both Proglin and I ran at separate times appeared to have a bit too much chatter in the /auction channel
I approached Proglin about this and we discussed taking the bidding out of the /auction channel. As we had not been told specifically NOT to do it, we decided that, not only was it easier for us as the auctioneers to keep track of the bidding when it is done in a different colour chat, it seemed to us at the time that it was adding to the RP atmosphere of the event, not detracting from it. Thus, we decided to keep it the way we had originally planned it.
Being forced to take the auction entirely into /say (We were told by the GM at the event to take it to /group or /tell - How is one supposed to foster an RP atmosphere by taking the RP into /group or /tell where no bystanders can see it and join in?), totally changed the mood and atmosphere of the event. To try and keep the auctioneer sane enough to keep track of bids, we had to ask all the people there to limit their /say chatter. This essentially killed the mood, and prevented (in my opinion anyway) many from expanding on the RP and playing their roles properly. Some tried and a big THANKS go out to you for trying to make the event even better than it was. Proglin and I would like to sincerely apologize to Anfa, as because of the unexpected changes, one or more of her bids got lost because of range issues and she lost out on getting a particular item she had her eye on, even though it was clearly within her means to pay more.
To sum up, part of the blame for this fiasco rests solely on my shoulders, but I am in no way defending the actions of the GM who intervened, as I feel it could have been handled much better. Hopefully the outcome of this will be a better system to help promote RP events like this, instead of suppress them, which is what I feel happened here. From the few latter posts in the thread I feel things are headed in the right direction.
Bod
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I used to be a licenced auctioneer in ny city...with that said let me point outa few things...
1: 95% of bidding is on inpulse.. a bidder see someone bidding and things like OH NO YOU DONT. HOW DARE YOU TAKE THAT FROM ME,or OH MY GOD IM GONNA LOOSE THIS BID AND I REALLY WANT THIS.. are just to name a few of things people get huffy about in a bid..
2: bidding is to dive the price up solely to allow the posted client to get the MAXUMUM price one can for said item
3: items are bidding on to not just sell them but to get RID of them the seller/client wants it to be GONE.
so with all that in mind now and that being the HIGHLIGHTS of auctions...
lets review the auction channel(tab or panel whatever you perfer) was setup to AUCTION items form players. good idea, i might add too...
now there was an auction held. great interaction on ther part i might add too... now your telling me that it was held wrong that its flooding the channel/tab/panel by crying(*spelling* for calling an auction) an item and then acepting public bids on said items..oh boy someones really confused if your going to stop this this way...as it from the above post example of how the auction went...thats how an auction is held..and see my points above on how a bid is percived durring an auction..if tells witch are private are to be done then no its no longer an auction but a closed lets tell the price game...and cant evan be classified as an auction or best a closed or secret bid.
some ideas on how to solve this...
1: code a voice or operator system(as the chat interface is coded just like an irc i assume it be fairly easy to set up the auction chanell(as ill callit now) to be a moderated and operator controled channel..ie the auctioneer posts to a forum threed his wished time of aution(easy enoph to add a forum topic for auctions to be held type posting area...then or evan a acutioneer can also ask in the auction channelin ten mins auction blah blah...allow a code to be placed in to allow the actioneer to take over the channel...thus allowing only one bidding item at a time and not be confused withmulti auctions atthe same time...and then the actioneer has to take forlets say in this example biddersregister and get voiced...then the auctionneer closes registration and the auction begines...
easy to do with a few code changes... best suggestion in my book(opionion)
2: basicaly same rules aply but to conform to the wakey(yes i said waky tell rule by gms that are sadly mistaking on auctions) but in this case the bidders are again registered and then closed but all transactions ar ehelp by the fouintain or other area NO NOT IN THE PATHS BY THE TAVERN OR ANY PLACE LIKE htat a sucluded area of gathering this way it does not disturb others unless they want to be a partof it..another good place is behind the temple theres a area ( i thinkits a gasiboo or tableor fountian something along those lines) again empazizeing away from others...
3: rewrite code to be a closed system aloowing listings and bidding this wouldtake alotof time on the devs parts and would most likly not be implimented till last but a good idea(mentioned above) i dont like it as it will take too much to do with mysql manipulations and meny gui implimentaions let alone more core codeing too(might be missing something here but you get the idea its a big big deal to do)
so call it an auction if you will but your dead wrong if your gonna do it by tells and the way the gm's are saying...
side notes: i think it was serously wrong to not post the rules heck i still cant find um on a breif look for um, and not only give time for this but also to evan come up with it with out asking the players too...rules and things are to help the game not hiner it and i think it serously hindered the game play... another thing please post and give it time to be known...and take my advice from a guy that used d-dials (pre interrnet irc chat) and has run and coded irc servers... do not mute a person unless you are willing to ban the users FOR GOOD off the game as sometimes it comes to that..warn and talk to the player first dont just jump the gun so to speak...
i do not know what happened in this case but from the posts i read here thats how i percived it MAY of happened...if it didnt happen that way please take my advice GM's i almost got sued for muting a person and yes they almost got aeay with it...bu the arbitrator talking to the person and explained that is was MY server and he can do as he pleases but we can go thru with this and he may very well loose but he can resue you for what u are doing type thing...thats another story tho...just take caution when muting someone..the game is to have fun..not have ill will twords the gm'sor anyone else...enoph said about that...just my two tria(cents)
so take my ideas or lump them, love or leave um... just an idea and suggestions...
{i did not make this post to argue or hurt anyone just my thoughts and opnions... i dontmind you notlikeing it but do not flame me forit too as it can be taken the wrong way..please dont its met to point out things and to help *smile*}
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I totally disagree with this rule. I see it as nothing more than GMs finding another way to be petty tyrants in this tiny domain...
I wrote the /auction feature, and in fact most of the entire chat system, and I'm here to tell you that the intent was that buying and selling use that because the people that are interested in that are interested and the people who aren't, aren't, so it should be easily filterable. If the issue is spamming the "All" tab, the GMs should raise that to the developers, not invent ridiculous rules about not using a channel for its intended purpose.
I despair though, of ever getting the GMs to see that their job isn't to invent rules.
My $.02,
- Vengeance
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With that comment from a dev, I'd like to suggest this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_disobedience
I boycot this new GM ruling. That doesn't mean I will purposely spam the /auction channel (in fact I've never actually used it), it simply means, that on the rare chance that I ever do decide to use the auction channel, I will be responding my offerings for what is being sold in it, as opposed to /tells.
"Non-violent resistance implies the very opposite of weakness. Defiance combined with non-retaliatory acceptance of repression from one's opponents is active, not passive. It requires strength, and there is nothing automatic or intuitive about the resoluteness required for using non-violent methods in political struggle and the quest for Truth. "
--Mohandas Gandhi
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I was unable to attend todays auction, but was there for the last one put on by Prog and Bod. I have to say it was a very enjoyable RPing experience. The auction channel, was being used as it was developed for, and the chat channel was full of total RP interaction.
This blattent attempt at letting us know whos boss, is totaly totalitarian.
Correct me if I am wrong, but is it not the job of the GM to
* Developers have different goals and are not supposed to moderate the game.
NOT TO
I see it as nothing more than GMs finding another way to be petty tyrants in this tiny domain...
I despair though, of ever getting the GMs to see that their job isn't to invent rules.
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With that comment from a dev, I'd like to suggest this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_disobedience
I boycot this new GM ruling.
Remember - PlaneShift is not a democracy. ;)
But I enjoy to see many constructive ideas here. So far we seem to have two main suggestions:
a) Limit the auctioning in the "Auction" channel to first offers, and continue in different channels.
b) Use the "Auction" channel for the whole auction, and have the people decide which channel to look at.
In my personal opinion, I'd like to support b) -- with an additional wish: Just like there is an auto-decline for duel challenges, there could also be a way to disable receiving the Auction channel. I still wonder why there is some room for buttons below the text edit line in the message window...
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As i see that everyone is attacking me, for following a rule that GM's agreed upon.
I would like to publice the Gm's/Devs names, who were present at the meeting.
Talad (was online but away during the meeting)
Uyaem
Hadfael/Frostmorn
Bakuun/Karyuu
Xordan
Syilph
Kerol
Tarel
So you can see that there were Devs present at the meeting.
And they are now denying the Auctionrule, that they also agreed upon.
I see the involved Gm's/Dev's talking from both sides now.
At the meeting they could have made they're opinion clear and
it seems now, that they deny the Auction-rule, that is discussed and was agreed.
I am not allowed to give the transcript of the meeting, but i won't
take any damage alone, when it is discussed and agreed.
What i did, was no solo action, but was with approval of the above mentioned GM's/Dev's.
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Xordan isn't always present - check your logs, he went AFK very shortly. He also never gave his "okay" on this, so it's not fair to bring him up. You might also remember a very heated discussion that took place before this agenda point was brought up - and I think at that point people just wanted to agree on something and move on. Yes I was present, and yes I too said "okay." And I'm feeling really guilty about it now.
So no, this is no blame of Tarel's alone, and it's not fair to single him out if anyone is attempting this.
This was a bad mistake of the GM team as a whole, and I'm really, really sorry that it caused so much stress and irritation for players. We had a duty to you that we inadvertently failed this time.
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im very pleased that a GM said basicaly they were sorry... Thank you for careing about the game...
its hardto be policeor ruleinforcers...we must also as players understand this is a game to be enjoyed and that not all decisions are going to be a good one...
again thank you
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Hadfael/Frostmorn
These two are not the same person. (just assuming that is what you meant seeing the way you set Kary out).
the things that go on in that channel when im not there to say no :p
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Now before anyone decides that it is time for a witch hunt: GMs are humans and humans make mistakes. The chain of events that led to this disaster doesn't extract a single person to blame for, in the end everyone participating has somehow contributed to this developement, and I hope we can stop the fingerpointing now. The only thing that is important now is a definitive answer: Is this 'new system' going to be pulled through?
frankly the guy who acted the most mature in this thread is drey
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A auction is done in a similar fashion as was done in game. [In the time we are suppose to be living in] it is called auction for a reason. so unless you intended to rule all are lives butt out and let it be run as a auction, also if some one spams or brakes the rules that were laid down in the guide then GMs do your JOB, I.E. be a police man, Just a bit of hummer hear if you are on line that is ;D
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I'm pretty sure that being afk and not reading the meeting logs means that I didn't ok it. ;)
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Xordan isn't always present - check your logs, he went AFK very shortly. He also never gave his "okay" on this, so it's not fair to bring him up. You might also remember a very heated discussion that took place before this agenda point was brought up - and I think at that point people just wanted to agree on something and move on. Yes I was present, and yes I too said "okay." And I'm feeling really guilty about it now.
So no, this is no blame of Tarel's alone, and it's not fair to single him out if anyone is attempting this.
This was a bad mistake of the GM team as a whole, and I'm really, really sorry that it caused so much stress and irritation for players. We had a duty to you that we inadvertently failed this time.
Sounds to me as if the meeting was badly conducted; who was the chairperson? How can anyone be counted as present if they are afk? If the meeting had been disrupted by a "very heated discussion" then no more decisions should have been made while feelings were running high, it was up to the chairperson to suspend the rest of the agenda for another time until the point in contest had been resolved not rush through the rest of the meeting just to get it over with. If these meetings are being conducted without electing a chairperson then you should be seriously considering this point. IRL no meeting which involves making important decisions and rules would be conducted without one. Meetings without a person in charge inevitably fall into chaos.
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We are well aware.
I have already apologized, both on my behalf and on the behalf of the team - this is not a common occurance by far. We're not machines, we make (serious) mistakes as well, but the key point now is to admit it, undo the harm done, and prevent it from happening again.
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I applaude those that have said a mistake was made here. I am a former administrator of the RPGA's World Wide Living Greyhawk Campaign. I was a Triad member for the Furyondy Region. In any game, the rules have to be published 1st & a date set for their implementation. If the players don't know what the rules are, how are they to follow them? This in my opinion was the biggest mistake that happened here. These rules where never published period. We can't have a GM walking into the middle of something & saying that the rules have changed, weather the rule was agreed to or not. It the rule was never published, it should never be enforced.
I am not sure how the structure of PS is set up, but from my experiences it is the Administrators, in this case the Devs, who should set the rules, & the GMs job is to enforce those rules. I don't think it is a wise move to have the GMs making rules & then also enforcing them. The admistrators could ask for the GMs input on rules or rule changes, but it should be the Devs who make the final decision on rules issues & the GMs responsibility to enforce them.
I strongly suggested that a policy be establish that states: all rule changes will be published in such a manner that the player base has a chance to review the rules prior to their implementation, and a date for such implementation set as to allow the player base a chance to review the rule. It will not kill anyone to wait a few days for a new rule or a rule change to go into affect.
The players need to know what the rules are. The only way to do this is publish them in advance. Anyway those are my opinions on the matter as a player & a former administrator in a world wide campaign.
Gan, "Long Beard"
Leader White Dragon Clan
Dragon High Master in the Dragon Council
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@Pip: Sounds to me like you found the perfect opportunity to pick at the Gm's. X-/ Karyuu said there was already an apology. Not only that but I think it is up to the Gm team to organize and fix the problems of their system, as far as I know you are not apart of that team, and no one asked you for solutions. Besides you don't know the whole story, only the bits and pieces Karyuu and Tarel have posted in their posts.
@Tarel: No one is flaming you or picking on you. We have all pointed out this was badly handled. I get that you were trying to follow the rules, but in the manner that you did it .... well it casued problems. I would like it if instead of explaining your actions, if maybe you would recognize that this could have been dealt with better. Everyone makes mistakes and they are forgivable. A simple apology and a "I will handle it better next time" would be helpful. Not pointing fingers at everyone else.
I think a lesson has been learned from all sides here. It is now time to move forward and learn from those lessons. If someone wants to set up a huge event I would strongly suggest speaking with the Gm's to make sure that what you have planned is with in the rules. I am pretty sure that the Gm's will be making sure that any new rules made will be made public to avoid this mess that happened the other day with the auction.
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@Pip: Sounds to me like you found the perfect opportunity to pick at the Gm's. X-/ Karyuu said there was already an apology. Not only that but I think it is up to the Gm team to organize and fix the problems of their system, as far as I know you are not apart of that team, and no one asked you for solutions. Besides you don't know the whole story, only the bits and pieces Karyuu and Tarel have posted in their posts.
Like you she is giving her thoughts on the subject, or are you only allowed to ? She also never implied or said she was part of the team, this is a public forum and a solution to a problem is how i read her post.
That said yes a apology was given, but the event was ruined and chaos for a bit this morning rained in auction as I was online a player put up a weapon for auction and was pounced on and told good job no GM is on or you would be for it, not that exact words were used but you get the idea i hope.
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Like you she is giving her thoughts on the subject, or are you only allowed to ? She also never implied or said she was part of the team, this is a public forum and a solution to a problem is how i read her post.
The topic is about the auction and how it was shut down. Not about how the Gm's hold their meetings.
I never implied she was part of the gm team either. Actually, I pointed out that she wasn't. Janner, I absolutely would never tell someone that they are not allowed to voice there opinion. Stop trying to take shots. I pointed out the obvious to your wife, deal with it, or better yet let her.
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I think everyone has reached an agreement that the issue has been badly treated.
Once this point is reached, and seeing that all parts want to not commit that same mistake again, it's time to move on, and wonder about the future.
The question has been asked, I think in the 1st page, but has been progressively deluding.
It's time to give it back to life.
Do you think we need an specific coded system for the auctions?
That is what should focus our attention now.
In that sense, I'd say that I pretty much share neko's vision (great post, Neko) about the whole idea.
Implementing a thing that would deal with auctions is feasible, yes, and it would drive it in an automated way... perhaps too automated. Till the point that it can loose IC flavour.
Judging from the extract of log Zorbels posted (I wasn't present at the auction event) I must say that it seems it went fairly fine, with the current auction system.
So, while it's true it has it's limitations, the actual system is all text based, and by that, is open to imagination on bidders side. Having a window with the name of object in auction, together with the best bet updated in a label, with the chance to only put a number in there... I feel, as Neko, that it would loose flavour. Has ever been any real issue in an auction that would have gone better if an automated auction system had been implemented?
I think that, if the case arrives, that an auction ends on tie, the auctioner could then take those that equaled the last price, and talk to them, and surely reach an agreement.
And, if the day arrives when there are more than 1 person auctioning an object, we're all enough minded as to stablish turns to auction.
There is a RP chance in an auction (no with the current prices, I must add, those prices are, for me, entirely OOC) and perhaps implementing a system, would turn them into something more rigid. As if you look to the "spell book" but with bets, instead of glyphs.
So, to my eyes, the auction channel, as it is now, has enough potential.
If the playerbase feels the need of creating an automated auction system (special attention to those that attended to said auction, as well as the autioneers, since they must have more experience than me) then thoughts have to be put on it, for some time, before starting to actually code it, to ensure that, the most optimal approach is reached.
For the time being, though, my vision goes with Neko's.
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The meetings were brought up by a GM in this thread so yes it is part of it.
Definitely getting old also read second part of thread title " GM secret meetings"
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I guess it's too late for me to be posting this, but simply put, the auction channel is for auctions and bidding on the items auctioned off. /tell for a solution to the "spamming" is unrealistic, since this is an IC RP and people aren't going to walk up to Proglin or Bodacher and whisper in their ear what they're bidding so no one can hear. Rule or not, if you want this to be a roleplaying game, you'd better make it realistic. "Spamming" in my eyes is an OOC action, where someone will repeat the same line of text continuously and fill up the chat box. I'm glad this game has different chat tabs. You have Chat, Tell, Auction, Guild, Group, all that good stuff. /tell is for personal messages, IC or OOC, and once again, auction is for auctions and biddings. Don't bend the rules on what these tabs are used for, I'd like to hear from Talad himself when and why this or that is being changed, instead of hearing it from a GM who's only been around for a few monthes. Auctions ARE NOT spam, and anyone who says they are is retarded.
Oh, and I'm not picking on Talad here, he's just the one who told us about this meeting first. I'm talking to all GMs when I say stop bending the rules.
(Makes me glad Zayek's long gone...)
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For the time being, though, my vision goes with Neko's.
I am also in agreement with Neko. I just finished reading the post. Whew! That was long but well put. I like the idea of an auction house. Over all I agree with nekos post, it is just a matter of the dev team saying ya, or nay to the whole thing.
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I skipped the really long posts, but I agree with the idea of an auction house. Maybe add it to a tavern in some town later on in developement.
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I skipped the really long posts, but I agree with the idea of an auction house. Maybe add it to a tavern in some town later on in developement.
Thats to bad, your missing out on alot of good points. ;)
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Well I skimmed the posts anyway...I'll read the long ones when I get back. =P
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I so 100% agree with Ganinos on this. I think it is very important that GM's follow the rules set by the Game Developers. After all, you didn't have too many rogue GM's in AD&D. They had to follow the rules set down in the Guides. And if they broke those rules, the players could smack them in the head and say, "no, it says right here I get to add my strength bonus when I throw a dagger." The only exceptions were agreed upon as a group, both GM and Players and these were "campaign exceptions" and only applied to that single campaign.
Basically, secret GM meetings formed to make/change the rules should be forbidden!
Araye
The Enlightened
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Nilrem said:
The question has been asked, I think in the 1st page, but has been progressively deluding.
It's time to give it back to life.
Do you think we need an specific coded system for the auctions?
That is what should focus our attention now.
This thread is not just about the auction system. The real problem here is the rule was never communicated to the player base. There have been a number of good suggestions to improve the auction system in this thread, but unless new rules or rule changes (no matter what they are) are communicated to the player base before they are implemented, we could see a repeat of what happened yesterday. This to me is the cruicial point of this whole thread, we need to have rules communicated to us before they are implementated, not after, & not by word of mouth. Such rule changes should be posted on the Forums with an implementation date.
Karyuu I believe asked for suggestions as to how to improove the system. I believe she was specifially talking about the auction system, but since I believe the real issue here is how rules are communicated to us, I offered a suggestion as to how rule changes should be handled in my previous post. We can improove the auction system all we want, but unless rules are communicated in a better fashion, the potiential for what happened yesterday will still exist.
Again, I applaud those that stated a mistake was made. Lets establish a policy on how rules are communicated so such a mistake can be avoided in the future.
Gan, "Long Beard"
Leader White Dragon Clan
Dragon High Master of the Dragon Council
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Just to clarify: there are no secret meetings. We have GM meetings every couple of Sundays to discuss issues, raise suggestions, and go over plans. One of the problems that happened here, as Ganinos pointed out, was that this 'rogue' rule was never made public before it exploded - this is a serious fault, but it will not be repeated. I would appreciate it if this thread did not fall back to finger-pointing but instead progressed in the direction Neko and Ganinos have paved.
I strongly suggested that a policy be establish that states: all rule changes will be published in such a manner that the player base has a chance to review the rules prior to their implementation, and a date for such implementation set as to allow the player base a chance to review the rule. It will not kill anyone to wait a few days for a new rule or a rule change to go into affect.
I would definitely want to see this done, and I really appreciate the suggestion. However, I don't think that we have had problems with rules before, and this is the only recent thorn to pop up.
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First off I'm a little biased, as Proglin and I obviously have something to gain here. Now that that's out of the way, an auction house is precisely the business that Proglin and I have tried to start. While Neko put a lot of time and effort into his idea, I can't help but think that it sounds like e-bay for Planeshift, and is pretty much the exact opposite of what we were trying to accomplish by starting the business.
We started the auction business to foster the RP and create fun events for people to participate in, or to just come and watch (and to make trias of course). We were trying to make it public (and loud) as that is the way it would have been done in medieval/fantasy worlds (and still is in a lot of places). The crowd attracts more people wondering what is going on and might get people involved who would not normally go looking for such an event.
If the auction system were automated, in my eyes it's would become another way to take opportunities to RP away from the players, as well as opportunities for the PLAYERS to create their own businesses and events, to give themselves something to do other than the dreaded PL'ing. Please keep the ideas coming (I'm really at a loss as to how to make it work better myself, other than agreeing to the selectable chat tabs idea), but I have to say that for me, Neko's is not the way to go.
Bod
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Ooh, sounds like a lot of miscommunication on the GM side here. I read about misunderstood OK's and no dev-GM communication.
Nothing would've gone wrong actually if some GM had actually read the post about the P.U.B.S auction, I mean, someone must've seen that and thought "Hey, we had a discussion about that a week ago", but that wasn't relayed to the players. So I see no proper Player-GM-Dev communication here. I think this just calls for better management, and that has also been discussed before.
Possible solutions for the current problem:
- Improved auction rules to satisfy GM's: Maybe a post-limit, range-limit to prevent auction channel spamming? I have seen people chatting over the auction channel because it's range was bigger than normal chat. That could prevent it.
- More GM's. Now you usually have either no or 1 GM online, not often more than that. If there are more than 1 GM's online, they could discuss what would be the best approach for issues like this and prevent riots like this happening.
Further, it seems there is confusion about what being a GM means. Someone should properly formulate this and make rules about it.
As GM's are meant to regulate roleplaying instead of limiting it I feel the whole GM should be more transparent.
Notules from meetings like the one mentioned and the proposed rules should be made public so they can be discussed.
Of course, GM's are here to enhance the gameplay, not to change it according to their visions, except if those visions are shared by devs and players.
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I still prefer my idea on having actual auction building houses to do them in, for reasons I said before "spamming" would be fine as its focused around this one building (well as the game develops more would be made in different cities), and if the developers are going to use this idea as a solution, I would suggest placing it in oja, as at the moment the city is empty as only enki spawn there and it would give more reason for people to visit.
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Spamming is never good, because it makes things chaotic. Eventually a auction building is need, yes, with some proper tools to see who is selling what for what price and where. An auction house is also planned (duh). The problem is we're talking about the NOW. So an auction house isn't a solution, not at the moment.
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GM's are here to enhance the gameplay, not to change it according to their visions, except if those visions are shared by devs and players.
Well said.
I think the biggest problem here is that a lot of people feel ignored. Yes we are all testers for this awesome game, but...
Is it not the role of the tester, to not only find the tech bugs but also the “game play” bugs? How can we as a test group help if we are not heard? Yes there are things that are obvious and need no discussion; but for the realism that I think the DEVs are striving for, it cannot be decided on by a handful of people. The decision should include the tester, that is why we are here, isn’t it?
The feeling by most (imho) who take the time to speak their minds on how to improve certain things, and give new original ideas, is that they are totally ignored. I have read many original and very simplistic ideas to implement in the wish list, and they are not even acknowledged.
In the end this situation was poorly handled? Yes
Easily fixed? Yes
I am not going to quote all of the solutions posted, but there are some very good ones which would take very little to implement. IMO the auction “channel” as it is, works just fine.
If, as was suggested, an “auction only” window is implemented, then we need one for the Town crier, the Minstrel, and the Jester. There would be a few to many individual need based windows.
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Ooh, sounds like a lot of miscommunication on the GM side here. I read about misunderstood OK's and no dev-GM communication.
Nothing would've gone wrong actually if some GM had actually read the post about the P.U.B.S auction, I mean, someone must've seen that and thought "Hey, we had a discussion about that a week ago", but that wasn't relayed to the players. So I see no proper Player-GM-Dev communication here. I think this just calls for better management, and that has also been discussed before.....
In my first post I took some of the blame for this:
While it is true that the idea for it and the announcement about the auction in the forums have been around for almost a month, I must point out that ONE of the GM's did approach me and discuss this situation a few days ago. I won't post the log as that is not allowed, but what I took away from that discussion was that the GM's had met and discussed introducing this new resolution....
...so somone did in fact see the post about the auction, remembered the discussion and approached me....This person was on the right track but miscommunication ensued either on the GM's part or mine. (Probably a little of both)
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By what I have read so far, I am assuming that the only auctions that most of you have taken part in are the ebay type. Forgive me if I am wrong.
Now, I am not posting to insult or attack anyone, but I see problems on both sides of the fence. Most of which are caused by lack of understanding on how the system of auctions works, and the lack of game features to support them.
First off, I would like to state my position on the subject. As anyone who knows or has met me ingame knows, I eat, breath, and sleep roleplaying while ingame. As I have experienced it, the auction channel is spamed and completely out of
character 99% of the time. It also does not in the least resemble a -real- auction. This 'event' is the one occasion I have seen it put to good use. I am going to get flamed for this, but /auction in no way reflects reality. Like it or not, this system does not support roleplaying in the least. It supports loot and tria. Kill things, sell stuff. That is all. This is the completely wrong way to view something in a game based on RP.
From what I have gathered, there is a fear of placing limits of any kind on who can use what features in the game, so as to give everyone the opportunity to use them. This applies to auctions, guilds, forging, and others. But in order to do this, rules are often made limiting everyone in general, or no rules at all, giving rise to chaos. This is a perfect example of the previous. In the following, I will detail how -I- think the system should work (being an RP fanatic) and ways to apply it. Don't worry, folks, as I am fully ready to be ignored once again.
How it works in real life, and how it should more closely resemble in the game:
1: Not everyone can be an auctioneer. This is a skill, not a right.
As it is, anyone with a pile of dust can start an auction. Most turn out like this: "any1 need /3 SW daggers? look at my description to see what i have for sale." This is when I turn to /chat only.
This is what I suggest to solve this problem, and I turn to the real system of auctions for the answers. Auctioneers need four things: Items, money, location, and a license/training, and advertising. They also need charisma and such, but lets leave that alone for now.
A: Money: See all following.
B: Items: Plural. Meaning more than one. Before someone can start an auction, they need things to sell, obviously. Now, you could point out that ebay has single item auctions, but in fact, they don't. Ebay is a million item auction, and the biggest auction house in the known universe. Auctions DO NOT happen with single items. The game should reflect this. How would this work?
1. Get the items directly. This means the auctioneer either kills and loots, is given, or buys items for sale.
2. Drop boxes. When offline, or not about, the auctioneers could set up drop boxes for other players to put items in. This would be very similar to how WoW does it, but the items would go into an actual player's auction, rather than a public board. This is the first instance of costing money. An auctioneer would pay for slots in the drop box. More slots equals more money.
3. Buy items from the game server at a reduced rate. This would be possible using the license in part D below.
C: Location: Location is everything, as they say. In olden days to this day, public sales were held in town squares, to fullscale, dedicated auction houses. The point is, everyone knew where they were being held. An auction house is a very good idea, but the plaza works as well. Either way, it takes money to own, run, or rent a place to do business. Yes, I am saying it should cost money to start an auction. How the amount should be figured is on several criteria.
1. The Location. The cost would change based on where you set up, and how great a radius your /auction will travel. Think of it as a metered /shout. The more you spend, the louder your auctioneer can speak. Also, no other auction can be started in your purchased range. This leads to many player driven opportunities. But to keep from having 'auction blocks' by a few people, certain safeguards would need to be implemented, such as no double auctions, and time limits.
2. Time span. You would 'rent' an allotted amount of time to do your auction. Like said, no other could start an auction in your area.
3. Number of items, and actual amount of money taken in. Each item would cost an addional small fee to sell. Also, any money gained would be 'taxed' by the Government (server). This taxed money could be 'used' to make world changes to the game in far, far (very far) ahead versions of the game. More tax = patched holes in the plaster walls (yes, I see those), cleaner streets, etc. But that is off the subject. This tax feature is not needed, per say, but would give rise to much IC roleplaying.
D: License/training. Yes, another thing to cost money. Many places require a license and training before you can be an auctioneer. There are even schools for it. Perish the though...training in PS. As long as you don't have to kill rats to do it, I am fine with it, as any good RPer will be as well. Powerlevers may cry a bit, but does that matter so much in a game for RP? After training and your fee, you can officially sell things at an auction. Not much different than starting a guild, really.
E: Advertising. The keystone of an auction. No people means no auction. This can be done on the forums, or perhaps on ingame boards at auction locations. And one more thing that the GMs are going to hate, /shouting is a must. Not in the auction channel either. Full RP town crying. But this would not be a spamming problem, given the reduced number of actual auctions based on A though D. And it would be interesting to have RP 'wars' between adjacent auctions. :)
That concludes the theory of auctioneers part of my thoughts. Below is how the actual auction might work.
2: Auctions are not all the same, but they all have rules.
There are several types of auctions, based on who the customers may be. Any can be done ingame as it is now, with a little effort, and the changing of the auction spam rule.
There are two basic types that would work well ingame. Paper (two kinds), and open (vocal with restrictions).
A: Paper. This is exactly what it says. However, it is also the least RP and harder to do. It can even be done -without- any auctioneer, and little or no use of the /auction tab. There are two types.
1. Closed. It is often called a silent auction, and much like voting. Items are listed on paper or what not. Folks secretly write what they are willing to pay and place it in a box. Whoever has the highest bid wins. Simple, really. But also the most distant and uninvolved. It is also harder to do ingame. This would call for item descriptions either in character description, or on the forums. All bids would be done ingame in tells, or PMs on the forums. As you can see, not very fun.
2. Paper/Open. Ebay for PS. You can see what everyone else has bid on the item, and bid accordingly. Most easily done on a forum...completely out of the game. Not a good choice for RP, and against the PS forum rules. Maybe if someone made an Auctionhouse guild with their own forum... *hates that idea anyways*
B: Open. This is fully RPed ingame as the event that started this all tried to do. They can be done using the current system if the 'spam' restriction is removed. Again, there are two basic types. Vocal and Quiet, and variants in between. This is completely up to the auctioneer.
1. Vocal. This is what Proglin and Bod's auction was. The auctioneer states what is up for bid, and lets the bidders shout out their own bids. This can be quite chaotic, and is likely what the GM fear. It is also the most fun for both sides, bidder and auctioneer. There are ways it can be tamed, though.
a. One is to do the above system of purchased 'zones'. No overlapping auctions means no spamming. Problem solved.
b. Another way is to separate the auctions in some way. Perhaps a new 'click' button would appear next to [view] such as [bid]. Whatever the person was selling at the moment would be viewed, and his/her auction text would appear to you as 'Auction from...' Just as it does now. The difference is that you could select just the auctions you wished to hear, and ignore the rest.
2. Quiet. This is all about the auctioneer. He states the item, the proceeds to set the price. You all know this as the, "Wadda-ya-give-there. Do I hear 1000 tria? Now 1500?" After which, the bidders raise hands or numbers, but are not allowed to talk. You know the rest. "Sold to the pretty Fenki in the back row!" This is the more efficient way, but again not as fun.
3: What about the little guys?
Okay, the above plan leaves out the players that just want to off their loot in a random auction in the most populated area they can find… Perhaps you can detect the sarcasm in my tone. That is what the pawn shops are for. AKA, Harn’s forge and other places. Perhaps the items could be bought off the NPCs by those licensed to do so. But I do not like random auctions assaulting my chatbox whenever I come into the plaza. So, that leaves people with several options.
A: Sell to a pawn shop.
B: Sell to an auctioneer, place in an auctioneer’s drop box, or a public commission box that auctioneers can browse.
C: Sell to someone they know.
D: Public auction board (like WoW *shudders*)
E: Give to n00b.
F: Get kicked for trying to sell by shouting.
That concludes my take on things, as an avid (rabid) RP supporter. I am sure there are holes that need to be filled, and most will be frowned on (if even read at all), but I have had my very long say. Thanks for reading.
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If the auction system were automated, in my eyes it's would become another way to take opportunities to RP away from the players, as well as opportunities for the PLAYERS to create their own businesses and events, to give themselves something to do other than the dreaded PL'ing. Please keep the ideas coming (I'm really at a loss as to how to make it work better myself, other than agreeing to the selectable chat tabs idea), but I have to say that for me, Neko's is not the way to go.
This is what I was thinking as the biggest flaw in my suggestion, but I've been doing some thinking and allow me to tweak my idea a bit and tell me what yeah all think. It would allow a nicer GUI approach, plus allow you, or anyone else to play the role of auctioneer.
First off, this again is a suggestion for term, but its always good to think ahead I say. Also, I won't bother everyone with repeating things that would change from my original suggestion as we all know how much people like to read long posts, so I'll keep it as short and complete as possible.
Rather than just have a button for auction that anyone can use anywhere, as I mentioned, it would first have to be limited to a specific area, say inside a grand building or something, as been suggested. This does have the problem then that unless you were this specific area, you'd have a useless button cluttering up your screen, so prehaps the button would only be visible on the client when the player is currently in the area designated for auctioning.
This will allow for better RP atmosphere since everyone biffing is in a centralised spot.
Once the player is inside the designated auctioning spot, they could click on the auction button to open the main auction window. Differences to this window over the other one: 1) It would still have a list of items up for auction, only this time any player wouldn't be able to actually put new items up for bid, only the person in charge of the auction house(spot/whatever you want to call it) could. More on that later. 2) upon double clicking the item, the client opens up a description box of the item, very much if not the same as the description box we have for items now. This could allow a player to see the item up for bid, similar to how there is a showing of items before a auction starts in RL. This would allow the player to see if they wish to bid on the item. To further imerse RP, this description for the item, could be set by person in charge of the auction house at that time. That way, it's a custom message, similar to what Bod was doing as he described the items through the auction channel during his auction. This would also help the player as at any time during the auction as they could simply double click the item in the auction window and read the description in case they forgot. Similar to people taking notes about items during the showing of items before an auction starts in RL. This would also help de-clutter the chat box since during a heavy auction; theres alreadty quite alot of chatter going back and forth and its sometimes hard to keep up on things as it is. 3) Rather than a third column that designates to the player if they had bid on an item, it would show the current order for the items when they will be up for bidding on. This would be controlled by the auctioneer, as they would be controlling what is up for bidding on, and when, and for how long. More on that when I describe the auctioneer's job.
Auctioneer and their role:
This person or group would be designated as follows. Similar to making a group in PS now, a person in the auction house could use something like a /auctionleader command or something to designate he would like to become auctioneer and run the show so to say. If there was someone already fulfilling this job, then the system would tell them so and they would have to wait until the current auctioneer is done using the house to sell goods. Since this is a big job to fill, the person that is auctioneer, could invite other to his group, in which case they would be able to have the ability to do what the auctioneer can, in order to ease thier role a bit. As auctioneer, that players main auction window would have extra buttons in it, allowing them to add/modify/delete items out of the current auction. They would also be able to put in the descriptions for the items and also designate the order they are going to auction the items off in. This will alllow the players doing the buying, sortof like a guide of what is up for auction, and when, etc.
To prevent abuse of this, as in one person constantly claim role of auctioneer, rather than making the GMs have more work than they already need, this can be done through code. As suggested by another (sorry forget the name right now) earlier in the thread, inside the auction house there could be a book or something that would allow people to sign up to use the auction house. They could enter in a start and end time (with a coded maxiumum amount of time they can have the auctioneer spot to be determined later) of when they would like to use the auction house. This could be a great way to incorporate the game's clock/calender into the game, since it could be based off of that. The easier solution though would be to base it off of RL time/dates. Also, to prevent people from abusing this, there could be a coded rule that wouldn't allow a person to set up more than one or two times to use the auction house at one time. Then, they would have to wait for their turn of using the auction house to be over before they could sign up again. Other people could read this book to see the upcomming auctions and plan ahead if they wish to particpate on the bidding as well, thus bringing the PUBS thread on the forums inside the game, further adding to the RP experience.
Once the auction begins, the auctioneer or member of his group could send a '/auction start' command. This would send a system message to everyone currently bidding what item is currently up for bid. Also, it could bold/change the color of the font of the item in the auction window, so people joiing late can see where the auction is and start in on the bidding quicker. Since the auctioneer had designated to the system what the order of their auction is going to be in, a simple command like '/auction next' would work to go on to the next item after the auctioneer decides to move on. When there were no more items to be bid on, then an '/auction end' could be sent to declare the current auction is over, or the 'auction next' command could do a check to see if there were any items, and if not, simply end it. Upon end a system message could be sent to all the bidders that the current auction is over. This is when the auctioneer could disband his auctioneer group and step down as auctioneer. There would also be a coded disband of the auctioneer group when they run out of their alloted time. If they get close to this time, then the system would send them a mesasge saying they only X amount of time left for them to finish up thier auction.
Dealing with bids would then be comepletly up to the auctioneer, as with anythign the auctioneer said, all bids would be through chat, which everyone else in the house would hear. It would be up to the auctioneer to deal with people that bid on items and then don't have the amount needed to pay up. I'm alos thinking that since theres going to be quite a deal of chatting oing on, the auctioneer and his group, when they say something, the text would show up in a different color than the other players to help make it stand out more.
Once the auction was over, everything put in the auction window would be wiped and it would be as a clean slate as it were for the next person to use. Which then, the next person would repeat the process of adding items to the auction window and descriptions for the items for their auction and so on and so forth.
It would be up to the auctioneer to collect the tria and exchange the items.
Basically, it would be all player driven, with a GUI to help the other players with what is going on, and to make it easier on the auctioneer. The GUI would be there to help keep the auction orderly and to help cut down on confusion and still allow the actual auction to be completely player driven, acheiving maximum RP immersion.
And I think that's it for now. I may have missed a few points since this was done over the course of a few hours since I'm at work, so please say any questions/comments you all may have.
EDIT: Seems UTM had a nice long post while I was typing up this one, quite a nice read actually, but since this post of mine is long enough as it is, I'll wait a bit to see other replies before I say anything.
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I didn't read this entire topic, but I have an idea for auctions:
You advertise your item, and it's clickable in the chat box.
When you click the auction you want, it opens a new window.
There could be a few options in this new "special" auction window: chat, make an offer, time limit, etc.
There, it's efficient, keeps things organized, nobody can "cheat" the auction since anyone can choose to participate and therefore see any offers that have been made. It's just a suggestion :D
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True, but as it has been mentioned, your suggestion isn't enhancing the RP environment, but instead taking away from it.
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Hmm. Great minds think alike, and make long posts. :P
Many good ideas abound here. Some simple fixes, some recoding the entire auction system. In the end, it falls to the devs. I do hope they fall off the fence on the RP side. You can have RP, or ease for all to use every feature in the game. You can't have both.
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there has been so many suggestions about changing zones to reduce spamming, reduce the distance of /auction and so on (get my point?) Just to reduce the spam in the plaza. I don't think this is realistic for a vocal auction, the auctioners would try to make as much money as possible and would most likely shout out stuff which can be heard unless you are inside a "house" (*nudgy nudgy*)
@underthemoon: Using so much ooc in the /auction is what usually drives me away from using that channel, although bod and prog showed how to really use it as an ic channel also before we knew about that rule, credits to you for that.
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(Makes me glad Zayek's long gone...)
I quite miss zayek :/
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I totally disagree with this rule. I see it as nothing more than GMs finding another way to be petty tyrants in this tiny domain...
I wrote the /auction feature, and in fact most of the entire chat system, and I'm here to tell you that the intent was that buying and selling use that because the people that are interested in that are interested and the people who aren't, aren't, so it should be easily filterable. If the issue is spamming the "All" tab, the GMs should raise that to the developers, not invent ridiculous rules about not using a channel for its intended purpose.
I despair though, of ever getting the GMs to see that their job isn't to invent rules.
My $.02,
- Vengeance
Thank you all for your interest in this topic. Could we have a statement from the Game Masters or Development regarding the disposition of auction channel? I would like to know if I can use Auction as Vengeance intended without being silenced?
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Yes you can, Milana :)
There is no rule preventing bidding in the /auction channel.
I would hope that this unfortunate episode can now be put to rest, thus please PM me if anyone has further concerns or questions.