Auctions

Selthis

Let’s talk about auctions. Auctions are exciting and should have me super hype to spend credits I’ve had for a while. This is where you trot out the stuff that people are salivating for and drain people’s stockpiles (both credits and gold). Keep in mind I’m speaking from the point of view of someone who has both lots of credits and gold to drain, I just need a good enough reason.
Let’s look at this auction.
Credit Items
--------------------------
Artifact Pet
Custom Wings
Scepter of Repulsion
Scepter of Protection
Torc of the Dead
Phantasmic Diadem
An eerily shimmering belt
Anklet of Will
A Phantom Mask
Foraging Lenses
Crystehl Whistle
Concealing Mists

Gold Items
--------------------------
Tomast Kitbag
Master's Collar of Taming
Chest of the Continuum
Sunburst Glyph

I feel like there is a fair amount of potential wasted here. This is just the last auction that I remember with fewer items in it overall. Will these items sell? Most assuredly. Nothing is going to not sell; it’s just the nature of auctions in IRE games. But I guess the better question is where the big spendy stuff is? The Morphing Weapon. Raksha band? Vitality collar? Numbness earring? Where are the new items?

You have this chance to do super unique and interesting things and it's just another retread. I get it, it's hard to come up with new items every time. But some items if only sold during auctions are gonna generate interest. Your pet token is up over 2k already. I bet the Raksha would be at the same place.

Random ideas for items:
X's mapbook: Bam, you automatically get full atlas pages for every area in Imeprian gratz
Spiritstone: Lets you use call spirits. (just like the stuff for the great hunt with the escalating strength) and make them not drop gold or drop minimal gold.



Why only 4 gold items? Why those 4 gold items. Why not some regular artifacts as well?

Make Gold purchased artifacts not able to be traded in. List more. Drain that huge gold lake that Imperian has built up. Let a person get hellishly good deals occasionally, that is the stuff people brag about. Make gold auctions happen more frequently for normal artifacts. All of this stuff is within your grasp. Hell, having one gold auction every 2 weeks that is autoplaced and not announced with 2 or 3 randomly chosen things will slowly but surely drain gold.

It'd been so long since we've had an auction and they should be awesome things that people love talking about. But this isn't.

Basically, I'm just saying get better items for your auctions. Please give me a reason to use my smaughorde on it.

Signed,

Imperian's #1 Auction fanboy.

Khizan

Auctions are horrible and they shouldn't exist.

Selling off powerful limited-access content might make money but it is still a terrible idea. Fights have literally been won and lost by things like "We don't have access to a track pet" or "Risca's Ring makes him unable to be killed" or "this class that shouldn't be able to numb can" and that is the most godawful infuriating crap. 

Just let me buy this crap without having to compete against Ichimoru's ability to drop 5k credits on a freaking pet, please. 

Selthis

I mean yah ideally they wouldn't release combat stuff via auction. They should be general sale without a doubt and should be balanced around that. I don't mind non combat/special snowflake stuff being auction only.

Ahkan

Where's the morphing weapon? You're about to release a class called WEAPON MASTERY and you're missing the boat on selling an artifact that could easily be 1k a pop to a horde of impulse buyers.

Mercer

Also besides the Sunburst Glyph there isn't much towards PvE and with the shrine stuff released people are probably bashing and bashing for belief and relics too

Skye

Yeah, I have to say I'm pretty disappointed with what's up for offer. I've been pretty eager for an auction and hoarding my credits in hope of one, and none of the items are very appealing for me.

Jules

I could be wrong (about the bidding in this auction seeming super high in comparison to other auctions), but the one item I'm definitely interested in (track mount) is already getting very close to the upper end of what I'd be willing to consider paying for one (and is *far* higher than previous auctions from asking around).  The only reason I'd even considered dipping my toes into an auction was because Imperian auctions seemed less insane than Achaean ones (I just point and laugh at those because the RL $$$ amounts are obscene unless your house is paid off and you're pulling down around 7-8K per month net income).  There might be great demand for the item, but I also got the impression that there were at least two of the pets in prior auctions (probably taming the bidding war somewhat).  

Aleutia

The pet tokens have always been a larger purchase item. I'm not really sure who told you what, but they've been averaging 2k credits for a while now. I know Selthis paid 1600 for one of the first ones auctioned, and they've been pretty consistently near there.

The round I ended up purchasing mine they went for slightly cheaper for some reason: 1200 (non flying), 1400 (non flying) and 800 (flying). (I think the second non flying pet was 1400. If not it was really close to there) It was really an anomaly that year. That was also at least four years ago.

But you're right, they usually have at least two up, but normally it's two non flying and one flying as the standard for the auctions.

Ultrix

Icarius mentioned that he had paid 1200 for his flying pet; Septus I believe mentioned that his non-flying pet was possibly 2k or 2.5k (but hey, it's a velociraptor!).

The current auction is already over 2k now though, so it is definitely on the higher end of things (notwithstanding the representations by others that they are willing to go up to 5k). Probably because there are less items to bid on overall though?

Aleutia

I think it was during the last auction someone paid 2.5k, possibly 3k for a flying pet, and I vaguely recall the other tokens going for roughly the same 2k-ish price. That might have also been the year Justus thought he was being clever and bid up the flying token to be a jerk only to win it, despite already having one.

But yeah, the lower number is certainly exacerbating the price. Especially with the flying pet being the slightly better of the two. It's certainly weird this is such a small auction when we've been asking for ages. Normally there's a good 6-10 gold auction items and at least one brand new item a year.

Jeremy Saunders

Just so you are aware. We are planning on doing smaller auctions like this once a month or every other month. I held off on the morphing weapons and other items for now, but you will probably see them in the future. I am also working on some other new items we may do as well.

Verexa

Will there be any items added to the current auction - whether they are entirely new or multiples of what is already there?

Jeremy Saunders

Not planning on adding anything to the current auction.

Iniar

@Jules

I would be paying about 3.5k for a flying mount. ( Just that I'm short this month, why Jeremy :[ )

Khizan

This auction was always going to be a mess because so many people have been building up credit stockpiles over a long length of time. I wrote the entire thing off as soon as it started.

Ahkan

That being said, this is why auctions are important to the game economy. It drains those stockpiles.

Svorai

This is why we will be doing more of them. Jeremy got over his hate for them, and has agreed to do more!

Iniar

Did you guys have an intervention?

Kabaal

Assembly pieces in gold auctions at random too plx kthx ?

Jeremy Saunders

Ha ha ha.

Iniar said:

Did you guys have an intervention?

Jules

Jeremy's reaction time here makes me feel better about my slow responses pretty much anytime I can't give my undivided attention to one conversation :P

Cassius

Jules said:

Jeremy's reaction time here makes me feel better about my slow responses pretty much anytime I can't give my undivided attention to one conversation :P

What do you mean? That was fast for @Jeremy.

Jeremy Saunders

Yeah. I am stupid slow. I have not looked at the forums in a couple/few days because I had a ton of code I had to do.

Celosyi

(We did have an intervention)