Auction ideas

cosmicbrambleclaw • 4 January 2014 at 2:07 PM

Just a few ideas I had for the auctions (feel free to post here if you have any, so the mods arent swamped with threads XD)

One idea I had for the auctions is similar to a site my grandfather uses that is tied to Ebay. What the site does is allows you to set a limit of money for a certain item you're bidding on, and it will bid on the item for you if somebody outbids you, and if you havent bid it will bid at the last second for you.

The idea: A button on the auction page for the creature you want, that allows you to set a preset amount of EC and will bid for you up to that amount if necessary, but not past it.

For example: Lets say Im bidding on a Garo or something in the auctions, and can only bid up to mm.. 500k EC. I click the spot and enter 500,000 and if Im outbid on my current offer it will bid for me to the next amount needed to bid, unless its over 500k. And/or at the end of the auction if I havent bid on it yet, it would place a bid for me (following the current rules of bidding, I.E. it would go up to the next bid price)

Another idea: The ability to make auctions as short as 1 minute. This helps if you want a specific person to get the egg, but dont want to trade (since the egg gifting idea I suggested hasnt made it to testing yet)

i'll add the others as i remember them

cnm0604 • 4 January 2014 at 3:03 PM

I think auctions should be at least 10 minutes long. 😋

karamel • 5 January 2014 at 11:46 AM

@cosmicbrambleclaw I don't support your first idea; it completely takes away the point of auction sniping. And you're not even doing it yourself; it's pretty much using an /automated bot/. :x

The second idea--neutral on this. I don't see why not, but people do still snipe auctions (and they're actually quite good at it), so the creature could end up going to someone you didn't want it to go to. The actual suggestion is fine; it's just that your reason for suggesting it ("it could help if you want a specific person to get the egg") isn't foolproof. I'd use the Trade Centre for secure trades.

jess11y • 5 January 2014 at 12:05 PM

I have an idea myself, I think that there should be direct sales. So a person can put a creature up for 500k ec and another person can directly buy it. I know it is a little bit like the trade center but it would be good no having to worry about trading a creature and it would be whoever is the quickest so one person doesn't over buy the auction and mess up another persons chance. It's just a thought but I think it would be pretty fun

meta_knight_lover • 5 January 2014 at 5:57 PM

@cosmicbrambleclaw

I like the first idea since some people can't get on all the time. The second idea...hmm, I'm not sure it really fixes the problem with the secure trades or whatever since people still sneak in within a minute if they really wanted to. I think a better way to do it would be to have a confirmation window for the person auctioning off the creature to get when the auction is complete. (They may already have this as I have not used the auction system myself yet)

So let's say I'm auctioning off my Aerlo and the highest bidder pays 3 million EC. Next time I log on I would get a confirmation that says, "??? had the highest bid at 3 million EC! Do you accept this amount?"

Then if I see I didn't intend for the creature to go to ???, I can decide to not hand over the creature. I think this solves the problem for people stealing eggs that are not meant to go with them. X3

cosmicbrambleclaw • 6 January 2014 at 8:28 AM

@cnm0604 that could work, its just a bit frustrating that they have to be 3 hours

@karamel I understand where you're coming from, but like meta_knight_lover said, its beneficial when you arent able to get on all the time. for instance I lost a auction this morning because it ended 3 AM my time and I was unable to be there to outbid the other person who outbid me

@jess11y I like that idea 😊 I had a similar once (somewhere in the suggestions forum) about a gift option with eggs similar to the travels gifting feature, but it would have a confirmation box to it so you couldnt spam somebody with eggs you didnt want

@meta_knight_lover I agree entirely ^^ like I mentioned to karamel, this would have come in handy last night when I lost the auction at 3 am (I've been bidding on it for a week, so you can imagine my dissapointment. I like the idea of a confirmation window add in. Other users have had similar ideas and to me it seems like a good option, especially if you're trying to get the creature to a certain person or not overprice it (or if you're hacked or leave your screen logged in for a sibling to mess with x3)

meta_knight_lover • 6 January 2014 at 9:19 AM

@cosmicbrambleclaw

Aw man! That must really bite. D: Well hopefully we can do something to improve the auction. It's a new service so it's going to have a lot of improvements ahead. lol I remember back when we first got the Travel Agency. It was a lot more complicated to get a travel and you couldn't trade travels either. =O

I also like @jess11y 's idea too! In another game I play there is a player auction, but you can also have what they call a "Buy Now Price". The person selling the item can put in a price (say 500K EC) and if someone is willing to pay that, they get it automatically without the auction. Now if someone outbids the 500K (so say 550K EC) then the auction continues. Of course if we have the confirmation window for the person auctioning off the creature, then it would work really well!

Either way though, I think these options should be, well, options. Like in the other game I play the "Buy Now Price" is optional and if you leave it blank then a normal auction will commence.

cosmicbrambleclaw • 6 January 2014 at 9:22 AM

@meta_knight_lover yeah ^^; it was a full grown immortal Iramae

I love buy now options XD On Kingdom of Knuffel I almost always use the buy now to secure items I want, as long as i have the credit to get the item (if not I spam the spam forum for creds XD you get them by posting)

meta_knight_lover • 6 January 2014 at 9:25 AM

@cosmicbrambleclaw

I never heard of that game. lol But I get what you mean. Well anyway, I think we have a good list of suggestions so hopefully Ian will see and make note. 8D

cosmicbrambleclaw • 6 January 2014 at 9:27 AM

@meta_knight_lover its a site, I found it a couple months ago, pretty fun and kinda similar to EC, but the "knuffels" are more like little people than creatures 😊

kofk.de <--link

meta_knight_lover • 6 January 2014 at 9:29 AM

@cosmicbrambleclaw

Eh, I'm good. I like Egg Cave cuz it's very passive, which is great for an 18-year-old college student who has two jobs. lol Thanks for informing me though~

cosmicbrambleclaw • 6 January 2014 at 9:31 AM

@meta_knight_lover dang XD I dont envy you, but i'll be in your seat come fall (hopefully x3 the stupid application wont recognize my transcript)

jess11y • 6 January 2014 at 2:15 PM

@cosmicbrambleclaw That's a really good idea! Almost like reserved sales so that you could even transfer your eggs to your side without having to worry about people offering on your lots or having to log out then log in then log out again 😋

cosmicbrambleclaw • 6 January 2014 at 2:27 PM

@jess11y thanks 😃 yeah thats what I was intending it to be ^^

jess11y • 6 January 2014 at 3:07 PM

@cosmicbrambleclaw
Awesome you have some really great ideas! Hopefully i'll be seeing them in the auctions soon 😊

cosmicbrambleclaw • 6 January 2014 at 4:47 PM

@jess11y x3 thanks

fallenangel1550 • 16 January 2014 at 7:24 PM

@cosmicbrambleclaw

I like the first idea. It is nice to be able to not worry about a trade until I can get online again. My only concern is when the trade comes down to the last minutes. I don't like having to compete with the computer when trying to win an auction. So my suggestion is if we allow the computer to bet for us, I think it would be best to only allow it to bet on the auction when it is within that price range until the last 10 minutes or so, that way it gives people a chance to win the auction without having to compete with computers.

I don't really see the point of the second idea. Why not just use the trade center for it then?

I do have an idea of my own related to auctions. I suggest having a subscribe feature for auctions. If I want to follow an auction but don't want to bid on it yet, it would be nice to be able to subscribe and have it show up in my bids tab so I am able to check on it later. Also, if you are subscribed, it will give you all of the normal notifications like if you did bid on it as well as like with threads, it will let you know when someone has bid or who won the auction or whatever. Plus it would be nice to get a notification if the auction gets deleted because no one bid on it so the owner decided to end it. This happened to me recently, I was watching an auction but didn't have the necessary funds to bid but I came online today and it wasn't there. It would have been nice to know that the owner deleted it instead of me having to go through each page of the auctions to try and find it.

If anyone has feedback on my auction idea, please feel free to let me know. I would love to hear other people's opinions on it