A suggestion for auctions.

liza200aa • 8 February 2014 at 2:50 PM

Quick summary for lazy people:
Auctions get longer when you bid on them.

Not so quick explanation:
Up recently, I've come to notice that auctions aren't really about how much EC you're willing to pay for a creature. Truly, what decides auctions is who can wait the longest to snipe at the auction in the very last second. This generally means that the owner of the auctioned creature can get less EC, since people mostly bid on the last 1-15 seconds, and also that there isn't so much competition, mostly just stalking and waiting. For this reason, any bids that you'd place before the last five minutes or so of the auction are pretty much insignificant, as you'd undoubtedly be outbid by multiple people at once all trying to snipe the auction. I feel as if this really makes auctions less enjoyable and competitive.

For this reason, I think that a change should be made in how auctions work, to give everyone a more fair chance with the creature they're trying to get, and this auction sniping.

The Idea is this: Every time someone bids, the time of the auction is extended by a couple of seconds, similar to how it's done in real life. This will probably be a adjustable feature when creating the auction, similar to how much time remains from the start. Like say, you can say "I want this auction to start three hours long, the starting price to be 50,000 EC, increasing by 500 and time extending by 30 seconds per bid."

This should, first off, completely prevent people from sniping the auction, because as soon as they do, some more time is added, allowing more bids. Unless, of course, it is chosen by the person auctioning the creature to have the auction increased be 0 seconds per bid. Maybe some more adjustable features to it, like saying you only want the time increase function to kick in only when less than 1 hour remains, to prevent the auction from taking too long.

Pros: No more auction sniping, people have a fair chance, even if they can't bid on the very last second for whatever reason (Like a slow computer(My computer isn't but I know some people's is)) Also, people auctioning the creature may receive more. Auctions are more interesting.

Cons: A little less strategy involved in auctions (If sniping is one) Auctions will take longer as time keeps on increasing, so the 'auctions with least time remaining' page will be pretty spammed.

aliney • 8 February 2014 at 10:55 PM

@liza200aa
I like the idea.

disneyland • 8 February 2014 at 11:28 PM

@liza200aa - I love the concept. Auction "sniping" as you call it is just annoying. I wouldn't even consider it strategy~

Anything that prevents that is a good idea in y book 😊 When I first read the idea, I was like...how can increasing the time each time someone bids prevent this, but after I read on a little more into your explanation I was just like....duh xD

mastergemma • 9 February 2014 at 12:11 AM

I don't like it, this would just mean that those who have money can spend it

At least with sniping you can get a chance if the price isn't too high

@liza200aa

liza200aa • 9 February 2014 at 7:47 AM

Nice to see some of you like it. 😃

@mastergemma
Well, I understand... though if a person wants to auction a creature below it's value, then, as the post states, they can just put the time increase value to 0.
Of course, I also understand that not many people do that.