Quarter Auction System

[Dreams]

The intention of having quarters on an auction/bidding system was to ensure fairness to players, giving those who bid equal chances to buying the quarters, and to prevent players from handing their old quarters down to their friends to maintain ownership over RL years. Since this system has gone in, there have been adjustments to it which have resulted in the ability to do exactly that - indefinitely hold onto property amongst groups of players with no chance for others to have a shot at it.

It doesn't work.

This is particularly true for quarters that have internal signs. A player can put these up for sale, but choose not to release the quarter, therefore opening the quarter only to the people that they want to bid.

This is also true for most guildhouse properties, where internal quarters get priority in bidding. e.g. The desert fort goes up for sale on Sibayad. Someone breaks inside and purchases an internal quarter, then bids on the guildhouse sign. 5 other people just bid on the guildhouse sign. The result is that the person who bought the internal quarter gets the guildhouse, due to the way this priority works. No one else had a chance.

So, the intention of making these systems fair for players is great, but it's not actually working that way. How can we fix it so that it is fair for people?

One suggestion on how it might be fixed is to remove the ability to put a quarter up for sale whilst retaining ownership of the quarter. This would mean when you put a property up for sale, it begins the auction system and opens the quarter for anyone else to enter. Ideally a player would have cleared out their storage/fixtures/belongings before doing this. If you're worried about people changing their mind, have a cooldown of a few RL hours before the property actually releases/goes up for sale. That only really fixes the single quarter issue.

I'm not sure how you can solve the guildhouse stuff. Don't even get me started on how incredibly unequal the whole shipping system is.

[Babylon System is the Vampire]

I'm actually pretty shocked it took two years or whatever it's been for someone to bring this up. I never even thought about any of this, but after reading your layout it seems obvious...which tells me people have likely been abusing it.

Thwpt.

[AstralUniverse]

First of all I dont think it's a huge deal because we're only talking about quarters within quarters. Those are in vast minority compared to the rest of the world where quartersigns are accessible to anyone. So we should first establish that this feedback doesnt really project on the bidding system as a whole, and only really matters for guilds.

With that out of the way, I was actually under the impression that guilds are supposed to work like that intentionally so if a guildhouse owner rolls it doesnt kill the faction right away and gives the faction an advantage in appointing a successor from the faction. I dont really see the issue.

The fact someone can break in and buy a quarter inside the guildhouse isnt exactly new or relevant as far as I can see. Maybe I'm missing something.

[Royal Blood]

It is intentional that the Guild Houses are protected and rather insular. They're meant to be passed off to a guild house resident. I'd not say that's an oversight, that's working as intended. I'm not sure there is a good way to free these up without destroying the factions that hold them.

In my experience, I've found the auction system to be more of a hassle. Particularly within a settlement. My character actually asked a faction to give up quarters with the intended target being to give them to smaller factions.

The auction system got in the way and a random player snagged one. No fault to the player! But within the context of a Settlement a portion of the leaders power is property. And frankly, with their ability to evict someone, properties tied to a settlement shouldn't go up to auction anyways or maybe there should be a way to opt out of the auction feature. If a property ends up going to someone other than the intended party they just get evicted. This is also why non-settlement quarters are so valuable.

So, I am kind of divided on it. I think it's working super well for shops though. There is a 0% chance I would have ever owned a shop without the auction system. It seems like shops change hands often.

But for quarters? I don't know. I see value in disrupting the status quo but equally I've found players and factions are extremely quick to recognize active characters and grant them access to these places if not out right ownership. Non settlement quarters are easier to justify the auction system in my opinion too.

[Cthuletta]

The auction system got in the way and a random player snagged one. No fault to the player! But within the context of a Settlement a portion of the leaders power is property. And frankly, with their ability to evict someone, properties tied to a settlement shouldn't go up to auction anyways or maybe there should be a way to opt out of the auction feature. If a property ends up going to someone other than the intended party they just get evicted. This is also why non-settlement quarters are so valuable.

The main problem with this is that such a feature could very EASILY be abused.
The person running that settlement doesn't like you for whatever personal reasons? Good luck getting a quarter. And that WILL happen, because it happened before. Plus, friends like to help out their friends, it's a pretty normal thing and 'favoritism' is almost kind of natural in that way since you're not thinking about those people you just don't know, either. It's not INTENTIONAL, usually, but again, does happen!

As far as for guild houses, the purpose is definitely to give the faction a chance to continue to stand on it's feet if the owner of the property just poofs for a week. Could be for any number of reasons, such as silently quitting, or RL circumstances preventing them from logging in. That's not really the fault of the faction of a whole. From the few guild houses I've been in, most of them have multiple quarters as well, so I'm not sure how if multiple people own quarters inside a Guild House, who it would roll to.
Now if someone not part of the previous faction broke in, bought a quarter, to purposely circumvent this, which I didn't know could actually be a thing, that's definitely abusing the system. Though I think that's more of a case of needing a rule or caveat added to the 'Be Nice' rule, or a DM to peek at what's happening. The only way I could see to stop such a thing occuring is to basically 'lock down' all the inside quarters so they're not able to be bid on while the Guild House is up for auction. Not sure how that'd work, though, on the technical side of things.

All in all, the Auction system is still by far more favorable to the previous 'Put up for sale' and 'First come first serve' style of doing things. It's working as intended to prevent quarters from being cycled through the same people and held off from others entirely. But no system is perfect!

[Royal Blood]

Regarding 'abuse' by settlement leaders I want to just mention, on the wiki, the abuse of settlement powers is specifically mentioned and allowed in an IC context.

Settlement leaders are meant to have control over the properties and the system is designed to allow it to be corrupt on purpose. Fairness in settlement properties isn't promised it's totally up to the dictation of the settlement leader. With all things, the be nice rule applies. But so long as there is an IC purpose behind the corruption it's kinda just like part of the system!

Of course, that leader has to win re-election! So, corruption tends to be mild but if you had faction A that supports you and Faction B that hates you, of course Faction A is getting special treatment.

And the be nice rule is kinda a general policy to not be a jerk just for the sake of it.

Regarding guild houses, I do not believe it ever goes up for auction if there are residents inside of it. If the owner leaves or gives it up it immediately transfers to a quarter owner in the guild house. Also, some guild houses can only be bid on by nobles. So the pool of players who bid is even smaller.

[Babylon System is the Vampire]

First of all I dont think it's a huge deal because we're only talking about quarters within quarters.

Actually, this isn't true. Any property that has a sign inside, which is admittedly few and far between but does include some nice properties, you can do this to if what dreams laid out is accurate, and I think it is. Keep the door locked, don't let anyone in save the person you want to transfer the property too, they win.

[Babylon System is the Vampire]

It is intentional that the Guild Houses are protected and rather insular. They're meant to be passed off to a guild house resident. I'd not say that's an oversight, that's working as intended. I'm not sure there is a good way to free these up without destroying the factions that hold them.

I think the example they are giving in this instance is going to be few and far between, but let's say a faction just folds for whatever reason and the guild house is empty. A bunch of groups want the spot, but one group figures out that they can just buy the inside properties with no delay because they are not part of the auction system. That group will now definitely win the bid for that house.

[Khorvale]

I haven't actually tried the auction system yet but considering last time I played here some years ago I was forced by a DM to give up a shop that was available to buy, but someone had put up an IC sign in front of basically saying 'reserved do not buy' (get real lad, this is Andunor!), because apparently there was some kind of off-the-books agreement between parties that said shop should go to them, it seems like an improvement

[RedGiant]

Everyone knows RedGiant does not like change unless its cookies.

But after living under this system, which I still don't like all that much (I really miss the sheer joy of snapping up a suddenly free quarter), I understand why the staff felt it necessary to go with this. I do think they believed the abuses of the old system worse than the inconveniences and unfairness of the new.

I think the gold sink is intentional, however, which just stinks. With one or two exceptions, all of my characters have been broke through most of their various arcs and I know I'm not the only one.

In its current iteration, I suppose my biggest remaining gripe is how long everything takes. From decision to sell to it actually going up for bidding seems to take an interminable period. Then the bidding starts and some sixty to ninety hours later, maybe it's over? The conversations during these phases also inconsistently populate or indicate the sale is in an earlier stage.

These long, uncertain periods lead to people forgetting what they have even bid on. Heck, I've done it once and I know other people have, because I can see the properties cycle over a few weeks between multiple owners with quarter/shop names unchanged.

So, I suppose my feedback on this is: if this is the system, please make the whole thing take significantly less time.

[Rei_Jin]

There's no perfectly "fair" system, because all systems have limitations.

Whilst I don't personally like the random bidding system for quarters and stores, I understand why it's been implemented, and why the limitations it has are also in place. Compared to the system that was in place before, it's much fairer.

As someone involved in settlement leadership though, it would be appreciated if there was a mix for stores between bidding, and district controlled ones

[Babylon System is the Vampire]

As someone involved in settlement leadership though, it would be appreciated if there was a mix for stores between bidding, and district controlled ones

This really has nothing to do with the OP, but I actually don't think anything else needs to be said on that topic and really dig at least the potential here. Imagine this:

-2-6 shops depending on the size of the district.

-The shops are counted separate from the normal shop system, meaning you can own a shop and still run one of these.

-It needs to reach a certain threshold of sales per week or whatever, and if it doesn't it effects the settlement system in a negative way.

What this would accomplish

• An actual role for a trade minister type of position, as they would be the most likely to have to find merchants to run these shops. So, you can have a chancellor that has no interest in this, assuming they can find someone to join their team and play this role.

• They would need to be priced to sell with the potential of negative effects, meaning there's a permanent place for deals for players who don't play that much over the weekend and miss out on the temp shop deals you can get there. It also might set the market, at least on some level, so a newer player doesn't buy something for 20 thousand that they see the next day in another shop for five.

• Another way for players to interact with the settlement system, both in the government and as a citizen of that area.

An idea on how to apply it to the settlement system.

Set a value that it has to sell per week or whatever, and if it doesn't hit that the settlement loses the amount its short from the settlement bank account. The gold gained from the sales would still go to the player running the shop, this isn't a charity after all, its just a way to add another layer to the settlement system.

And yeah, it's all a long way from what Rei actually said would be appreciated, but that was the inspiration!

[Tikin]

Hi there!

About the whole "bidding system" (be it for quarter or shop).

My personal experience is that it is harder for me to access those than before. (And by for me I mean for me alone, without OOC contacts, to clarify ). However, if (I say "if" as I don't have any accurate way to check) the new system is really more fair and grant access to more players then I'm happy about it.

I agree though that faster procedures would be welcome.

To be completely honest on the subject I have been shocked by something: I've been playing a bit more than 3 years this game. Some shops are still owned by same character today as when I arrived. I believe it sends a bad message.

I don't know about how faisible it is, but would it be unreasonable to put a limitation in time a same char can own a specific shop? I would imagine 1 year is plenty enough?
I have no idea about this specific situation concerning quarters, but if needed, perhaps something a bit longer for quarters ... 18 months? 2 years?

Temp shops 3h irl are a blast btw!

[-XXX-]

When even settlement leaders would rather sit on property in Sibayad than take over quarters and shops in their own district, we know something's not quite right (and this is by no means a criticism aimed at these players - it's just the system makes this the obvious choice even for them which seems odd).

[Shadowy Reality]

When even settlement leaders would rather sit on property in Sibayad than take over quarters and shops in their own district, we know something's not quite right (and this is by no means a criticism aimed at these players - it's just the system makes this the obvious choice even for them which seems odd).

This is not related with the bidding system though. In Cordor you can get evicted, maybe you lose next elections, new government does not like you and you are out of a shop. That can't happen in a few places in the server, making these far superior choices.

[Xerah]

Big fan of the system. It gives a chance to everyone even if it feels like you don't win what you're going over. The negative of not passing it to a buddy is actually a huge positive in my opinion.

To be completely honest on the subject I have been shocked by something: I've been playing a bit more than 3 years this game. Some shops are still owned by same character today as when I arrived. I believe it sends a bad message.

I don't know about how faisible it is, but would it be unreasonable to put a limitation in time a same char can own a specific shop? I would imagine 1 year is plenty enough?
I have no idea about this specific situation concerning quarters, but if needed, perhaps something a bit longer for quarters ... 18 months? 2 years?

I do strongly feel that you don't need to keep a shop for those extreme lengths of time. If you have a very rich character you don't really need to be hogging the space from a new character. It doesn't make any IC sense to remove people from these shops either since they are generating tax revenue so people just hold on to these for years.

[Deep Fried Thinking Emoji]

Before the bidding system some factions would systematically pass their shops and quarters to another member once a player grew tired of keeping an alt around just to be a shop-slave/quarter-slave for the faction. The fact that this can no longer be done, offering everyone an equal chance of interacting with the property system, is proof that the system is good.

I've always felt like some quarters having their signs inside and some having them outside always felt a bit arbitrary. Personally, I feel like moving the sign of every quarter outside of it to standardize it would solve the problem of people passing these quartes between friends. Maybe keep the signs inside the vaults in Dis inside for paranoid characters that want that chest, but activelly living somewhere should come with the risk of being located easily, which is ridiculously simple to avoid short of scrying if you own a quarter with a sign inside.

Settlement leaders shouldn't be able to bypass the system either because property is scarce and it would inevitably lead to people removing others from their quarters and shops just to pass them to their ooc friends. Being able to remove owners is already enough to play into that "corruption" angle of rp without it being unfair.

That said, policing the rules on property ownership a bit more strictly and removing quarters and shops from shelved characters that only log in every once in a while to refresh the property for their faction would also go a long way to make access to property more fair for everyone.

[Paint]

Quarter auction system sucks because there's no assurances you'll get what you want, but the alternative sucks suckierer. I don't think there's really going to be a system that makes everyone happy when it comes to quarters that, by their nature, are limited availability.

If you're convinced someone has abused the guildhouse bidding system to gain ownership of a guildhouse when the lease lapses by breaking in/buying a quarter inside, or by asking their friend to just let the lease lapse, you can report it.

The only thing that bugs me are the people who've held onto quarters for IRL years -- some of them since before I started playing here -- and seem to have no desire to give them up to let someone else get some use out of them. Move on, you nerds.

[Babylon System is the Vampire]

One thing that could be done to make it a little less random is tie heavy trafficked area shops to appraise. Either by giving them a minimum hard appraise score similar to how boats are or giving them an extra raffle per 5 hard ranks or something. I assume most dedicated merchant characters would have appraise, giving them a slight edge (again, only on certain shops), and we might have less runic/wand shops everywhere as a result.

[AstralUniverse]

I've said this before somewhere, while the suggestion box was still closed, when we were talking about not having enough options for normal and greater awards - Normal/greater award: merchant. Tie all of the high traffic location shops to this award, making it so only people with this award can bid on such shops.

Other than that, I definitely prefer the current system over the previous one, and while we're at it lets talk about large factions who hold the same shop for literally 4-5 years. On one hand I ask myself how come they didnt get a talk from a DM asking them "where are you going with this and for how long? This is going on for too long maybe...." but on the other hand, maybe these people generate a lot of RP to new characters and their factions last this long because they are constantly recruiting and interacting with the world so why should they give up the shop in that case... It's hard to tell and I just trust our DMs in this. This current system is much better regardless.

[Babylon System is the Vampire]

I've said this before somewhere, while the suggestion box was still closed, when we were talking about not having enough options for normal and greater awards - Normal/greater award: merchant. Tie all of the high traffic location shops to this award, making it so only people with this award can bid on such shops.

I like this idea.

[perseid]

Not that there aren't plenty of people like me but I was around for a good while during the old system. If anything I feel like the new system is too merciful to groups. For all the talk about helping open up properties to the masses and breaking away from things like legacy properties what we've seen is the opposite in my opinion. The issue is so extreme amongst good properties that the same groups have held them for irl years and the one time I saw such a lease go up for sale the auction glitched and the lack of oversight in re-starting the auction meant that by then the same group had QBed their way in and secured internal leases. In my opinion there should be no internal inheritance and the way forward should be a principle of "Don't buy a guildhouse if you don't think you can sustain the commitment." Because the current hybrid system has simply left us with a situation that's... Slightly better? People can dream about securing a slight-turnover property now. But the actually Good with a capital G properties are still as locked behind meta-collectives as they've ever been.

[Sincra]

I have a solution to sitting on quarters as for sale while behind a locked door in the wings, it just needs merging and sending live.

[miesny_jez]

While loosing my 6th bid on a shop today I had a sudden realization.

This bidding system for both quarters and shops is actually a hidden gold sink.
We don't get our initial bids back so all of that gold which was added as initial bid simply disappears from the system all together.

This is actually very good and completely fair as Arelith is plagued with gold overflow and gold sinks like these are badly needed in the system.

But.. this is also slightly unfair to lower levels or less experienced characters/players who would surely want to be able to have houses or a shop but need to participate in multiple biddings to have a chance for a property.

So could we get this bidding system scaling? So the higher the level the more of a % value of the property you need to put down as a bid?

In overall I think the bidding system is a very good addition, though I'm concerned with some long lasting properties under characters which are no longer around too much.

When I switch my character to a new one I put my properties for sale and not "hang on" to them because they are prestigious, artificially login in every week to do a quick refresh. I did that with many good quarters, superb locations shops, even guildhouse. Yet I see quite a lot of shops (especially the prime ones of course) or quarters who have the same owners for the last 6 or even more RL years!
Those characters are rarely still around and do actual RP or stuff so why should they be blocking the properties?

Can there be some checkup done on properties which are for a very long time under the same character if those characters actually contribute to anything or are they being used as mules for their ooc group.

[dominantdrowess]

I think Misesny_jez has a good point. Some properties should have a much higher % bid investment. That is a good gold sink; and that way it would have less impact on average houses for the normal player.