*Auctions

I had posted this suggestion in another forum and a few people have expressed interest in the idea. Maple suggested it may be more suitable to be posted in this forum...

It's an idea re: the current auction house ( which is not being used much at all) and offering all players to make some money back on their horses be it lined or store foundations that they have no need for.. 

I've copied and pasted the post below. I apologize in advance, as it's a bit long and winded but tried to explain it in the best way I could lol...

 Proposed Changes to Auction House.

I suggested the auction house way back and it was implemented. However, it's hardly used at all anymore.. In a former game I played, there was an auction held a couple times a week or ie.. tues, thurs, sat or sun..  Players would be able to put as many horses as they wanted into auction.. be it foundies, foals, mares, stallions, geldings.. etc..  They could also put a reserve price on a horse that if their horse(s) did not get bids that met their price. The horse would remain with the player. 

Players would be able to go to the auction and with a search engine.. seek out exactly what they're lookin for ie.. age, sex, foundie, non foundie.. etc.. and the pages would come up with their search results narrowed down. Bids would be in increments. starting at like .. 300 500,.. whatever. and bids would be done in increments.. 

All players would be able to see the bidding on all the horses when they visit the auction house.. and it got really interesting, towards the end of the auction.. when multiple players were going after the same horse! 

Auctions would run for the day and end at a certain time, ie 9pm.. Horses would be instantly transferred to the winning bidders, money would be transferred to sellers accounts and horses not sold would be deleted/go back to the game.  

This might help create some money flow to the game.. and produce some demand for higher quality horses. .. Just a thought.. This would also be a way to get rid of the rc, while increasing the ability of players to make money. Say they threw a foundie in the rc that maybe wasn't the discipline they wanted.. ie western.. Well a players sees this foundie.. with like amazing nss and confo, in the auction..Well they can bid on it.. and gosh, another player or two spot the same foundie.. It's exactly what they want.. so these players begin bidding on it. Depending on how bad they want it.. and say the foundie had crazy nss like 48 ( yes I've gotten many of those before).. That horse could fetch some decent money in the auction. The result.. the player who created that foundie would get a return on a horse that they didn't need. Some money back in their pocket. I'm sorry but I think it's an amazing idea!

Last edited on 2020-10-27 at 09:33:44 by River

Support!

Was going to copy and paste what I said in the post but then I realized... It's an auction... So you don't decide what price to make it... So I decided not to in order to limit how many people think I'm crazy. Have this other idea I thought up instead.

Maybe the order they show up could be defaulted to something to do with the bids, like most bids/least bids, depending on if we prefer giving less-bidded horses a chance more than auction wars. XD Unless you set it to be sorted by something else maybe?
So basically like this:

Sort by: [Bids Ascending   ]
             -------------------
            |Bids Descending |
            |Stats Ascending  |
            |Stats Descending|
            |Breed Ascending |
             -------------------

And so on.

I like this idea though I'm  not sure I fully support the horse deletion aspect of it. Perhaps we could check a box to "donate horse to riding school if not sold" for the unwanted horses, while still being able to hold on to the more valuable horses if they don't sell, to try again next auction.

Or be VERY clear that once the horse is in auction you will not be getting it back, I could see that causing issues with people putting a good horse up for auction and then it being unwantedly deleted

That is where 'reserve bids' come in. Players who put horses in auction can , if they so desire, set a reserve bid on their horse. The reserve bid would not be visible to other players. That way, if bidding on their horse does not reach their reserve bid, horse would stay with owner at end of auction. Reserve bidding does happen at some auctions in RL. 

Horses that are not sold.. we could still have a statement on main auction page that would say something like, ' all unsold horses will be donated to children's riding camp" or something .. bla bla.. so as not to upset any younger players. 

Loved the last line about unsold horses. I'm crying laughing!

In all seriousness I have used the auction house just once since it's inception and I now usually forget to even check there for horses tbh because when I used to check it there were no horses in there so it got to be a bit like what's the point?? That being said when I am looking for horses for sale I usually go straight to the Search Horses and buy/bid privately to get horses direct/immediately so I wouldn't really use the AH anyway. 

If the auction house is not being used much, is it possible/beneficial to maybe lower the level needed to access the auctions. Myself, for example, absolutely love this game, and find myself craving to log on and play but then bored/unable to. Being on level 5, I can't breed, can't attend the auction, everything else exciting is reserved for deluxe members that I have to financially purchase. I think auctions would be a great place for a newer, but maybe not brand new, member to possibly grab some nicer horses to get started and/or learn what the market is looking like. Or even if we cannot participate, just something to watch since we log in, care for the horses, hit a few buttons for training and shows/school, and that is it. Yet, I am logging in throughout the day, so excited.. to do nothing haha (no hate, I am sincerely craving to play more haha).

Support for THIS line
"All unsold horses will be donated to children's riding camp"
XD 

Good idea though.