jaytoo

I'll provide as many filter tools as is possible but the primary issue is just scale. Polling the entire database of auctions joined with items joined with the table that keeps the enchantments and other tables of extra data and doing a text comparison or regex is extremely expensive as far as database operations go. It would potentially lock the database for seconds at a time where potentially hundreds of people are trying to use it at once. So it's just not performant to our requirements. We have to use a UI that narrows the searches considerably to tackle that. Additionally we can't really inform the game client of all of the auctions and let it do the work. For the same reason we limit item stacks to 100. It's not that we can't do any single data transfer of more than 100, it's that we shouldn't do it all the time. The data transfer size isn't huge to you or me but would be too large to do at scale with larger numbers of players given the limited server infrastructure we have. Filters and what you can view has to be specific and pagination needs to be used so we don't cause server lag by IO locking ourselves.

I agree with community projects in principal. So much that I implemented the rift colossus community projects. I also think building community infrastructure is very cool. The highway system in this game is something that is amazing to me and unique to wurm. That said we can't put access at the starter village unless we have portals from deeds to the starter village and that isn't planned right now. Players who live far from the starters would not have equal access to the auctions and that would cause alt parking at the starters, etc. Equal access is important. Which is why we have clung to the mailbox for this so far. To have an item in game which operates the auction house is fairly important to keep it immersive but it clearly has drawbacks to equal access.

Unfortunately I don't think we can depend on features that aren't released

I understand the desire to see the UI but to be honest there are so many variables that it's not going to be something I can even mock up. The wurm UI is extremely old and many of the elements that are there were invented as a first in their class. Because of that I'll likely have make attempts to invent/reinvent new elements as I go that we're used to seeing everywhere in modern UI. When some of that process is completed i'll have a better idea of what it may finally look like.

Lack of offline access is a very real downside in my mind. I would love to integrate this in some way, however that is a massive stretch goal.

I'll do my best to optimize the interface but I think i'm just going to have to wing it for the most part. Since we don't have any way to know how large the load will be in peak times i'm planning to just put in a fairly simple search and wait. Should the performance be slower i'll bring more effort into slotting people into off peak hours. Items ending soon isn't something I had thought of though and that sounds like a great filter for launch. New items was going to be the default search I think already. I don't currently plan to have a way to do hot picks unfortunately as i don't plan on storing bid history. Enchantments are going to be rough unfortunately. More investigation will be needed but due to how that data is stored it is not easy to scan quickly and may not have much in the way of filtering on initial release.

I wanna take a moment to say that I appreciate the discussion and time everyone here is contributing to this effort. I try to make each of my larger features an open discussion and the community here never fails to deliver valuable feedback which lead to design improvements. Thank you all for helping!

scamming on a disposable alt with the intention of sending profited items/coins to a main account.

I'm not particularly a fan of reserves. People always seem to complain on the normal forum auctions when they are there especially if they are hidden. If someone can make a compelling case to implement them I'm interested in hearing it. But it will be difficult to change my opinion because someone's coins will be tied up in a bid for the duration of the auction, it seems unfair to me to not promise them the item if they win. Additionally I don't currently intend to allow players to cancel auctions with bids for the same reason. Also canceling an auction because someone you don't like has the lead bid is a discrimination I don't intend to allow. This would be very nice, i can look into it after the primary features are implemented.

Edited previous post for added minimum tax of 1c. I intend for items to display as they do in the inventory. I'll look into this situation with renames, but honestly i'm not concerned. Our community is very protective of trade and this would get tickets filed quickly by more savvy players. Intentionally using automated systems to scam is already bannable. While people sometimes get away with using alts to speak in chat or whatever, messing around like that in systems like this would be a very quick method of finding out how bannable it is. I'm also not concerned too much about alt scamming as mules, there are already methods for tracking alts to mains even when using common methods such as vpns and such. But transferring any actual profit undetected would be even more difficult to hide. If I get sufficiently motivated I will write tools for the GMs to do this investigation themselves. Per player cap is something we've thought about but to me it will have to be something we implement as a balance change after release. Someone posting 200 listings of anything would be ill advised since most are probably doomed to not last the timer and lose out of the deposit. I fully believe wurm has more producers than consumers for a majority of goods. In that situation it is very difficult to buy all of something then raise the prices and not have someone else just sell more of it at the original price. If the fee and deposit do not prevent spam of these types then it will be balanced or changed.

Here is a running plan for a better fitting fee structure. you will pay a 5 copper deposit for a listing. A listing will run for a maximum of 2 weeks. When a listing sells your deposit will be refunded and you will pay 5% of the sell value. However there is a minimum fee of 1c and a maximum of 5 silver. If your item does not sell you do not get your deposit back. So some examples: You list a woodscrap, buyout only for 5 gold and pay the 5c upon creating the listing. after two weeks it does not sell and you are not returned the 5c. You list a buyout only hammer 50ql for 10c. you pay 5c deposit upon listing. It sells, you receive 14 copper. ( Paying 1c minimum tax, and the 5c deposit is refunded which sums to 14 copper) You list a tome for 1s and pay the 5c deposit. Bids bring it up to where it sells at 75s you receive 71 silver 30 copper from the sale. (71.25s is the total after the 5% tax. and the 5c deposit is refunded which sums up to 71.3 silver) You list a buyout only 500 gold all fantastic scale armor set contained within a satchel, pay 5c deposit. It sells, you receive 499 gold 95 silver and 5 copper. paying 5s maximum tax and getting your 5c back. Edit: @Simyaciposes an excellent point. Added a minimum fee of 1c to avoid low price abuse situations. This may end up being changed to 1c per item to be above mail prices pending discussion with the devs.

I've not looked into it but i'm assuming unfinished items can't be mailed because the system does not support retaining some special data about them during server transfer. I can try to lift that requirement and see if they explode. However the reason i'm not bringing wagoners into this release is just to keep the complexity level down. I'm only trying to break one thing at a time and get features released in a reasonable timeframe. After we let this settle in we can discuss if we like how it's working and expansion to other mediums.

Yeah this is certainly not a 1 to 1 replacement as a first pass. My second update down the road would look to involve wagoners in some way to incorporate bulk and perhaps after that something for large items.

price history will be something i need to investigate. It will certainly not extend very far into the past. If we can get away with more than a month i'd be very happy as it will suffer from the same limitations we're trying to avoid by not allowing people to post 2 million things. There is surely a need for some history though for people to see who won an auction and what price rather than waking up the next day and just seeing their bank account has been refunded with their bid.

I plan for there to be a no bid buyout option. Which will effectively be a sell order. I agree the daily fee might be missing the mark. I'll be bringing this to the other devs for a reconsideration. We do not want to limit auctions on a per player basis because it encourages alt abuse. We don't want to encourage players to cause work for our already limited moderation team. That said we can't create a system where items can sit in there forever and cause infinite bloat over time. As others have mentioned the server would eventually buckle under the load and become unusable.