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.

I've read through this far so i'm responding to concerns that have come up more than a couple times. Let me know if I missed anything. First I want to address the mailbox being immersion breaking or not the most elegant solution. My idea is that access to the auction system should be within reach of everyone. Honestly even mailboxes seem gatekept behind a priest cast and tokens might be better suited. I don't support placing outlets at starters because it unfairly benefits those close to the starter and it will encourage parking auction alts there. I'm on the fence about attaching it to merchants because it would attach an 8s startup cost to access. A new auction house access structure ( similar to a market stall ) would feel odd without any npc operating it. I'd love to hear more thoughts on solutions to this. Many here have suggested that one could not sell items that are not worthy of auction. Such as a smith selling tools. The fees are currently planned to be 3c a day (you select a duration of the listing when making it) and 5% of the sell price. My hope is that pricing leaves space for mid tier items. However it is designed to reduce spam. We don't currently plan to be limiting auctions to x per player. That reduces utility for merchants and alts easily bypass it anyway. Containers will be allowed to group lower price items into something that is worth the fees. More on that below. WTS listings can still exist through the use of the buyout feature. You will be able to create what amounts to a wts listing by turning off bidding and setting a buyout. Auctions will only consist of one base item. However that item can be a container with other items inside. Unlike mail, you will not be charged any additional fees for items within the container. For technical reasons I believe that we will be limiting this to only one container (no bags in bags). My hope is this handles most cases of sets of items or bags of gems etc. If I can sort out a way to query a database with millions of items to grab a single page of auction listings by a searched category that are 7 containers deep from the actual listed item we might lift that restriction. But my experience tells me that it will be too slow for general use of the Auction UI. To my knowledge we have no plans to remove the auctions and wts/merchant listings from the forum. I apologize if I gave that impression.

I believe we'll be taking a very iron clad approach that will minimize need for moderation. Preset bid amounts: This is a decent qol idea, setting the default bid at the minimum bid increment above the current bid. I would allow that amount to be changed though so that people can bid higher as it happens quite often. Shill bidding: There will be no backing out or withdrawing. Your bid amount is taken from you when you bid. It is returned when someone else bids. There is no way to stop alts or friends from bidding, but it's risky because of the fees and taxes. If they win the auction the seller is out the 3c a day and 5% of sale price. Errors in listings: The item is given to the system upon listing. The players who bid will view the item as it will be when delivered. At the moment I don't intend to allow canceling listings. Non payment shouldn't be an issue since we collect everything at the time of the bid or auction. The system will handle the transaction. Buyers remorse will be between the involved parties. Should they decide to trade directly that will be up to them.

I'm posting here vs in feature feedback just for higher visibility. There has been an understandable mix of reactions to the news of an auction house feature. I'll try to explain what it is and how it will work along with reasons for each decision in the implementation. If you are familiar with me you might know I do read these forums and often will adjust how things work based out of them so long as changes can fall within my limited range of options for implementation. Very much like the Rift rework, Archeology update, chat item tagging, etc changes I've run in the past I hope we can all approach this with the mindset that we're going to be making imperfect steps toward a better game, not releasing a cure all feature that will solve everything. With that in mind here are the main problems we're trying to help solve: A large portion, I believe more than half of all players, simply will not make the social effort to trade directly with other players that they don't know. This game is amazing for a ton of reasons, but when you want to play small group or solo it can be incredibly difficult. I personally played for 6 years before speaking in trade even one time. I utilized freedom market on indy a few times over the years to buy items. It was great, I got my first higher ql tools and first enchanted weapons there. However (this was before highways) it was literally an entire 8-12 hour play session to make the trip and return home. Even then with out a well equipped horse and 50+FS it was just not a possibility. In addition to that you needed to utilize these third party maps and just so much went into it that I know casual players just don't have these options. I've very sensitive to that now as a parent with an 8-5 job that kind of play time just doesn't exist. So for me personally, this is the primary motivation. It's really just player retention, players need access to being able to play the parts of the game that they enjoy and not be forced to train skills they don't care about or worse, actively dislike. The common argument is joining a village and alliance is fantastic for this but there are many out there that just don't want to be social or don't want to burden others. Second, for a variety of reasons a huge portion of players don't have forum accounts to access the existing market and auction listings. For those who do actually have accounts the search for a specific item can be quite lengthy and cumbersome. The rules of auctions change from post to post, sometimes bid disputes etc happen. We will not completely solve these issues, but lets try to improve upon the situation. So a first step is just bringing some of the function that exists in the forum into the game. Please remember we have to take a bite small enough that we can actually get something released. So some main features are that it must be cluster wide, it must provide the features that auctions use such as starting bid, minimum bid increment, buyout options, sniper protection, etc. However, we have to be cautious because we're not looking to replace merchants or allow listing spam. So to facilitate that there will be a cost associated with having a listing up. The plan is to start with a few copper a day. Like with merchants, there will be a tax on all sales. As someone who was a merchant for a long time, I believe it should remain cheaper to do trade in trade chat directly with other players. Players who wish to flex their merchant skill should still have a place in this game. I believe the fees create that space while also preventing the auction house from becoming the primary trade method. I hope this addresses concerns that we're replacing merchants or ruining trade chat. We're really not looking to majorly disrupt existing trade flows that happen outside of the forum. I really want this to be viewed as just moving the forum functions into the game. Because if you think of it in that way it should have no impact to how the game works currently. Attaching merchants to this system was considered, but because of the need to be cluster wide I heavily fear the synchronization issues and the need to be able to sort these listings at the Auction interface there are too many technical issues with integrating with merchants. Additionally mailboxes are just far more common and accessible. It would be very nice to attach bulk trade (wagoner) to this system in the future. I would also love to also allow additional features such as shipping of caged animals. But right now we're looking to see how this small addition impacts the game so we can properly build out more features. Also, smaller releases often may mean getting something rather than nothing. So please share your thoughts here. This is a hot topic, please keep it civil. Also this is just me but if you want to be heard, even if you oppose my ideas, well put together thoughts and posts reach me far better than rage posting.

Shouldn't be hard, but it unfortunately is. Your inventory is special because your client knows what is inside it at all times. On containers outside your inventory if they have another container within them your client does not know what is inside it until you expand it. Because of that we can't search within it client side without doing a greedy load to your client and if you've ever hit expand all on a forge with 100 containers inside you know that isn't an option for general play.

It has been a long while since I wrote this code but I scanned over the implementation and from what i've seen rift mats given when building colossus do not check inventory capacity. You should always get them even if above 100 item count.

It should operate as a normal bracelet of inspiration. The used rename should not matter, it was just a rename from the old system. You can confirm it will work by if it gives you a status icon when equipped.

No, rift rewards continue to be disabled on pvp servers. We however make an exception and enabled artisan rings this time around. Artisan necklaces did not make it into the rework timeframe for this release. So they are not rechargeable.

Unfortunately by design most rift rewards including the socketed ring, bracelet of inspiration, all shoulder pads do not work on pvp servers. Artisan ring is the exception and does work.

It is already released that anyone can continue. Someone of that religion will have to start the colossus.

For anyone still checking in here: The 12h build period before the rift where no sickness is applied isn't being balanced against one person trying to complete them all it's more to the idea of 10 people being able to finish a few of them up in just a couple hours before the rift. It's not intended to be scaled so that they will all be finished each time. I'd much rather there be some building still available vs all of it be gone to allow more space for builders to get points even on somewhat populated servers. The legacy artisan rings losing charge are a problem I'll try to figure out an elegant way to resolve. If what I've found is correct then after a bug fix they will receive charge based on how much time was left at around the time of the update. Don't worry about if you have charged them since then as it will just stack on top of what charge it has (if any). This will happen at the same time as renaming them all to not be called used or depleted anymore (But will not be this incoming patch). It's my intention to diversify the colossus requirements to be stuff other than just brick and clay but I don't know how long that will take to implement as I've been circling back for bugs and sadly my time is a bit more limited these days. I've been looking at implementing a spell icon but due to how the rift power degrades being unique and that the effects are server specific, not impacted by logout etc.. it was getting very complicated to be kept up to date on individual clients. For the time being I've added a line to the /rift readout that just tells you your sickness at that moment. Also i've dialed libila's spawn increase down, added a function to break a gem out of a socketed ring with a hammer and other changes and bugs fixed I can't recall right now. They should hopefully be released from testing in the upcoming patch.