Suggestions

I think the auction house should be a little more like eBay. For one, I think we should have actual auctions. I don't know if this would create problems with coding or whatever, but it would be a lot easier than trying to manage forum auctions. And you could still have buy it now options for people who don't want to bid or auction their dragons/items. I also think there should be a way to see what similar auctions have sold for in the past. If I'm trying to sell a skin, especially if it's more rare, it's hard to know if the LAH is the going rate or just what people are asking but not actually getting for that item. This isn't as big of a deal with more common items because that's a little easier to tell, but with less common stuff it would be a huge help to see what people have actually gotten for that item.

While I support having auctions in a separate part of the site, I do NOT support having the auction house changed to be actual auctions.

I absolutely hate auctions and when I go to buy something I want it NOW, not two days in the future, nor do I like having to either pay a (usually) inflated price to 'autobuy' it or sit over the auction in case someone else out bids me (or have someone else buy it out from under me using the autobuy).

I also don't want them mixed because I don't want to go looking for things and see all the stuff I am looking to buy (or the cheapest ones) are all auctions.

So, I would rather the two areas be completely separate with separate areas as well as searches.

@jenadar i was a bit unclear in my original post, that's my fault. I think that, like eBay, we should have a filter for bid, buy it now, and bid or buy it now. I myself am not a huge fan of auctions either, but I think this would make more sense (because it's called the auction house lol) and make it easier for people who do enjoy auctions without having to wade through tons of auction posts.

@Femmegf

I still wouldn't want them in the same area. Most other sites that have both flat sales and auctions that I have seen don't mix them either, so I don't really see why FR should (not really sure why they called it Auction House, but to save confusion, even if they changed the name, I would like them to call auctions something different as well), especially since they are handled two different ways. I don't want to go to the AH and forget to check 'flat sales only' and have all these auctions popup.

It would probably be easier to keep the two separate as then the AH wouldn't have to be revamped again to include all the options that an Auction might have (ie they would have to update the looks of ALL sales to include things that aren't necessarily used in flat sales as well as update the search functions.) Starting from scratch (or a basic sale template) would probably be easier and stands less chance of breaking the existing Auction house while they add the new way of selling.

Overall, I have to say that I am for tentative no support.

Like Jemadar said, I too when I go to current AH I want the item right now and not in some semi-specific future time; mixing flat-sales with actual bidding auctions seems unnecessary messy. So a separate thing should be used for the bidding auctions.

For previous sales, I am on the fence; while that would be useful, that might also give either inflated or too small expectations - for example, gem:treasure ratio has moved from 1:1000 at the start of the year to 1:820 right now. An item that was sold for 1000g at the start of the year might not be worth that much right now or it might be worth even more (eg rare retired skins).

And for the end, one thing that I completely don't like in automated bidding auctions that would be set up similar to current AH - some auctions end up being not 'item for currency' but 'item for another item'. Current AH is set up only for pure currency trades and that is not always the case for auctions; I've been on both sides of auctions where the bids exceeded the amounts of pure currency the bidders had and the auctions moved to the 'item for items' format.


What I would like is some sort of automated index of currently held bidding auctions - if you'd imagine the current AH, instead of price, you'd have a link to the auction's thread. So you'd see the item/dragon being auctioned and be sure that the auctioneer actually has it, approximately how many days left (due to snipe guards extending the auction) and the link to the thread.

@femmegf
The problem is that it would be a feature rarely used. I played WoW for a number of years and you could list actual auctions or actual auctions with a reserve and buy it now price. Other than really rare stuff, nobody ran auctions. The sellers wanted to know what they'd get when it sold and buyers wanted to get their item now, not wait a week and hope they weren't outbid. With the prices for everything but the absolute rarest stuff here having pretty stable prices, it just doesn't seem like a good use of time coding to add it.

I mostly don't see the point - auctions that actually go anywhere are pretty rare, and the ones that do almost always include gems, treasure and usually items as well. A real auction house would have to be so restrictive that it'd barely see any use.

I think a dragon auction area could be useful as long as it's separate from the actual AH, which isn't really an auction house, it's a trading post.

I mean we have a whole forum dedicated to dragon auctions which seems extremely active so there's definitely an appetite for it.

It would protect the buyer and the seller from people either pulling out after they have posted their bid and making someone re-auction, and also discourage people using their multis to bump up bids.