Kickstart the Auction House

[Waschbaer]

So when I played on an other server a couple of weeks ago I was really disappointed due to the fact that nobody there was using the auction house.

Sure, you can farm all of yourself and keep playing autonomously with having a character for every production- und gathering-job, but the time and effort, needed to put in, is not something I´m looking for. On the other hand, you could get in touch with other players and/or become a member of a famous and helpful guild for supplies - but sadly I´m not that sociable of a person and play the most of the normal gameplay on my own.

The bugged quests and awful server-stability on the old server were way worse too but I didn´t care much and considered them more of a minor inconvenience. What I struggled the most was the lack of possibilities to make my gathered items into money and buy necessary items such as glyphs, crafting material, gems and so on. Actually the useless auction house was one of the main reasons I quit playing there.

I was hyped when a friend told me of this server. He spoke of way more people online and told me how many items in the auctionhouse were on sale. So I got new hope and gave it a try. In fact we gathered a view friends and migrated a short while ago.


When I first visited a capital city I was a bit underwhelmed. There were 10 items for sale in total and for a crosstrading auctionhouse this was not was I expected. Every Item I put in for sale got send back later and I had already almost lost all my money for the auction fees.


Sure this "problem" could solve itself as soon as the server exceeds a certain playerbase-threshhold and no adjustment would be needed. Though I think most of new players are put off by the rarely used auction house and will try only once to put in all of their herbs, leather or ores before going broke and receiving all of their items back after 48 hours.

On retail servers there were always enough players to maintain a healthy economy because of the generated hype from advertising and promotion done by Blizzard and the media - sadly we can´t rely on such things on a private server with such an outdated game version.


So what are the possibilities to bridge over the time when enough players are online until the auction house would be healthy again?

I´m not sure how manageable this really is or how much of an effort it would take but I think the economy would benefit from one of the following (or a combination).

1. Make the auctions free of charge or way cheaper
This would ensure that less or no money at all is wasted when you put your items in the auction house. And players are encouraged to sell their stuff.

2. Expand the duration of the auctions
This would give a potential buyer more time to discover the auction and expands the range of items in the auction house.


Please keep in mind, that I would change them back to "normal" as soon as the population has reached a reasonable playerbase.

[Bookamp]

Good idea, a functioning auction house may encourage more players.