Grey Ghost Auction (Partial Success, Details Below)

[Ronk]

This is my reply posted as the main thread...so dont' be surprised when you see it again below:


Just to clear things up...

It wasn't 'griefed' hard. Early in the auction, someone brought in a ton of rats and animals. These were just ignored and the auction went on for about an hour with few problems. As I said in the previous post, a few people created fake alts to throw fake bids but this was expected and they were quickly removed. Over 200k in items were auctioned and sold. A few high end items and ingots received no bids due to a high starting bid that people did not want to buy.

Toward the end, someone earthquaked people and started attacking but the auction was pretty much done at that point. The items left were mostly vanqs of various non-popular weapons and a few other items. The reports that these attacks 'ruined' the auction are far over rated and sound more akin to a small penised man buying a big truck to make himself feel better than the actual truth.

The truth of the matter is, I expected these attacks and hard core trying to mess up the event far sooner. It was such a horrible job on their part I was tempted to make an 'era accuracy post' about the lack of quality griefers on this shard. However, I figured that would just be a flame war and pointless.

Items sold included quanties of arrows, bolts, bottles, ingots (though a large portion were not sold due to price). A nice vanq hally was sold and got quite a few bids. A suit of daemon armor sold. Copper and bronze ingots sold. A couple other vanq weapons also sold. A blessed tunic was auctioned but no one bit at the price. 20k boards went up for auction to a bid of 60k but the seller wanted 80k min and I was not at liberty to adjust the price.

Of the notable items that didn't get auctioned were a full suit of noobied ranger armor, a keep, and a black dye tub. There were a few minor rares thrown in at the last minute but given the bidding pattern I didn't expect these to sell and that is part of the reason they were left till last. There were also various force weapons and some non-descript vanqs (like a club) that I didn't really expect to get much bidding. I could have logged my alt and ressed and continued the event but the bids just weren't there.

I still plan on some future events but I doubt they will be auctions.


Edit: Also, I got the impression some of the bids were just people trying to support an event rather than actually caring about the items. Either way, I appreciate the support and trust from all of the sellers. I was surprised people would so easily hand over millions of gold worth of items.

If i've learned anything its that the players of UOSA are as cheap as me when it comes to buying. Lol.

[Ronk]

Overall the auction went decently well. No one really followed the no mount rule, then again, all stables are full so it was kind of waved. Many items sold and the bidding went very well but in addition, many people sold their items with far to high of initial bid which put off the bidders.

A lot of alt characters were made just to go through fake bids, but those got rooted out and banned fast and caused little disruption. The mass of rats and such was only a problem until I flipped off the 'show incomming names'.

Overall, I think the market is too small for in game auctions. Very few people actually want to bid on items.

I will be returning all unsold items within the next few days and getting the gold to those who had successful sales.
For those few people who bought raffle tickets, I will be buying back the tickets for 5k each since the raffle was a bit of a flop.

[Fede]

This auction was horrible. For those who didn't participate, you should consider yourselves lucky! Sandro came and killed everyone.

[Boondock_Saint]

I think most people had recalled. Fake Sandro looked to have trouble with the tamed rats that were attacking him. :-/

The event seemed to have gone well. The children on the server definitely showed up. Maybe next time it should be held later in the day when they are asleep.

[doobs]

I wasn't able to make it due to power outage, but from what I hear it got griefed pretty hard.
Which is sad.

I guess next time we should hold the auction within town and only go out to retrieve the items.
It will make it a little more difficult for the pks to mess up.

[Ronk]

Just to clear things up...

It wasn't 'griefed' hard. Early in the auction, someone brought in a ton of rats and animals. These were just ignored and the auction went on for about an hour with few problems. As I said in the previous post, a few people created fake alts to throw fake bids but this was expected and they were quickly removed. Over 200k in items were auctioned and sold. A few high end items and ingots received no bids due to a high starting bid that people did not want to buy.

Toward the end, someone earthquaked people and started attacking but the auction was pretty much done at that point. The items left were mostly vanqs of various non-popular weapons and a few other items. The reports that these attacks 'ruined' the auction are far over rated and sound more akin to a small penised man buying a big truck to make himself feel better than the actual truth.

The truth of the matter is, I expected these attacks and hard core trying to mess up the event far sooner. It was such a horrible job on their part I was tempted to make an 'era accuracy post' about the lack of quality griefers on this shard. However, I figured that would just be a flame war and pointless.

Items sold included quanties of arrows, bolts, bottles, ingots (though a large portion were not sold due to price). A nice vanq hally was sold and got quite a few bids. A suit of daemon armor sold. Copper and bronze ingots sold. A couple other vanq weapons also sold. A blessed tunic was auctioned but no one bit at the price. 20k boards went up for auction to a bid of 60k but the seller wanted 80k min and I was not at liberty to adjust the price.

Of the notable items that didn't get auctioned were a full suit of noobied ranger armor, a keep, and a black dye tub. There were a few minor rares thrown in at the last minute but given the bidding pattern I didn't expect these to sell and that is part of the reason they were left till last. There were also various force weapons and some non-descript vanqs (like a club) that I didn't really expect to get much bidding. I could have logged my alt and ressed and continued the event but the bids just weren't there.

I still plan on some future events but I doubt they will be auctions.


Edit: Also, I got the impression some of the bids were just people trying to support an event rather than actually caring about the items. Either way, I appreciate the support and trust from all of the sellers. I was surprised people would so easily hand over millions of gold worth of items.

If i've learned anything its that the players of UOSA are as cheap as me when it comes to buying. Lol.

[iamreallysquall]

This auction was horrible. For those who didn't participate, you should consider yourselves lucky! I showed up on my character Sandro (http://my.uosecondage.com/Status/Player/144942) and killed everyone with my guildmate hydroponic.

[applejack]

I was there and I thought it went pretty well all things considered. I didn't bid on anything but I was definitely ready to if something I was interested in came up. It sounds like you're not going to do any more, which is too bad, but if you were my advice would be to mix up the order on the types of items being sold. Instead of selling all of the resources first (which I didn't have any interest in), have something like ingots, then hally, then rare, boards, another weapon, more ingots, etc. Also a complete list of every item that will be up for bid before the auction starts would have been helpful imo. Really the only disappointing thing for me was that it seemed that BYI's griefing actually ended it. I would have liked to carry on in defiance. All in all though I would say good job Ronk.

[Populus]

I was tempted to make an 'era accuracy post' about the lack of quality griefers on this shard.

Sorry, but it was in the middle of the night for me.

I think you should do more auctions, and like applejack said, maybe a book with all items being auctioned.

[Fede]

How can you say this was a good event? Ronk had Omnicron and Rose guard the tower to prevent potential griefers. Might as well have put a couple of sewer rats at the front door. I wouldn't have died to Sandro if Ronk had half a brain. Oh well, I look forward to participating in the next one.

[Ronk]

I was there and I thought it went pretty well all things considered. I didn't bid on anything but I was definitely ready to if something I was interested in came up. It sounds like you're not going to do any more, which is too bad, but if you were my advice would be to mix up the order on the types of items being sold. Instead of selling all of the resources first (which I didn't have any interest in), have something like ingots, then hally, then rare, boards, another weapon, more ingots, etc. Also a complete list of every item that will be up for bid before the auction starts would have been helpful imo. Really the only disappointing thing for me was that it seemed that BYI's griefing actually ended it. I would have liked to carry on in defiance. All in all though I would say good job Ronk.

Couple points on that. First, I was trying to scan for items that would sell and people may bid on, and I think it worked overall. When I did the ingots, boards, and other resources back to back they all sold. Apparently, also, the boards WERE a real bidder who was simply having trouble purchasing them, so I feel slightly bad for the misunderstanding. Lol.

As for ending it early. I weighed the options. On one hand I coulda got everyone back together and auctioned hte few more items I thought would sell. That would certainly have prevented all of the penis comparing and claims of ruining it that went on...but ultimtately, between having a cold in real life and the fairly small turn out and my judgement on what would of sold, I determined it wasn't worth it.

I had EXPECTED to be killed (me being the auctioneer) very early and I had several characters behind the character that could log in and res me. I also expected people to be breaking into the tower below and had tables set up to block the door if necessary. In the end, its important to remember that I never do events for subsets of people. If I do an event I want it to included everyone.

Further, I don't want super secure events done in trammel or with GM support to protect it. I want T2A, era accurate, events. GM support is great for announcing and, depending on the event, things like shutting off guards so an event can take place but a trammel auction tower is never desired.

I take it back that I won't due further auctions, I may. But if I do I will certainly format them a little differently and try to control starting bids more and, of course, make a list available. One reason I got rid of the list is because I didn't want people to show up for one item and leave...but in hindsight, that is silly. And in fact that is how real auctions work.

The big thing I disliked about the auction was that it is a little stressful to deal with other peoples items...especially high end million gold items. When its my pixels...if they are lost, who cares, I don't. But when it belongs to someone else I have to put that extra care into keeping it safe. Especially considering I didn't have the wealth to replace something I screwed up.

For future auctions:
1. I will rent a keep, not a tower. That will prevent earthquakes. I wanted to do this but the keep I wanted to rent the owner never got back with me and so I had to settle on a tower in a bad location. Lol.

2. I need to get more staff to help. Not for 'protection' per say, but just for things like snooping, letting people in, gating, etc. The number of volunteers initially was less than I expected and it made it difficult.

3. I need to get my auctioneer with magery and more strength. That way he isn't a 50 hp noob and can have magic reflect, etc.

4. Maybe a ten item limit. Instead of trying to make it a long massive event, keep it short and simple. Ten items, each announced ahead of time. But quality items. Things that get a lot of bidding on the forums as opposed to things that didn't sell on the forums.

5. Set up a 'pick up later' chest. That way buyers can buy the item then hand it to me to store till later. Then no need for gating out or holding an expensive item in your bag.

How can you say this was a good event? Ronk had Omnicron and Rose guard the tower to prevent potential griefers. Might as well have put a couple of sewer rats at the front door. I wouldn't have died to Sandro if Ronk had half a brain. Oh well, I look forward to participating in the next one.

Because Fede, I got a great turn out of sellers. From what ive heard, a large turn out of buyers/participants compared to most events. Sorry to inform you, but you guys also count as participants (even though I only briefly saw 'Fede' once...). All in all, it generated a lot of excitement and provided a lot of fun for the buyers, sellers, and 'griefers'.

And personally, I think they did a good job. They held a griefer guild at bay for over an hour while many items were sold. They handled the rat problem, kept people healed, kudos to them. Also, kudos to 'Sandro' and crew for spicing the night up.

[Roser]

Red Sandro is Fede.

*facepalm*

[Ronk]

Red Sandro is Fede.

*facepalm*

Nah, red sandro is red sandro. Fede was too much of a pussy to show up and fight.

[Fede]

Nah, red sandro is red sandro. Fede was too much of a pussy to show up and fight.

I killed Omnicron after getting banned for no reason.

I will just keep reiterating how terrible this event was. You had a couple sewer rats running around, horrible lag, a brainless auctioneer, and hardly any people at the event.

Edit:

And personally, I think they did a good job. They held a griefer guild at bay for over an hour while many items were sold.

Hah, if you think that is a good job then so be it. I can only hope this type of mindset of a "good job" doesn't follow you outside the game. That basically makes you an inefficient individual.

[Boondock_Saint]

Red Sandro is Fede.

*facepalm*

Nah, red sandro is red sandro. Fede was too much of a pussy to show up and fight.

This.

Yea it is kinda hard for 2 players(Rose and Omega) to fend off a guild of sewer rats. :-/