Bid increases in auctions

[Dusty Klatt]

I want to start by prefacing this by saying I do not know how difficult this would be to code, but feel that in our current auction system the min bid increase should be looked into


The point of the auction is to pull money from the game, and I find it comical that horses can go for millions of dollars and be won on 3k upbid.

Id like to see any horse that goes over a million dollar bid have a min 1-2% bid increase. Aka for 10 mil horse the next bid would be 100-200k higher.

Thoughts??

[Scott Eiland]

sigh. Here we go.

I vote no changes.

[Jack Meyer]

I second the "no changes" statement


Jack

[Vanille Reynolds]

Em and the admin have had a rough time with this lately, server issues and all - so I applaud them for that, and think things work well enough as they are.

(Although, if Em wanted to STOP people from blowing up a horses price just because they can, I'd LOVE that... (I saw more then a couple of the $300-400K horses go and sit at $1mill in one jump because someone did just that, and they sat there for days afterwards). It totally rules out a lot of people, when people can only win one horse anyway - that would defeat the point of taking as much money out as possible, but that is the one thing that really really (really really really!) wound me up this time around.)

[Dusty Klatt]

this post isnt meant to change the format of the auction, because while i think it is outdated, many feel strongly for not changing it (because change can be a scary thing)

This is meant to look at the stewards goal in this auction, which is to pull money from the game. Would more money be pulled if it was a 1-2% min increase in bid? yes.

[The Steward]

I think its a cool idea.

[Corey Lange]

I think more money would disappear if Laura, Eric, etc. could win 5 of the Stewards horses... But that's off topic now isn't it...
I think it's just another way for us to complain, leave the auction how it is...

[Nena Olson]

I don't really see the point in that... so you can up a $1 mil horse by $10k instead of $3k? What does $7k even buy you in the SIM now a days anyway? You rarely get horses that are worth $10 mil+ which would draw the amounts that matter and $100k isn't really going to put much dent in the people who can afford a $10 mil+ horse's pocketbook and it's just one person breeding to their $100k stud fee stud anyway. That being said... no changes are needed. This auction already has almost all $1 mil+ horses going. I never considered myself SIM poor until this auction where I can only afford 4 horses!

[Jack Meyer]

Those underbids though are what give newbs hope when they try and bid on these things...that thought that they may be able to sneak by with one adds to their excitement...with a change like what you are talking about would virtually eliminate that from being possible...I'd imagine would kind of make them feel even more pressure when trying to climb in the game....I'd imagine getting new players to come and stay is a good thing, wouldn't you be afraid it would make them leave if they felt they can't even get good on the lucky end of one of these things?


Jack

[Scott Eiland]

i love the TBS auction because it's the closest thing to the final act in the 1984 movie "Trading Places" that i've ever seen in my life. i love the tension and the final five minutes of frantic clicking and server testing. It's capitalism in its purest form, even though it is the fake horseracing equivalent of Bernard Bernake or whatever his name is artificially manipulating the currency.

Dusty's idea might help simflation on the margins if it were to be coded, but even if it were successfully coded it wouldn't end the angst of it. Every couple months we'll still have to deal with another forum thread, which i actually enjoy in some perverse popcorn-eating way. It all depends on your goal. What would the consequences be? Would people become more despondent about the auctions and quit? would they enjoy them more? would it be a net gain in "cash pulled out of circulation"? Would I magically get all the freaks? If that last thing were to happen, I'd buy in tomorrow.

Actually, maybe i have no point. Good luck to me in the last hour!

[Dusty Klatt]

The newer players would not be affected as the lower limit could be placed at a high enough mark that newer players are not bidding regardless. I think it would be interesting to see what 1-2% did. More because a 10 million dollar horse to a bigger player the upbid of 100-200k is nothing to them. But it is enough that you will see the higher priced horses escalating at a quicker pace and i believe going for a higher price.

I am a huge fan of promoting ways to suck money out of the game, because that is the ultimate way to promote growth among new and old players when the disparity decreases between big money barns and smaller barns.

[Jack Meyer]

To be honest though, that flow on money in the bigger barns isn't going to decrease...Those players have very nice barns that they worked very hard to get so it is something that the other players just have to deal with....This is why I think changes to the auction format is bad because it gives EVERYONE a chance t land those big ones since players can win just one and there are chances for newbs to catch a break and snub one of those nice ones and if you put it out of their reach, like you had stated, it would be very disheartening to those players...

Jack

[Dusty Klatt]

There may actually be a better chance a newer player lands an underbid with higher margins there'd be less bids between top and bottom

[Matt Feldman]

Totally off topic here, but often the only time I find out that someone changed their screen name is during an auction when I don't recognize a name bidding major $, in this case "Friedrich Barbarossa." Then you do a little digging to see who it is!

Back on topic, 1% increases really won't matter in the scheme of things, since in the end, people are just bidding "more" for the horse they have their eye on - for the most part, they don't care if its $3,000 more or $30,000 at that point. If it makes the person out bid feel better to lose out by $30,000, all the better. But the extra few hundred thousand it takes out of the game really won't make a difference.

And I'm not sure I understand Vanille's point. It doesn't matter how quickly a horse gets to its final selling price - its going to go to where the market says it should in the end, if by small increments or huge jumps (not that the market in this case is at all rational - there is just too much money sloshing around the Sim for that).

[Dusty Klatt]

The idea would be 1% increase if it clears a certain mark and increased % min bids at higher marks. Maybe if the horse clears 10 mil then the min bid increase needs to be 5%...just an idea of scaled min bid increase to cost of horse