Auctions
I feel like this topic has been covered before since it is a very prominent feature on most servers.
However, if this issue hasn't been addressed, I suggest that an auction feature be added to uncovery for buying/selling. Although we already have a system for that, I believe adding auctions would be beneficial for quick selling and boost interactions in the economy in a more user-friendly way rather than trying to navigate around the shop system.
Hey, thanks for the suggestion. Can you please describe in more detail why the current system if not enough? And what an auction can accomplish that the current system cannot? Developing another feature like this is a major effort and will take weeks to develop and make work. I want to make sure that it's a meaningful addition that a lot of users want and that really add value to the community.
For convenience reasons, the current system is (for me at least) not exactly suitable for quick selling. One would have to put up the item for a set price, then, the buyer would have to look up the ID, and then buy it. If one were to just auction something off, then the price would be more determined by the buyer-- be more negotiable between players, and would allow for quicker ways of getting items as well as cash should one need/have items or money. Most would like the feature to be added for a more lucrative economy/another way of buying and selling and, of course, it would be cool to have :).
I actually thought that such a plug in would be already available since I've seen several variations on different servers, but if the work should be too much, I understand.
Well our server has stepped away from economy plugins some while ago and we have our own currency system now. If we installed another system, we would have to change all other plugins that deal with money, so either we program it ourselves or we skip it.
But to come back to the auction system: The issue I see with that is that it requires a certain amount of buyers to be available during the time of the auction. A lot of our players however are spreading out over the week. If we had permanently 10-20 people online this would be different, but my worry is that you won't find the buyers.
My recommendation would be the following: Try it out. Go the the trading channel, and chat yourself through a auction. just announce that you are selling, ask people to offer a price, highest bidder wins. See what happens.
If it works and if it's popular, talk to me and we might implement it.
Hello Sky,
Could you give an example of an item or quantity of an item for which an auction system would be a bonus?
We're a relatively small community, so there is not always a flow of buyers online, wether or not we have an auction system.
Most of us like to farm/mine/hoard our own stuff, there is not a constant need of goods. A need for certain goods might come in when someone starts a project, but then the transaction timing is driven by the buyer, which is not exactly what you seem to want. Beside, when someone starts a project and need a lot of stuff, it is very common for people just to donate ressources here.
All in all, I'm really circonspect about the server's economy to be a viable and interesting way to generate and spend cash. My main source of cash is voting and my main target of expense is buying lots (and now homes).
I have an idea how this might work. I could see this useful for larger valued items like a beacon or elytra or a bulk amount of items. An example command usage could be something like this /auction [item] <price> [amount] [time]. These commands could change but I'm using them to demonstrate an example workflow.
The item, and amount would work similar to the offer commands, price would be the minimum asking price and the time would be the length of time (in hours or days) the item goes up for auction for up to 7 days. I feel like having a longer duration instead of near instantaneous might give people more of a chance to see what's available.
Other users could then /bid <id> <price> on the item so long as it is a higher value than previous offers. The funds would immediately be removed from the bidders account. Bidders could then enter /watch <id> and see a list of all offers made by a user on the bid, and bid higher amounts if needed.
After the set amount of time has passed on the bid, it is then considered closed. Triggered by an hourly cronjob or server restart, if nobody bids above the asking price, the item is then returned to the original owner. Otherwise the item is deposited to the highest bidder, the original item owner is paid and funds are returned to non-winning bidders.
As far as finding the items, the a namespace could be used as o is for offer, r is for request and a is for auction.
At least that's a general idea as how it could be used. I certainly would see myself using it for beacons myself.
This surely would work well for an elytra.. but then, there are so few elytras for sale, that if you want to auction one, why not simply open a forum thread? :)
In any case, the current limit of 10.000 uncs for a shop offer is not adapted for the elytra.. I've been offering that much for almost a month now and I'm still waiting for it ;p.
I also think that selling a valuable item like this is definitely not something you want to do in a matter of hours like Sky suggested, if I understood correctly. You want to give the most people possible a chance to make an offer.
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As far as the find command is concerned I would include the auctions in the "o" search command, it would be too bad if people missed opportunities just because they only checked "o" or "a"..