Quick Instructions for Selling
- Read about the storage fee and how to avoid it by adding lumber for personal storage space.
- Add your stuff to one of the auctionhouses, in Echtin or Port Barin, by clicking the auction house link and selecting the items in your inventory.
- For a default automatic auction, wait a few days. Otherwise create the forum post yourself as follows.
- Start New Topic in one of the market forums.
- Write something in the subject and body (can't be blank).
- Check the box “Include an auction with this thread”.
- Check the auctionhouse location.
- Check the item(s) to be sold in this auction.
- Set a starting bid if you want, the item won't sell unless somebody bids more.
- Change the end time if you want, it must be at least one hour in the future.
- Press the Post button.
- Any post set longer than 5 full days (120 hours) won't include the item, though title and text still post.
Bidding
Bidding works similar to ebay read
http://pages.ebay.com/help/buy/automatic-bidding.html for basic info on it
Storage Fee
It is important to take account of the storage fee, since this will reduce and can even eliminate the auction proceeds. The storage fee is charged when the auction finishes and is deducted from the money returned to the seller. The storage fee is also charged if items are added to the auctionhouse and then removed without auctioning them. The fee is calculated as 2 vessi plus half the total weight of the auctioned items, rounded down. For example, auctioning a tuna (5 stones) would cost 2 + 5/2 = 2 + 2 = 4 vessi. If somebody bid 5 vessi for the tuna, you would only receive 1 vessi net payment. Worse, if somebody bid 4 or less, you would receive nothing at all!
However the storage fee is not charged on the portion of your auction that fits inside your “personal storage” limit in the auctionhouse building. You have a separate limit at Echtin and Port Barin, which can be increased by adding lumber to the building as follows. Go to the appropriate town. Click on the auctionhouse link in the left menu. Click on Lumber in your inventory. A box will appear where you can enter the number of lumber that you wish to add: each lumber will give 2 stones of personal storage. Do NOT click Move or Move All, since these buttons will auction the lumber in the usual way. Use the Add for Storage button to add the lumber to your personal storage.
Multiple auctions
It is possible to run multiple identical auctions in a single forum post. Follow the instructions for a single auction, and also:
- Add the item(s) for each auction separately to the auctionhouse. Each auction must have identical item(s), e.g., 1 Glass Card or 200 Lumber.
When entering the auction details on the forum post:
- Select items to include in this auction: select only the items for a single auction.
- Repeat with all these types of item: select this checkbox.
WARNING! Do not add more than four auctions at once, otherwise you will be flagged for posting spam.
This is the info from the Auctionhouse building
Auctionhouse
Welcome. You can leave things here that you want to use in an auction or pickup things that you have won. Items you are leaving will be subject to a 1V per stone storage fee which will either be taken from the auction profits or collected from you if you want to remove them without an auction. Items left for more than 2 days will be put up for auction automatically. They will be put up for a 24 hour auction with no minimum and without your name mentioned, and the profits will be returned to you. If this is not what you want make sure you start an auction yourself before that time. Items won in an auction must be collected within 5 days, if they are still here after that period they will be reclaimed by the Flying V Auctionhouse Company. There is no fee to collect items that have already been paid for during that 5 day period.
Assorted Pictures for the reading challanged
Picture of the Add Lumber Screen
Picture of the Auctionhouse when you have storage space added
Picture What happens when trying to remove an item you placed in the Auctionhouse
Picture of adding a Thread with an Auctionhouse Item
This is the INFO mskwik posted on the forums prior to the auction house being usable
mskwik [Admin]
2008–09–23 12:32:14
Auctionhouse instructions
I know it's a little early but at the current rate not sure I'm going to be around right when it finishes so figured I'd get basic instructions up now and then you can start playing with it as soon as it finishes.
To auction an item/items off you must first drop them off at an auctionhouse building. It's a fairly standard interface to move things around, biggest difference is that they stay in the groups that you move them in, so you can move 2 groups of 100 stone and they will stay separate in the auctionhouse so you can auction them off separately.
Once the items have been dropped off you can start the auction whenever you're ready. This will be possible in any of the market forums except price check. The auction option can be found at the bottom there in place of the poll option. You choose the auction location if you have dropped things off in multiple auctionhouses and then any number of items from that location to auction in a bunch. You can also set the starting bid and the ending time (from 1 hour to 7 days length). Then when you post it the auction handler will show up at the top in the place where the polls show up. If there are any errors creating the auction the thread will be created anyway, it will just not have an auction attached so double check that everything is right.
Now for bidding, the auction owner can see the current high bid/bidder but cannot bid yourself. Anyone else can enter a high bid and the system will bid up to that amount for you automatically. The current bid shown will only be the amount needed to beat the next highest bid but if someone bids higher than the current bid but below your max then your current bid will be updated appropriately. No one else can see what your high bid is set to so they cannot purposely bid up to right below that to push the price up without a chance of going over and winning it themselves. You can also update your high bid to higher if you have the current max bid, but cannot make it any lower. The vessi for your high bidd will be collected when you make the bid and returned if you are outbid. You will also get an outbid notification message from “Flying V Auctions”, if you do not wish to receive messages you can add them to your ignore list and the messages will be supressed.
An announcement in chat will be made about 15 minutes before the auction ends on the same channel at the forum update announcement, so they can be ignored for individual forum topics the same way. Any bids in the last 15 minutes will extend the ending time to 15 minutes after the bid so everyone has a chance to get their bid in, no sniping auctions at the last second. When this happens it will also make the 15 minute announcement in chat again.
When the auction is over any vessi between the winning bid and the winning player's high bid will be returned to the winner and the items will be transferred to their name at the auctionhouse so they can pick them up at any time. The winning bid minus the storage fee will be sent to the player who started the auction, and both players will be notified by message.
If no one bids/wins the items will be returned to the original players account at the auctionhouse. They can be auctioned again or you can pay the storage fee and pick them up. Items at the auctionhouse waiting to be auctioned must be put up for auction within 48 hours, if they are not the auctioneers will do it automatically. The automatic auction will have no minimum bid and be for 24 hours, it will be posted by the auctionhouse itself so the player whose items they are is not known, but the profits will be returned to the player whose items they are.
Items that have been won must be picked up from the auctionhouse with 5 days, if they are not the will be repossessed by the auctionhouse. They may or may not be reauctioned off in the future with the profits kept by the auctionhouse.
mskwik [Admin]
2008–09–23 12:50:27
Re: Auctionhouse instructions
I should also note that there's no reason you can't do auctions the same way they happen now as well, this is just a way to add some extra protections and make things easier for both the buyer and seller if you wish to use it.
Also I mentioned the storage fee. This is based on the weight in stones of the items, once an item has been added to the auctionhouse the fee must be paid to remove it again or it must be won by someone in which case the fee will be deducted from the profits and the items can be retrieved without further payments. Think the normal storage fee is 2V plus half the weight.
2008–09–29 13:49:33 Re: Thoughts On Auction House
Okay, you should get an extra option now when adding lumber to contribute it for personal storage at that auctionhouse at a rate of 2 stones per lumber. No construction exp or anything involved, it's basically the same rate you would get building beginner houses with the disadvantage that anything you leave too long will be sold off If you have some amount of personal storage it will show that in the intro message at the auctionhouse.
Fee calculation is then done on each auction using worst case assumptions, so if your personal storage only covers part of all the items you have in the auctionhouse total it will assume that the current auction is in the part which must be charged for.
This still only applies to the seller, the space once it is bought is handled by the auctionhouse itself in return for any items that are left longer than the limit
No requirement to change anything you are doing to use it, but if you plan on doing lots of heavy auctions might be worth investing in some personal storage space of your own in the auctionhouse.
2008–09–29 13:58:12 Re: Thoughts On Auction House
As another note this is specific to the auctionhouse you do it at. Hopefully will get the other location going sometime fairly soon so don't jump on it too quickly if you think you might be using the one on the mainland more often later.
2008–09–29 14:01:43 Re: Thoughts On Auction House
No size limit, you get rather more storage building a house with the same lumber so don't see anyone using it to store any more than they have to. Does still have the 2V fee as well, basically just bumps the weight down to 0 if your personal storage coveres everything you have deposited.
