TOPIC: Entire Collection Auction :( Ends 9:00PM 31JUL17

Frivolous high bids get stymied too. If Alex were to bid $300 for the hat in an attempt to shut people out, Bob would have the option of bidding a high of $310, and abandoning.

Basically people would still have to be cautious of their bids.

Marlon Hestetune wrote: Here's the problem with #2.

I am the sniper. I bid $5 more at 11:59:59 and I am the seeming winner.

Now the snipee gets some allotted time to answer back?

Do I, the original sniper, who has now been counter sniped, get my own allotted time to answer back?

If no, why not, is my bid less valid because I waited?

If yes, how long does that go on?

I say, set your time. Stick to it. Use the time stamp from the message board. Bids before the set end time, good. Bids after the set end time, bad.

Will someone potentially get sniped and then be unhappy? Yes.
It is an online auction.

Worry about your stress levels, not ours. If the token is important, I will stay up until whenever you have posted and watch.
Or I can raise my max bid before I go to sleep and let the chips fall where they may.

+1 to this. It's an auction. Use the time stamp from the message board and if people really want their Token then they will stay up until the end.

I prefer no changes to the set up. If changes are made then I would want a restart of auction.


I have pulled all of my bids in previous auctions that change how they are being run. One change seems to lead to another etc.

Ioun Stone Sapphire Prism..............$100.00

Marlon Hestetune wrote: Here's the problem with #2.

I am the sniper. I bid $5 more at 11:59:59 and I am the seeming winner.

Now the snipee gets some allotted time to answer back?

Do I, the original sniper, who has now been counter sniped, get my own allotted time to answer back?

If no, why not, is my bid less valid because I waited?

Correct, your bid is less valid. Sniping breaks the DBAD rule.

Shady Veldrin wrote: So I've had a few people inquire about the end of the auction, with concern to how last minute bids will be handled regarding the end time. My intention isn't to allow a bid holder to be "sniped" with somebody putting in an offer at the last second, but that's entirely possible.

So I wanted to ask you, what would make the most sense? Options I've considered:

1. Keep the "final bid inside of time wins" but move the end to something earlier, like 8PM EST
2. Keep the "final bid inside of time wins" but allow the second highest bidder at the time of auction close 24 hours to increase their bid one more time (requiring at least $5 or $10 depending on the token)
3. Use some sort of "floating end time" after 8PM on a token-by-token basis that extends on that token by 5 minutes each time a new bid comes in. After 5 minutes of no activity, the auction closes on that token.

The third option sounds tough to administer, especially when 3 or more people are potentially bidding over one another, and have that happening across multiple tokens.

We have 1 week left, and the bidding has slowed on most tokens, so I'm not sure how night of an issue last minute bid sniping is really going to be, but I wanted to come up with a good fair solution. My ability to stay up until midnight next Tuesday is also limited, so the only thing for sure that I know I want to adjust it moving the end time up by 4 hours to 8 PM EST.

Thoughts? Suggestions? Funny jokes?

A format i have considered is to set a time before the final end time; 24 hours or maybe only 12 hours. Whoever is winning the auction at that time earns the right to final outbid. When the auction closes for good, if that person is no longer the high bid, they have a last chance to outbid the sniper (give them half a day to respond?).

Granted, this may just result in snipers aiming for that earlier time to get the final outbid rights, but then they potentially have to outbid people twice, giving you closer to a fair value on your items.

I can understand some people being upset by rules changing, but this method shouldnt affect any current bids, except to give them that right to outbid if still the high bid when time comes up.

Steve wrote: Option 2 means that people will be encouraged to put in their 'final bid'. This isn't ebay.

I know what I'm willing to spend on the tokens I've bid on, but it isn't like I can give you the highest amount and let people plink at it.

You've already started the auction, so changing the rules mid stream is going to result in certain parties getting all butt hurt. End of the day though, these are *your* tokens.

Maybe in the remaining time, just let people note the high amount (publically) they are willing to spend, let people bid as they will, and give the 'winner' the ability to pay the next 'tick' over the 2nd highest bid, or drop their bid after everything is over. If they drop their bid, 2nd place can get it for their high bid plus the next 'tick'.

Example :

Bob wants a hat of intelligence.
He bids $1.
Sam bids $2.
Alex bids $3.
Bob bids $4, with a maximum of $15.
Sam bids $8.
Alex bids $10.
Auction ends.

Bob can either agree to buy at $11 (under his max, but at the next 'successful' bid), or abandon and Alex gets it for $11; His high bid plus the next 'tick'.

Basically the winner gets an option to buy at 2nd place's price + the next minimum bid. And 2nd place is a committed bid + next minimum bid if the winner backs out.

Either way you get the same $, and no one has to stay up all night.

No more sniping because there is less risk of overly high bids. Also less chance of people 'bidding up' tokens without thought , as 2nd place would be on the hook if they drive the price too high for other bidders.

I like this a lot, but I can see how people will not want the rules to change mid way.

Given that there is a week to go, I don't think it is a big deal, and you could let anyone who wants to retract their bids.

Personally I don't want the time to change, because if it moves up I might be at work.

Either way, it is your show, and whatever the rules are they are. As it sits right now I will be watching Monday night.

I do not believe your premise that because bidding has slowed it means there will be less interest at the end.

One solution (and, an easy one, at that) is a blind bidding system. Don't disclose any bids. This will encourage people to over-bid since they won't know what people previously bid. Just indicate whether or not items had bids.

Wouldn't this fix all of the problems mentioned?

Fred

All good input and mostly all the same points I've been thinking over. As pointed out, I don't want to change major terms of the auction if I can avoid it, and I also want to make sure that the persons potentially valuing the tokens at a higher amount and willing to buy them at those amounts aren't necessarily at a disadvantage due to my arbitrarily set end time (really, it was just that I wanted the auction to end the 31st with the ability to get payments and shipping handled ASAP for anyone that needed them before GenCon or couldn't arrange for pickup at GenCon.

So here's my middle ground solution:

I'll change the end time to be 31 July 17, 10 PM EST (should be the forum timestamping).
All bids end at the highest bid placed by 9:59 PM, with no counter bid.

If you're worried about somebody else Sniping your bid at the last minute, you can always raise your bid beforehand to the highest your comfortable paying. At that point, as it was said, the chips (tokens) fall where they may.

I want to keep bids public like we have been for a few reasons, first being that every raised bid can be tracked publicly back to a person. Second, as it has happened a few times, you can see each other's bids and react and raise again before I even have time to update the main listing. So it feels a lot cleaner, faster, and fairer this way.

Again I want to thank everyone who's participated so far, and to anyone who's helped spread the word as well. There's still some good opening bids on what I would consider "newbie early addiction friendly" tokens, and I'm glad to see that my tokens will be going forward to help veteran and newer players alike.

Shady Veldrin wrote: All good input and mostly all the same points I've been thinking over. As pointed out, I don't want to change major terms of the auction if I can avoid it, and I also want to make sure that the persons potentially valuing the tokens at a higher amount and willing to buy them at those amounts aren't necessarily at a disadvantage due to my arbitrarily set end time (really, it was just that I wanted the auction to end the 31st with the ability to get payments and shipping handled ASAP for anyone that needed them before GenCon or couldn't arrange for pickup at GenCon.

So here's my middle ground solution:

I'll change the end time to be 31 July 17, 10 PM EST (should be the forum timestamping).
All bids end at the highest bid placed by 9:59 PM, with no counter bid.

If you're worried about somebody else Sniping your bid at the last minute, you can always raise your bid beforehand to the highest your comfortable paying. At that point, as it was said, the chips (tokens) fall where they may.

I want to keep bids public like we have been for a few reasons, first being that every raised bid can be tracked publicly back to a person. Second, as it has happened a few times, you can see each other's bids and react and raise again before I even have time to update the main listing. So it feels a lot cleaner, faster, and fairer this way.

Again I want to thank everyone who's participated so far, and to anyone who's helped spread the word as well. There's still some good opening bids on what I would consider "newbie early addiction friendly" tokens, and I'm glad to see that my tokens will be going forward to help veteran and newer players alike.

Make sure to update your time in your original post~

I'm not going to put in my max bid for a token ahead of time if people can just snipe it by $5.

It means I'm commiting to paying top dollar for a token, with out the certainty of getting it.

Might as well just buy it from Kirk, Trent, or Laz at that point.

Again, your rules. I just think your setting yourself up for a lot of work in an environment where 90% of the people want things super cheap. People are going to wait till the last minute, because they don't want to pay a lot, and then forget - so you lose out. Ironically creating a situation where you might get a last minute flurry is potentially going to hurt more than it helps.

Not my monkeys though I'm not going to get involved in last second bidding wars. So if you want to get $5 more for a token in the last seconds than the $25 I might have raised a price a day earlier .. that is up to you.

Well, the lack of guarantee is pretty much what makes it an auction I guess. Doing on token at a time in a true bidding auction with the fast talking guy with the "going once, going twice, SOLD!" approach is pretty much the only way I'd get the absolute most somebody is willing to spend on each token. That's just not really possible, and this is still the closest to what Ebay would be doing. *shrug*