This is still draft form. Going to add other info about the CMs, where to find them, basic bidding strategies, etc...
[u]GUIDE TO THE CONSIGNMENT MARKETS[u]
Using Wentworth's Fine Consignments & The Black Market Truck
[u]HOW IT WORKS[u]
It's Not an Auction! At Least, Not Like You Think It Is!
Yes, even though people sometimes call it an 'auction house' and the term 'bid' is used a lot, Wentworth's and the Black Market Truck are not auctions in the traditional sense. In a traditional auction, an item is put up for sale and there is a period of time where bidders compete with each other until finally, the highest bidder wins.
In contrast, at our City of Heroes/Villains consignment markets, when an item is put up for sale, the first person willing to pay the asking price gets it. No bidding wars.... at this point. I'll get to in a moment where there actually can be competitive bidding, but again, it's not like what you expect from traditional auctions.
Let's get technical for a moment for all those who want to pigeon hole this as some type of 'auction'...<ul type="square">[*]The Consignment Markets are *not* simply a 'silent auction.' Check out Wikipedia's article on 'auction,' and see that the term doesn't apply. A silent auction is a typical English auction with written bids. The Consignment Markets are not like a typical English auction at all.
[*]While the Consignment Market bid is silent, so is the asking price of the seller. The 'auction' is sealed and private. There is no period of time to place bids, and a forced buy-out happens immediately upon asking price being met. That is not what people would expect by simply saying it's a 'silent auction.' That's because the Consignment Markets are closer to the consignment model of selling rather than auction.
[*]We should all stop calling it an 'Auction House'. It's a Consignment Market with some elements of competitive bidding.[/list]
From here on in, I will refer to Wentworth's Fine Consignments & The Black Market Truck as "Consignment Markets" or CMs. Note that the I9 Patch Notes have accepted this non-factional convention.
Some Examples
Getting back to the Cities' consignment markets: What can make the buying and selling a little tricky is that when a player puts an item up for sale, the selling price is blind, that is, no one can see the asking price. So, let's take this one step at a time with an example...
[u]Example One: Item put up for Sale[u] <ul type="square">[*]Player A puts Recipe X up for sale for 10,000 inf. [*]Other players now see that Recipe X is up For Sale. They don't see or know the asking price.[*]Player B 'bids' 1,000 inf. Player B now finds out that they didn't offer enough... no sale. Player B now has an outstanding "Offer to Buy" in the market.[*]Player B deletes that Offer to Buy and now bid 5,000 inf. Same result... no sale. Player B now has an outstanding "Offer to Buy" in the market.[*]Player C sees that Recipe X is up for sale, but doesn't know how much either. Player C 'bids' 50,000 inf. Ding, ding, ding! Instant sale. Player C exceeded the asking price and automatically gets Recipe X. [*]Player A receives the notification, "Recipe X SOLD!" and gets 50,000 inf. That's right, even though Player A only asked for 10,000 inf, Player A gets what was offered.[/list]
In this above example, Player B was 'creeping up' their offer price. As soon as Player B would have hit the selling price of 10,000 or more, then Player B would have gotten the Recipe X. However, while he was creeping up, Player C swooped in with a large overbid ensuring she got it right away. Take a moment and think about the pros and cons of the two buying strategies...
So, there is some competition between buyers, but not like a traditional auction. And, here's where things get more complicated and maybe more fun... there can be competition between sellers. Let's take a look at another example...
[u]Example Two: Two of the Same Item put up for Sale[u] <ul type="square">[*]Player A puts Recipe X up for sale for 10,000 nf. [*]Player B puts Recipe X up for sale for 1,000 inf. [*]Other players now see that two people are selling Recipe X. They don't see or know either asking price.[*]Player C 'bids' 50,000 inf. Ding, ding, ding! Instant sale. Player C exceeded the asking price and automatically gets Recipe X. But... from whom did Player C get the Recipe?[*]Player B receives the notification, "Recipe X SOLD!" and gets 50,000 inf. That's right, the sale goes to the player who listed the lowest selling price. And, player B gets the 50,000 that player C offered.[/list]
So, there is competition amongst the sellers. The ones willing to take less get rewarded with the sale. In the above example, Player B won big. However, if another player came along and put in an Offer to Buy bid at 2,000, then Player B would still have gotten the sale, but only received 2,000 inf. So, selling low can mean receiving low. Strategy, strategy....
Notice in Example One above the phrase "Offer to Buy." Just like sellers can put up an item and advertise that it's For Sale, players can also advertise Offers to Buy. If a bid on an item doesn't meet the selling price, an "Offer to Buy" is automatically created. If a particular item wasn't up for sale to begin with, a player can still 'bid' on it and create an Offer to Buy. Here's an example:
[u]Example Three: Two Offers to Buy the Same Item[u] <ul type="square">[*]Player A puts an Offer to Buy up for Recipe X and 'bids' 10,000 inf. [*]Player B also puts an Offer to Buy up for Recipe X and 'bids' 5,000 inf. [*]Other players now see that Recipe X is being bid on by two players. They don't see or know the offer price (the 'bids').[*]Player C sees that Recipe X is being bid on by two players, but doesn't know how much those bids are. Player C has a Recipe X and puts it up For Sale for 1,000. Ding, ding, ding! Instant sale. Player C's asking price was lower than the bids and automatically sells Recipe X. But, whose Recipe X did Player C get and for how much?[*]Player A receives the notification, "Recipe X SOLD!" and has just spent 10,000 inf. Player C receives 10,000 inf. That's right, even though Player C only asked for 1,000 inf, Player C gets the highest 'bid' (Offer to Buy).[/list]
So, we see here that there actually can be a bit of a bidding war somewhat like a traditional auction. It's all blind, but if Recipe X was rare and highly sought after, players may be tempted to offer very large amounts of inf. in order to make sure they're the highest bidder and thus get the item when someone sells it.
Consignment Policies
<ul type="square">[*]if two players are selling the same item, the one with the lowest sell price will sell it first (and if they're sell prices are exactly the same, the one who put it up for sale first wins). [*]If two players are bidding on the same item, the one who is bidding highest will win the sale. [*]The seller always gets the offer price, not the price they were willing to sell for.[*]Heroes use influence and villains use infamy -- the two economies remain separate and there is no cross-factional selling or buying at this time.[*]In the Consignment interface (see below for how to use it) you will see the history of the last 10 sales. This is a list of the Offer Prices (the successful 'bids'), which is what the buyer paid and the seller received. This is not a history of what the seller asked for. Thus, this history represents what players are willing to pay, not what players were willing to receive.[*]There is but one consignment market server that is shared by all U.S. and European servers (but not Test/Training Room). One server to rule them all. Note only will buying and selling be across servers, but this also means there are ways to possibly transfer influence between servers or across the Atlantic between a single player's alts on the same or different accounts. How to do that deserves its own guide, but not here.[*]The Consignment Markets, however, are not trans-factional. No trading between heroes and villains.[*]Recipes and Invention Salvage can be stored, moved, bought, and sold in 'stacks.' Other items, such as inspirations or enhancements may not. Limit of 10 per stack.[*]Unfortunately, one can not place a single 'buy order' in level ranges. One must place a separate 'buy order' for individual levels of a particular type of recipe or enhancement.[/list]
[u]USING THE INTERFACE[u]
When you click on a representative of the CM, you'll get a pop-up window that's divided into three panes: <ul type="square">[*]Left - The complete list of all items that could possibly be sold and the drop-down filter menus.[*]Right - The search results from the choices made with the filter menus in the Left Pane.[*]Bottom - Your slots containing Bids (Buy Orders); Your Items For Sale; Sold items; and, Bought items.[/list]
The Left Pane
Anything that could possibly be bought and sold in the game is listed in this pane. It's a pretty big list. It's arranged in collapsible/expandable hierarchical menus of categories. You can search it by browsing. When you click on a specific item, it will show up in the Right Pane.
But browsing isn't always an effective way to search for what you're looking for. Also, this list just gives you the names of the items and not any more specific information about that item. This is where the Left Pane works with the Right Pane so that you can do specific searches and get more information about specific items. The Left Pane is basically a big search request form, and the Right Pane is the search results display.
Here are the search criteria:<ul type="square">[*]
[u]Highlighting Part of the List [u]- This is probably the most overlooked aspect of the search. If you have "All" highlighted, then you are searching through everything on the list. If you have "Recipes" highlighted, you are searching only through the Recipes in the list. If you have "Recipes / Other" highlighted, then you are searching for costume and temp power recipes in the list. If you have "Salvage / Inventions" highlighted, you are searching for Invention Salvage that can be crafted into Inventions. If you have "Enhancements / Crafted Enhancements" highlighted, you are searching for IOs (Invention Origin Enhancements) that have already been crafted from a recipe and salvage. And so on. [*]
[u]Name[u] - If you know the name of the item you can type it in here. The search is 'wild-carded' in that it searches for parts of the name. For example, typing "wi" will show up such items named "Ghost Widow" or "Wing" or "Bewildering." While typing "wing" will only show those costume recipes for wings.[*]
[u]All (Origins)[u] - This will limit searches to those items that have a specific origin. Since almost all items can be used by characters of any origin, the filter has no effect on any items except Dual Origin (DO) and Single Origin (SO) Enhancements. This filter does not distinguish between Arcane and Tech Base Salvage.[*]
[u]All (Sale and Bid Status)[u] - This will limit searches to those items which have been put up for sale, or those items players (including yourself) have Bid on (put in a 'Buy Order'), or both.[*]
[u]Level Range[u] - You can use these two drop down menus to find or exclude items that have a level attached to them. Recipes (including costume recipes) and enhancements have levels. Salvage and inspirations do not.[/list]
[u]Some Special Notes[u] regarding the Search Features:<ul type="square">[*]The Level Range Filter will keep you from highlighting items in the menu which fall outside the level range that has been set. But the other filters don't behave that way. This has been bugged and hopefully will be changed to make it consistent.[*]Another bug with the Level Range Filter: the minimum pull down selector is 'inclusive' in range while the maximum pull down selector is 'exclusive' in range -- but only with recipes. In other words, if I search for recipes in levels between 15 and 20, I'll see only recipes in level from 15 to 19. I won't see the level 20 recipes. This is causing the bug of not being able to list level 53 recipes because the highest range of the maximum selector is 53 exclusive... only up to 52 gets displayed. No bidding on level 53 recipes for you! However, with enhancements, the maximum pull down selector is inclusive. If I search for enhancements between 51 to 53, I'll see enhancement from 51 to 53.[*]Note that costume recipes don't show a level, however, the level range selector treats them as Level 1.[*]It's very easy to accidentally leave a filter on from a previous search and thus mess up a new search. For example, if you typed in part of a name in the Name field, then your next search will still be limited by that Name field. If you limited your search for level 50 recipes and then in a later search you went looking for costume recipes... you won't find any because no costume recipe is level 50. It would be nice to have a reset button, but we don't right now; so remember to clear the search field manually.[/list]
The Right Pane
This is a list of items that meet the search requirements you selected in the Left Pane. It is constantly updated, but can lag a bit, so be patient and let it load. Here are things you can do with items in this pane:<ul type="square">[*]You have access to more detailed information about an item simply by hovering your cursor over its icon.[*]By clicking the item you get a chance to put in a bid (Buy Order) on the item.[*]By clicking on the item, you'll also be able to see how many of that item is for sale, and how many players have bid (put in a buy order) for that item. If there are both bidding orders and sale offers, that means that none of those bidders have put in a high enough bid to meet the asking price of the seller.[*]By clicking on the item, you'll also be able to see a history of the price of the item from the last ten purchases. Keep in mind that this is the price that the buyer offered and paid, not what the seller was asking for. If the seller was asking for 100 influence and the buyer offered 1 million influence, then the buyer paid 1 million and 1 million shows up in the history. The history shows more what people are willing to pay, not what people are looking to get. The most recent sale price is at the top of the list.[*]If this Right Pane doesn't refresh like it's suppose to, either click another part of the list in the Left Pane and then reselect the entry of the list you're interest in, or, exit the CM interface and then click on the rep again to re-enter it.[/list]
The Bottom Pane
This is where you have inventory slots for items you're selling or wish to buy (bid offers), or items which have become bought or sold. The number of slots starts small and increases as you level up (but not for each level, but in ranges of levels).
[u]Buying[u]
Bid (Offer to Buy) Items: You can put a item you want to bid on into one of these slots by first getting the item you want to buy to display in the Right Pane. Click on that item and type in a bid offer and then click "Make Offer." Once you do that, the item appears in the inventory slot of the Bottom Pane.
If that item was already put up For Sale by another player, and you met the buyer's For Sale offer, then that item immediately becomes BOUGHT! That item appears in your Bottom Pane director with a big BOUGHT! displayed over it. Once the item is bought, you can move it to your personal inventory by clicking the "Get Item" Button. If it's salvage, it will go to your salvage inventory; if it's an enhancement, to your enhancement tray; etc.... You can also claim it by dragging it to the appropriate inventory window.
If that item you are Bidding on was put up For Sale by another player, and you did not meet the buyer's For Sale request, or, if the item wasn't for sale to begin with by another player, then Bidding on the item creates an outstanding buy order. That item will now appear in your inventory in the Bottom Pane as a "Looking to Buy" offer. At this point, other players now see that there is an additional person Bidding on this item (that is, you!), but they can not see your Offer Price, just like you can not see theirs.
If you want to cancel a Bid, just click on the item you put up for sale, then click on "Cancel Bid" and it will go away. Or, you can drag the item back to the Right Pane.
[u]Selling[u]
You can sell almost any item from any of your inventory windows or trays. Just drag it anywhere into the Bottom Pane and it will land in an empty inventory slot in the Bottom Pane. Once you place an item there, you can click on it and then type in your asking price. You'll see a fee automatically calculated for putting the item up for sale. Once you put in a selling price, you can click "Post Item" to advertise that item at the Consignment Market (the fee is now spent forever... no getting it back). It may take a while for that sale offer to show up in the system. You may have to leave the CM interface and then click a rep to get back into the interface to see it update.
Once you have a item in your inventory waiting to be sold and another play Bids on it and meets or exceeds your asking price, then that item becomes SOLD! If there was already a Bid in the system that meets your asking price then you get the big SOLD! immediately. Ah, but if other players are also attempting to sell the same item, you only get the sale if you have the lowest asking price. And if you and other players have the same asking price, then it goes to the one who put it up for sale at that price first.
The inf. from sold items can be claimed by clicking on the sold item then clicking on "Get Inf". The influence or infamy you gained from the sale will then be added to your inf. inventory and the item removed from the CM inventory.
To cancel an item you put up for sale, click on it, then click on "Get Item" and it will go back to your inventory. Or, drag it back into the appropriate window or tray. You do not get the posting fee back.
[u]Storing[u]
Items placed in you transactions slots are placed there with the 'stored' tag. You can keep them there as long as you want. So, they act like extra personal storage spaces.
[u]FEE[u]
Selling: To put up an item for sale, you must pay a 5% listing fee in advance. If you don't have that amount of inf. you can't put it up for sale. You get that fee back if the item is sold, but you then pay a 10% tax of what you sold it for and that 10% comes out of the total inf. received from the buyer. So, for example, let's say you put up a Recipe for 100 inf., you are then deducted 5 inf. for that listing. Now, let's consider two scenarios:
<ul type="square">[*]If someone offers 100,000 inf., then 10% of that 100,000, which is 10,000 is deducted from what you receive from the seller. But then you get your 5 inf. listing fee back. So, you get from your buyer 5+100,000-10,000 = 90,005. However, since you already spent 5 inf. to list the item for sale, your net gain is actually 90,005-5=90,000. [*]If someone offers 100 inf., then 10% of 100 is paid in fees. So, you get from the buyer 5+100-10 = 95. But, since you had spent 5 inf. to post the Sales listing, then your net gain is 95-5=90.[/list]
So, in other words, you pay 5% of *your asking price*, but you get that back when it sells, making it a clean wash. However, you'll always wind up paying 10% of the Offer-to-Buy bid out of the money you're receiving from the buyer.
The minimum listing fee is 5 inf.
Items for Sale stay in the CM inventory for ever, except if your character has not logged in for sixty days. After that the item for sale is supposed to revert into an item in a storage slot and no longer up for sale. If that happens, or if you cancel your item for sale, the 5% listing fee is lost forever.
Buying: It costs nothing to put in a To Buy Offer (bid). It costs you only what you offered to buy the item, you don't pay any extra when you buy the item.
Offers to Buy stay in the CM inventory for ever, except if your character has not logged in for sixty days. After that the bid disappears from your inventory.
[u]STRATEGIES[u]
[u]Avoiding the Consignment Markets[u]
Trade Directly: Avoid the middle man and the fees! Yes, you can still trade directly with other players on your server. On Test right now, there is such a global channel to facilitate direct trades: "Auction" Yeah, a misnomer.
Unfortunately, you can't trade with people on other servers... you'll have to arrange something through the CMs for that.
NPC Buyers: Just like the NPC 'stores' and contacts will buy your enhancements, they will now buy your invention salvage and recipes off of you. No need to wait for a sale at the CMs. However, never, never sell a rare to an NPC. You'll almost always get a huge amount more from other players for rares. At least, that's the way it is now.
Ignore It: Go into options and turn off salvage and recipe full notifications and never think about it again. The game can be played just fine by the casual player without IO enhancements and special costumes. If this is too much work or confusion for you... don't bother with it.
[u]Buy Low, Sell High![u]
Not a recommended strategy. The CM is rigged to put a serious hurt on speculators. In the area of outstanding To-Buy Offers, the one who 'buys low' never winds up buying anything because higher bidders will get the item. Those who try to sell high will wind up selling nothing if others are selling lower.
[u]Misc. Browsing Trick[u]
From Scrapulous:
Kago made a great suggestion in the i9 Testing channel tonight:
[i9 Testing] Kago: [Infamous Slayer Kago] neat trick with the CH menu, set level range to only 30, all sets touch that level, and it cuts down on the repeated entries
This is useful when browsing the CH or BM for information on enhancements (something I do a lot when planning builds). Basically instead of having to scroll through every level of a particular enhancement, there is one entry for each particular enhancement. Just set the level range start to 30, and the level range end to 30.
This isn't as useful when you're shopping, of course.
[u] [u]
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