New Virtual Auction Website is Live

[mrbabb78]

Hi,
I just wanted to post here to let everyone know that after alot a hard work my site is ready to be used.

It is called the FFXI Internet Auction House. I designed it to allows a simulated auction system like ebays for players to buy,sell, and trade items using FFXI Gil. THIS IS NOT A RMT site.

The reason I made the site was due to the current limitations of FFXI's auction/bazaar system. Instead of only 7 items, you can list an unlimited number of items. Also, items remain visible until they are sold or the auction ends unlike the bazaar system where the items are only available when that particular character is logged in and it's in his inventory. Once your items sells, you and your buyer recieve an email. You can then arrange an in-game meeting to complete the transaction.

There are two types of membership. Free and Premium which cost $2 every 30 days. Premium members have more selling options than Free Members.

Right now the design is very basic because I was just focusing on getting it up and running. I plan to update it visually over the next couple of weeks.

You can check it out here: http://ffxi.mmoauctionhouse.com
Let me know what you think. I'm always open to constructive criticism.

[Blood Red Poet]

This is pointless. Not the first time it has been tried. Its not going to be used at all

[Pai Pai Master]

A little...harsh :\

It's looking pretty good, I'd say just work on getting the word out and sooner or later you never know, it could become pretty popular.

[Blood Red Poet]

Maybe... but these things never work. Even if KI or Allak made a version, it probably wouldn't work.

[PotentPotables]

Where's the AH slot for Dhalmel Piss?

[hamiko]

Looking good.

[mrbabb78]

Thanks for the feedback.

Potent--I'm pretty sure you can list that under Other/Misc.

Blood - You make a good argument in that other sites didn't work. But I believe it was due the system they tried to setup. They tried to use a forum system which was useless as old posts would get pushed down the page as new items were listed, and it is extremely difficult to keep track of bids and other information. Since my system is an actual auction system. I think it would work alot better. What do you believe would it would take for you to use a site like this? I'm just looking for what people would like to see for such a site.

I'm still adding new features as I continue to get feedback from others. One suggestion I got was to make it so you can recieve messages when you win the auction or your item sold through POL email, which can be pretty powerful since you will recieve the notice while logged on as well. You can currently do that if you signup with POL as you main email, but I think I'll implement it so you can have one general email and you POL email. The other suggestion was to implement an item database so that when you when want to sell an item, no typing would be required. You would just select the item based on the category you selected, the system would fill in the item description and icon for you. Unfortunately, this would remove Potent's Dhamel Piss, but I could live with that.

What other ideas do you guys have that you think would make my site more player friendly?

[PotentPotables]

Potent--I'm pretty sure you can list that under Other/Misc.

No, I can't. I already got warned once for referencing pointless and facetious items. I won't do it again even in jest.

But, I'd hafta go with the populace on this one. Site does look good, but you're gonna hafta do ALOT of promoting to get it going good. Kinda like ffxiparty.com or whatever that crap was.

PLUS, you also have to rely on people being honest in-game when it comes to the actual trade.

[mrbabb78]

Yeah, I definitely am working on the promotion. I already submitted the site to popular search engines, and I applied for the Playonline community site service.

Honesty is a big thing to help the site work. I hoping that with the feedback system on the site, players will be able to see who is honest or not. I also have the ability to suspend or ip ban someone if they reputation is horrible.

[Yashin]

I can tell ya now no one will pay for it...

[mrbabb78]

Your right that's a strong possibility. That's why I made a free mode. I would still be happy if people signed up and used the free service. I'm not trying to become a millionaire off this, that why the Premium charge is so low.

[PotentPotables]

My advice, would be to offer the service free of charge completely.

Honestly, you might be using alot fo your own resources to keep this thing running, but having ANOTHER thing that ppl have to pay for for FFXI is going to turn alot of them off immediately.

Keep it free until a certain amount of subscribers. Keep it basic, then, hen you have your fan-base, give some premium content for a samll nominal fee.

Also, utilize everyones favorite forum and start shouting in LJ. At the very least we might be able to take some Jeuno lag and place it upon YOUR server >=)

[Medalink]

Kind of pointless since the Windower group is about to launch there Live Auction House.... But GL!

Medalink

[mrbabb78]

Potent you make a good point. I have been actually considering doing the free thing awhile then later making the two modes of membership. I actually just made it so you get a 14 day premium trial on signup. Maybe I'll just bump that number up. then if the user base get large I'll move it back.

Medalink, I didn't even know the windower group was doing that. Guess I'll see what happens...

[Medalink]

Medalink, I didn't even know the windower group was doing that. Guess I'll see what happens...

Sad, not many people do, I read the transcript from there site after they held there confrence thing. But yeah its an app that you download seperate from Windower and it allows you to buy/sell from any of the 4 AH's on your server. You can now list 32 items at once and have everyone useing it see them. Its all been confirmed on there site if you dont belive me read the script yourself. Your idea is different, however it lacks the instat aqusition of items people like, just like buying gil, people cant stand to wait to get things so they buy gil and get it instantly, You wont be able to get very many people useing this unless you mimic the Windowers app and have it tied into the game live.

Medalink

[Rayquan]

No one will use it. Why? Why bother? You never have a garantee that your item wil lsell once someone says they will buy it. I can pretend i have a trillion million gil and go shopping and screwing everyone else's stuff up all day long and never log into FFXI.

Unless FFXI releases an official off-game AH system that plugs into FFXI and uses your -actual- gil and items, and automatically sends gil and items to players like the real AH does, I dont see anyone bothering with it, you'd have better luck shouting items inside the zones.

Oh, and who would honestly pay for a "full version", when the "full" isnt even half of what the official in game service is?

[Darkhound]

I really am impressed by the amazing effort for doing this....... I hope you get some visits. Keep up the good work, and thank you for Sharing your information with us!

[Ziero]

It's basically Ebay for in game FFXI trading. The only thing that can cause this idea to fail is lack of participation. Everything else seems to be covered. If people can buy and sell items via Auction over the internet to each other irl, they can do it in FFXI. And if people do like the free version, I'm sure some will sign up for the premium account. But the only thing is people actually have to use it.

Just a note, you should add in the ability to sell Non AH listed items like mannequin parts and dynamis currancy and such to the site. That would give you a distinct advantage over the Windower group as those are the items that usually sit in people's bazaars for months at a time. Seeing as the deals are made via trade, they're not limited by the AH's listing services.

[mrbabb78]

Thanks for the feedback.

Ziero is right. I intend for this site to work like ebay for ingame trading. So there is a trust factor involved, but like ebay there is a feedback system to let others know who's trustworthy and who's not. So if someone backs out a deal or doesn't deliver on what was agreed, others will know.

Ray, I think you wrong on my "full version" being inferior to the game's auction system. The only advantages the games auction/bazaar system have over this site is that payment is instant, and more users.
With my site, here are a few things you never have to worry about:
1)the price the seller wants for an item
2)over bidding for an item
3)using up inventory space while you wait for an item to sell in your bazaar
4)leaving your character logged on over night sitting around doing nothing while try to sell in your bazaar
5)only choosing quantities of 1, 12, and 99
6)shouting all over Jeuno that your looking for a particular item
7)game taxes
8)the ability to buy an item only in the AH it's listed.

With my site, you can basically put all the items you want to sell on a mule, then just list them. When they sell, you can log into the mule and meet the buyer.

Ziero, that feature will be added as soon as I get the item database up.

[Darkhound]

I still think you did an amaizng job and omg... all the time it took... did you coded this all by yourself.. if so... amazing...

[mrbabb78]

My code is a modified version of an auction script that I paid for. So I didn't start from ground up, but it still took me over two months to strip all the real money trade features out, and make the modifications like custom auction time, auto-relisting, the referral program, and a few others.

[Darkhound]

Well stil... wow.. very good job!