I personally don't think auctions breaks the community, it simplify the selling of your items without having to go through the various colors of the players interested in what you got, that means those that nags you but don't buy anything, those that tries to haggle you until you make no profit off your stuff, the ones that actually buys something after a certain period of time.

Personally, i think it's best with the auction, let's cut the chase with the special cases of players, they are annoying to share my breath with.

speaking of sweaters...

i think you should start wearing tacky holiday themed sweaters for your podcasts during holiday months.

anyhoo, thanks for the mmoftw!

I like the dog barking in the background.

Need to muzzle that thing! lol

Aye! Holiday sweaters!!!!!

Aside from that. I am one that would love to see a major revamp of the auction house. Instead of setting a price I would love to see more games use a system of actually having players bid on items. There could be a buy out price, but let the community determine the sale price otherwise through bid wars. I for one do not like the shop or constantly chat spamming to sell items.

Great video. Unfortunately I am not one of the 2+ mill that bought MoP OH WAIT... fortunately I am one of them !!!!

Dont get me wrong, I like social interaction, but I like Auction House over the player shops. Who wants to jump from player shop to player shop to find that one item. And when you find that item, the next shop may have a better version of that item, but you failed to check.

Having it all in one auction house setting makes it easier. If I want a sword, I can see all the swords out there for sale at that moment without having to hop from store to store.

Auxton Thexis

I've come to appreciate that you do this all in one take.

And the look when you said that. Was that pause that someone makes when they rip one are wondering if anyone else heard it.

*raises a salute to you*

That was a smooth recovery.

As always, great show Bill. I've watched every episode since the third and I look forward to it every week. As far as auction houses ruining the community.. I see where that idea could come from. I played a lot of FFXI and it had both an AH and Bazaars and I think it would be a good idea for future MMO's to follow that path.

On a side note, I'm going to have to go ahead and second chilltime99's comment on you wearing tacky holiday sweaters soon. Seems like something that simply needs to happen.

Keep up the great work!

I recently played everquest with the "renewal" in form of progression servers. The first 3 expansions were without a bazaar, and you had to trade in person and look for traders advertising in channels. It did lead to some connections, and there is more satisfaction in making a good deal or even buying something rare from a real person.

However this also lead to having to spend hours in the "trade zone" (Commonlands), to get that much needed spell while you should really be out adventuring.

Trading in person does create community, but as the lists of recipes and amount of stuff to trade grow long, it really is too much of a pain to do all that stuff manually. So aslong as games are as complex as mmorpgs are (and should be), auction halls, bazaars or whatever are just necessary.

Lack of such, would probably have a negative effect on community, since it would kill the fun for most players having to spend so much time just trading stuff. Getting rid of auction halls would require some serious rethinking of tradeskills and items in a game. There are just so many easier ways to create and fix lack of community than removing auction hall.

I will add a +1 for Holiday Sweaters.

There was a lot of chaos in EQ in the trade areas, not to mention lag in Freeport with everyone there. Still with better technology that would not be so much of an issue.

Again I liked the way SWG did it. You had a Galactic Trade console as well as player shops. A player driven economy is a great deal of fun, but the game setting and game play have to support it for it to be more than window dressing.

I think a combination system is best: an Auction House to sell drops and materials; player shops for crafted goods. Much depends on how often in the game, players need to interact with one another.

The gaming industry is a volitile place, and seeing development and creative teams come and go is something we should get used to.   There are TOO many MMOs out there and they are litterly killing the market for themselves.  Just look at this site, there are over 100 MMOs on here alone!   Variety is good, to much variety is bad.   People dont need many choices, give them to many and they stand infront of the McDonalds menu like it was written in Yiddish.    Right now people, aka kids, will hop from f2p to f2p ruining games with poor suggestions made a day after installing and a day before leaving, all in the same week and these developers listen!?!?  

SWTOR is failing because of poor choices that sounded good on paper and worst choices made after beta by listening to kids and morons.    I never got SWTOR because I hate the old republic, but I do like Star Wars.   I loved SWG-PreCU, to bad more games couldnt follow that model.

So, with nothing to nitpick regarding your wardrobe, and having come to accept the love patch under the lip, I did notice something interesting. 

Does having a wedding ring on both hands mean you are a mormon?  Or does it just mean you're a swinger?

Thanks for the spotlight Bill!!

its he, and its pernounced (Mur-dinn)

Cant wait for Origins of Malu, maybe some Project Gorgon

Ugh...how does WoW selling 2.7 million copies of an expansion increase its total subscriptions? It doesnt....those are not 2.7 million NEW players, there MAY be some returning players but odds are HIGH that most of them were still playing the game.

Also...why would ANYONE bring in a guy that failed bigtime with SWTOR? If he is put in charge of an upcoming MMO its just more proof this genre is in bad shape because game makers are not capable of LEARNING...Vogel is going to be the next Koster...its going to take 2-3 massive fails before being exiled.

I've played WAY too many Asian games, with their hundreds and hundreds of player shops. Thats one of the things I really HATE about such games.  Having to spend a good part of my limited play time, going from shop to shop, in the hope I may find what I'm looking for is just not worth the time. 

AH's (or for the GW2 WoW phobics TPs ^^)  are a MUCH better way to find what I currently need.  If I want social interaction, thats what my RL friends and family are for.