As some of you may know, I recently gave Mish the ability to conduct her own auctions. Mish currently gets her items from 3 sources:

  • Purged limited items.
  • Random non-worn items confiscated for unpaid storage fines.
  • Items god+ offers her to auction.

Items can be bid on using the BID command. BID <AUCTION #> <GOLD> will bid x gold for the item being auctioned. You can only bid on the item currently being auctioned. When you bid, the gold is immediately deducted from your banked balance. If you are outbid, your bid amount is refunded to your banked balance. I do it this way to simplify bid tracking, and to prevent abuse.

Mish will hold your item for you for a short time. If you don't go and pick it up soon enough, she will re-auction the item and pocket your gold. She really doesn't mind. It's more money for her.

The minimum starting Mish auction bid is currently 500 gold, unless there is an active, matching LOCATE (HELP BROKER). In that case, the minimum bid is set to the matching locate bid plus a mark-up. That is, it will cost you more to buy it at auction than it would as a locate. Once Mish receives a minimum qualifying bid, the minimum bid is an increment of the current bid (currently +20%). That is, if someone bids 500 gold, the next minimum bid is 600 gold. This is done to prevent 1 gold piece increases from dragging an auction on and on.

Mish will try several times to sell an item before giving up. If she is unable to sell the item, the item is destroyed, unless there is at least one active, matching LOCATE. If there are matching LOCATE(S), the item goes to the highest bidder. Thus, it is possible to get Mish auction items even when you are not online.

The time between auctions varies. Mish will tend to auction more often when her stuff is selling, though.

She will only auction the more popular and/or the more limited limited items. Essentially, if the number of limited items out is well below the limit threshhold, the item will simply purge, rather than be auctioned.

For the first several days after Mish's auctioning debut, I was providing her 'seed' items to auction. This provided me the opportunity to see her at work, and fix any problems that arose, and gave you the opportunity to participate in auctions. Starting yesterday (Wed 5/23), I let her do her own thing, which is why there have been fewer items available.

Some ideas I've been thinking about, but not sure if I'll do:

  • Give Mish the ability to generate and auction random items.

    PROS: More items available to auction. May simplify re-equipping. Makes gold more valuable, since Mish accepts gold, not trades.

    CONS: Random items would need to be good, otherwise they won't sell, but not too good -- a fine line. De-emphasizes randoming. Why random, when you can sit in guild and bid on stuff? On the other hand, you'd still need gold, and golding may be less frustrating than randoming. Still, you miss out on the thrill of a good find.
    .
  • Give Mish the ability to generate and auction items not available anywhere else.

    PROS: Might be kinda neat.

    CONS: If the items aren't powerful enough, no one will buy. If they are too powerful, everyone will have, and randoms go out the window. Thus, it's another class of items that need to be balanced.
    .
  • Let Mish sell others' items (for a commission). But, I'm not crazy about the idea, nor what would be required to implement it. I mention it because I anticipate that someone will ask about this ability.