Auction

[Death-knell]

OK, so I read the auction instructions but I'm a bit concerned. And being I had no interest when the biped plots were auction I'm a newbie at the auction thing.

So I ask some of the veterans, for instance...say theres a lair I want but it doesn't go till late in the process and theres also one or 2 I'd like. But I want the last one. How do you resolve that? Bid on the ones that go early and pray you lose or bid on the one you want and hope no one picks up your second and third picks in case you lose?

[Deth]

I asked earlyer about this. Basicly once you win a bid. All other bids you have are remved. Also you can not bid when you own a lair, unless you have a extra account. So you would have to sale your other lair you had won then bid on the new lair and hope no one buys your old Lair if you lose the new bid.

[JorgNep]

The bottom line is that if the final lair auctioned is the one you want, just bid on that one. Any you bid on one prior to that you either have to hope you don't win (silly idea, just don't bid!) or sell it back before the final auction (once again, silly, just don't bid).

You have to determine what you are willing to live with and determine your strategy from there. If you have 2 accounts with no plots yet, you may split your money between the two and bid on half the ones you want with one account and half with the other account. You are dropping your bid price, but you have the chance of getting two lairs you may like and then you can decide.

[Tantalyr]

Yes, as I've noted in another post this is one huge aspect of formulating a good bidding strategy. During the postmerge biped plot auctions players came up witha couple ofdifferent strategies:

1) The Gambler: Put all your coin into a bid on the one plot you want most, knowing that if you lose the auction you'll likely be able to purchase another lair that no one bid on (at the Imperial price), though likely not one that would have made your top 100 list of lairs to bid on. There's a reason why nobody bid on that lair . . . .

2) The Hedge Fund: Bid at or just above the Imperial price on the lairs that are your secondary choices, and go all out on the one you really want. If one of the secondary lairs is auctioned first and you win it, sell it back to the Empire immediately to get at least the Imperial price back and then go bid on any other lair on your list that hasn't been auctioned yet, using the same parameters (i.e., bid at or near the Imperial price on your secondary choices, and all out on your primary choice). Rinse and repeat until your primary choice of lairs is auctioned off. If you win that auction, of course, you're done though you will be out not only your bid on the primary plot, but any losses you may have taken selling back your other lair choices. On the other hand, if you don't win the auction for your primary choice, then chances are that at least one of your secondary choices may not have been discovered and purchased by someone else in the interim, and thus you might well be able to purchase one of your secondary choices at the Imperial price.

[imported_Lycaunoss]

Community site says that minimum bid that can be made is the plot price that's listed. Did they do that for the shard merge plot bids?

[Tantalyr]

Community site says that minimum bid that can be made is the plot price that's listed. Did they do that for the shard merge plot bids?

Yes, though with the exception of "plot tokens." If you owned a plot premerge, you received a "plot token" that was worth the Imperial price of your plot. You could use that token to bid on any plot regardless of whether the token had a value even approaching the Imperial price of the plot. And your token, again regardless of value, trumped any coin bid no matter how high that bid was. As a consequence, some lucky folks won plots with an Imperial price of upwards of 6 or 7 gold with a plot token worth only a few hundred silver. If you did not have a plot token, and thus had to bid coin, your minimum bid had to be the Imperial price for the plot.

Obviously, there won't be the plot token variant in the upcoming lair auctions.

[Varangaard]

I recall there was one more additional feature to plot token: if you bid it on the plot it represented - your premerge plot - it trumped every cash bid and every other token bid regardless of token value. If the plot received two or more bids with original tokens (up to five, I think Chaos was a merger of five servers) then virtual dice was rolled to determine the lucky winner.

[Vignar]

If the plot that you realy want is one of the last to be auctioned, there is a good chance that many oftheother bidders will win their plots earlier and so removed from your competition. I'd agree toonly bid on the ONE that you want and just drop fat cash to try and muscle the plot. As others have said in backing this, money is easily replenished, but you only have one favorite plot. "Go big or go home" unless you want to try and buy the plot from the winner at an emensely high rate.

[dorrin]

(up to five, I think Chaos was a merger of five servers)

um.. nope. both order and chaos were made up of only 3 servers. my memory's spotty, so someone will have to fill in the blanks...

order - dawn, expanse, ...
chaos - twilight, ...

[PJ]

Chaos was made of 5 servers, Order 3

Chaos: Shadow, Energy, Life, Twilight, Bounty
Order: Expanse, Dawn, Spirit

[dorrin]

*blinks*

.. my apologies then. i thought some of those were european servers (not sure why..)

[HAG]

*blinks*

.. my apologies then. i thought some of those were european servers (not sure why..)

Former EU-shards ICE, WIND and EARTH were merged into UNITY (current EU-server)

[Jayne]

Just to add some info in case you didn't know or forgot.

If you bid on several plots and lets say you win one early on, ****BEWARE****

There was some cases on the last reclamation that cause some not to be able to access much less sell a plot after it was won. Those folks had to wait for the next day when they did maintenance so that they could access there newly bought plot, thus they were unable to sell it and continue on during the auctions.

If it were me, I would bid on the one I wanted most, keeping an eye on the number of bids. If I win great, if not. Then you can at least run out and look for some that didn't sell and just buy it. Point is, take a look around and make a list of ones you would be happy with. Know there locations and be ready to go there and purchase it.

Jayne

[Goriax]

I still don't see the point of bidding on a plot and hoping you lose, or planning to sell it back if you do win it. Just don't bid on that plot. You get the same result and you're a lot safer. Plus you won't inadvertantly lock out someone who might consider that plot their top choice even if you consider it only second best. Plus you won't be selling plots back at a loss in the middle of the auction and hoping nothing happens to keep you from selling them.

Just don't bid on it in that case.

No. My strategy will be simple. I'll examine the bid order, dump fat cash on the plots I want most, and then put a smaller amount of cash only on plots which come AFTER my favorite plot in the bidding order.

The only adjustments I'll be doing during the bidding is to watch to see if I suddently become the only bidder on a plot, in which case I'll drop my bid to imperial price.

P.S. If you do go around winning plots and selling them at a loss remember this. If your cash balancefalls below your bid price for your favorite plot when you*would* have won it, you would instead be disqualified and you would loose your plot.

[Vignar]

And keep in mind that you not only don't sell your plot back at your bid price, you can't even sell it back at the empirial price. So if you drop 1g to win a plot that you didn't even want, you sell it back for maybe 450s. Big loss.

[Levity]

Plus you won't inadvertantly lock out someone who might consider that plot their top choice even if you consider it only second best.

This is a big consideration. Doing the rinse-and-repeat lair sales just takes all of those out of auction. Bidders who can't be home to monitor the action moment by moment may come in later to find out that all the lots they bid on are now up for community sale. Which wouldn't be so bad, they could then buy for minimum bid -- IF no one with more available time cuts in and snags it out from under them when they originally bid higher.

In short, it just ain't nice to do that.

Me, back in the merge auctions, I found a lot of plots I liked a great deal. My absolute fave was auctioned a few later than my second choice. And it turned out my bid was a lot higher than I thought it was in comparison to others, so I got my second choice (at something like 3 am when I was asleep). Guess what? I'm very happy with my second choice, as it is right next to a very useful pad and portal and has a great ocean view. First choice had better greenery but a longer hike and is in a dell so no ocean view.

Find one you like. Find a few you'll accept that come after it in the bid process. You'll get something you like even if it's not your a-number-one perfecto dream lair.

-Levity Merrel

[Goriax]

I'm hoping that the massive amounts of money that people would loose by doing that will keep it from happening much. To lock someone out you of course have to have a higher bid then them, which means people who do that much will be bidding at least a few gold. And they get back less then half a gold each time.

You could loose a lot of gold really fast doing the win and sell strategy.


Now my other question is: is there some way to know the order in which plots within a single community will be auctioned?

[Levity]

They did say if you look at the community survey you will see the times listed. It worked that way in the merge auction, as well.

I, alas, will be in jury trials during the start of the auctions, and asleep for most of the rest of them. I wish all of you eager bidders luck, and stamina to stay up late *smiles*

-Levity Merrel

[Goriax]

yea. I'll be at work when my first choice is auctioned and the second will be a few minutes before I get home. I BETTER be in bed when third choice is on the block.

But I'm not worried. Everything will be set up ahead of time and it'll all run on autopilot. Hopefully there will be a way of finding out what I won; although if necessary I can just go around and visit all the plots to see which one has my name on it.

[Tantalyr]

But I'm not worried. Everything will be set up ahead of time and it'll all run on autopilot. Hopefully there will be a way of finding out what I won; although if necessary I can just go around and visit all the plots to see which one has my name on it.

If these auctions are run the same way as the plot auctions, then the winner of each lair will be announced in a global message each time a lair is auctioned. If you are offline when you win a lair auction, upon your next login you will receive a message that you have won "Lair X" in your general tab.