MERGED: "Auc-blocking" / Minimum price doesn't return

[Paladinian]

There are many elements of sabotage in this game.  If you don't like sabotage, you don't have to play.

The fundamental sin here is that the other acts of sabotage don't slow the game down nearly as much as the auction exploit tends to.

When 3 plots of land are auctioned, and the same player runs down the clock driving all three up to $5000 just to make sure no one gets any, that tedium is inflicted upon every other player who would just like to get on the with the game, thank you very much.

If you call them on it, they generally just giggle and say that's how the game is played.  Well, okay,  but it isn't doing the game any favours.

Having the top bidder have to walk their bid back down to the starting price before leaving the field really makes the most sense and will improve the game experience dramatically.  What we've got now is tedious, and makes me cringe whenever a land auction comes up, because I know chances are good the round will take twice as long and no one is likely to get anything out of it anyway.

[Intergalactic Mole]

FYI making the player drive the price back down does not make the auction take less time ............ but I understand your point.  And while I would support your suggestion in a future version of Planet MULE, the goal of the current version is to mimic the original game.  As such, the only thing that needs to be done right now is to reduce the speed in which the player is able to drive the price up and down and make it as close to the original game as possible.  Keep in mind we are in the Feedback and Suggestions forum, not the Gameplay Ideas forum, which is where you should go to suggest different methods of land auction for the future version of Planet MULE.  (Refer to this sticky post for details: http://www.planetmule.com/forum?topic=450.0)

[Pescado]

Well, if we want to streamline the process, and wish to accept that sabotaging an auction to prevent it from working is a legitimate aspect of the game, we could just add a "filibuster" button. When the option to filibuster thus opens, the player can simply elect to declare procedural filibuster, and we can resolve the outcome of such immediately and get on with the next thing.

So either the ability to auctionblock is not a legitimate aspect of the game and should be removed, even though this is not faithful to the original game, or measures can be taken to streamline it as a legitimate element of the game, so that the original gameplay is maintained without the need to go through the lengthy motions, parallel to the development of the modern procedural filibuster, where actual speechifying is no longer required.

Of course, some would argue that filibustering should not be a legitimate tactic, but it's there, and we're used to it, so...

[Paladinian]

FYI making the player drive the price back down does not make the auction take less time ............ but I understand your point.

True.  On that note, though; if that player doesn't escape the auction before the time runs out, then they are stuck paying for the plot (for presumably more then they would have paid otherwise) leaving them with less money to try the same trick on subsequent auctions.

Likewise, even if they are wasting time pulling the auction back, once it enters reasonable territory again serious bidders can re-enter the auction.  When the tactic no longer guarantees success in denying others the plot, its use will correspondingly drop off.

The auctions then, while not a perfect mechanical match to the original game, are much truer to what I believe to be the original intentions and purpose of the auction.  But that is obviously a bit of subjective hair-splitting, as your next point mentions:

Keep in mind we are in the Feedback and Suggestions forum, not the Gameplay Ideas forum

Sorry, I hadn't noticed the distinction within the sticky: most of us no doubt thought that our Feedback on the Auction issue and Suggestions on how to address it would fit in this category.   

Regardless, I shall henceforth abide the will-of-MOD. 

[Intergalactic Mole]

Like I said, I understand your point. It was not really necessary to repeat it in different words.

The auctions then, while not a perfect mechanical match to the original game, are much truer to what I believe to be the original intentions and purpose of the auction.  But that is obviously a bit of subjective hair-splitting, as your next point mentions:

Indeed, subjective, speculative, whatever you want to call it. Since the author is no longer with us, there is no way to verify it. And as it was never clarified in any manual revision or updated version of the game, even though the author was alive for many years following the games release, one can justifiably assume it was intended to be the way it is anyway.  It's all heresay at this point.

[zaphod77]

Auc blocking was not nearly as much of an issue in the original games becaue of slow movement speed.

Auc blocking hurts the colony, because is 1 2 or even 3 plots that will not get developed that turn.

Here's how i think it should go

either
1) lower speed back to normal levels. This makes it harder to auc block, and harder to pull out at the last second.

or

2) if you raise the price above what everyone else can afford, make the auction stop and immediately award you the plot.  This still allows price jacking, then pulling away and trying to stick other people with the plot. But if You actually go above everyone elses cash reserves at the time, you buy it that instant. Yu can still auc block by raisign it above what people are WILLING to pay,t hen back out. but if you actualyl force them out, the auction shoudl instantly end at that point.

[veridia]

The goal has never been to emulate a traditional auction. It's more like an abstract form of negotiation, and it was a central part of the original game.

That said, while these features did exist in the original game, the pace of the auction phase was slower and the prices weren't quite so fluid. You couldn't drive up the price thousands of dollars on a whim, because time would simply run out before you got that high. Also, while you still had the option of backing down, the slower movement meant that it took a good chunk of time to get back down from a high bid, so if you cut it too close it was very easy to end up getting stuck with a high bid that you didn't intend to pay.

I'm not sure the added pressure you can exert on the price in this version is altogether a bad thing though, simply because land is so. damn. valuable. In the first third of the game, those price tags of a couple thousand dollars may very well be cheap compared to what the land is actually worth.

Exactly. The original game was great with regards to land auctions. Being able to backdown at anytime makes the gameplay that much better.

This is a case of where attempting to make things more realistic would make the gameplay worse IMO. The way land auctions worked in classic MULE was central to the gameplay. I've played many games where people would back down at the last minute, leaving you stuck with a land that you didn't have money to develop at the time.


However, now that the wampus is easier to catch, the strategy of leaving people with a land they can't afford to develop is less effective. In the classic Commodore/Atari version you really were lucky to catch the wampus, and having that money to develop the land was crucial. Heck, you couldn't catch the wampus after he left the mountain in the classic version. Now you can catch him even after he leaves the mountain. Basically the black speck that is the wampus had to be on the mountain at the time you went over the mountain, this is not the case in the current version of the game.

[veridia]

One thing in auction functionality is annoying me... For example:

I own 15 food. And want to sell 11. For the best price i can get. Store buys at 15.
One other player need 4 food. He walk as buyer above, raises the price very high to 110.
Now i sell 4 items for a price of 110 to him.

I am not able to sell the rest of 7 items to the store.

Because if i walk down, the price never lowers to the price of 15 the store bought before. And i cannot sell the other items to the store anymore.
So i have to keep the 7 items and get a spoilage next turn.

I think if time is enough and after selling goods for high prices, a player should have the chance to sell the rest of the goods to the store at the buy price of the store.

Not being able to sell 7 units to the store is the opportunity cost you pay for demanding more for your goods elsewhere. This was one of the most important gameplay features. Good gameplay forces you to make choices betwee the opportunity cost of driving a hard bargain with another player and selling the rest to the store.

It amy not be completely realistic but it made for some damn good gameplay.

[Blitzen]

I am bumping this to point out that most people in this thread seem to agree the movement rate is the primary problem.  You just couldn't change the price by more than ~800$ in a round (with all four guys running too).

I admit there are a lot more of these moon pie types crying for more realism and various other excuses to soften this aspect of the game's play... but the fact remains the original works this way, the other auctions work this way, it simply creates more strategy and its damn good fun to be an ass sometimes.   If you were to temper the rate of change of the values you would find that this is rarely a problem... plots have to hit 4 - 6k late in game to really be too expensive.

You were also selling too many plots last time I played a few months ago now... imo.