[Could this project work?] => Building an EMC auction house!

Hi gang!

Ok, some heavy disclaimers are needed here: I am following up on a wild idea and I have no idea if this will actually work. My reputation when it comes to organizing events works against me, that's for sure. But.. I am trying here because.. I'm also honestly upset about some things.

Warning: The votes on the poll are public and that's for a reason: I intend to follow up on the votes and actually contact players who seem in favor of this idea. No obligations! Voting 'yes' doesn't mean we'll enforce you to Minecraft labor But I do hope you don't mind me asking you about it later.

We should take back control

While I was explaining the way auction works on the Empire in an unbiased way I obviously went over the rules again to make sure my story was correct. Yet what I noticed didn't please me at all. Right now you're not even allowed to auction off your voters gear anymore?!

That triggered some seriously mixed emotions on my end. Personally I'd never sell my voters gear because I worked so hard to get it. But really: whatever happened to "play your way" all of a sudden? I happen to know some players who were ecstatic that they won an auction for one (!) iron (!!) voters pickaxe.

Now... instead of fighting the staff about all this why don't we try and turn things around and take back control over this stuff?

After all: we are allowed to organize in-game auctions. And the staff won't have anything to say about how we want to run that unless (important!) we break the rules. Seriously: if we're going this we need to carefully organize the whole thing. For example:

Auction house rule: "If you accidentally bid on a public chat channel (Community / Market) instead of Residence chat then you will be disqualified for that particular auction round. So be careful!".

Who wants to build an auction house?


So here is my idea... please keep in mind: this is an idea only, and the only reason I post this is to see if this is doable.

• We build a (physical!) auction house where players can auction items. Roughly based on the old rules we all loved & respected: regular items can only be auctioned off in 1 DC quantities.
• We're going to set up a series of rules to run the auctions. Some points of attention:
  • We need to make sure we don't spam public channels.
  • The only people profiting will be the auction hosts, this also eliminates possible conflict of interest.
  • We need to work out a way to make sure that bids are final. We could work around this by controlling the final transactions.
    • Weird idea: auction hosters need to proof that they got the items to auction off. The winning bidder will then first need to pay before they can pick up their items. This would ensure that no one gets scammed.
    • (I have more ideas but let's first concentrate on general issues).
  • If you're caught cheating then you're out. No warnings, no nothing, and we may need some backup to compensate players if needed.
• This should be an event (weekly?) so we should also try and make sure it can be hosted by other (trusted!) players as well. The auction house inner-circle would be a very select amount of players.

What would we need to make this work?

Well..

• Building materials (but I think I know a group which might be able to help). *
• Builders(!)
• Ideas on how to make these auctions work.
• Hosters (people willing to sell items).
• Bidders (people willing to attend "auction events").
• FUN!

Please vote, also please contact me if you want to help out with stuff (like building?).

* I'm planning to get GRIP involved. Fun part: no one knows about that right now so I have no idea how that will work out, we'll keep you posted

I was thinking the exact same thing
You just explain it better... Shel, you have a way with words +1

What is grip?

Is that to do with GDPR?

I'm the auction house u could put a chest with a preview in it so people can see the items unless there's to meany items

+10 would every smp have one or would it be on 1 smp

I love this 100%

Griefed items refund project

I'm sort of on board with this idea, but to me it seems overly ambitious, and one of those things that may die off pretty fast if it's not well regulated. I feel like unless you can effectively spread the word to a large portion of the community it's not actually going to be used very often. That being said, I think it's a good idea. It just doesn't seem very viable to me

I like this idea a lot, it seems too good to be true, and that may be the case.

To pull off something like this, you need a lot of planning, organizing, dedication, trust and time. You can't pull this off and expect a 100% success, although nothing is impossible. With that said, great idea, but from what I have seen from the past, it might not work. Don't be discouraged though, if you can pull this off smoothly I congratulate you, and I push you to try this, but make sure you do it right, thoughtfully, and make sure you do it with the community in mind.

With that said, I wouldn't mind being a builder, I would love to help, just contact me if you want me in.

This is a good idea. Perhaps reach out to staff members that did not agree with the rule changes to get them to help? They would likely be sympathetic to our cause, and help regulate things. This is, however much ambitious, likely to fail. This is a ever bit too grand.

Crud, my vote came in as I want to help.
I want to, but considering my current IRL state, I won't be able to help much.
In addition, staff might interpret this action as open rebellion.
This is a very real possibility, and staff pressure will not assist an already over-ambitious project that is likely to fall apart on its own. Especially considering the wording.

This seems too ambitious. Good luck.

I just want to point out that as long as something doesn't break the rules, staff would never put unnecessary "pressure" on somebody just because we may simply disagree. We're just here to have fun and improve EMC, not to be some oppressive institution. I don't have the time nor energy to commit to such things, I'm much to busy working on fun stuff for the community.

As for this idea, I've seen similar ideas come and go simply because it's hard to do. If you can manage to make it happen Shel, then go for it. If I wasn't SS, I probably would submit items of my own to auction just for fun sometimes, since it would be interesting to do in-game instead of on the forums occasionally

I just want to peacefully protest this. I was clearly threatened to be ban hammered by Krysyy herself for having two memes with her MC skin in it.... Talk about oppressive. I was not causing drama, just simply expressing myself through the most dankiest memes on EMC.

To fadedmartian.
You. Are. Wrong.

?

However JD, this is essentially players saying that the rules are bad so they'll go make their own.
It's, as far as I know the first occasion in which players are trying to create a new institution in order to remedy a problem. This represents a server-playerbase break.

Except your "dank memes" were both off-topic to the thread and did not further discussion. Despite being the dankiest of memes, they weren't about the rule change as much as Krysyy herself, which is a way to start drama.

While that may be the message of the OP, that's not necessarily a bad thing. Part of EMC is the whole "Play Your Way" thing, and I love the ingenuity that players have when playing on EMC. If shel can make this work, then I would love to see it happen.

Again, I want to reiterate that staff do not just go around squashing people. In fact, I like to often provide advice and support to players who are looking to start something new on EMC, even if it may be "different" from what the staff team and playerbase normally does.

I don't want to disrupt Shel's thread anymore than it already has been though, so I would prefer if further responses were sent to me in a pm. I'm always open to a healthy discussion on any given topic

(Apologies for the disruption in the thread shel, hopefully can get back on topic now )

I know theres no way for you guys to change your mind about your guys' opinion on those dank memes or the rule change, but i respectfully disagree

I think this is a great idea. It could have been done at any time in the past but there are some extra things that happen now that might make it work.

Forget about it as a place, auctions are events. So set this up as a weekly event (add to calendar) where during the week sellers are given a plot on a res (subzones) and have a cutoff the day before so people can see what is being sold at the auction. You then hold the auction at a good time for as many people as possible and hope it goes well.

Hopefully that sparks some more ideas to make this work.

See this link (don't worry, it points to the forums). It's a non-profit organization with the sole intent of refunding griefed players. Back in the day this was more needed than it is now, but we're still sporadically active by trying to help the community with stuff.

The reason I'm going to try and get 'm involved is because we have a rather insane amount of items right now, and if this project would get somewhat started then it would make sense to use some of those materials for the benefit of the community.

Friendly request: let's leave that discussion for another thread. There's a time for criticism and there's a time to ignore it (at least for the time being) and focus on other things

One very important detail to keep in mind: although the idea was triggered by 'recent events' this is NOT a project with an underlying "protesting purpose" in mind. That would never work.

My idea is to try and start up a project (maybe an event?) which can be enjoyable by several players. Heck, even if we do get into a building phase and we end up building a nice auction house but things go slower after that we'd still have accomplished something: organizing a fun project, though not as big as we hoped for.

Reminds me to sent out a few more PM's today