1. I hope a 50 posting limit is a temporary limit until full release because if not that will turn off players whose main source of enjoyment is the auction house. The only reason I see this type of limit is hardware issues, it serves virtually no in-game purpose except frustration.

 

2. Requiring people to enter categories and sub-categories is a waste of time for most users. They know what they want and should be allowed to just type in the name of the item.

 

3. A function to remember your previous pricing and auction length would be greatly appreciated. Having to re-enter pricing on like items is very annoying.

 

4. Being able to shift-click an item in your inventory and have it auto-fill the search category is a staple of most MMOs that is taken for granted...until you notice you can't.

 

5. The default price on items posted should either be vendor price or left blank. The current system of a standard price above the vendor price is creating a needless price ceiling. If new players see the price is above vendor price they will most likely just click post without thinking about the value of their goods or searching for what others are selling theirs for. In effect when the lowest price is always what the game defaults to there is a lack of dynamism in the marketplace. Sure, one could buy out all the default priced items that are undervalued, but with the current 50 posting limit it would be impossible to re-sell all those items at appropriate prices in any reasonable time frame.

 

6. Allow for true auctions and not just buy-outs. On higher end rare items with no previous auction history sometimes the market itself needs to set a price point, not the vendor. Allowing people to bid on said items helps set the standard price and can be exciting and fun for both the vendor and the bidders.

 

7. Don't send mail for notification of a sale and then a message when the credits arrive. A simple system notification of "your auction for XX item has sold" and then just the message with credits itself would do. Having the extra messages in the mailbox with notification of sale just creates mailbox clutter and confusion.

 

EDIT: After reading comments I'd like to add a few more suggestions from this post's contributers so they are on the front page:

 

8. Armor should have slot categories so someone doesn't have to browse through all armor slots for say, a pair of boots.

 

9. Companions closing the AH window (or any window for that matter) is beyond annoying.

 

10. Shift-clicking to break up stacks is bugged and annoying. It should not post in chat when breaking stacks, and should be an easier method than shift+click+dragging...shift+click would work better without the dragging.

 

11. Like items should always auto-stack. They auto-stack from the bank to your bags, but not the other way around. Also, they do not stack from mail to your bags.

 

12. Windows should be movable. At some resolutions half the bag space gets placed behind the auction window and is inaccessible.

 

Please voice your opinions/suggestions for auction house improvements in this thread so together we can let Bioware know we want the auction house fixes to be a priority.

Edited January 5, 2012 by hookedonkroniks

I have two things to add.

 

First, in other threads I noticed some people speaking favorably about the 50 item limit because it would help combat issues like 20 pages of single stacks and economy exploitation that plague that other MMO.

I have two alternatives that are more elegant solutions to those problems and that also don't hurt the legitimate players.

 

1. Allow us the option to ignore sellers. This will help to deal with the frustration of when a farmer or whoever posts 20 pages of single stacks of crafting materials or other items.

 

2. If Bioware are really set on having a posting cap to prevent market monopolization etc, it should be altered such that there is no ceiling on total postings, but perhaps throttle us to 50 postings per 2 hours (those numbers are just an example of the idea, not necessarily the ideal numbers).

-Purchase for Guild. Guilds should have a title which allow those with said title to purchase items directly using guild credits. These items should either go directly into the guild bank (when implemented) or into a guild catagory at a mail box to be transported into the bank.

 

- Favourites list. Players should be able to tag an item into their favourites list. Clicking on a tagged object would bring it up in the sell list.

 

- Tabs. Allow more than 1 search to occur at once.

 

-Holocomm Trading. Allow players to use their holocomms to access GTN nodes remotely. This could have an adverse effect on the community feeling on Capital Worlds/Stations though.

 

 

More suggestions! Lets make this thing better because right now it isn't good at all.

The search filters need to be a bit more robust.

 

Searching for ALL medium armor pieces is not efficient and takes longer. If all a person wants is search for a robe, that option should be available to them, rather than search through 87 pages of gloves, belts, pants, etc.

 

This is a new MMO, and most people are very unfamiliar with what materials go with which crafting professions. An easier to navigate system for materials should be incorporated as well.

 

An option (button or checkbox) to compare either your character's gear or your current companion's gear in the tooltip with the selected (moused-over) gear in the UI. I realize there are some settings you can do, but an on-the-fly button directly on the auction interface is needed in this particular MMO.

 

Pretty much everything else in the OP's list should be implemented.

 

The current iteration of the GTN (GTM, AH, w/e you want to call it) is absolutely horrid, completely unpolished, and is a step back even from Auction Houses in MMOs nearly 10 years ago. You have a fantastic, modern MMO here ... let's get this particular UI to mirror how you want people to feel about your MMO, too.

Be able to compare AH items to what you and your companion are wearing, just like you can on any quest item in your bag for example.

 

 

Not close the windows when companions return from missions.

 

 

Shift clickable items in your bag to search

 

 

There should be more categories to drill down to search for that specific item by slot, for example:

 

Armour>Light Armour> Legs

 

 

I don't want to have to bring up all the armour pieces and then try and find light armoured gloves amongst the thousands of items.

Edited December 18, 2011 by Vingy

I think this a great post with some really valid points and good recommendations on how to fix this. I am a big crafting and trading guy so I really need these changes. I feel my long term enjoyment will kinda depend on this. I love that your development team has bragged so much about your crafting system, which I do think is great, let's just get the instrument of delivering these products up to the same level. I also do recognize that beta testers may not have given you good feedback on this since they may not have been as invested in it, but this definitely should have been caught there. It does feel like this ui has been overlooked and thrown together. Hopefully this forum will stay troll free and we can get some official response to what bioware is thinking on this issue.

I don't understand why I can't at least Tab through the fields. Having to click each field with the mouse is annoying.

Thousands of people were voicing concern about the GTN in beta for well over 9 months. They made nice little lists like the op here did and what was the result? No result at all, bioware don't listen to feedback. They know the UI and GTN are garbage because beta testers were screaming at them for months. However, all bioware worked on in beta testing was making sure the lips were in sync for the friggin cutscenes.

 

You wonder why my friends and family had a little preorder cancellation party for this so called next gen mmo?

Edited December 18, 2011 by Gigabytes

This is a list of ways I think the GTN could be more user-friendly.... (repost from diff thread)

 

-Allow a way to search without having to select a category, and then another category, and then another....

 

-Make a way that we can shift-click search an item that's in our bags.

 

-Make it so that stacks of items can be sold by a certain stack size. We should be able to sell more than 1 stack of the same thing at a time

 

-Lower the deposit amount of the GTN, its WAY too expensive for brand new economies! People have NO idea how much to sell for and placing things on the GTN is a HUGE risk right now with the deposits so high.

 

-Make it so that when you "drag an item", it doesnt "fall through" the window and start stacking the item underneath in your bag. Very frustrating, very annoying.

 

-Splitting stacks right now is super frustrating. =(

 

Trying to make creds right now is making my head want to explode!

Agreed on most of the suggestions here. I'd like to second the idea that splitting stacks is super frustrating at the moment. For some reason, even w/out chat open, shift-clicking will post the item in chat, and I inadvertently end up spamming general.

Yes, Galactic network is the really shame for such great game, please fix it soon.

I just wanted to voice my support for this thread. Please implement some of these improvements. I am also in the camp that considers trading and economy a major part of their gaming enjoyment.

Companions returning for missions while you have the AH window open should NOT close down the search window, forcing you to re-type all the search parameters.

 

They can wait till I close the window to tell me what they brought back, it's really annoying that it shuts ALL the windows you have open just to notify you of their return.

Agreed to everything everyone has written. The GTN needs so much improvement

search function is horrid

Agreed. GTN needs a total revamp right now.

 

My suggestion:

 

-Remove the need for a minimum price of 1. I HAAAAAATE how I go to delete the suggested price and a 1 pops up, forcing me to enter the real price I want, then delete the 1 or accidentally sell something for 3001 credits when I meant to sell it for 300.

I'm bumping this because this needs to be brought to attention. THIS IS THE WORSE FRIGGIN AUCTION HOUSE SYSTEM I HAVE EVER SEEN. FIX IT OR PLAN TO LOSE A LARGE % OF YOUR PLAYERBASE BIOWARE.

 

You know why WoW is such a successful game?... the economy is tremendous... and you know why that is?... because people LOVE using the AH because it functions beautifully. OK? Not trying to dickride... but if BW wants to make this game better, THIS AREA SHOULD BE THE NUMBER 1 PRIORITY. People aren't even bothering to use the AH in this game because it functions so damn poorly. I go on it and NOTHING is on there. I'm pleading with you, please make improvements to is ASAP. Everything the OP said was SPOT-ON. I was really hoping the AH would be amazing but so far that is NO WHERE NEAR the case.

 

Pce.

Could we please get more than 7 items per page.

some great suggestions here, well TBH, they are expectations aren't they lol

whether they are met or not is another matter

great thread, bumping for justice.

When buying I don't want to page through 7 pages of various sized stacks of stuff.

 

Instead of this, list the item once, and then show how many of the item in total are available, and what price range. Selecting the item then shows alist of available qualities at each price. Finally, I should be able to request that I enter that I want N of this item, the total price is shown and I can click buy.

 

 

When selling items, I want to drop in a stack of however many I want to sell, and just say how much i want to sell for per item.

Edited December 19, 2011 by Kanforth

This thread NEEDS to be seen.

 

I see very few players using the GTN as well. Barely anything on it.

I opened another thread to this topic, before I saw this one.

After criticizing on how aweful this GTN is compared to even a 10 year old EverQuest Bazaar, I will simply copy my points from the other thread.

 

Feel your self criticized.

 

1) I can't search by name, before I fill out the requested categories and searched once. So finding the price for Laminoid would be:

Enter Crafting Material to the first dropdown.

Enter Scavenging to the 2nd dropdown.

Search

Enter "Laminoid" to the Filter thingy

Click the "Enter Symbol Button" (Which cannot be activated by Enter)

 

Is that some kind of joke? In every MMORPG I played the AH was better. This isn't even close. Everquest did it better like 10 *********** years ago.

 

2) Then I get a list that is sortable only by bundle price. Are you kidding me? The only way to find the cheapest per unit is to mouse over ALL LISTED Laminoids. Seriously ?

 

3) Then I want to list mine. But I cannot enter Piece Price, only bundle price. So I have to get a calculator, do 89*31 and enter 2759. What the hell.

 

4) I get a note when someone bought my items, that says I get my cash in 1 hour and another with the cash. That is only slightly annoying though.

 

5) I cannot search for Armor Pieces. Finding a Heavy Armor Breastplate makes go through all Heavy Armor for all Slots. Why?

 

6) The Level X to Level Y option doesnt seem to do anything for me.

My primary concern is there needs to be an auction house on the other planets - I'm not running all the way back to the capital just to use the auction house. If my companion can go do underworld missions on the black market, he can surely do a shopping trip for me.

 

That will help the economy tremendously.

I'm bumping this because this needs to be brought to attention. THIS IS THE WORSE FRIGGIN AUCTION HOUSE SYSTEM I HAVE EVER SEEN. FIX IT OR PLAN TO LOSE A LARGE % OF YOUR PLAYERBASE BIOWARE.

 

You know why WoW is such a successful game?... the economy is tremendous... and you know why that is?... because people LOVE using the AH because it functions beautifully. OK? Not trying to dickride... but if BW wants to make this game better, THIS AREA SHOULD BE THE NUMBER 1 PRIORITY. People aren't even bothering to use the AH in this game because it functions so damn poorly. I go on it and NOTHING is on there. I'm pleading with you, please make improvements to is ASAP. Everything the OP said was SPOT-ON. I was really hoping the AH would be amazing but so far that is NO WHERE NEAR the case.

 

Pce.

 

The WoW auction-house is pretty bad aswell until you install Auctioneer.

 

I have not used GTN much, but when I did, it annoyed me greatly that I cannot easily see other auctions for the same item, giving me an idea about said items pricing.

 

My advice would be: Have the people responsible for GTN set up a trial-account in EVE-Online and have a look at the way maket is set up there. Easily the best one in any MMO

Edited December 19, 2011 by Thuulkhalat

I have to agree. The GTN is the *worst* aspect of this game. I try not to use it at all when I usually like to spend time just browsing what's available. This one, I get in and out as fast as possible.

 

- Allow search by words or clicking an item in inventory.

 

- Get rid of the tree required to navigate before you can even see what a pile of desh is selling for.

 

- Sort armors and other items so specific items can be found.

 

- Allow auctions.

 

- Tell the browser what their item would bring from a vendor, if you must, but do no stick in some arbitrary sale price.

 

- One mail per sale is enough, please.