6 ways to improve WAR’s auction house

I’ve had a pretty good day so far, getting my baby Engineer up to rank 15 and picking up a Sentinel Helm for my Warrior Priest from the Warpblade Tunnels shortly afterwards. Since I’m feeling charitable (unlike my usually rant-y self), I figured I’d follow up my earlier post about improvements to WAR’s mail system — as promised — with a list of changes I think would improve the auction house in Warhammer Online.

WAR’s current auction system has a lot of good features as it stands, but the interface is clunky and the restrictions of the system are probably hindering it more than helping it gain adoption by the users. Unfortunately, we don’t really have another option but to use it (or vendor/salvage your greens.) And since no one really uses the chat channels for sales, we’re stuck using a system that’s somewhat lacking right now.

In addition, upgrades to the auction house may not only entice players to use it more often, but it may kickstart a relatively stagnant post-40 economy and help crafters out with producing and selling goods and purchasing raw materials.

Keep in mind that they pay me to design and build user interfaces for a living, so I’m not talking completely out my ass here. :) So, without further ado, a few suggestions to improve the usability of WAR’s existing auction house interface:

1. Live item previewing
   I think this would likely be at the top of many people’s lists. This is something World of Warcraft done pretty well (granted, they added it late), and it’s something WAR could definitely learn from. We know it’s possible — hell, look at the dye previewer — and it would make purchasing armor/weapons on the AH infinitely less cumbersome, especially if we’re trying to decide between two somewhat equivalent items. Hell, even Curse’s WARDB has implemented a 3D item preview system since WAR’s launch, and they’re not even affiliated with Mythic. It can’t be that hard to build, can it? Pretty please? :)
2. Automatic proxy bidding
   This is a pretty sweet feature of most auction systems (including eBay) that’s really lacking in WAR. If we were able to set a maximum bid, and let the game automatically re-bid for us until reaching our maximum bid, we could avoid having to keep running back from all over the world to re-bid on items after getting outbid. It’s kind of silly to think that this wasn’t implemented right off the bat, especially considering there’s been a swath of other auction systems in recent games to study and learn from during WAR’s development. It’s a pity
3. Expand on the available auction types
   If you’ve ever dealt with auctions in any other format or outside of gaming altogether (which is quite common), you’ll probably be aware that WAR’s auction system is quite limited compared to the available options. There are a lot of possibilities here, from adding a consignments mechanism for crafters and their buyers, to something along the lines of EVE Online’s contract system. There’s also more traditional forms of auctions that would add some flavour and utility to the system, ranging from reverse auctions, to Dutch (eBay-style multiple item) auctions, to a barter/trade system (which could be an awesome way to unload bind-on-pickup gear that you can’t wear.) There are a multitude of options out there that would be a significant improvement/addition to what’s already there, so they’re worth taking a look at. 
4. Streamline the user interface
   I think anyone who’s done a lot of forms design would probably agree that the interface to managing and bidding on auctions itself definitely could use a little love. Cleaning it up and making it a little more usable would help a lot in getting people to use it more frequently. It’s pretty obvious that the auction house was a bit of an afterthought in WAR, but there’s nothing preventing an overhaul of the UI in addition to changing/upgrading some of the existing functionality. Making it easier to search for items (like talismans — what a pain in the ass) or crafting materials, reducing the size and complexity of the form, and allowing for some kind of visual item preview, would go a long way to improving the auction experience.
5. Performance enhancements
   I have to admit that auction performance when bidding/searching has improved somewhat since launch (which was nearly unusable), but it still has a long way to go. Making searches a little snappier, bids not take ten seconds to show up (I’ve actually been outbid and lost an item in the delay between my clicking “bid” and my bid showing up before), and making the results sort the same way you’ve selected previously would be a big improvement.
6. Saved searches
   This would probably be the icing on the cake, but could you imagine how cool it would be if you could actually save your most common searches at the auction house? This is something that’s pretty common on many auction sites around the ‘net (believe me — I just spent the last year working on one for my day job) and it’d be a killer time-saver if you’re like me and re-run the same searches repeatedly.

Okay, so I went overboard and didn’t stick to my top-5 format from last time. So sue me. :)

If Mythic were to implement even half of the options I’ve listed above, I think we’d be well on the way out of the current system, which is both cluttered and cumbersome to use, and moving towards a system that would rival the best MMO auction houses out there.

Got any suggestions for the auction house that I haven’t covered? I’d love to hear ‘em… and I’m sure Mythic wouldn’t be adverse to it either. ;)

Photo courtesy of mhaithaca on Flickr. (Greenskin auctions? uhh…)