The debate of the auction house has always come up in most MMO type of games. As I am sure this may have been looked at, shot down, and burned.. I had a different spin on something of the sort I figured I would just throw out there.

First Forget what you know/think about AH as this one is quite a bit different. Let us call it a Consignment Shop.

What is the difference? Quite a bit actually!

You would of course have a NPC that would have a wide list of items that were available that were placed into the store by players, if you wanted to make it interesting and get people to travel servers, set each server with its own shop.

Ok, so you picked up this really great purple item, you give a shout, but most people may have world chat blocked so they might be missing out, you really hate to sell it to a merchant, and chances are if you drop it on the ground for some strange reason Greed will kick in, someone will grab it and sell it to a merchant ASAP... as if there isn't enough gold...

This is where the Consignment Shop comes into play!!
First the differences. You would not get to set the price you think you should get for the item, the item will be autolisted with the price calculated. Much like selling the item to a merchant where the merchant dictates the item's worth, here the Consignment NPC would dictate the price of the item to be listed. Now as in any market supply and demand influences the prices so let's say you put in a typical yellow crossbow and there are tons listed. Naturally the price calculated for that will drop lower since there are so many available. This is where it could be set that all items are adjusted based on the stock. If a crossbow was listed last week for 2341 Gold and was 1 of 4, but now it is 1 of 25 the shop NPC could autoadjust the price to a lower one to account for supply and demand.

So you take this really nice purple item to the shop npc, he says he will sell the item for 4236, but for a fee of 300 Gold.(Fee can be adjusted) The merchant was only going to give you 3458 for it. You click ok and into the shop it goes. Since this is your first item you now have 1 of 5 items listed in the shop.(the max number of items that can be listed by a person can be adjusted of course)

Items that can not be listed
Health/Mana Potions
Portal Scrolls
Books
Items purchased with Kings Coins (or not, just a thought)
Items already Soulbound
Non-member items (another idea, sort of another "member" service)

Now a customer comes by, they are looking for just that item, so they purchase that item from the shop. They pay their gold, get the item and walk away happy.

Now here is where things can take different paths.
You have been out fighting and come back to town, while there you stop at the shop NPC to check on your item and see that it has been sold.

You click confirm to "cash out" the sale.
4236 Price
-300 Fee
3936 Amount (as opposed to 3458 from the merchant)

Here we go for the different paths!!
Path 1
Gold is given to the seller(pretty straight forward, but may cause some issues)

Path 2
A new credit system for the Consignment shop is setup and you receive 3936 Credits.

Path 2-A
The Consignment shop has basic items for sale. You can buy Mana/Health Potions, Portals, things of that nature, but these are soulbound when purchased. However, you could decided you want to purchase a weapon or other listed item, so you use your credits to purchase it.

Path 2-B
After X amount of credits you cash it out for Kings Coins. 1000 Credits per King Coin (numbers could be adjusted of course)

Patch 2-C
Credits could be used at the Merchants in town, but once again items purchased with the credits would be soulbound.

A quick spin on supply and demand outcome.
You click confirm to "cash out" the sale.
A notice comes up that states price was adjusted because of the market. Your item was reduced by 200 Gold. (Lets just say another person listed an item similar to yours)
4236 List Price
4036 Adjusted Price from the Market
-300 Fee
3736 Amount (as opposed to 3458 from the merchant, but if you don't watch your items supply and demand may drive the price below what the merchant would have given you)

This is just something I was thinking about while running through HDOL and cashing out the majority of items I came across. I know it isn't perfect and will probably get the old, been discussed, won't happen, and don't need one, type answer. I figured I would go ahead a put up the idea just to see what others thought of it.

Or, you could just simply run a dungeon like the rest of us and get your gear, if you bothered to use the search function at all you would find out there will be no AHs.

No auction house? No trading? Just running around, solo, leveling up? Great, then this game won't survive its first year.
And quit pretending the future course of this game is etched in stone, Ralf. EVen if the devs don't fancy things like AHs, they will have to give the community what they want, or look for another job. Its that easy. And if everybody is whining about certain points of critic, so be it. There seems to be a demand for better ways to spend Gold. Thats all that counts.

The Devs are amazing - leaving so much of the baggage of other MMOs out of DR(such as auction houses!!!).

I take my hat off to you, sirs.(and ma'ams)

I aggree the Devs are doing great its a breathe of fresh air to have a fun game thats truly "casual". AH's,gold tradeing,raids, would do nothing but hurt the essence of this game which seems to me to be keep it a casual game without the B.S. of MMORPGs that destroy RL and bring out human natures more unwanted qualitys "GREED HATE JEALOUSY".

I applaud the Devs work in full.

Pained

This subject has been covered about 57 times... here is the only way I would want to see it...

ITEM A is sold to the NPC... at a price of 1000coins. Audrey would pay you 10,000 coins for the same item.

ITEM A is then sold to another player at a cost of 100,000 coins. (And items sold should be soulbound to the buyer immediately)

The reason... there is so much gold in this game that if people are truly interested in seeing other's receive items, why not make them pay a high premium?

But really, I don't like any player based market, Finding your own drop is so much more fun than having it given/sold to you.

I agree on that DR is a great little game and thats just why i wouldn't like it to be dumped for being a financial catastrophy.
And the devs dont do this for fun, this is no fan mod or anything. If DR doesnt pay out, NC will trash it ASAP. personally i could live without an auction house, having something like that would be nice as well. what really counts is that the devs fix the issues the comunity is quarreling about and implement the things the (paying) community wants. Else, R.I.P. DR.
So if half the people need an AH more than fresh underwear, consider it. if that means a new thread every 2 hours, so be it. collect suggestions, consider them, do what you deem right.

I highly doubt a few guys who absolutely cannot live without an auction house leaving DR will hurt the devs financially...