Market Discussions

I am looking for someone who can explain what is going on with Contract Auctions and timings, as it appears to me to be a somewhat broken mechanic.

Unless I am missing something, and what I am experiencing is supposed to be happening.

Please allow me to explain.

I have recently been buying a number of items via contracts, which I have useful for buying bulk, and/or mixed unit items.

While some of the Contracts entered have been straightforward buy/sell contracts, I have also enter a few auction contracts - which is where I have come across problems.

Firstly the Auction timings. . . . . . .

2days. . . . .1day. . . . . less than a day. . . . . . less than an hour. . . . . ok so far. fairly logical.

Except that some auctions sit at "less than an hour" for very much longer than an hour!!!

In addition, I have then come across a number of Auctions that revert from "Less than an hour" back to "Less than a day". . . . . as the clock seems to be reset.

Is this player driven? can the seller extend the deadline? or is their some other mechanism in place? Or is this simply Broken?

I have had a number of conflicting messages at the termination of Auction contracts :

Messages in my journal saying I have "won the auction - please claim item" -

Sometimes I can claim this straight away, other times I have been unable to claim, with the contract saying either - "less than a day/hour . . . You are the highest bidder" or "Expired" - on clicking the 'claim item' button, I am told the Auction is no longer available. No Money is returned and no items delivered.

So far, on the occasions I have seen the 'no longer available' message, the items have then appeared again on the Contracts List with the "Less than a day" time message.

I have already won this auction - I have been told I have won it, why is it now available for anyone else to bid on when I have already been told I have won it? What is going on?

On other occasions, I have not had any update in my Journal, and it simply states, "you are the highest bidder" but when clicking on the contract to see how long is left, I have seen Either - "you have won this Auction - please claim" or "Auction Expired". on both occasions I have been unable to claim the items or the money.

I am becoming increasingly frustrated with the whole Auction process and cannot seem to find any information about whether this is meant to happen or if it is a bug.

I have a secondary issue regarding items bought by contract which cannot be re-ackaged and sold on the market - particularly un-damaged crystals, that have been 'loaded' but not used. I understand for whatever reason the cannot be re-sold on market, but would it not be better if there was some way of seeing this on a contract as we can for crystals / mods that have been damaged? would it really be that difficult to show this information?

Having filed reports to CCP, I have so far had these issues resolve by eventually completing the auction (sometimes up to 48 hours later) BEFORE I have had any replies, by which time i am told - its in your hanger!

My apologies if this is sounding a little whinging or rant like, but I am becoming more than a little frustrated with what appears to be a broken game mechanic, and if it is not, how is it happening and where can I find info about it?

So far, It has not affected any bids I have made, and I have always ended up with the item bought, but as my investments increase in this area, I would not like to risk losing high values or high end items, or be 'gazumped' when I should have already won an auction!!

Any help anyone can offer would be greatly appreciated.

Elizabeth is correct with regards to sniper rule.

I personally think that on auction creation a fake timer is put on the end date - it is displaced randomly either forward or backward 6 hours against the real time.

The "Less than an hour" can sometimes become "Less than a day", which presumably is where the artificial timer ends if in the case of a particular auction had it moved backward 6 hours, and then back to "Less than an hour" five hours later as the real date approaches.

It is a mysterious system.

There's an easy way to test that, create several auctions at the same time for one Tritanium with a starting bid of 1m or something.



That would be a very long list, I used to fill a few pages of completed contract on my own per day. Part of the fun is having to do your research without having perfect intel :).

They even broke the message you used to get when you were outbid on auctions bid on by you on behalf of your corp recently .

Three 24-hour auctions going up.