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The Auction House!

I think you would have to have been hiding under a rock not to have seen the discussions about trading and the solutions to it. From the survey that we put up a few weeks ago we found based our design of a trading system upon the following criteria.

• Players want to know who they are trading with
  
• Player want to be able to communicate with a player they are trading with easily
  
• There should be no tax on trades
  
• Players should be able to obtain an item quickly
  
• You should be able to trade when you are offline
  
• It should be possible to see the prices of items

This has led us to believe the solution the community wants is an auction house type of system. This is how we see it working.

Players can visit the auction house and either put items up for sale or buy items, by opening the Auction House interface.



When a player wants to buy an item, they will open an interface and search for the item they wish to buy, They will then be presented with a list of sales which show the price of the trade, quantity of items to be traded, how long the trade has been up and who the trader is. Should you want to negotiate with the trader you will be able to click on their name add them to your friends list. You will be able to select how you see the trades, by price, how long they have been up, by quantity or by name.



When you complete the trade, the items will be delivered to your collection box in the Auction House interface.

To sell an item the player will be presented with a screen where they can choose the item they wish to sell from their inventory, how many of that item and what they would like to sell if for. There would be no recommended sale price for an item. If they wanted to see the going price of an item they would need to look at what other players are selling it for through the buying option.



These screenshots are just mock ups of what the screens may look like and will change based on your feedback.

We believe this is the best option to allow you to continue to engage with individuals when trading as well as offer quick access to trading while leaving the control of the market in the hands of the players.

Caveats

The creation of a bespoke trading system is something that can present many technical challenges which are unforeseen at the moment, so you need to be aware that this may take many months to develop. It is also possible that we may have to change the final design to overcome some of these challenges. As with everything we do, we will keep you abreast of our progress and let you know of any changes that are needed.

Changes due to feedback

23rd May 16:00 BST - Many of you have asked to be able to buy part of an offer instead of the all or none approach. We can give the seller an option to allow his trade to be sold only as one trade or piecemeal. If the trade is set to be piecemeal buyers can choose how many of an item they want to buy from the individual trade.

Players have also asked for the trade to expire a certain amount of time after a player has gone offline - how long do you think is suitable?

Mods Alfred, Ash, John C, Mat K, Reach and Weath
The Old School RuneScape Team