The SWAPS Loot Auction System

In preparation for Wrath of the Lich King, we've made some changes to Swaps (adding some new functionality and a UI to control it) and completely re-written the Uplink and combined it with Raider (our raid scheduling web application). This new application, Amok Raider, will replace both the Swaps Uplink and Raider in the coming month. The new Amok Raider features tight integration with the WoW Armory, XML-based Swaps reports that you can include in your own website, pop-up loot-link support in Swaps reports, and iCalendar support for raid scheduling. It also looks mah-veh-luz. Swaps integration with Amok Raider is very tight, making it the one-place you need to go for raiding. If you're interested in participating in the Amok Raider beta, please send an email to swappeals@gmail.com.

#1 - /swaps stop just completes the auction before its natural time expires. This is helpful for a) speeding along gratuity bids in instances like KZ [see below] or b) canceling an improper/invalid auctions. Still, I'll ask that an auction ID is printed out whenever an auction completes.

#2 - Special case handling is best done by the guilds in question rather than enforced by Swaps. This is, for example, the first time I've heard of someone forcing roll-offs for tie-bids because one bidder was faster than another. We realize that in the ramp-up phase, initial maximum balances are likely to be equal and first-one-in-wins auctions are more likely to occur, but realize that the *moment* this first-one-wins bids occurs, the winner effectively gives up his bidding rights to the next piece of loot and the SWAPS economy begins to run its natural course.

SWAPS focuses on the long-term health of the bidding economy. I think you handled this short-term special case admirably for your guild's tastes, but not all guilds would want that method forced on them by the addon.

GRATUITY BIDS - A Commentary

It's a "rule of thumb" of Swaps that items must be bid on -- or at least given the opportunity to be bid on -- before being randomed or sharded for the guild bank.

In some cases -- especially 10P instances like KZ and ZA -- you will only have one bidder who needs the item being looted. Shaman- and paladin-focused loot, for example, often have little competition for bids in KZ. DO NOT just give these uncontested items to the needy player. Doing so will undermine your loot economy. Rather, just adhere to the mantra that "all BOP items must be bid on" and run a normal auction. The player will be required to pay a minimum bid for the item, something we have termed a "gratuity bid" because the player is paying the other members of the raid for helping him or her obtain the loot. If no player pays for the item, "/swaps random" the item or shard it for the guild bank.

CREDiT BIDS - A Corollary

This is why minimum credit bids are allowed in Swaps, as well. We do not like to see good loot get sharded just because the needy member of your raid group doesn't have enough points to place a minimum bid. Likewise, we do not want to see items given away for free, as this hurts the economy and undermines the reward structure of Swaps. In these cases, a player may make a minimum opening bid on credit. Any "real" bid will beat a credit bid. This has proven a very successful strategy.

Thank you for your comments.

Managing Raids out of Raid Context: What you described is somewhat error prone and not all guilds would use it. You did the correct thing, making raids and vesting people, and we realize that this is a pain, but it is also slightly against the grain of Swaps. Vesting should happen gradually, not all at once, and only for those people participating in the raid event. However, for guilds that want to pre-vest everyone, the process you described is the way to do it. We have discussed adding a "/fullvest" command to make it a little simpler by vesting everyone in the current raid to full and it is likely this will make it into 1.02. In short, we agree that for some guilds the start-up process in Swaps feels awkward and we will try to make it less so without contravening the principles of Swaps.

Character Removial: We have never implemented removing character balances from the database, namely because of the historical problems this poses for how Swaps stores the data. Swaps stores everything transactionally and, if you're using the Uplink, allows us to recover the database at any point in the history. Also, this helps us guard against tampering of the data since you can't just twiddle the numbers, you must correctly manufacture transactions. However, since we designed for historical integrity, it means we must carry historical data, making removing characters entirely from the system "problematic" at best. We have done it in the past, but it is entirely a manual operation that we reserve for emergencies.

Linking Alts to Mains: Years ago, we made the design decision to keep main and alt balances completely separate. It's just one of those immutable Swaps design decisions like the above now. The AddOn environment makes it technically infeasible, as well.

Freespins: I think you have the mechanics correct. Let's look at a simple 10P raid:

Supposing a winning bid of 90, normally the 9 remaining people in the raid would get 10 points (90/9 shares) for the auction. If one person played a freespin, instead of being divided over 9 shares, the auction would be divided over 10 shares. Each share would be 9 points. The freespinner would get 18 points and the other 8 people would get 9 points. If two people played a freespin on the auction, there would be 11 shares at 8 points a share. The freespinners would each gain 16 points, the remaining 7 people would gain 8 points, and the 41st Man would hold the remainder of 2 points for the /split.

A player can freespin and bid on the same auction.

YES! Use freespins to reward guild-promoting behavior. We have used freespins in the past to reward people who bring repair bots, people who provide buff food, people who organize non-raid guild events, and namely people who help lower-level members of the guild level and complete quests. We also have a policy that the officers cannot grant freespins arbitrarily, but rather a guild member must nominate a freespin to an officer (eg, "Bobbitt helped me get my Master's Key in Black Morass, I nominate him for a freespin"). We have never not granted a nominated freespin, but we impose this rule on ourselves to maintain transparency and to keep the officers/auctioneers from granting freespins willy-nilly (and opening *that* particular can of worms).