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I’ve thought of an idea that would prevent undercutting, but I haven’t given it much thought to any possible cons the idea may or may not have.

With my idea, rather then selling to the lowest seller (Where we get our undercutters) we sell to the “Longest Seller”. Basically, whomever has their item up there for the longest time. Rather then trying to explain I’ll just give examples of how it would work.

Seller A puts item up on 1:00PM for 50 gil.
Seller B, 1:00PM 60 gil.
Seller C, 2:00PM 50 gil.
Seller D, 2:30PM 40 gil.

Scenario A: Along comes the buyer.. he wants to buy the item. He’s willing to pay 50 gil for it. He bids.. now with the current system it would go to the undercutter, Seller D. But what my way is basically “Find the players who are selling for 50 gil or less. Then find the player who’s been waiting longest. And finally, sell it to the lowest seller.”

If you follow that guideline, you’ll end up with Player A being the person who gets the item sold. He’s been waiting longest, and he’s selling for 50 gil, whereas Seller B has been selling for the same amount of time, but he wants 60 gil. Seller C hasn’t been waiting as long as Seller A. And the undercutter, Seller D, continues to wait.

Scenario B: Now along comes another player.. he’s only willing to bid 40 gil. What happens? Goes to Seller D of course, undercutting will win sometimes. But it can help be balanced by Scenario A. In today’s auction house it would have gone to Seller D.

Scenario C: Enter stage right, new buyer. He wants the item, he doesn’t have time to waste, he’s gotta have it now. He bids 75 gil. It will go to Seller A, which in today’s auction house it would go to Seller D. Why A and not D? Because A has been waiting the longest.

Scenario C2: Let’s say the previous buyer wanted 2 of the item, and he’s paying 75 gil again. He previous bought Seller A’s item, he bids again, and he would then obtain Seller B’s item. Seller B has been waiting as long as Seller A, but Seller B wanted more so Seller A’s item sold first.

So what does my scenario do? Well I’d like to think it balances things out. It takes the power out of the undercutters hands and puts it in the buyers hands. It may jumble things up a bit, but there are 2 constants: Seller will atleast always get the price they are asking for, Buyer will always pay the price they are bidding. It’s just a matter of who gets their item sold first, that’s the only difference.

I don’t proclaim this is going to change the game, I don’t think it’s ever going to be implemented, I don’t plan on trying to get it implemented, and I have by no means given it a large amount of thought. I’m not an economist, so I can’t predict how this may or may not change undercutting. I just like to make conversation with lots of rambling.