Offline Trading/Bidding

So i just logged in because a Monstrous Treasure box-roll grind occurred last night and there are some phat goodies posted in my trade tab. I don't want to grind atm (my fingers hurt.. .. landscaping duty) but i still want to cash out to get some more currency for later to KEEP grinding (and rolling those strongboxes).

It's unique timing for this post as Legacy league is ending in under 8 days and with it the new single play-through model arrives(hype). Then it occurred to me that this must happen at every cusp of old leagues demise and new leagues rise - a bit of player complacency, whether from too much grinding or preserving the grind they have left for the new league. Whatever the reason, i think most of us know the feeling of just wanting to trade your spoils but not have to be COMPLETELY active to do so.

We all know the feeling of hitting a wall - heading to poe.trade - scouring the list of junk - entering and reentering stat ranges to fit within your price range - finding that item - sending the trade message - just to receive the dreaded "This Player Is AFK" (-_-).
Instead, what if this happened?:

1. Rather than an AFK notification, an AFK Buyout/Bid option/box appeared - MAYBE similar to the way currency is traded, possibly a drag wheel of a selected currency (think poe.trade currency trade steps)
- if the item is listed for a specific price, only an option to buy will appear, perhaps a small chat window would be handy in case the item is listed too high and the buyer would like to offer as well.

2. When the seller returns from consuming, expelling and meandering they receive a list of bids/buyouts when they scroll over the item (along with a clear notification they had a bid on which item, maybe a highlight around the item like a loot filter)

3. Seller goes down the list of bids/buyouts by 1st come 1st server basis (like the good-mannered traded they are)

4. 1st buyer to respond gets the item

(5.) Alternatively, GGG could just make their own auction house already. Just learn from Blizzard's mistake and only use in-game currencies without an option to use real money - keeping the real money purchases to things like cosmetics which are NOT pay-to-win. That is the essence of what makes Path of Exile the TRUE successor to Diablo 2. Change that EVER, and you lead your*OUR game straight down a Path to the Deckard Crypt filled with.. Rainbows and Unicorns? (O.o) (10 years later and it's still relevant SHHHHHH it DOES NOT EXIST - like the player base) OOOOOOOOOOOOoooooooo. KimdoneTHXbye.

Not a bad ideal at all OP, the only problem I see with it is that the seller actually has to be in game in order to send a message that you won the winning bid/buyout, I tried to contact one seller on numerous occasions for different items and never gotten a response, although the 3rd party program, which was developed due to lack of a real trading protocol, shows this person as being online.

I am hoping that with the release of 3.0 that GGG has decided on an ideal submitted by numerous posters including your ideal will be implemented to ease the frustration of trading as it is in it's current state.

When I want to play a new build and haven't found an item that will make the build viable, I start to shudder inside knowing that I am now entering the realm of poe. trading system, don't get me wrong, the website is decent, it's the actual process involved once I locate said item, " whisper player X , auto-reply AFK, next on list , same AFK message, about the 4-5th person down I finally get a response, sorry, I'm in a ( insert what this person is doing at the time ). Now instead of enjoying the game and actually play, I just wasted anywhere between 45 mins. to an hour or so. And still no item acquired to play the new build.

I can agree with the camp on the mistakes Blizzard did with their RMAH, but many have forgotten on why did it fail so hard. Blizzard gated you to the RMAH by not having items that was needed to progress past Act 2. The ones that finished the game and was farming act 4 content were the lucky ones before the nerf hammer came down to prevent more of the player base reaching the end game content.

Anyways, good luck on your proposal and hopefully a change is on the way.

I completely agree that something should be done to ease trading, I just kinda cringe when hearing requests for an auction house or similar offline trading.

The reason I don't like that idea is due to more soft values, but IMO very important too. This relates to the very small player interaction of contacting, visiting, trading and talking/thanking. This small interaction might seem generic and redundant, but it does add a tiny aspect of social play (just as seeing other players in towns) and maybe more important it's a way of showcasing GGG's source of revenue, MTX's, and thereby maybe inspiring other players to purchase MTX's.

I'm a very firm believer in that too much automation is not good for PoE.

HMM, Well I played a lot of Diablo 3 back in the day and I don't think it would be a smart move to create an auction house where you can sell items offline.

Cause that actually keeps people away from logging into the game and playing it.

Trading should not become super easy, only if the game wants to become on an economy simulation.

Back in Diablo 3 I just stopped playing the game I log into it maybe 3 times a month, cause there was no point playing the game when it was easier to get rich through trading.