Learning LOTRO: Lesson Thirty-Eight - The Auction House

 

In this series, I talk about various aspects of The Lord of the Rings Online. This series is meant for newcomers, but may also help veteran players find more to love about the game.

What better follow-up to last week's entry about Crafting Guilds than to discuss the place where you can sell your crafted items? This week I'll be covering all of the basics about The Auction House: what it is, how to use it, the instructions you no longer receive for it, and why it too is an important part of the player economy in The Lord of the Rings Online.

If this entry is a little weird or sparse or missing information, please comment with any corrections I need to make -- I've only had 4 or 5 hours of sleep since doing the 24-hour Extra Life marathon! Thank you! --snarkqueen

What is The Auction House?

As the name implies, this is where you can put items up for auction for other players to purchase. In turn, you get in-game money (but not LOTRO Points, Mithril Coins, or any other barter currency). It's a common feature in most MMORPGs, each with a slightly different approach. This gives the game a player economy in which they can repurpose items they don't need or want and receive compensation in return. Some games use a separate currency for their auction feature, and sometimes the prices become ridiculously unattainable by the average new player to the game. Every so often this happens in LOTRO, but it isn't a rampant issue.

How Does It Work?

To Sell: Drag and drop the item to the empty box. Check the boxes and set a price for minimum bid. If you want to let people choose buyout, you can set that price as well. Wait. Profit... or get the item back because there are no buyers or you're downright greedy with your prices. Either way, the item or your money will be sent to your in-game mail.

To Buy: Type in what you're looking for, or browse through the categories. You can bid or you can buy outright if you really want the item (and buy is an option). If you win or buy out a post, you'll receive that item in your in-game mail.

Bid vs. Buyout

Each auction post is different. Some people prefer to set their post for bids only, letting prices climb until someone gets the item -- much like eBay. Other people set a straight-up cost for the item because they want only that amount without the stress of people bidding over it. Whichever you choose, remember to be reasonable with your prices, don't try to undercut someone else's price (people don't like that), and be sure to read all of the item's specifics before you bid or buy to avoid buyer's remorse.

Kinship Posts

If you're a member of a Kinship, you can designate your posts to be available just for your fellow kinmates. A lot of kins do this to make items easily accessible without clogging up a lot of storage space in a kin house. My own kinship on Landroval, Away Shall Fade, does a First Friday event where the first Friday of the month they tell kin members to post kinship-only listings and set the cost to posting fee only. This promotes a pay-it-forward environment that keeps everyone happy and generous (and declutters our storage spaces!).

Slots

The number of posting slots you have to use depends entirely on your account status:

VIP: 30 posts, 20 bids

Premium: 5 posts, 20 bids

Free: purchasable posts, 20 bids

So no matter your account type, you can always bid on up to 20 items at a time. If you want to post items, you'll need to make a purchase of some kind -- and once you use money to make a purchase, you'll have a premium account from that point on, which gives you 5 posting slots. VIPs get the maximum amount of posts. 

The purchasable slots are sold 5 at a time, and they stack. So if you have a Premium account because you purchased some Points at one time, you start with 5 posts and each purchased item below stacks on top of it. These are account-wide purchases.

Item: The Auction House

There used to be a quest in Bree which sent you on a tour throughout the town, introducing you to all of its features. As you spoke to various NPCs, they gave you information about their services. One of them was the Auction House and they would give you an item (manual) that when opened explained everything about how it works. Sadly, this item is no longer given and there's no tour of Bree (which is a shame -- new players can definitely benefit from that information). 

Here is the information for your viewing pleasure (and for posterity):

Item Structure of Posts

If you're looking for something specific, it's in your best interest to choose the correct item type from the categories on the left-hand side of the Auction Hall window. If you aren't sure which category to look in, just type at the top and see if anything pops up. If you don't have any results, nobody is selling what you're looking for or you've typed it wrong. In the latter case, you can drag and drop a copy of the item from your bag for an exact search -- if you're looking for more of a certain type of ore, for example.

Reasons to Use the Auction House

There are a lot of reasons to use the Auction House:

• You have excess task or reputation items to offload.
• You have non-bound gear items that dropped.
• You craft a lot and want to sell your extra or entire yield.
• You want to find cosmetics, decorations, or other commonly needed items.

VIP Access

Are you a VIP? Good news for you, then! If you use your Subscriber Town Services item, you'll see that you have access to the Auction House no matter where you are. 

Auction House & Auctioneer Locations

Here's a list of where you'll find designated Auction Houses, and in some places where there are all of the usual town services you'll find an NPC who handles auctions but isn't in an auction house.

Did I miss anything important about The Auction House? Tell me on Twitter with the hashtag #GamerReverieBlog, or tag me @spottedsnark!

A big thank-you to everyone who donated, re-tweeted, liked, subscribed, and otherwise supported my 24-hour Extra Life marathon this past weekend! I leveled a new character to 32 and raised $3,201. If you missed it, you can still donate until December 31st to help the kids a Children's National Hospital!

Was this entry helpful? Let me know! The series continues next Monday!
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