[FEEDBACK] Trade/Auction Rules & Rework

[Shinohara]

 

 

NOTE: In auctions, ALL the GENERAL TRADE RULES (Click Here) apply. Please, read them to to avoid breaking rules.

We recommend that buyers make and keep evidence of their bids with timestamps, as they are needed for both players and staff. This is not necessary where bids are placed on the forum.

 

[BUYER] GENERAL AUCTION RULES 

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1. Bids cannot be withdrawn once placed.
   • In-game: Bids cannot be edited.
   • Forum: Bids may be edited, however, they cannot be changed to a lower price than initially set.
2. Bidders are required to possess and maintain the offered currency (Pokedollars, Coin Capsules, etc) until the end of the auction, unless they are outbid.
   • If the account used to pay is different from the one used to make the bid, it must be stated at the time of the bid.

 

[SELLER] GENERAL AUCTION RULES 

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1. Auctions cannot be cancelled once started.
2. All bids must be acknowledged, and all current/best offers must be publicly announced with the bidder's username and bid amount.
   • In-game: This applies to every trade post related to the auction. Evidence of all bids received must be made and kept, to be made available upon Staff request. Timestamps are preferred.
   • Forum: This applies to every in-game bid received, and must be acknowledged in the auction thread with a screenshot. Timestamps are preferred.
     •  This does not apply to bids received on the forum.
     •  Bids made on Discord are not valid or accepted.
3. Accepting known false bids (from alternative account, friend, guildmate, etc) is prohibited.
4. Offers received outside of an auction cannot be:
   • Claimed or used as current or best offer. 
   • Used as a starting bid without the buyer's permission.
5. Auction winners must be publicly announced through trade-chat, for in-game auctions, and a message in the auction thread (with a screenshot of the trade) for forum auctions.
6. Once an auction is started, its thread may not be moved. If not started yet, you may move it from Silver/Gold forums to Cross Server only after marking the previous thread closed.
7. The starting price or opening bid must be clearly stated. The auction may not be started until an offer that meets this price is met.
8. The ending time of the auction must also be clearly stated. Once the auction has been started, this time may not be changed.
9. The ending time of an auction is final and must be honored.
   • In-game: End points cannot be extended for any reason, and must be accurate to the second that the auction is set to end. It is recommended to use timestamps to manage your auction correctly.
     • e.g. If the auction ends at 15:00:00, bids are valid until 14:59:59 and no later.
   • Forum: If a bid is received in the final 15 minutes of the auction, the end point will be delayed by 15 minutes from that bid, and will be delayed by 15 minutes for each new bid thereafter, until the current offer has been held for a full 15 minutes. Must be accurate to the minute that the auction is set to end.
     • e.g. If the auction ends at 15:00, it will end at 15:00:00. If a late bid is received in the final 15 minutes, at 14:46, the auction will end at 15:01. If another user bids at 15:00, the auction will be extended again, and will end at 15:15, this will be repeated until the current offer has been held for a full 15 minutes.
10. Insta Prices, Minimum Raises and Accepted Payments are optional, however, if set, must be announced in public, and cannot be changed, negotiated or added once:
    • In-game: The auction has been announced.
    • Forum: The auction has started.
11. Accepted Payments may be offered as an additional or alternative form of payment to pokedollars. These must:
    • Be specified by the seller.
    • Be an item with value clearly specified by the seller before the auction begins (e.g. Coin Capsule = 400k)

 

 

AUCTION FORMATTING & TEMPLATE SUGGESTIONS

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• Auctioneers are welcome to use a suggested Auction Template, in order to advertise a valid auction: 
  • Forum: Please feel free to copy and paste the format below:
    • [Pokemon / Item] 
    • Start Point/Price:
    • End Point: 
    • Insta: (Optional)
    • Min. Raise: (Optional)
    • Accepted Payment(s): (Optional)
       
• In-game: To begin an auction.
  • wts <Pokemon> - s.o. - insta - min raise - auction end X minutes after s.o. is met. e.g. 
  • wts <Pokemon> - s.o. - insta - min raise - auction end at hour:minute a.m./p.m. timezone+0. 

 

• In-game: To announce an ongoing auction:
  • wts <Pokemon> - c.o. - bidder's name - insta - min raise - auction end in X minutes.
  • wts <Pokemon> - c.o. - bidder's name - insta - min raise - auction end at hour:minute a.m./p.m. timezone+0.

 

Timezone Helpers: 

• There are multiple world clock/timezone converters on the internet, feel free to find and use your own preferred tools, however, if you need help getting started, we recommend World Time Buddy, as it also accounts for areas of the globe that observe Daylight Savings.

 

 

 

CONTACTING A TRADE MODERATOR

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Before contacting a Trade Moderator for support, please ensure that you have read the Important Information & How To Report Guide.

- If you would like to close your thread for any reason, please edit the topic title to make Trade Moderators aware.

› This can include "Sold", "Close", "Can be Closed", "Please Lock", etc.

› If you would like to re-open a locked shop for any reason, please report the thread using the Report button, or contact a Trade Moderator via PM with a request to unlock the topic. Please include a direct link to the topic you would like to unlock.

- If you do require the support from a Trade Moderator to resolve a trade issue, please do one of the following:

› Make a report in the Report Center with the name of the user(s) you are reporting, a brief description of the infraction, and evidence. 

› To report a specific post or thread, use the "Report" button. This can be located at the bottom of each post here:

 

 

 

 

 

CREDITS TO:

Logan: Created original Legitimate/Valid Auction Guide.

Tigerous, Salt & Hercules: Made several Trade Rule additions, changes and clarifications.

Epiales & Equilibrium: For feedback on original Legitimate/Valid Auction Guide from player-staff perspective.

Hawluchaa & Ehkoe: Revamped Trade & Auction Rules.

[Shinohara]

 

 

NOTE: For Auctions, please READ the, AUCTION RULE (Click Here) to avoid infractions.

Important:  We recommend to take screenshots of EVERY trade agreement (for every trade, lend, auction, service, etc) as they are always needed for both staff and players.

GENERAL TRADE RULES

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1. When advertising, be clear and accurate about what you are buying, selling or auctioning.
   • When stating a Pokemon is IV+ (25+, 26+, etc), all stats must be equal to, or above the advertised numbers.
     • Exception: Decreased ATK, SPATK or SPD stats.
     • e.g. A Timid Pokemon may be advertised as 25+, if all stats except Attack are above 25. 
2. Announcing a lend, sale, offer or bid with no intention or means to follow through is prohibited.
3. Once a deal is agreed upon, you cannot back out of it. A deal is done in one of these two scenarios:
   • In-game: Both parties have agreed to a price and location.
   • Forum & Auction:  An Insta or Fixed Price has been met, or auction won.
4. Scamming, Misleading or Deceiving players is prohibited.
5. Reserves (buy now, pay later agreements) are prohibited. Players must have the means to make full payment from the time of committing to a trade agreement (making an offer, bid, or agreeing to a deal) until completion of the trade or outbid.
6. Offers received outside of an auction cannot be:
   • Claimed or used as current or best offer.  
   • Used as a starting bid without the buyer's permission.
7. Trades outside of official PRO platforms (Forum, In-game, Discord) are not supported, or enforced by PRO Staff.
   • Reports or evidence regarding trade agreements made on Discord may not be accepted.
8. When making a service agreement (Level-Up, EV-Training, Lending, PokeDex Data, Story / Quest, Boss, etc), players must take full responsibility to ensure that the service is completed as agreed. Any actions not explicitly allowed by the agreement (e.g. irreversible damage such as evolving) are prohibited.

 

 

CROSS SERVER RULES

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1. When moving an existing Selling/Auction thread from Silver or Gold forums to Cross Server, the current thread must first be marked as closed.
2. When a trade is agreed between players from different servers, the creator of the thread is responsible for transferring unless different conditions are agreed between seller and buyer.
3. To prevent confusion about auction end times, only one Cross-Server sale can be run at a time per player, with a maximum of 1 Pokemon per post.

 

TRADE TERMINOLOGY

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• WTS, WTB & WTT.

- WTS (Want To Sell), WTB (Want To Buy), and WTT (Want to Trade) indicates the user's intention when making their trade post or thread.

• LFM.

- LFM (Looking For More) is used by a seller to indicate that they are looking for a higher offer.

• SO, BO & CO.

- SO (Starting Offer) indicates the minimum offer required to begin an auction. BO (Best Offer) & CO (Current Offer) are both used to indicate the current highest offer in an auction.

›  Auction use only.
›  Evidence of all offers must be made and kept to be made available upon Staff request. Timestamps are preferred.

• Fixed Price.

- A set price, specified by seller, that once met will result in an immediate sale, ignoring all other offers.

›  Applies to standard sales (non-auction sales e.g. In-game & Forum Sales, Forum Shops, etc), and must be treated as Insta.

• Instant Price / Insta.

- An instant price, specified by the seller, that once met will immediately end the auction, ignoring all other offers and bids.

›  Auction use only.

• Trade Agreement / Deal.

- A deal is done one of these two scenarios:

›  In-game: Both parties have agreed to a price and location.

›  Forum & Auction: An Insta or Fixed Price has been met.

• False Buying / Selling.

- Agreeing to buy or sell, but going back on the deal before the trade has taken place.

• False Offering / Bidding.

- Making an offer or bid with no intent or means to follow through. This also includes retracted or cancelled bids.

• Misleading / Deceiving.

- Intentionally giving another user false information, hiding or manipulating information before or after the trade has taken place. 

• Scamming.

- Breaking a trade agreement once the trade has taken place.

›  e.g. Not returning a lend, breaking a Service agreement etc.

 

 

TYPES OF TRADE FORUMS

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• Selling Pokemon.

- Use this forum to sell non-variant Pokemon only. This includes both standard sales and auctions. 

› Do not sell Shiny or Special Pokemon, Shop Coins, Items or Services here.

- You may sell up to 5 Pokemon per thread.

› To sell 6 or more Pokemon in a single thread, use the Pokemon Shops sub-forum.

• Buying Pokemon. 

- Use this forum to advertise that you are looking to buy a Pokemon. 

› Be specific to help others identify your posts.

• Shiny & Special Pokemon. 

- Use this forum to sell Shiny & Special Pokemon only. This includes both standard sales and auctions. You may also create your own personalised Shiny / Special Shop here.

› Do not sell non-variant Pokemon, Shop Coins, Items or Services here.

• Pokemon Shops. 

- Use this forum when selling 6 or more non-variant Pokemon. 

› Do not sell Shiny or Special Pokemon, Coins, Items or Services here.

• Service Shops. 

- Use this forum to sell a service, or advertise that you are looking for a service provider. This includes Daycare, Lending, PokeDex Data services, etc. You may also create your own personalised Service Shop here.

› Do not sell or buy Pokemon, Shop Coins or Items here.

• Coins & Items. 

- Use this forum to sell, or advertise that you are looking to buy Shop Coins or Items. You may also create your own personalised Coin / Item shop here.

› Do not sell or buy Pokemon or Services here.

• Rate / Price Checks. 

- Use this forum to request Ratings or Price Checks from other users. This applies to Pokemon, Items and Services.

› Do not sell or buy Pokemon, Shop Coins, Items or Services here.

 

 

 

CONTACTING A TRADE MODERATOR

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Spoiler

 

Before contacting a Trade Moderator for support, please ensure that you have read the Important Information & How To Report Guide.

 

- If you would like to close your thread for any reason, please edit the topic title to make Trade Moderators aware.

› This can include "Sold", "Close", "Can be Closed", "Please Lock", etc.

› If you would like to re-open a locked shop for any reason, please report the thread using the Report button, or, contact a Trade Moderator via PM with a request to unlock the topic. Please include a direct link to the topic you would like to unlock.

- If you do require the support from a Trade Moderator to resolve a trade issue, please do one of the following:

› Make a report in the Report Center with the name of the user(s) you are reporting, a brief description of the infraction, and evidence.

› To report a specific post or thread, use the "Report" button. This can be located at the bottom of each post here:

 

 

 

 

 

CREDITS TO:

Flik & Rekkuza: Established first Trade Rules thread.

Khlover & Arkos: Held threads and updated them while active Moderators.

Letrix: Revamped the trade forums, along with Trade Rules & Important Information.

Logan, Tigerous, Salt & Hercules: Made several additions, changes and clarifications to Trade Rules.

Logan: Created Auction Rules & Guide.

Hawluchaa & Ehkoe: Revamped Trade & Auction Rules.

[Bhimoso]

1. Insta Prices, Minimum Raises and Accepted Payments are optional, however, if set, must be announced in public, and cannot be changed, negotiated or added once:
   • In-game: The auction has been announced.
   • Forum: The auction has started.

So far, the only comment I have: for more consistency, I'd say you can change these conditions both ingame AND forums BEFORE the auction starts. It feels weird that you cannot change your mind on the insta, minimum bid and accepted payments BEFORE the auction begins if you do it ingame. What if you simply want to facilitate people being able to bid more easily by increasing the prices of the accepted payment items BEFORE the auction begins? Example:

 

-I'm trying to sell a Gastly 20+ IV Timid in Trade Chat. I announce:

Start: 50k, min bid 5k, auction duration 20 minutes from start bid, insta 300k. Accepted payment Rare Candy as 5k, Pokedollars

 

^I get no bids for the first hour announcing it. Thus, I decide to change:

Start: 50k, min bid 5k, auction duration 20 minutes from start bid, insta 150k. Accepted payment Rare Candy as 7k, Pokedollars

 

This should be completely allowed, I do not see an issue with it. If the auctioneer gets a bid that starts the auction just before he is about to edit the conditions, he will have to settled with the conditions he stated on the auction template, just as forum works already.

[Salemzeroo]

There is one rule that I really hate. 

It is about having all the cash in one acc being the one offering from, and being from the aimed server.... This makes us waste money transferring between servers and gathering money from accs in one acc just to make a "valid" offer. My suggestion is to remove this rule and give 24 hours after the auction is over to have the FULL needed amount of money in the server and acc offered from (giving 24 hours because some auctions may be over when it is mid of night for us, so that we have enough to gather money from accs), and this is for people to "gather money from accs and server" and not to "take loans or sell pokes". 

Regards. 

[Salemzeroo]

7 minutes ago, Bhimoso said:

1. Insta Prices, Minimum Raises and Accepted Payments are optional, however, if set, must be announced in public, and cannot be changed, negotiated or added once:
   • In-game: The auction has been announced.
   • Forum: The auction has started.

So far, the only comment I have: for more consistency, I'd say you can change these conditions both ingame AND forums BEFORE the auction starts. It feels weird that you cannot change your mind on the insta, minimum bid and accepted payments BEFORE the auction begins if you do it ingame. What if you simply want to facilitate people being able to bid more easily by increasing the prices of the accepted payment items BEFORE the auction begins? Example:

 

-I'm trying to sell a Gastly 20+ IV Timid in Trade Chat. I announce:

Start: 50k, min bid 5k, auction duration 20 minutes from start bid, insta 300k. Accepted payment Rare Candy as 5k, Pokedollars

 

^I get no bids for the first hour announcing it. Thus, I decide to change:

Start: 50k, min bid 5k, auction duration 20 minutes from start bid, insta 150k. Accepted payment Rare Candy as 7k, Pokedollars

 

This should be completely allowed, I do not see an issue with it. If the auctioneer gets a bid that starts the auction just before he is about to edit the conditions, he will have to settled with the conditions he stated on the auction template, just as forum works already.

To be honest this rule can't be changed... Imagine preparing yourself to pay 10m with cc being 400k each and the suddenly the guy holding the offer changes his mind to make cc 380k each or even 350k, so he will make you pay more than you intended or will make your offer void and result in a ban for you. 

Concerning the insta price I like how it is rn, it prevents people from making agreements outside auctions, which will not give justice to all participants in the auction 

[Jadeash]

The rules are great but there is one thing that is never mentioned or carried out, which is forcing trades for in-game auctions. Sometimes sellers will take offers after time is up and the rightful winner can lose an auction unrightfully. This happens on several occasions and not enforcing some strict form of warnings/punishment or forcing the trades to the rightful winners doesn't make the sellers forfeit this habit.

[Kboww]

Over the past year or so there has been alot of people getting trade banned/ their auctions being ended over them adding that they accept cc/ other payments after the auction started. The rule itself should be gone completely since it doesn't really effect anything.

[Squad]

I would like to see more action being taken against misleading advertisement. People saying a certain poke is 23+ when one of the stats is 11 as example or such things as 'epic, godly, best in server'.

 

Update trade terminology to include epic and godly would be quite useful.

 

Salem already mentioned that trades got reversed because the money wasn't on the buyers account that was used to bid, this is a really bad thing imo.

 

One more thing could a link somewhere in-game with quick access to the rules. This is a thing for PVP rules so i don't see why it can't be made for trade rules.

 

 

 

[Qeight]

Deleted all comments mentioning auction house. Please read: https://pokemonrevolution.net/forum/topic/159019-dev-to-do-list/
 

  

On 8/26/2020 at 10:33 PM, Eaty said:

Developers to-do list:  //This list is ordered alphabetically. It's just what we have on our to-do list.

• Auction House //An auction house that'll be usable in-game and on the Dashboard.

 

[Yellow]

I've shared my feedback with Keita on the changes separately - so I won't cover that, but I thought I would pitch in here to address some concerns I've seen some people post about, since I was the one to write the previous rules when Hawluchaa and I reworked them.

 

1 hour ago, Bhimoso said:

1. Insta Prices, Minimum Raises and Accepted Payments are optional, however, if set, must be announced in public, and cannot be changed, negotiated or added once:
   • In-game: The auction has been announced.
   • Forum: The auction has started.

So far, the only comment I have: for more consistency, I'd say you can change these conditions both ingame AND forums BEFORE the auction starts. It feels weird that you cannot change your mind on the insta, minimum bid and accepted payments BEFORE the auction begins if you do it ingame. What if you simply want to facilitate people being able to bid more easily by increasing the prices of the accepted payment items BEFORE the auction begins? Example:

 

-I'm trying to sell a Gastly 20+ IV Timid in Trade Chat. I announce:

Start: 50k, min bid 5k, auction duration 20 minutes from start bid, insta 300k. Accepted payment Rare Candy as 5k, Pokedollars

 

^I get no bids for the first hour announcing it. Thus, I decide to change:

Start: 50k, min bid 5k, auction duration 20 minutes from start bid, insta 150k. Accepted payment Rare Candy as 7k, Pokedollars

 

This should be completely allowed, I do not see an issue with it. If the auctioneer gets a bid that starts the auction just before he is about to edit the conditions, he will have to settled with the conditions he stated on the auction template, just as forum works already.

The reason for inconsistency between the two is that they are two very different environments. Ingame, staff cannot see DMs, it's a very fast paced environment in comparison to forums, and there is a lack of evidence control (players have to make screenshots, and they don't always include timestamps - it also may not be immediately clear which timezone that player is from, especially to other players). In addition to this, the forum clock only shows HH:MM and ingame shows HH:MM:SS.

To take your example of the rule about Instas, Min Raises and Accepted Payments - you cannot edit an ingame message like you can with a forum post, so if your auction begins immediately, the auctioneer will have immediately screwed themselves if they missed those details off, since they can't add them after. There's some other reasons too, but hopefully this is enough information to share with you why this would be this way.

 

 

1 hour ago, Salemzeroo said:

There is one rule that I really hate. 

It is about having all the cash in one acc being the one offering from, and being from the aimed server.... This makes us waste money transferring between servers and gathering money from accs in one acc just to make a "valid" offer. My suggestion is to remove this rule and give 24 hours after the auction is over to have the FULL needed amount of money in the server and acc offered from (giving 24 hours because some auctions may be over when it is mid of night for us, so that we have enough to gather money from accs), and this is for people to "gather money from accs and server" and not to "take loans or sell pokes". 

Regards. 

This rule exists because of the sheer amount of auctions that ended, where the winning bidder wasn't available to make the trade. In those situations a TMOD will attempt to force the trade - that being said a TMOD can't be expected to magically know that you had the money on an alt on another server and to go and remove that from your account without speaking to you.
All that is asked is that you make sure the money is available, so if the trade does need to be forced, a TMOD is able to do so without delay (in addition to clearing you of potential false bidding, that's a whole other rabbit hole), and if it's not on that account, which account they need to look at. You stating the name of an alt account is also giving TMODs permission to take that money from another account too.

In relation to your suggestion - do you really think it's fair to make an auctioneer wait an extra 24hrs because it was inconvenient to you to make sure you had the means to pay?

 

 

1 hour ago, Jadeash said:

The rules are great but there is one thing that is never mentioned or carried out, which is forcing trades for in-game auctions. Sometimes sellers will take offers after time is up and the rightful winner can lose an auction unrightfully. This happens on several occasions and not enforcing some strict form of warnings/punishment or forcing the trades to the rightful winners doesn't make the sellers forfeit this habit.

If this is happening, you need to report it, otherwise staff won't be aware and there's not a lot they can do. In addition to this, staff won't announce each time they force a trade - it happens by default on the forum just because staff need to communicate to both players what's going on, but for ingame stuff it just won't happen, it'll all happen in the report center. This is why keeping evidence is really key, especially for ingame transactions/agreements - again, staff don't have access to PMs so they are hugely reliant on players coming forward with those cases.

 

 

1 hour ago, Kboww said:

Over the past year or so there has been alot of people getting trade banned/ their auctions being ended over them adding that they accept cc/ other payments after the auction started. The rule itself should be gone completely since it doesn't really effect anything.

Actually it does. It's innately unfair to change any aspect of an auction after it has started. As a general rule of thumb, auctions cannot be changed in any form once started unless explicitly stated by a TMOD. Happy to write an entire wall on why this is if you feel you need to know more, but as a whole keeping a flat simple ruling that auctions cannot be changed after they start makes auctions much simpler to handle, both as staff and as a player.

 

1 hour ago, Squad said:

I would like to see more action being taken against misleading advertisement. People saying a certain poke is 23+ when one of the stats is 11 as example or such things as 'epic, godly, best in server'.

 

Update trade terminology to include epic and godly would be quite useful.

 

Salem already mentioned that trades got reversed because the money wasn't on the buyers account that was used to bid, this is a really bad thing imo.

 

One more thing could a link somewhere in-game with quick access to the rules. This is a thing for PVP rules so i don't see why it can't be made for trade rules.

This topic was discussed at length and this is how General Trade Rule 1 came about. Realistically, trying to define community terms like "godly" "epic" etc is really difficult, who are staff to say what those things mean, let alone enforce based on them. Those are opinion-based words, and have nothing to do with anything quantifiable. What we put in place instead was a quantifiable system instead, there's no grey areas, no opinions - it either meets the criteria or it doesn't.
In regards to advertisements like "best in server", these aren't permitted and those advertisements should be amended. That's straight up false advertising unless you have a recent screenshot from Walross saying it is legitimately the best in the server. 

In regards to your note on what Salem said, I responded to him above if you want to have a read.

Also +1 on the trade rules ingame. I think there's a character limit that might make it difficult but if it's possible, all for this.