I would like to take this opportunity to apologize to all innocent parties that were dissapointed by the proceedings of Sunday Night's auction. For the sake of running a smoother, cleaner, and more civil auction this next saturday night, I feel that it is neccesary for me to explain why Galain and I took the actions that we did.

My side of the story begins with an auction that started off great. People were bidding well, having fun, Galain and I were also enjoying ourselves. We even brought out a few decent and interesting feature type items early on.

After about 30 minutes, rumors of a Garg invasion began to pull people out of the hall. Galain and I discussed ending the auction at that time but decided against it due to the fact that people were having fun and we were enjoying ourselves. We did make the decision at that time to hold off on auctioning some of the more expensive items until that invasion was cleared up and the crowds returned.

Now, before I go any further into this saga, let me tell you, at auctions or at tables, I have an open door policy for suggestions, complaints, requests, even rudeness. The only thing that I ask is that such things be kept to a whisper and not be publically announced. I will make an attempt, if possible, and if in the best interests of my business, to accomodate any reasonable request. People were doing this for most of sunday night, and I was accomodating most of them. To those that I could not accomodate, I provided a civil and polite explanation.

60 minutes into the auction, more than one person was stating angry and rude sentiments out loud about how I was running the auction and/or trashing my items. Such comments are heard by others and DO have an effect on my sales. The comments didn't stop, despite my verbal efforts to calm them down. This put me in a difficult and undesireable situation. I had to consider either doing nothing, thumping people, or kicking them out. Ill explain why each of these options were not in my best interests:

1. Doing Nothing - Doing nothing would cause the comments to continue. Other people would begin listening to them and beleiving them, even the ones that arent true. This would effect how much they are willing to bid on my items, and how long they are willing to stay at the auction.

2. Thumping - Thumping will likely turn the thumped person against me forever, especially if they think that they were not rude, which is usually the case, since they prolably wouldnt have said any rude things if they had the sense to know that it was rude to begin with. Thumping would at the very least, stop that person from bidding on my items. At worst, it would stop many people from bidding on my items, and people to retaliate against me violently. Thumping would have had a bad effect on our already dwindling profits.

3. Kicking people out - same reason as thumping

Because all three options would have had a bad effect on the auction and our profits, Galain and I came up with a 4th option, to simply end the auction and hold it at another time. I realize that there are many people who are just as mad that we ended the auction as they would've been if we picked one of the other 3 options. Now you can see what a difficult situation someone running an auction or tables even, is put in when people start being publically rude and refuse to stop. There is really nothing that we can do in such a situation that would result in a favorable outcome for our business.

I implore all who read this, if you are at an auction or a bazaar table and you have anything other than something good to say, WHISPER it to the Trader running the show and you will likely get a much more receptive and reasonable response to your inquiry than if you said it outloud.

For next week's auction, I can promise you that I will be much better prepared for making decent item lists, having some kind of interesting order to what items are rolled out and when, and as I have this past weekend, I will dispearse decent feature items throughout. However, as always, the lion's share of them will come at the end. I will also come to the hall prepared to deal with anyone making rude public comments as swiftly as possible. I will NEVER thump, kick anyone out, or end the auction if such comments are kept to a reasonable WHISPER.

I thank everyone for listening,

Tirsten Evanwood

Nobody is forcing anyone to stay at the auction, if you dont like the auction, there is no need to sit there and keep bidding. I think I saw you in there for the entire auction, lasted more than an hour. you didn't seem to hate it so much then, you even placed bids on several items. If you really didnt like the auction, you would've done the smart thing and left.

Thanks for reminding me why I do not do auctions at all and little table sales.

---

The guild leader says, "Not yet, not yet, things are not yet prepared for the challenge that you must pass in order to advance beyond this point. Come back another time."

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I didn't publicly accuse you of conspiring to steal from the thumpee, I just noted that it was being discussed by more nefarious types in and/or around the auction hall. I said I had NO IDEA weather or not you were involved, just to me it was another reason behind my stating that the auction was "horrid" During the middle of the auction I was fine, bidding on things I wanted, even won two. But by the end of it all I was done with the whole mess. As far as the announcing of the app of the arrows, my only tiff with that is if you were going to announce the app of ANY item you were auctioning it would have been in better form to announce that before people start bidding on them. To shut up the person you thumped an appraisal of the tempest arrows she questioned the value of could have ended the whole situation right where it started, and the thumpee was only one of a few people voicing the same concern. Another point of contention was the item order of auction being seemingly arbitrarily rearranged with some in the auction hall being interested in items that were originally slated to come up earlier, and never did later, come up for auction. My describing the event as "horrid" also wasn't a personal attack on you, I just had a bad time by the end of it all. Will I attend later auctions? I think it'd be best if I didn't, doesn't matter anyways you'll still make the same amount of money.

Legian A'Neais
a total W.A.A.S.T.E. of time.

The arbitrarily arranged items, I can vouch for myself. Due to circumstances out of my control, I had very little time to prepare for the auction IG before I was scheduled to pick up the gavel. I did state that I would have an auction on that day however, and delivered as promised. We are making sure that things will be much better orginized and more interesting for the next auction.

Our plan is the following:

1. Carefully Arrange items in packs of 20 each so that updating the list and controling item order is easy. We would have done this on sunday, but like i said... RL circumstances.

2. Bring out decent features at set intervals (that interval will not be announced)

3. Mystery grab bags where total number of items, type of items (clothing, weapon, armor, ect.), and appraisal value (in coins) is stated before bidding begins.

4. Bulk bags of things like lockpicks, gweth stones, ect. will go up for auction.

5. We will also put together a pack of 20 feature items for display on the list 30 minutes prior to the auction beginning as well as during intermission. The items in this particular pack will not go up for sale until we sell all other items, or we determine that it is getting late, and people would like to buy these before they go to sleep.

The auction we did on saturday went quite well and we hope that the auction this coming saturday will be twice as good.

~Tirsten

No minimum bids. Funny thing is, having a minimum bid, even if it's way below what people will actually end up bidding on the item, might cause people to simply not bid at all.

All of my bids start at 0.

As far as complaining, I have yet to see an auction done by myself or anyone else where there isnt at least one complaint. I know that complaints are going to arrise regardless of whether or not it is my fault as an auctioneer. This is why I simply ask that complaints be WHISpered to me during the auction so that I have a chance to resolve them before I am embarrassed in public when the person publicly announces their complaint. At my next auction, there will be a zero tolerance policy for such public complaints.

If it's not in the form of a whisper, I dont want to hear it and neither do the guards who will be waiting for my signal to remove anyone that I feel is causing a disruption to my business.

If complaints DO come to me in a whisper, I will try to resolve them as best I can and I will never take any actions such as calling the guards as long as they remain in whisper form, no matter how unreasonable they are.

>>I admired your humor

And I thought I was just a corny old fool. Thanks for that.

Gidske, all i can say is, when you don't have proof of something, why jump to conclusions? That just damages people's rep for no reason. I started this post to resolve issues, not to have people come in here and make baseless, immature acusations as well as bring things up that are not their business. If you're making assumptions about something, dont come in and assign blame publicly when all you have are assumptions.

>Gidske, all i can say is, when you don't have proof of something, why jump to conclusions?

Maybe it because both your thief and YOU whispered me (at the different times and places) the intentions for the harassment when they occurred. Give me a bit and I'll see if I can dig up my old logs of it...

And bought is bought, that isn't an assumption when I can list every skill you have and stat, and their approximate ranks at that time of purchase (granted some time has passed). Not to mention that you created your own Yahoo site to sell yourself off peacemeal.

Any other assumptions I care to make?

Gidske

>Furthermore, you also have no right to be talking about things that are none of your business on the boards, especially things that regard my account history, which is between the following parties:

Everyone here knows that Tirsten was sold, several times in fact. It's a little late to worry about whether people realize that you bought Tirsten - the previous few owners made it clear they weren't the original owner.

Apu

>I am aware of what everybody knows. Do I care? No. However, like I said, it's nobody's business. Just because you might know or find out about something, doesnt make it your business either.

Sure it is. Tirsten has been a thorn in the side of real Traders since long before you owned him. It was our business before you ever owned him.

Apu

>It's funny how many times I've heard Apu posting about how people shouldnt be getting into other people's business only to hear him say that it's ok now.

I don't remember ever saying that - it doesn't even really sound like something I would say. But I should clarify that I didn't mean to imply that I either agreed or disagreed with anything Gidske or anyone else posted about your auction. I wasn't there, and I have no idea whether it was horribly run, extraordinarily run, or somewhere in between. I was just responding to a specific part of the previous posts - that it's silly to say it's not anyone's business whether one of the highest level (and previously most respected) characters in our guild is/isn't bought or is/isn't a well run character or is/isn't whatever.

>I also saw him post a while back about something along the lines of "you can't define a "real trader." I guess since he's turned around and defined it as "not Tirsten", that's no longer the case. So, until he says otherwise folks, go right ahead and define a "real trader".

Well it's pretty difficult to define what is a "real" Trader, and I certainly wouldn't say that just because someone bought a character that that means they can't be a "real" Trader. But I'm going to go out on a limb and say that someone who bought a high level Trader in order to script trading contracts all day long, and often complained on the boards about how Traders "don't make enough money to be worth paying attention to my stupid Trader while I script trading in order to sell the plats and pay my bills" wasn't a "real" Trader.

>Apu, since your post, I guess there's nothing I can say. You've cashed in on the issue and your words have more impact on these boards than Alan Greenspan does on Wallstreet. Any chance of me getting some peace from having to deal with the opinions of people I dont know and didnt interact with or seek out is pretty much ruined. Thanks.

I think you think too much of what people think of me :) Besides, I tried to clarify that I wasn't actually referring to your auction at all. I wasn't there, I haven't talked to anyone who was there, and I have no opinion on anything that happened there.

Apu

See Post 509, this little excerpt, ?Gidske, all i can say is, when you don't have proof of something, why jump to conclusions??, which I responded in Post 511.

Notice you then admit to it in post 512, ?If I tried to do something about being harrassed by you getting into things that are none of your business, then you prolably got what you deserved. When you get into other people's business, you are playing with matches. When you play with matches, you get burned, what can I say??

Quit putting on the mantle of victim here and be up front with what you are dealing with and such embarrassing contradictions wouldn?t be occurring. I assume that if you play with matches with Tirsten that means you exact the revenge of all your other characters? This apply to your auctions or other IG activities that might upset Tirsten, but being a Trader, we know how hard it can be for a Trader to do anything `physical? so why not, right?

Tirsten, ?I could also find an international phone directory (if there is such a thing) and hand it off as a list of people who's business this isn?t as well. ?

Thanks for the veiled threat, of `exposing? me to the public, as if I make any bones about who I actually am. Souther is my last name, K stands for Ken, which is my first name, heck my IM is SoutherKen, email Ken_Souther@yahoo.com. I?m actually pretty proud of who I am, so enjoy finding out all about me.

Gidske

>>Thanks for the veiled threat, of `exposing' me to the public, as if I make any bones about who I actually am. Souther is my last name, K stands for Ken, which is my first name, heck my IM is SoutherKen, email KenSouther@yahoo.com. I'm actually pretty proud of who I am, so enjoy finding out all about me.

WHAT?! How do you go from me making a list of people who's business this isn't (with everybody in the world's name on it) to you thinking Im going to find out who you are and expose you? I could care less who you are, you're a person that sticks his/her nose where it does not belong, and I dont have the patience to know someone like that.

And yes, Tirsten is the victim here Gidske. I dont think you understood the play with matches comment either. Since you didn't, let me explain it to you: IT WAS YOU who was playing with matches whenever you got into Tirsten's business. It WAS You who got burned. IT WAS YOU that got what was coming to you.

Denial? I didnt even want to bring this up but... maybe that's because Im not actually the same Tirsten that did that, whenever it was, and I didnt think at first that the other Tirsten would do it. While I prefer arguing things out on the boards to voilence (the fact that you havent been robbed blind yet should attest to this), ect but I understand why the other Tirsten might have done whatever he did. Its not what I would've done, but we all have our own way.

Stay out of other people's business Gidske. If you dont have the sense to do that, things will eventually come back to you in unpleasant ways. Dont be suprised when they do.

<<While I don't share Gidske's views on bought characters, I do respect that when you buy one, you buy their history.

only four traders over 90+ dont have amnesia

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The guild leader says, "Not yet, not yet, things are not yet prepared for the challenge that you must pass in order to advance beyond this point. Come back another time."

---

For me personally, I wouldnt buy a character. Im only using Tirsten for this auction, because his owner needed the mind of a real trader to pull it off and im that real trader. Some of you already know who I am, some of you will prolably piece it together from my writing and argument style on the boards. But anyway, just go easy on tirsten for a little while, at least until Im done with him.

>>When you are done with him, do us all a favor and click the delete character button.

Once again, none of you business but haha and no way!

A little advice: When something is bothering you, ask yourself: Does it effect me personally? If it doesn't, quit worrying about it. I can't really see how the existence of Tirsten effects you unless you make the choice to worry about it and interact with him (it wasent until you interacted with him last time that you had real difficulties with him). Also, keep in mind that this is ONLY A GAME. So really, the existence of Tirsten does not effect or concern you unless you chose to let it effect or concern you. You might find that your stress level will be that much lower if you take my advice, I know mine will.

>>At least you are funny.

And by the way, you do know my real trader IG but you don't have him associated with what I am doing here. So since you dont know which trader's mind is behind tirsten, you have no way of knowing if what I said was a joke but thanks anyway, for thinking that I'm funny. I think Im funny too.

Oh my goodness.

Not a post I would have expected from a 90+ trader. Sorry Tirsten, it comes across as crying over spilled milk.

People complain at auctions. Auctioneers get bad information from the person selling the items, you forget to appraise the weapons and armor for damage, stuff happens.

One of the worse incidents I had was when I was auctioning off a bejewled silver scepter. I had a backpack on my back and one in my hand. In order to use the verbs, I had to get rid of the one in my hand, but I couldn't put it in the other one. So I put it on the table. I forgot and left it there. Someone whole walked in during the bidding won the scepter for 40 plat then got ticked off when he didn't get the backpack too. Whoops! No decpetion was planned, I just needed a spot for the backpack. Still he got on the gweth and called me a cheating liar for about half an hour.

Complaints and bad feelings happen. Part of being a 'real' trader is learning to deal with them. You can't just 'borrow' a trader to sell stuff. It's like 'borrowing' a barbarian to forge or a ranger to hunt. The skills it takes to sell or hunt or forge are as much learned by the player as they are ranks of skill on the character. Characters are much more than just cardboard cutouts designed to perform specific tasks then be shoved back into void while you enjoy the fruits of their labors.

Had you thumped, or dealt with the people complaining at the auction, no trader would have said anything bad about you. How you run your table or your auction has and probably always will be, up to the individual trader. Its been one of our guilds most cherished traditions that each trader has the right to conduct their own business as they see fit. No trader has ever, to my knowledge, told another trader you can't throw out those who are being disruptive while that trader was on guild property using the guild facilities.


I'm not sure why you came to these boards in the first place if Tirsten isn't your character...









And when your back's against the wall
Just turn around and you, you will see
I will catch your,I will catch your fall
Just Have a little faith, faith in me

Mandy Moore
Have A Little Faith In Me