This is a bit of rant to be fair so be forewarned.

I don't mind the concept behind the Galactic trade center even if it means that prices have seriously gone out of control on some items.

What I find annoying is the ability of people to bid in the last few seconds (it seems like clockwork) denying you the ability to counter their ending bid..

Dan's advice is simply BID MORE INITIALLY....

respectfully I don't think that works very well. It doesn't eliminate the literal last second snipe.

My suggestion - either give the 2nd to last bidder a minute extra to match whats posted bid wise OR eliminate the ability to snipe bid for those who did not previously bid on that auction....

Anyone else has thoughts on how to improve i'm all ears and I hope Dan will consider it.

I agree. it really needs snipe protection, it's not good for the seller either.

Cancel button for auction and buy out price for items.

+1 buy now/buy out would solve everything going skyhigh

Another problem is people using it as storage.

There needs to be a fee, Energy or something.
Its the lower ranks whos using it as storage with there 500 Cargo space.

Thats why theres 9999999999999999999999B on spy probes.

Something really needs to be done.

I would like to see a shop element brought with the auction.

People sell items in a shop that they create. They create the name, look and prices.
The items stay in the cargo but when sold. the artifacts are transferred.

Then on the side, have an auction. (Still need energy fee or so)
The buyer can search from lowest prices for shops. or certain stores. Lots of additional options like
players not to buy from, When the shop was created. Shop size, ect, ect, ect.

With that, the shop starts at size 1, Allowing 5 items upto 100 per sale.
The shop can be upgraded by GP or massive amounts energy, Credits ect.

At the moment, the GTC is to limited.

~JF~

There should be an energy charge for the person starting the auction, and only them. The whole reason that there are so many last minute bids is that people don't want to be wasting 5 energy every time. If there was no 'charge' to bid there would be proper auctions and people wouldn't have to set prices that are often too high.
Of course you need anti snipe measures. A simple resetting to 2 minutes left after any bid that was in the last 2 minutes.

Complete ignorance...

Do you know what an auction is?
Do you know what sniping is?

People don't bid because they don't want to raise the price.
people snipe because they don't want to raise the price to 10x its worth and actually get the item.

About the GTC, simply remove it.

I agree. Remove it. Nobody uses it, why use a snipe machine when you can have a nice unofficial facebook trade?

People do use it. The more dedicated players like us forumers have trade group acess to conduct our business while the average player only had the gtc. While it can be improved on removing it would be doing a disservice to the players without trade grou access. +1 to improving it. -1 to removing it.

um, that's like the textbook definition of 'sniping' ... anyone that has been actively buying on the GTC has already been doing this, so you aren't giving away any secrets.

anti-sniping measures would HELP because:

1. faster connection speeds will not auto-win auctions
2. energy 'cost' will lead to bidders bidding more than the minimum increment, and prices will rise closer to the true value of what buyers are willing to pay
3. fairer prices will give sellers more incentive to use the GTC versus other trading forums, giving more supply to buyers