Immortal Realm Auction House Guide: Bidding, Buyouts, and Selling Rare Items

The Immortal Realm auction house is a web-side bidding system for high-value items. It runs alongside the player vendor market — vendors are for regular goods at fixed prices, auctions are for rare items where competitive bidding produces better price discovery.

This page covers how the system works: listing items, bidding, buyouts, what items belong on auction, and tips for both sides of the transaction.

The live tool is at /auctions.

What the Auction House Is For

Auctions solve a specific economic problem: what's a fair price for an item that's rare, distinctive, or has high variance in buyer valuations?

For a stack of iron ingots, the vendor-fixed-price model works fine — supply is steady, prices are competitive, buyers can comparison-shop the market browser. For a one-of-a-kind runic-crafted weapon with a unique modifier roll, fixed-price doesn't work. The seller doesn't know what to ask. The buyer doesn't know what to offer. An auction lets the right price emerge through public bidding.

Items that belong on auction:

• Rare runic-crafted gear with valuable property combinations.
• Unique drops from named monsters or boss encounters.
• Powerscrolls and stat scrolls (Felucca-exclusive Powerscrolls past 100 in a skill).
• Houses or house deeds in desirable plots.
• Time-sensitive listings the seller wants to clear quickly with public visibility.
• Vanity items with collector value (rare hues, retired-event drops, etc.).

Items that belong on vendors:

• Bulk consumables, basic crafted gear, raw materials, mid-tier magic items.

If you're not sure, ask: "Will this item attract competitive bids?" If yes, auction. If no, vendor.

How to List an Auction

To list an item, use the in-game [auction command — verified registered at Scripts/custom/Systems/AuctionSystem.cs:102 (AccessLevel.Player):

1. Type [auction anywhere in-game. The auction interface opens.
2. Specify item, minimum bid, buyout price, duration. Standard durations are 24 / 48 / 72 hours. Choose duration based on how rare the item is and how patient you want to be.
3. Pay the listing fee. Scaled to minimum-bid value. The fee is small but real; it discourages joke listings.
4. Confirm. The auction posts to /auctions and to the in-game board.

To cancel an active listing, use [auctioncancel.

The listed item is held in escrow until the auction resolves. If the auction sells, the item transfers to the buyer and gold transfers to you. If it doesn't sell, the item returns to you and you keep the listing fee deduction.

How to Bid

Bidding from the website:

1. Browse /auctions and find a listing.
2. Read the item's full stat readout, the seller's name, the current high bid, the buyout price, and the time remaining.
3. Place a bid. Your bid must exceed the current high bid by the minimum increment.
4. Your gold is held in escrow. If you're outbid, your gold is returned. If you win, the gold transfers to the seller.

Bidding from in-game: use the [auctionhouse command to open the in-game gump (verified registered, AccessLevel.Player). The bidding mechanics are the same as the website.

You can place bids on multiple auctions concurrently as long as your held escrow doesn't exceed your bank gold.

Minimum Bids and Buyouts

Two prices on every listing:

• Minimum bid. The lowest acceptable opening bid. Sellers set this to the floor they'll accept; auctions that don't reach the minimum bid don't sell.
• Buyout price. Optional. If a buyer pays the buyout, the auction ends immediately and the item transfers.

Buyout strategy: a seller who wants quick resolution sets a buyout slightly above their estimated fair price. A seller who wants maximum revenue and is willing to wait sets a high buyout (or none) and lets bids build.

Buyer strategy on buyout: pay it when (a) the item is genuinely worth the buyout to you, OR (b) the auction is competitive enough that you expect the final bid to approach the buyout anyway. If the buyout is much higher than your max bid, just bid your max and accept the auction outcome.

What Items Belong on Auctions

Repeat for clarity, with a budget heuristic:

• Items worth ≥ 50,000 gp typically belong on auctions. Discovery is worth the wait.
• Items worth ≤ 5,000 gp typically belong on vendors. Auction overhead exceeds the price discovery benefit.
• Items in between — judgment call. If the item has wide variance in buyer valuations (hue is unusual, modifier combination is non-standard, item type has cyclical demand), lean auction. If it's a standard item at a standard price, lean vendor.

Tips for Sellers

• Time your listing. Population peaks around evening hours in your shard's primary timezone; list so the auction ends during peak so the final bid window is well-attended.
• Set the minimum bid honestly. Setting it too high and getting no bids is worse than starting low and letting bidding pull the price up.
• Use buyout strategically. If you genuinely don't know the value, leave buyout off and let bidding find it. If you have a target price, set buyout there.
• Write the listing description well. Buyers read descriptions; a clear stat-and-context description gets more attention than a bare item name.
• Don't relist losers immediately. If an auction ends without bids, wait a few days before relisting. Same listing right back is rarely productive.

Tips for Buyers

• Set a max in your head before bidding. Auctions can pull you into bidding wars. Decide the most you'll pay before the first bid; don't exceed it.
• Bid your max once near the end. Putting in a small initial bid early is fine; chasing every increment up isn't. Most sellers extract more from chasers than from one-and-done bidders.
• Watch for snipe-extension behavior. Anti-snipe means the timer extends if late bids come in; budget for the auction running slightly past the listed end time.
• Compare against vendors. Before bidding, check the market browser (/market) to see what comparable items go for at fixed prices. Auctions sometimes overshoot vendor prices for the same goods.
• Cross-check the seller. A new account selling a high-value item is a slight flag; a known long-time crafter selling their work is solid. The shard is small enough that this is checkable.

How Auctions Differ From Vendors

A summary table:

Use the right tool for the goods.

Where to Go Next

For the broader player economy these tools sit inside, Immortal Realm Economy. For the vendor side specifically, Immortal Realm Market Guide. For the crafter perspective on what to list where, Immortal Realm Crafting.

The live auction board is at /auctions. The download page is the on-ramp when you're ready to play.