I take your point that real auctions have that announcing and display period, but that is because the stuff being sold is usually highly rare or desireable; not like iGP where drivers are just drivers. You don't need an announcing and display phase, just the fast bidding.
I think there are four questions to ask here:
1. Did the system before work well? Yes. It was fast paced, the market was well populated and you had an equal chance of doing well regardless of level, resources or availability to spend time on the game. If there was nothing on good on the market you could wait a few minutes for it to refresh. Now there are whole hours of this - it's like being back with the really broken 3 hour auction system of several years ago - though not quite as bad.
2. Was anyone complaining about the system? No. There are always players who care a lot raising issues on the forum, but none of the main or popular complaints in the last 3-6 months were about the transfer market. It worked about people were happy.
3. Do managers prefer the new system? No. Often things can be changed without managers complaining, and they prefer the result. This is clearly not one of them.
4. Is the new system better or fairer? No. It screws over anyone who isn't active at the end of the hour, and massively advantages better resourced account because all the prices are being driven up from a reasonable 4 or 5 tokens to usually 10-15, though I have seen above 30 on the new system.
I cannot see any rationality for this change when it comes to the enjoyment or playability of the game. Is there a middle ground of ten minute refreshes or thirty minute refreshes? Possibly. But this new system is not one that managers like or are happy with, and the previous one was such. Why make a change to bring yourself under fire and make the game worse?
I think there are four questions to ask here:
1. Did the system before work well? Yes. It was fast paced, the market was well populated and you had an equal chance of doing well regardless of level, resources or availability to spend time on the game. If there was nothing on good on the market you could wait a few minutes for it to refresh. Now there are whole hours of this - it's like being back with the really broken 3 hour auction system of several years ago - though not quite as bad.
2. Was anyone complaining about the system? No. There are always players who care a lot raising issues on the forum, but none of the main or popular complaints in the last 3-6 months were about the transfer market. It worked about people were happy.
3. Do managers prefer the new system? No. Often things can be changed without managers complaining, and they prefer the result. This is clearly not one of them.
4. Is the new system better or fairer? No. It screws over anyone who isn't active at the end of the hour, and massively advantages better resourced account because all the prices are being driven up from a reasonable 4 or 5 tokens to usually 10-15, though I have seen above 30 on the new system.
I cannot see any rationality for this change when it comes to the enjoyment or playability of the game. Is there a middle ground of ten minute refreshes or thirty minute refreshes? Possibly. But this new system is not one that managers like or are happy with, and the previous one was such. Why make a change to bring yourself under fire and make the game worse?
The reasons from dev side would likely be reaching the goals of intended player interaction and fulfill its purpose as resource sink better.
Also especially point 4 shows our views as players differ as well, 10-15 tokens, 30+ (up to maybe 50) occasionally sounds spot on to me. Despite the returned wage bonus maybe still a bit low compared to 90 tokens from HQ, but given the current drive to encourage retiring drivers sooner the HQ costs look a bit like in need of a review for them to be lowered. Also points 1-3, as a player I did somewhat appreciate the ease and convenience, but despite the somewhat increased activity it always felt like transfers could as well be a list of offers with a button to buy at some token and money price, no auction suspense or difficulty to get what's wanted at all. Mixed feeliings about that, due to risk more difficult and engaging clashing with my mentioned views on p2w.
