Interview: Magdalaine and Sigmund of Yew Gate Vendors Auction (YGV)

Magdalaine arrived carrying several extra items with house placement tool in hand. "Sorry for the wait, I do IDOC's in the mornings."

Branwilde: You had an excellent vendor house just NW of the Yew Gate...

Magdalaine: I still run a vendor house, in the same location called "Codi Team Vendors". It's the white house with all the vendors on the roof. Ed, who is on the auction staff also runs a vendor house by the Gate. Sigmund is the founder of YGV, he is busy with real life right now so so I have taken over the Auction House with Edgar Figaro backing me up.

Branwilde: *Sigmund chimed right in with some history of YGV*


Sigmund: YGV got started as a pure crafter's guild soon after Tram opened. My first YGV vendor house was the small tower just under the Yew moongate. Vendors, guild vendors and rental vendors were run from this site. I sold millions selling regs and DP weapons off the front steps, with a full selection of goods from the vendors inside.

I developed a unique way of having my vendors pay rent. I had one vendor inside the house sell "vendor rent" books. Merchants who were renting spots inside the house paid for them by buying the "rent books". OSI actually interviewed me when they were changing over the way the vendors worked.

Several years later, the house to the left of that small tower fell and I was able to acquire that house and move YGV into

larger quarters. We sold off the house that replaced the small tower soon after AOS came around. We still own the vendor house, but as the vending business has changed...we also had to change.

Shadowlands developed the first Auction house on Lake Superior. YGV took their lead from Shadowlands and started up the first YGV Auctions on Wednesday to balance Shadowland's Sunday night operation. We operated for about 6 months, but two partners decided to leave the game, so we closed YGV for about a year until Edgar Figaro talked me in to reopening it. We reopened on Thursday nights, and it only took us a month to regain the reputation we had from the first auction.

We pride ourselves in trying to be one of the most honest houses in the GAME.

Branwilde: It takes a team to run an auction. Who are the people that you work with in running the Auction?

Sigmund: I have been blessed with some of the best players that play UO. My teams have been great, there is no way I could have accomplished with without their honesty and support.

Magdalaine/Piper is the current head of operations (while I take night courses through the summer.
Flanuva is Showman. Lula is the cashier.

Past players who have worked with me are Jopam(news reporter for UO Radio, Vanna/Cassie of K*S, YGV/Carrie of K*S, Luna of

K*S, Soulfly of K*S. Edgar Figaro of VeT who is also a co-founder of YGV from the first spasm).

Branwilde: Magdalaine,How many years did you run the vendor house before starting with the YGV Auction?

Magdalaine: I started playing in '98 and ran a vendor house four years, til 2002. Then I quit for a few years, and came back last November. When I came back I started running a vendor house right away. I did IDOCs before I left, so I knew how they worked, for the most part.

I first met Sigmund at my vendor house. He asked me to run a vendor out front on the small house space. As I grew in IDOCs and items Sigmund and Ed sold me a Yew Gate house. Now I have two houses by the gate, but only use one for vendors.

Branwilde: What are the items selling the best off your vendors right now?

Magdalaine: Not stealables, that's for sure. Arrows are a top seller, I can never keep them stocked. Roses, old rares, Armor. Everyone is worried about the changes with amour being talked about so people are putting away good pieces as they find it. Pre-patch stuff is popular right now, allot like the Neon thing we went through in the '80's. I must say I collect allot of it myself.

Branwilde: I as well. How much to do you think bidders inflate prices, or do they?

Magdalaine: In an auction house it can get out of hand sometimes. But then when I go to someone else's auction I get wrapped up in the bidding wars. It's the heat of the moment thing as well. It's what people come to auctions for. Sometimes you walk out with a great deal , and sometimes you pay more. I have seen things go well under what they go for on a vendor, or well over. It goes with the group of people you have that night, and if you have the big bidders or not in the house.

I think the big bidders make the auction more fun. They add to the level of excitement in the auction.
When I am at another auction house, I know when to bid, and when not to. There are people you just don't bid against. They have more money!

Branwilde: Does doing IDOCs help both your vendors and the auction?

Magdalaine:For a long time they did. Now most of the auction is filled by outside people (three separate people had just placed items for the auctions.)

Branwilde: What's the highest items to sell so far?

Magdaline: In house or over icq auction?Magdaline: 30 million for a ginseng plant. It's the old necro plant that looks like a rose, but is named "ginseng".

Branwilde: How does the ICQ auction work?

Magdalaine: Sigmund heads that up.

Sigmund: I run a merchants ICQ list. It has about 140 players on it currently. Anyone on the list may send me messages to pass to the rest of the list. I forward messages of buying, selling and events using the message forwarding in ICQ pro. I currently send about 10-15 messages a day. On selected, very high end items, I run ICQ Auctions. I post to the merchants list and take bids for the duration (usually a
weekend). I then send out updates, selling the item to the highest bidder at the end of the weekend. After the bidder has won the item the get a check to cover the amount and bring it to the cashier at YGV. Then the items are exchanged, just as they would be in a regular auction.

This is all a part of the YGV Auctions.

Branwilde: If players are interested in getting on your merchant's list how can they contact you?

Sigmund: My ICQ is 110-493-358. Feel free to contact me.

Branwilde: How do you decide the order of things to be sold in your auction?

Magdalaine: We try to place each item where it will draw the best price. We usually have a few warm up items to get people's attention for the auction. They are usually lower priced items. Items that will go for over a million are not put back to back to give people a chance to recover so to speak. I avoid putting two of the same item in an auction. Of course I want the people who bring things in to get their money's worth.

I have to know what people are looking for right now by what is asked for that week or month. I have to know when something will sell, and when it will not.

Branwilde: What is an average time from when a person places an items for sale in the auction, to when they pick up their money?

Magdalaine: That varies allot. Right now we hold items for about two weeks. If a person brings in many items at once we may end up holding some of their items as long as a month.

Branwilde: In the auctions I've attended I haven't noticed any problems with security.

Magdalaine: I try to keep it that way. Bans can be made in "whisper" so it doesn't disrupt the auction. There was a time when a fel guild was creating problems for all the auction houses. I'm not sure about MOA, but L@E, Shadowlands, Vet, and us all talked with each other on ICQ. We shared information and banded together. That was the positive side of the problems. Eventually the guild stopped bothering us when we stopped giving them any attention.

Branwilde: What do you like best about Auctions?

Magdalaine: I love the chaos and the people. We are not in it for the money, we have all the gold we need. We run the auction for the fun of it. We enjoy the auction and hope everyone else does. We want it always to be fun for us and the people attending or placing items for sale.

Branwilde: Sigmund, what do you think of the changes that are coming to UO?

Sigmund: I feel we rate with the best on the shard. We don't set the end prices, they are set by the customers.

There is more to UO than guilds, monster bashing, and killing other players. I am very concerned with UO's economy. It seems that we are loosing a great part of the game because it is not being watched by the developers. Every time a change is made it seems it is for the good of some faction, and the crafting/merchants are the ones who take the hit.

I have an answer to balanced PVP, but no one wanted to hear it from a crafter's point of view. Three words will do it. Kill item insurance.

Branwilde: I have to agree, we'll see what happens next.

Branwilde: Thank you Magdalaine and Sigmund for your time and insight *smiles*

Magdalaine and Sigmund: Thank you and we hope you all will come to see us!

Nice! Thanks for the interview!