Open Letter to Fantasy Auctioneer

[Spyhunter]

Last night, we held the $250 Auction Satellite on Fantasy Auctioneer. Net Net: I had a blast, even with the tech issues. I really think that with a slightly more stable application, this will be a hugely fun Satellite going forward.



First of all, my kudo's to my competitors, even though this was for only $250, the level of competition was much stronger than in the Mixed $650 last year. Rarely people over paid, rarely did people slip by. People managed their $ much better.



Secondly, I applaud the idea of Fantasy Auctioneer. Auctions are a very hard process to put into a good user experience. Please take this feedback as constructive, but I a truly want you to get better and succeed!!!



Things that went well:

1. The app is generally much faster and more responsive than MDC

2. The Roster screen was very helpful to manage the situation



Things that broke:

1. Player Nomination Queue. The idea was good, but there seemed to be several issues here:

1) Players would get CLONED so we had people like Xavier Nady and Kuo picked twice in a row.

2) Sometimes you would select someone using the queue and it wouldn't let you put a bid in. You would have to wait for the player find time out



2. Sound - there is very little time to respond during the draft (as there has to be). Drafting for 5-6 hours makes the Sound critical. Many players had the sound drop out, requiring a restart or a reboot



3. Freezing screen - I intentionally connected to my router via lan cable just to make sure no wireless issues, so I know that wasn't a problem. Many players had freeze ups of some random nature. I in particular had several times where the little countdown clock went to the first 'Going', then stopped, then suddenly the person was sold



4. People seemed to have many situations where they got a 'cannot bid'.



Things I would add/change:

1. Big issue: Finding players faster - some kind of way to enter the last name of the player would be very valuable. Scrolling through the alphabetized list just wasn't possible given the short time to select a player (and the player nomination queue just caused the other issues noted above)



2. Small issue: Over bidding yourself. I was trying to hit the Bid+1 button with the mouse hard because some bids weren't registering, then I saw 2 bids from me, ontop of myself



3. Small issue: Sometimes, when someone was 'Sold' the system would announce that, then immediately restart the auction because a late bid had come in. I understand that, but announce it via voice or something



Regards,

Spy



[ March 06, 2007, 10:57 AM: Message edited by: Spyhunter ]

[Bobby J]

I was in the same auction draft on Monday night and did not have one single problem in the 5 plus hours. I feel the pain of those that did, because I went thru the same issues last year in the auction. I thought I would have issues since I had 50 plus MPH winds and usually my high speed internet goes out in such weather.

[KJ Duke]

I've done the NFBC on Fantasy Auctioneer each year, and while it still has technical glitches, it has improved each year. I froze a few times, the worst of which required closing out and clearing the cache, after which it worked near 100% the remainder of the way.



I'm not sure what can be done to eliminate the above problem, but one thing noted above that I would concur with - and likely is an easy fix - would be eliminating the possibility of outbidding yourself. If the system is responding slow while the clock is winding down, you may hit the bid several times not knowing your bid registered, the result of which would be bidding and then outbidding yourself.



[ March 07, 2007, 05:30 PM: Message edited by: KJ Duke ]