General

yeah i was wondering what happened to the auctions myself, basil is how I always made money in this game =(

I used Auctions just a month ago or so to sell off the last of my equipment for dirt cheap. It worked out great, since I don't log in anymore Auctions were an easy alternative to spamming in FM entrance.

The main thing contributing to the decline in auction activity is the decline of Maplestory itself.
With fewer active players there's not as much activity in the buying and selling of items from the game.

Also the changes Nexon implemented in "dumbing down" the game has made most items below "end game" level almost valueless, so there's no need to buy new armor and weapons every 10 levels or so like there used to be, so nobody sells anything except for the "big ticket" items costing billions of mesos.
Where you used to be able to auction nice stuff you picked up from monster drops or sell your old armor to buy new stuff for your next 10 levels, leveling is so easy now nobody buys that kind of thing any more so there's no point in even trying to auction it.

With the implementation of 10k meso Owls of Minerva, along with servers that provide freemarket searches at no cost, basilmarkets purpose is being dissolved.
These methods show faster results, are extremely cheap, and are accurate.

Basilmarkets trade method of communication through auctions and listings between players are traditional, and are intensley connected to MMORPGs.
With the implementation of quick trades with little communication, there is less of a chance of creating a relationship with others, simulating an offline game.

cause it almost never works