Sensitivity to Server Latency: Live pages v.s. (Repeated) pages

[Shiyu ZHANG]

Hi all,

  I am currently thinking about the design of an ascending auction. One technical difficulty is that the price would increase over time, and I am afraid that delays from the server may display the price differently to the players. 

 In the auction,  a clock would be displayed before the players, and they are allowed to make bids while the price increase over time. Once they made a bid, it is expected that the pointer of the clock would jump to that price immediately. After a bid is made, the players would also be allowed some time to consider whether to opt out.

 Given that the number of turns in a round is undetermined (because players may keep on bidding or opt out early), and that there is an upper bound on the number of turns (because a minimum increment of price is specified).  One approach is to repeat the pages multiple times (roughly 10 times for 5 pages), whenever a player made bidding, everyone would be pushed to the next page.

  The other approach may stick to the same page and use live functions to prompt players into the next turns.

  And my question is: which approach would be less sensitive to the internet delay, and would be easier to synchronize the display of the clock?

  Thank you for your time in advance.

Best,

Jake