Searril said:Zorkon said:Like "Craigslist"? You can advertise, You can shop, but you need to hook up to actually make the deal? You have the automation to find it, global searching, sorting, could even do an auto /tell (if the seller is on) or an auto message if there not. And every transaction has a face to face... wherever they decide to meet.
I suggested as much pages ago, but then people started in with this "regional searching only" stuff which is ridiculous. It contributes nothing to the game other than to make people waste hours checking various listings to see if what they want is for sale.
Some people here are simply unwilling to compromise on things.
Fret not my friend!
Fortunately there is no need to convince anyone, the decision ultimately lies with the Dev's. all were doing here is sharing idea's. I choose to believe the dev's will weed out what will and what won't work for them. And they'll take into consideration all our concerns and desires. We just lay them out here. When the Dev's decide all the ideas will be taken equally, I'm pretty sure yours and my credit cards work just as good as anybody else's. Only problem comes in if we don't voice our ideas.. there's no way they can be heard then.
I think advertizing with no Selling like a want-add on Craigslist makes good sense...
They want social interaction, it gives them social interaction.
They want Regional markets, this spreads it out Globally, not just given market places or a few select regions.. Characters could be in the same zone, they could be at the furthest edges of the world and agree to meet in the middle (that's 3 places)
Noobs could be peddling there Bat Wings from there home zone, the level 50 Wizard that needed them could advertize "I'm going to be in Thronefast buying Batwings Noon PST this Saturday"
Others on this thread will surly disagree, and pick it apart.. that's fine, we all have our opinions, the Dev's will sort through them.
chenzeme said:Oldtimer said:Realistic limitations on how much we can carry? What about the realistic limitation of shooting magic spells out of my magic Wand of Flame +1?
So you think its ok to kill 50 mobs, take all their equipment and sell it all at one go? Realistic in a gaming sense, yes! Why not? Shooting magic spells out of your flaming wand depends on how much mana you are able to muster. Why limit one game factor and not another? Again I ask, why not limit the amount of weight you can carry too, slowing down harvesters of gold?
Sure it's OK to kill and loot 50 mobs for any loot they may drop. Would I take ALL of the items? Probably not. I would take the items that could be sold to other players or vendors, break down any items that could be used for crafting etc.
Aradune said:First, awesome thread, very impressive ideas, passionate responses -- I agree with some, and not with others, but I think that's very healthy. In fact, I think this has been one of the better long threads we've had.
Second I want to say that this isn't going to be ultimately settled until Beta. I hope that doesn't sound like a cop out, but truly there are many aspects of Pantheon that we require alpha and beta before we set into stone. There are many components of MMOs that you simply cannot solve theorycrafting or by comparing the idea to an implementation in another game -- some things need hundreds if not thousands of people banging on, using, etc. before you can tune it such that the majority of your audience likes it.
The most important goals related to this entire discussion are: 1. we want a thriving player driven economy 2. we want people not only compelled but rewarded for traveling and exploring the world 3. we want to put desirable items in hard to reach places and reward those merchant types for taking the risk of not just obtaining that remote item, but bringing it to more civilized and populous areas and, assuming the demand is there, selling it for a profit. I've always been intrigued by that period where the Silk Road was used and something perhaps of little worth in China when brought all the way back to Europe was quite pricey.
1. Is certainly doable
2. Definitely going to reward travel and exploration in several ways
3. This is easier said than done, and no I'm not trying to make a middle-ages silk road economic simulator. But I do think distance and risk should matter. And, therefore, people taking the time to travel and to risk more should be rewarded accordingly.
So those are the basic goals.
Now comes the stuff that like I said earlier, we're not going to set in stone until alpha or even early beta:
1. I don't think we'll require the player to sit around a popular trading spot spamming WTS: blahblah for hours. I don't think anyone really wants that, right?
2. So, if we aren't going to force people to do that then *some* mechanism/feature must be present... is it a full auction house? Is it just being able to set up an NPC and put your items on it, set your prices, and then leave him there while you continue to play the game? Is it somewhere in-between or something else? I honestly don't know yet. I just have a pretty strong feeling that some sort of 'helper' is going to be necessary.
3. The next big issue seems to be 'how do I find that special item I am looking for?' Again, we can go to one extreme and I think most people agree you shouldn't have to spend hours talking to every player or their merchant NPC, one by one, trying to find that item... especially if after all that effort that item isn't even currently for sale in the zone or region you're in.
4. So then comes the 'how easy to we make it to find that item'? and 'If I can search for an item, will it be local or global or something in-between?' Great questions. Again, not setting anything in stone, but my guess is that we will end up having a way to check if a region or zone has a merchant NPC, or a player, or an AH (if we even have them) has an item you are looking for currently for sale. Global searches but regional buying? Hrm... that's not sitting with me right, but will continue to think on it.
Then there's mailing people items.... perhaps... could be a good money sink.
Anyway those are my thoughts right now -- if I missed addressing something critical please let me know.
I do think many in our audience enjoy face-to-face trading and that many don't. We therefore need to accommodate both. My gut says right now that you can set up your own NPC merchant, give it the items you want to sell, set prices, and then leave him. Then it's not face-to-face, its player interacting with NPC, and I don't think anyone has issues there, yes? No?
Bottom line: we are listening, we understand there are people with conflicting desires but we are also confident that together (you guys and us devs) we can make a regional economy not only work and make for a fun part of the game, but also accommodate both sides of this current debate (or perhaps there's more than just two sides here -- it's been quite the thread).
In any case, by all means, continue the discussion if you have more to say.
Also a follow up from Brad:
I think the having your own merchant NPC that would sell your wares is a good compromise fitting in-between one extreme (everything is face to face, player to player) and the other extreme, a full on auction house. I will say that I'm leaning towards this being what we'll do. Of course, this doesn't stop player to player trades/sales.
And then some kind of list board, as you mentioned.
As for the EC Tunnel part of things, while I do think people will find areas once they learn the world, the routes, efficient ways to get from point a to point b, etc. and that there will be places that make sense to place your merchant minion NPC there, I don't necessarily agree that we'll get a repeat of EQ, e.g there will be only one of these. The way the world is being crafted, where the races are, the different continents, etc. I'm hoping we would see multiple spots.
If people are concerned that because of the merchants minions that no one will do player to player trades, 1. I don't necessarily agree but 2. if that turned out to be the case in alpha and beta, we could implement a tax or similar system to encourage face to face trades.
Anyway, that's where I pretty much sit at the moment.
Just thought I would pull these two posts Brad made back on page 15 for those that may have missed them. Brad's responses show me a couple of things: 1) The devs actually read our posts, and value our input. This is both refreshing and quite encouraging. It's not something you see much of these days. 2) It seems that they have at least a basic framework for trade in place already, but are waiting to see how it plays in alpha/beta before they begin fleshing it out (if necessary). 3) VR truly are willing to compromise to some extent to provide quality game play for all, but will remain true to their tenents in order to provide a challenging and immersive world for the players to explore and adventure in. These are the thoughts that Brad's posts say to me, and it simply makes me even more excited about Pantheon.
The discourse in this thread has been excellent. It is obvious that there are some keen and sagacious minds here. And although many of us have a difference of opinion, there always seems to be a respectful tone when those diverse and differing opinions are discussed. I find this to be a delightful change from what I find on most forums these days.
So kudos to all, and keep up the good work.
Searril said:chenzeme said:So you think its ok to kill 50 mobs, take all their equipment and sell it all at one go?
I won't speak for the other guy, but for me: Yes, I absolutely do.
I absolutely dont! Plenty of games that allow you to do that now. Why have another with the same grinding/farming process?
Just one comment regarding "having your own merchant NPC", this is how PWI does it.
So, eyes wide open, that's potentially the kind of eye cancer you get to deal with. :) ( every one of those cats is an NPC vendor placed by a player, with it's own inventory)
Personally, to me, having personally experienced this and several other "one interactable NPC/object per player selling inventory" implementations, I have no desire to repeat that pain. As I've mentioned in the past, it's not fun. That picture right there (and there are far worse examples from PWI) is one implementation of an idea that went into a live production MMO for many many years. It turned any/every place that wasn't filled with aggressive mobs into a lagfest mall. It was horrific. SotA? They just spread out the pain, making it so much worse.
However, having an NPC per NPC guild in an area, per region, town, or zone? Sure. Because that's going to one place I'm adventuring in to search, then travel to buy, or place items to sell. Or maybe I can buy it right there if the seller is in that zone, or the escrow agent NPC is holding the item or gold. Tying the searching to NPC guilds seems reasonable, if the intent is to have players join them, and support them, and gain advantages for their time & effort investment.
I'm aware of the distinction between an idea and implementation. I can't imagine any implementation of the idea "having your own merchant NPC" that won't end badly, unless everyone shares a very limited number of NPC's, or just one per NPC guild. Why? The merchant NPC has to exist in the game world. Either in an instance (yuk!) or in the shared open world, or all packed into something like the bazaar (again, yuk!). One merchant NPC per player is ... yeah, you're gonna have a bad day.
X
Oldtimer said:Sure it's OK to kill and loot 50 mobs for any loot they may drop. Would I take ALL of the items? Probably not. I would take the items that could be sold to other players or vendors, break down any items that could be used for crafting etc.
Its not the fact that you can kill 50 mobs in a sitting that bothers me. Its the ability to take everything they drop, take it all to a vender and sell it all. Rince then repeat. Ad infinitum. I just think it would be good for the economy if limitations on what you can carry in an outing were imposed.
Sure, break the items down for crafting, but also make the majority of equipment thats drops (and the broken down elements) not worth the carry just to sell to a NPC (it could still be valuable to other players though). I just dont want to see yet another game where farming and selling as much and as fast as you can, becomes the main point of the game.
Maybe employ a mule (that can be killed) to help? That would make an interesting (and I guess frustrating) event. You get your 50 skellies, then a rare spawn pops and takes out your walking luggage. What do you take? What do you leave?
I just think that flooding any trading area with farmed goods is not good for that economy.
Vjek: The merchant NPC has to exist in the game world. Either in an instance (yuk!) or in the shared open world, or all packed into something like the bazaar (again, yuk!). One merchant NPC per player is ... yeah, you're gonna have a bad day.
I'm shuddering at the thought of running through that market square! No! Definately not the way to go. Guild merchants could work. But I like the idea of "renting" space from an NPC already in the game too. Either pay up front or as a percentage after sales. This also doesnt add to overcrowding. Maybe a mixture of both could work, as long as there was an efficient way of finding the item you are after.
@vjek I played a couple of the Korean FTP (pay to win) games
back a few years ago, and their city squares looked EXACTLY like that...hard on the eyes, and if enough of the vendors are present hard on the lag. Even the Bazaar in EQ had me walking into walls (lower end computer on dial-up lol) Hope we don't see clutter like this in Pantheon....it's messy clean it up! hehehe
NoobieDoo said:
I don't think there is one sure-fire way to stop monopolies. But let's say PRotF has a form of auction house just for arguments sake. The easiest way to help protect against monopolies would be to localize the AH, or prohibit global access. With this, auction houses would be open up in many different cities and villages across the map and to find an item you would have to physically travel to a shop and search that shops specific wares. You wouldn't be able to go to one auction house and buy items that are found in another auction house. This way for somebody who has many more hours to play who can craft many more items than you and can easily undercut your prices would have to themself physically travel to the same AH NPC that you placed your items with.
I love the idea of localized barter shops because of the fact that the devs are 'supposedly' creating the zones and areas in a manner so that they never truely get outleveled or at least they are aiming to create many zones this way. Instead of creating a low level zone where players level 10 levels and then never return, they have said they want to create zones where players have cause to revisit. This creates good synergy with localized shops because it means players will revisit these same towns and barter shops. So a crafter or player trying to trade their items doesn't have to worry about this town becoming a ghost town in a month once everyone outgrows it.
Other than that though, localization of shops, I don't have a clue. I'm not great at stuff like this so I wouldn't know any other ways/tricks/or workarounds.
Thanks for your response Noobiedoo, perhaps the Devs know what to do about this. I'll leave it in their capable hands then. :)
Cana
chenzeme said:Searril said:chenzeme said:So you think its ok to kill 50 mobs, take all their equipment and sell it all at one go?
I won't speak for the other guy, but for me: Yes, I absolutely do.
I absolutely dont! Plenty of games that allow you to do that now. Why have another with the same grinding/farming process?
You're being ridiculous.
So we enter a dungeon. Kill 10 mobs. Oops, we just broke the entrance and our bags are full, gotta gate back to town and sell. Get back, the entrance has repopped. Now we have to kill the same 10 mobs at the entrance over and over again because we can't carry enough stuff to go deeper into the dungeon.
There's a reason absolutely nobody would make a game like that. It's absurd and forcing people to leave to sell all the time would contribute absolutely nothing but aggravation to a game.
1 merchant per PC is a huge eyesore, the current bazaar zone in EQ isn't too bad, and the find function works not too bad.
FF11 was AWEFUL, different zones different room and now way to search (the eq1 search bazaar is bar none the best of any game with sorting / stats FAR outdoing any game anywhere)
1 NPC to store / house all items for sale by a player so it's 1 NPC for ...thousands of players ? The way EQ2 handles it with an extra cost to the seller as a money sink vs selling directly is a decent incentive.
One could program this 1 NPC a time or item limit per person, say 5 items that stay for sale for 2 weeks, after that it goes to an overflow slot in your personal bank (that you must pay for / upkeep for ?)
This encourages player interaction (and please, the use of an auction channel like EQ used to use instead of /general now), without flooding the system.
You could keep it regional per city, but that would prevent elves from shopping in ogre cities, as much as it's emersive, it can stifle trading / exploration, and the game is not meant to be us vs. them.
In the end, those with the most free time to stand around like old EC tunnel have the most fun at most other player's expense, something has to be done with some sort of "helper" to sell, one could contract a player to do it and have the game autodeposit money to the original item owner's account and the player selling get a commission of say 20 %, but the potential for bugs / abuse is horrid.
I have been considering the 'viable' options (those that could be developed with limited DEV resources) at length and finally settled on some base-line criteria:
(i) following the tenets as a primary goal (follow vision)
(ii) avoiding adding extra features if possible (minimise work)
(iii) if features are added, let them have 'value' beyond 'rearranging the deckchairs'. (maximise impact)
The primary impetus for 'full AH' seems to be exactly as Richard Bartle suggests (E.G. in 'Decline of the MMO' ( http://mud.co.uk/richard/The%20Decline%20of%20MMOs.pdf ). He suggests that player expectations are fed by experiences from previous MMOs - in that any feature which offered short-term benefit to the players, even if it led to the wholesale destruction of gameplay, is considered a 'want'. The 'full AH' certainly falls into theis category. Very few debate that 'Full AH' is anything other than anathema to 'social interaction'.
PRESUMPTIONS:
1. Terminus is going to be very large - estimated 50+ zones for launch. Expectations from viewing (live stream) are that each zone is likely much larger than any original EQ zone and most EQ2 zones.
2. All players have a 'travel time' which determines how far they are prepared to travel to access a marketplace. Longer than this time limit and the player will try to find one closer. This is based on the assumption that there is a real limit to how far players will carry a backpack full of goods while being unable to add more items. It also works on the presumption that players do not want to spend an inordinate amount of their on-line time travelling back to a market to offload/buy goods.
3. It is thus likely that Terminus would comprise a number of contiguous, or overlapping, 'regional market zones'. Each 'market zone' would comprise a number of actual zones. The radius of these 'market zones' would be equal to the 'travel time' of a typical player.
PROBLEMS: (perceived)
1a. Individual 'Players' / 'shops' are a pain to navigate and check one by one and not social.
1b. Individual 'AFK players' / 'Merchant NPCs' are a lag-fest and still not social.
2a. 'Local' or 'Regional' AH's (usually) still means no 'one point of search' for player 'ease'.
2b. 'Global' AH's are useless without a delivery mechanism (Market beyond 'travel time')
3a. Remote delivery mechanisms kill socialising (remote buying/selling)
3b. 'Immediate' delivery mechanisms kill Regional/Local markets (no travel time)
SOLUTIONS: (possible)
1. Player trading (face-to-face) : This should be left as the 'backup' for any mechanism put in. It should be free of any taxations/charges etc
2. Trade Channel : If Regional/Local markets are contemplated, the scope of this channel should also be limited to mirror tha scope of the local market. From a development POV it is easiest to have it work across multiple zones (on a selection basis). Should Global markets be opted, it can include all zones while a 'regional' breakdown can have just those zones inside the area of effect included.
3a. Message Boards (Pin Board) : Players just add a post to the board for people to view. It contains information about where to contact the player etc. It is a 'static' entity, populated by players over time. The only development work would be to ensure the board did not get overrun. To solve this any/all of the following can be used:
(i) add a fee for posting - can be per letter, work or line.
(ii) All mesages have a time limit and fade after this time.
(iii) the Messages are sorted by time-stamp, most recent to top.
This notice board has the smallest developemnt overheads.
3b. Message Board (Sales Info) : This form of ther noticeboard would act like a regional AH by pulling data from active merchants (players or not) within the region. It can either be (i) scheduled - it pulls info, say, once per hour, 10 mins etc or (ii) makes a seach pull 'on demand' when the player uses it. For the second type, you would need to stop spam requests for data by setting a 'max requests per time period' or by charging a fee for usage.
4a. Regional AH : This is nothing more than the Messageboard (3b.) above with code to allow a 'buy' command to be entered. This assumes it is a dumb-AH and has no delivery function. With a delivery fuinction, there are two options. (i) Immediate - which falls foul of Problem 3b, or (ii) Delayed - which still falls foul of the lesser Problem 3a.
4b. Global AH : Since a 'Full AH with delivery attached' has been ruled out, this leaves a 'dumb' Global AH. If we take this as a version of 4a, but with global scope, we fall foul of Problem 2b.
4c. Delayed Global AH : This would act as a 'receiver' for information sent from Regional AH's or Message Boards, with built-in delay of receipt. If it were instant, it would fall foul of the same problems as per 'Global AH'. This would thus merely be a 'newspaper' report of trade pricing from far away. This would allow traders in places outside of the 'travel time' of a Regional market to see what was happening in thos markets, but be unable to affect them. Thus, individual Regional markets would have a mechanism for 'balancing' the more egregious price variations. This information might only be updated once per Game day or so, with a built-in delay proportional to the distance of that regional market. From a development POV, this is done by merely taking a snapshot of the regional market and dumping it into the Delayed Global AH with a time delay stamp on that 'data packet'. Thus the Delayed Global AH merely refreshes once per game day (or whatever the DEVs decide) and load any data packets maked with a time-stamp for the new time or earlier.
5. Market Squares : Since the idea is to avoid Problems 1a and 1b, the idea of hundreds of individual player merchants seems unlikely. However, a town 'Market Square' with a set number of 'Market Stalls' and/or Merchant NPCs able to vendor goods would be viable. These may be 'active player' stalls, or NPC ones, dependent on how things so. Player active is less DEV work. This limits vendors to a fixed number (limits lag), is easier to check (fewer vendors) but still falls foul of not being social. By setting a sales tax, stall fee or other mechanism, the number of people vendoring this way would not be reduced, but at least there would be a financial incentive to use face-to-face for anything other than low to middle value non-vendor trash. Note that a mechanism for searching the market would be needed to avoid Problem 1b again. For this fee to be a real incentive, it seems likely that a substantial tax would be needed (likely over 25%). People will always take the easy option unless given strong disincentives.
Apologies for the wall of text, but summarising the problem and identifying the potential bottlenecks is not a quick thing.
Forelis said:If you want to build a better community and have emergent gameplay, having NO AH is the best move. Yes it is a pain to go to East Commonlands tunnel, but once you are there, you see behavior that is unique to MMOs. Buff newbs, trading, training guards onto people.
My vote is for no system to facilitate player to player trading.
I totally agree with the poster on this. EC tunnel help develope a sense of community that is so dearly needed in todays mmorpgs.
Crafting looking for an item when one particular person is online for rare crafted items is NOT FUN.
various pelts, bone chips, rare item drops from hard zones or dungeons needed to craft, that is part of the fun.
you can farm it yourself, but finding / looting / winning random on something (ie. blue diamonds from EQ in sebelis anyone recall ?)
having those to sell is a real boost to fun,
getting / trading money / items in any fashion possible is, in my opinion, a huge part of the game, but it takes away sense of accomplishment that shouldn't be nerfed completely.
not everyone has 1 or 2 hours a week or more to spend on this and call it "fun".
I do, but most of my friends don't, as it is I have to often sell things for them,
When I played a MUD years ago with a friend (I don't remember for sure but I think the name was Abyssmal Realms?), I remember when I went into towns I would sell my loot to the specific types of merchants that went with that item - swords to the weaponsmith, rings to the goldsmith, etc. I wasn't sure if they bought them for more, but it seemed reasonable (and being a rather young person at the time, I never thought of taking two of the same item and selling them to different merchants for proof of if this was true or not, lol).
Anyway, I'm mixed on this one, mostly because I'm not sure of a good solution. A "real life" Auction House buys stuff through its suppliers for (relatively) cheap, then sells them. It doesn't take orders from sellers and sell them. MMO AHs tend to function more like E-Bay than like real auction houses, as it's a player setting the list price and functions more like some massive clearing house type of thing.
Then you get some weird cases like Eve. Eve Online has probably THE MOST fleshed out market of any game I've ever seen. For those that don't know, essentially all of the market is player produced. The game company, CCP, will seed some things on the market from time to time (generally either very rare things or very common things that people need to buy like skills/abilities - which are also bought and sold on the same market system), but the vast majority is player made. Ores that players mine, weapons and space ships (if you've lived under a rock, Eve is a spaceship sci-fi game) are all made and sold by players. Rarer meta-weapons come from looting NPCs and are also sold on the market by players that farm/looted them.
What's more, each market is from a specific space station. That is, the item is "physically" located at a specific place. Even in solar systems with two space stations, it's at a specific ONE of those space stations. There's even an economy based on people finding things that sell low in busy areas of space and that are needed, but less supplied, in more far flung reasons (things like ammunition), and so they buy low, transport (or hire someone else to transport the goods), then sell high at the places they're needed, leveraging arbitrage to make a tidy profit on the margins if large freight hauls. And, of course, the haulers themselves. It also functions by a series of buy and sell orders - players can set a sell order, which works like a normal AH, but players can also place a buy order saying they're willing to pay X amount for up to Y number of goods, and within a radius of Z from their location (only within the station itself, within the system, within 5 solar systems, etc). So a seller can simply sell to a buy order (if there is one for their item), or put up a sell order. BUT, players are also limited in how many of these orders they can put up at a time, meaning someone can't just list 5,000 stacks of an item. And while it IS possible for an EXCEEDINGLY wealthy person to essentially control a small far flung market for a short time, this is difficult to maintain, and presents other people options to make profits by undercutting them.
It's really rather complex and rather interesting - to the point CCP hired an economist on staff who tracks all of that and gives them data to put out at their yearly gamecon releases (and to give them data to see what players are doing and if things need to be tweaked - e.g. this ship is unpopular, maybe it needs some buffs, and so on.)
So that's the OTHER extreme of how an AH can be done.
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Personally, I think players should be able to sell stuff to a vendor for some base amount - the vendor of that item type. But there should also be "clearing house" vendors that you can give the item to. They'll put it up for auction/sale for a short time, and if it sells, you get part of the profit. If it doesn't for a set time - say 24/48 hours - the item is a "dud" and doesn't sell, and the vendor trashes it. This strikes me as much more how a real economy would work.
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Another possibility is to have a "bazar" where players can set up and hawk their wares, in person if they're cheap, or through a hired merchant minion if you've got the money to hire one. There should be public stalls for people to do this so that no one can claim all the "best" storefront, but you could also have shops that people could rend/buy from the city for a time and set up your wares.
...after all, there is that piece of me that saw Sword Art Online and thought that it was cool how some of the players decided they wanted to just be merchants, like this one girl wanting to be a blacksmith, etc. So they set up shop and made stuff to sell to other players and that was how they played the game. Having that option for players that want to be dedicated crafters is kind of cool, too.
You could do it kind of like in Fable 2 where there were small shops (basically street vendor carts) all the way up to multi-story stores. It would be cool for any player to be able to buy and set up a cart in designated bazar areas while also having shop building plots for rent by the local city government (larger cities having larger and more stores available, of course) in the "trade district". There would definitely be a cool immersion factor to that.
...but the flip-side of this is if it makes it too crazy difficult to find what you want to buy, which is a real issue as well, then people will have real issues buying things, which means others will have difficulty selling. This could be minimized by having their cart/store list the types of items it sells, but ultimately, any bazar ends up being basically a flea market type setup or like hopping between garage sales - you really never know what you're going to have available at that individual shop until you look.
Evoras said:1. Terminus is going to be very large - estimated 50+ zones for launch. Expectations from viewing (live stream) are that each zone is likely much larger than any original EQ zone and most EQ2 zones.
Is this really the common assumption? Admittedly, I only watched a small portion of the game play stream from a couple months ago and missed a lot of the audio from that, but was this something that was discussed there? Specifically, I'm referring to the zone count and typical zone size.
Evoras said:2b. 'Global' AH's are useless without a delivery mechanism (Market beyond 'travel time')
I do not agree with this. A global auction house without a delivery mechanism is, in effect, the bulleting board postings with manual deal consummation proposition that has been discussed, and I don't believe that would be useless at all. In fact, it still seems to be the easiest to implement design choice (allowing with global opt-in chat channels) which still offers some amount of convenience to the player while not side-stepping the "socialization" aspect of buying and selling.
I just thought of something (probably already discussed or mentioned at some point) but what is to stop any guild member from searching markets in other regional areas or even on other continents and discussing item (availability, price, amounts), buying for guild members, selling items for other guildmembers in areas much further away?
Larger guilds would be able to manipulate markets fairly easily once they are established and have memberships that cover the game space.
I may be mistaken, but it seems that much of the discussion in this thread has a focus revolving around the individual player. No?
@Searril
Re: Size of Terminus
1. AMA with Brad recently :
'... The zones, especially the outdoor ones, are HUGE, so we will likely require fewer to launch with .....'
2. Post in Forums / 'zone layout' by Aradune
'More likely for Pantheon, far fewer cities and more dungeons:
City 4 / Dungeon 23 / Outdoor 28'
3. Cannot remember where... but suspect one of the early PTF videos/roundtables
'projected 50+ zones' (this may be a total though, ie City+Dungeon+outdoor)
Global AH without Delivery:
Yup, that system has much to offer, and I discussed this in option 4c 'Delayed Regional AH'.
My point was that a 'Full AH' where you can buy remotely was of little use if you could not get delivery of them. This would have the point of the goods being deposited someplace for you to pick up etc. The variant (discussed in 4c) was a system as you mention (where data is trasferred from other regional AH's to yours - though I posited a time delay which isn't strictly needed) which means you could guage the value of goods on offer and contact the sellers to arrange sale at a 'convenient' time or place etc. It just meant you cannot press 'buy' and let the automation do the work for you (as you point out).
I also agree this is pretty cheap and easy to implement.
Hope these answer your questions. Still a bit peeved I couldn't find the 3rd source that I (think I) recall (in my fevered head) and won't take offence if you assume it is 'misremembered' until proven right with citation :)
Evoras, wishes his memory was better
vjek said:Just one comment regarding "having your own merchant NPC", this is how PWI does it.
So, eyes wide open, that's potentially the kind of eye cancer you get to deal with. :) ( every one of those cats is an NPC vendor placed by a player, with it's own inventory)
...
I played an MMO called Age of Wushu and they had only particular spots along the edges of the path that could be used as a player vendor. It was still crowded, but it wasn't just a huge mob like in your screenshot. Permitted they space it out uniformly in certain market areas of the city, its manageable.
Another cool thing in Age of Wushu was stalls players could rent. It was the more expensive alternative, but allowed 24/7 sales without having to use your character as a vendor. Every week there was an auction on all the stalls where you bid against other players for spots in the highest traffic areas of the city. Side note:it was also pretty cool because it was a PvP game and we would fight anyone that tried to come up and place competing bids on our stalls.
Evoras said:@Searril
Re: Size of Terminus
1. AMA with Brad recently :
'... The zones, especially the outdoor ones, are HUGE, so we will likely require fewer to launch with .....'
2. Post in Forums / 'zone layout' by Aradune
'More likely for Pantheon, far fewer cities and more dungeons:
City 4 / Dungeon 23 / Outdoor 28'
3. Cannot remember where... but suspect one of the early PTF videos/roundtables
'projected 50+ zones' (this may be a total though, ie City+Dungeon+outdoor)
Thank you for the info.
Do you remember many years ago someone made a utility that allowed you to load up the EQ zone files (offline versions) and then fly through them to look at all the land features and structures? It was just the zone itself, so no mobs or anything. But it was a fun way to look at zones that you hadn't been to yet or look for areas you didn't realize were there. I remember you could even load zones that weren't live, such as the one plane (Plane of War I think it was) that they never implemented during PoP because they couldn't get it working properly. And the GM zone. Anyway, I'd love to have a utility like that and a copy of whatever the current zone files are for this game to just look around a bit and get a feel for what type of scale and layouts they are building and considering.
OakKnower said:I just thought of something (probably already discussed or mentioned at some point) but what is to stop any guild member from searching markets in other regional areas or even on other continents and discussing item (availability, price, amounts), buying for guild members, selling items for other guildmembers in areas much further away?
Larger guilds would be able to manipulate markets fairly easily once they are established and have memberships that cover the game space.
I may be mistaken, but it seems that much of the discussion in this thread has a focus revolving around the individual player. No?
What's the prevent a guild made up entirely for this purpose? This is precisely why there are so many people that dislike searchable markets, whether they be global or local.
Feyshtey said: ... What's the prevent a guild made up entirely for this purpose? This is precisely why there are so many people that dislike searchable markets, whether they be global or local.
There's nothing stopping a single player from doing that. Just need several characters or several accounts.
Which is why, when designing mechanics like this, you have to consider a guild or a determined player will definitely do what has been outlined, which leads you back to... a global search levels that playing field.
Global search doesn't mean global purchase. It doesn't mean instant purchase. It doesn't mean instant travel. It doesn't mean instant delivery. It doesn't mean the world is ending, and the financial apocalypse is upon us. :)
It just means I get to search for what I want to buy. If you make that too hard, I'm not going to buy. It's as simple as that. Shroud has it this way, and neither I nor anyone I know buys anything from other players. Same goes for PFO. I stopped playing for a lot of reasons but one of them was this inability to search for gear.
And again.. Global search doesn't mean global purchase. It doesn't mean instant purchase. It doesn't mean instant travel. It doesn't mean instant delivery. It just means I don't have to spend 8-10 hours a day just trying to find out if what I want to buy is even available, never mind where it is, who is selling it, and for how much.
I get the desire some players have to be able to take advantage of others in the marketplace. I also understand the frustration of people undercutting. Both of those problems can be solved trivially. Global search and you can't place items on the AH for less than an NPC will buy them, and you can't place items on the AH that any NPC sells.
Some of the features and in-game mechanics that supporters on these forums are requesting will for certain make their gameplay experience extremely negative. There is no implementation of some features and in-game mechanics that can be done in such a way that it isn't punitive, incredibly tedious, frustrating or annoying. Searching through dozens, hundreds, or thousands of player vendors, different NPC's, houses, zones, or whatever thing that isn't a continental or global search? Try it for 1 day, seriously, anyone, go and try any game that has it, right now, and you'll change your opinion forever.
A global or regional search coupled with an entity with multiple characters disperesed around the gameworld means precisely that it can be purchased and delivered "instantly" to that single entity. They will monitor the search, they will do whatever they have to to be the first to buy up anything with a lower than average offering, and they will in turn sell it for average or above average prices. This will inevitably create an inflation of prices for in-demand items. This will be true for gear, crafting items and quest items. (Unless Pantheon uses a non-material quest system.) The effect will be scaled increasingly higher with an item's rarity.
And who is most likely to pursue such an advantage to gain the most possible wealth? People or groups that want to sell that wealth on the secondary market...
Feyshtey said:A global or regional search coupled with an entity with multiple characters disperesed around the gameworld means precisely that it can be purchased and delivered "instantly" to that single entity. ...
If you create all your in-game mechanics presuming all players have 12 accounts, you'll never implement anything. What you've described is made worse without a global search. Why? Because the advantage is greater to the market octopus withOUT a global search. With it, at least players with a single account have the same visibility into the market as the market octopus.
Same goes for all features related to any buying and selling. Pick any feature. Pick the EC tunnel. Pick face to face only. If you allow player trading of goods and gold, at all, in any way, someone with more accounts is always going to have an advantage. Logic proves it out, it's unavoidable. Is the world ready for an MMO without trade? I doubt it.
Personally? I'm not afraid of instant delivery, because I've seen games that had it, and those games didn't fail because of it. They had buying and selling of goods, as expected.
That doesn't mean the VR team shouldn't implement the features that attract a larger target demographic and reduce annoyance and frustration. Again, why? Because all of the games in the past 20 years with auction houses of various flavors? They are/were still fun, to varying degrees. If the only feature that remains contentious is delivery in fear of the boogy-man octopus market phantom? I'd say VR is on the right track.