Martell said:I want an auction house. I want one that is just like World of Warcraft's - fully automated, stand-alone and not tied down to any single geographic location.
I like convenience.
Surely no other game could do what you want better than WoW? Why are you looking at a game that has already said that it wont be like any of the current crop of MMOs? Or is this just a stirring of the pot to see what surfaces?
Feyshtey said:Martell said:I want an auction house. I want one that is just like World of Warcraft's - fully automated, stand-alone and not tied down to any single geographic location.
I like convenience.
There are 100 titles that cater to those who require convenience. There are (arguably) none that cater to those that want most aspects to be of limited availabilty. I will concede that the group that desires convience far outweighs the group that wants the feeling of accomplishment gained by achieving what is rare. It is the nature of our culture today; instant gratification. However, I reject the notion that of the 10's of millions of MMO players there cannot be found many thousands who will not only play a game with more strict controls on consumption and aquisition, but in fact would rather not play an MMO at all than play another Pavlov game of "Press the buzzer to get a treat" level of difficulty. And will play not for 3-6 months, consume all the content and quit to move on to the next "challenge, but will instead stake their claim, call that difficult MMO home, and stay for years.
I think that your response is overly generalizing what Martell has said. He simply stated that he would be in favor of an AH for convenience. This does not put him in some camp of "others" who are demanding or shallow. The whole reason why this topic can merit as much discussion as it has received is because it's not black and white and because it is not necessarily tied to the game's overall direction. For all we know Martell craves the same engaging, difficult, and team-based gameplay that the majority in these forums do, but also wants an AH built into that system. This is quite similar to wanting boats or teleport spells, which we may indeed receive as a "convenience" in Pantheon. We could just as easily declare boats anathema and spurn all those who seek such conveniences. He should have a voice about where he wants his convenience and where he wants his challenge/inconvenience and I, for one, am glad that he posted his opinion.
Feyshtey said:It is the nature of our culture today; instant gratification.
False Dilemna - informal fallacy that involves a situation in which only limited alternatives are considered, when in fact there is at least one additional option. The opposite of this fallacy is argument to moderation.
You presume that my motivations are a result of us sharing your reductive definition of "our" culture. You have no idea what culture I am a part of, what my values are, or even the smallest hint of what sociological biome I inhabit.
Feyshtey said:However, I reject the notion that of the 10's of millions of MMO players there cannot be found many thousands who will not only play a game with more strict controls on consumption and aquisition, but in fact would rather not play an MMO at all than play another Pavlov game of "Press the buzzer to get a treat" level of difficulty. And will play not for 3-6 months, consume all the content and quit to move on to the next "challenge, but will instead stake their claim, call that difficult MMO home, and stay for years.
Straw Man is a common form of argument and is an informal fallacy based on giving the impression of refuting an opponent's argument, while actually refuting an argument that was not advanced by that opponent.
1. I only expressed a desire for convenience. I like it. I did not, and do not, advance any argument that the abolishment of convenience is a less valid desire, or that there aren't people that exist who want things to be tedious.
2. You misrepresent Pavlov's conditioning experiment. What you are actually describing is a "Skinner Box". They are two entirely different behavorial experiments.
3. I don't see a correlation between wanting an Auction House and wanting the game to be reprogrammed into a conditioning chamber.
chenzeme said:Surely no other game could do what you want better than WoW? Why are you looking at a game that has already said that it wont be like any of the current crop of MMOs? Or is this just a stirring of the pot to see what surfaces?
I was simply using it as a reference for the type of auction house I would like - nothing nefarious.
Ainadak said:I think that your response is overly generalizing what Martell has said. He simply stated that he would be in favor of an AH for convenience. This does not put him in some camp of "others" who are demanding or shallow. The whole reason why this topic can merit as much discussion as it has received is because it's not black and white and because it is not necessarily tied to the game's overall direction. For all we know Martell craves the same engaging, difficult, and team-based gameplay that the majority in these forums do, but also wants an AH built into that system. This is quite similar to wanting boats or teleport spells, which we may indeed receive as a "convenience" in Pantheon. We could just as easily declare boats anathema and spurn all those who seek such conveniences. He should have a voice about where he wants his convenience and where he wants his challenge/inconvenience and I, for one, am glad that he posted his opinion.
Thank you Ainadak.
If a man wants his steak rare, but his hamburger WELL done - that's his business, and his taste.
Martell said:Thank you Ainadak.
If a man wants his steak rare, but his hamburger WELL done - that's his business, and his taste.
And there lies the problem. You remove choice by introducing a global AH and you force everyone to eat steak just the way you like it for the sake of your convenience. There's been plenty of discussion and compromises throughout this thread that have presented ideas that could satisfy your convenience needs without having other unintended consequences that negatively effect everyone who may not like their steak the same way - and does offer true choices.
Searril said:So by that reasoning, if we have boats to go from here to there they should only be a flat raft with nothing on it but a place to stand. There should never be NPCs or machinery, or anything interactive at all since that wouldn't be the minimum possible version of a boat.
To the extext that you get fom A-B, yes. The next point I made was about 'innovate where this adds fun, interest or immersion as long as it is not at the expense of adding undue ease of play or complexity for development'. These tenets would have you extend from raft to boat and allow sitting, say. Further innovations may also be possible within the scope stated. It may be that a inn/bar with hot and cold running chambermaids and flagons of ale is mooted. Does this add more than it takes away? If so, consider it seriously. That was the gist of my point.
I.e. Put in the minimum, then consider more (if it adds more than it takes).
Searril said:A number of compromises that keep the spirit of the "no auction house" vision without being unduly tedious have been put forth.
Yup, quite right ... and many of those ideas should be considered seriously.
Many of them were not 'heres a compromise' but a 'how about this take on the idea' type of points. Some fell into the compromise category too, but many were part of a 'what innovation can we conceive to boost fun, gameplay and immersion without adding undue ease'.
None of them mean a particular 'compromise solution' would be the 'best' way to go, though. They do not, of course, preclude it.
TLDR: My post was an attempt to boil down the specific problem into what I hoped may be its bare bones in order to more easily consider how we (I include myself for sure) could work out what options were viable, which were likely appropriate additions and which were worthy of more serious consideration in detail.
Feyshtey said:@Vjek
It's interesting that you mean to declare that a game cannot have a viable audience without implimenting this particular feature, despite the many here that have shown support for it. And if a logical person were to extrapolate your stance to every other instant-gratification game mechanic out there (read as: Not frustration or inconvenience), nothing short of a WoW clown or the dozens of games built predominantly with those same instant-gratification systems would be viable. You have effectively stated that a great deal Pantheon means to return to are in fact self-destructive. One may ask why you have chosen this game to support when so many others follow the ideals you seem to stear toward and which Pantheon means to deliberately stear from.
Nope, not declaring anything. Didn't say that. Didn't mean that.
Your extrapolation is your own, of course, but no, I didn't mean any of that.
And no, I have no effectively stated any of that.
You have no concept (clearly, by this response) what my ideals are for a game, but I award you 1 point for a good trolling attempt. Spend it wisely. ;)
I think everyone else has sufficiently countered your toxic arguments, but I appreciate you showing your true colors so early in development. It will save a lot of time in the future.
To the rest of the folks attempting to have a reasonable real-world practical discussion, on on! Good job!
@Nanoushka
I do not fault someone for their desired gameplay preferences. What I dont understand is that with the myriad of options available for people who like a certain gameplay type and the famine of options for those who desire another, why must the one game that seems to be trying to ease the hungery by some small amount be preasure to be just except what already exists en masse? I also really dont want to push people away from Pantheon. What I'd much prefer is that people actually try a game with more EQ-like investment requirements, give it an honest chance, and hopefully see how it can be what I consider a far more rewarding experience. I also don't understand being labled a troll for making a fairly logical argument. I can see how someone might take offiense to the term "instant gratification", but I mean it in a clinical way, not an attack. If you want what you want and you want it right now, by definition you want instant gratification. That's what a global search coupled with an instant-buy market system is.
To the rest of your post, I guess that was the whole point in my response to Martell when he stated plainly and simply "I like convenience". When a person states clearly and concisely that they like convenience in the context of trade, its quite easy and natural to extrapolate that stance to other aspects of the game.
Does it mean you want a system that finds a group for you, and don't want to have to go LFG and send out tells to try to collect people?
Does it mean you want to be teleported to the dungeon that group exists in rather than the inconvenience of having to run there on your own to meet up?
Does it mean you want your spellbook to automatically fill with all spells you gain the moment that you gain a new level rather than having to find one, or perhaps multiple trainers, or worse yet having to travel the world and complete tasks to unlock skills?
Does it mean you want everyone to have access to global teleportation so you don't ever have to run around?
Does it mean you want access to mounts from the onset so you always have faster overland travel?
Does it mean you want instanced, scripted zones that you can click and go through rather than needing to find content that isnt currently being consumed by others?
Does it mean you want to be able to buy the best gear from other players, rather than having to attend raids that take time and teamwork to complete in order to get the best gear?
There are another 50 subjects like this that the question of "convenience" can be applied to that have drastically differing outcomes in terms of game design and the level of percieved value to differing players. It matters.
Auction houses, search functionality and instant-purchase mechanics are, to me, not at all unlike everything suggested in the above questions. And in my experience a person who desires one category of convenience ordinarily desires most or all categories to be built with the same level of convenience.
Nanoushka said: ... I do want to ask tho, why would a feature deserve to be convenient generally speaking? Why specifically trade? Why make an exception for one thing and agree something else should demand more time investment? ...
Speaking only for myself, I would say it's because one is mentioned as a primary tenet for the game, repeatedly, while the other isn't. Driving adventuring players together in a social way, co-operatively, to me, is a great game feature, and fun and challenging. Adventuring, combat and player progression is also mentioned several times, so it seems reasonable that's the primary focus, based on those current tenets.
Economics is only mentioned once in the tenets and once in the features, so to me, that means it's less of a focus of development effort, overall, comparatively. Brad's comments to date seem to back up those design philosophies for testing.
The way is see this is that a central auction house dictates that you cannot have any meaningful local economy. Ease of use and quick returns is the advantage of an auction house This necessitates NPCs having fixed price lists. So wherever you sell something you are eventually going to get a standard lowest price for items.
Fluctuating prices between cities, outposts, farmsteads individuals (NPC or Player) is what I consider local economy. Local economies need market places (NPC and player driven) that are interconnected in some manner and are driven by needs and wants of NPCs and players in each specific area. High amounts of game (in the wilderness for instance) will produce high amounts of leather. That area will have low prices for those items. If you want to make money, then you need to move the items by some game mechanic to areas of lower availability (in this example: cities). So you can just sell to an NPC, arrange a caravan (maybe with other like minded players) or just personally run the items in your backpack or on a mule.
The easier it is to browse and buy from markets and shops from a distance moves the type of economy being implemented further towards an AH and further away from local economies.
The question is simple. Do people want a central auction house where everything is searchable from a single UI or do they want a market system that is driven by local needs and wants of gaming areas, that produce a dynamic market that can be a game in itself for those that want a trading profession?
My answer is definately in favour of the dynamic system.
A local shop owner needs a quantity of X, which I provide. The owner is happy, I get a good price and the NPC lowers his price to the next play who comes along with item x to sell. His goods then get moved about by trading to other NPCs, caravans and players. These goods slowly get moved from the supply zones to the consumption zones (where most players will be looking for items). Eventually the original NPC will want more of item X when he or she has sold out. At this point the NPC ups his buy price to the next player who comes along with a supply. This applies to anything that can be bartered.
For instance, I would like to see a "Freezing Sword of Choppiness" be sold to a merchant in the outer reaches (say for 10gp - I just need the extra slot and have a better weapon anyway). By the game mechanics (that NPC sells to other NPCs, caravan owners and players and) that sword makes its way to a city, at each stage, the new owner puts on their profit margin. By the time it gets to a city (for instance) the NPC is selling it for 40gp (maybe more, maybe less depending on how many are being sold). At any point along that trail, a player could happen upon that sword and get a great deal (depending on factions and the like).
I understand that people want to sell it to the highest bidder for convenience, but personally I want something more natural with goods. I would love to just run into something I could use on the off chance that I happened to be have great faction with a NPC and they showed me a "friends" range of goods or prices.
I am not saying this is the best way or the only view. Im not even saying that this particular system is even workable, but it is my wish for a rpg game. But I personally think fits into a role playing game more than the AH system.
Feyshtey said:...
When a person states clearly and concisely that they like convenience in the context of trade, its quite easy and natural to extrapolate that stance to other aspects of the game.
...
Auction houses, search functionality and instant-purchase mechanics are, to me, not at all unlike everything suggested in the above questions. And in my experience a person who desires one category of convenience ordinarily desires most or all categories to be built with the same level of convenience.
I certainly would agree with you that it's easy and in most cases accurate to extrapolate people's stances and build arguments based on assumed generalities, but I don't think those types of arguments are fair here. The reason I believe this is because this is a thread about auction houses and not a thread about conveniences generally. I can certainly see that you are making an entirely valid point that convenience (and lack thereof) is an important issue for you and thankfully the devs agree and have stated time and time again that Pantheon will not be a bottle-fed content type game. However, the only thing that this thread can hope to provide besides intelligent and civil debate, is to be a bellweather for this communities' opinions on the mechanics of trade in Pantheon. So it's important to have the Martells come in here and voice their opinion, even if it's on the extreme opposite end of your own. If there were 99 people in here saying global AH, then it would certainly show where the community was at, but fortunately for you (and me), that is not the case. I would like more convenience than what existed in EQ, but less than WoW (listed in more detail in my previous post). That is my personal preference and while that shows that my "target convenience level" is likely higher than yours, I can only hope that it informs the readers of this thread of my (equally valid) stance on the matter.
I guess what I'm really trying to say is that your defense of the vision of this game is appreciated (by me at least), but should not be used to say other's opinions are invalidated because of extrapolated/assumed positions. Let us instead hope that others participate in the discussion and we can see the balance of where the community lies on this precise AH issue. If the devs are smart enough, then they will be able to get a feel for where we're at and what we're looking for, even if we don't always know it ourselves. After all this is done we're going to end up with a game that sits somewhere in the greyscale of convenience, but all we can do here is focus on a single precise issue (unless we want to make new threads on new issues).
@Ainadak
THANK YOU for a very mature and entirely reasoned and reasonable response.
I wanted to reiterate something here:
It was mentioned that this is just one aspect of the game, and a desire for this one aspect to be convient does not have inherent meaning in the others. I wholly disagree.
A game's economy is couple with all others like almost nothing else. Every player engages in the economy at some level, and manipulations by even a great minority of the player base impact everyone. Depending on the level of manipulation this impact can be quite devastating. Putting aside the convenience argument for a moment, the impact to the community by the types of economic systems put into place cannot be undersold. The effects ripple out to everything else. If this is not true the economy would have to be so narrow and tightly controlled that it would be all but meaningless. I desire that as little as I desire mechanics proven to be ripe for abuse.
I think we're pretty much on the same page with what we want regarding this topic Feyshtey, in that sense I can only agree with you. I was going to write some more but Ainadak already covered it and much more eloquently than I would :).
Oh and I forgot... that thought crossed my mind a while back Vjek, that there seems little emphasis on what trade will be like and that that might suggest that it's considered as less important than other features. I understand your conclusion very well even if I interpret it differently.
Mod Edit: Copied double post into first post, please use the edit function instead of creating an entirely new post for an afterthought as it is against forum guidelines. :)
Really like chenzeme's thought about the dynamic NPC economy, that is really dope.
I kind of want to see the AH issue as primarily a risk/reward issue. Who is risking what in something like this? If it's seen as purely in its measure of convenience then both parties are risking very little to engage in the AH, so then the rewards of using the AH should be little. So in this case, the reward is convenience, so the AH should be made inconvenient if it brings no risk to the table, something like flat ingame taxes on items sold in AH, where trading with other players would be tax free. What would a risky AH look like?
"The question is simple. Do people want a central auction house where everything is searchable from a single UI or do they want a market system that is driven by local needs and wants of gaming areas, that produce a dynamic market that can be a game in itself for those that want a trading profession?"
I do disagree with this dichotomy a little bit. It's kind of clear to me that in the absence of an in game UI most gaming communities generate offsite places for those functions. I'm thinking about the Diablo 2 trading market, or poe.trade. We are talking about the very core functionality of the economy, and something like the dynamic market you propose can only work in conjunction with other economic interventions-- like what items can be bought sold and traded, how/when/if an item becomes untradeable.
Personally, I never played in a DnD campaign where I felt compelled to seek an auction house for gear-- but out of character we would always be figuring out how to get what we wanted :p.
Zedicus: I do disagree with this dichotomy a little bit. It's kind of clear to me that in the absence of an in game UI most gaming communities generate offsite places for those functions. I'm thinking about the Diablo 2 trading market, or poe.trade.
MM.. this is a good point. I guess if the game doesnt give a fully searchable AH UI, then people would set up their own. Blah, I dont know now. I do believe that you cannot have a local based economy when you have a central AH that scans everything and I would love to see a game actively encourage one.
Anyone asking for more convenience in the barter system should consider how they feel if the same were offered in other areas of the game.
So many of these things the devs added for "convenience" or coolness factor were really a detriment to the sociality and inevitably the wellness of the game. They failed to understand what made the community and the game immersive and enjoyable, despite the occasional tediousness. If they had focused more on keeping the world interactive and alive and less on mechanic gimmicks and new currencies the game would have done much better. It's what I'd love to see here, though I doubt I'll get much of my wish.
Furthermore, I really hope the devs will stay away from all of these complicated systems being suggested. The processes within the game should be driven by player interaction, not through some UI/NPC quest system that requires a PHD just to understand the system. Look at any MMO that has been out for more than a few years. They are inundated with all of these extra currencies, systems, mini-games, etc. Keep the system simple and straightforward and allow the players to organically develop help systems and strategies.
Soulkyn said:Anyone asking for more convenience in the barter system should consider how they feel if the same were offered in other areas of the game.
- I don't like to raid... can I just have an NPC that will raid for me and bring me the drops I want so I can play the AH/barter system?
- It's too inconvenient to find others to group with... can I just have 4-5 NPCs that will group with me and do my bidding to get through the content?
- Crafting is boring and tedios... how bout I have an NPC that I can load my mats to and they can craft what I want?
- I don't want to play a class with quick travel... let me have other NPC/pedestal options for quick travel.
- These factions are a real drag... how bout an NPC or area where I can get what I want without having to worry about faction?
So many of these things the devs added for "convenience" or coolness factor were really a detriment to the sociality and inevitably the wellness of the game. They failed to understand what made the community and the game immersive and enjoyable, despite the occasional tediousness. If they had focused more on keeping the world interactive and alive and less on mechanic gimmicks and new currencies the game would have done much better. It's what I'd love to see here, though I doubt I'll get much of my wish.
Furthermore, I really hope the devs will stay away from all of these complicated systems being suggested. The processes within the game should be driven by player interaction, not through some UI/NPC quest system that requires a PHD just to understand the system. Look at any MMO that has been out for more than a few years. They are inundated with all of these extra currencies, systems, mini-games, etc. Keep the system simple and straightforward and allow the players to organically develop help systems and strategies.
Excellent first post and I 100% agree. I do think there is room for expansion on old systems though that don't trivialize/automate trade or complicate the system too much though.