Don't take my ability to haggle and trade items away. No AH I have seen allows trades of item(s) for item(s) or lets me haggle a price. :(
Also, I am pretty convinced it is far easier to corner an AH market due to having everything at your fingertips. The amount of times I saw crafting materials and potions monopolized in WoW was staggering. And in a game with lower drop rates but also very limited BoE/P items, cornering specific item markets probably wouldn't be too much of a stretch.
Anyway, I'm excited to see what VR puts in the game as I trust their knowledge and experience.
Kilsin said:Zorkon said:Kilsin said:We will not be splitting the community up with servers for everyones likes and dislikes, there will be main PvE servers, some RP servers and some PvP servers, from there we will maybe consider some special ruleset servers if there is enough interest other than that, you will have to choose a server carefully and make it your permanent home.
People need to remember that this is our game, we are making what we want to play based on all of our experience as gamers and game creators. :)
Hey Kilsin
I think relevant to the topic as it would have a direct effect on the economy and how auction house or no auction house would work. Can you confirm or deny that goods sold at just any old merchant by player-X will be available for purchase by player-Y from that same merchant, or will they just disappear?
Yes, NPCs retain goods, we have already mentioned this numerous times my friend, Brad has spoken about it in interviews and it has been brought up in Podcasts. ;)
Lovely glad to hear it..I'll be able to do my merchant diving again. Whee..never know what you'll find that way. :) (I'm a packrat or modern day term Hoarder hehe) just ingame. In real life I can't stand excess anything hanging around..recycled or however it gets gone. :) Nice to hear there will be some familiarity in the way you can choose to play. :)
Iksar said:Don't take my ability to haggle and trade items away. No AH I have seen allows trades of item(s) for item(s) or lets me haggle a price. :(
Also, I am pretty convinced it is far easier to corner an AH market due to having everything at your fingertips. The amount of times I saw crafting materials and potions monopolized in WoW was staggering. And in a game with lower drop rates but also very limited BoE/P items, cornering specific item markets probably wouldn't be too much of a stretch.
Anyway, I'm excited to see what VR puts in the game as I trust their knowledge and experience.
What AH artificially restricts you from being able to trade item(s) for item(s), or haggling a price, exactly? You can still do those things with an AH present, you just can't do them directly through the AH itself. If a buy-order functionality exists in the AH, there is no way to fully corner a market, especially on commodities like crafting materials or potions. The lower the value of the item, the easier it is to force competition at both ends of the spectrum, and thus drive prices as closely as possible to the opportunity cost of the item (ideally, the price range settles at opportunity cost plus or minus the listing fee). EVE has arguably the most robust economy of any game ever created, and they use a bi-transactional economy just as I have proposed. It's gotten to the point where they have multiple virtual economists studying the game to better understand the real economy. Here is an excerpt from Eyjolfur Guomundsson, EVE's chief economist, published in one of EVE's quarterly economic journals:
"We can learn from watching the market behavior within a confined world like EVE Online and learn about how price bubbles, for instance, are formed, and what triggers them. I think if someone were to mine through our data, they would be able to find some interesting cases and examples of that. We can also see in terms of social interaction...how people form groups, and what it is that makes people work together. EVE is a harsh world of hard competition, but still people come together to work for a common cause. What is it that lets those people come together?"
An excerpt from one of their quarterly economic journals that provides greater detail on how a bi-transactional economy works:
"EVE's market functions as a bi-transactional order market: players can place both buy orders and sell orders for any given item. This is a crucial difference from most Auction House-style markets, where players can only place sell orders for items they have and want to sell. In most other games, players cannot declare their intention to buy an item through the game designed marketplace.
In a market with only sell orders, buyers have no power to influence the price point of items. Their only actions are to buy or not to buy, and not-buying does not indicate a desire to buy at a lower price any more than it indicates a desire not to buy at all. Prices in these markets are purely supply-driven. As a result, if there is insufficient exchange to drive the price of an item down to its opportunity cost, buyers either suffer unfairly high prices or the market stagnates and transactions fail to go through.
By enabling both buy and sell orders, buyers compete to make the lowest highest offer and sellers compete to offer the highest lowest price. Yes, you read that correctly, and no, it's not as confusing as it sounds. Buyers want to pay the lowest price possible, but must offer a higher price than other buyers in order to make a successful transaction (otherwise the transaction will go to a higher bid). Likewise, sellers want to get the highest price possible, but must offer a lower price than other sellers.
These markets are both supply- and demand-driven. When both buyers and sellers compete within the same marketplace, any entrant to the market can see both the upper and lower bounds for transactions within that market. They can (presumably) make as much money as the lowest seller or pay as much money as the highest buyer should they wish to compete in that market. However, most players don't want to compete in the market: they just want to make their fair transaction and get on with the game. This is another point where a dual market really shows its strength."
One of the major issues with EVE's economy, though, is that they have way more money going OUT than they have coming IN. This was done intentionally so that players could use real life money to gain an advantage in game (leveraging real life money as a means to acquire the very limited supply of in-game currency), and the main reason some guy had $18 million worth of in-game virtual assets. If the "Money in, Money Out" principle is balanced properly, using a bi-transactional AH like that which is present in EVE would provide a very robust, player driven economy that actually encourages social interaction, without driving players to spend real life money for in-game currency. The bi-transactional AH also serves as a major counter to in-game (true) monopolies, while still providing market players the option to make a profit by selectively buying/reselling items that have favorable opportunity cost conditions. What argument is there to be made against a bi-transactional AH system? Lack of immersion? It's nothing more than an interface that allows people to conduct the same WTB/WTS actions that they would in a bazaar, but with access to way more information, and increased buy/sell power compared to a traditional AH.
If people prefer to do these kind of things face to face, they are still capable of doing so, and having an AH doesen't artificially restrict their ability to do it. Imagine if the /who function was removed from the game. It would remove the capability of looking up players by their level, class, zone, or whether or not they are LFG. Instead, you would have to run around the world using /sh macros to relay any of that information. That's what /who is ... information. Removing the AH is the same thing as removing the /who is looking to buy/sell what items and at what price -- is that truly more immersive, or just an unneccessary inconvenience? I vote for the latter. I don't see anything wrong with a system that allows players the freedom to choose how they want to play the game -- not everybody wants to run around using /sh all day to sell/buy stuff, just like people don't want to run around using /sh to look for their groups (I prefer to look people up based on class, level, zone, and whether or not they are LFG in the /who window, but also use /sh if I am desperate). Some do, some don't. Do we get a choice, is the question.
This is my last post on this topic ... I've made my case as well as it can be made. If you have questions about how a bi-transactional economy works, I suggest you look it up online and see exactly how it works for yourself. I think you'll be pleasantly surprised to see what type of responses this sort of system has garnered from those who have used it. I am not saying that EVE has a perfect economy, they have several issues that we don't want to be present in Pantheon, particularly the extreme disparity between MIMO (Money In Money Out), their natural resources being arbitrarily limited, and the excessive amount of items that have an NPC-dictated price floor/ceiling. If those 3 things are kept in check, a bi-transactional AH can flourish. EVE has their system set up that way intentionally because it's a PVP game and territory is nearly as valuable as anything else in the game, factors that Pantheon will not have to contend with.
Just how desirable is a dual market that enables buy-orders? There are plenty of well thought-out articles that explain the pros and cons of each system, just look up "buy orders for auction house" and you'll see that this topic has been very thoroughly analyzed -- dual markets are a very popular request across a large scope of games/platforms.
Mod Edit: Removed links to external gaming forums.
Ruar said:There is a way to have a bazaar system that has parts of an AH style setup. First, why is the AH so popular? Answer is convience and ease of use. Click around, search, get a lot of results, and move out. It's a very business like approach to selling in game items and works best with high volume things like potions, crafting materials, etc.
What is nice about a bazaar? The chance to haggle, talk to people, and have one place to go for shopping. Not as easy as the AH to use but still pretty close. You have to run around to the different players but you can still shop pretty easily and sell some of your items to people with market orders up.
The last option is a flea market setup where you go to an area with people shouting out their WTB and WTS and it's a bit of chaos. Total personal interaction but not much fun if you are a walk in, buy what you want, walk out type of person.
I think the answer is a combination of the three styles. Have a bazaar area where people go to buy and sell. Limit the amount of items the people can buy or sell. Have a easy to use interface that allows for shopping the limited items to be bought or sold. This gives the AH interface for searching, the bazaar level interaction in the main, and the flea market operation for items which are not able to be put into the limited merchant slots.
There was a 4th option brought up in this thread buried back there 4-5 pages ago that nobody gave much thought to. A portable "newspaper" from each major city that could be published daily (automatically of course) that players could list their items in a searchable fashion. This would not offer a direct purchase, but instead a "/tell the seller" button (if the user was online) and/or a "mail-to the seller" button if the user was not online.
Your item could be viewed while you were offline
Would still require user interaction to purchase.
You could still e-mail a bid on an item. Or talk directly.
You could search durring your downtime while medding or waiting on a spawn.
You could hire noobs to transfer newspapers from one city to the next.
A seller logs in he may have several "bids" in his e-mail he can choise from.
This would not need to be limited to one item "I will have 1000 bat wings and 500 fish scales for sale at the EQTunnel on this Saturday between 6 and 10 PST, or until sold out Hail SellerDude "
Not limited to items for sale "I'm llooking to buy bat wings 1s each friday 5 to 7 in the ECTunnel"
Or if you dont like ECTunnel spam, advertise you will be available in a different location.
A money sink people purchase the papers and pay to place adds.
And more possabilitys. I think this has potential, but for some reason people go back to the select few ways it's always been AH, Bazzar, EQTunnel and just dismiss this.
Zorkon said:Ruar said:There is a way to have a bazaar system that has parts of an AH style setup. First, why is the AH so popular? Answer is convience and ease of use. Click around, search, get a lot of results, and move out. It's a very business like approach to selling in game items and works best with high volume things like potions, crafting materials, etc.
What is nice about a bazaar? The chance to haggle, talk to people, and have one place to go for shopping. Not as easy as the AH to use but still pretty close. You have to run around to the different players but you can still shop pretty easily and sell some of your items to people with market orders up.
The last option is a flea market setup where you go to an area with people shouting out their WTB and WTS and it's a bit of chaos. Total personal interaction but not much fun if you are a walk in, buy what you want, walk out type of person.
I think the answer is a combination of the three styles. Have a bazaar area where people go to buy and sell. Limit the amount of items the people can buy or sell. Have a easy to use interface that allows for shopping the limited items to be bought or sold. This gives the AH interface for searching, the bazaar level interaction in the main, and the flea market operation for items which are not able to be put into the limited merchant slots.
There was a 4th option brought up in this thread buried back there 4-5 pages ago that nobody gave much thought to. A portable "newspaper" from each major city that could be published daily (automatically of course) that players could list their items in a searchable fashion. This would not offer a direct purchase, but instead a "/tell the seller" button (if the user was online) and/or a "mail-to the seller" button if the user was not online.
Your item could be viewed while you were offline
Would still require user interaction to purchase.
You could still e-mail a bid on an item. Or talk directly.
You could search durring your downtime while medding or waiting on a spawn.
You could hire noobs to transfer newspapers from one city to the next.
A seller logs in he may have several "bids" in his e-mail he can choise from.
This would not need to be limited to one item "I will have 1000 bat wings and 500 fish scales for sale at the EQTunnel on this Saturday between 6 and 10 PST, or until sold out Hail SellerDude "
Not limited to items for sale "I'm llooking to buy bat wings 1s each friday 5 to 7 in the ECTunnel"
Or if you dont like ECTunnel spam, advertise you will be available in a different location.
A money sink people purchase the papers and pay to place adds.
And more possabilitys. I think this has potential, but for some reason people go back to the select few ways it's always been AH, Bazzar, EQTunnel and just dismiss this.
A few people have suggested a Craigslist for Terminus type thing. It is the best of both worlds in my opinion. Searchable, defined by location, still have to meet up to make the purchase, currency is negotiable(barter).
Folks, please leave external links to economics and other game forums out of this, I have gone ahead and removed the links as they direct community members away from our development forums to other companies game forums, this is Pantheon and we have our own way of doing things, even if that isn't clear to you folks just yet, I also want to redirect you to the Development Forum Guidelines:
These guidelines are not for show, they serve a very important purpose and I ask that you take notice of them and keep them in mind before posting in future.
https://www.pantheonmmo.com/content/forums/topic/1595/pantheon-developer-forum-guidelines
Particularly;
"Sometimes our passion can lead to heated debates. We have a unique forum in the sense that you are paying for subscriptions in order to post here, and as such, we want to give you as much freedom as possible to express your opinion, as long as it’s constructive and benefits the overall development of the game and the community. There's nothing wrong with healthy debate, which can encourage new ideas. However, there’s a difference between healthy debate and spinning your wheels on a subject where both sides refuse to acknowledge the other’s perspective. When in doubt, simply “agree to disagree and move on.” This should be the general rule of thumb when discussing things with your fellow gamers here at the Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen website and community."
The Great Novel - To have a better chance of being understood, take the time to explain exactly what you mean, but without being so wordy that you "write a novel."
Please remember that this is a Development site, not a fan site, and it should be treated as such.
Maximis said:Zorkon said:Ruar said:There is a way to have a bazaar system that has parts of an AH style setup. First, why is the AH so popular? Answer is convience and ease of use. Click around, search, get a lot of results, and move out. It's a very business like approach to selling in game items and works best with high volume things like potions, crafting materials, etc.
What is nice about a bazaar? The chance to haggle, talk to people, and have one place to go for shopping. Not as easy as the AH to use but still pretty close. You have to run around to the different players but you can still shop pretty easily and sell some of your items to people with market orders up.
The last option is a flea market setup where you go to an area with people shouting out their WTB and WTS and it's a bit of chaos. Total personal interaction but not much fun if you are a walk in, buy what you want, walk out type of person.
I think the answer is a combination of the three styles. Have a bazaar area where people go to buy and sell. Limit the amount of items the people can buy or sell. Have a easy to use interface that allows for shopping the limited items to be bought or sold. This gives the AH interface for searching, the bazaar level interaction in the main, and the flea market operation for items which are not able to be put into the limited merchant slots.
There was a 4th option brought up in this thread buried back there 4-5 pages ago that nobody gave much thought to. A portable "newspaper" from each major city that could be published daily (automatically of course) that players could list their items in a searchable fashion. This would not offer a direct purchase, but instead a "/tell the seller" button (if the user was online) and/or a "mail-to the seller" button if the user was not online.
Your item could be viewed while you were offline
Would still require user interaction to purchase.
You could still e-mail a bid on an item. Or talk directly.
You could search durring your downtime while medding or waiting on a spawn.
You could hire noobs to transfer newspapers from one city to the next.
A seller logs in he may have several "bids" in his e-mail he can choise from.
This would not need to be limited to one item "I will have 1000 bat wings and 500 fish scales for sale at the EQTunnel on this Saturday between 6 and 10 PST, or until sold out Hail SellerDude "
Not limited to items for sale "I'm llooking to buy bat wings 1s each friday 5 to 7 in the ECTunnel"
Or if you dont like ECTunnel spam, advertise you will be available in a different location.
A money sink people purchase the papers and pay to place adds.
And more possabilitys. I think this has potential, but for some reason people go back to the select few ways it's always been AH, Bazzar, EQTunnel and just dismiss this.
A few people have suggested a Craigslist for Terminus type thing. It is the best of both worlds in my opinion. Searchable, defined by location, still have to meet up to make the purchase, currency is negotiable(barter).
In the past people have taken off and turned the "Craigslist" idea into a bulletin board, my thoughts here is something portable, avalable each morning for a cost. If they want to satisfy those that want bulletin boards and don't want to pay for a portable newspaper, newspapers are generally avalable on tables in any tavern or inn to be used there by customers.
Has anyone explored or suggested a system similar to that which exists in Path of Exile?
Basically you tag items in your investory as for sale and set an asking price. Players can use a separate search function to find items and the players offering them. The buyer then reaches out directly to the seller to consumate the transaction.
It's not the most streamlined system (i.e. a little clunky), but it works and it allows players to easily find specific items and allows sellers to sell (while requiring them to be online), but without requiring them to spam WTS all day.
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.
One thing I thought was a pretty good idea a while back came from Aion. It allowed players to go to each zone and just set up their own little store right there for folks to come shop at. Unfortunately, it was very poorly implimented. It allowed players to put in a little message that would repeat in Local so anyone coming near could see and come check it out. You can about guess what happened: Gold spammers took over just about all the zones.
Nevertheless, it was a pretty solid concept. It could be something that could be refined for Pantheon to add another dynamic to the local sellers and traders by maybe allowing them to offer a viewable store and then the haggling can commence. Preferably without the spam.
Fennec said:Has anyone explored or suggested a system similar to that which exists in Path of Exile?
Basically you tag items in your investory as for sale and set an asking price. Players can use a separate search function to find items and the players offering them. The buyer then reaches out directly to the seller to consumate the transaction.
It's not the most streamlined system (i.e. a little clunky), but it works and it allows players to easily find specific items and allows sellers to sell (while requiring them to be online), but without requiring them to spam WTS all day.
interesting Fennec
sounds like a system that calls a spade a spade
In any case I favor a system where players have to reach out
Automatization in a manner that no social interaction is required is bad I think
Unpopular opinion time.
I loved when EQ introduced the bazaar. I loved the AH in WoW.
On P99, I hate spending hours spinning my wheels trying to find particular items to buy or sell my warez.
Socialization is great, but the sales zones like EC, etc. that happened in oldschool games were rarely a source of kinship, especially when populations were high (which they will be in Pantheon)
Facilitating item trades is a major time saver to people wishing to buy & sell so they can instead focus what little time they have to play on adventuring, yet not lose out on a major aspect of goods distribution, acquiring wealth, and experiencing the economy. EC was just not fun for me :(
I'm willing to bet if the item trade interfaces created are sparse, causing a 1999-like state of affairs, we'll be begging for help within an expansion or two.
I also like auction houses. I like to scan the items and find things that I didn't even know existed. Plus, I hate negotiating for anything. I hate buying cars, going to flea markets, or anywhere else that requires negotiation.
Then, you finally find someone offering what you want at the right price, but never are logged in at the same time.
Lokispawn said:I'm willing to bet if the item trade interfaces created are sparse, causing a 1999-like state of affairs, we'll be begging for help within an expansion or two.
Agreed. Taking this a step further I would think without a semi-robust trade interface you're going to push market participants to 3rd party sites, which will be immersion breaking to say the least.
The question shouldn't be whether an auction house should exist, but rather how to best implement one. From a developers' perspective, chat spam trading or 3rd party site managed trading deprives you of economic market data.
Fennec said:From a developers' perspective, chat spam trading or 3rd party site managed trading deprives you of economic market data.
Which is helpful to economy development, finding exploits, etc. Don't throw away the chance at knowing more about your players. "Follow the money" :)
To respond to oneADseven, This post is based on the many things I have read from you on this topic. I refrained from quoting them since I'm long winded enough as it is.
I respect your desire for an auction house, it is easy, and it does support many people's play styles. Your idea of basing it on a financials market where you can sign up for "bid" as well as "ask" is cool, and you could even expand it by allowing "limit" orders. For example, you could say you want to buy 40 bone chips for 20g, 10 gold per stack. The auction house would automatically match your bids to asks, even for individual stacks, for a time limit indicated by you, for as long as you can provide the money.
You desire a convenient hub for all players to get over and done with a part of a game that frankly, not everyone, particularly the new style gamer, feels like participating in.
However, I must still disagree with you. I do not feel auction houses are a fit for Pantheon, even if their lack forces Pantheon toward a tighter niche of players.
On Social Interaction:
The soda machine Auction houses I picture, where you buy things with convenient buttons, centralized in convenient locations, just don't strike me as something a community focused game wants, because it will not push anyone into social interactions. You will most likely not bother to haggle, set up trade agreements, or even send a single PM. IMHO, You are far less likely to notice people you trade with often and throw them on your friends list, the best friend of any social interaction game.
You say auction houses can promote social interactions. No offense, but particularly when compared to a competitive barter community, howso? Whenever I've used an auction house I certainly haven't felt the need to talk. Maybe I could have sent tells to the names i found on the AH, asking them to take it down and sell it to me for a haggled price. But that seems even more complicated than a bazaar system.
An auto group finder, no matter how complicated and convenient you make it, simply does not require players to talk with each other, whereas making players find groups at main cities or at the area of the dungeon, does. By restricting auto group finders, the Pantheon team hopes to push players into more social interactions when they want to group. Yes; Push, Force, Restrict your right to play the game how you want to with your subscription.
As a final note, needing to actively find the value of an item, is, in itself, a chance for a social interaction, even if some people will resort to third party lists instead. Though you risk feeding the spammers and trolls, giving needy, inexperienced players, assistance is a good thing; At least, I assume this because Pantheon will include things like the mentor system and mixxed level zones.
On third party websites taking over any old style trade system:
For the niche of people who actually do trade over 3rd party websites, it is still a social experience. Ultimately you will still need to communicate in game to finalize the deal. Also, I can't say whatever small communications you make outside of the game at the website are a bad thing either. With an auction house, you don't even need to type, nor even notice, the name of the person you are buying from/selling to.
As for people price checking, you will get them doing that with any system. I will hand you your point that auction houses make it easy to see everything on the market for your server and the price they tend to be, even moreso than shouting /PC. But as easy or accurate as a 3rd party website that tracks all the trades over a period of time, putting it conveniently on a line graph? I doubt it, especially with those who try to corner particular markets.
In continuation, plenty of people will likely keep their trading to the "immersive" in game trade hubs. I base this on how modern day vanilla EQ servers, such as phinigel or p99, do still seem to have active in game bartering communities. The tunnel community is healthy, and large, enough. Most of the time you will find what you want at the trade hubs, right away or within the hour (for the most rare equipment). As an aside, one could note that the effort put into getting the item makes it more memorable and desirable to you.
To go on a previous example, people could potentially circumvent the hassle of finding a group in game by using a 3rd party website as well, yet in game group finders still will not be a part of Pantheon, to make your groups more memorable and social.
The newspaper idea I've seen mentioned is an interesting idea, that while nowhere near a full auction house, does make it just a little bit easier for players who don't enjoy trade. They can more easily find what they need, wherever they are. Obviously it would be best with a mailbox system, and the fact you can only use it once per day would make it inconvienient. But the newspaper most certainly will not reduce social interactions because you will need to PERSONALLY respond to the ads. The newspaper can even help to replace third-party websites, despite being less conveniant than they are, since it essentially does the same thing they do.
Full world chat channels can further help to bridge gaps that are filled by 3rd party websites, but I'm thinking Pantheon won't have them (did I read that in the faq?).
On Spam:
For both traditional barter systems and traditional grouping systems, people are going to spam. For anything that uses talking people, particularly anything that involves any sort of advertisement, people are going to spam. People are going to get ignored, and yet it is still a valid opinion that these things, which use talking people, make for a tight nit, social community.
Thus, I respect your dislike of spammers (I do as well). I, like you, fear /ignore ing a spammer, because I know that that person may have something useful to contribue some day. It's a sad trade in social communities which I can't think of a good solution to, besides perhaps setting your list to remove names outdated by a couple weeks or some such.
I feel that saying there will be spam in a system where people need to talk to each other is not only an obvious argument, but one I feel has no base in a game that wants it's players to talk to one another. Spammers are bad and ignore lists are bad for community. However I feel that a strong, self policing social community can certainly be worth it, especially considering Pantheon's game tenents. The discussion needs to happen on the issue of spam, itself.
Finally, how does getting ignored by people while spamming a trade channel make you profitable?
I have spent plenty of time buy/selling in the tunnel of Everquest. I simply wouldnt talk to spammers unless I thought I could rip them off, as I felt they deserved. I simply didn't spam. Maybe I should have spammed? I seemed to be selling things just fine and people knew me pretty well. I found responding to WTB messages was a large part of my income as well.
Many games take actual GM action against spammers. Even if Pantheon does not, this isn't the entire world market where 99.9% of the time the more advertisements you can send out the better. In the real world, there's no way you can reach everyone all the time unless you own a country (and even then it can be difficult). This is a tight nit, niche community of old and new players, where the community punishes you for doing things they don't like. You can certainly reach most of the people in your world, and spam wont reach anyone more besides those who happened to be looking away or entered the area right after you posted. I jus't can't see spammers making much more than those who post as needed.
In Conclusion:
I could be wrong. Having a social trade community is not the same as having a social game community. The trade community could simply be something VR doesn't mind being unsocial, so long as other in-game factors, like group making, are.
Even so, I personally do not feel that all of the social interaction I know myself and others have enjoyed in old style game trading hubs should be overlooked.
P.S. Just in case, I will point out here that the "you may choose not to use it" argument , in a competitive environment, is a poor one. If something is simply far better for competition, everyone, save perhaps the absolute most hardcore users, will have to use it. I have little doubt that auction houses, which are far more convenient than other market systems just as you say, would count as far better for competition.
Wow took several hours to go through this thread. I have to say I am starting to get discouraged as things seem to be leaning towards some sort of auto selling. I understand that in the last 10 years easy mode has become rampant in the MMO world... especially when it comes to trading. It all started when the bazaar was introduced and player interaction started to decline and has ended up with auction house exploiters and gold farmer heavens. I have read every single post in this thread and tried my hardest to accept the fact that some sort of common ground has to be found. I dont know if there is a solution as noone can make everyone happy. What I can say is throughout every MMO I have played since EQ I have severely missed the player to player interactions in all aspects. But seeing as this thread is relative to trading I will keep to that topic. I think as this thread has progressed emotions have started to run high and passion has started to turn into overreaction. But do any of us have the answer? Maybe... who knows for sure.
My stance on this is that we should find a starting point (which im sure beta will do). But are people really going to explore trading/selling wares during beta the way we would once it goes live? I think that we should start with letting players try and figure it out on our own the way EQ did. I really dont think it is going to cause people to put the game down because their isnt a local auction house to sell and buy goods they need. People are going to be more focused on leveling and exploring in the very early days than buying and selling goods since it will take some time to acquire those items to sell. And what will happen is people will figure out how to buy and sell. As Brad said earlier... the EC tunnel was never meant to be a trading hub it just turned out to be since it was close to a major city and out of the way of much danger with a druid ring, wizard spire, and boat dock nearby as well. There were vendors closeby and the bank was also a short run. Seeing how in the early days everyone is going to be somewhat close to these big cities while they are trying to gain those first levels it wont be long before people start figuring out ways to trade with others. There will always be a decent population near these big cities and the devs have repeatedly said they are focused on keeping these areas near the cities populated and not forgotten. No matter what we do we always have to go to a major city to bank, buy general supplies, train, etc. And as people start to acquire items they will be looking for the first person they can find to sell it and start a bankroll. And where would the best place be to do that? Where the biggest population of people are... which will always be in or near a city.
I think we should start out with a blank slate. I assure you... people will figure out how to buy and sell. EC wasnt THE trade hub on every server. North freeport, West Freeport, and a couple others were also used as trade hubs. North Freeport had a marketplace which really made the most sense. I understand this lies under the ''WTB 100 bonechips 1pp PST'' but EQ also had the most driven economy of any MMO I have played to this date. There are many people that will argue the Bazaar started EQ's downfall and I completely agree with them. Once the player to player interaction was taken away, so were the people and the community. That community has never returned. But with Pantheon that community is starting to resurface.
Player interaction (IN ALL ASPECTS) is what gave us those lifelong friendships and memories that we still carry with us. I know there are lots that never had those experiences and it is evident based on some of the opinions on this thread. I am fully aware that the last 10 years has regretfully misled the new age of gamers with quest hubs, dungeon finders, and auction houses and done nothing but disappoint the old schoolers time after time after time. I think we can rebuild those relationships that have been lost for so long and show the new age what community is all about. One of the best ways to do that is by going to the nearest city to convince someone to buy your bonechips or workout a trade for something he is selling. He may not need bonechips but he may know someone else who does. Next thing you know someone else comes in wanting to buy bonechips for double what you were already asking. You cant send him a tell fast enough. Then you find out he needs a steady supply of them so he tells you to add him to your friends list and let him know when you have more. Next thing you know you now have enough money to buy one of those sexy WR bags that you always see that gnome tailor selling and now you can carry even more bonechips to sell. These stories just go on and on and on with player to player trading. Are you going to have those conversations with an NPC merchant or an AFK sellbot? No.. you are not. This is just one example of how relationships are started and what leads to a strong player driven economy.
I know.. the new age of MMOs and the ones who grew up on them are never going to see it from our side. They want the quickest and easiest routes because they have always had it that way. But devs, dont let that scare you. They will adapt. If they cant adapt to player to player trading how on earth are they going to adapt to acclimation, perception, extreme climates, no quest hubs, etc. To me the argument is an easy one. EQs economy was strong (until the bazaar), no other MMO economy has been since. It will work itself out and I am confident that player to player trading will have very little negative feedback... if any at all. Once we are all thrown into the game and see how tough the world is, these areas of player trading will be a much appreciated place to relax and get to know people. My 2 cp...
Garmr said:I'd like to see a place like the EC Tunnel, seller needs to be online AND active to make a sale. However if the seller chooses to go /afk he can and the buyer can right click the seller and choose to see what the seller has in stock for sale.
Im grown up enough to admit where I'm wrong or have changed my opinon. This is one of those cases. Since I wrote the post above Ive gone back to EQ and am playing on Phinigel, a TLP server. Let me tell you, EC tunnel wasnt quite as awesome as I had remember from 17 years ago. Since we went to Luclin and the bazaar is available, my gaming sessions are much more enjoyable for me. No wasting time in the tunnel trying to buy and sell, convientently finding upgrades on bazaar instead of yelling for an item forever or hoping someone logs into tunnel to auction one. I spend more time SOCIALIZING in groups because of the bazaar, instead of standing by myself spamming /auction.
Seriously, I was wrong, please give me a bazaar like zone.
Thanks,
Garmr
Item maintenance is one of the least fun parts of any game. There are a few that, that’s why they play but for the majority people want to be teaming and having fun. The easier it is to sell and manage items, the better off Pantheon will be. Lots of cool ideas here but the fact is, none beat the AH. Let me put a few items up for sale and not have to think about it for a few days. When I need something, or want to sell something, I dont want to yell for hours WTS or WTB. Let me put it on the AH and get back to the fun stuff. Let me buy what I need quickly and get back to what I am doing.
I've come to the conclusion that whatever the devs put in the game, I'll make due with it. I don't mind the old school EC Tunnel "come to 2nd torch" stuff, nor did I mind the Bazaar or even the AH in WoW. My personal preferece is the social hub zone like how the current Plane of Knowledge is (or was two years ago when I last played EQ1). Everything connects, there is banking, social stuff like "giving out KEI by tree" and it's a great meeting place for going to dungoen/raid/etc.
The only downside to that is the faction system having any importance. One of the easons the EC Tunnel thing happened was because every city was KoS to at least a few races, and it made faction matter. Religion mattered. Buying and selling was tough on certain races, and it became a legit RP choice. If you have a PoK/AH/Bazaar nexus thing from the get go, it makes the faction system meaningless from the get go.
I can go either way, but I'd prefer a more old school approach that preserves faction/class/religion/etc as meaningful.
BeaverBiscuit said:The soda machine Auction houses I picture, where you buy things with convenient buttons, centralized in convenient locations, just don't strike me as something a community focused game wants, because it will not push anyone into social interactions. You will most likely not bother to haggle, set up trade agreements, or even send a single PM. IMHO, You are far less likely to notice people you trade with often and throw them on your friends list, the best friend of any social interaction game.
You say auction houses can promote social interactions. No offense, but particula
Who says that every single thing in the game has to promote social interaction? The entire game is social. You have to make friends to progress. Plain and simple. Why does that mean you have to spend hours trying to buy or sell things? There is not 1 single thing that is "social" about old school EQ EC tunnel type systems. The most "social" thing I ever did there was buff newbs. When buying/selling it was all limited to "this is the price" and "Thanks!". I don't get where all the people with their rose tinted glasses can honestly sit there and say that this system is in any way better. It's time consuming and tedious boredom.
If it's in at launch, fine I can deal with it. But it's in no way the best option on the table.
I have to laugh when people believe a game should FORCE people to be social. If we were all social, many of us would not be gamers.
MMOS should encourage social behavior, but not force it.
Few things I hate more in life than haggling. If it comes down to it, I may just have to hire someone to do my buying/selling for me.