Why The Non-Global Game Economy Is Good for Every Player
In Pantheon Rise of the Fallen
I will try to explain a generalized idea behind the non-global player economy and how it will effect players across a server or shard. When reading try to forget other games for a minute and open your mind to an outside the box thought process. What I will discuss is nothing new to some, but really has never been attempted by an MMORPG in the industry in the last 15 years.
The Centralized Market:
Auction houses, server wide market searches, global traders, vendors....these all share a common link. We will call it The Centralized Market. Every player on a server or shard can see the going rate for items, resources etc. These items tend to be marked up really high or really low and tend to not promote fair competition.
These approaches have allowed for the cornering of the centralized market and allows a player or players to buy up all those resources for themselves. This method tends to lead to inflation of the price to astounding levels. Some would argue this is fair because they have achieved economic status and worked game time for the money they made. Some would argue they were greedy and drove the price to feed their greedy schemes.
Players have openly admitted to un-ethical centralized market practices by buying all the items in the market, then only to turn around and sell them at a higher price hence... inflating prices to astounding levels in the centralized Market. *Note in real life these practices would land you in prison*
The other negative force in The Centralized Market equation is global chat, in- game email system and allowing for market related communication, items to be transferred across the server or shard too quickly.
How to Decentralize the Market.
How do we decentralize the market and make for a fair practices and lower the un-ethical game economic business practices? We take the market disconnect it from the centralized market place. We break the path and force the creation of local markets within our game world, and we spread it across the server or shards in the major cities tiny towns, villages around our game world.
This approach allows for the local economy by players in a zone to be the driving factor in the player driven economics. The local goods and items resources in that city village zone etc would differ from those of the zone of a city or village across the server. By removing auction houses, server wide market searches, global traders, vendors we have severed the local market and broke up communication by removing the global chat factor the in-game email system and The centralized market place.
Some would argue your still going to suffer inflated prices in the local economy still and players could potentially corner the market in that city or village. Some would argue that by motivating players to travel to other cities to vendor their items or goods would keep a competitive market place and keep prices down.
Example a player A is selling Pine wood planks for 10 silver in the City of Throne Fast. Player B is selling Pine wood Planks in Syronais Rest for 5 silver. Player A and B are not aware of each other's prices .
Player C is a buyer and has the potential to run into player A or B's local economy and is not aware of the price difference currently. Player C travels to check prices by traveling to the different cities or villages. Player C stumbles upon and sees the prices of Player B and then makes their purchase.
What Player C doesn't realize now is that Player D has set up a vendor stall where player A was. Player A has logged off and now and Player D has logged in and is unaware of player A & B's previous prices. Player D has set their price at 4 Silver for Pine planks. This is how we make the market fairly fluctuate in the local economies and keep prices fair across the board.
This approach will eliminate a lot of the inflation, however there may be small pockets of inflation occasionally that wouldn't be a major impact to the game entirely.
Decentralized the market place what do we do now?
So we now have established the local economy in our cities, villages and towns and removed centralized communications. Players now market their items in the zone thru local chat channel or a local vendor system. Our players will be limited only by their log in time or perhaps a developer approved balanced timed vendor time example: a hour period stationary vendor in a local market place.
Players have the ability to travel to other markets and compete with other players prices and wares. The social interaction would increase as players would be motivated and encouraged to travel explore to sell their wares in other markets. Players could sell and trade their wares on their travels as well as they could set up a shop on the road in between towns.
Players could travel with a horse drawn or oxen driven caravan and they would need a group of players to escort their caravan wagon to the city thru dangerous zones to the city and it could be attacked. This would increase exploration and could be used as a time, and money sink as the caravan would move slow throughout the zones.
Player guilds could set up outpost in a zone like the market place vendor stall in a city or village. They could sell their wares at a protected out post. Traveling players could sell their wares at these guild owned outpost for a small fee buy purchasing a spot within the outpost. This would be much more safer place for the traveling players to sell their wares. Guilds could charge a fee for the vendors setting up there vendor stall at the out post.
Guild outpost would pay a fee to set up and maintain an outpost in a zone to keep it active. This would be a money sink for the guild outpost as well. This fee would have to be a hefty fee to keep the guild outpost built in a zone competitive as well.
Players of a different city or race faction could set up shop outside the village or city walls and to sell their wares. These would be considered black market stalls or areas outside the city and could cost the player a vendor fee to set up shop outside the city walls. These market place fees would be small in nature and would create a currency sink within the game economy.
I wanted to give a general idea and not get too in depth and super specific as this tends to direct the conversation in to far away from the main concept. I hope I conveyed the thought and its general enough to get the idea. I'm sure there is room for some innovation.
Thanks for taking the time to read.
Dal
Voices of Terminus
I've seen this used in Pathfinder Online and Shroud of the Avatar, personally. Completely decentralized, small unique markets, even per town banks and regional resources.
In PFO it was coupled with a 100% player driven economy, that is, nothing was sold by NPC's. In Shroud, NPC's also sell basic equipment, but crafted player items are superior.
Shroud has been in live persistence since July 28th, 2016. PFO has been in early access since Jan 2015.
PFO failed (95%) in August, 2015, after the 4000 subscribers they targeted didn't materialize. As of today, they're waiting on word for an angel investment deal. There are many reasons that one could cite for the current state of PFO, but the inability for players to find resources or even just to buy gear at a reasonable price due to decentralized markets was, for everyone I knew, a negative feature of the game.
In Shroud, today, there has been discussion around what to do about a decentralized player market. In what context? The buyer. In Shroud, each player that has a housing lot (non-instanced) can place a vendor on that lot that has an inventory. There is no way to search, regionally, globally, or even per town or zone, for what is available. All players must individually search through hundreds of zones and thousands of vendors, to just find if something is available, never mind find it at a reasonable price. It is not working. The economy has stalled.
So, I understand the intent, and desire to avoid the GW2 (and similar) global-auction-house economic model from being thoroughly corrupted by controlling interests. I get that. I've seen it, to a greater or lesser degree, in every MMO that has a global auction house. Saw it in EQ2 with Master skill books for years, anything that was put up at a reasonable price was bought by a cartel and sold at ten times that value. So, I'm right there with you regarding the need for solutions.
However, I am not in favor of a completely decentralized market as the solution. I'm also not in favor of putting too much RL pain and suffering into a game that is meant to be entertaining and attract gamers looking for fun. Another reality that can't be ignored is that instant and completely accurate communication is possible in parallel with Pantheon. So, even though in-game pricing may vary from one place to another, anyone with IM, E-Mail, Discord/VOIP or similar has the ability to know everything as it happens. In other words, there are very few secrets.
Personally? My theorycrafting principles on the subject of players selling "whatever" are:
In a larger context, I think that the fees collected for an auction house (and other services provided by that NPC guild) should contribute to the prestige and power of whatever guild hosts the auction house, even if that's a dedicated merchants guild. Player characters that are members of any NPC guild should be offered tangible benefits to membership, including discounts on services, unique abilities/skills, and other perks. Ideally, this would mean that if it's possible to have a dedicated crafter type character/role/class, membership in the merchants guild would be very attractive.
Optionally, it may be that in each village, a different guild hosts, controls or owns a/the auction house, so that NPC guild membership rewards vary geographically. In larger centers, maybe multiple auction houses would make sense. (this presumes the merchants guild doesn't just host/control/own all the auction houses..
I'd agree - I don't want to see a centralized AH or really an AH at all. We had a huge thread discussing that here:
http://www.pantheonmmo.com/content/forums/topic/2594/death-to-the-auction-house
Like Raidan said, this is a very old topic, probably the oldest one since the first forums were put up before the Kickstarter. Not only were the discussions about centralized selling vs non-centralized but also racial currencies and even NPC currencies. Your Orcs, Goblins, Kobolds and other such sentient societal creatures would each have their own currencies. Your relationships and standings would have significant long lasting ramifications. That's a good thing and it is what this game needs.
Interdependence
The reality is that many game aspects are intertwined and related to each other in tighly knit ways. Any one of these strands could potentially unravel your INTENT through the law of 'unforseen circumstances'.
1. INSTANT/FAST TRAVEL (Risk = Severe) :
For a local economy to function there must be NO fast travel available. By this, I mean a simple, cheap, universally available method of instantly travelling from A to B where these two points are a distance apart. Global access to 'travel hubs' with city-to-city instant travel is an example. Clicky-portals, as per Planed of Power / Nexus is another example. In other words - you cannot have regional economies if you 'reduce travel time' to(wards) zero.
2. (MAIL) DELIVERY SYSTEMS (Risk = Low to Severe) :
Local economies will also fail if there is methods of delivery of good that 'ignore' the intervening distance. To do so would be no different than allowing you instant-travel to the sale point. If there are in-game delivery methods instead (such as PC/NPC wagon trains which need to traverse the intervening distance) with associated costs (which vary by distance) then you can reduce impact of this strand to low, down from severe.
NB: For local economies to thrive, transportation TIME and COST by be significant. Transporting 2 tons of iron ore across 300 miles of bad road will take 15-24 game-days. And the cost will be not insignificant. If, instead of iron ore, you were transporting a 400 Lb chest your time would reduce to 10-14 days ... but the cost would depend on the contents and YOUR decision as to how valuable it is. If it were 6 silver ingots, 200 emeralds, 2 High-Quality Sword moulds and a magical suit of armour you might want to hire a guard. Or two.
3. GLOBAL AH (Risk = High to Severe) :
Auction Houses collate the prices of good for comparison. The action described is not a bad one, and works to lower prices (** exception for price rigging through monopoly) through competition, but acts to destroy local economies unless transportation time and costs are significant and unavoidable.
4. ZERO RISK (Risk = Medium to Severe) :
Current MMOs take no account of item value, ease of theft and environmental dangers. Since none of these factors exists, it is perfectly fine to buy your chest full of gold ingots and have them delivered 2000 miles through bandit infested hills and through 3 cities known for high levels of corruption. Buying 3000 Oak logs is also fine since the transportation costs do not take into account the materials transported - in terms of bulk and hardship to transport. Unless down-river, the freighting costs alone would render it uneconomic to buy timber except in small quantities. Indeed, for almost any item bought/sold, the transportation costs are small compared to the reality of transporting the item by wagon, under guard, across a mountain range or two. Thus, as with the lucrative transportation of goods (silks, teas, opium and porcelain) to/from Hong Kong to Britain by clipper ship, there was a very real danger of complete loss at sea. This was a substantial risk and was only acceptible because of the high profit margins gained trading between two local markets.
All-in-All, a decision to have regional economies is a decision with consequences in other areas. This is not to say it is a bad idea, just that the 'effort to implement' must be predicated on inclusion of the other, needed components, thus making it more effort intensive unless these other strands are already 'part of the Vision'.
TL;DR :
If you want a Local/Regional Economy to work : DISTANCES MUST MATTER.
For day-to-day needs, players only NEED local markets to be searcheable.
For high-value/rare items, let the players figure out how to meet player WANTS.
Horrible Idea. You think it sounds good but its not, it just serves to piss a lot of people off. Running from town to town for hours on end looking for something you need is a terrible idea. Why do you care if someone wants to spend their time playing the market? And trust me, it requires a lot of time. People are contastantly adding new items so the player would have to constantly keep on top of buying them. The games where the devs try and control the market always fail. The first reply gave two examples and you can use ESO online as another.
ESO Market place was among the top 3 reasons i quit that game. Horrible, just horrible. Not to mention citys in starter areas will be ghost towns after a while as everyone levels up or an expac comes out. I want to get back to town, post my items for sale, or buy an item i need, and get right back to exploring/leveling. I really dont understand why people have to romanticise this "little shop" in each town.
It flat out doesn't work.
I have made the best experiences with a global auction house. In games with other market mechanics most players stopped trading with other players and made many alts with different jobs. The goal was to be independent as possible. A good example is TESO. The trading in this game is simply dead. You cannot find soething you want and other players cannot find your offers because of too many trading guilds and local merchants.
Greetings
@beatifully
It rather depends on how it is implemented. The trick is *not* to strictly define the economic model, but to provide non-destructive tools for the players and see where it leads.
I gave an example of a town/city marketplace in another thread :
the tools for the buyer I mooted was a 'search by urchin' system. This would allow you (the buyer) to search the regional market, at cost for ease, to get a snapshot of items in the marketplace. To maintain it as 'regional' it required you (the buyer) to go buy your item once located.
This kind of mechanism alleviates the 'search every hen-house, boat-house' idea while retaining the concept of distance as a barrier. Any mechanism that deminishes distance, removes socialising and immersion.
Example:
Imagine a craftable item :
'Traders Noticeboard' - when erected, it spawns 3 urchins who (upon payment of 1 cp) run round a certain distance from the noticeboard and collate any items for sale - then return to eh board with this information which they write upon it.
What if players could craft one and erect it where needed (its durability drops over time if not used, say). There might even be a 'Trader Station' that can be crafted on (major) roadsides that ensure any passing merchants pass along the last snapshot of the local market up to the next roadside trader station or next largest town, if in range. This gives a (push) pyramid of information eventually available at the main town/city, rather than the AH style of (pull) searching. It does, though, matain fidelity of distance. for data transfer and requires players still go and buy the item in person!
Comments?
PS: It is incredibly important, from a game design perspective, to ensure Towns do *not* become Ghost-towns. If the only time players venture into town is for a weekly shopping trip ... pickup profits, drop-off items for sale, dash back out ... then the town is dead. Worse still in games with instanced housing/Guildhalls, particularly those with the ability to buy/sell without interaction from within.
I posted an idea in another post about this type of thing...
I would like to see notice boards in each town on which people can list their trades and what they can make and that way people can contact them directly and thrash out a deal for whatever item it is they want crafted.
The same could work for trade mats etc, I post on a notice board that I sell a certain trade mat for a certain price and then people contact me directly to arrange the deal. This way there is no monopolisation and we all have to talk to each other to arrange the sale and purchase of goods which encourages socialisation and maintaining a good reputation and yet we have a easily searchable database and we should all be able to find whatever it is we are looking for.
You could also post an ad saying that you are looking for certain trade mats etc and are willing to pay a certain price and people could fulfil your order for you. It would encourage ongoing friendships and would lead to people being known for what they sell / buy...
This could be global though that would be somewhat immersion breaking so keeping it local would make more sense. Looking for wood, go to that town near the large forest... Need ore? Head to the town near the mountain... I'm sure people would still set up in player created trade hubs and peddle their wares but with trade notice boards in each town you should always be able to find someone who is selling what you want.
If in game mail and transportation of goods restricts how things can be sent then someone who is willing to transport a large amount of wood to the mountainside town is likely to be able to sell it for more than in the forest town where lots of people are selling. It would make trading, crafting and gathering far more involved than just dumping stuff on the AH and logging on a few hours later to find gold in your mail box.
Quote Aradune from Feb 2016
"Well, first of all what I can say for certain is there will be no global auction house or bazarre. We want travel and remote regions to matter and for trade to take place in different areas and to see items fluctuate in value depending on how hard it was or wasn't to obtain and then bring to the area where you want to sell it. A player driven economy, as I've said many times, is paramount to Pantheon."
Unquote
We will not have a Global Auction House in Pantheon. How the local trading is set up seems to still be up for discussion; I will venture a guess that most of the trade system will be figured out organically, as will the player driven economy.
Sounds fun.
Evoras said:Interdependence
The reality is that many game aspects are intertwined and related to each other in tighly knit ways. Any one of these strands could potentially unravel your INTENT through the law of 'unforseen circumstances'.
1. INSTANT/FAST TRAVEL (Risk = Severe) :
For a local economy to function there must be NO fast travel available. By this, I mean a simple, cheap, universally available method of instantly travelling from A to B where these two points are a distance apart. Global access to 'travel hubs' with city-to-city instant travel is an example. Clicky-portals, as per Planed of Power / Nexus is another example. In other words - you cannot have regional economies if you 'reduce travel time' to(wards) zero.
2. (MAIL) DELIVERY SYSTEMS (Risk = Low to Severe) :
Local economies will also fail if there is methods of delivery of good that 'ignore' the intervening distance. To do so would be no different than allowing you instant-travel to the sale point. If there are in-game delivery methods instead (such as PC/NPC wagon trains which need to traverse the intervening distance) with associated costs (which vary by distance) then you can reduce impact of this strand to low, down from severe.
NB: For local economies to thrive, transportation TIME and COST by be significant. Transporting 2 tons of iron ore across 300 miles of bad road will take 15-24 game-days. And the cost will be not insignificant. If, instead of iron ore, you were transporting a 400 Lb chest your time would reduce to 10-14 days ... but the cost would depend on the contents and YOUR decision as to how valuable it is. If it were 6 silver ingots, 200 emeralds, 2 High-Quality Sword moulds and a magical suit of armour you might want to hire a guard. Or two.
3. GLOBAL AH (Risk = High to Severe) :
Auction Houses collate the prices of good for comparison. The action described is not a bad one, and works to lower prices (** exception for price rigging through monopoly) through competition, but acts to destroy local economies unless transportation time and costs are significant and unavoidable.
4. ZERO RISK (Risk = Medium to Severe) :
Current MMOs take no account of item value, ease of theft and environmental dangers. Since none of these factors exists, it is perfectly fine to buy your chest full of gold ingots and have them delivered 2000 miles through bandit infested hills and through 3 cities known for high levels of corruption. Buying 3000 Oak logs is also fine since the transportation costs do not take into account the materials transported - in terms of bulk and hardship to transport. Unless down-river, the freighting costs alone would render it uneconomic to buy timber except in small quantities. Indeed, for almost any item bought/sold, the transportation costs are small compared to the reality of transporting the item by wagon, under guard, across a mountain range or two. Thus, as with the lucrative transportation of goods (silks, teas, opium and porcelain) to/from Hong Kong to Britain by clipper ship, there was a very real danger of complete loss at sea. This was a substantial risk and was only acceptible because of the high profit margins gained trading between two local markets.
All-in-All, a decision to have regional economies is a decision with consequences in other areas. This is not to say it is a bad idea, just that the 'effort to implement' must be predicated on inclusion of the other, needed components, thus making it more effort intensive unless these other strands are already 'part of the Vision'.
TL;DR :
If you want a Local/Regional Economy to work : DISTANCES MUST MATTER.
For day-to-day needs, players only NEED local markets to be searcheable.
For high-value/rare items, let the players figure out how to meet player WANTS.
Very nice details and yes:
If you want a Local/Regional Economy to work : DISTANCES MUST MATTER.
For day-to-day needs, players only NEED local markets to be searcheable.
beautifully said:Horrible Idea. You think it sounds good but its not, it just serves to piss a lot of people off. Running from town to town for hours on end looking for something you need is a terrible idea. Why do you care if someone wants to spend their time playing the market? And trust me, it requires a lot of time. People are contastantly adding new items so the player would have to constantly keep on top of buying them. The games where the devs try and control the market always fail. The first reply gave two examples and you can use ESO online as another.
ESO Market place was among the top 3 reasons i quit that game. Horrible, just horrible. Not to mention citys in starter areas will be ghost towns after a while as everyone levels up or an expac comes out. I want to get back to town, post my items for sale, or buy an item i need, and get right back to exploring/leveling. I really dont understand why people have to romanticise this "little shop" in each town.
It flat out doesn't work.
Please give us facts to understand why this wont work?
:)
Skycaster said:Quote Aradune from Feb 2016
"Well, first of all what I can say for certain is there will be no global auction house or bazarre. We want travel and remote regions to matter and for trade to take place in different areas and to see items fluctuate in value depending on how hard it was or wasn't to obtain and then bring to the area where you want to sell it. A player driven economy, as I've said many times, is paramount to Pantheon."
Unquote
We will not have a Global Auction House in Pantheon. How the local trading is set up seems to still be up for discussion; I will venture a guess that most of the trade system will be figured out organically, as will the player driven economy.
Sounds fun.
Yes it does.....and its all about what can we do or VR can do to make the local economies work to help players and bring enjoyment and the benefits as well the crafting system as this is an intergral part of the game too.
@Evoras
1. We will have fast travel but it will be limited to certain classes being able to cast it (they probably have to earn it first). And I think they said a very few ways to travel long distance like between continents. That could be a teleport or it could mean a 15 min boat ride?
2. 15- 24 days to deliver something? Think I could probably run it there in a few trips back and forth easier. Also didnt Brad say pack animals to store items? I guess it depends on a couple of things but Id say we would probably be fine being able to send limited items or some kind of daily limit. (For anti RMT measures Im totally in favor of not being able to send money though.) That being said with teleportation and pack mules and the fact that you will likely (at upper levels) be able to go most anywhere in an hour or so at most, Im not seeing 15-24 game days being very realisitic to send a delivery. Nevermind that its excessive, and although immersion is important, there is no need to chase people away from the game. The game wont be for everyone true, but lets not go out of our way to reduce player population.
3. As someone else quoted already, but Brad said there wont be any Global AH (which doesnt mean no local AH) or Bazaar (Im guessing he means no automated and/or offline Bazaar?) So we could have Local only AH, but not sure that would work in the end. Or any other system to make local ecomies to be honest. I think it make take a couple of years but everyone will eventually self-centralize the market. No matter if one AH is chosen as the main, or its an EC tunnel like place. Everyone is always talking about not putting in too many game mechanics and making the game less immersive. But its OK to do it if it is for the economy? Is stifling emergent behavior in favor of the economy ok?
4. Totally against this for PvE servers, but this could be a good thing for PvP servers maybe? Could Bandit Guilds be a thing in an open PvP server? (Lots more questions than answers for that one: factions, available quests, Can player KoS?)
I dont have all the answers. But I will offer the advise to never go too crazy with realism. Certain portions of the game or a certain portion of a system can be made to be more real and immersive. But their comes a point where if you push it too far VR will just be going out of their way to chase away potential players. Make it real, make it immersive, make it social, but dont take it too far. This is still a game and fun needs to be considered. I know some would say but we do consider this fun so dont take it away. But others would say we dont consider this fun so why do you force us.
I'd be ok with a EC tunnel type situation with a bulletin or list board. You still need to actually arrange to meet the seller/buyer and trade for it, but would be able to find what you need quicker. I'd also like a way to quickly offload items I dont want to spend time selling (Selling it for cheap to an NPC, or possibly a consignment system). Lastly cheap Vendor for crap versions of any "needed" consumables. These would be items you buy in an emergency if you just have to have them to function even if they are of horrible quality (Example: 1 copper garbage arrows for Rangers).
Final thoughts: Ballance game mechanics, social interaction, immersion, and some level of convenience. Meet in the middle.
If anyone wants to see no global auction house in action, today, this very second, you should try Pathfinder Online or Shroud of the Avatar. They both have no global auction house, today. Live, persistent, today.
And after you've tried those, you may change your mind. :)
This is one of those things that sounds great in theory, but is a tremendously painful in-game mechanic, in practice. Searching through thousands of player vendors or hundreds or dozens of towns, every day, just to find out what you want isn't available? It's not fun.
If teleportation, recall, gate or fast -travel of any kind exists, regional economies logically cannot exist. That's already been proven in Shroud of the Avatar, which tried to create regional economy with fast travel. Epic Fail.
I agree that distance should matter, and it should matter in the sense of " You have to go there to get it ". Sure, that doesn't mean the only other option is a global instant-buy-anywhere/instant-sell-anywhere auction house. Knowing where you need to travel to get the item you want? That's extremely important. If players can't get that information, in-game? They won't buy. The economy stalls. And again, if you don't think that's what will happen, that's exactly what has happened in the two most recent games to try it, mentioned above.
It would be a shame if VR/Pantheon didn't learn from history and have, at least, a global search-for-sale interface.
I used to be a big proponent of no global anything until I actually played games that had no global bank, no global search-for-sale interface, and no fast travel of any kind. It's just not fun, in my opinion.
To me, It's drudgery, toil, inconvenience, a job, and/or punitive mechanics, and I'm paying to be entertained by it? Hehehe. Doesn't quite add up, for me.
vjek said:If anyone wants to see no global auction house in action, today, this very second, you should try Pathfinder Online or Shroud of the Avatar. They both have no global auction house, today. Live, persistent, today.
And after you've tried those, you may change your mind. :)
As someone that played PFO also, yeah, it is horrible. I understand the need for areas within the game where players congregate, but having dozens of people AFK in an area while they sift through a giant list of items does just the opposite.
I want a reasonable means to search for items. A good solution has been suggested already, notice-boards where you could enter your WTS and WTB offers. These should be searchable...wether regional only, or global can be debated (I agree with above posts that regional trade is not really possible if any form of fast travel is in the game).
Note that there should be no buy, sell or send functions connected with these boards. So you cannot (AH style) click on an item and buy it that way. You just see entries on the board like "WTS my super sword for 5pp, PST to PlayerXY". Then its up to you to contact that player.
The advantages are obvious:
- no need for players to stand around for hours in a place, trying to sell their wares
- less chat spam required in trading zones
There's probably more. Items being offered should also be marked in your inventory, so if you actually sell them (= they are not in your inventory anymore), the WTS entries on the board can be automatically removed. That's a convenience feature I would like to see, to keep the board clean from obsolete entries.
Umbra said:vjek said:If anyone wants to see no global auction house in action, today, this very second, you should try Pathfinder Online or Shroud of the Avatar. They both have no global auction house, today. Live, persistent, today.
And after you've tried those, you may change your mind. :)
As someone that played PFO also, yeah, it is horrible. I understand the need for areas within the game where players congregate, but having dozens of people AFK in an area while they sift through a giant list of items does just the opposite.
I tried PFO also and in their defense, the AH functionality has gotten better in a recent patch. Taken from the 11.4 release notes: Auction House sorts Inventory, Local Vault, Sell Orders and Bids alphabetically.
Eve did it best!
It was not an across the server global economy.
It was structured around hubs of economy and players had to travel back and forth, to find the best deals, and sell to make the most profit.
I like the idea of meaningful travel, even if sometimes it is time consuming. Makes the game more immersive. If you are forced to load larger items aboard wagons, and/or ships then it adds an entire dynamic of risk and possible loss. Frustrating at times, yes. Exhilerating, absolutely. Promotes grouping and strategy.
Klumpedge said:Eve did it best!
It was not an across the server global economy.
It was structured around hubs of economy and players had to travel back and forth, to find the best deals, and sell to make the most profit.
I like the idea of meaningful travel, even if sometimes it is time consuming. Makes the game more immersive. If you are forced to load larger items aboard wagons, and/or ships then it adds an entire dynamic of risk and possible loss. Frustrating at times, yes. Exhilerating, absolutely. Promotes grouping and strategy.
I'm with you, Klump - EVE's system is top of the line.
Implementing an EVE-like market into Pantheon would be similar to having regionalized auction houses (worked well in EVE, where there are literally 1000s of "auction houses"), which I don't think is necessarily a bad idea, but it would be nice (like others have said) to have some direct player-to-player interaction in the buy/sell game.
In any case, I am 100% on board with regionalized economies. They not only lead to a more immersive experience, but can potentially lead to more dynamic gameplay by encouraging travel between regions, and the adventure that that entails!
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe in Eve you can search globally and purchase remotely, but you have to travel to the AH location to pick up the item. That all sounds fine to me. I would hate to have to go to each AH region, do a search, not find what I want, go to the next AH region, etc etc. If I can easily find what I want and purchase it, but then have to go get it, then that is fine.
Though, I guess some people are saying they don't want to see the price globally for some reason. I guess people think there is going to be some magic economy that happens because of that, but I'm pretty sure most people aren't too stupid and will figure out that "Item X" typically sells for around "Price Y" and that's what it will be listed for and purchased for.
I *think*, but could be wrong, that the location of the AH house could factor into the price as well. In Eve, if you had to pickup an item in nullsec, the prices would probably be a little cheaper due to the risk in getting the item.
I get the intent of not having the global AH, but I really don't see it being a fun experience using the AH and I suspect people will work around it if it is too much of a pain and come up with another solution like the EC tunnel.
Edit: Eve market browser -- https://eve-central.com/home/quicklook.html?typeid=41236
Like fast travel and global chat, global auction houses make the world smaller. Areas will lose their flavor. In general, if travel is restrictive, then regions will have certain drops that are going to be common place as those are what's available to the people playing in that area. It will make seeing that "Ice Sword of Awesomeness" from the other side of the globe that much more of an event if they aren't in everyone's hands because they can just be purchased on the global market. This provides more incentive to travel in a world where travel is supposed to mean something.
When discussing this, I work from a point of imagining a system that :
(i) fulfils the player 'need' (buy/sell and find stuff to buy)
(ii) maintains the 'fun' factor
(iii) is cost effective in 'game benefit vs development time'
(iv) fulfils the player 'wants' .... but not at the expense of (ii) or (iii)
(v) increases immersion/realism .... but not at the expense of (ii) or (iii)
Reading the various options in posts, I look at what may be possible to implement (on top of a 'bare bones' system that is likely the early pre-alpha version of PTF) and what is unlikely.
1. Critical Factor not taken into account:
Looking back and comparing the original EQ, we see the likes of 'regional markets' as represented by the EC tunnel. However there is a misleading assumption taken with regards this parallel. Scale.
The zones I have seen in PTF are much larger than the earlier zones in both EQ1 and EQ2. This means that the argument of a 'single trader hub' existing at the expense of all other areas is not accurate.
2. People need to search for goods
While this is true, unless there is fast travel, they must then travel to the goods to buy them. In a very large world, it seems nonsense to expect people to travel regularly over great distances merely to buy slightly cheaper wood logs!
This does not mean regional markets would fail - just that there would be more than one trading hub. In our 'bigger EQ world' example, there would be a trader hub in 'EC Tunnel', 'N Karana', 'GFey' etc i.e. anywhere where there were players adventuring and where geography allows for an intersection of travelling routes.
What would be the point of a 'global search' for 'cans of coke' which showed me that there were some cheap cans on offer in Brisbane? I am *not* going to travel there .... I am more likely to go to the nearby London Hub and buy them there - even at a slightly higher price.
3. Solution (from a DEV perspective)
(a) SEARCH: Avoid global AH's, but allow some mechanism (eg a 'notice board') that can 'collect' any sales information in a limited area. Perhaps larger notice boards can read sales from farther away, while the 'basic' one has a pretty tiny area? E.g. 'Crude Notice Board' (1/4 zone), ''Basic Notice Board' (1 zone), 'Medium Notice Board' (2 zones) and 'Guild Notice Board' (4 zones). Vary as needed.
(b) DELIVERY: If any form of delivery is allowed, ensure that the time for delivery exceeds that of a player travelling there themselves by a factor of at least 50% and preferably over 100%. If the delivery time exceeds the critical 100% marker, then this implies it is just as quick to go there, get it, and return as deliver it to you. Deliveries should be to 'fixed' locations, using static buildings (eg Banks, post offices etc) already in the system. Delivery costs should be a combination of 'fixed' and 'variable' costs. The fixed tariff will deter people buying tiny quantities of goods from a distant market. It should represent variation based on faction, sales tax, legality, danger of transport and how perishable. The variable costs should reflect DISTANCE and viable trade/travel routes.
(c) BUY/SELL: There is no system that can be put in to replace an 'online player sales' buy/sell method without significant development resources (other than AFK selling). However, there is a variation of a clever idea I heard on the VoT discussion about commerce and economy that might be workable and 'cheap', from a development perspective', to implement.
The idea centred about having a henchman or NPC vendor who did your selling. This 'merchant' was to be placed at certain 'hubs' to vendor goods for you... but he only did so while you were online. This was to allow you to 'park' your vendor at location #1 and then go adventure at location #2. This could be worked by having the 'merchant' as just a '2nd location' for your character, or an 'echo point' if you like. Perhaps even code it as a 'bag', 'vendor' or even a 'sub-set' of goods for a merchant to sell.
The downside would be doubling the number of characters (might be good news in some areas) in the game, plus may result in less face-to-face interactions. It would not need new models or textures but would need some-to-significant coding depending on how it was implemented.
SUMMARY:
Players only need to be able to search for goods they are likely to actually travel to and buy. I.e. close enough. If the world is large enough, then each 'regional market' is itself a 'global market' in that it covers all the areas you are likely to travel to without significant investment in time and effort. Thus, as long as a regional search mechanic covers this regional market, there is no 'loss'.
Any elements that seek to distort this distance will cripple the economy. If I can get an item delivered in 2 minutes, but it takes 4 hours to run there to collect it (at great danger) then I will never go there. If, on the other hand, it takes 5 RL days to deliver (note: at 2 hours per night, 4 hours = 2 RL days. Thus delivery time must be a minimum of time to travel there and back = 4 RL days.) we have a situation where you may well decide to go get it.
With a big world, it is more likely that many regional hubs will exist. Travel time to the hub will determine how many hubs there would be. Let players decide on this.