I had posted these ideas a few years back in the Death to AH thread, since people are giving alternatives to the ECT trading system, I figured I'd repost here (Warning - Long Read summarized here, was two novels of posts originally):
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1. Consignment style (See 1st post above): the players would take a cut of the items sold - perhaps more/less depending on their success rates. And those players would have to be online to run their shops. There Could be Regional Community Vaults that players could store their goods for consignment for a fee (so it couldn't be abused as an "extra" bank) and those who wanted to play /merchant could pay the vault a fee to retrieve the goods to try to sell while online. Also, perhaps there could be some sort of trader license or merchant skill that was raised that gives the merchant a higher cut of the sale? Could scrap the license idea and keep the baseline consignment system altogether, but just used for another layer of depth
Now... for the rest of the idea - don't pay attention to the numbers, they're all hypothetical to just discuss the idea.
For the player to put items in the vault at all there should be a 10% fee of what you want the item sold for. So if I place the item in the Regional Consignment Vault for 1,000 gold. Vault Fee automatically takes 10% (100 g) to avoid abuse.
Now for the trader - Maybe that have to pay for the stall/shop fee - 5-10% of earnings? If the trader had their own shop/stall, maybe they'd pay less or no fee? And let's say the trader takes a flat 30% cut off consignment.
So, theoretically the original player could earn 60% of the item (or up to 85% if you use your License idea). And, if after a period of time the player (who puts the items in the vault) realizes the item isn't sold, and wants to get the item. The player could retrieve the item and try to sell it themselves or vendor it at that point, but would be out at least the 100 gold listing fee.
And, I thought of a way to make sure the player was present as well. The searching of items could be automated within the shop, where a buyer could /search a list, but the buyer would need to send the /merchant a tell to purchase the item, and then a manual trade window would need to be opened to complete the transaction. And, once the item is removed from the search list, the shop takes the 5-10% cut.
2. Bulletin Board. Correct, not a way to buy or sell, but mainly a "convenience" to search what is available to buy/sell (not sure how trade would be figured) - similar to Craigslist/classified. A 5% item charge to list (so 50 gold for a 1000 gold item). You typically have to pay for classified ads, but usually not for Craigslist though. But, it would be an added convenience where a player wouldn't have to /shout WTS/WTB all day long, so 5% doesn't seem too high.
WTS items - Classified ads/Cragislist style where a player could list everything being sold
WTB Items - Classified ads/Craigslist style where a player could list everything they want to buy
WTT items - Classified ads/Craigslist style where a player could say trading 2 short swords of ykeshas for 1 FBSS
3. EC Style Tunnel. Player could earn full value on item because the trader is physically present, and selling their items.
4. Expanded EC style: Player run shop. Player has to be physically present, and, there's no cost/fees outside of the cost it was to purchase a house/shop or guild shop, etc. Similar to the merchant consignment shop though the players could /search for items but the trade would have to be manually to avoid abuse. Players could still auction items.
5. One other compromise I'd be ok with as well would be a commodities market. You could sell commodities (tradeskill items, research componentes, etc.) to regional commodities vendors could give a flat rate and mark them up 4-5 times what they buy them for. Then, the players could purchase the commodities of the vendors. Or, players could try to still sell the components EC style for 2-3 times the rate and give the player a discount for buying them in person versus the vendor.
And, I'd want all these items to be regional versus global. I know I'm making it more complicated than an AH, but, I want to see the game world and trade stay alive versus having the automation while not just having EQ reskinned.
What if we had an AH purely for commodities - crafting materials and other bulk items that are identical no matter who is selling - while non-commodity items (perhaps crafted/dropped gear, mounts/pets, cosmetic toys, whatever else) would be sold through some other means - face-to-face or on a "bulletin board" or whatever.
I like WildStar's Commodities Exchange especially as it allows players to list both buy orders and sell orders, so it functions in both directions. A player listing their bulk items can choose to either "sell now" (fulfilling someone's buy order) or list them normally. It also lumps all listings for a single item together in one category; for example, all Signs of Fire are under a single listing. The price on the UI is the lowest price someone listed for; as you purchase Signs of Fire, the price will change as you buy up various peoples' supplies (i.e. you want to buy 200 Signs of Fire; someone listed 50 for 10 silver each, another person listed 150 for 11 silver each; the UI would display the 10 silver price until you bought 50, at which point the price listing changes to the next lowest). VR would need to come up with a better way to display pricing, though, as it was hard to play a guessing game as to how many items were actually listed at the given price. xD
LucasBlackstone said:I will try reiterate the reasons I think auction houses are bad for the game again. Though honestly it doesn't matter since people are diehard set on their views for both sides of the fence and since they are far off from being implemented and receiving tester feedback in the game itself.
A) Auction Houses promote less player interaction. It doesn't matter if you can still trade face to face, many lazy players who want instant gratification will click a button to get 10 wolf pelts instead of interact with another player. I think player interaction with people besides those you may adventure with ( people in your guild or your level range when you go to x zone to adventure as examples ) is a good thing.
B) Auction Houses are bad for the economy for two reasons. First, when people get a lot of money to spend, they will dominate the market and overprice things that people need for basics. Auction Houses promote the abuse of the economy because people can instantly buy all of a commodity and re-price it at their leisure and whatever overinflated value they want. Again, because many people are lazy and won't go gather their own resources, they will instead fuel this cycle of overpriced goods. While it is possible to replicate this with in-person trading, it is MUCH more difficult to do so because said traders have to be on at the same time the other traders are on, go find them, and then purchase said goods and transport said goods if it is not done near the banks. I am fine with people spending hours trading and putting the work into making a fortune, just like I am fine with people putting work into crafting and making a fortune, or putting work into raiding and getting rewards. I am not fine with people getting a bunch of money given to them by their guild, then they sit in the AH for 30 seconds, and now possess all the iron ore that was put up on the AH, and resell it for 10 times the price. This is EXACTLY what AHs promote. I know personally from doing it in WoW all the time and being gold capped all the time and knowing many others who did the same.
Second, people who sell in game currency often facilitate auction houses to make things easier. This is a minor point because it is much easier to work around a one time trade of coin, but I would rather see things more difficult for people who violate gaming policy by buying in game currency, rather then gold farmer x puts up 1 wolf pelt for 10000 platinum. Then jerk gold buyer y, at their leisure, clicks 1 button and instant payout. This second point again is much more minor because nothing will actually stop people from selling in game currency unless VR can and will monitor trades involving a lot of coin. I personally don't know how hard it is to do that but I assume if it was easy, most mmo's would do it and that is why it is not done.
So please possibly re-think if an AH is actually a good thing or not. Don't be afraid to make friends in Pantheon by trading with people. Or make friends with people who like to trade, and let them do the "dirty work" of trading for you. I've seen that happen in games too. There are more wheeler and dealer types out there then you may expect. Give them a list of things you want and what you are willing to spend. Then go to work, go adventure, go to sleep, or whatever else you want to do besides trading in an mmo. Then collect your goods from your friend when you see them.
In a game that is as group centric as this will be. It's ok if some mechanics limit player interaction. You are going to have more than enough interaction on a day to day basis that you don't need everything to be centered around it.
A very very small amount of people care about manipulating the auction house. Designing something to prevent a small minority from doing something it's a slippery slope. Items are only worth what someone is willing to payfor them. If you place all the iron ore up for 10pp a piece when it's normally 2pp... I can either buy it, gather it myself... or get this, do exactly what you are trying to promote and either buy it face to face or hire someone to go out and farm it for me.
Ah's don't make rmt'ing easier or harder, so there's not really anything else to say about that.
Porygon said:In a game that is as group centric as this will be. It's ok if some mechanics limit player interaction. You are going to have more than enough interaction on a day to day basis that you don't need everything to be centered around it.
A very very small amount of people care about manipulating the auction house. Designing something to prevent a small minority from doing something it's a slippery slope. Items are only worth what someone is willing to payfor them. If you place all the iron ore up for 10pp a piece when it's normally 2pp... I can either buy it, gather it myself... or get this, do exactly what you are trying to promote and either buy it face to face or hire someone to go out and farm it for me.
Ah's don't make rmt'ing easier or harder, so there's not really anything else to say about that.
Agree with your sentiments around AH not being as impactful when so many other grouping / socilization mechanics exist.
But any manipulation to a market, regardless of the number involved, is a very bad thing. Any time the few can adversely affect the many, is bad. This is not meant to be an argument against AH's in general. I'm sure there are ways to mitigate this even in an automated auction house. But to just accept that as a fact of life is, well, unacceptable. My hope is VR is considering this and thinking of reasonable, well thought out solutions one way or another. :)
I'm still all for people meeting people they normally wouldn't. But that's just me. And by no means do I expect others have to enjoy it. But I don't see the reason to remove it with a path of least resistance that usually comes with the aforementioned troubles.
While it's true a small amount of people abuse the AH in and of itself, it affects most of the server ( by this I mean anyone who wants to buy goods at inflated prices, and the actual crafters/gatherers who may not even know their goods are being wholesale bought and resold ). So to say it affects only a small portion of people isn't really true at all. Only a small portion of the server benefits from the AH abuse, this is true.
What I would be behind is fixed values on items. Then the AH wouldn't be a source of abuse. Add in a fee I guess if people wanted because of the time saved. Removing the social aspect of trading with a typical AH just seems bad to me on both ends. But a fixed price AH would at least prevent the abuse portion of it.
I wish people would stop with the "AHs are bad" and then base their argument on what other MMORPGs have done with AHs. This is a NEW GAME. AHs do not have to work the same.
"AHs allow people to manipulate the market"
So, restrict the amount that can be spent/bought. This would also make the ECT folks happy, since people wanting to do a *lot* of trading would be forced to suppliment their practice with /auction spamming.
Also, yes, this can and is done in ECT style trading.
"AHs stop social interaction"
So, it's debatable whether "WTS Stein of Moggok 100pp" "T1?" and a clicky trade dialog is "social interaction", but let's say it is: The AH doesn't have to eliminate this. There could be, like eBay, a "Buy It Now" option or an "Auction" option or players could simply use it as a filterable, searchable bulletin board and seek each other out to complete the transaction, avoiding any taxes or whatever.
This would actually *enhance* social interaction, since a lot of people ordinarily just ignoring trading will be pulled into it by the initial convenience of the filter/search/list, but can then do some 1 to 1 bargaining.
TL;DR: There is no reason a Pantheon AH will work like any other previous MMORPG. If the phrase Auction House has negative intrinsic associations, perhaps we should talk about "Trading Systems" or something?
LucasBlackstone actually makes some reasonable points - any chance someone from VR can ban him from this thread? It violates the unwritten rules.
Just kidding, there are many posts here on both sides that raise good points whether I agree with them or not.
I am totally unpersuaded by the "this is a social game" argument. If one of the top 10 ways to socialize is to stand around spamming "want to buy" or "want to sell" for hours Pantheon has already failed.
But the "bad for the economy" points are valid from my own experience as well.
To focus on my favorite example - since I do a lot of crafting and harvesting in MMOs. Take someone that goes out and harvests 50 chunks of copper and wants to sell it. How should this work. Possibilities:
1. Sell it to a NPC whose prices are high enough to make this worth the effort. Terrible idea. Guts the crafting system since if harvesters sell to NPCs the resources won't be available to actually craft with. Yes crafters can also harvest but competition will be excessive and prices for even low level crafted items will be very high since they will naturally be based on the value of the resources plus the time taken to get the resources plus some more for the time to craft the items. The game should encourage the sale of harvested items to crafters or them being used to craft with by the harvesters.
2. Stand around for hours being "social" spamming "looking to sell 50 chunks of copper". Just as terrible an idea. Commodity resources aren't worth the time, and if I have to waste 3 hours finding someone that wants the 50 chunks I will triple the price so it is worth my while. Plus the mindset that enjoys going out and harvesting is not likely the same mindset as the ECT traders. I just wouldn't do this.
3. Bulletin board. Better but I may need to hold onto the 50 chunks for quite a while waiting for a nibble. Then I have to figure out what a fair price is. Then the other person and I need to be on at the same time and not busy doing other things. Then we need to agree on a price. All this for 50 chunks of copper.
4. Sales channel or worse yet people spamming in world or zone chat. Same disadvantages together with the likelihood that it will scroll down so fast almost no one will ever see my ad - thus requiring even more spam. And if I am in a group while doing this (and that is rather the objective of the game is it not?) what do I do if I get a nibble? Talk to a potential buyer and stop healing or tanking for 5 minutes?
5. Some form of broker or auction house or commodities exchange. Yes as LucasBlackstone correctly says these can be and will be manipulated - but at least I can sell the accursed 50 chunks and get on with my virtual life - and they will probably wind up in a crafter's hands.
If you want to encourage a bazaar, slap a high fee on. Limit the value of items that can be sold. Make it a crafters exchange where *nothing* can be sold other than materials that can be used to craft with and items that have been crafted. This will infuriate the raiders who don't want to waste raiding time standing in the ECT any more than I want to waste harvesting/crafting time but I am not a raider - they are quite capable of writing their own posts saying how bizzare it is to force them into a bazaar.
disposalist said: ... TL;DR: There is no reason a Pantheon AH will work like any other previous MMORPG. If the phrase Auction House has negative intrinsic associations, perhaps we should talk about "Trading Systems" or something?
It doesn't matter what you call it, the devil is in the details. Or in this case, the mechanics involved. Here, I'll outline a trading system that is difficult to abuse:
At launch, there are 5 escrow agents per continent. There are three continents. In each continent, there is one agent per tier. First agent is level 1-9, second agent level 10-19, third agent level 20-29, fourth agent level 30-39, fifth agent level 40-49. Sellers/Adventurers come to this tier hubs after adventuring to offload their items and get back to the dungeons/fighting.
All the escrow agents do is accept items for sale and hold them until the buyer (or seller, if they don't sell) picks them up. The seller interacts with the escrow agent, sets a price, and 25% of the selling price is immediately withdrawn from the seller, non-refundable. The seller can remove the for-sale item at any time from the escrow agent, and they pay an additional 25% of the selling price penalty to do so. Items are available for sale for 7 RL days, after which the seller can obtain the item from the escrow agent for free. You could also setup something like additional fees for additional days, if you wanted to.
So now what? Buyers want to buy. They go to some other NPC/interactable somewhere and they can search. All they can do is search. They can't buy. They can't have items delivered. Search only. No buy. No delivery. No buy, no delivery, only search.
The search results tell the buyer where the item may be obtained (which continent & which escrow agent has it) and how much it costs. The buyer travels to that escrow agent and buys it. Buyers only see items they have searched for and marked for purchase, but this doesn't reserve the item, it just makes it visible at the escrow agent for purchase, for them. Any number of buyers can do this concurrently. Without this, no items are visible for puchase at an escrow agent.
More punitive options:
Optionally, buying and selling frequency limits, per hour or RL day, account wide.
Optionally, selling concurrency limits, account wide.
Optionally, increasing punitive fees and/or temporal delays (see below) for high frequency buying or selling, tracked and imposed account wide.
Optionally, search boards/npcs are always at least x minutes/distance from the nearest escrow agent.
Optionally, a delay of x RL hours is imposed after purchase, where the item is then delivered from the escrow agent to the nearest bank from the agent. This could also only be after certain above limits are reached as well. Or with every purchase, if you really want to be sure.
The only thing you need to do to prevent abuse is to impose sufficient temporal delay in purchases and sufficient punitive fees in sales. If travel time isn't enough, add more delay. If 25% or 50% of the selling price isn't enough, add more fees.
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So, even with the above? It doesn't matter. VR isn't sharing their plan here. If they even have a plan, at this point. So far, all they've said is: We might have a continental or regional search. Well hoo-rah for VR. Did it take all of 5 minutes to come up with that brilliant idea? :)
I just have very little sympathy for developers who lack the imagination to work out the logical flow of a simple mechanic like this, and/or are too thin-skinned to share it, because it doesn't matter in the slightest who knows. What? Some other MMO is going to copy a logically sound system? And? So? smh.
Quite likely VR isn't sharing their plan because they do not *have* a plan to share. They have a feeling that a regional sales system is better than the alternatives and they intend to flesh it out at some point before beta. Keeping in mind that "God is in the details" and as it is fleshed out they may decide it doesn't work as well as they hoped - or something else works better.
Is this a criticism - heck no. I am here to praise VR not to bury them. Not even the most rabid will feel that the details of a trading system are even remotely as important as the details of character creation, combat, crafting etc. Not even the most rabid would want time that can be spent getting the game in good enough shape for alpha "wasted" on things that can easily be added late in alpha. What point focusing on how a system based in different regions will work when the *regions* do not yet exist.
vjek your escrow agent system strikes me as an amalgam of systems I have seen in FFXIV (characters having merchant slaves to whom they give items they wish to sell - but buyers purchase remotely not by going to the merchant slave) and DAOC back many years ago. Sellers placed inventory stands at their houses and buyers had to physically go to the stand to buy but they could see what was available by doing a search. Obviously things in other games also have elements of this such as the EQ2 system of putting things for sale on display with sale being remote but an option to avoid broker fees if the buyer came over to pick the item up in person.
The major difficulty of your proposal is that a buyer may make a *long* trip and arrive only to see the item was already sold. This can be ameliorated by allowing a buyer to put a "hold" on an item for a limited period of time by making a forfeitable deposit that goes to the seller if the buyer doesn't show up within the specified time. A secondary difficulty is that it doesn't do a thing to make the process include social interaction. But I consider the "social" argument a phantasm to begin with. A third difficulty is that it doesn't work well for lower value commodity goods - who will cross a continent for 50 chunks of copper?
Life is imperfect - I prefer your proposal to most of the alternatives that some people are pushing in this thread.
It was just an example to show a system that might work, there's no doubt you can tune such a system to encourage or discourage certain behaviors like sliding scales of punitive fees based on selling price, to strongly encourage sellers to keep prices low. As others have mentioned, you could also exempt commodities from certain punitive fees and delays, if that was a design goal.
As far as the long trip only to find it sold, yep, that's a definite possibility. If many people are racing to buy the item, the first one that gets there wins. However, unless you allow for instant purchase, this will always be part of the mechanic in one form or fashion. Very time limited (and account wide) single reservations might work, but I suspect people would abuse them. Some players would argue that instant purchase of any type is an HFT stock market, because then you just have to endure the delay, so, patience wins and you can still control the market. If you have the travel race to purchase, it adds a small element of unpredictability to the transaction, adding further challenge to automation and malicious controlling interests.
Regarding as social interaction, a point of this system as described would be to strongly discourage it's use so that people will want to trade face to face. Punitive delays and fees would be the entire point of encouraging people to simply trade face to face, if that was a design goal.
I think such a mechanic could be tuned to the point where it wouldn't be an HFT stock market, and wouldn't be so punitive that no-one would want to use it, but I'm well aware of the risks and dangers of arbitrage, collusion, and price fixing. I hate that crap, and don't want it in my entertainment. :)
Kastor said: No auction house or very limited please. I want to be able sell an item within 5 minutes selling in zone and not have to go back to town and list it on the AH. #Community matters
Funny I was ok with no AH remembering the good old days till I went back to P99 and by the time I got level 30 I was spending 2/3 of my gaming time trying to sell and buy items in EC. I left P99 over that. I have no desire to go back to such an antiquated system. This is 2018 and some modern systems need to come into play or the game will sink. New fans need to be made to let Pantheon reach its potential. Relying on just on fans of EQ will not get us a sustainable game that will last years and years. New fans will need some quality of life items to make the game worth playing. So a balance of preserving systems that really matter from old school and taking what is awesome from the new that will not impact the old school feel is what needed. So what element of Pantheon really needs to hit the old school feel? Combat, class interdependency, its things like that will keep people playing. Not yelling in EC for hours wishing that were playing with their friends. IMO the regional AH VR has been talking about seems like a good balance.
Nanfoodle said:Kastor said: No auction house or very limited please. I want to be able sell an item within 5 minutes selling in zone and not have to go back to town and list it on the AH. #Community mattersFunny I was ok with no AH remembering the good old days till I went back to P99 and by the time I got level 30 I was spending 2/3 of my gaming time trying to sell and buy items in EC. I left P99 over that. I have no desire to go back to such an antiquated system. This is 2018 and some modern systems need to come into play or the game will sink. New fans need to be made to let Pantheon reach its potential. Relying on just on fans of EQ will not get us a sustainable game that will last years and years. New fans will need some quality of life items to make the game worth playing. So a balance of preserving systems that really matter from old school and taking what is awesome from the new that will not impact the old school feel is what needed. So what element of Pantheon really needs to hit the old school feel? Combat, class interdependency, its things like that will keep people playing. Not yelling in EC for hours wishing that were playing with their friends. IMO the regional AH VR has been talking about seems like a good balance.
These are the hyperbolic statements that discounts an argument automatically. No one spends 2/3 of their gametime selling items on P1999 unless they specifically choose to be a trader. I have a level 60 and 55 there and I've sold as many items running spamming WTS throughout zones where I was traveling as I have when I've actively been looking for items in the EC. I've spent less than 5% (if that) of my active total playtime there. I also choose to sell lower to sell quickly, and go back to adventuring to make up the difference I may have lost in the sale price.
Also, if you hate running to the EC "that much" to constantly check what is being sold/bought - have an alt camped at EC to quickly check what people were selling (start a level 1 Human in Freeport), or you're just wasting time.
Also, trying to say this is "2018 - systems have to be different!" is why we are where we are today with MMORPGS. It has little to do with relying on fans of EQ, and more to do with expanding and improving on "older" systems that added quality/depth/challenge to the game - see my ideas to expand on the EC system above in a post on this page. Simply discounting older mechanics because "this isn't EQ" is equally as conterproductive as saying to someone, "this game may not be for you - go play WoW."
On a last point - regional AH's are "better" than having one global. But, it wouldn't take long till the community complains enough to link them (see VG) or, by default based on a more centralized location, one is the de-facto used global AH.
Raidans plan as outlined above is pretty good and I belive covers most if not everyones issues with reasonable compromises. It keeps the user interaction, it allows searching, it eliminates the chat spam.
As far as them eventually linking regional auction houses. There could be a compromise for that as well. These auctioneers/bulletin boards In the Craigslist idea do not need to be stationary. As I have pointed out before each region could have a portable (newspaper) that can be purchased and taken with you. This portable version (not live but a daily snapshot) could be bought and sold and combined with other regions papers to create a "global" version.
Of course if you were in Thronefest and wanted to purchase an item from somebody selling out of Skargol you would have agree to a meeting point. I would thing "Meeting Points" would eventually evolve just as EC tunnel did, but with considerably less spam and waiting arround.
I would hope that regional auction houses are strictly adhered to. No linking them globally and no introducing a new region with the first expansion that invalidates all of those that came before it. To be fair, we saw the same thing in FFXI eventually. A new area was released and it's regional auction house became the primary hub which lead to all of the auction houses being merged together. As long as the game is built from the ground up to avoid that scenario then regional auction houses can preserve their value. We need meaningful travel and a full world that will always matter.
IMO, manipulation of the market is hard to do, unless someone has just an over abundant amount of something.
People like me, goto the AH to list some goods, I look at the current avg price current selling, compare it against what my history of selling(more on this later), and then I sell mine slightly cheaper, because I want to sell it fast, I'm not interested in making top dollar, just offloading.
This would offset anyone trying to manipulate pricing by cornering the market. Not to say it can't be done, but I think it would be harder than it appears.
Now granted, rare items and items of very few quantities would be a different animal, but I would garner, short of farming, there wouldn't be any one player/group that has all of an items quantity on a server.
History of selling: if one could view the recent sales of an item, they could identify if someone is price gouging.
All of this said, I do not want any sort auto-sale, and I think players should be online while their items are listed. If they log off, then then item is removed from the listing. If someone already had the list up when you logged off, they can still click and buy the item, but future refreshes of the list would not display your items.
@oneADseven
My point was that eventually VG succumbed to community griping to link all regional auction houses into a global AH, where, I believe if they existed in Pantheon, the community ultimately would ask for the same here. If it didn’t happen, there would be one agreed upon defacto global AH on the server - in whatever the most centralized hub was.
@Fulton
Market manipulation with a global AH isn’t hard, it just requires a lot of money up front. Once you have that, you can continue to expand the manipulation. Ex. 10 wolf pelts being sold for 10, 9, 15, and 12 gold. Buy them all and sell them at 30 each.
Simple example, but just expand it to get the idea. It would be much more difficult to do so without all for sale items being readily available.
@bryanleo9
I hope they don’t listen to the squeaky wheels. I’d rather the Devs stick to their vision and only take feedback on items that are broken or aren’t in line with said vision/tenets or we’d ultimately end up with a completely different Pantheon. Positive feedback for improvement to improve systems in line with the tenets should also be taken into consideration.
Porygon said:You're absolutely right, but I don't think anyone considers their ability to sell items on the same level as leveling up or raiding. I also can't imagine, once again, how much having the ability to list items on an auction house is going to impact the rest of the community.
I do.
In Pantheon you will get gear by either trade or by getting it to drop. You will have situational gear sets. I have a strong feeling that class skills/spells will be rather pricey. QOL things like ports might be really pricey too. Trade will be very, very important. It won't be important as its own thing, it will be important because it has a little hand in everything.
Most important of all, rl bazaar style trading in a game is a fun concept to me.
Ainadak said: Anything that requires you be online is a restriction on the computer or the player, not the player itself. Do you really want to tell players that they should leave their computer on while they’re at work so their stuff gets sold?
Yep. I want you to actually be playing the game when you accomplish something important in the game.
If trade wasn't important, it wouldn't be such a hot topic.
GoofyWarriorGuy said:Or are we thinking that there are actually people who find it fun to sit at their computer pressing a text macro every few minutes, eagerly waiting for somebody to send them a response saying "I will buy". Is this entertainment?
Yes.
Porygon said:You're wrong when you claim players have spelled it out. Cause they haven't. Noone has come in and given a solution other than (recently 1ad7)[disregarding the caravan idea because it's just bad].
The reasons that were given were "it eliminates face to face transactions" .... no it doesn't. I proved that when I referenced WoWs system of trading which still to this day involves a healthy amount of face to face transactions.
The other reason was something along the lines of "it ruins the economy by putting everyone on an equal playing field" ... I'm sorry, what? So you're mad that you can't sell your item for 150% of what it's actually worth because other people can see what the actual value is... you're a real gem in the community. AHs put traders on equal playing fields when it comes to pricing which is not a bad thing. You will always have players that don't care what an item is worth and list it for far less, this would happen without an AH also. I know because I always sold my items for 75% value so I could gtfo of the tunnel quicker. Secondly, if 100 crafted swords go up, yes the price will drop.. but that's the same as of 6 people are all auctioning the same item for the same price. Eventually 1 of them will go lower... and you'll see what the actual value of the item is.
So again, no. You haven't spelled out any reasons why you want this feature other than the ones I listed above, which i think we can all agree are pretty weak.
Luckily, those same reasons are the ones for why grouping should be hard. So lets just take everything out of pantheon and put in things that are 100% equal, so someone who plays for one hour accomplishes as much as someone who plays for 8. If I want to do a 2 hour dungeon in 1 hour and get all of the loot, I should be able to play my way. Don't be selfish now.
Also, I really like the idea of paying an npc 25% of my experience/loot and having him raid for me. Remember, don't be selfish and try to stop me from trying to play the game my way!
..sigh
Look man, I get that you hate ECT, and you feel that it forces you to play the game my way. And that makes me totally selfish. But the AH does the same thing reversed.
There's lots of discussion on actual compromises. Can you please look at those instead of assuming I give two craps about EQ, just because I don't want VR to assign npcs to handle trade between players?
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It doesn't eliminate all face to face transactions, just most. You are twisting what people say. If you don't think it affects most, go back to ECT in p99 for a minute or two, and compare it to whatever meager face to face you are talking about in whatever game.
Inter server auto groups also don't remove ALL inter player interaction. It's the same idea, really. You hand it to npcs, and the interaction becomes optional. Sure some heros will still do it, but the rest of us will be sitting around wondering why that portion of the game feels so single player. I don't talk if it's not necessary, but I want to talk, so I want it to be necessary. So I want players to need to interact to group up.
I want players to need to interact in order to trade with one another.
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Spreading the same number of people over a broader area means you have less people in each individual area. Making one area better than another makes the one left out even more desolate still. These are very basic facts.
You're a raider type right? If something other than raids was made more convenient than raids for getting top lootz, would you still have as many people to raid with? If there are two raids, instead of one, is it as easy to convince everyone to go to your favorite one?
Adding in a balanced AH spreads people out. If the AH is imbalanced and completely evens the playing field between you and tunnel rats, then the AH will be strictly better and reduce the number of tunnel rats even further.
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@Raiden, love several of your ideas, thank you for your levelheadedness.
My big issue with the "balanced" AH is what I've mentioned before. I beleive keeping that AH balanced would require VR to track fair prices on everything sold at it. Which I believe is a lot more work then the bulletin board you mentioned, or even the player consignment system.
Now, would a balanced AH work for the simple goal of letting losers like me sit in an ECT all day and trade fairly? It just might! But I feel like it would be a lot of work, and it would also eliminate a great deal of face to face trading for anyone that uses the AH. Naturally, it would take some people away from the ECT (theoretically around half if this is a 'perfect' compromise).
The other options you give get people away from the trading area quickly, but don't necessarily eliminate the need for social interaction. They don't take any fair trades away from the tunnel rats.
bryanleo9 said: It will be interesting to see which side of this debate is loudest in alpha and beta. I am sure VR will go with the majority on this issue.
I hope not, I feel like big raid leaders, big streamers, and others of the louder groups will likely not have much time to spend trading and therefore want as much hand holding in that regard as possible.
BeaverBiscuit said:Luckily, those same reasons are the ones for why grouping should be hard. So lets just take everything out of pantheon and put in things that are 100% equal, so someone who plays for one hour accomplishes as much as someone who plays for 8. If I want to do a 2 hour dungeon in 1 hour and get all of the loot, I should be able to play my way. Don't be selfish now.
Also, I really like the idea of paying an npc 25% of my experience/loot and having him raid for me. Remember, don't be selfish and try to stop me from trying to play the game my way.
Look man, I get that you hate ECT, and you feel that it forces you to play the game my way. And that makes me totally selfish. But the AH does the same thing reversed.
There's lots of discussion on actual compromises. Can you please look at those instead of assuming I give two craps about EQ, just because I don't want VR to assign npcs to handle trade between players?
None of this is relevant. You provide slander, misinformation and red herrings. I don't even personally care if there's an AH or not but this is dishonest.
BeaverBiscuit said:It doesn't eliminate all face to face transactions, just most. You are twisting what people say. If you don't think it affects most, go back to ECT in p99 for a minute or two, and compare it to whatever meager face to face you are talking about in whatever game.
No. Ironforge and Orgirmmar in vanilla WoW has no less trade spam than ECT.
BeaverBiscuit said:Inter server auto groups also don't remove ALL inter player interaction. It's the same idea, really. You hand it to npcs, and the interaction becomes optional. Sure some heros will still do it, but the rest of us will be sitting around wondering why that portion of the game feels so single player. I don't talk if it's not necessary, but I want to talk, so I want it to be necessary. So I want players to need to interact to group up.
I want players to need to interact in order to trade with one another.
Not sure if willfully ignorant or dishonest? An AH is static, one needs to be there. VR already said they'd provide matchmaking mechanics (which won't teleport you). Why not compare apples to apples?
I get it. I also want a world. Please, though, have some dignity and don't lie.