I was doing some thinking while sitting on the toilet this morning about in-game economy and the lack of an auction in Pantheon. I thought I would share these thoughts with you and get your opinions.
First thought was about an auction house. I support the concept of no global auction house. The reason for this is that a global auction house can really inflate the cost of materials and gear to the point of no longer being useful. Take a look at other MMOs and you will see that items begin to cost so much that the auction house actually becomes useless. It becomes easier to farm for the items yourself. Over time, you end up with players that have so much gold that they are willing to pay these inflated prices simply out of convenience. It also opens up a whole subculture of auction house farming; such as in WoW. I am a bit of a fan of the Guild Store Bidding mechanic in Elder Scrolls Online, but again, it becomes an issue of inflation. Inflation for the cost of particular vendor stalls based on location is a huge hinderance to many players. It also gave rise to the Trade Only Guilds. Paying dues to a guild has always rubbed me the wrong way.
The big reason I am against a global auction house is that I'd rather developer time be spent on content. To this end, if the players want an auction house, the players will create one. It wouldn't take much effort to build a website where you could post your items for sale and let the bidding begin. Think of it as E-Bay for Pantheon players. After a winner is established, you just conduct an in-game trade. And Yes, this could lead or encourage players to sell items for real money or crypto, but, really, that's going to happen anyway.
So my thought on how to sell in-game is this. Here's my age showing a bit...do you remember seeing bulleting board advertisements on street posts or bulleting boards in college or at your local grocery store; especially at the grocery store. A simple 8.5 by 11 flyer listing what you had for sale with about a dozen slitted tabs at the bottom so anyone reading it could grab a tab with you name and phone number on it to contact you when they got home...since there were no cell phones at the time and chances are the phone number was to your pager. The flyers were pretty simple, they listed your item or service, an asking price, and a line that said "Or Best Offer".
Well consider a bulleting board in the middle of the city in Pantheon which allows players to post an advertisement for an item. If someone want to make an offer they are able to do so through an interface or they may choose to purchse it it outright. Ads would have a lifespan of a couple of days, or a week. Does this sound like a form of regional auction house, yep, sure does. The difference is that the interface would just list a bunch of adds.
And here's the thing, the ads don't necessarily have to be to sell items. They could include:
Tradesmen offering their services;
A scheduled Raid or Grouping event;
Players looking for help on a Class quest.
Well just some thoughts here...flame away! Thanks!
There are a few ideas along this line in the crafting forum. Here's one to get you started.
https://www.pantheonmmo.com/content/forums/topic/7497/player-driven-crafting-board
I kinda think Discord will end up playing some sort of role as a global AH. I don't prefer this but I feel people will gravitate towards the least resistance possible. But as it is, most everyone has their phone, tablets or second monitor running something else next to their games.
Although discord might be inconvenient since one won't be to link items which include stats, etc.
As Percipiens pointed out, there's been just a few other discussions about buying and selling in Pantheon, and what people like or don't like :) I recommend you look through some of those threads at all the different ideas :)
I do want to challenge one thing that you said here though, not related to your actual idea. You mentioned you didn't want development of a buy/sell system to take away from content development in Pantheon. I think it's very important to consider that the work of building a zone or a dungeon is different from the work of building a UI interface or social system. One requires the majority of time from world builders, the other a majority of time from programmers. While it's true that people at VR wear multiple hats in some cases, it's false to say that in order to implement (insert system here) they would need to make one less dungeon, or something along those lines.
We should talk about what we think would work best for Pantheon without regard to how "expensive" that might be, and trust VR to figure out how to use their resources most effectively. If we start making assumptions for them, then we limit ourselves and our ideas. It's ok to think about how something could be scaled down if needed, but don't start from an assumption that they *can't* do something or that it would cost too much to do.
WarKnight said:I kinda think Discord will end up playing some sort of role as a global AH. I don't prefer this but I feel people will gravitate towards the least resistance possible. But as it is, most everyone has their phone, tablets or second monitor running something else next to their games.
Although discord might be inconvenient since one won't be to link items which include stats, etc.
"You can't stop the signal Mel!"
I am fine with that, but the game itself doesn't have to cater to it. If people want to look up maps, cheats, form outside game trade systems to get around the games design, etc... that is their perogative, those "in game" won't have to play part to it and it will be up to the players "outside" the game to deal with the problems of such.
Without disagreeing (or agreeing) with your proposal I have to take issue with your foundational statement:
Tekzan said:First thought was about an auction house. I support the concept of no global auction house. The reason for this is that a global auction house can really inflate the cost of materials and gear to the point of no longer being useful. Take a look at other MMOs and you will see that items begin to cost so much that the auction house actually becomes useless.
Auction houses actually have the opposite effect. With greater supply prices will fall until or unless demand still outstrips supply. Basic economics. What you're describing is actually the effect of a player population outleveling content / sources of goods and the lack of a lower level population farming those goods and making them available for sale. Tradeskill materials, for instance. When most players are max level those materials for lower level crafting get more scarce and their prices skyrocket. Again, supply and demand economics.
Where the global auction house can help drive those prices up is when you have a player who buys up all of the rare goods and then resells them at a much higher price point. But if nobody pays those prices, again, supply and demand are doing their job and either the prices will fall or the goods won't be offered for sale -- that player will stop buying those few goods that are posted for sale by lower level players.
What you describe is a problem with an "ageing" player population rather than a problem with auction houses themselves.
The big problem with auction houses, imo, is their impersonal nature.
WarKnight said:I kinda think Discord will end up playing some sort of role as a global AH. I don't prefer this but I feel people will gravitate towards the least resistance possible. But as it is, most everyone has their phone, tablets or second monitor running something else next to their games.
Although discord might be inconvenient since one won't be to link items which include stats, etc.
I really hope not. Truth be told, not a Discord fan, but guilds love it, so I go along to get along.
And you are right, like water and electricity, people tend to follow the path of least resistance.
Anywho, I would much prefer buying and selling stay in-game as much as possible. The less immersion breaking something is, the simpler the interface, the better IMO.
Seems there ought to be a simple and satisfying middle ground between auction house and chat spamming.
Maybe being able to put things on consignment with NPC vendors, or a Guild merchant like ESO has?
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@Tekzan
If you want to waste a few hours of your life, I had brought over a discussion from MMORPG we had regarding your idea in the OP (several years back now). The idea was expanded on in the middle of the thread. The thread is locked now, but you get a general idea on people's thoughts of all things auction house related.
http://pantheonmmo.com/content/forums/topic/2594/death-to-the-auction-house/view/page/1