on a serious note, i definitely feel the lack of an auction house breeds more social interaction as well opening opportunities for other types of meta gaming, such as people who like to deliver items, or people who like to buy low sell high, etc..
What about just buying and selling your goods from the NPC’s. Forget listing for a price, have the NPC merchant determine whats hes willing to pay or sell for and eliminate person to person trade all together.
Just a thought.
Edit: Adding to this line of thought.
Merchants could have crafting orders (Quests) for the local crafters to fulfill as a means of restocking the wares as needed(supply and demand), and shipping orders (Quests) for delivery to other merchants that are low on supplies.
One note on the player to player direct trade, while not necessary to eradicate for such a system as this to work, it rids any chance of a gold farmers.
HemlockReaper said:What about just buying and selling your goods from the NPC’s. Forget listing for a price, have the NPC merchant determine whats hes willing to pay or sell for and eliminate person to person trade all together.
Just a thought.
That is no different from having an auction house. That's such a terrible idea. The whole point is to have communication from player to player and, like the auction house, your idea completely destroys that whole idea.
Also, your idea is basically saying you want a really bad economy too... If NPCs have fixed prices for everything, it means that supply and demand doesn't even matter. It's the same if the government were to control the prices in real life. The invisible hand needs to do its job. Your idea does not support that.
Veramus said:HemlockReaper said:What about just buying and selling your goods from the NPC’s. Forget listing for a price, have the NPC merchant determine whats hes willing to pay or sell for and eliminate person to person trade all together.
Just a thought.
That is no different from having an auction house. That's such a terrible idea. The whole point is to have communication from player to player and, like the auction house, your idea completely destroys that whole idea.
Also, your idea is basically saying you want a really bad economy too... If NPCs have fixed prices for everything, it means that supply and demand doesn't even matter. It's the same if the government were to control the prices in real life. The invisible hand needs to do its job. Your idea does not support that.
Your making assumptions. I never stated having “fixed” prices for one, but as this was just a thought I’m not going to bother pointing them all out.
Hopefully this idea has not been given already and please forgive if it has.
What about an area in a town that has signs/posters. The signs/poster could show an icon of some type like food, armor, weapons or maybe a seller designed icon, only when the buyer clicks on the sign/poster would a list of items being sold would appear.
The signs/posters are rented by the seller on a hourly, daily or weekly bases with a limit to length of rental, to disallow people from renting a sign/poster location forever. When rental limit has been reached seller would have to find another available sign/poster to rent.
The buyer has to click on the sign/poster to view the items being sold and to purchase an item.
The buyer could either have a way to search all of the signs/posters in an area or town and is given a path or indication as to were the sign/poster is located or buyer would have to click on each sign/poster to view items being sold.
When an item is purchased it is either mailed to them or placed into their inventory. I prefer it being placed into inventory.
Very similar to EQ 1 but without the characters having to stand in defined areas. The signs/posters could be standalone and or on walls.
The problem with EQ 1's way was the lag from all of the characters and the tricks they pulled like illusions and grow potions.
The selling areas are per town and are not linked to each other, so a buyer can not do a world wide search for items. The buyer would have to traveler to other towns to view and purchase items.
The seller can rent signs/posters in multiple towns or areas, so they can reach buyers in other towns.
The sign/poster would be have a limited number of items to be sold, so if you want to sell more items you have to rent more signs/posters.
The items begin sold should probably come from a storage/warehouse location in the town, which the seller also has to rent but maybe by the month and have an unlimited length of rental.
The storage location could be of different sizes as to the seller needs or only 1 size and they have to rent multiple storage spaces.
When the storage rental expires the seller would get an email that his stuff has been moved to long term storage and the signs/posters of his would say out of stock on all items.
For any MMO trading/selling is a must have and I am sure this could be done in a simpler way but I leave that to the programmers and designers.
Throwing my chip into the pile. I remember the days when I first entered EC and seeing the OOC spam.
I miss those days fondly, it was an entirely different game , buying and selling. However I found quickly that I much rather adventure than spend my days selling.
See there was a work around for me though, I found someone that I could 'commission' to sell my adventuring spoils. She would sell things for me, and would keep an eye out on items I wanted.
Just because on a personal level I didnt enjoy it, didnt mean that others felt the same. She would literally be level 9 for the time i went from 15 to 45.
Fastforward to WoW BC expansion, the AH was interesting, as i was generating an epic mount every 3 days or so. I had basically cornered the gem market, through buying patterns up and holding onto them while i sold my cuts. I kept the designs in the AH for absorbant amounts of gold on an alt account, so if you wanted in on my market you'd have to be serious. I would spend the limited time during AHing by doing trade chat messages , "send me mail if you need bulk cuts". Once I hit gold cap, i lost motivation, though I did cuts free of charge after that.
Fastforward yet again to FF14:ARR, the messageboard was also interesting, I made a vast amount of gil flipping shards. Though I got bored of it quickly since there wasnt much to spend on things , housing was pointless.
I am torn though, either system has its merits, but if we are aiming for social community over convenience, then in terms of community building, nudging people to interact when they sell wouldn't go astray.
Raidan said:+1 for no Auction Houses for me as well. I'll share my thoughts that I had over on MMORPG on why I don't want to see an AH and a few other posters ideas that I could agree with as well as a compromise (similar to the boards discussed in this thread):
[large snip]
Sh33pish replied: "You, sir, are a genius. As an advocate for EC tunnel style trading, I think this is a GREAT idea. A message board listing "for sale" or "wanted" items, but the actual mechanic of trading or negotiating final price would be between the players. Basically craigslist for Pantheon.
In practice:
You look at the for sale board in region_01 and find a listing: "Selling Blade of Awesome Idea, asking 10g. PST to Hrimnir"
You tell Hrimnir, "Do you still have the Blade of Awesome Idea for sale?"
Hrimnir tells you, "Yeah, interested?"
You tell Hrimnir, "Yes, how much are you asking?"
Hrimnir tells you, "10 gold. I'm in zone_01, where are you?"
You tell Hrimnir, "zone_02. How about 8 gold? Meet at the bank in zone_01?"
Hrimnir tells you, "9 gold and I'll meet you there"
You tell Hrimnir, "Deal. On my way."
The exchange above is the trading experience I want. Advertising manually EC tunnel style is still an option for additional exposure, but a "for sale" listing can be placed on the advertising board in whatever region you're in. Trade still happens face-to-face with room for final negotiation. No broker or auction house to sterilize the transaction."
How is sending an instant message across the world to an unknown location and getting an instant response an immersion-positive thing but buying from a player-operated vendor -- effectively an NPC at that point -- less so? What of those players who can't play 16+hours per day to allow for adventuring and selling? I certainly don't want to leave my PC logged in and running while I sleep just to sell things (again).
Early on, EQ2 had a brokerage type system that worked pretty well. In case you're not familiar with it, players would list their items for sale at their own housing on their bulletin board. These listings were searchable through an NPC broker. You could choose to buy through the broker for a significant markup or you could travel to the home of the seller and buy it directly from their bulletin board. If they were home or online you could contact them to work out a deal if you chose. If you were of the opposing faction you could sitll buy through the broker but at a much higher markup.
Initially players had to remain logged in 24/7 for their items to remain available for sale. Thankfully they fixed that but then they went on to dumb the system down to AH levels. This early version of EQ2's player market (post-offline-selling fix) was my favorite so far. It was a good mix of features liked by a wide range of people. Those who just want to buy the thing they want could do so. Those that preferred a more personal interaction could still do that. And nobody was forced to sit otherwise idle in a tunnel shouting over and over hours.
Akilae said:Raidan said:+1 for no Auction Houses for me as well. I'll share my thoughts that I had over on MMORPG on why I don't want to see an AH and a few other posters ideas that I could agree with as well as a compromise (similar to the boards discussed in this thread):
[large snip]
Sh33pish replied: "You, sir, are a genius. As an advocate for EC tunnel style trading, I think this is a GREAT idea. A message board listing "for sale" or "wanted" items, but the actual mechanic of trading or negotiating final price would be between the players. Basically craigslist for Pantheon.
In practice:
You look at the for sale board in region_01 and find a listing: "Selling Blade of Awesome Idea, asking 10g. PST to Hrimnir"
You tell Hrimnir, "Do you still have the Blade of Awesome Idea for sale?"
Hrimnir tells you, "Yeah, interested?"
You tell Hrimnir, "Yes, how much are you asking?"
Hrimnir tells you, "10 gold. I'm in zone_01, where are you?"
You tell Hrimnir, "zone_02. How about 8 gold? Meet at the bank in zone_01?"
Hrimnir tells you, "9 gold and I'll meet you there"
You tell Hrimnir, "Deal. On my way."
The exchange above is the trading experience I want. Advertising manually EC tunnel style is still an option for additional exposure, but a "for sale" listing can be placed on the advertising board in whatever region you're in. Trade still happens face-to-face with room for final negotiation. No broker or auction house to sterilize the transaction."How is sending an instant message across the world to an unknown location and getting an instant response an immersion-positive thing but buying from a player-operated vendor -- effectively an NPC at that point -- less so? What of those players who can't play 16+hours per day to allow for adventuring and selling? I certainly don't want to leave my PC logged in and running while I sleep just to sell things (again).
Early on, EQ2 had a brokerage type system that worked pretty well. In case you're not familiar with it, players would list their items for sale at their own housing on their bulletin board. These listings were searchable through an NPC broker. You could choose to buy through the broker for a significant markup or you could travel to the home of the seller and buy it directly from their bulletin board. If they were home or online you could contact them to work out a deal if you chose. If you were of the opposing faction you could sitll buy through the broker but at a much higher markup.
Initially players had to remain logged in 24/7 for their items to remain available for sale. Thankfully they fixed that but then they went on to dumb the system down to AH levels. This early version of EQ2's player market (post-offline-selling fix) was my favorite so far. It was a good mix of features liked by a wide range of people. Those who just want to buy the thing they want could do so. Those that preferred a more personal interaction could still do that. And nobody was forced to sit otherwise idle in a tunnel shouting over and over hours.
I liked the EQ2 system as well. Generally I would just buy my stuff from the AH, but if there was an expensive rare spell that I really wanted, it would be worth the effort to actually visit the players home and buy it from their bulletin board. I'm willing to spend an extra 5-10 minutes if it will save me 10 plat, but if we're talking chump change ... please, let me get on with my day. I wouldn't spend 5 minutes to save 50 gold. I could just as easily make 50g by going out and adventuring, and that was obviously way more fun.
@Akilae
That post was one of my first posts in the thread - I clarified a system I'm willing to compromise on later in the thread that Amsai and I were brainstorming on. A bulletin board was only one of the options for trade. I'll repost the full proposal again as it's lost in this thread. It's quite the long read though - fair warning.
Post #1
Raidan said:
......That's where I'd say we could actually use players to run consignments shops that had to be there in person. And, 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. Now, how could you get it where the /merchants wouldn't just afk all day? Maybe there's some timer or something that would require player interaction to show they're still present. Not sure how this could be designed, but I'm sure someone could think of an idea.
And like Nimryl had stated earlier in these postings, the merchants can set it up at a guild plot and/or a stall rented/purchased in town. And, the merchant would have to pay a fee to pull the item from the vault. And, once they went offline the had to be returned to the vault (or for the sake not to cheat the system they magically popped back into it). The merchants who also had their own goods would also be able to sell them for full price.
But, for the Bulletin Board, I would want to see basically 3 UI tabs, and the bulletin boards could be located in major cities, or perhaps you could expand it them to houses/guild plots etc. as well:
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
So, it would give players 3 options to sell: EC style for full price, Consignment style by paying a player merchant, and Bulletin Board which would be mainly like a EQ bazaar search list.
_____________________________________
Post #2
And, I expanded it further
@Amsai
1. Consignment style: Good thoughts, perhaps there would be some trader license or merchant skill that was raised? Or trader level? Would the player who places items in the Vault Choose? Class A License - 30% cut Class F License - 5% cut? What justifies the higher %, etc. What justifies a trader having a higher license (amount sold, quests?) Would the player who places item in the vault choose, or just random luck which trader decides to sell his wares and that's the risk the player takes for convenience? Would be curious to hear ideas on how to try to implement the idea though.
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.
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 stay alive versus having the automation.
___________
And.. it met with some feedback on being too complicated in which I replied...
Post #3
I get keeping things simple, and I would prefer the simplistic EC style, but I do realize it isn't 1999, so some sort of advancements need to be made.
But, there wouldn't be too many working parts to my suggestion. The hardest part would be the player trading stalls/shops and if some sort of trading license system was implemented.
But at a very basic level, most of the systems have been used in other games:
1. Trader Stalls/Shops: Bazaar style vendoring similar to EQ without the automation - no one could click "Buy" from the vendor, but the rest would function the same.
2. Cosignment Item Vault - similar to any bank, they would just put a sliding scale fee to insert an item.
3. Bulletin Board - a simple searchable list that could be similar to a UI pop-up for LFG with tabs for Buy/Sell, and, if the % is too difficult, it could be a simple listing fee.
4. Commodity Vendors wouldn't take any work at all outside of adding the NPCs.
Post #4
And some additional suggestions as well to tweak the system in which I replied:
@Makes and Tralyan,
I'd agree and would be for the player controlling the consignment percentage, and having it mirror capitalism more. I'm sure there ultimately would be some accepted or agreeable consignment percentage that was determined on each server without developer controls. The trading licenses was just an idea that was proposed that I was questioning as well and was offering thoughts/questions on implementation. I'd be more for simplicity here and let the players decide the norm.
And, I don't doubt at all that allowing more player freedom with trade will create a more robust, emergent market; however, I do think that some advances can be made that will expand upon the EQ's (EC style system) rather than detract from it.
And, I like the contract idea as well; however, the problem you would run into with that is the same as the /WTS spam that those who are for AH's are stating. You'll add a new line of auctioning to the EC instead of /WTS. You'll be /auctioning Looking for a Consignment Trader who's willing to accept 15% or less for selling my goods. That's the reason I suggested the item vault versus the contract. But, perhaps you could offer both. The item vault which takes the fee, and finding the consignment trader him/herself and sign the contract and have no fee taken.
I wouldn't mind a Local Auction house. One in each city or one on each land mass/continent so if I wanted something and I was in Skar starting city I'd travel to the Ogre starting city and check. Or if I was in Reignfall and it wasn't for sale I'd travel to Kingsreach and check.But that to me is if we have them I do prefer the East Commonlands Tunnel location to barter and trade items. That tunnel was in a starting zone but far enough away from the guards to actually not be restrictive so you could barter and trade or buy and sell with anyone. It forced conversation and travel and that was part of the fun. Plus you got to go there and sport your armor and weapons to the onlookers inspecting you. I really enjoyed that and really missed it when we got the Bazaar. But I do think with the world so large and no or limited fast travel regional areas would be cool.
Personal choice is nothing localized if you are going to have a market system, make it a global economy. I do not want to own a specific market area inside of a week.
I also prefer the EQ2 style of searching .. was nice being able to search by slot , type etc.
Well this is way too long for me to read it all, so let me throw in my vote for no auction house or bazaar.
This isn't a soda machine, why should you be away from your store/stall/cart when you are selling things. Work out trades with people, advertise, barter. Either that or have others sell things for you at a much steeper price than a few gold or the cost of a spot in the bazaar, as it would be realistically. To me more down to earth trade systems are much more fun. I'd be willing to sell your stuff for you, and there's the relationship building Pantheon seems to love so much right there.
However I suppose a more realistic auction house might be interesting too, where you have to be present and watch people auction on your goods, maybe while you make auctions yourself, or lead the auction. It would be real hard to implement though.
You guys do realize that in this day and age lack of in game auction house just results in third party programs and auction house forums making the in game interaction as least as possible? How about they implement an Auction House so you know, we can actually enjoy the game. Some of you have superficial expectations for this game. If you guys want to get a great example of failure of no AH in most recent mmo history, check out FFXIV 1.0.
Eliseus said:You guys do realize that in this day and age lack of in game auction house just results in third party programs and auction house forums making the in game interaction as least as possible? How about they implement an Auction House so you know, we can actually enjoy the game. Some of you have superficial expectations for this game. If you guys want to get a great example of failure of no AH in most recent mmo history, check out FFXIV 1.0.
I've referenced that a few times in this thread. They used a retainer system which was basically a stall that players could set up to list their merchandise in a bazaar type zone that was jampacked with different players retainers. They also allowed you to create a merchant ID on your own character, so when you were playing through the game, random people could inspect you and check out your wares ... it was limited to maybe 5-10 slots though. You could fill up your slots with both WTB or WTS options (but WTB took 2 slots because you had to put gold in one, and the item you wanted to buy in the other ... and worst part of all, if you wanted to buy 4 giant health pots, you had to physically have 4 of them on you -- yeah that makes sense, because if I want to buy 20 of something, odds are I already have 20 on me right?). As far as the retainer system, which is what faciliated 95% of trade, crafting was an absolute nightmare because a lot of the recipes required ingredients from multiple professions and it was almost impossible to consistently and cost effectively acquire them. They were either too difficult to find in the huge bazaar, or when you did find them, you had no idea on whether or not you were getting a good value. In order to determine that, you would have to check every different stall in the area to get a feel for what the going rate would be. Problem is, after hours of searching, you wouldn't remember which stall had the best value. It was an absolute nightmare that could literally require hours of your time just to browse goods and see what's available. I remember writing down retainer names and everything they had for sale so I could compare everything on paper and then go back and sift through the good deals. It was just way too much work.
The only way to be truly effective in that type of market is when you are 100% dedicated as a market player. And that's what I ended up doing. I quit leveling my monk at level 19 and instead decided that I would become the richest person on the server by manipulating this extremely inconvenient market system. It was basically highway robbery. Nobody would ever find a good deal because I bought all of them and then jacked up the prices. I would just sit in the zone and /sh the most common items that people needed and they would always just buy through me rather than searching through 100's of retainers. Those who weren't willing to get price gouged would try their luck searching through the cesspool of goods ... and eventually, they might find what they were looking for at a slightly better price than I was offering (I could only corner the market so hard) but the opportunity cost was terrible. The savings were minimal and required a massive effort. People who wanted to sell their stuff at a fair price rarely got it, and those who sold it at a good price always sold it to me. The rich got richer, and the poor got poorer.
Has anybody come up with an AH alternative that allows players to truly get a feel for what an item is worth in a player driven economy? If I'm a new player and happen to get a shiny golden key while I adventure, what non-AH system is out there to help me understand what my key is worth? A system that wouldn't require me to check a ton of different vendors because honestly, I'm a new player and trying to catch up in XP with most of the server. I don't need need top dollar for this thing, but since I'm new, I'm broke. I just want to get a fair price for it and then maybe I can afford a weapon. How much is that going to cost? What kind of weapons are out there that I should consider using? Again, time is of the essence ... I just had so much fun adventuring and I really want to get back to that. What non-AH system can accomodate someone like me?
oneADseven said:Has anybody come up with an AH alternative that allows players to truly get a feel for what an item is worth in a player driven economy? If I'm a new player and happen to get a shiny golden key while I adventure, what non-AH system is out there to help me understand what my key is worth? A system that wouldn't require me to check a ton of different vendors because honestly, I'm a new player and trying to catch up in XP with most of the server. I don't need need top dollar for this thing, but since I'm new, I'm broke. I just want to get a fair price for it and then maybe I can afford a weapon. How much is that going to cost? What kind of weapons are out there that I should consider using? Again, time is of the essence ... I just had so much fun adventuring and I really want to get back to that. What non-AH system can accomodate someone like me?
Trusted guildmembers or friends? Use your ingame connections to learn the value of an item. Talk to those who have experience in the market. Or give that trusted friend/guildmember the item, and let them work the market for you.
If youre truely new and alone, and have no friends that work the market, then go sit in the bazaar and learn.
Why should someone with no knowledge of the economy or no connections to the market, have the ability to correctly sell or buy an item?
I think there should be a mixture of both AH and trading areas. I've gone to the tunnel in East Commons, seen the bazaar, and used the auction houses. Each one has it's own pros and cons.
Having to do all buying and selling by hand at a player driven flea market can be fun but at the same time it leads to scams and limited selection. The chat spam alone is enough to cause problems if you aren't looking for a deal. The bazaar keeps some of the interaction of the flea market while reducing the chance of being scammed. The AH is a huge convience but it takes away from the immersion of the game.
What I would like to see is a portal stone in every village market next to the NPC vendor stalls. Click on the portal and you go to the market zone. There is a bank in the zone surrounded by tents, stalls, and other market associated art/architecture. You can access a GUI to pull up what people have for sale in their one auction bag. Yes, just one bag with 8, 10, 12, or maybe 15 slots. The auction will stay active for 30 minutes before having to be manually refreshed. This allows for easy search and purchase of items, but people can still interact if they have more to sell.
No it's not a perfect solution, but there isn't a perfect solution. Some people want human interaction only while others want total convience. I think hitting somewhere in the middle is the best option. So limiting the convience some while encouraging human interaction ends up being a good compromise.
oneADseven said:Eliseus said:You guys do realize that in this day and age lack of in game auction house just results in third party programs and auction house forums making the in game interaction as least as possible? How about they implement an Auction House so you know, we can actually enjoy the game. Some of you have superficial expectations for this game. If you guys want to get a great example of failure of no AH in most recent mmo history, check out FFXIV 1.0.
I've referenced that a few times in this thread. They used a retainer system which was basically a stall that players could set up to list their merchandise in a bazaar type zone that was jampacked with different players retainers. They also allowed you to create a merchant ID on your own character, so when you were playing through the game, random people could inspect you and check out your wares. You could fill up your slots with both WTB or WTS options. I didn't mind that part because it was always pretty cool to check someone out and see what they had. As far as the retainer system though, which is what faciliated 95% of trade, crafting was an absolute nightmare because a lot of the recipes required ingredients from multiple professions and it was almost impossible to consistently and cost effectively acquire them. They were either too difficult to find in the huge bazaar, or when you did find them, you had no idea on whether or not you were getting a good value. In order to determine that, you would have to check every different stall in the area to get a feel for what the going rate would be. Problem is, after hours of searching, you wouldn't remember which stall had the best value. It was an absolute nightmare that could literally require hours of your time just to browse goods and see what's available. I remember writing down some of the retainer names and what deal they might have had that I would want to check back for. It was just way too much work.
Has anybody come up with an AH alternative that allows players to truly get a feel for what an item is worth in a player driven economy? If I'm a new player and happen to get a shiny golden key while I adventure, what non-AH system is out there to help me understand what my key is worth? A system that wouldn't require me to check a ton of different vendors because honestly, I'm a new player and trying to catch up in XP with most of the server. I don't need need top dollar for this thing, but since I'm new, I'm broke. I just want to get a fair price for it and then maybe I can afford a weapon. How much is that going to cost? What kind of weapons are out there that I should consider using? Again, time is of the essence ... I just had so much fun adventuring and I really want to get back to that. What non-AH system can accomodate someone like me?
It should also be noted that FFXIV 1.0 was trying to do many similar things that Pantheon is and wasn't a WoW clone till 2.0. I feel 1.0 could be a really good representation of some of these peoples thoughts if they actually take the time to see how some of this stuff really came to light once implement. Not every game that comes out is a WoW clone contrary to belief. So using models from elsewhere to form an opinion isn't bad. If we want to use P99 as a better example since people seem to go nuts for that. It is literally cluttered with an EC tunnel section of the forums to sell stuff so people can not only raise more awareness for their product, but can do business while playing the game. There was literally a third party thing created to even track /ooc sells in real time.
I think what should really be discussing is how to better an Auction House. Not make a crappy version of nostalgia. For example, would it be better to have an AH that is WoW like, or FFXI like. I know some of this has been brought up in previous pages, but usually gets pushed away with "No AH because EC".
Homercles said:oneADseven said:Has anybody come up with an AH alternative that allows players to truly get a feel for what an item is worth in a player driven economy? If I'm a new player and happen to get a shiny golden key while I adventure, what non-AH system is out there to help me understand what my key is worth? A system that wouldn't require me to check a ton of different vendors because honestly, I'm a new player and trying to catch up in XP with most of the server. I don't need need top dollar for this thing, but since I'm new, I'm broke. I just want to get a fair price for it and then maybe I can afford a weapon. How much is that going to cost? What kind of weapons are out there that I should consider using? Again, time is of the essence ... I just had so much fun adventuring and I really want to get back to that. What non-AH system can accomodate someone like me?
Trusted guildmembers or friends? Use your ingame connections to learn the value of an item. Talk to those who have experience in the market. Or give that trusted friend/guildmember the item, and let them work the market for you.
If youre truely new and alone, and have no friends that work the market, then go sit in the bazaar and learn.
Why should someone with no knowledge of the economy or no connections to the market, have the ability to correctly sell or buy an item?
Because said item is already being sold.
Ruar said:I think there should be a mixture of both AH and trading areas. I've gone to the tunnel in East Commons, seen the bazaar, and used the auction houses. Each one has it's own pros and cons.
Having to do all buying and selling by hand at a player driven flea market can be fun but at the same time it leads to scams and limited selection. The chat spam alone is enough to cause problems if you aren't looking for a deal. The bazaar keeps some of the interaction of the flea market while reducing the chance of being scammed. The AH is a huge convience but it takes away from the immersion of the game.
What I would like to see is a portal stone in every village market next to the NPC vendor stalls. Click on the portal and you go to the market zone. There is a bank in the zone surrounded by tents, stalls, and other market associated art/architecture. You can access a GUI to pull up what people have for sale in their one auction bag. Yes, just one bag with 8, 10, 12, or maybe 15 slots. The auction will stay active for 30 minutes before having to be manually refreshed. This allows for easy search and purchase of items, but people can still interact if they have more to sell.
No it's not a perfect solution, but there isn't a perfect solution. Some people want human interaction only while others want total convience. I think hitting somewhere in the middle is the best option. So limiting the convience some while encouraging human interaction ends up being a good compromise.
I think this is one reason I enjoy FFXI so much. Well past FFXI. A lot of items you could put on AH, but almost everything with a Rare tag had to either be bazaard or people would /shout to sell it.
Homercles said:oneADseven said:Has anybody come up with an AH alternative that allows players to truly get a feel for what an item is worth in a player driven economy? If I'm a new player and happen to get a shiny golden key while I adventure, what non-AH system is out there to help me understand what my key is worth? A system that wouldn't require me to check a ton of different vendors because honestly, I'm a new player and trying to catch up in XP with most of the server. I don't need need top dollar for this thing, but since I'm new, I'm broke. I just want to get a fair price for it and then maybe I can afford a weapon. How much is that going to cost? What kind of weapons are out there that I should consider using? Again, time is of the essence ... I just had so much fun adventuring and I really want to get back to that. What non-AH system can accomodate someone like me?
Trusted guildmembers or friends? Use your ingame connections to learn the value of an item. Talk to those who have experience in the market. Or give that trusted friend/guildmember the item, and let them work the market for you.
If youre truely new and alone, and have no friends that work the market, then go sit in the bazaar and learn.
Why should someone with no knowledge of the economy or no connections to the market, have the ability to correctly sell or buy an item?
The problem with new people going to "learn" how the bazaar works is that they will quickly learn how much they hate their lives doing it. The people at the top of the food chain create monopolies and a huge barrier to entry for anybody else trying to enter their domain. I'm telling you this from the perspective of a former market player in many different types of economy settings. An economy with an AH was always the most difficult to manipulate because people had an easier way to determine what their stuff was actually worth. I think it's perfectly reasonable to allow new players to effectively gauge the value of their items by checking an AH. Information is power. If you don't have an AH system, then a 3'rd party site will pop up in an effort to provide that type of information, which in turn is going to create a huge handicap for anybody who doesen't utilize said 3'rd party website. That doesen't feel right to me. Some might ask "well how does manipulating the market and taking advantage of people feel right?" It doesen't, but if that's how the economy works, someone will do it. You know how I got involved as a market player? I got ripped off really bad. I learned how easy it was to do and the rest is history. That's why I am advocating for an AH. I don't want to rip people off ... but if there is a system where market players are going to get rich off the shortcomings of others, I'm sorry, but I'm not going to be one of the suckers. I'm getting paid. I'd have way more fun actually playing the game but if my time is better spent manipulating the market I'll opt to do that instead. I really really want to enjoy adventuring! I actually like farming. If there is no AH, I'll be extremely rich without ever having to farm, craft, gather ... any of that. The only thing I will do to make money is play the market and take advantage of anybody that can't spend as much time doing it as me.
Admittedly, I don't have time to go through a lot of the postings, but what if Pantheon went with AH server rulesets, and non-AH server rulesets? Offering both rulesets could be win/win imo
I personally see different server rulesets going a long way towards solving a lot of the differences in gameplay that I am seeing, without the potential problems of trying to mix AH players and no AH players on the same server. No reason to force AH on those that don't want it, and no reason to force non-AH on those that want an AH in the game. Same with multi-boxing... have a multi-box server ruleset, and non-multi ruleset servers. Of course this can only go so far or you end up with 50 servers with super-tiny ruleset tweaks to gameplay, and that's not realistic of course but having 3 or 4 ruleset combinations could be realistic?
As I stated before in this thread, I definitely prefer to see no AH or system of selling other than being on your character and actually selling it, but that does not mean that someone's differing view/idea does not have every bit as much equal merit, or that I do not want to see their idea implemented at all. I have made many suggestions on this forum that go against my own playstyle, and I've even been told that what I suggest must be what I want, or why would I bother suggesting it.
I suggest things for the devs to consider because I want Pantheon to be as fun as possible for everyone, not just cater to my own personal playstyle