Howdie,
something was just said in another thread, and sparked this thought:
Back in the happy days of mudding, I came across a system where people could not only sell stuff they had, or made, but you could put up a request for a certain item.
So, if you need 10 bushels of turnips for a recipe but for some reason can't find any for sale nor get them yourself, you could put up an offer on the market, and go about your business (or log off).
If a player then hast 10 bushels of turnip and checks the "auction house" (or what ever center of commerce there will be in PFO) he can put them up against your offer and get the money you put into it.
Nice?
Goblin Squad Member
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Placing a buy order:
Pressing the "Advanced" button takes you to the buy order form. Here you can stipulate the price, the total quantity of items you want to buy, the minimum number of items to be sold in any given transaction, the duration of your order, and the range at which you wish to buy the items. If an item appears on the market of the type you have specified that fulfills all conditions you have set, it will automatically be bought for you, even if you are offline. Please note that the item will be placed at the station from where it was being sold so you may want to be careful when specifying the market range. Just like with the instant buy orders, any items bought for your corporation in this manner will be delivered into the corporation's deliveries hangar at the station the items were bought at.
I expect we will have something like Buy Orders in PFO.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Howdie,
something was just said in another thread, and sparked this thought:
Back in the happy days of mudding, I came across a system where people could not only sell stuff they had, or made, but you could put up a request for a certain item.
So, if you need 10 bushels of turnips for a recipe but for some reason can't find any for sale nor get them yourself, you could put up an offer on the market, and go about your business (or log off).
If a player then hast 10 bushels of turnip and checks the "auction house" (or what ever center of commerce there will be in PFO) he can put them up against your offer and get the money you put into it.Nice?
Not bad but I doubt, and hope there isn't a "central commerce" area in PFO. I think individual shops, and possibly town specific economies make far more sense for the game. That being said I would be all for a buy tab in addition to a sell tab for a store, if a crafter wants he should be allowed to put in requests for what he needs and buy it without much work.
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Goblin Squad Member
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That would be a cool function for individual stores. That way, you can have people who are consistent suppliers of specific items you need and not have to worry about logging on at the same time to do a trade. I think that both automated buying and selling at a shop would work together to make the shop run smoothly, even for people who don't log on frequently.
As for the large-scale auctioning idea, I could see that on a settlement-wide basis, but I hope PFO doesn't have a global auctioning system. It breaks immersion just a little, but more importantly it takes out some key elements to playing the market game. That being, it pretty much eliminates the option of buying a commodity for cheap at one settlement and selling for profit at another location where the commodity is scarcer. I would love to see player-made caravans going from settlement to settlement, because it adds many different elements to the market and PvP scenes.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Oh there will probably be a global market system, but it won't work like a typical auction house. At the right locations, with the right skills you can buy any commodity you want, no matter where it is, but it will never automatically be delivered to you. You either have to go pick it up, or have someone else do it for you. This will allow day traders to work the market but will also necessitate that crafters/builders worry about logistics.
I suppose you could have an NPC in town (probably the general store owner) act as a broker between characters for buy/sell. A character can put in an order with the NPC for something they want, and any other character can see the order and fill it with items in their inventory. The NPC gets a fee from the character who places the order and notifies them when the order is filled.
Since it would be town specific, people could find demands for certain items in areas without those resources, and fill those orders to make a profit.
Yay economy!
A simpler way to deal with the issue might be to provide for want adds. If a craftsman finds himself in need of fifty kilos of white plaster, or a hunter is looking for a particular kind of arrow, they could circulate a want add, probably offering a specific price, which anyone looking for market information could read and respond to. The adds would increase in price depending on the geographical area covered.
The other option on this without the inevitable consolidation of "most people doing everything in Capitol City X" is to factor in something like this:
Bob the Adventurer goes to Tom Trader and asks if he can acquire 50 kilos of white plaster for a reasonable sum. Tom Trader cannot locally acquire it, but his contacts in Timbuktu can do so the last he heard from them.
Tom tells Bob that he can acquire the good [place the buy order] on Bob's behalf for a suitable service fee and that it will take [y amount of game time in minutes/hours/days once the plaster has been delivered to his agent in Timbuktu] to be acquired. Depending upon the amount Bob was willing to pay for the plaster in addition to any "service fees" for acquisition and delivery, Bob (eventually) acquires the plaster he ordered.
Meanwhile in Timbuktu, Tom Trader's contacts arrive (after x amount of game time) and post notices to the effect that some chucklehead in Big City 33 wants 50 kilos of plaster for a handsome sum. Pete the Plasterer is overjoyed at having a chance to unload the 50 kilos of white plaster he's been hauling around in his one horse cart for the past week and promptly delivers it to Tom Trader's agent in town.
Once [(y amount of game time passes) plus (z amount of game time that passes for Pete the Plasterer to make the 50 kilos of plaster to fill Tom's order on behalf of Bob)] Tom Trader sends a messenger pigeon to Bob, patiently waiting for Bob when he next logs on. Bob logs on, with one or more messenger pigeons cooing about him carrying his numerous messages, including the one from Tom that he has been waiting for.
Bob then travels to Tom and picks up his order. I would suggest that such orders be paid for up front. None of this "pay half now, half on completion" stuff.
Another option is a bit larger in scale. If certain materials are acquired only from certain areas of the game world, then the communities near those areas should be fairly well known as the spot to acquire them from. If certain materials can only be acquired from areas outside of the River Kingdoms then those are items that would have to be imported by whatever means are at a character's disposal. Be that NPC agents working a steadily growing mercantile concern in numerous markets outside of the River Kingdoms or a network of want ads targeting the communities closest to the area of resource acquisition within the River Kingdoms proper, whichever is appropriate. Iron, for example, is notoriously difficult to acquire locally and is often imported at considerable expense due to the distance. Wars are liable to be fought over the few iron mines within the Kingdoms once their location becomes well known.
Maybe use community/settlement message boards? One of the first places an adventurer would stop in order to... taverns. Let the local settlement tavern(s) be spacious enough to accommodate larger groups of people so you can get all of the local "gossip" and community board posts for that settlement right there.
Just a thought.
I want derivatives contracts and underwriting!
KHAN!