Goblin Squad Member
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It is my hope that GW takes a good look at the chaos that has hit another MMO (AD&D based) and decides to forego having regional or server-wide auction houses.
Auction House MUST be local! You MUST actually travel to the settlement to see what is in that Auction House.
Another fix for exploits that may hit a player-economy is that NPC vendor prices should also be increased, and listed next to any item placed in the Auction House, so that players can see what an NPC would pay for that item. This will cut down on rampant price gouging.
Finally, player crafted items MUST be the end-all and be-all of high quality gear. No item drop in game should ever be greater than 70% of the quality level that player crafted gear can be.
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It is my hope that GW takes a good look at the chaos that has hit another MMO (AD&D based) and decides to forego having regional or server-wide auction houses.
Auction House MUST be local! You MUST actually travel to the settlement to see what is in that Auction House.
100% agreeing on these points. If anything maybe even these should be settlement only.
Another fix for exploits that may hit a player-economy is that NPC vendor prices should also be increased, and listed next to any item placed in the Auction House, so that players can see what an NPC would pay for that item. This will cut down on rampant price gouging.
I don't think I agree on this part. I see the ability for craftsmen to take X amount of golds worth of material and turning it into 1.05X (Or greater) will end up FAR outpacing the pace that I believe other sources of wealth acquisition. Sure there wont be great payouts, but as long as the material is available, they can essentially throw away the goods (By selling it to an NPC vendor) and get paid for it. That in itself going to be a permanent NON-PLAYER involved economy of it's own, and will only ever change at the behalf of the programmers deciding whatever formula for determining an items cost. Finished goods being made to just to be destroyed means the primary player market will never be involved.
I'd much prefer a system where items can be easily "wholesaled" after they are made to large player Merchant Guilds, who then host them for sale at the local Auction Houses/Magic Shops around the towns. Offloading your goods should come down to the Contract System they have yet to fully flesh out yet, and deal with either large NPC Organizations in NPC Settlements, or the Player Built structures, and organizations. It should be as simple as speaking to whoever is in charge of goods transfer, (My first thought here is a typical Quartermaster) who will be able to either as a player negotiate terms, or as an NPC entity, would be able to respond by giving a system calculated fair market value with a possible penalty or discount due to alignment and reputation.
By allowing craftsmen to get a long term profit out of selling to NPC's then they will have skipped any player interaction they would normally because nobody else can make a profit off the goods you made, that in itself is a financial and tactical advantage.
Finally, player crafted items MUST be the end-all and be-all of high quality gear. No item drop in game should ever be greater than 70% of the quality level that player crafted gear can be.
I also agree here, HOWEVER, one thing to note is that ALL of these high end pieces of equipment will require rare, expensive, and possibly dangerous, Material Components, which have to be harvested manually, from dangerous monsters or dungeons. I think there will end up being a few throw-away magic items we find lying around such as Bags of Holding, Special religious Artifacts, and Plot Device equipment.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I'll second this. Besides helping to mitigate the issues that have plagued the other MMO today it'll provide the obvious benefit of encouraging travel/trade. Wonder if a niche might then exist for players that take consignments to locate gear that requires potentially hazardous travel arrangements. That would be interesting in this sandbox approach.
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Goblin Squad Member
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It is my hope that GW takes a good look at the chaos that has hit another MMO (AD&D based) and decides to forego having regional or server-wide auction houses.
Auction House MUST be local! You MUST actually travel to the settlement to see what is in that Auction House.
Half agree... To purchase yes, to obtain, in any way shape or form absolutely.
To see? I don't really see how that will effect anything. Multi's, bots, duplicate accounts, pick your poison. Some way shape or form, the big players will find a way see the prices, and have it aggregated to a settlement wide or public document. Updated daily at the slowest, but probably hourly, it's just unavoidable there. In my opinion nothing is ever balanced by people not knowing stuff. Information at this day in age is at the point where if one person can know it, everyone will very shortly.
Another fix for exploits that may hit a player-economy is that NPC vendor prices should also be increased, and listed next to any item placed in the Auction House, so that players can see what an NPC would pay for that item. This will cut down on rampant price gouging.
Not sure on that... I'm not even sure what exploit you are trying to solve. Are you meaning if say Joe has the only X, and bob tells joe it's worth 500gp, while knowing it's worth 20k, is an exploit, rather than Joe not doing his research?
I'd say the solution you are proposing is worse than the problem. In my opinion NPCs buying stuff, should be the extremely rare exception of what to do with items, which should be going into the crafting economy, being salvaged to make into something to craft etc... Having NPCing be a reasonable alternative, can lead to massive inflation, as that's a pretty big faucet, that cannot be contained.
Finally, player crafted items MUST be the end-all and be-all of high quality gear. No item drop in game should ever be greater than 70% of the quality level that player crafted gear can be.
Fully agreed there. GW has designed a very good long chain for equipment to enter into the economy.
adventurer gathers big rare components from dangerous boss monsters/escalations, harvesters gather large quantities of less rare, both are sent to refiners, who send them to crafters, who make them into stuff, and sell them to adventurers (or possibly middlemen who sell them to adventurers).
When you cut it down to "adventurer gets item", skipping all the markups etc... from every step inbetween... well you wind up with WoW's crafting system, in which 5% or less of crafters, actually make more than they spend.
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Goblin Squad Member
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If you are unable to see prices through the game, people will create out of game systems to get around that. Once the game gets to a decent size, lets say there are about 20 major settlements. What would stop large guilds (and by then, there would be some very large guilds) from placing one player in each settlement, just to report prices? That is an ugly brute force way to do it, but its doable. And with MMO's being what they are, if it can be done, it *will* be done.
To your point of being required to actually go to a location? I entirely support this idea. It supports the balance of guards/merchants/bandits, and nearly anything that makes people interact more is ok by me.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I believe this is another area where GW will take a page out of the EVE play book. letting you filter by Settlement/Region/territory or something basically buy from just this settlement buy from all settlements within a Zone, buy from all Zones within a huge zone. Or something, that way Its not Global, but you can buy from other nearby settlements and if you do buy fromy a nearby settlement you have to go pick it up, or make a contract for it to be delivered.
Goblinworks Executive Founder
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I don't think NPC purchase or sale of stuff is an intended faucet or drain, possibly with limited exceptions providing stuff that probably isn't worth putting out for sale.
Remote purchase and sale will occur whether allowed by the rogram or not. If it is profitable to do so, there will be alts sitting at each market, reporting the prices. If needed, these characters will make purchases by proxy for qualified customers, taking a percentage of the transaction.
What behavior should be incentivized here?
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Goblin Squad Member
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Not so much incentivized, but what should not be incentivized?
My understanding of the NWO incident is that one of the currencies used in the auction house was exploited, by listing items with a negative price. Then when the item was removed from the sale queue the seller was reimbursed for the currency. Then that currency was used to purchase cash shop currency. Then the cash shop currency and items were put to the auction house at a drastically marked up prices.
Much of this can be avoided by not having stupid bugs like negative sales, having only localized AHs and by having only two types of game currency.
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Goblin Squad Member
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It is my hope that GW takes a good look at the chaos that has hit another MMO (AD&D based) and decides to forego having regional or server-wide auction houses.
The exploit used to crush Neverwinter was a programming bug that allowed you to bid a negative amount on an item then receive that much currency and the item.
That exploit would not have been affected by your suggestion to make auction house trading harder by requiring monotonous work on the player's part to travel the world just to trade....
The more Eve like this game gets the smaller a potential fan base it will have...
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Goblin Squad Member
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I'm confused. How do local auction houses prevent players from exploiting a glitch to print money?
Don't get me wrong, I'd rather see this game feature local AH instead of global for a variety of reasons, I'm honestly just not sure how this isn't hyperbolic FUD to advance an agenda.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I'm confused. How do local auction houses prevent players from exploiting a glitch to print money?
Don't get me wrong, I'd rather see this game feature local AH instead of global for a variety of reasons, I'm honestly just not sure how this isn't hyperbolic FUD to advance an agenda.
It would not stop the initial exploit, but it would isolate its after effects to just that local auction house.
On another point, not sure what "FUD" stands for?
As for my agenda, it is not to see PFO die before it even hits launch. This may very well be the case for NWO. At the very least, they may have to wipe their servers. At worse, they may have to restructure their entire business model, because the confidence in the Zen Market has been completely shattered. Since Zen can be transferred from one PW game to another, this exploit will also reach into every PW game, just in time for the Romulan Expansion in STO.
PW will lose millions, because they allowed greed and stupidity to drive their game development.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Not so much incentivized, but what should not be incentivized?
My understanding of the NWO incident is that one of the currencies used in the auction house was exploited, by listing items with a negative price. Then when the item was removed from the sale queue the seller was reimbursed for the currency. Then that currency was used to purchase cash shop currency. Then the cash shop currency and items were put to the auction house at a drastically marked up prices.
Much of this can be avoided by not having stupid bugs like negative sales, having only localized AHs and by having only two types of game currency.
A consequence of the exploit was to drastically devalue astral diamonds. Some players had offers out to exchange Zen (roughly $30 buys 3000 Zen), which is purchased with real money, for Astral Diamonds which are earned in-game. Before the exploit the market value of Zen was 383 Astral Diamonds. Offering 1000 Zen as trade should have returned 383,000 AD. After the exploit the value of AD changed.
Real money by real people was impacted by the actions of the <expletive deleted> <expletive deleted> exploitative LoLpigs.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I'm confused. How do local auction houses prevent players from exploiting a glitch to print money?
Don't get me wrong, I'd rather see this game feature local AH instead of global for a variety of reasons, I'm honestly just not sure how this isn't hyperbolic FUD to advance an agenda.
It would not stop the initial exploit, but it would isolate its after effects to just that local auction house.
On another point, not sure what "FUD" stands for?
As for my agenda, it is not to see PFO die before it even hits launch. This may very well be the case for NWO. At the very least, they may have to wipe their servers. At worse, they may have to restructure their entire business model, because the confidence in the Zen Market has been completely shattered. Since Zen can be transferred from one PW game to another, this exploit will also reach into every PW game, just in time for the Romulan Expansion in STO.
PW will lose millions, because they allowed greed and stupidity to drive their game development.
It wouldn't isolate it. It would at best slow it a little bit, as people have to move the gold from one market to another. As long as different economies are connected (which local AH would still be by the players ability to move money from one market to another), then the effects spread. It seems odd that you'd make this claim, and then point out that the Zen crash will affect other PW games through the exact same method.
FUD is Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt. It is often used to refer to the use of unsubstantiated hypothetical threats to push for changes to "fix it before it becomes a problem". It's also the use of real threats to push unrelated changes by associating them with the FUD without any clear connection.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Soldack, GW has already expressed the fact their target fan base is already a small one, so I don't think your point would phase them. PfO is not trying to be, and never was conceived to be, a WoW buster. Bluddwolf's suggestions are how to address issues a server-wide AH might cause. Naturally a bug with any market system will not be fixed by his suggestions, but barring a bug, they make sense.
Given meta-gaming use of team-speak, IM's and the like, players will know which communities have the lowest price for an item or raw materials they wish to buy. Part of keeping the game as envisioned must be having to go there, as Ryan has pointed out, to both simulate what would happen in a semi-Medieval settings, and to increase player interaction (even if that interaction is crossing paths with bandits). Keeping all markets, as Ryan and the Devs have called them, local, this means players must travel, and thus interact with the PvE and potential PvP aspects of the game, which IS the game.
Sandbox design will necessitate PfO resembling EVE to a certain extent, and that game does continue to grow even though it is a decade old. Thirty thousand plus players isn't a horrible number to shoot for in a game that is designed for a smaller audience. I may have my issues with EVE (which have been addressed in PfO - namely the training queue used in EVE for me), its model can serve GW and Paizo well as they fix/change the downsides.
I, for one, like Bluddwolf's suggestions, and should the Devs choose to use them as they are, or modify them to work with their already conceived notions for markets, they will help with gouging, price fixing, and potential inflation - the death of many MMO's.
Just my two coppers worth, but expecting theme-park numbers of players for PfO isn't what GW has stated they want for this game, and having stable, realistic markets is something they desire. That appeals a great deal to me, and to many others who backed this game. I'd rather play with ten thousand dedicated players than one million casual players who are willing to take short cuts to be "the best". That is also why there is no "end game" content for PfO - a persistent game world has no such thing as an end game. Players and their PC's will always, no matter what "level" their PC's are, have something to do, and an impact on the game world. A HUGE plus in my book.
{steps down from soap box}
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Goblin Squad Member
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It would not stop the initial exploit, but it would isolate its after effects to just that local auction house.
How so? Doesn't the entire economy use the same currency? It seems to me that the effects would only be limited to the local auction house if each local auction house had its own currency.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Nihimon, I believe Bluddwolf is saying it would be easier to isolate the problem is it were effecting just one market in one settlement than all markets. It may be possible for the Devs and/or GMs to fix that one market on the fly far more quickly than if the whole market system were being used to gouge players. Since what tools the GM's will have, and how any bug may effect the economy isn't currently known, it seems to me, that his view is that should an exploit be found by players, it would likely be used in the market it was found first, given his suggestion, which mirrors Ryan's idea of settlement based, isolated markets. Once the Devs and GM's become aware of the issue, it could be corrected before players run off to other markets to use the exploit.
No guarantee this will work, as I noted TS, IM's and the like will have info pretty much in real time, but I have high hopes that a dedicated, small player base will be more likely to have players report such a bug more quickly than what is likely in a large, casual player-based theme park game like Neverwinter, where you will (and apparently already does) have people willing to cheat to get ahead. I don't see this as being a major issue in PfO given the small size of the player base and the lack of reasons to "get ahead". Most players, at least during EE have given to the KS campaign, and thus have an incentive not to break the game for their own gain - otherwise they simply threw money away. This isn't the case with games like Neverwinter, WoW, DDO and others. Add in we are also crowdforgers, and again the incentive is to let the Devs know of bugs ASAP. There is some pride inherent in being a part of the Dev team, no matter how small a role one player may play.
Those who would seek to make use of exploits will hopefully be very few and far between for these reasons. Will some people try and take advantage, well, yes, but enough will not that any bugs will be reported quickly.
Maybe I am too optimistic, but having spent money on getting a game developed and having input into how it is implemented gives me even more incentive, beyond my already well established sense of fair play, to report bugs/exploits and the like so all can enjoy the game as it is intended. If I am naive I'd rather be than jaded where this game is concerned. I backed it financially, as did most of us, and want to see it be the best game it can be - a sentiment I believe most of us share.
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Goblin Squad Member
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So basically this is more harping on NWN's huge exploit that they allowed to happen, were slow to respond to, and handled poorly all around?
NWN's exploit is unique, and the general concept of that form of theme park... allows these problems to escalate to the level it did. Instances being infinitely repeatable, quick to access and contain huge loot... Well while not inherently a cause of exploits, it allows any such exploit to be magnified, 500x in a matter of hours, but even with such flaws... the talk of it as if it is inevitable is rather silly as well. At least from my understanding, DDO never had an exploit of that level within it's 8 year history. Though it has certianly had it's share of exploits. I believe there were rumors of instances being botted etc... with no way for the players to confirm since... well they are instances.
PFO while not immune to the potential of such a flaw, it would almost certainly take 10x longer for the flaw to reach fruition, and will likely be caught far sooner. (PVP nature causes people to pay much more attention to things, and it is much more likely that someone out there, will quickly oppose the exploit)
the talk of "when the inevitable market collapsing bug hits", as if it is inevitable, has happened in every MMO ever made etc... That's just silly, Is it rare, no not particularly, is it every MMO ever, even less likely. In my experience things like that happen in roughly half of games.
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Goblin Squad Member
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If the super terrible FPS game feature is going to be in PFO, then for all intelligence and sanity, restrict items placed an auction house only be accessible at that auction house in terms of bidding, paying and collecting. Meaning that item will not appear at another auction house elsewhere.
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Goblin Squad Member
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If the super terrible FPS game feature is going to be in PFO, then for all intelligence and sanity, restrict items placed an auction house only be accessible at that auction house in terms of bidding, paying and collecting. Meaning that item will not appear at another auction house elsewhere.
Huh? What "super terrible FPS game feature" are you referring to?
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Goblin Squad Member
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Good points Onishi!
Dario, I too am wondering what this "super terrible FPS game feature" is DarkOne is speaking of, never mind that there will not be a game-wide AH.
DarkOne, can you elaborate please? I may have missed a post by the Devs or something in the Blogs, but I don't recall any FPS feature in PfO at all.
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Goblin Squad Member
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There is no such thing as "price gouging" in an economy with a functioning market, btw.
I wish more people understood this.
Anti-price-gouging laws simply mean that anyone willing to transport portable diesel power generators into a natural disaster area will be forced to do so at a monetary loss, which simply results in them not being transported - or at least not in sufficient numbers to actually meet the surging demand.
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Goblin Squad Member
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super terrible FPS game feature = auction house
I'm going to assume your assertion is that the crowds that gather in auction houses kills your FPS (Frames Per Second), and not that auction houses are a feature of FPS (First Person Shooter) games. In which case, your complaint is unrelated to auction houses, and would appear anywhere players gather in sufficient numbers.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Personally I don't like the word Auction House. I'd much rather it be a market. In Other MMOs I believe they use the Term Auction House to differentiate between a Global Player Market, and the local NPC markets.
That said I would like to see a Player Driven Local Markets. But with skills you you can buy and sell at longer ranges. So you never ever get a Fully global view, but you can view the market places within say a large region of the map that incorporates several settlements local markets. However after buying a item from another settlement you still need to go pick up the item or contract for it to be delivered.
As stated above this is similar to the EVE market. and eventually I would like to see PFO have a fairly 100% player driven market place, with an exception being the NPC towns will have NPC market places with an unlimited supply of all the low tier basics of pretty much everything you'd need as a new player.
I have a feeling that the local market is what GW is planning for anyways. Quite honestly having a global market would sort of ruin what they are going for with PvP flags like the outlaw and the Traveler (I think that is the N PvP flag for crafters/merchants) because with a global market merchants would never need to leave town. but with a local market it would be profitable for a merchant to run caravans and transport good, or at lease hire someone to do that for him/her.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Global price look-up, local purchase with local pickup, remote purchase with economic skill training but still local pickup, caravans transporting goods between markets to take advantage of localized demand. I like all of these.
I think Auction House is a bit of a misnomer in many MMOs, since systems that allow "Buy it now" quickly stop involving many auctions. For routine purchases, people don't want to wait for bidding to end. They just want to buy stuff immediately.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Personally I don't like the word Auction House. I'd much rather it be a market. In Other MMOs I believe they use the Term Auction House to differentiate between a Global Player Market, and the local NPC markets.
I would prefer 'market' as well and detest auctioned items where there is no buy-out price. I think a market is the way to go but there could be a nicely thought-out barter/negotiation approach.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I still like an auction house for actual auctions (no buy-out price), a settlement clearinghouse for commodities, and player-run stores (or market stalls) for the things in between.
Need a Holy Avenger sword with keywords for advanced paladin abilities, crafted by a master smith? Auction house.
Need 500 board feet of basic pine wood? Settlement clearinghouse.
Need a new sword with stock keywords for fighter abilities, crafted by a moderately-skilled smith? Player store/market stall.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I still like an auction house for actual auctions (no buy-out price), a settlement clearinghouse for commodities, and player-run stores (or market stalls) for the things in between.
Need a Holy Avenger sword with keywords for advanced paladin abilities, crafted by a master smith? Auction house.
Need 500 board feet of basic pine wood? Settlement clearinghouse.
Need a new sword with stock keywords for fighter abilities, crafted by a moderately-skilled smith? Player store/market stall.
Personally, I'd rather see that first one done face to face. I'd prefer that the really high end gear is both sufficiently expensive and sufficiently customized to be done primarily through commission, rather than crafting at random and hoping to find a buyer.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Personally I don't like the word Auction House. I'd much rather it be a market. In Other MMOs I believe they use the Term Auction House to differentiate between a Global Player Market, and the local NPC markets.I would prefer 'market' as well and detest auctioned items where there is no buy-out price. I think a market is the way to go but there could be a nicely thought-out barter/negotiation approach.
Barter and negotiation can always be handled by finding a crafter or merchant and actually taking to them in-game. As long as the trade system can't be gamed (by removing items from your side or changing the price after the other party has accepted the trade, for example), it should be relatively safe. In situations where people are gaming a trade window (often with fast-acting macros), an exchange contact can be safer.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@KarlBob, what advantage do you see in creating different systems for each of those cases?
An auction house with a buy-out price system usually has very few actual auctions. The competitive impulse of bidding can be more profitable to the seller, but the Buy-It-Now button appeals to the competing impulse of impatience. I'd definitely like to keep these functions separate.
Commodities, like common wood or low-quality ore, don't really generate the bidding impulse in buyers. Waiting for an auction to end before picking them up would be more annoying than exciting. The advantage of this system is primarily to the buyer.
Player-run stalls/stores appeal to the interior designer/entrepreneur impulses in the sellers. Creating an attractive display, building a reputation as the premiere weapon shop in town, and chatting with customers over the counter can be more personally satisfying than posting something anonymously for sale to an equally anonymous buyer. The advantage of this system is that it encourages RP, interaction, and immersion.
That last system isn't quite as much fun when buildings don't have interiors yet, but if it doesn't exist at the beginning, I see it being harder to introduce later.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@KarlBob, it sounds like you're suggesting there be some kind of system-defined constraint on which items can be sold in each system. That means you will have people who want to sell their widget(s) in a market that does (or doesn't) include buyout offers, but won't be able to because of these arbitrary restrictions. I'm not seeing how that is a net benefit to the game.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I by no means know these things for a fact as I have not played NWO or any previous PW game, but from what I've read in a few articles PW/Cryptic knew about the exploitable bug that caused their economic meltdown. Apparently it existed in previous games of theirs and was dealt with there as well after being discovered. This is how players got the idea to try it, to see if PW/Cryptic had made the same mistake...which they had, unfortunately. Some players had even filed tickets and tried to bring it to their attention prior to the crash. Again, maybe this isn't true but it sure makes some of the comments I've read in this thread about it being a unique or unfortunate accident kind of laughable. Sounds like it was kind of their own damn fault.
I'd hate to be the guy who completely overlooked adding in a couple sets of absolute value bars.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@KarlBob, it sounds like you're suggesting there be some kind of system-defined constraint on which items can be sold in each system. That means you will have people who want to sell their widget(s) in a market that does (or doesn't) include buyout offers, but won't be able to because of these arbitrary restrictions. I'm not seeing how that is a net benefit to the game.
Interesting point. I might support restricting the clearinghouse to crafting commodities (raw resources like nuggets of ore and intermediate-stage crafting ingredients, like ingots or sword hilts), to "protect" the other two systems, but that wasn't my original intention.
I thought that different types of items would sell better in each of the three systems, and different kinds of buyers and sellers would benefit most from each. If someone could auction off a wonder-sword, but chose to sell it more quickly for a direct price, that would be their decision. If someone else were willing to wait to get the best price for the wonder-sword, the availability of a pure auction house would make that possible.
My advocating for player-run stores honestly comes mostly from my nostalgia for Star Wars Galaxies. I sold fishing poles, so I decorated the walls of my store with rods and reels and stuffed fish trophies. Other people sold exotic pets, and visiting their stores was like walking into a natural history museum. Posting a market bulletin broad in your player housing, like in EQ2, or opening up a market UI panel, like in EVE, while convenient and functional, just aren't as cool to me as those SWG stores were.
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Goblinworks Executive Founder
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I don't see a reason that, once decorateable interiors are implemented, one couldn't make the pickup location for a market be in such a decorated building.
It could even be the case that the lowest upkeep "market" is a small storefront with no remote sales capabilities, so that everyone who wants to buy has to come in shop.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I like player-run stores as well. I suppose I could be called impatient, but when I decide my weapon is simply inadequate I want to replace it immediately, if I can afford it. It is quite frustrating to see the perfect weapon for my current state on auction without a buy-out price and an auction time stretching days into the future because by then I will no longer consider that weapon ideal. Now, in PFO this problem may well be ameliorated because of the extremely flat power curve, but still I suspect I will have the same difficulty.
Ore: sure. I can see waiting for a bid on resources.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I'm not even sure what exploit you are trying to solve.
Those looking to victimize others will have a problem with the ability to move goods and gold without them being subject to theft and extortion.
Some others would consider it a problem to conduct business in any way that doesn't involved players face-to-face typing to each other.Myself, I like the idea of being able to have a local marketplace, but to be able to see information from remote ones.
There could also be options for shipping costs for buying remotely, with the item weight and distance in hexes setting the additional cost, so it's useful for the occasional purchase but not cost effective as a way to move masses of resources or finished goods.
Bidding and buyout options should be available to the seller, with a memory system that allows you to auto-populate fields with the settings of your most recent posting of that type of item.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Buying and selling in most MMOs looks like this. A decade ago, one MMO gave us the opportunity to browse through a place like this before opening the UI window. It seems silly to me that no modern MMO gives players the ability to create that kind of experience.
A storefront like the droid shop above is almost certainly impossible during EE, and unlikely during OE. By commercial release, though, it might be possible.
If it's possible to hang a Store sign on the outside of a building during EE, then people might be enthusiastic when the stores get interiors, and it becomes possible to set up displays. If players have already gotten into the routine of buying and selling everything at a settlement clearinghouse during EE and OE, they're less likely to adapt to walking between physically separated stores that don't sell everything in one place.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Shopping in several places will lead to more player interaction than standing in one place where you can access everything everywhere without even coming up for air.
In principle, I would agree with that. In the context of an MMO, I think the flaw in the premise is the assumption that out-of-game tools wouldnt be used. It also may not take into account the distances that we are expecting between settlements. As far as i am aware, it is going to take a not-insignificant amount of time to travel between settlements, which would just push players, in my opinion, to relying on alts and/or out-of-game tools.
I would much prefer that there is incentive to keep the entire transaction 'thread' in-game. My preference is for skills that allow for a radius of 'market awareness' (with or without the buying option). Collection and delivery of goods should most certainly be in person or by contracting a third party.
As for justification of these methods, this is a classless game where everyone can train almost any skill and has access to magic items. It is not inconceivable that through some combination of divination spells and magic items that a merchant in Town A is in contact with a merchant in Town B to get the latest prices and demands.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Shopping in several places will lead to more player interaction than standing in one place where you can access everything everywhere without even coming up for air.In principle, I would agree with that. In the context of an MMO, I think the flaw in the premise is the assumption that out-of-game tools wouldnt be used. It also may not take into account the distances that we are expecting between settlements. As far as i am aware, it is going to take a not-insignificant amount of time to travel between settlements, which would just push players, in my opinion, to relying on alts and/or out-of-game tools.
I would much prefer that there is incentive to keep the entire transaction 'thread' in-game. My preference is for skills that allow for a radius of 'market awareness' (with or without the buying option). Collection and delivery of goods should most certainly be in person or by contracting a third party.
As for justification of these methods, this is a classless game where everyone can train almost any skill and has access to magic items. It is not inconceivable that through some combination of divination spells and magic items that a merchant in Town A is in contact with a merchant in Town B to get the latest prices and demands.
I believe (and I hope Being will correct me if I'm wrong) that he was referring to multiple shops within a settlement, vice a central settlement single market.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Shopping in several places will lead to more player interaction than standing in one place where you can access everything everywhere without even coming up for air.In principle, I would agree with that. In the context of an MMO, I think the flaw in the premise is the assumption that out-of-game tools wouldnt be used. It also may not take into account the distances that we are expecting between settlements. As far as i am aware, it is going to take a not-insignificant amount of time to travel between settlements, which would just push players, in my opinion, to relying on alts and/or out-of-game tools.
I would much prefer that there is incentive to keep the entire transaction 'thread' in-game. My preference is for skills that allow for a radius of 'market awareness' (with or without the buying option). Collection and delivery of goods should most certainly be in person or by contracting a third party.
As for justification of these methods, this is a classless game where everyone can train almost any skill and has access to magic items. It is not inconceivable that through some combination of divination spells and magic items that a merchant in Town A is in contact with a merchant in Town B to get the latest prices and demands.
Well the concept of knowing every in game price, and of course the process of going to physical shops, are not mutually exclusive. IE from 15 miles away, I could know the inventory, stock and price of the stealthy backstabbing ballista at the bloodbath and beyond. Simply having access to that knowledge does not prevent the game from requiring me to go into that physical store to pay for it.
Though it does kind of eliminate the Browse the wares, see if there is anything else I want, as most likely 9/10 people even if they saw something else they wanted, would first return to the information source to confirm it is the best price on the second item as well before purchasing.
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Goblin Squad Member
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What about spells and skill trees you can train to maximize knowledge of markets?
So may players not trained in trade have to physically go from place to place, but highly skilled merchants or wizards who have trained in markets or scrying can know more or even trade from a distance.
Also, I know moving goods is a big part of this game, but it is still a magic world with magic spells and it seems a highly trained wizard could teleport goods over a distance. Is that in the Pathfinder Roleplaying game?
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Goblin Squad Member
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What about spells and skill trees you can train to maximize knowledge of markets?
So may players not trained in trade have to physically go from place to place, but highly skilled merchants or wizards who have trained in markets or scrying can know more or even trade from a distance.
Also, I know moving goods is a big part of this game, but it is still a magic world with magic spells and it seems a highly trained wizard could teleport goods over a distance. Is that in the Pathfinder Roleplaying game?
As far as possible within the table top game yes. Within the context of the pathfinder tabletop game, roughly half of the mechanics in the MMO can be rendered obsolete. But it isn't a matter of lore, it is a matter of allowing the game to accomplish it's intended interaction, and it is clear that physically transporting goods is intended to be an important portion of the game, and allowing free instant teleportation of goods and people would completely negate several core systems of the game once enough people were trained in them without some HUGE limiting factors added in to keep them from being overused.
As far as market knowledge skills, yeah it could be done, but I also would have to point out, 1 in 100 need to train it, after that every settlement will almost certainly have a guy with it that everyone just asks (and that's assuming that they don't have a tool that just scans the universal market and creates a database searchable by everyone)
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Goblin Squad Member
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My advocating for player-run stores honestly comes mostly from my nostalgia for Star Wars Galaxies.
I completely agree, and would love to see something like that in PFO, but it's not a priority for me because I expect the Market to function extremely well without them.
I thought that different types of items would sell better in each of the three systems...
Ignoring player-run stalls for the moment, it sounds like you're suggesting two types of markets - one with a buyout option and one without. It's rather heavy-handed to arbitrarily decide that certain sellers would not be allowed to make use of one or the other for whatever it is they're trying to sell. If you don't do something like that, then there's no difference whatsoever between having two disparate systems and having a single system with an optional buyout.
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Goblin Squad Member
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It's probably also worthwhile pointing this out again.
Here is where I think we are in terms of a design:
Each Settlement will have a central market. In order to place a buy or sell order on that market you will have to physically visit that market. Information about the buy & sell orders on the market will be visible to you depending on the state of your character's abilities. Everyone will be able to go to a Settlement and see it's market orders, but some characters may be able to get that information at a distance.
When you place a sell order you'll put the inventory into escrow at the Settlement where you're placing the order. When you place a buy order you'll place the price into escrow and when the order matches, your inventory will be delivered to the Settlement where the sell order was posted. You'll have to transport the material from there to wherever else you need it if you wish to move it elsewhere.
Realistically there will be players who set up alts in every Settlement and generate near-real time information on every market, then centralize that information in tools they either keep proprietary or make available to the whole community. There's virtually no way to stop that from happening, so we'll just accept it and move on.
You will be able to control the price you offer to buy or sell an item at. So you will be able to compete with other market participants on price and quantity. When a sell order and a buy order match, they'll be immediately filled. Purchasing something by browsing the market, seeing an item at a price you want to pay, and buying it on the spot will be supported as well (you'll likely always pay the lowest offered price, to avoid scams and accidents).
We may or may not make visible the information about who is doing the buying and the selling. We will make visible price data for every item type so you can see the market price history and volume data.
This is all essentially identical to the EVE system.
Before we can talk about independent shops or bazaars we need to get at least this level of functionality implemented first, so until all of that content is deployed, we won't be Crowdforging on the question of what else to do with markets.