Crafting contracts

Discussion in 'Crafting & Gathering' started by Ceesed, Jan 20, 2014.

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  1. Mingo

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    --Excellent point Grace. I have violated my own desire for a high level of social interaction it seems. Perhaps my original idea of an ad in an in game newspaper would be more social, but in fact, you are correct that a "market square" with players hawking their wares is much much more social.
     
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  2. Mingo

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    OOPS!!! NM.....
     
  3. aevans

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    I created a DEV+ thread on using escrow for this type of thing, including the penalties and money sinks. Basicly a form with checkboxes to select what services you wanted and 'bags' for your supplied raw materials and for the finished products.

    Hardest part is actually declaring you want 'Specific item X' made, or enchantment using 'Spell Y'. I'm hoping you could have a written copy of the recipe or a scroll for the spell to include in the 'bags'. Worse case is you select something from a list of items you know of. It's hard to determine if the terms of the agreement are upheld if you don't know the exact item being crafted.

    If you make multiple copies and post them in different locations, what happens if each gets selected by different crafters? Would each actually be a separate contract where you put your money into escrow for each copy? Or are the copies linked so that only one person can fill it, or is it really just a sign that says go here and use the official copy of the contract? For point 1, I more or less had it so it was available any where that escrow services where available.

    I also made a point to have all written escrow agreements available as a matter of public record. The idea was to allow for a 'reputation economy'. You could (for a fee) browse everything on file, or search by player or item, etc. You can search and decide which crafters using the system fill the most agreements, or get them done on time. Or what price points items are going for (over time). And especially information on who takes on an agreement but never finished it, basically tying it up in the system.

     
  4. Lord Kiron Maedun

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    Oh nice I will have to go read up on that post, hard to keep of everything on here, that one must of slipped by me, might of been the name lol.
     
  5. Bambino LudoVate

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    If this were implemented I could see it getting abused pretty quickly, 1 player with loads of gold could buy up all the valuable contracts, and make a truck load of gold and just rinse and repeat. I could see there being a select amount of players only benefiting from this type of system, much like people that watch auction houses in other games 24hrs/day who buy out everything that is low priced, and resell at higher prices, and that is how they spend most there day. Now a system which lists crafters/lvl of skill/and reputation sounds great, but instead of contracts, have contacts. Where there is still some sort of interaction instead of an automated contract system which is basically a fancy name a C.O.D delivery type system in which many recent mmo's have.
     
  6. Lord Kiron Maedun

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    I agree to a point. When I was trying to explain what I had in mind, I wanted everything to be locally done. So that the Contract offered by a smith in Kingsport could only be seen by those there. Also the way I thought about it, it would only take gold to write a contract, not to be able to fill one. The smaller and more separated the system is the harder it would be for anyone or a group of people to be able to monopolize it.

    However, the way I see it, how is this any different then a person mis-pricing an item? If they do so then someone will always be there to take advantage of it.
     
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  7. Bambino LudoVate

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    buying a mispriced item and monopolizing a whole market or in this case contract board are different. I think it would cut down on that if it were only in a boards seperate from each other, but you would still have someone just sitting there grabbing them as they are put up, its a good idea but may limit the amount 1 person can do in a day. that way everyone who wants to can benefit
     
  8. Lord Kiron Maedun

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    I think having limits on them is a great idea.
     
  9. Ceesed

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    I think this is why one would tie any sort of contract system to the individual/plot. That way one person or a group cannot buy up open requests as requests are made directly to a crafter. I also think you take the gold from the requesting party and then return it if the contract is not fulfilled with options for time based on the party limiting a players ability to just spam contracts.

    Part of me also worries about social interaction but then again you have consider the nature of online play and population play times. It is rather frustrating to be on an not be able to find someone to make something for you.

    Market squares scare me as the last time I saw that in a game was the first version of FFXIV and that was a horrible mess of frustration.

    It just seems like you could channel a lot of information through NPCs to make a system like this pretty cool. How social things are tends to relate more to the players than the systems in my opinion. You can create systems to force socialization but that will only work to an extent. Given a system tied to a residence I would hope one would have to physically go pick the item up there creating an chance for socialization (no magic mailing items please) and if the crafter is not around at least you can physically pick up your item so you get your item when you want it, some immersion, but are not tied to another's playtimes. NPCs could even tell you that to find someone around you'll have to travel to X village/town. Keeping you in the game world and less dependent on wide-spanning chat channels.
     
  10. aevans

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    You could limit access to who can fill the contracts based on what game mode you are in. If it's just your friends, then only they can see and fill contracts. If you are playing where everything is open, then anyone can fill it.

    Further if there is going to be any kind of in-game ignore list (for spammers, etc) you could also prevent contracts from being filled by those users.

    The thing I like about having all of the contracts as a matter of public record is that anyone can go through the data and determine who is buying low and re-selling high.

    I also think this is more for crafting, repairing, enchanting, enhancing, poisoning items than a means for commodity goods - but there doesn't seem to be any reason you couldn't use it to only buy and sell.
     
  11. Bambino LudoVate

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    I'm also a member of Bear Tavern, and the head officer for all members that do gathering, one of the other jobs my group will be fulfilling when we get orders is to do our own Delivery service for a fee, based upon quantity/rarity of the item/items being transported, of course the person can always come to the Tavern and pick them up themselves, or have us deliver it. I'm not completely against the contracts by all means, I just think theres a lot that needs to be put in place for it to work balanced. I myself will rather enjoy hand delivering goods. Community was one of the things that too many games lack nowadays, and just going to a board, no actually meeting people kinda dulls that social interaction for me.
     
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