Petition against the Auction House approach. -- (Dev) Replied

If there is a regional market, I think it should be similar to the ones on UO in that it is out of guard protection. An example of this is the vendors between Moonglow bank and the moongate.

 

Global auction house = No
Trade chat channel = No

Instead, I suggest simple crests or logos to display on your house (or even the vendor himself... Regs t-shirt - lol) in the yard/bazaar by your personal vendor, such as: Blacksmith logo, Alchemist logo etc, advertising what your vendor is mainly selling. We would have to search around a little but soon you would take notice on which vendor you like/use frequently. If they give us the ability to put pins and notes on the overlay map you could mark favorite vendors there as a reminder.

 

DAoC had a good system that allowed browsing market boards for items- but you still had to travel to the merchant to make the purchase. This allowed faster shopping, while providing (for SoTA) a good reason to visit the location.

Done properly (perhaps a simple rating system) it could also give merchants a real reason to be in it as a merchant for the experience by establishing a good reputation, and provide reasonable fair market value(s). AH as we know it now, community killer IMHO. I have to admit, part of my adventuring fun was hunting new vendors.

I suppose my addition I'd add is instead of giving the exact location, you could have a "rumor" listing by each merchant in the list- the higher the number of good UNIQUE ratings, the closer to the "mark" the rumor's location gives. (I had that idea tucked away since the DAoC days mind you). Thats innovation.

Whatcha think?

 

My main character in Ultima Online was a crafter and I had several vendors that would sell the entire gamut of all things crafted. I can see the folly of adding a global auction house and favor the idea of regional markets. There is a mobile game called: Parallel Kingdom that uses this notion. The regional market prices would be set on supply/demand and would charge a 'convenience fee'. Ideally, this 'convenience fee' would be set between 20%-40% to entice players to make acquaintances with their local vendors/suppliers. Adding to the roleplaying mechanic, the 'convenience fee' would pay for the market upkeep and the wages of the staff

On the subject of indexing items, one idea could be: use some sort of proximity advertising. Basically, as the traveler walks around an area, they have the option to see what is for sale within a given radius. This way, they would know a 'silver sword of vanquish' was available nearby, but they would still have to look for the vendor. In the roleplaying context, this notion could simulate asking the local folks 'I am looking for a silver sword of vanquish, do you know who has one for sale nearby?'

Of course, since I was well-versed on running vendors in Ultima Online, now I am starting to get curious as to how we are going to set those up. The memory that comes to mind is setting up bookshelves to sell and how they would take up most of the 'sell' area in the bag graphics

 

Additionally, do keep in mind the idea of the player-owned 'Auction House'. I remember taking part in these in Ultima Online. Basically, folks (a group of 4-5 folks) would announce a weekly auction at their house. The auction house was a local-player house with a special arrangement to be able to display the items. Folks would yell their bids. The typical auction would last about 45mins-60mins.

Not sure how this would fit into the overall theme, but it is something to keep in mind.

 

I don't care much either way, since I don't really care if the game has a working economy or not, but for my part I will only buy and sell things from/to other players if it's quick and easy. If I have to run in circles around one settlement - or, even worse, multiple settlements - in order to find the items I want to purchase, I will just give up on purchasing things from other players and, instead, craft myself anything that I might need.

After all, I already have two copies of the game, and I wouldn't have a problem adding more copies just to have extra crafting characters if needed. Unless trading is really easy and wastes little time, being self-sufficient, for me, will be a certainty.

The same with selling things. If it's quick and easy, I have no issue selling, but if it actually takes an effort, I will just ignore that aspect of the game altogether. Heck, even in games with an easy to use AH I still tend to just sell to a random NPC vendor whatever I find because I'm not willing to travel to where the AH is and I find listing items on the AH too boring anyway.

To put my opinion into perspective, I don't actually like shopping; I find shopping, in games, to be a boring activity that merely distracts me from what I actually want to do. The same with selling things; I only do that as a public service, but don't actually enjoy selling things. I do like crafting, but only for the mastering aspect, not for the recognition; I will strive to improve myself nevertheless, but I don't care at all if I never sell a piece of gear to another player.

Also, I don't haggle. If you want to sell something to me, present me with your best and final offer immediately. If I don't like your offer I will leave, and you attempt to haggle afterwards I will likely just ignore you.

 

Regional markets sounds great; I wonder how many people will try using their houses as shops; it might be a little overwhelming to shop in a housing district, but it could be nice if people could arrange themselves in an organized manner.

I'll +1 to not having the classical example AH as most people here have. Auctions run by players manually seems like the way to go. Doing it right takes skill, and it sounds like a fun experience to join in on bidding on a contested item.

I'd like to be able to haggle a little on price sometimes, especially if we get an actual vendor UI for manning a till and setting standard prices for items set in-shop.

The bazaar approach sounds good for those looking to trade and travel at the same time.

I've got mixed feelings about how convenient finding an item should be. In the first place, general knowledge about items in the game should be shrouded in mystery at the beginning. I want that feeling of discovery when you find something new and unexpected to happen to people sometimes. In that sense there should at some point be items that have a 'legendary' aspect to them, that you may find rumors about from players or information brokers (npc bartenders anyone?). Items don't have to broken, and the economy will still likely have its in-game currency inflate throughout the course of the game; but in a way that itself is also a goal for players, as 'Greed' is a powerful anti-virtue to resist.

 

Thats fine because theres always room for players with your mindset- it's just not the only one; a feature set like some of the ones being proposed to offer non cookie cutter systems can simply be ignored as you state, and you seem prepared to take whatever measures you need to, to make that happen which is great. I do both myself. I work towards total self sufficiency in the event that the economy goes out of control, but spend a great deal of time too on developing a community name for goods and services because thats an enjoyable aspect when not grouping or engaging in pvp.

Again, I mentioned a "toy" system I worked on in my own development circles which involved a regional board for finding items, giving a general area the item an be found via a rumor system. It narrows things down but not too much, requiring exploration. This rumor system also had the coding to "home in" on merchants based on a popularity system. ie; The more you get talked about, the more likely a npc/the board system will suggest you and know your whereabouts. Its very RP on that side, but also fluid because you do not have an immediate gratification built in to it, and getting "homed in" takes ongoing effort.

 

Whenever players will enjoy things like this depends on whenever players enjoy the shopping experience. I don't, which is why I prefer to reduce the time I spend on such activities as much as possible, specially if it involves travel, which - when not associated with actually exploring - is another activity I dislike. This is also why, in other MMOs, I'm typically willing to settle for far less gold than I could in exchange for not having to deal with personal sales, traveling to find deals, etc. Heck, even when I use the AH to sell things, I typically just undercut other players in order to move my goods as fast as possible with the least possible hassle.

I don't really care, though, as long as taking part in the player-based economy is not a requirement. Given the existence of an offline mode, I doubt players will be forced to take part in the player market anyway.

BTW, a few questions that might be worth answering:

- How common are players that don't like the shopping experience, players that prefer to spend as little time as possible trading and might even settle for lower gains in order to avoid that aspect of the game altogether?

- Is it worth to draw those players into the player economy? If so, how to invite those players into participating?

 

Its almost as if what you are saying is you prefer a game to be alot less like a living world with "realistic" or better yet, "immersive" rules to one thats basically having a travel stone in your bag, AH and map quest points conveniently at your finger tips to do what then?

Should we just throw up a npc merchant that has all of the items available ingame, a travel system that only requires typing in a slash command w/town (or dungeon), and auto kill buttons for those that dont want to bother with limits?

I really dont think Rich's vision had that in mind, and if anything sought/seeks to achieve both a ressurection of immersive play while having (finally) the computing power to pull it off. Newer games have continually watered down the concept of "living, breathing world" to the point of things like lore, skill, and community are no longer needed. Anybody can do visuals now. I think losing that/those emphasis is why the game industry has been in the sorry state it has been in for a long time. MMO's have become one trick pony FPS and even come with cheat codes, in a manner of speaking. The day some jerk coined the phrase "Endgame" and applied it to a MMO, is when the angels cried.

Sadly, me being jaded by just that is why I haven't invested yet- it's clearly not Rich's fault, but I don't trust anyone anymore until I see results; It's been close to 30 years for me too and getting too old to just take the word for it.

 

Immersion is only useful when it helps to keep the players engaged. On the other hand immersion for the sake of immersion is often worthless, and sometimes even detrimental to the game.

Mind you, I'm not saying that a player economy is useless. While I myself don't care about the game even having a player-based economy, I recognize that a player economy is fun for, at least, a sizable minority of the player base, perhaps even a majority of players. But making it more complex, more demanding, less convenient, just for the sake of immersion, without the added complexity making the economy actually more engaging, can be detrimental to the game, specially for players that, like myself, don't really care about whether or not players influence the economy.

As for travel, I love travel - as long as I'm actively doing other things while traveling, like exploring, fighting, etc. But wasting time doing a trip I've already done in the past, when there is nothing noteworthy happening in the trip, is something I find utterly boring and a waste of time. In other words, the travel I want gone is the boring, uneventful kind.

If you have access to them, compare how travel works in the two Zelda games for the DS, and in WoW. In all of them you plan a trip and it takes some time, depending on how far you are to your destination, go get there - but while in WoW you are completely invulnerable during travel and can basically go AFK, in Zelda you have to pay attention and defend yourself in order to not be slaughtered by enemies. Thanks to this, I really love travel in those Zelda games, but despise travel in WoW from the bottom of my heart.

Actually, as far as can be inferred from the info we already have, community won't be actually needed in SotA. After all, there are two planned single player modes, one online and the other offline.

What RG plans seems to be to make players join the community by choice, rather than by force. Make playing the game with other people more enjoyable, without removing the possibility of playing alone if the player so desires.

This is, to a large extent, why I even bothered pledging. I don't trust game communities to be pleasant; if enjoying the game depends on the quality of the community, I will never pay anything before the game's community is in place, and developed enough for me to determine if being part of it will be a pleasant experience. By making a game where community is optional, RG basically made a game that I can pledge for, and be somewhat involved with, before the community has matured.

Blame this on developers deciding to use gated power progression, rather than fun, to keep players logging into the game. This creates a natural segregation where players that aren't done with the early stages of the power progression - in other words, the "leveling" - can't play most of the activities the players that are done with the "leveling" want to play, and as a consequence neatly divides the game into "leveling" and "end game" sections, despite whatever the developers might claim.

 

Is anyone here a professor in Game world economics? I thought that they already stated that there will be no auction house because of player vendors ceasing their purpose? I did see that they are providing town-specific trade vendors, but I think we need to start a thread on SotA Economy, Traditional, or Player Driven.

One thing of importance in this discussion is the idea that one or two items per player vendor could end up on an item list that could be referenced from a town crier of some sort. Force the player to go out looking for that item, rather than having a quick succession of ordering an item and having it sent through the mail.

I believe that the only way the vendor/auction thing would work is if it was player driven. Players saying they have a few items for sale, going to the center of town, and starting the auction.

"Bid starts at 25 gold" player says.
2 players start upping their bids in real time, rather than applying their auction bid through an interface. Make it real-time auctions. There could be a list of auctions happening that day, then come to the REAL auction house, not user interface. Have an actual Auction House/Building with a stage large enough for people to sit and raise their arms for bids. This would create an immersive experience that FAR exceeds that of any other game. Having a real-time, real-game-world auction house may seem farfetched and difficult, but not really. "Raise arm" emote. Program the game to up the bid per user per raised arm. player actually trades with winning bidder at end of auction before being able to leave the auction.

Another way of doing it is have a General Register of Vendors and items, Search the items, but not be able to buy them. Just have the location of the vendor.

 

Actually thats wrong, the offline only game will be a single player only no community game that is true but the online single player wont be like that. What other people do will DEFINITELY effect that game, especially crafting because the shops you buy stuff from will be other players shops, the people you sell to will be other players through your vendor who is an NPC sales point for YOU. If you buy a house no one else can buy that house etc

 

When I said that community won't be needed, what I meant is that players won't have to interact with other players unless they want to, and they shouldn't be prevented from playing most of the game due to not interacting with other players.

The whole point of the single player online mode, after all, as stated by the devs themselves, is to attract into playing online players that would usually prefer to play offline. For that to happen, those players must be as comfortable playing single player online as they would be playing offline - which likely means that forcing player interaction unto them is not desirable.

 

It has already been discussed that there will not be a centralised AH but each person will be able to sell there wears in a player run vendor at there houses

 

I am very glad that they have decided to not include a AH system!

Some of my fondest memories indeed were running around and shopping from the various vendors at peoples houses and then getting distracted by all the cool things they had done with their houses and what not.

Being able to pull up a menu of all the available items for sale in a game realm does not build community at all and I am so glad they realize this and are willing to stick to their guns on it. I am also very glad to see that in this thread there are so many others who feel the same way I do and relish some of the same experiences I have from my time in UO.

 

I know what you like to say. Having people to run their shops would feel more "social" then just puting you goods or your bids more or less "anoymous" in an AH.

Maybe there could a solution in between that works for people like you and for people who like the AH-System.

I thoughtof something like this:
Market/Shop for "casual" things, Clothes, Wepons, Armor, Toolls, Food

AH for Luxury goods, like expensive pictures and fornitures.
And Houses. Well you don't buy the house to carry it out, but the document for the ownership.

How does that idea sound?

 

From my point of view for homeless people it's way more difficult to sell items to other people than it is for someone who owns a house/shop. And it should also be like that in the game. For me it is so obvious that someone who saved enough money to buy a house at a very crowdy place has much more and easier opportunities to sell his items than someone roaming around the villages with a pack-llama. But isn't that also the interesting thing about the game? That you start from scratch and climbing all the way up the ladder to feel like you "accomplished" something?
I remember something that I read in the original Ultima Online manual: It basically said that if you don't have enough money to aquire some armour and/or weapons you can roam around the major cities, pick up things other people leave on the ground and sell it for money. And guess what, I did it! That's how I started playing. I collected rubbish from the others to finance my first pair of shoes. Today this would obviously just end in broken developers but I just wanna emphasize that there will and should be a difference between people that actually have a house and people that don't. Or between people that can afford the prices for a stand at the market of a major city and those that can anly afford the prices for a stand at a market of a village.

 

IMHO the most of you begin to solve trat problem completely the wrong way again.. "not implementing AH's" will not solve the problem that players trade off game. People will trade by using the forum or other trading platforms..

The solution to this problem is, implementing some kind of system that brings the traders benefits when they really offer theyre stuff IG. For example a marketplace in every city where you can rent a little stand and get boni on something when u trade your goods there..

but finding solutions never was the strength of the gaming community crying and forbidding is how we roll!

 

Urganaite said
(I personally would suggest that barring an AH, there be a place where you can see lists of buy orders and items for sale in the town, both with quantities and prices, and a static town map viewable at the, "brokerage", let's call it, to help you find where the vendor doing the buying or selling is without those infernal head-pointing-arrows that a certain Lord British so despises. I think this is the best hybrid approach to avoid having a single generic place where trade takes place, but I still think it places non-land owners at an extreme disadvantage.)

I agree with this approach a lot. Good solution. As for the homeless.... WHo says it is easy for a smal business to compete with a big one? whould u buy a plate of food from a homeless? probably not. Small business must sell items for npc vendor, especially bcs he is probably at the start of his profession, he is not likely doing desirable items at this stage of the game. After he rises his skills and time pass, he will be doing good items and probably got his house.
I really dont see a problem with that.