Introducing the Trade-House Idea (Offline Trading)

I already did propose a system on these forums. I don't see how it would be that complicated.

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zeto wrote:

I already did propose a system on these forums. I don't see how it would be that complicated.

We know you proposed a system, and the discussion has been about the problems with it. With those problems I don't see it working very well, or as needed in any way. And, not all games have AH's, Anarchy Online never did when I played it, and it worked just fine.

The problems people have mentioned also exist with a forum.

I think that ya'll are forgetting that the two mediums converge rather quickly depending on the functionality of the forum.

The *only* real factors are how the system organizes the data and turn-around time.

In both an AH and a forum users will post an item, and will have to sift through offers.

The effectiveness system will be probably the only reasonable way to order/sort complex offers.

Additionally in a forum there is no option for quick transaction, a HUGE negative. In an in-game AH a player would post parameters for a 'buy it now' option, and if someone offers that the transaction will take place regardless of other offers... this is a feature that probably cannot effectively be met with a forum. In that same line of thought, two people using a mail system with COD style trading is super inefficient for both parties, since the offer is not a 'live' offer and may take days or weeks to complete.

Other than that, a forum also has the distinct inability to tabulate offers for easy presentation, but an in-game AH could do that. Even if you did code a script to tabulate this data in a browser, that same functionality could have gone into the game itself, and I know that demographics suggest that only an extreme minority of users will even go to a forum to begin with, let alone use an out of game mechanism to trade... this leads to a majority of users running around screaming/spamming about their stuff for sale... or bots doing the same.

Ultimately, an in-game AH could provide all the functionality of a forum system plus some useful functionality.

The difference is that the forums already exist, and since GGG isn't that large of a studio, I'd rather have them focusing on the game rather then a totally new system that at best provides very few benefits.

Well they can decide, but I think it's shooting yourself in the face to not have a trade house inside the game at this point in gaming history.

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zeto wrote:

The effectiveness system will be probably the only reasonable way to order/sort complex offers.

Additionally in a forum there is no option for quick transaction, a HUGE negative. In an in-game AH a player would post parameters for a 'buy it now' option, and if someone offers that the transaction will take place regardless of other offers... this is a feature that probably cannot effectively be met with a forum.

We've already discussed that the effectiveness rating cannot be used by players as basis for the economy. It's a tuning parameter for the devs, nothing else.

In an item-item trading economy there's no way to implement a 'buy it now' feature. How could you possibly specify what sort of items you were looking for without some absurdly complicated menu system? It would be practically impossible to use. Of course you could limit that functionality to currency items (like you already mentioned earlier in the thread) but the economy isn't based on currency items. Even still with 25 different currency items implementing a buy it now feature would still be practically impossible.

So no, I don't see how the auction house could provide any additional functionality that a well-organized forum couldn't provide. I see any attempt to implement an auction house in this item based economy as flawed and that it will undoubtedly limit a player's ability to negotiate an effective trade. As I said before, I haven't read any decent method in this thread (or others where it's been brought up) for implementing a trading house that deals with the complexities of an item-item trade economy properly.

Depends how random the items are in and of themselves. If all wooden shields are exactly the same, and all gems of a particular type are the same, and all currency items of a particular type are exactly the same, it could work.

The effectiveness rating system COULD be used to sort, which is what I said, a point you ignored. It doesn't show you the best for you, however it does provide a mechanism to sort offers.

More than likely the forum is a bad idea because most people do not use forums external to the game itself. That's just fact.

Implementing an AH as a simple list of offers that are sorted by total effectiveness is probably the best solution.

The seller would have to sort through it either way, but imo the AH/forum needs to have a few properties:

1. has to be inside the game, not outside, because the vast majority of users do not go to forums

2. it has to allow for sorting of offers from highest potential value to lowest... the only mechanism to do this is effectiveness.

3. it has to allow for filtering for particular types you would be more looking for, again still sorted by highest overall offer

The game will survive without these features, but these go above and beyond what a forum could offer.

Monetary systems were invented to solve exactly this problem, and while currency items solve a particular problem, it obviously creates many other problems.

I agree with those. That's some basic functionality that shouldn't be too difficult to implement but could really make trading easier.

Similarly, players need to be able to easily sort through all the items being offered (not just replies to items they've posted).

Items have different sockets and different quality's though xD. Someone could have the same item as someone else but one might have a good rolled version of it so its actually worth 3 times as much. Also people can have the same sockets in a weapon but they are linked in a different way.

Setting up a system that you can trade an item with that player when their offline is just impossible.There are far FAR to many options.

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Rustychops wrote:

Items have different sockets and different quality's though xD. Someone could have the same item as someone else but one might have a good rolled version of it so its actually worth 3 times as much. Also people can have the same sockets in a weapon but they are linked in a different way.

Setting up a system that you can trade an item with that player when their offline is just impossible.There are far FAR to many options.

Why? Offers can be just like the auction itself, but offers can be in multiple places at once. If someone accepts an offer with that item, other offers using that item would disappear from other auctions.

I don't see a problem with it at all.

You auction Item1 and I offer up Item2. Your offers are sorted for you, and you filter it for preferences... and my item comes up.. you want it and accept it. The trade occurs and both items are removed from all auctions they are involved with. The server would also then remove the references to that auction from all other offers.