Cali, thanks for the pictures of GW1 and WoW... but I'm talking about the lack of direct player to player trading in Gw2 that was the reason for the post. I'm not saying that their system is no good. What I'm saying, is that myself... and a lot of other players, want to click on another player standing next to us, select trade and trade an item that goes directly to their inventory that moment. I did it about 20 times last night in TOR while crafting my buddy some gear on the spot. Now that situation probably won't apply to GW2, but you can't tell me there will never be a time when you just want to give something to someone directly without involving mail.
I think this game will be very popular. I think there will be a ton of players... you know what comes with that? unforeseen issues. While I do appreciation your personal gaurantee of "no way that's happening"... I would really like another option from the Developer in case it does. I don't assume any of these companys WANT things to go wrong, but sometimes they do. And to have the option to just click on someone and trade wouldn't hurt. Would it?
Is it so hard to just say they should probably have a direct player to player trade option? Also... I wouldn't make gaurantee's on a game you haven't played to test for yourself.
Originally posted by Praetalus
Incorrect Sir. I'm not resistant to the idea... as a matter of fact.. if you read some of my previous post.. I have said numerous times that I think it's a good idea that should be coupled with direct player trades. You have failed to even once say that having direct player trading would be an ok idea also.
For one thing, and again I'm being optimistic here (I know I shouldn't guarantee), I don't know why they wouldn't have an option to click on someone to initiate a trade when we know there's an option to click on someone to invite them to a group. And who knows if ArenaNet will surprise us. What if there's a checkbox in the trade window that says "put this in my inventory if there's room." Except for the bird and being able to do it at distance, how would that not exactly mimic MMO trading? (Yes I know I shouldn't speculate)
To address the section in orange and the 2nd quote, it hurts if there's an issue with it being confusing or redundant. I gave examples such as what if there's two trade systems and each person opens a different one at the same time, or even simply having to declare which one you're going to use. I haven't acknowledged it as a good idea because I'm sorry, I don't think it is a good idea to have two mostly similar trade systems.
To expand on that as well as address the section in green, I don't think redundancy of systems is generally built in to MMOs. One example I can think of off the top of my head is that GW2 has instant teleportation to any waypoint. They're not putting a flight master at each waypoint so that you can fly from one to the other in case they break teleportation. Unforeseen things happen, but if they break something they do a quick rollback and fix it.
That being said, in traditional MMOs, you don't have a secondary system specific to trading. But what you do have if trading is bugged/lagged out for whatever reason, then you could always mail something or put it on the auction house as a workaround. I don't see why these options are not also available in GW2. Yes, trading in GW2 is tied into the mail system, but there's also mail. You should be able to send someone something who is offline or simply without having to wait for a confirmation if it's not a trade. As Steeljanz points out, this way your friend doesn't have to wait by the crafting station with you.
I'm not reading any of the speculation, no offense, you understand. It seems that ANet has combined the mail and trade system and like I said, I don't see an issue with that. I think it's a fine idea. It is just MY OPINION, and some others too, that not having a direct player to player trade is a shortcoming and something I would like to see addressed.
As far as the red, I see that you have not played TOR, and that's cool, however, you lose my point by not having played it. In TOR, you don't need a crafting station. You craft right where you are. We were outside of area getting ready to complete a quest and he asked me (knowing I make Jedi gear) if I could craft him up a belt. In TOR, you don't do the crafting, your companions do and when finished, it's placed directly in your inventory. I clicked on my companion crafting, picked the belt, made it, clicked on my friend, selected trade and gave him the belt... right outside of the instance. This is just one example of one of the 20 or so times I used a player direct trade that night. Now, if I mail/traded it, and there was an issue with the server, he woudn't have had the belt. Not a life altering issue, but annoying as I was standing right next to him.
In Guild Wars 2, if I can click on an item from anywhere and mail it to a friend who receives it instantaneously with no chance of it taking longer then a few seconds, then I would be ok with that. As I haven't played the game, and knowning that it hasn't been tested with millions of players ( as I believe it will have in the millions ) no one here can sit here and say there will be no issues. So. In my opinion, a direct player trade could be added to alleviate any issues. It's not a redunency to have several ways to get an item to someone in my opinion, it's a feature.
If you look at some of the game videos and see some pigeons fly to and from your character? That is the mobile mail system.
Haha.
*imagines tying a battle axe to a pigeon's leg and tossing it up in the air*
"Fly to xxxLeggol45xxx and return with 50 gold, pigeon! Go with speed!"
Nothing wrong with it.
It's a FANTASY game, so everything's possible... By that logic I could ask people why the fuck do you watch anime ?
By that logic Alien would be an equally good movie if suddenly the Alien put on a top hat and started dancing and Ripley jumped around like a goddamn Spiderman.
NO!
This is a very common fallacy among people who do not do fiction for a living (like I do). "Oh, it's fantasy so anything goes" Actually the very opposite is true. If you're doing a movie with fantastic elements you have to be EXTRA careful that all the other elements of the setting are 100% ultra-realistic in order not to compromise the fantastic ones. Stephen King is the master of this - his characters are super-realistic and believable and that is why he is able to sell total fantasy elements (vampires and werevolves and indian ghosts or what have you) to the widest possible public.
The more you go into fantasy, the more you have to watch for internal consistency and physical realism.
Let me put it in another way, what would happen to superheroes like Superman or Batman if you put them into an obviously fantastic setting? Meh. They are as effective as characters precisely because they operate within a realistic, everyday setting. When dealing in fantasy you have to be extremely careful to preserve this "willing suspension of disbelief" If you overdo you can slide into a farce and no one can get you out of it once you're there. It's like the invisible walls. "I kill dragons but I can't jump over this fence? KKTHNX Good bye."
I'm glad you took the time to point that out because that's something that drives me a bit crazy too Though I mostly hear these debates as pertaining to the physics of virtual "fantasy" worlds relative to our "real" world, all of your points still apply.
How has player to player trade been improved?@SnakesSnakes
Colin told us about the marketplace. In the marketplace the player has the ability to not only buy and sell items like a traditional auction house, but also place “Wanted” ads in there stating which item they’d like and for what price. In this system a seller can activate the ad and the transaction will automatically occur with both items being removed from the two players inventories.
Similarly, personal player to player trade can be done through the in-game mail system (see above question for details). Unfortunately, there is no face-to-face trade (ala GW1) in the game at launch.
There is the marketplace of course which sounds promising (inter-server, accessible outside of the game, putting up orders which are automatically dealt with etc): http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Marketplace
Wanted ads can be put in the marketplace? Thats awesome, I have been asking for this in many MMO's the last years. Just to prevent needing to trade outside the game on fansites.
Odd that there is no face-to-face trade though. I wonder why that is.
EDIT : Somehow my comment ended up inside the quote box
I'm not reading any of the speculation, no offense, you understand. It seems that ANet has combined the mail and trade system and like I said, I don't see an issue with that. I think it's a fine idea. It is just MY OPINION, and some others too, that not having a direct player to player trade is a shortcoming and something I would like to see addressed.
As far as the red, I see that you have not played TOR, and that's cool, however, you lose my point by not having played it. In TOR, you don't need a crafting station. You craft right where you are. We were outside of area getting ready to complete a quest and he asked me (knowing I make Jedi gear) if I could craft him up a belt. In TOR, you don't do the crafting, your companions do and when finished, it's placed directly in your inventory. I clicked on my companion crafting, picked the belt, made it, clicked on my friend, selected trade and gave him the belt... right outside of the instance. This is just one example of one of the 20 or so times I used a player direct trade that night. Now, if I mail/traded it, and there was an issue with the server, he woudn't have had the belt. Not a life altering issue, but annoying as I was standing right next to him.
In Guild Wars 2, if I can click on an item from anywhere and mail it to a friend who receives it instantaneously with no chance of it taking longer then a few seconds, then I would be ok with that. As I haven't played the game, and knowning that it hasn't been tested with millions of players ( as I believe it will have in the millions ) no one here can sit here and say there will be no issues. So. In my opinion, a direct player trade could be added to alleviate any issues. It's not a redunency to have several ways to get an item to someone in my opinion, it's a feature.
The first thing is that in your example of giving the belt to your friend, even though he was ostensibly "standing right next to you", you still had to go through the trade interface to interact with him. You're acting like he wouldn't have gotten it if there was a problem with the server and you had to mail it. If there's a problem with the server, he's not getting it no matter what you do. Both the mail and the trade mechanisms delete an item from the data structure associated with the items possessed by one person and add it to the data structure of another.
It's your opinion that having direct trade is a feature. It's my opinion that it's a BAD feature.
As far as I can see it, there's a few different possible scenarios.
First, ArenaNet competently programs up a working mail trade system. In this scenario, your direct trade system is inferior, redundant, causes confusion as to which system to use, and now requires ArenaNet to maintain a 2nd system in the code. In this scenario, direct trade is 100% a detriment to the game.
Second scenario is that ArenaNet incompetently programs up a mail trade system. The obvious solution here is to simply fix the mail trade system. It still makes no sense to have redundant systems as I explained above. The only reason to include a direct trade system is if the mail trade system is cannot be implemented correctly and has to be removed from the game.
But you're also concerned about the possibility of there being a failure of the mail trade system in that it would benefit people to have an alternate way to exchange goods. The first problem is that direct trade is not immune to failure. What if it is the one to break down? Your system would have created a problem that wouldn't have been there otherwise. The 2nd issue is that there are just as many ways in GW2 to transfer items (mail, trade, AH) as there are in SWTOR. What you're asking for is yet another option.
Again, this comes back to the first paragraph. You being right next to someone when you transferred an item in SWTOR isn't anything special. If the server is lagging, that trade will take just as long as the mail.
"Gamers will no longer buy the argument that every MMO requires a subscription fee to offset server and bandwidth costs. It's not true you know it, and they know it."-Jeff Strain, co-founder of ArenaNet, 2007
It is obvious that the reason for this is that there is no friendly targetting in GW2 but COME ON!
Why do people keep saying this? Just because they said there won't be any targetted healing skills, doesn't mean you won't be able to target people, or click on them...
If you look at some of the game videos and see some pigeons fly to and from your character? That is the mobile mail system.
Haha.
*imagines tying a battle axe to a pigeon's leg and tossing it up in the air*
"Fly to xxxLeggol45xxx and return with 50 gold, pigeon! Go with speed!"
Are we talking African or European pigeons here? *grin*
My take on this is it might be an effort to cut down on 3rd party RMTs like gold sellers.
Ken Fisher - Semi retired old fart Network Administrator, now working in Network Security. I don't Forum PVP. If you feel I've attacked you, it was probably by accident. When I don't understand, I ask. Such is not intended as criticism.
It's your opinion that having direct trade is a feature. It's my opinion that it's a BAD feature.
As far as I can see it, there's a few different possible scenarios.
First, ArenaNet competently programs up a working mail trade system. In this scenario, your direct trade system is inferior, redundant, causes confusion as to which system to use, and now requires ArenaNet to maintain a 2nd system in the code. In this scenario, direct trade is 100% a detriment to the game.
Honestly, if the mail system only takes a few seconds to deliver an item then they wouldn't need to code a whole new system.
Really all they would need to do is add a right-click option when targeting another player that says "Trade" that opens up the mail interface with the person's name already filled out.
I mean, I don't care either way and would rather ArenaNet stick to only the mail system (as long as it works well) but some people apparently need that trade button or the world just doesn't make sense to them.
"There is as yet insufficient data for a meaningful answer."
It's your opinion that having direct trade is a feature. It's my opinion that it's a BAD feature.
As far as I can see it, there's a few different possible scenarios.
First, ArenaNet competently programs up a working mail trade system. In this scenario, your direct trade system is inferior, redundant, causes confusion as to which system to use, and now requires ArenaNet to maintain a 2nd system in the code. In this scenario, direct trade is 100% a detriment to the game.
Honestly, if the mail system only takes a few seconds to deliver an item then they wouldn't need to code a whole new system.
Really all they would need to do is add a right-click option when targeting another player that says "Trade" that opens up the mail interface with the person's name already filled out.
I mean, I don't care either way and would rather ArenaNet stick to only the mail system (as long as it works well) but some people apparently need that trade button or the world just doesn't make sense to them.
It's not just mail. The key element here is that in addition to normal mail there has to be an ability to exchange goods and gold with all the submitting and confirming that goes with it.
"Gamers will no longer buy the argument that every MMO requires a subscription fee to offset server and bandwidth costs. It's not true you know it, and they know it."-Jeff Strain, co-founder of ArenaNet, 2007
The Solution: Right-clicking on a player portrait allows you to quickly open the mail interface and trade with this player.
Woah.
They will almost definitely have this. All they did is change the requirement of trading so that you no longer need to be standing next to the other player. Including both would be redundant.
My only complaints:
1) Shipping cost. The need to pay some copper to hand an item to a guy standing next to you (to pass out items made with the cooking discipline, for example) is very odd and will cause people to resent sharing. If the shipping cost is based on proximity, this would be fine.
2) Inventory space. If you can mail your items to alts from anywhere, what's the point of having limited inventory space? If your inventory space isn't limited, what's the point of junk items? They defended junk items in an interview once, so I'm sure they've considered this. Adjusting the shipping cost by proximity would actually help this one, too.
EDIT: Someone beat me to it. I knew I shouldn't have walked away for an hour before clicking Submit.
"Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind." -Dr. Seuss
Are you kidding me... are people really justifing no face-to-face trades in 2012? I knew there was a blind love for this game, but I didn't know how far it went.
So the same people bashing games like TOR for not having basic features are rewarding ANet for keeping everything "legit". Are you serious? Like only gold sellers do face-to-face trades?
So if I'm running around with a friend and I pick up an item that he could use... I have to run back to a town, find a mailbox and mail it to him? Or have him post a "wanted" notice for the item I picked up?
You people are killing me.
No, there is trading, it is handled through the mail system. Read my post like 2 seconds ago for a reason this might be a functionally superior system.
I read your post. I have seen people defend some decisions, but honestly, to not be able to criticize a game AT ALL removes the credit I had given some of you for being fair and honest.
I like a lot of games... but there's not one game that I find NO FAULTS with. Some are you are so excited about this game, you can't even say where there's something you don't like... For example, I'm ridiculously excited for Tera, but I could make you a list of things I'm worried about/didn't like.
No one can sit here and tell me they woundn't prefer the ability to trade face-to-face then through a mail system. And if you do, you're lying to yourself.
I will be trying the game, cause there's enough good to get me interested at this point, but this is a big pain in the ass negative in my opinion.
This isn't about not being able to criticize a game.
This is about you completely misrepresenting or misunderstanding the system (see orange), then saying that we're defending it out of blind fanboyism.
If you understand the system as described, which as far as the information I'm presented with pretty much seems like "functionally identical to trading, except it happens at any distance, goes to your mailbox to prevent overflow problems, and also requires a bird to be present" and then want to criticize it, then be my guest.
Or, of course, if you can provide information that the system isn't as I described, then by all means please correct me.
Can you provide me with information showing that the system works as YOU described? Like I said. You are all ASSUMING that the mail system is instantaneous. We don't know that. No one does. The game hasn't been tested on a scale large enough to safely make that assumption. Let's say the game is immensely popular with tons of players... you really think there will be no issues waiting for mail at anytime? I think it safer to say that some issues may pop their heads.
So, wouldn't it be a fabulous idea to have face-to-face trading AND the little birdy mailing system? Just in case? Like I said. The new system doesn't seem like a bad idea, but I would still prefer face-to-face trading and I'm not alone.
/snipity
Cali, thanks for the pictures of GW1 and WoW... but I'm talking about the lack of direct player to player trading in Gw2 that was the reason for the post. I'm not saying that their system is no good. What I'm saying, is that myself... and a lot of other players, want to click on another player standing next to us, select trade and trade an item that goes directly to their inventory that moment. I did it about 20 times last night in TOR while crafting my buddy some gear on the spot. Now that situation probably won't apply to GW2, but you can't tell me there will never be a time when you just want to give something to someone directly without involving mail.
I think this game will be very popular. I think there will be a ton of players... you know what comes with that? unforeseen issues. While I do appreciation your personal gaurantee of "no way that's happening"... I would really like another option from the Developer in case it does. I don't assume any of these companys WANT things to go wrong, but sometimes they do. And to have the option to just click on someone and trade wouldn't hurt. Would it?
Is it so hard to just say they should probably have a direct player to player trade option? Also... I wouldn't make gaurantee's on a game you haven't played to test for yourself.
As long as what you want to give to them, gets to them in a timely fashion, what difference does it make? Wasn't the objective of the exercise, that they receive what you wanted to give them?
People don't understand that the mail system is an icon in the UI, you only need to click that icon, enter the name of the friend you wish to give the items and press send, period, it arrives instantly to him, no mail-boxes, not runing to this or that place, nothing more, it doesn't matter if my friend is standing next to me or in the other corner of Tyria.
I'm not reading any of the speculation, no offense, you understand. It seems that ANet has combined the mail and trade system and like I said, I don't see an issue with that. I think it's a fine idea. It is just MY OPINION, and some others too, that not having a direct player to player trade is a shortcoming and something I would like to see addressed.
As far as the red, I see that you have not played TOR, and that's cool, however, you lose my point by not having played it. In TOR, you don't need a crafting station. You craft right where you are. We were outside of area getting ready to complete a quest and he asked me (knowing I make Jedi gear) if I could craft him up a belt. In TOR, you don't do the crafting, your companions do and when finished, it's placed directly in your inventory. I clicked on my companion crafting, picked the belt, made it, clicked on my friend, selected trade and gave him the belt... right outside of the instance. This is just one example of one of the 20 or so times I used a player direct trade that night. Now, if I mail/traded it, and there was an issue with the server, he woudn't have had the belt. Not a life altering issue, but annoying as I was standing right next to him.
In Guild Wars 2, if I can click on an item from anywhere and mail it to a friend who receives it instantaneously with no chance of it taking longer then a few seconds, then I would be ok with that. As I haven't played the game, and knowning that it hasn't been tested with millions of players ( as I believe it will have in the millions ) no one here can sit here and say there will be no issues. So. In my opinion, a direct player trade could be added to alleviate any issues. It's not a redunency to have several ways to get an item to someone in my opinion, it's a feature.
The first thing is that in your example of giving the belt to your friend, even though he was ostensibly "standing right next to you", you still had to go through the trade interface to interact with him. You're acting like he wouldn't have gotten it if there was a problem with the server and you had to mail it. If there's a problem with the server, he's not getting it no matter what you do. Both the mail and the trade mechanisms delete an item from the data structure associated with the items possessed by one person and add it to the data structure of another.
It's your opinion that having direct trade is a feature. It's my opinion that it's a BAD feature.
As far as I can see it, there's a few different possible scenarios.
First, ArenaNet competently programs up a working mail trade system. In this scenario, your direct trade system is inferior, redundant, causes confusion as to which system to use, and now requires ArenaNet to maintain a 2nd system in the code. In this scenario, direct trade is 100% a detriment to the game.
Second scenario is that ArenaNet incompetently programs up a mail trade system. The obvious solution here is to simply fix the mail trade system. It still makes no sense to have redundant systems as I explained above. The only reason to include a direct trade system is if the mail trade system is cannot be implemented correctly and has to be removed from the game.
But you're also concerned about the possibility of there being a failure of the mail trade system in that it would benefit people to have an alternate way to exchange goods. The first problem is that direct trade is not immune to failure. What if it is the one to break down? Your system would have created a problem that wouldn't have been there otherwise. The 2nd issue is that there are just as many ways in GW2 to transfer items (mail, trade, AH) as there are in SWTOR. What you're asking for is yet another option.
Again, this comes back to the first paragraph. You being right next to someone when you transferred an item in SWTOR isn't anything special. If the server is lagging, that trade will take just as long as the mail.
You are right.. I am wrong. The driect player trading system is clearly inferior and I'm not quite sure why anyone uses it anymore. Guild Wars 2 will be an amazing game and change the face of gaming. ANet has made all the right decisions and this game will be without flaw.
How has player to player trade been improved?@SnakesSnakes
Colin told us about the marketplace. In the marketplace the player has the ability to not only buy and sell items like a traditional auction house, but also place “Wanted” ads in there stating which item they’d like and for what price. In this system a seller can activate the ad and the transaction will automatically occur with both items being removed from the two players inventories.
Similarly, personal player to player trade can be done through the in-game mail system (see above question for details). Unfortunately, there is no face-to-face trade (ala GW1) in the game at launch.
Thank GOD for this. I don't know why more games don't let me put up buy orders. Buy orders should have been in MMO-101 a decade ago.
This part confuses me, as the wording makes it sound like you can't face to face trade in GW1... in which case I have no idea how I've ever traded in that game.
I am quite confused as well. What do they mean by no face-to-face trade in GW1? How did I trade all those items then?
Mission in life: Vanquish all MMORPG.com trolls - especially TESO, WOW and GW2 trolls.
How has player to player trade been improved?@SnakesSnakes
Colin told us about the marketplace. In the marketplace the player has the ability to not only buy and sell items like a traditional auction house, but also place “Wanted” ads in there stating which item they’d like and for what price. In this system a seller can activate the ad and the transaction will automatically occur with both items being removed from the two players inventories.
Similarly, personal player to player trade can be done through the in-game mail system (see above question for details). Unfortunately, there is no face-to-face trade (ala GW1) in the game at launch.
Thank GOD for this. I don't know why more games don't let me put up buy orders. Buy orders should have been in MMO-101 a decade ago.
This part confuses me, as the wording makes it sound like you can't face to face trade in GW1... in which case I have no idea how I've ever traded in that game.
I am quite confused as well. What do they mean by no face-to-face trade in GW1? How did I trade all those items then?
I'm sorry, but this is the third time this has come up.
When someone says "Unfortunately, there is no face-to-face trade (ala GW1) in the game at launch"
it can mean two different things. It's ambigious, I know, and it's almost like it needs parentheses or something.
It can mean "there's no trade in this game, just like there wasn't in GW1"
or it can mean "there's no trade in this game, like the kind GW1 had"
"Gamers will no longer buy the argument that every MMO requires a subscription fee to offset server and bandwidth costs. It's not true you know it, and they know it."-Jeff Strain, co-founder of ArenaNet, 2007
Comments
I'm not reading any of the speculation, no offense, you understand. It seems that ANet has combined the mail and trade system and like I said, I don't see an issue with that. I think it's a fine idea. It is just MY OPINION, and some others too, that not having a direct player to player trade is a shortcoming and something I would like to see addressed.
As far as the red, I see that you have not played TOR, and that's cool, however, you lose my point by not having played it. In TOR, you don't need a crafting station. You craft right where you are. We were outside of area getting ready to complete a quest and he asked me (knowing I make Jedi gear) if I could craft him up a belt. In TOR, you don't do the crafting, your companions do and when finished, it's placed directly in your inventory. I clicked on my companion crafting, picked the belt, made it, clicked on my friend, selected trade and gave him the belt... right outside of the instance. This is just one example of one of the 20 or so times I used a player direct trade that night. Now, if I mail/traded it, and there was an issue with the server, he woudn't have had the belt. Not a life altering issue, but annoying as I was standing right next to him.
In Guild Wars 2, if I can click on an item from anywhere and mail it to a friend who receives it instantaneously with no chance of it taking longer then a few seconds, then I would be ok with that. As I haven't played the game, and knowning that it hasn't been tested with millions of players ( as I believe it will have in the millions ) no one here can sit here and say there will be no issues. So. In my opinion, a direct player trade could be added to alleviate any issues. It's not a redunency to have several ways to get an item to someone in my opinion, it's a feature.
I'm glad you took the time to point that out because that's something that drives me a bit crazy too
Though I mostly hear these debates as pertaining to the physics of virtual "fantasy" worlds relative to our "real" world, all of your points still apply.
EDIT : Somehow my comment ended up inside the quote box
The first thing is that in your example of giving the belt to your friend, even though he was ostensibly "standing right next to you", you still had to go through the trade interface to interact with him. You're acting like he wouldn't have gotten it if there was a problem with the server and you had to mail it. If there's a problem with the server, he's not getting it no matter what you do. Both the mail and the trade mechanisms delete an item from the data structure associated with the items possessed by one person and add it to the data structure of another.
It's your opinion that having direct trade is a feature. It's my opinion that it's a BAD feature.
As far as I can see it, there's a few different possible scenarios.
First, ArenaNet competently programs up a working mail trade system. In this scenario, your direct trade system is inferior, redundant, causes confusion as to which system to use, and now requires ArenaNet to maintain a 2nd system in the code. In this scenario, direct trade is 100% a detriment to the game.
Second scenario is that ArenaNet incompetently programs up a mail trade system. The obvious solution here is to simply fix the mail trade system. It still makes no sense to have redundant systems as I explained above. The only reason to include a direct trade system is if the mail trade system is cannot be implemented correctly and has to be removed from the game.
But you're also concerned about the possibility of there being a failure of the mail trade system in that it would benefit people to have an alternate way to exchange goods. The first problem is that direct trade is not immune to failure. What if it is the one to break down? Your system would have created a problem that wouldn't have been there otherwise. The 2nd issue is that there are just as many ways in GW2 to transfer items (mail, trade, AH) as there are in SWTOR. What you're asking for is yet another option.
Again, this comes back to the first paragraph. You being right next to someone when you transferred an item in SWTOR isn't anything special. If the server is lagging, that trade will take just as long as the mail.
"Gamers will no longer buy the argument that every MMO requires a subscription fee to offset server and bandwidth costs. It's not true you know it, and they know it." -Jeff Strain, co-founder of ArenaNet, 2007
Why do people keep saying this? Just because they said there won't be any targetted healing skills, doesn't mean you won't be able to target people, or click on them...
Are we talking African or European pigeons here? *grin*
My take on this is it might be an effort to cut down on 3rd party RMTs like gold sellers.
African pigeon, obviously. A European pigeon could never do it.
How would it cut down on gold sellers? Don't they usually send mail or spam the chat?
<childish, provocative and highly speculative banner about your favorite game goes here>
Honestly, if the mail system only takes a few seconds to deliver an item then they wouldn't need to code a whole new system.
Really all they would need to do is add a right-click option when targeting another player that says "Trade" that opens up the mail interface with the person's name already filled out.
I mean, I don't care either way and would rather ArenaNet stick to only the mail system (as long as it works well) but some people apparently need that trade button or the world just doesn't make sense to them.
"There is as yet insufficient data for a meaningful answer."
It's not just mail. The key element here is that in addition to normal mail there has to be an ability to exchange goods and gold with all the submitting and confirming that goes with it.
"Gamers will no longer buy the argument that every MMO requires a subscription fee to offset server and bandwidth costs. It's not true you know it, and they know it." -Jeff Strain, co-founder of ArenaNet, 2007
The Solution:
Right-clicking on a player portrait allows you to quickly open the mail interface and trade with this player.
Woah.
They will almost definitely have this. All they did is change the requirement of trading so that you no longer need to be standing next to the other player. Including both would be redundant.
My only complaints:
1) Shipping cost. The need to pay some copper to hand an item to a guy standing next to you (to pass out items made with the cooking discipline, for example) is very odd and will cause people to resent sharing. If the shipping cost is based on proximity, this would be fine.
2) Inventory space. If you can mail your items to alts from anywhere, what's the point of having limited inventory space? If your inventory space isn't limited, what's the point of junk items? They defended junk items in an interview once, so I'm sure they've considered this. Adjusting the shipping cost by proximity would actually help this one, too.
EDIT: Someone beat me to it. I knew I shouldn't have walked away for an hour before clicking Submit.
"Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind." -Dr. Seuss
As long as what you want to give to them, gets to them in a timely fashion, what difference does it make? Wasn't the objective of the exercise, that they receive what you wanted to give them?
People don't understand that the mail system is an icon in the UI, you only need to click that icon, enter the name of the friend you wish to give the items and press send, period, it arrives instantly to him, no mail-boxes, not runing to this or that place, nothing more, it doesn't matter if my friend is standing next to me or in the other corner of Tyria.
You are right.. I am wrong. The driect player trading system is clearly inferior and I'm not quite sure why anyone uses it anymore. Guild Wars 2 will be an amazing game and change the face of gaming. ANet has made all the right decisions and this game will be without flaw.
I can't wait to play.
I am quite confused as well. What do they mean by no face-to-face trade in GW1? How did I trade all those items then?
Mission in life: Vanquish all MMORPG.com trolls - especially TESO, WOW and GW2 trolls.
I'm sorry, but this is the third time this has come up.
When someone says "Unfortunately, there is no face-to-face trade (ala GW1) in the game at launch"
it can mean two different things. It's ambigious, I know, and it's almost like it needs parentheses or something.
It can mean "there's no trade in this game, just like there wasn't in GW1"
or it can mean "there's no trade in this game, like the kind GW1 had"
"Gamers will no longer buy the argument that every MMO requires a subscription fee to offset server and bandwidth costs. It's not true you know it, and they know it." -Jeff Strain, co-founder of ArenaNet, 2007
They could've just said that -_- Thanks for clearing that up.
Mission in life: Vanquish all MMORPG.com trolls - especially TESO, WOW and GW2 trolls.
I have mixed feelings about this...
On the one hand it was fun to congregate around Drokes and in other marketplaces in factions and get together
sell stuff and make friends but sometimes it was a lot of time standing around blaring out "WTS WTS!!" so I guess
it will let us focus more on gameplay than selling directly, it's a good thing I guess. It will also avoid people getting
scammed and it's an easier way to "set the economy" much like the way the GUild Wars NPC's selling stuff did.