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Trading - The other part of MMO's
Dicharek
Member UncommonPosts: 177
Trading and economy, anyone else thinks this is one of the most important parts of an MMO? A well designed auction house brings more fun than most people might realise.
I know I'm not the only one who likes spending some or a lot of time watching the AH interface in games, waiting for the next great deal, buying something cheap and then selling it for three times as much.
What's your best memory of this? Bad or good, doesn't matter.
My personally best memory is from WoW, pre-BC. At level 30-ish (as main character) 100G was quite a lot of money as I recall, and I remember bidding on an entire series of rare crafting material. I won the auction and the next day I had sold it for 5x the price, reaching my first 100G. Although I lost most of that money rather quickly in some bad deals.
Comments
I think anyone who has ever played EVE will tell you that they believe trading and a strong player driven economy are of paramount importance to a (sandbox at least) mmo.
Good trading in that game is a form or warfare/pvp in it's own right.
"Come and have a look at what you could have won."
Yes Eve's trading is probably the best, at least it is for me when I think of trading in MMO's. There are some people who's sole purpose in game is to just trade and make ISK. There are not many games where you could only focus on that. Mortal Online's trading is pretty neat. No AH or anything, everything you trade is through players, although there are NPC's. Xsyon is even more hardcore than MO in the sense there are no NPC's and everything is done with player trades. There is also no set currency at the moment, so bartering for goods is important.
One of the most important? -No. Auction house serves the purpose of giving me gear or giving me money. Not a major part no.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
trading is important . but i hate bound items sometimes.
With an AH system, is it even considered 'trading'?
Trading, to me at least, is opening up that trading box in diablo 2, with each person putting in their items up for trade, and then you barter back and forth until you finally settle on a price.
A lot of modern MMOs don't even seem to have a trade window anymore.
imho this is a part of mmo's that's been lost for many years now....i remember the days of Ultima Online when i logged my blacksmith to make some items for my fisher or warrior while i waited for customers to pass by looking for repairs or if i was lucky some new gear.
In those days people where actually lining up to get repairs......most crafters where doing repairs for free but welcomed tips from the adventuring people.......these people where nice and gave you some gold or ingots or some gems to use in your crafting.
The economy did well, the adventurers interacted with the crafters and deal where made.
But not just the crafters did bussiness, the tamers sold pets of all kinds at the bank in britt too.
Adventuring people would be selling the regs and mats they found that other proffesions needed.
SO omho......AH killed trading on MMO's
My memory? Got a great deal on a L359 epic (dungeon drop, not that cheap craft stuff) for like 5k gold, where it normally goes for 20k.
Now AH is fun, but that is NOT the core game. It does add a lot of enjoyment though.
Bad economy kills the game for me.
Auction houses are a necessary bad imho. The ability to make not only "buy orders" but "sell orders" (offering X currency for Y item) makes it better though.
But the highest value sales will always be done in person, this is why they should never remove the diablo2 style trade window. Just like in real life, you do the regular shopping in a supermarket (auction house), but when buying expensive stuff, you want to do that in person, talking to the seller, trying to bargain.
What I'd really enjoy is stands. Setting up your own stand in a friendly town (or middle of the nowhere) can have huge roleplaying advantages. You could set a limited amount of buy and sell orders (maybe you could upgrade your stand). If you are there phisically, there would be no transaction fee, if you are away questing lets say, there could be some fee (works as a great money sink which could help fight against inflation)
Also, one very important thing: Markets should not be efficient. This ain't NYSE. Auction houses count a LOT in this perspective, making it way easier for newbies to set a price for their items. It is fine to a given limit. But if everything is priced correctly, there is little to no money to be made trading. It takes all the fun away. This is why I'm against advanced auction house systems. I accept that they have tons of benefits, but decentralized marketplaces (like stands) combined with an auction house with high fees is the way to go in my opinion.
This is exactly how I feel as well. A system where you have to interact with another person rewards salesmanship, rewards knowledge of the game, and rewards good manners and roleplay.