There is an example of no player trade economy being put into a game that traditionally had it, and that is Diablo 3. And look what it has brought down upon it, since the removal of player trading, and all items being specific to you, the game has MASSIVELY dropped in popularity since the change.
The only part of what you're saying I agree with is the fact that you should be able to obtain an item by camping it if you want.
The response I have to that is that you may have to *gasp* WAIT YOUR TURN. In a virtual world with no instances you need to SHARE your experience with everyone else, it's like RL, if you want to eat at that nice restaurant tonight you had better have an early reservation, or you're just shit out of luck. Exclusivity is something I desperately want back in my MMORPGS.
First, I didn't say no player trade, I said facilitated trade to control the gimmicks of players technically cheating the system with get rich schemes . I was just showing how player trade is the source of all the abuses. Think about it, if being able to gain ridiculous amounts of cash through some player trade sales is intended game play, why aren't there random "wins" in the adventure game similar to this? Do the developers think it would imbalance a players progression to win hundreds of thousands of plat in a single drop? Most would think that imbalanced.
They constantly worry about inflation, about money sinks, etc... but then don't even consider that it is the player trade market that is completely at fault for these large circumvention's of play progression and the key to their destructive game economies? If they intended a level 1 to be able to work the market and gain millions of plat, then why do they disallow a level one from obtaining such through normal game play? Shouldn't a tree snake or decaying skeleton drop a million plat every so often, you know... to simulate same money acquisition that the player trade market goes through? (I am being facetious, but it has a point).
This problem becomes an issue with the player who avoids "player trade". The player trade markets increase the amount of player to player wealth. It becomes the point where you can't buy from the market unless you are selling on the market. That is, you must apply all the trade gimmicks to gain lots of money. Not anything will do though, you have to get the fad items that the market is salivating over and then sell those to win your lotto pay offs (where key item perm-camps occur), or you work the system with buyout/markup gimmicks, and other tricks (which is why many demand AH systems) to increase the amount of money you can pull in which is FAR above that which the game actually provides because the developers have deemed you making such a large amount of money in a short amount of time to be... counter to the games progression play they have designed.
Gold farmers only increase this problem by 24/7 farming to produce currency for sale to players which only adds fuel to the fire (ie devalued currency, increased prices) and the cycle continues until only people who are hard market traders have money to even be able to afford anything on it (which is where most markets end up and developers desperately trying to find ways to make the system not a complete failure).
So, either you "buy in" to the system to try and keep up with the enormous amounts of money that is generated or you bypass it like myself and many of my friends do these days because the economies are a joke gimmick. Now you might think, so... what is the problem right? Well, if it was just that, if by simply ignoring the player trade market, it wouldn't exist to me, I would be just fine? Thing is, that is not how it works. The player trade market beings to creep out affecting other game play systems. Gold farmers and all the issues with them, farmers camping for money acquisition (remember, currency is continually being devalued, they have to farm more and more and more to keep up or a few months later, that 100 plat is only worth 10 plat ).
Because of this, more and more people have lots of money in the economy and... developers then have to adjust the non-player trade costs to compensate. That means, those spells on the vendor, those items, utilities, player housing costs, basically developer established costs all have to go up to reflect the money in the economy or they do not serve any purpose anymore of earning progression. Money sinks become more and more expensive to keep up with the massive amount of currency in the system.
So, what happens to those players who said "bah, player trade is a stupid gimmick!", well... they get royally screwed and the only way they can afford things is to also play the gimmick player trade market because there is no way developers are going to put in cash drops that vendor to the system for a normal player to keep up, why? Because the gold farmers will use that to devalue the currency again anyway and this is what gold sellers do purposefully. They actually look for dupes to massively inflate the currency in the market beyond what a player could reasonably earn through normal game play. Then they focus on dominating the player trade market with gimmicks to increase prices even more. The result is artificial demand for currency, and RMT is big money. Like I said, more people buy currency in these games than most know, they did it back then, they are completely open to it now.
If you have been reading my responses, you know this isn't about "waiting my turn". In fact, I even argued against Vorthanion for wanting to put in a system where people could avoid contested content. I am not arguing that, I am arguing the problem that player trade causes for the entire game and the simple fact that it is a form of quick easy circumvention of game play. That is why people are upset, it is no different than trying to argue against the RMT crowd, they too get upset when you suggest taking away their ability to bypass content by buying their way through it.
What I suggested is working to a more game controlled transaction system that the developers can have much more control over, essentially killing the entire issue with player trade abuse. I am not sure exactly the best solution for that, but it could range from mechanics that control pricing of items sold, allowing a window sizing of product price adjustment by the player, maybe even an interesting system of game play trade with all kinds of unique system of pros/cons, etc... where the player must actually make decisions and take risks using the market. What that should be, I am not sure... but I would think anyone interested in playing a game would find it intriguing, but what I get is "OMG don't take away my gimmick!!!!".
Lastly, about Diablo 3, I think their problem is 1) the game was a horrible mainstream gimmick of a game 2) you don't pull the rug out from under players who are used to a certain style of play. What they did was essentially piss on all the players who already put a lot of time and effort, and money into that current system. They killed themselves by changing the rules mid game. You can't do that, it will infuriate even the most reasonable person.
Same issue is with this game. If they wait until all of this becomes a problem, they will paint themselves into a corner and ANY change will have dramatic effect on their subscriptions, hence the discussion of the mechanics here. After all, Brad wanted people to think about solutions to the gold selling market and player trade is a key issue with that market.
One thing you can know, is that people weren't going to spend less time trading in East Commons to obtain those items than I spent acquiring them the old fashioned way.
I still find it odd how you claim you were in a casual guild on a PvP server and yet were getting drops from content that was massively contested and being blocked by the top raiding guilds. It may have been my server, but getting those camps were extremely hard. I only got one chance to do Naggy, and a few times on Vox, but they were perma-camped by the top guilds. PoA was off limits as it too was perma-camped by the top guilds. Heck, I was casual in that I only played 3-5 hours a night during the week and did some all day marathons once on the weekend, but even then with such our guild couldn't compete in the raiding game until most of the big guilds moved on.
That doesn't bother me though (other than the later cock blocking that was done in PoP), as I have said, my objections was the group content and some people farming it for sale. You are right, in most cases it wasn't that bad, also when I was on Test we had none of these issues, which is why when we moved to production it was a bit of a shock as it didn't exist at all on Test, but was common on production.
Did it mean I couldn't get any camps? Some yes... some camps were pretty much off limits due to over camping by those farming for sales, but we made due and went to the hardest areas because far out of the way, difficult to get to because most people didn't bother. My first upgrade to my FBSS was the Spiked Sea Horse Belt from SG because it was the only place we could camp where most people didn't bother to go due to the pain in the ass pathing in there, the swimming issues, agro issues, etc...
I don't mind contested content, I don't mind working to get a camp, etc... I have a problem with AH people and their gimmick play, as you can tell, I despise them and the joke they have turned games into. So I am not against competitive play at all, hell... I played PvP perm-death MUDs most of the late 80's and 90's. I just don't want someone turning camps into a "factory" to keep up with the AH.
Time will tell, as I said I am fine with the "wait and see", but VR better have been thinking of the problems and considering multiple plans and alternatives long before it becomes a problem or I can promise you the result will be shallow knee jerk solutions will be without teeth because the damage is already done and any meaningful solution will be met with mass exodus.
Removing the possibility of player to player trade, or even severely limiting it, would remove a large part of what makes an mmo special.
Not removing it, it just making its systems have risk/reward, pros/cons, consequence of play. None of that exists in the player trade market. That is why it is just a go to concept for many, it is game play without really any "game". There is no losing in such, just winning.
Where are the problems of peoples food going bad because they over priced it and nobody bought it? Where is the consequence in buying up all of the markets items in one area and reselling it at a much higher price trying to hold out the market? (ie sitting indefinitely on your product to control pricing and supply) Do they pay storage costs, taxes, fees, license costs, etc...? Where are all the realistic balancing aspects that exist in real economies? Where do the player trade economies emulate any type of real economic system? If you applied most of the behaviors you see in the game economies in RL you would fail miserably. There are too many factors or pro/cons, risk and consequence that balance out RL that do not exist in these games. Not to mention, in RL there are consistent reoccurring costs (ie the need to eat, house ones self, etc...) that make some business applications unrealistic and negative in profit.
We spend an enormous amount of time coming up with combat and class balancing focuses, balancing the world to risk/reward, the pro/cons of an approach and the consequence of poor choices, but where is that in the player trade market?
We control numerous aspects of the games systems to balance out progression, earning currency, and attempting to facilitate a goal based progression structure to earn in game, yet.. where does this exist in the lotto market of the player trade economies?
The point is, there are no rules, no structure, no pros/cons, limits, risk/rewards, or any real game play balance in player economies, which is why they are heavily abused and the key to most of the problems in games today. They cause all the effort in balancing your progression system in the adventure portion of the game meaningless.
What I suggest is making trading a game. This however requires the developers to take control of the trade system, create a market structure with rules and features with pros/cons that require the player to actually think their way in play, to earn their progress in the market. There should be risk/reward in the market which the game itself requires conditions in sale and purpose, just like it does with adventure game play or any other system. It doesn't even have to directly emulate a real economy, it merely needs to have the proper form of balance of risk/reward, pros/cons that disallow it from being used as a means to circumvent the other parts of the game. Player trade economies are completely disconnected from the player adventure portion of the game. That is why they allow extreme abuse from both directions, they have no sense or connection to each other.
If they take control of it, allow players the freedom, but within the structure of their "economy", then they can have a heck of a lot more influence on currency devaluing, product value and availability, etc... because they control ALL aspects of the game and the players "play" the game within those rules and structures. No more using adventure game tricks to manipulate the player trade market and the other way around.
Right now, the economies in games have zero structure, zero game play, they are just wild free for all places where no reality of any means of an economic or game system exists.
Question is... do people want a game? Or do they want a gimmick that allows them to circumvent game play on the adventure side? Their desire to defend the shallow systems we have in games today I think is the telling factor.
Are you actually 100% not trolling here Sinist? Sorry to be blunt on this one,... but damn.
I agree with many of your points on differend topics. But this one just baffels me. You really go out of your way to claim trading is some sort of cheap cheating, like really? It is an integral part of MMOs and always has.
Just want to make sure as i just don't know what to say anymore. Your opinion on this topic is so far streched that i simply don't understand, even after rereading your posts several times. I just don't get it. It sounds you are simply playing the wrong genre.
MMOs finally replaced social interaction, forced grouping and standing in a line while talking to eachother.
Now we have forced soloing, forced questing and everyone is the hero, without ever having to talk to anyone else. The evolution of multiplayer is here! We won,... right?
Without quoting your walls of text, I am concerned that what you really want to do is bring communism into a capitalistic game design. In capitalism EQ, you could trade your goods for other goods, and if you could figure out ways to make more profits off your goods than other people, so be it.
What you want is a communistic system where the prices and markets are controlled by the government (developer). Is this really what you want?
Some of the stuff you say is true and has actually happened, and most of it is due to inflation and deflation of goods. If I can sell a fungi tunic for 60k, then the next expansion releases and there is a new better fungi tunic and my tunic drops to 30k and the new fungi tunic is 60k, then if I haven't sold my tunic before that expansion hits, then I am taking a loss, so me not trading hurts me.
I would only say that I trust a player driven economy more than a developer controlled economy (like most F2P titles are these days)
Without quoting your walls of text, I am concerned that what you really want to do is bring communism into a capitalistic game design. In capitalism EQ, you could trade your goods for other goods, and if you could figure out ways to make more profits off your goods than other people, so be it.
What you want is a communistic system where the prices and markets are controlled by the government (developer). Is this really what you want?
Some of the stuff you say is true and has actually happened, and most of it is due to inflation and deflation of goods. If I can sell a fungi tunic for 60k, then the next expansion releases and there is a new better fungi tunic and my tunic drops to 30k and the new fungi tunic is 60k, then if I haven't sold my tunic before that expansion hits, then I am taking a loss, so me not trading hurts me.
I would only say that I trust a player driven economy more than a developer controlled economy (like most F2P titles are these days)
Communist? How? A communist system would demand that all players gain equal rewards, nobody is better than another, yadda yadda.
Did you read the part how I was saying player trade should actually be a game system, with pros/cons, risk/reward, decisions and consequences?
This is a game system, the game has to be controlled or there is no point. Did you not read a thing I wrote? I talked about how adventure systems have intricate balances to insure a player does not gain too much, that it is a proper balance of risk/reward, etc... BTW the developers are not equivalent to a government, they are essentially the "laws of nature", they are "reality'" and must be treated as such, not reduced to some limited idea of political systems.
Seriously, did you not even read anything of my discussion?
FFS you made a point to complain about my wall of text, are you too impatient that you can not read it? If so, why the hell did you bother responding and then completely miss the point of the discussion? Communist? FFS /facepalm
You know what, forget it, this is over your guys heads. Any intellectual discussion on this is lost on you guys. I mean, for craps sake it is like I am in the WoW forums. Carry on. /boggle
To be fair, trying to decipher 14 paragraphs in a row of one paragraph contradicting the next isn't very logical, so usually I read until I see something I disagree with and then respond. I don't read novels on forums because 9 times of out 10 if the person really cared about what they were saying having an effect on the person reading it, they would make their points in 1/10th of the text.
Are you actually 100% not trolling here Sinist? Sorry to be blunt on this one,... but damn.
I agree with many of your points on differend topics. But this one just baffels me. You really go out of your way to claim trading is some sort of cheap cheating, like really? It is an integral part of MMOs and always has.
Just want to make sure as i just don't know what to say anymore. Your opinion on this topic is so far streched that i simply don't understand, even after rereading your posts several times. I just don't get it. It sounds you are simply playing the wrong genre.
Trading in itself is not the issue, it is the fact that player trade has no rules, no controls, no structures to help focus it to a standard progression of play such as the adventure portion is. Like I said, developers labor over balancing systems so that money acquisition and level progression is balanced in a way that a player doesn't get ahead. Coin and item sales to vendor are a reflection of the intent of the developers idea of how fast a player should progress in earnings.
Player trade markets distort that, they have no balances. For instance, a player has no continued cost factor on just being like we do in RL. We pay no rent, we do not have to constantly spend money to feed and clothe ourselves. We have no taxes, fees, licenses to pay, player trade is 100% free easy, zero consequence play.
RallyD's example of the fungi tunic only works if there is a MASSIVE increase in gear inflation to warrant the dismissal of past gear, something that Brad has already said WILL NOT happen as he wants gear to devalue much slower, more akin to how it was between EQ-->Velious where many release items were still valuable. An FBSS was still highly sought after even when Velious was out.
Regardless, you guys keep pushing this into a straw man, like I want players to be handicapped, and forced...
I am saying Trading should be every bit of a game with pros/cons and consequences that the adventure side is. Player trade markets as they are now are not games, they are ridiculous gimmicks that provide exploitative play to bypass that which would otherwise require much more effort and time to achieve in game play.
It doesn't matter though, nobody wants change here, like I said... Player trade is a gimmick and a lot of people are afraid of losing out on the rush of an exploit that player trading provides in game systems, yet ALL the systems turn to complete crap and yet... developers and players alike keep demanding the same thing, then complain about it when all goes to hell.
So, I give up. Let them have what they want. I am not going to argue with people for the benefit of a the game, let is be as they want, then let them bitch about it later. /shrug
Without quoting your walls of text, I am concerned that what you really want to do is bring communism into a capitalistic game design. In capitalism EQ, you could trade your goods for other goods, and if you could figure out ways to make more profits off your goods than other people, so be it.
What you want is a communistic system where the prices and markets are controlled by the government (developer). Is this really what you want?
Technically, a capitalist system where the government strictly controls prices is fascist, not communist.
This whole argument against trade is fallacious, particularly when including economic systems such as the one that existed in EQ.
Yes, there are economies where things like the AH and other forms of automation (both legal and illegal) pave a way to players progressing via the market faster than through adventuring. However, that was not true in many games, including EverQuest. It was laborious to make enough money to acquire rare items, especially raid level. Back then, you were talking about 50-100k+ platinum for items that I had on multiple characters.
Could someone obtain such an item through trade? Yes! Was it as trivial as described by Sinist? Absolutely not.
Without quoting your walls of text, I am concerned that what you really want to do is bring communism into a capitalistic game design. In capitalism EQ, you could trade your goods for other goods, and if you could figure out ways to make more profits off your goods than other people, so be it.
What you want is a communistic system where the prices and markets are controlled by the government (developer). Is this really what you want?
Some of the stuff you say is true and has actually happened, and most of it is due to inflation and deflation of goods. If I can sell a fungi tunic for 60k, then the next expansion releases and there is a new better fungi tunic and my tunic drops to 30k and the new fungi tunic is 60k, then if I haven't sold my tunic before that expansion hits, then I am taking a loss, so me not trading hurts me.
I would only say that I trust a player driven economy more than a developer controlled economy (like most F2P titles are these days)
Communist? How? A communist system would demand that all players gain equal rewards, nobody is better than another, yadda yadda.
Did you read the part how I was saying player trade should actually be a game system, with pros/cons, risk/reward, decisions and consequences?
This is a game system, the game has to be controlled or there is no point. Did you not read a thing I wrote? I talked about how adventure systems have intricate balances to insure a player does not gain too much, that it is a proper balance of risk/reward, etc... BTW the developers are not equivalent to a government, they are essentially the "laws of nature", they are "reality'" and must be treated as such, not reduced to some limited idea of political systems.
Seriously, did you not even read anything of my discussion?
FFS you made a point to complain about my wall of text, are you too impatient that you can not read it? If so, why the hell did you bother responding and then completely miss the point of the discussion? Communist? FFS /facepalm
You know what, forget it, this is over your guys heads. Any intellectual discussion on this is lost on you guys. I mean, for craps sake it is like I am in the WoW forums. Carry on. /boggle
Calm down bro. I agree there is probably some people here who aren't getting the point. And I think you and I can agree that the main issue is the existence of an AH. As I stated in another thread a while back. I personally don't want an AH, even if its a regional one. I would prefer all item trading to be done via person to person interaction. However what I think would be good is a regional "post it board" of sorts, in which people can put up a thing saying "Hey, im looking to sell this item at this price", which would charge a fee to post on, and would go away after say 2 or 3 days. All this would do is allow you to see there is a person in the world who has the item, but it would then be up to you to track that person down when you were both online, and negotiate the trade.
The biggest threat IMO is the kind of AH bullshit gimmicks that you would find in games like WoW, like the common one of someone buying literally every single item of a certain sort, lets say "Iron ore" and then reposting it all at a 50% mark up. Then people are forced into the position of either stopping crafting, getting it themselves, or paying the absurd mark up. This kind of shit is bad. The by far easiest solution is to just shit can the AH as a whole.
I do agree with you that though that player trade is a gameplay element and deserves as much attention as class balancing and items and such get. I just think its one of those things where we need to step VERY lightly as if we kill the game before it starts, that benefits no one. You can always make changes down the road, you can't undo a dead player base, or at least its a hellofa lot harder to do (see: Vanguard SoH)
"The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently."
Without quoting your walls of text, I am concerned that what you really want to do is bring communism into a capitalistic game design. In capitalism EQ, you could trade your goods for other goods, and if you could figure out ways to make more profits off your goods than other people, so be it.
What you want is a communistic system where the prices and markets are controlled by the government (developer). Is this really what you want?
Technically, a capitalist system where the government strictly controls prices is fascist, not communist.
*drops mic*
"The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently."
Personally I prefer just having an AH. P99 doesn't have an AH, and all it accomplishes is a tunnel full of bottom-feeders that make buying // selling items miserable. You should be able to get words for research without killing random mobs in the hopes they drop. But that isn't how it often works on p99 because there is no AH and no one sells them because they are not worth the time to sell.
I'm confused why you guys think someone buying all the cloth in the WoW AH and selling it for a 50% mark-up is such a huge deal. Imagine simply not being able to find the cloth because it isn't worth the tunnel time instead. Maybe in WoW that's the best way to make money (gold really doesn't matter in WoW), but certainly wasn't in EQ. I doubt it will be in Pantheon either. Generally, it was a lot better money to farm items that not any gold farmer could get. For example, Sebilis and KC drops during Kunark. In p99 Velious, just simply grouping Velks is really good money atm.
You don't eliminate buying low / selling high traders by ditching the AH. Generally, highly sought after items go for about the same regardless of whether there is a AH or not. All getting rid of an AH does, in my experience, is waste regular players time, give more opportunities to "tunnel rats," and severely limit the sale of noob loot / obscure items.
All I'm saying is, If I RMTed p99 for a living (I have never RMTed but there are a lot that do), I would hate a bazaar. Any time a player gets any item of value on p99, they have to spam and barter -- driving them to offer it for a "quick-sale" price because they don't want to waste any more of their time. Then the tunnel rat proceeds to buy the item and sell it for a high price (usually about 130-150% value). Obviously they get a lot of business from RMTers that don't value platinum like those that earn it. The incentive to sell low is much lower in AH system -- which in turn actually discourages price flipping. Supply and demand works a lot better when people don't have to manual trade.
I think the problem some of you are having is you are conflating a WoW style economy with and EQ style one.
Calm down bro. I agree there is probably some people here who aren't getting the point. And I think you and I can agree that the main issue is the existence of an AH. As I stated in another thread a while back. I personally don't want an AH, even if its a regional one. I would prefer all item trading to be done via person to person interaction. However what I think would be good is a regional "post it board" of sorts, in which people can put up a thing saying "Hey, im looking to sell this item at this price", which would charge a fee to post on, and would go away after say 2 or 3 days. All this would do is allow you to see there is a person in the world who has the item, but it would then be up to you to track that person down when you were both online, and negotiate the trade.
The biggest threat IMO is the kind of AH bullshit gimmicks that you would find in games like WoW, like the common one of someone buying literally every single item of a certain sort, lets say "Iron ore" and then reposting it all at a 50% mark up. Then people are forced into the position of either stopping crafting, getting it themselves, or paying the absurd mark up. This kind of shit is bad. The by far easiest solution is to just shit can the AH as a whole.
I do agree with you that though that player trade is a gameplay element and deserves as much attention as class balancing and items and such get. I just think its one of those things where we need to step VERY lightly as if we kill the game before it starts, that benefits no one. You can always make changes down the road, you can't undo a dead player base, or at least its a hellofa lot harder to do (see: Vanguard SoH)
Not having an AH only makes it more difficult to work the entire market, it helps, but it doesn't solve the issues. If you watched closely in EQ, the same gimmicks and issues were beginning to occur with EC market, all the Bazaar did was make things a bit more easier than before.
The gimmick you mention about WoW can still happen, it just means the player will need to understand who has what where. A player can still make multiple alts, put a bunch of cash on them and then plant them at each regional trade area. Then, they can buy up everything in each region, mark it up and post it again. So the trick still exists (and without difficulty to be honest).
What I was suggesting is making trading its own game system. I mean, really put some effort into it where the player has to have skills/levels they improve, where there is risk/reward in the trade, pros/cons to various approaches and the like. Trading is essentially a form of PvP, make it such. Make it where players can affect the market with different approaches and strategies, make it so there can be winners and losers. Put in costs, fees, fines, licenses, etc... I mean, make it as complex as a game like capitalism. It doesn't even have to be a true emulation of a RL system, I mean, even the adventure game system is not a true emulation due to many RL aspects not working well in such a game environment.
The benefit of such that by making a game system, the developers then have completely control on the system so they can tweak it if they find exploits, abuses, etc... just like they do with the adventure portion of the game.
My annoyance with people here is that they are making the same arguments that they attack mainstreamers for. They use "my fun", "what does my play style hurt you?", "You are controlling me, I should be able to be free to play as Iike!" all the while ignoring that this is a game, game systems need structure and player trade is a huge area where it has a very large impact on the rest of the games systems. Seriously, just about every economy system out there is completely FUBARd because there are no game system structures and constraints, it is essentially a free open "anything goes" form of play that causes many issues over time through both in game influence and outside game influence.
What is stupid is you can't even have a discussion on this because they get upset and act like you are taking away their favorite toy. The reason people are so deathly afraid of the system being changed is because they like the idea of being able to buy an item through trade rather than actually having to go camp it themselves.
This is why my points about camps being perma-camped by those farming for the trade sales are dismissed. Even you said "Just go farm some other item, then buy it off the AH", but I already pointed out this as the problem. It forces me to play the AH gimmick to be able to get an item I am looking to actually play THE game for. I want to camp the spawns, break the camps, hold them, I want to play the game... not solo farm some other item till my eyes bleed so I can buy the item from another player.
This whole argument against trade is fallacious, particularly when including economic systems such as the one that existed in EQ.
Yes, there are economies where things like the AH and other forms of automation (both legal and illegal) pave a way to players progressing via the market faster than through adventuring. However, that was not true in many games, including EverQuest. It was laborious to make enough money to acquire rare items, especially raid level. Back then, you were talking about 50-100k+ platinum for items that I had on multiple characters.
Could someone obtain such an item through trade? Yes! Was it as trivial as described by Sinist? Absolutely not.
Dullahan, you are pushing the extreme side of the argument, acting like everything was rainbows and unicorns, that none of what I said existed, everything was fine and I am just complaining. You aren't being even remotely reasonable in the discussion, Calling my argument fallacious? Which one? Slippery slope? It is only a fallacy if it is a long list of extremely unlikely occurrences, I have explained I have experienced it personally, and properly reasoned how it occurs, but you keep dismissing it like it I am talking about aliens coming down and taking over the planet.
Seriously, you are discussing this like it is a contest, trying to convince everyone here that they should buy your brand of product, because it is better, faster and comes with a toy! Seriously, what is up with that?
As for your "It was laborious to make enough money to acquire rare items, especially
raid level. Back then, you were talking about 50-100k+ platinum for
items that I had on multiple characters. "
Now you are skipping my points. That money was easily obtained by anyone who did the item farming trade up selling (ie farm a lower item, sell it for 20k, watch the item sales, catch a better item off someone who didn't pay attention to the market, get it and resell it at 50-80k, buy up some more items, trade up and do the same. Within a month I have over 5 million plat, 2 flayed skin barbarian leggings, 4 cloak of flames, etc... I continue on and keep buying up and trading up. Eventually, I have so much cash that I buy out any items I think are too low in price, and re-post them for higher. I have seen this happen.
So telling me someone has to "work really hard" to make money to buy a 50-100k item is only for those who are idiots and don't play the markets and insanely try to earn money through adventure play. I have proven this over and over in many games I have played, player trade systems are so simplistic and easy to make money on it is ridiculous. Most people are stupid and impulsive with their money, they are often lazy and so are uninformed on the going prices for things. So they under sell, and over pay. They would rather pay large sums to have it now than find out and have it later. It is like shooting fish in a barrel.
This is why those who know absolutely love player trade systems. They can get rich quickly, buy anything they want and those who are too lazy to do such are often content with just buying the plat from RMT sites.
So is it the end of the world? No. Am I being unreasonable? No. I love EQ, even with its issues, but I think it is a disservice to claim it was all fine, that is patently false and we are back to 2000 where people were sticking their heads in the sand with all these issues because they liked being able to take advantage of it.
Besides, I didn't say get rid of player trade, I was talking about making it a game system.
So far though, anything I have discussed, your response has been "Things are fine, nothing to see here". You don't like any of the reasonable examples of looting issues I brought up and you don't want anything to be done with the trade system. You want it to be like EQ because apparently... it wasn't a problem there like it is not a problem in many games out there. That I think is false.
It wasn't really a problem Sinist until they released the Bazaar, the ability for players to trade goods is limited very much by time when you have to personally negotiate every single transaction. P99 had a bunch of these cases because it was 10 years old in classic/kunark and with 10 years anyone can make what you're saying possible even with personal trading only.
You seem to think that trading an item that's worth 30k on the market for 35-40k is something that happens every second, that's not really the case. I have done the RMT and trading thing on P99 blue and I maybe got 1-2 trades of that caliber a week at most. The amount of damage you're talking about is just vastly exaggerated.
You said you played on Test on live, maybe that has something to do with your hatred for player driven economies I don't know, but I can tell you it was generally not a problem on live, until Luclin and the bazaar came out. And this isn't just my opinion, I have talked to a lot of players who played on all different servers on live, and they echo my thoughts on this, that they do not remember this ever becoming a problem until the bazaar.
It wasn't really a problem Sinist until they released the Bazaar, the ability for players to trade goods is limited very much by time when you have to personally negotiate every single transaction. P99 had a bunch of these cases because it was 10 years old in classic/kunark and with 10 years anyone can make what you're saying possible even with personal trading only.
You seem to think that trading an item that's worth 30k on the market for 35-40k is something that happens every second, that's not really the case. I have done the RMT and trading thing on P99 blue and I maybe got 1-2 trades of that caliber a week at most. The amount of damage you're talking about is just vastly exaggerated.
You said you played on Test on live, maybe that has something to do with your hatred for player driven economies I don't know, but I can tell you it was generally not a problem on live, until Luclin and the bazaar came out. And this isn't just my opinion, I have talked to a lot of players who played on all different servers on live, and they echo my thoughts on this, that they do not remember this ever becoming a problem until the bazaar.
Players have changed quite a bit since 1999-2001 I'm not buying this "p99 is special" argument for why the same problems you guys are describing exist on that server. Price flipping happens irregardless of AH -- and there are going to be people that do almost exclusively this all day, just like on p99. In fact, I'm guessing the scale will be quite a bit more in a successful MMO with high demand for RMT.
On live classic, North Temple of Veeshan was not a FTE (first to engage) contest where everyone single pulls the dragons to their raid. This is not because the mechanics of the game were different, but because people play MMOs differently then they did when they first launched.
I would like someone to explain to me their rationale on how people trying to monopolize would be disadvantaged by manual trade system.
It wasn't really a problem Sinist until they released the Bazaar, the ability for players to trade goods is limited very much by time when you have to personally negotiate every single transaction. P99 had a bunch of these cases because it was 10 years old in classic/kunark and with 10 years anyone can make what you're saying possible even with personal trading only.
You seem to think that trading an item that's worth 30k on the market for 35-40k is something that happens every second, that's not really the case. I have done the RMT and trading thing on P99 blue and I maybe got 1-2 trades of that caliber a week at most. The amount of damage you're talking about is just vastly exaggerated.
You said you played on Test on live, maybe that has something to do with your hatred for player driven economies I don't know, but I can tell you it was generally not a problem on live, until Luclin and the bazaar came out. And this isn't just my opinion, I have talked to a lot of players who played on all different servers on live, and they echo my thoughts on this, that they do not remember this ever becoming a problem until the bazaar.
Players have changed quite a bit since 1999-2001 I'm not buying this "p99 is special" argument for why the same problems you guys are describing exist on that server. Price flipping happens irregardless of AH -- and there are going to be people that do almost exclusively this all day, just like on p99. In fact, I'm guessing the scale will be quite a bit more in a successful MMO with high demand for RMT.
On live classic, North Temple of Veeshan was not a FTE (first to engage) contest where everyone single pulls the dragons to their raid. This is not because the mechanics of the game were different, but because people play MMOs differently then they did when they first launched.
I would like someone to explain to me their rationale on how people trying to monopolize would be disadvantaged by manual trade system.
They would not be, they would just be slowed down slightly, that is.... until they found the ideal way to address the makeup. People think that pre-Bazzar, there wasn't any problems, but there were for those who were paying attention. Gold sellers existed, camp monopolizers existed, price schemes and buy out tactics of specific hot items still happened, it is just that most weren't paying attention.
Only reason I noticed is that I was a human monk, old school from a server that ran off ALL of the EC player trade base, so when I finally got to production after Kunark came out, I saw how my classes gear became a hot commodity and trade gimmicks, perm camping, etc... became the norm. Not as pronounced as the Bazaar, but still there.
Those who think this won't exist in regional trade markets aren't being honest with themselves. While such a break up in design slows down such behavior, it is only a speed bump. It will still be a massive problem.
Apparently me and everyone else I associate with on the internet (I would consider myself and these people the ultra-hardcore) are retarded and weren't paying attention to all of these terrible things that were destroying Everquest back in 1999-2001.
Please... nobody is trying to say that this stuff doesn't happen ever, of course it does, we're simply saying that the detrimental effect on the game was a lot less dramatic than you make it seem.
Let's break this down to its core formula, you can trade an item to a player, or he can pay you for it or trade you goods equaling what your item was worth. Now the only way a player gets a ton of benefit from the buying and selling of items is if someone is willing to sell to him low, usually happening because they don't know what something is worth (a bit like how vintage car buyers pillage people from their chevy for half of what it's worth) or because they are simply too impatient to find a buyer for the right price.
He then has to sell the item high, which once again is the same formula, someone who doesn't know what the item is worth, or is too impatient and wants it now. All of this could take just as long as generating the money via looting the item from camping it. So are you really mad at the guy doing this, or is it the possibility of someone camping items to sell that bakes your biscuit?
I play games just like you do, I want to camp every item I need, I never buy things I need, I do sell from time to time, but only to keep enough currency on myself to fund all of my needs. I guess one of the major reasons I don't find this to be a problem is because I play on PVP servers, if someone is in a camp I want, I take it through force or negotiation. It's one of the major reasons why I could never stand playing on blue servers on EQ, I am not good at playing nice and waiting my turn.. I just end up training people out of my camp and making it look like an accident.
Apparently me and everyone else I associate with on the internet (I would consider myself and these people the ultra-hardcore) are retarded and weren't paying attention to all of these terrible things that were destroying Everquest back in 1999-2001.
Please... nobody is trying to say that this stuff doesn't happen ever, of course it does, we're simply saying that the detrimental effect on the game was a lot less dramatic than you make it seem.
Let's break this down to its core formula, you can trade an item to a player, or he can pay you for it or trade you goods equaling what your item was worth. Now the only way a player gets a ton of benefit from the buying and selling of items is if someone is willing to sell to him low, usually happening because they don't know what something is worth (a bit like how vintage car buyers pillage people from their chevy for half of what it's worth) or because they are simply too impatient to find a buyer for the right price.
He then has to sell the item high, which once again is the same formula, someone who doesn't know what the item is worth, or is too impatient and wants it now. All of this could take just as long as generating the money via looting the item from camping it. So are you really mad at the guy doing this, or is it the possibility of someone camping items to sell that bakes your biscuit?
I play games just like you do, I want to camp every item I need, I never buy things I need, I do sell from time to time, but only to keep enough currency on myself to fund all of my needs. I guess one of the major reasons I don't find this to be a problem is because I play on PVP servers, if someone is in a camp I want, I take it through force or negotiation. It's one of the major reasons why I could never stand playing on blue servers on EQ, I am not good at playing nice and waiting my turn.. I just end up training people out of my camp and making it look like an accident.
You seem adamant RallyD, there is no amount of reasoning I can provide. At this point, it is my opinion as to what will happen vs yours. You think it wasn't an issue, I think it is. So, we can let VR decide and wait for the outcome. Not trying to sound arrogant, but I have ALWAYS been right in these things in EVERY game I a made such a claim. I honestly HOPE I am proven wrong, I really do.
Time will tell, and to be honest, these discussion won't mean a flipping hills of beans when I am proven right. At the time it happens, when everything is going to shit, people will still be claiming everything is just honky dory. They did the same thing when I complained about this crap during those times.
Sorry, Rallyd, I am right here and if I am wrong, Pantheon turns out to be the game I desire on absolutely every front. Sorry, I am too old to buy into that bullshit. Been there done that, I am right, I will be right, it is just a matter of you admitting it when it happens.
I could post about that same exact thing with me in place of you and it'd be what I've been saying for years, 9 arguments out of 10 we'd agree, but this one seems to be possibly a difference between me being a PVP mindset and you being a PVE. I don't play PVE servers generally with the 1 exception being P99 blue, which I played for about a year. That being said though I have PVE server players I talk to and they say it was never a problem until later on in Everquest so, I don't know.
He completely debunked his argument after 5 million in a month. Sorry pal, but calling bullshit on that. Now this is just an argument fueled by emotions and exaggeration.
Not having an AH only makes it more difficult to work the entire market, it helps, but it doesn't solve the issues. If you watched closely in EQ, the same gimmicks and issues were beginning to occur with EC market, all the Bazaar did was make things a bit more easier than before.
The gimmick you mention about WoW can still happen, it just means the player will need to understand who has what where. A player can still make multiple alts, put a bunch of cash on them and then plant them at each regional trade area. Then, they can buy up everything in each region, mark it up and post it again. So the trick still exists (and without difficulty to be honest).
What I was suggesting is making trading its own game system. I mean, really put some effort into it where the player has to have skills/levels they improve, where there is risk/reward in the trade, pros/cons to various approaches and the like. Trading is essentially a form of PvP, make it such. Make it where players can affect the market with different approaches and strategies, make it so there can be winners and losers. Put in costs, fees, fines, licenses, etc... I mean, make it as complex as a game like capitalism. It doesn't even have to be a true emulation of a RL system, I mean, even the adventure game system is not a true emulation due to many RL aspects not working well in such a game environment.
The benefit of such that by making a game system, the developers then have completely control on the system so they can tweak it if they find exploits, abuses, etc... just like they do with the adventure portion of the game.
My annoyance with people here is that they are making the same arguments that they attack mainstreamers for. They use "my fun", "what does my play style hurt you?", "You are controlling me, I should be able to be free to play as Iike!" all the while ignoring that this is a game, game systems need structure and player trade is a huge area where it has a very large impact on the rest of the games systems. Seriously, just about every economy system out there is completely FUBARd because there are no game system structures and constraints, it is essentially a free open "anything goes" form of play that causes many issues over time through both in game influence and outside game influence.
What is stupid is you can't even have a discussion on this because they get upset and act like you are taking away their favorite toy. The reason people are so deathly afraid of the system being changed is because they like the idea of being able to buy an item through trade rather than actually having to go camp it themselves.
This is why my points about camps being perma-camped by those farming for the trade sales are dismissed. Even you said "Just go farm some other item, then buy it off the AH", but I already pointed out this as the problem. It forces me to play the AH gimmick to be able to get an item I am looking to actually play THE game for. I want to camp the spawns, break the camps, hold them, I want to play the game... not solo farm some other item till my eyes bleed so I can buy the item from another player.
I really do honestly think you're seriously overblowing it. We have literally decades of evidence that says that it is only a rampant problem in games with AH's. Games without them didn't generally have an issue.
With an EC tunnel type system, it would require the person to basically spend 18+ hours a day and have a team of people tracking auctions, etc, to manage to keep a system like that in place in terms of gaming the market. Some people did it with really high level items, like say, buying all the CoF's that were available. The issue with that is again, its going to take years for there to be enough money in the market for someone to be able to actually accumulate enough wealth to do that.
People started small in games like wow. like buying all the cloth or ore and such. Eventually they were able to turn that into enough of a pile that they could start doing it with larger ticket items.
Again, all of this was facilitated by an AH. The only time i ever saw this being so common place as to be detrimental to the overall game was in games with AH. While it sporadically happened outside of that, it was by far the exception.
I'm really not meaning to be insulting but i just can't help shake that you're getting a bit alarmist over that happening. Pretty much none of us experienced that on any meaningful scale in original EQ, and it really doesn't even happen much on P99. Which is like the perfect storm of variables for that type of thing to happen. Yet it doesn't. The reason is without an AH you just have a completely absurd time requirement. Nobody is going to poopsock the EC tunnel for 18 hours a day 7 days a week just so they can corner the market on fungi tunics.
Once again though the issue with your method is choice is severely limited, with a player trade method, it isnt.
With your method, if i want an FBSS, and that camp is being camped by any number of random people consistently for weeks on end (i dont mean a guild or a group of friends, i mean literally anybody playing the game). I'm completely up shit creek. I either have to poop sock the camp until it opens up so i can camp it. Or i have to put myself on what is probably an 8 hour long list, so i can get into a group and have a 1 in 6 chance of getting it should it even drop, etc.
However, with a player trade system, if i can't get into the camp, i can go slaughter hill giants and make plat, i can go solo camp another item in a lower level area to sell to make plat. I have a ton of different paths with which i can utilize to get the item that i want. I can go XP in a dungeon and have a chance at some other item that i can sell.
I really do think even a moderately regulated player economy is a surefire way to put a bullet in the games heart before it even gets a chance to live. People like to be able to trade, period. Its considered a core aspect of an MMO.
IMO a purely player trade based system already has in plenty of built in limitations. You have to physically sit there and auction the item. You have to physically go meet up with the person to initiate the trade. You have to run back to a bank to put your money up so you are not weighed down. If you are not online when someone is selling an item you want, you're out of luck. Or if you're selling an item someone wants and they aren't online when you are, once again. You're out of luck. All of this as well is predicated on rarity of items. Items have to be rare enough that you can't just reasonably expect to walk into EC and say "WTB blah blah blah" and get 4 tells saying "i've got one!"
"The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently."
Comments
First, I didn't say no player trade, I said facilitated trade to control the gimmicks of players technically cheating the system with get rich schemes . I was just showing how player trade is the source of all the abuses. Think about it, if being able to gain ridiculous amounts of cash through some player trade sales is intended game play, why aren't there random "wins" in the adventure game similar to this? Do the developers think it would imbalance a players progression to win hundreds of thousands of plat in a single drop? Most would think that imbalanced.
They constantly worry about inflation, about money sinks, etc... but then don't even consider that it is the player trade market that is completely at fault for these large circumvention's of play progression and the key to their destructive game economies? If they intended a level 1 to be able to work the market and gain millions of plat, then why do they disallow a level one from obtaining such through normal game play? Shouldn't a tree snake or decaying skeleton drop a million plat every so often, you know... to simulate same money acquisition that the player trade market goes through? (I am being facetious, but it has a point).
This problem becomes an issue with the player who avoids "player trade". The player trade markets increase the amount of player to player wealth. It becomes the point where you can't buy from the market unless you are selling on the market. That is, you must apply all the trade gimmicks to gain lots of money. Not anything will do though, you have to get the fad items that the market is salivating over and then sell those to win your lotto pay offs (where key item perm-camps occur), or you work the system with buyout/markup gimmicks, and other tricks (which is why many demand AH systems) to increase the amount of money you can pull in which is FAR above that which the game actually provides because the developers have deemed you making such a large amount of money in a short amount of time to be... counter to the games progression play they have designed.
Gold farmers only increase this problem by 24/7 farming to produce currency for sale to players which only adds fuel to the fire (ie devalued currency, increased prices) and the cycle continues until only people who are hard market traders have money to even be able to afford anything on it (which is where most markets end up and developers desperately trying to find ways to make the system not a complete failure).
So, either you "buy in" to the system to try and keep up with the enormous amounts of money that is generated or you bypass it like myself and many of my friends do these days because the economies are a joke gimmick. Now you might think, so... what is the problem right? Well, if it was just that, if by simply ignoring the player trade market, it wouldn't exist to me, I would be just fine? Thing is, that is not how it works. The player trade market beings to creep out affecting other game play systems. Gold farmers and all the issues with them, farmers camping for money acquisition (remember, currency is continually being devalued, they have to farm more and more and more to keep up or a few months later, that 100 plat is only worth 10 plat ).
Because of this, more and more people have lots of money in the economy and... developers then have to adjust the non-player trade costs to compensate. That means, those spells on the vendor, those items, utilities, player housing costs, basically developer established costs all have to go up to reflect the money in the economy or they do not serve any purpose anymore of earning progression. Money sinks become more and more expensive to keep up with the massive amount of currency in the system.
So, what happens to those players who said "bah, player trade is a stupid gimmick!", well... they get royally screwed and the only way they can afford things is to also play the gimmick player trade market because there is no way developers are going to put in cash drops that vendor to the system for a normal player to keep up, why? Because the gold farmers will use that to devalue the currency again anyway and this is what gold sellers do purposefully. They actually look for dupes to massively inflate the currency in the market beyond what a player could reasonably earn through normal game play. Then they focus on dominating the player trade market with gimmicks to increase prices even more. The result is artificial demand for currency, and RMT is big money. Like I said, more people buy currency in these games than most know, they did it back then, they are completely open to it now.
If you have been reading my responses, you know this isn't about "waiting my turn". In fact, I even argued against Vorthanion for wanting to put in a system where people could avoid contested content. I am not arguing that, I am arguing the problem that player trade causes for the entire game and the simple fact that it is a form of quick easy circumvention of game play. That is why people are upset, it is no different than trying to argue against the RMT crowd, they too get upset when you suggest taking away their ability to bypass content by buying their way through it.
What I suggested is working to a more game controlled transaction system that the developers can have much more control over, essentially killing the entire issue with player trade abuse. I am not sure exactly the best solution for that, but it could range from mechanics that control pricing of items sold, allowing a window sizing of product price adjustment by the player, maybe even an interesting system of game play trade with all kinds of unique system of pros/cons, etc... where the player must actually make decisions and take risks using the market. What that should be, I am not sure... but I would think anyone interested in playing a game would find it intriguing, but what I get is "OMG don't take away my gimmick!!!!".
Lastly, about Diablo 3, I think their problem is 1) the game was a horrible mainstream gimmick of a game 2) you don't pull the rug out from under players who are used to a certain style of play. What they did was essentially piss on all the players who already put a lot of time and effort, and money into that current system. They killed themselves by changing the rules mid game. You can't do that, it will infuriate even the most reasonable person.
Same issue is with this game. If they wait until all of this becomes a problem, they will paint themselves into a corner and ANY change will have dramatic effect on their subscriptions, hence the discussion of the mechanics here. After all, Brad wanted people to think about solutions to the gold selling market and player trade is a key issue with that market.
That doesn't bother me though (other than the later cock blocking that was done in PoP), as I have said, my objections was the group content and some people farming it for sale. You are right, in most cases it wasn't that bad, also when I was on Test we had none of these issues, which is why when we moved to production it was a bit of a shock as it didn't exist at all on Test, but was common on production.
Did it mean I couldn't get any camps? Some yes... some camps were pretty much off limits due to over camping by those farming for sales, but we made due and went to the hardest areas because far out of the way, difficult to get to because most people didn't bother. My first upgrade to my FBSS was the Spiked Sea Horse Belt from SG because it was the only place we could camp where most people didn't bother to go due to the pain in the ass pathing in there, the swimming issues, agro issues, etc...
I don't mind contested content, I don't mind working to get a camp, etc... I have a problem with AH people and their gimmick play, as you can tell, I despise them and the joke they have turned games into. So I am not against competitive play at all, hell... I played PvP perm-death MUDs most of the late 80's and 90's. I just don't want someone turning camps into a "factory" to keep up with the AH.
Time will tell, as I said I am fine with the "wait and see", but VR better have been thinking of the problems and considering multiple plans and alternatives long before it becomes a problem or I can promise you the result will be shallow knee jerk solutions will be without teeth because the damage is already done and any meaningful solution will be met with mass exodus.
Where are the problems of peoples food going bad because they over priced it and nobody bought it? Where is the consequence in buying up all of the markets items in one area and reselling it at a much higher price trying to hold out the market? (ie sitting indefinitely on your product to control pricing and supply) Do they pay storage costs, taxes, fees, license costs, etc...? Where are all the realistic balancing aspects that exist in real economies? Where do the player trade economies emulate any type of real economic system? If you applied most of the behaviors you see in the game economies in RL you would fail miserably. There are too many factors or pro/cons, risk and consequence that balance out RL that do not exist in these games. Not to mention, in RL there are consistent reoccurring costs (ie the need to eat, house ones self, etc...) that make some business applications unrealistic and negative in profit.
We spend an enormous amount of time coming up with combat and class balancing focuses, balancing the world to risk/reward, the pro/cons of an approach and the consequence of poor choices, but where is that in the player trade market?
We control numerous aspects of the games systems to balance out progression, earning currency, and attempting to facilitate a goal based progression structure to earn in game, yet.. where does this exist in the lotto market of the player trade economies?
The point is, there are no rules, no structure, no pros/cons, limits, risk/rewards, or any real game play balance in player economies, which is why they are heavily abused and the key to most of the problems in games today. They cause all the effort in balancing your progression system in the adventure portion of the game meaningless.
What I suggest is making trading a game. This however requires the developers to take control of the trade system, create a market structure with rules and features with pros/cons that require the player to actually think their way in play, to earn their progress in the market. There should be risk/reward in the market which the game itself requires conditions in sale and purpose, just like it does with adventure game play or any other system. It doesn't even have to directly emulate a real economy, it merely needs to have the proper form of balance of risk/reward, pros/cons that disallow it from being used as a means to circumvent the other parts of the game. Player trade economies are completely disconnected from the player adventure portion of the game. That is why they allow extreme abuse from both directions, they have no sense or connection to each other.
If they take control of it, allow players the freedom, but within the structure of their "economy", then they can have a heck of a lot more influence on currency devaluing, product value and availability, etc... because they control ALL aspects of the game and the players "play" the game within those rules and structures. No more using adventure game tricks to manipulate the player trade market and the other way around.
Right now, the economies in games have zero structure, zero game play, they are just wild free for all places where no reality of any means of an economic or game system exists.
Question is... do people want a game? Or do they want a gimmick that allows them to circumvent game play on the adventure side? Their desire to defend the shallow systems we have in games today I think is the telling factor.
Sorry to be blunt on this one,... but damn.
I agree with many of your points on differend topics. But this one just baffels me. You really go out of your way to claim trading is some sort of cheap cheating, like really? It is an integral part of MMOs and always has.
Just want to make sure as i just don't know what to say anymore. Your opinion on this topic is so far streched that i simply don't understand, even after rereading your posts several times. I just don't get it. It sounds you are simply playing the wrong genre.
MMOs finally replaced social interaction, forced grouping and standing in a line while talking to eachother.
Now we have forced soloing, forced questing and everyone is the hero, without ever having to talk to anyone else. The evolution of multiplayer is here! We won,... right?
What you want is a communistic system where the prices and markets are controlled by the government (developer). Is this really what you want?
Some of the stuff you say is true and has actually happened, and most of it is due to inflation and deflation of goods. If I can sell a fungi tunic for 60k, then the next expansion releases and there is a new better fungi tunic and my tunic drops to 30k and the new fungi tunic is 60k, then if I haven't sold my tunic before that expansion hits, then I am taking a loss, so me not trading hurts me.
I would only say that I trust a player driven economy more than a developer controlled economy (like most F2P titles are these days)
Communist? How? A communist system would demand that all players gain equal rewards, nobody is better than another, yadda yadda.
Did you read the part how I was saying player trade should actually be a game system, with pros/cons, risk/reward, decisions and consequences?
This is a game system, the game has to be controlled or there is no point. Did you not read a thing I wrote? I talked about how adventure systems have intricate balances to insure a player does not gain too much, that it is a proper balance of risk/reward, etc... BTW the developers are not equivalent to a government, they are essentially the "laws of nature", they are "reality'" and must be treated as such, not reduced to some limited idea of political systems.
Seriously, did you not even read anything of my discussion?
FFS you made a point to complain about my wall of text, are you too impatient that you can not read it? If so, why the hell did you bother responding and then completely miss the point of the discussion? Communist? FFS /facepalm
You know what, forget it, this is over your guys heads. Any intellectual discussion on this is lost on you guys. I mean, for craps sake it is like I am in the WoW forums. Carry on. /boggle
Player trade markets distort that, they have no balances. For instance, a player has no continued cost factor on just being like we do in RL. We pay no rent, we do not have to constantly spend money to feed and clothe ourselves. We have no taxes, fees, licenses to pay, player trade is 100% free easy, zero consequence play.
RallyD's example of the fungi tunic only works if there is a MASSIVE increase in gear inflation to warrant the dismissal of past gear, something that Brad has already said WILL NOT happen as he wants gear to devalue much slower, more akin to how it was between EQ-->Velious where many release items were still valuable. An FBSS was still highly sought after even when Velious was out.
Regardless, you guys keep pushing this into a straw man, like I want players to be handicapped, and forced...
I am saying Trading should be every bit of a game with pros/cons and consequences that the adventure side is. Player trade markets as they are now are not games, they are ridiculous gimmicks that provide exploitative play to bypass that which would otherwise require much more effort and time to achieve in game play.
It doesn't matter though, nobody wants change here, like I said... Player trade is a gimmick and a lot of people are afraid of losing out on the rush of an exploit that player trading provides in game systems, yet ALL the systems turn to complete crap and yet... developers and players alike keep demanding the same thing, then complain about it when all goes to hell.
So, I give up. Let them have what they want. I am not going to argue with people for the benefit of a the game, let is be as they want, then let them bitch about it later. /shrug
Yes, there are economies where things like the AH and other forms of automation (both legal and illegal) pave a way to players progressing via the market faster than through adventuring. However, that was not true in many games, including EverQuest. It was laborious to make enough money to acquire rare items, especially raid level. Back then, you were talking about 50-100k+ platinum for items that I had on multiple characters.
Could someone obtain such an item through trade? Yes! Was it as trivial as described by Sinist? Absolutely not.
Calm down bro. I agree there is probably some people here who aren't getting the point. And I think you and I can agree that the main issue is the existence of an AH. As I stated in another thread a while back. I personally don't want an AH, even if its a regional one. I would prefer all item trading to be done via person to person interaction. However what I think would be good is a regional "post it board" of sorts, in which people can put up a thing saying "Hey, im looking to sell this item at this price", which would charge a fee to post on, and would go away after say 2 or 3 days. All this would do is allow you to see there is a person in the world who has the item, but it would then be up to you to track that person down when you were both online, and negotiate the trade.
The biggest threat IMO is the kind of AH bullshit gimmicks that you would find in games like WoW, like the common one of someone buying literally every single item of a certain sort, lets say "Iron ore" and then reposting it all at a 50% mark up. Then people are forced into the position of either stopping crafting, getting it themselves, or paying the absurd mark up. This kind of shit is bad. The by far easiest solution is to just shit can the AH as a whole.
I do agree with you that though that player trade is a gameplay element and deserves as much attention as class balancing and items and such get. I just think its one of those things where we need to step VERY lightly as if we kill the game before it starts, that benefits no one. You can always make changes down the road, you can't undo a dead player base, or at least its a hellofa lot harder to do (see: Vanguard SoH)
"The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently."
- Friedrich Nietzsche
*drops mic*
"The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently."
- Friedrich Nietzsche
I'm confused why you guys think someone buying all the cloth in the WoW AH and selling it for a 50% mark-up is such a huge deal. Imagine simply not being able to find the cloth because it isn't worth the tunnel time instead. Maybe in WoW that's the best way to make money (gold really doesn't matter in WoW), but certainly wasn't in EQ. I doubt it will be in Pantheon either. Generally, it was a lot better money to farm items that not any gold farmer could get. For example, Sebilis and KC drops during Kunark. In p99 Velious, just simply grouping Velks is really good money atm.
You don't eliminate buying low / selling high traders by ditching the AH. Generally, highly sought after items go for about the same regardless of whether there is a AH or not. All getting rid of an AH does, in my experience, is waste regular players time, give more opportunities to "tunnel rats," and severely limit the sale of noob loot / obscure items.
All I'm saying is, If I RMTed p99 for a living (I have never RMTed but there are a lot that do), I would hate a bazaar. Any time a player gets any item of value on p99, they have to spam and barter -- driving them to offer it for a "quick-sale" price because they don't want to waste any more of their time. Then the tunnel rat proceeds to buy the item and sell it for a high price (usually about 130-150% value). Obviously they get a lot of business from RMTers that don't value platinum like those that earn it. The incentive to sell low is much lower in AH system -- which in turn actually discourages price flipping. Supply and demand works a lot better when people don't have to manual trade.
I think the problem some of you are having is you are conflating a WoW style economy with and EQ style one.
The gimmick you mention about WoW can still happen, it just means the player will need to understand who has what where. A player can still make multiple alts, put a bunch of cash on them and then plant them at each regional trade area. Then, they can buy up everything in each region, mark it up and post it again. So the trick still exists (and without difficulty to be honest).
What I was suggesting is making trading its own game system. I mean, really put some effort into it where the player has to have skills/levels they improve, where there is risk/reward in the trade, pros/cons to various approaches and the like. Trading is essentially a form of PvP, make it such. Make it where players can affect the market with different approaches and strategies, make it so there can be winners and losers. Put in costs, fees, fines, licenses, etc... I mean, make it as complex as a game like capitalism. It doesn't even have to be a true emulation of a RL system, I mean, even the adventure game system is not a true emulation due to many RL aspects not working well in such a game environment.
The benefit of such that by making a game system, the developers then have completely control on the system so they can tweak it if they find exploits, abuses, etc... just like they do with the adventure portion of the game.
My annoyance with people here is that they are making the same arguments that they attack mainstreamers for. They use "my fun", "what does my play style hurt you?", "You are controlling me, I should be able to be free to play as Iike!" all the while ignoring that this is a game, game systems need structure and player trade is a huge area where it has a very large impact on the rest of the games systems. Seriously, just about every economy system out there is completely FUBARd because there are no game system structures and constraints, it is essentially a free open "anything goes" form of play that causes many issues over time through both in game influence and outside game influence.
What is stupid is you can't even have a discussion on this because they get upset and act like you are taking away their favorite toy. The reason people are so deathly afraid of the system being changed is because they like the idea of being able to buy an item through trade rather than actually having to go camp it themselves.
This is why my points about camps being perma-camped by those farming for the trade sales are dismissed. Even you said "Just go farm some other item, then buy it off the AH", but I already pointed out this as the problem. It forces me to play the AH gimmick to be able to get an item I am looking to actually play THE game for. I want to camp the spawns, break the camps, hold them, I want to play the game... not solo farm some other item till my eyes bleed so I can buy the item from another player.
Dullahan, you are pushing the extreme side of the argument, acting like everything was rainbows and unicorns, that none of what I said existed, everything was fine and I am just complaining. You aren't being even remotely reasonable in the discussion, Calling my argument fallacious? Which one? Slippery slope? It is only a fallacy if it is a long list of extremely unlikely occurrences, I have explained I have experienced it personally, and properly reasoned how it occurs, but you keep dismissing it like it I am talking about aliens coming down and taking over the planet.
Seriously, you are discussing this like it is a contest, trying to convince everyone here that they should buy your brand of product, because it is better, faster and comes with a toy! Seriously, what is up with that?
As for your "It was laborious to make enough money to acquire rare items, especially raid level. Back then, you were talking about 50-100k+ platinum for items that I had on multiple characters. "
Now you are skipping my points. That money was easily obtained by anyone who did the item farming trade up selling (ie farm a lower item, sell it for 20k, watch the item sales, catch a better item off someone who didn't pay attention to the market, get it and resell it at 50-80k, buy up some more items, trade up and do the same. Within a month I have over 5 million plat, 2 flayed skin barbarian leggings, 4 cloak of flames, etc... I continue on and keep buying up and trading up. Eventually, I have so much cash that I buy out any items I think are too low in price, and re-post them for higher. I have seen this happen.
So telling me someone has to "work really hard" to make money to buy a 50-100k item is only for those who are idiots and don't play the markets and insanely try to earn money through adventure play. I have proven this over and over in many games I have played, player trade systems are so simplistic and easy to make money on it is ridiculous. Most people are stupid and impulsive with their money, they are often lazy and so are uninformed on the going prices for things. So they under sell, and over pay. They would rather pay large sums to have it now than find out and have it later. It is like shooting fish in a barrel.
This is why those who know absolutely love player trade systems. They can get rich quickly, buy anything they want and those who are too lazy to do such are often content with just buying the plat from RMT sites.
So is it the end of the world? No. Am I being unreasonable? No. I love EQ, even with its issues, but I think it is a disservice to claim it was all fine, that is patently false and we are back to 2000 where people were sticking their heads in the sand with all these issues because they liked being able to take advantage of it.
Besides, I didn't say get rid of player trade, I was talking about making it a game system.
So far though, anything I have discussed, your response has been "Things are fine, nothing to see here". You don't like any of the reasonable examples of looting issues I brought up and you don't want anything to be done with the trade system. You want it to be like EQ because apparently... it wasn't a problem there like it is not a problem in many games out there. That I think is false.
You seem to think that trading an item that's worth 30k on the market for 35-40k is something that happens every second, that's not really the case. I have done the RMT and trading thing on P99 blue and I maybe got 1-2 trades of that caliber a week at most. The amount of damage you're talking about is just vastly exaggerated.
You said you played on Test on live, maybe that has something to do with your hatred for player driven economies I don't know, but I can tell you it was generally not a problem on live, until Luclin and the bazaar came out. And this isn't just my opinion, I have talked to a lot of players who played on all different servers on live, and they echo my thoughts on this, that they do not remember this ever becoming a problem until the bazaar.
On live classic, North Temple of Veeshan was not a FTE (first to engage) contest where everyone single pulls the dragons to their raid. This is not because the mechanics of the game were different, but because people play MMOs differently then they did when they first launched.
I would like someone to explain to me their rationale on how people trying to monopolize would be disadvantaged by manual trade system.
Only reason I noticed is that I was a human monk, old school from a server that ran off ALL of the EC player trade base, so when I finally got to production after Kunark came out, I saw how my classes gear became a hot commodity and trade gimmicks, perm camping, etc... became the norm. Not as pronounced as the Bazaar, but still there.
Those who think this won't exist in regional trade markets aren't being honest with themselves. While such a break up in design slows down such behavior, it is only a speed bump. It will still be a massive problem.
Please... nobody is trying to say that this stuff doesn't happen ever, of course it does, we're simply saying that the detrimental effect on the game was a lot less dramatic than you make it seem.
Let's break this down to its core formula, you can trade an item to a player, or he can pay you for it or trade you goods equaling what your item was worth. Now the only way a player gets a ton of benefit from the buying and selling of items is if someone is willing to sell to him low, usually happening because they don't know what something is worth (a bit like how vintage car buyers pillage people from their chevy for half of what it's worth) or because they are simply too impatient to find a buyer for the right price.
He then has to sell the item high, which once again is the same formula, someone who doesn't know what the item is worth, or is too impatient and wants it now. All of this could take just as long as generating the money via looting the item from camping it. So are you really mad at the guy doing this, or is it the possibility of someone camping items to sell that bakes your biscuit?
I play games just like you do, I want to camp every item I need, I never buy things I need, I do sell from time to time, but only to keep enough currency on myself to fund all of my needs. I guess one of the major reasons I don't find this to be a problem is because I play on PVP servers, if someone is in a camp I want, I take it through force or negotiation. It's one of the major reasons why I could never stand playing on blue servers on EQ, I am not good at playing nice and waiting my turn.. I just end up training people out of my camp and making it look like an accident.
You seem adamant RallyD, there is no amount of reasoning I can provide. At this point, it is my opinion as to what will happen vs yours. You think it wasn't an issue, I think it is. So, we can let VR decide and wait for the outcome. Not trying to sound arrogant, but I have ALWAYS been right in these things in EVERY game I a made such a claim. I honestly HOPE I am proven wrong, I really do.
Time will tell, and to be honest, these discussion won't mean a flipping hills of beans when I am proven right. At the time it happens, when everything is going to shit, people will still be claiming everything is just honky dory. They did the same thing when I complained about this crap during those times.
Sorry, Rallyd, I am right here and if I am wrong, Pantheon turns out to be the game I desire on absolutely every front. Sorry, I am too old to buy into that bullshit. Been there done that, I am right, I will be right, it is just a matter of you admitting it when it happens.
Lets wait and see.
With an EC tunnel type system, it would require the person to basically spend 18+ hours a day and have a team of people tracking auctions, etc, to manage to keep a system like that in place in terms of gaming the market. Some people did it with really high level items, like say, buying all the CoF's that were available. The issue with that is again, its going to take years for there to be enough money in the market for someone to be able to actually accumulate enough wealth to do that.
People started small in games like wow. like buying all the cloth or ore and such. Eventually they were able to turn that into enough of a pile that they could start doing it with larger ticket items.
Again, all of this was facilitated by an AH. The only time i ever saw this being so common place as to be detrimental to the overall game was in games with AH. While it sporadically happened outside of that, it was by far the exception.
I'm really not meaning to be insulting but i just can't help shake that you're getting a bit alarmist over that happening. Pretty much none of us experienced that on any meaningful scale in original EQ, and it really doesn't even happen much on P99. Which is like the perfect storm of variables for that type of thing to happen. Yet it doesn't. The reason is without an AH you just have a completely absurd time requirement. Nobody is going to poopsock the EC tunnel for 18 hours a day 7 days a week just so they can corner the market on fungi tunics.
Once again though the issue with your method is choice is severely limited, with a player trade method, it isnt.
With your method, if i want an FBSS, and that camp is being camped by any number of random people consistently for weeks on end (i dont mean a guild or a group of friends, i mean literally anybody playing the game). I'm completely up shit creek. I either have to poop sock the camp until it opens up so i can camp it. Or i have to put myself on what is probably an 8 hour long list, so i can get into a group and have a 1 in 6 chance of getting it should it even drop, etc.
However, with a player trade system, if i can't get into the camp, i can go slaughter hill giants and make plat, i can go solo camp another item in a lower level area to sell to make plat. I have a ton of different paths with which i can utilize to get the item that i want. I can go XP in a dungeon and have a chance at some other item that i can sell.
I really do think even a moderately regulated player economy is a surefire way to put a bullet in the games heart before it even gets a chance to live. People like to be able to trade, period. Its considered a core aspect of an MMO.
IMO a purely player trade based system already has in plenty of built in limitations. You have to physically sit there and auction the item. You have to physically go meet up with the person to initiate the trade. You have to run back to a bank to put your money up so you are not weighed down. If you are not online when someone is selling an item you want, you're out of luck. Or if you're selling an item someone wants and they aren't online when you are, once again. You're out of luck. All of this as well is predicated on rarity of items. Items have to be rare enough that you can't just reasonably expect to walk into EC and say "WTB blah blah blah" and get 4 tells saying "i've got one!"
"The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently."
- Friedrich Nietzsche