Selling out your inventory

[Dagger]

Local Chat and Trade Forum

This is the most hardcore selling system. It encourages people to use a trade forum, mainly. These should be official and server-specific considering there's several servers. The local chat system will probably not be much useful, unless there's a gathering point where a lot of people could get your message.

Personal opinion: An ok method, but complicated. Easy to get a good overview of the true value of items, since people will comment if something's expensive or cheap. Not likely to be used for lesser unimportant items much.

Trade Chat

The Trade Chat is a wide chat system designed for trading items and services ingame. This system is, however, likely to be filled with spam and silly memes over time. You can't really beat down on the people for having a bit fun once in a while, but it's really annoying for those who are actually using the chat. It's also prone to be abused by gold sellers, as probably the largest chat channel ingame.

Personal opinion: Too easy to spam. I don't like this system much.

Auction House

An Auction House is a place where you can put all your items for a small fee, and buyers can search and buy the cheapest items as they see fit. Usually there's a max time for your items, which will make you suffer a slight loss of the deposit fee if you try to use it as a bank. Effective, but unsocial.

Personal opinion: Gives a great perspective over an item's true value as well as it's median value. Is effective, but in my opinion is too safe for such a game. There's basically no risk in having items on the Auction House. Also, it discourages trading and economic discussions more than anything else.

Inventory Stall

Sit down on the ground and put items from your inventory into your stall for the desired price. you can select between a hidden or visible price, and buyers can offer more than what you're asking if they want to. You are vulnerable to attacks, which is why you would not want to place your stall outside a city wall in the first place. Each stall has a poster/title which is custom written, usually telling potential buyers what you've got so they'll take a look (your main selling stock).

Personal opinion: My favourite. It's a semi-social trading system, and you don't get that same price awareness that you get with a system like an Auction House. You can actually sell an item for 50% more than it's regularly worth, if you're lucky. Easy to set up, but might take a while to actually sell everything.

Other

Your own unconventional suggestions. Hirelings to sit around acting as a stall for you? An ingame advert system, kind of like the ones we know from our daily newspapers? You name it.

[SkirmCard]

I would personally like Local auction houses (no universal) in every major city that people could access both in the city and maybe even villages around that city (of course there would be a delay to get the money to the city and the item out to the village).

[ccoa]

I think a combination of user created stalls and local auction houses would be the best.

That way if you don't have the time or desire to set up a stall you can shove your item in the auction house with a less likely chance of it being sold, depending on what cities auction house you placed it in.

The only problem with the inventory stalls is I see people running into a central plaza and setting up their stall and you see thousands of other stalls all cluttered together with no organization. Maybe putting in special market areas where you can only set up stalls there, with a main pathway so people can still walk through.

[Dagger]

Originally Posted by ccoa

The only problem with the inventory stalls is I see people running into a central plaza and setting up their stall and you see thousands of other stalls all cluttered together with no organization. Maybe putting in special market areas where you can only set up stalls there, with a main pathway so people can still walk through.

If this really turns out to be a problem I'm sure it's easily dealt with.

A) Either, as you say, only allow it certain places.
B) or not allow it certain places (indoors, on paths, etc.)

[Jadex666]

what if the player put the item they wish to sell on the market, let the player set their selling price etc. then whom ever wanted that item could buy it & after the item is sold the player who sold the item could go back to the market that sold the item and collect their money. I believe EVE online had this capability

[Lyllyth]

My votes were Channel and Other.
I've already stated my view on this, but I'll quote it... Player-run merchant houses. No Auction House. This localizes goods and creates a varied market that is driven by the player base.
Though, as long as there is a local/global channel, players will attempt to sell or advertise items there, so that's unavoidable.

Originally Posted by Lyllyth

My view on this kind of falls in line with Player-built housing.

Player houses should come in various forms (relating to size/cost/etc), a couple of those options could allow for;
a) home-over-shop, where it'd be a 2-story building, the lower front would be a merchant area. The lower back would be a crafting area. The upper floor would be the Player's house. This would also be very expensive.
b) shop-before-home, where the shop/crafting areas are to the front of the building and the house is to the back. Though the "house" would be simply a room or two. This would be a cheaper option.
c) craft-shop, no house attached, the front is a merchant area, the back is a crafting area. Cheaper than option b.
d) just a shop, as that implies, this would just be a merchant shop with no crafting area inside. Even cheaper than option c.

Now, to be an active shop, someone/thing has to be present to sell the items, be it the Player or a hired NPC. Those who are profiting well, may chose to hire an NPC to stand there and take orders.

I envision it this way... You enter the shop, on the counter before you is a bell and a "list" (something that would look like an inventory list). If you click on the list, you get a list of the items for sale and their prices. If you click on the bell, it'll "ping" the owner, if he's online. This could be to negotiate a price or trade, or simply to make an order for something that's not on the list.

NPC Hireling:
NPC run shops are simple, behind the counter would stand an NPC that sells things just as any NPC vendor would, but he's limited to the items in the shop and will not buy anything from people. The owning Player is free to leave without closing shop. The NPC could be given instructions on various things. Perhaps a floor/ceiling % for negotiations. A "seeking" list of items the Player wants to purchase if they happen to come in the store and how much to pay for each, etc. Of course, the NPC would require pay.

Player Run:
To free up the Player, the "inventory list" would behave as the merchant in this case, but the owner has to be in the building for any transactions to be possible. Perhaps he's in the back, crafting more items. The drawback to running the shop yourself, is that the shop is closed the moment you leave.

A Touch of Realism:
No employee will work 24/7, so the owner will have to set the work schedule for the NPC. The default would be 0700-1700, 5 days a week. Assuming the player is not there (out adventuring or what have you), the NPC will keep the shop open during his working hours and close up shop during his time off. This would allow for more hirelings to be employed, if needed.

Offline:
... Now this part's just a thought. But let's say you were to log out in your shop. The server could place a look-a-like NPC behind the counter to handle the shop while you're offline. If you have NPC hirelings, this NPC would rotate hours with them, if you're self owned, you would set the working hours just as you would with an NPC hireling, or leave the default as is.

Non-Player Involved Shops:
At the start of a city, or even as the server opens, there will be no Player merchants, so there will need to be NPC merchants. I would suggest that the NPC merchants are handled in a similar way to the Player Merchant, with a limited inventory and limited resources.
This would open doors for "Tasks". A task being similar to what current MMOs call "Quests", "Collect item X for me." However, it would be more of a "Seeking" list, so it wouldn't be "collect 30 of X for me", but more of a "I'll pay you Y for every X you bring me." The NPC would require materials and could pay players for the materials brought to him, per item. This would allow a small income for beginning Players (no XP) and would further the in-game economy as the player has basically just become a hired worker.

[Nagoth]

Well, the trade stalls were done in Silk ROad Online, nad it was messy. Restrict the palces they can be alot more, like it was said above, certain areas, maybe even spaces for booths that you have to rent, making sure you don't get 200 booths with ****.

The auction houses are a good idea, but limit them to only showing items in that area.

Chat trade really doesn't work for me, as its too much of a spam magnet.

When you hire a place for a booth, you can aither bring your own, or, for a price, rent one, and even along with a person to sit there for you.

The hired help : Naturally, you can have skills on these people as well, making them more expensive to hire, to make sure your items are more advertised.
Along with a more expensive vendor, you could get a town crier along with it, so that NPCs in the streets stand around talking about the awesome items you're selling. This should cost quite a bit though, or it will easily be overdone/overpopulated.

[SukaD]

It would be great if in a player-managed/built city there were specific areas where stalls were built with the intent of renting them out. The guild could have in it's employ NPC and PC sellers who will occupy the booth you rented and sell your wares for you. Town criers would be overused if you could spawn one for your personal use, but if the Guild had a few posted at various places throughout the city and you paid to advertise through them I could see that working. What I would like to see however is speaking pedestals/stages built in city squares where you could use something similar to a /shout command or the maximum distance your message could be heard from was expanded. However, time on the stage would have to be limited if others are in queue for the speaking platform.

[Hardwire]

I do not believe in world wide auctions as it seems to unrealistic and the undercutting of prices is nutz.
A stall to sell from would be something I would go for inside a city where you couldn't be attacked and lose everything you are selling.
Or being able to sell from your home/shop. Maybe being able to buy a home with the shop in front as Lylltyth said would be a good idea, with vendors set up kinda like UO.
I really liked UO where you went around like in RL looking for the best deal.
The problem with UO based selling was the clutter of houses everywhere you went. Dont get me wrong I also thik we should be able to build whereever we want, but there has to be some balance so we dont feel like the world is only filled with ppls houses/shops.
Does anyone remember when the servers in UO would come back up and rare or semi rare I suppose items appeared. The candlestick, rocks etc>? Do they still do that.

[whiteknave]

Local Auction Houses would work best for me, but I think that implementing player markets would get cool for those who are full-time into the crafting/selling aspect of the game.

Personally, I don't want to sit in front of my computer for hours on end, hoping someone will visit my stall to buy my junk. I'd rather be out making more junk, or killing and looting junk, and then selling what i don't want at the AH.

I really like how EVE implemented its player economy. Other than direct player-to-player trading/selling, there are two methods: Market and Contract. The market is all fixed price. You can list items for sale at a fixed price, and you can list items to buy at a fixed price. The Contract system is more like an AH.

So, both of these trade systems are "click and forget" systems. Any item listed for sale via Market or Contract is automatically removed from your station inventory. When bought, the cash is transferred to your account. You only have to travel when you buy something (unless it was listed for sale in your current station). If your market listing or contract expires before being fulfilled, the item is returned to your inventory at the station from which it was listed. (You do have an assests management feature which keeps record of every station in which you have inventory).

The EVE Universe is broken down in size (from largest to smallest) Universe >> Region >> Constellation >> Solar System >> Space Station. The largest market area you can see at any time is the Region. If a player wants to sell an item on the market, he can either list the item to be sold on the market, or he can fulfill someone's listed buy order. You can buy any item that is listed for sale anywhere in the region (and then you have to travel in order to pick it up).

Fulfilling buy orders is a bit more complicated as the skills of the person listing the buy order determines how far the buy order is effective (i.e level 0 can only list buy orders for that station, lvl 1 can list buy orders for that solar system, lvl 2 can list buy orders within 5 solar system jumps, lvl 3 - 10 jumps, lvl 4 - 20 jumps, lvl 5 - entire region). The person who listed the buy order then has to travel to each station where the buy order was fulfilled in order to collect the items bought (all cash transactions are automatically transferred through the EVE banking system).

These transactions are totally safe, in that the item listed is always the item listed (although you do have to pay attention to the buy/sell price).

The other buying/selling system is the Contract system. This system is totally player created, but there are various types of contracts you can create. When you search for contracts, you can search for specific items, you can search for contracts within your current region, or the entire EVE universe. You can do fixed price contracts, or people can bid on the contracts, or you can do item trades (specific to the terms of the contract).

The contract system is totally safe for the person listing the contract. For cash transactions, the money is automatically transferred from the account of the party fulfilling the contract, to the account of the person listing the contract. For item swap contracts, the person fulfilling the contract has to have the exact items specified in the contract. The items are then deeded from one player to the other.

In the contract method, the person fulfilling the contract does need to pay attention to the terms and details of the contract. Sometimes the description of the contract doesn't exactly match the details listed in the contract. However, every item listed is exactly what is traded. So long as you follow the rule of "caveat emptor", you'll be fine.

Both the Market and Contract systems are "click and forget". Items listed for sale are automatically removed from your inventory. Items bought are automatically put into your inventory at the station in which they were listed. If your market listing or contract expires without being fulfilled, the item(s) are returned to your inventory in the station where listed. There is a nice "Assets" feature which tracks every station in which you have inventory.

[Traceur]

i propose a very "sophisticated" trade system. i debt it the TGR! doesn't that sound fancy?

TGRK: Talking, Giving, Recognizing

all you need is 3 actions:
action 1: talking to people and agreeing on a deal
action 2: giving stuff from your inventory to others.
action 3: recognizing people tagged for fraud or theft thus being able to punish them or at list not trade with them in the future.

as long as people can do these 3 interactions, then they can do anything they want: run their own shop by their craft, in their homes or in a centralized market area, trade a lot of different stuff from one place to another and start bigger shops of various items coordinated with other people, grow from a shop to a chain to a cooperation, or even run their own auction houses - whether they support long-distance ordering (in which you'd risk the item be lost on the way) or local. they could even bond together to protect a certain location stocked with money and offer their services as a bank, they could start a chain of banks or strike deals with other banks to institutionalize money exchange between those banks thus allowing a global money bill, they could even have multiply armories and standardize bills for putting standard items in one area and taking them out in the next.

isn't that beautiful? how the entire economy comes from those 3 things? the simplest most elegant solution. and all it requires is giving players a mouth, a hand and an eye.

[Lachrymose]

traceur.. that is an extremely sophisticated system, and as much as i'd like to see it implemented, i just don't know if it's possible. it seems like far too complicated a design for the devs to implement.. not to mention the players would have to acclimate themselves to such a system, and i'm afraid the learning curve could shut many players out from such a complex trading system, which would ultimately reduce trade and have desasterous effects on the economy...

[Kivech]

I really like the inventory stall system. You would really create a real market in the game, I love that concept.

Also, I hate both AH and sell spam, so AHs and selling through a trade channel is something I hate as well.

Just have a market in every town where a player can rent a spot to sell his stuff, just like in a real market. I'm all up for that.

[adrala]

I think that after the first couple of weeks when everyone chooses his profesion and so on every town will have a couple reknown crafters so if you enter a town you will just ask for say a good armour smith and ppl will tell you where to find one.
I am strongly for localized markets. Nothing better than prepare for a long journey to a remote village after you have heard that there an old crafter is selling some really good bows

[Baron]

Player owned vendor houses (like in UO) and town specific auction houses are my choices. Auction houses should have a commission fee associated with their use, just like in real life, this allows players to get better prices (or better profits) by buying and selling at player owned vendor houses. Vendor houses encourage player interactions, whether they are friendly or not is the question.

[catmorbid]

Originally Posted by Lachrymose

traceur.. that is an extremely sophisticated system, and as much as i'd like to see it implemented, i just don't know if it's possible. it seems like far too complicated a design for the devs to implement.. not to mention the players would have to acclimate themselves to such a system, and i'm afraid the learning curve could shut many players out from such a complex trading system, which would ultimately reduce trade and have desasterous effects on the economy...

I think the funny thing here is that Traceur's TGR would need only minimal game mechanics: Speak, give items, tag players.

In many ways that would be the most simple system to implement. But when you think about it more I realize, to make it work fluently, you'd need some support mechanisms to speed up the work. So instead of trading with each player individually and thus ending up spending a huge amount of time just on trading, there should be some support mechanics to speed it up. Something like having fixed prices, which you could barter down if you wanted.

Basically, some sort of interface where you can negotiate easily with your customers and customers could offer prices on items and you could choose to either accept or decline the offer. If they wouldn't want to barter, they could just choose to buy the item at the default price the stall owner has set. Though this removes the opportunity to just grab the item and run, but I guess that's what a steal skill should be for (Success: steal without being seen, partial success: steal but the owner gets notified, Fail: fail to steal and owner notices you).

I'm all for a realistic and complex trading system as long as it doesn't become tedious to shop. And even though it might take some time designing the perfect trade interface that supports shop owner-buyer communication and easy-to-use bartering, why not spend that time and not spend equal time in designing a good auction house, or any other trade system mechanic?

[Elfvis]

Fan of the AH while I know I am not the only one, and certainly open to other suggestions, I think its a great way to tie everyone together without having to sit in channel spamming.

[Lxx]

With regards ...TRADE CHAT... ie real time market with real bid on the item.. system can simply annonce that serten player want 2 sell an item starting bid $$$ and it will start in 5 min on trade ch#1 for example..so ppl who interested on biding can go 2 that ch and when auction start simply place a bids..and lets say auction will run for 30sec..so the last high bid was enter is winning one. Then winner can talk 2 seller and make an exchange..

Just thinking out loud here =)

[Resin]

Originally Posted by Traceur

i propose a very "sophisticated" trade system. i debt it the TGR! doesn't that sound fancy?

TGRK: Talking, Giving, Recognizing

all you need is 3 actions:
action 1: talking to people and agreeing on a deal
action 2: giving stuff from your inventory to others.
action 3: recognizing people tagged for fraud or theft thus being able to punish them or at list not trade with them in the future.

as long as people can do these 3 interactions, then they can do anything they want: run their own shop by their craft, in their homes or in a centralized market area, trade a lot of different stuff from one place to another and start bigger shops of various items coordinated with other people, grow from a shop to a chain to a cooperation, or even run their own auction houses - whether they support long-distance ordering (in which you'd risk the item be lost on the way) or local. they could even bond together to protect a certain location stocked with money and offer their services as a bank, they could start a chain of banks or strike deals with other banks to institutionalize money exchange between those banks thus allowing a global money bill, they could even have multiply armories and standardize bills for putting standard items in one area and taking them out in the next.

isn't that beautiful? how the entire economy comes from those 3 things? the simplest most elegant solution. and all it requires is giving players a mouth, a hand and an eye.

I agree, if players want an auction they should need bark it themselves or hire someone to do it for them.

[Traceur]

Originally Posted by catmorbid

So instead of trading with each player individually and thus ending up spending a huge amount of time just on trading, there should be some support mechanics to speed it up. Something like having fixed prices, which you could barter down if you wanted.

it's a player run economy, how would the prices be fixed except for how the seller decides the prices are...and if the merchant decides the price, how is a special pricing system or window any different then him just saying or writing down on some piece of paper "that sword costs 5 tindermene gold coins"?

Originally Posted by catmorbid

Basically, some sort of interface where you can negotiate easily with your customers and customers could offer prices on items and you could choose to either accept or decline the offer.

so instead of saying "5!" when the merchant says "10" you'll have to push some "lower" arrow 5 times? is that really more continent? and yep, if you don't want to barter then when he says "10" you just give him 10.

Originally Posted by catmorbid

I think the funny thing here is that Traceur's TGR would need only minimal game mechanics: Speak, give items, tag players.

In many ways that would be the most simple system to implement. But when you think about it more I realize, to make it work fluently, you'd need some support mechanisms to speed up the work.

see, but all those support mechanisms don't speed it up - they slow it down - they create a system where communication is limited to only what the game think is relevant, such as "price" "offer", but since it's never the only thing relevant ("that sword looks rusty!"), all they end up doing is making you switch between the regular chat & the trade-specialized window. they basically create a redundant communication barrier between the merchant & the buyer, but because it enables the seller to fight off theft more easily it ends up being standardized anyway, even when it makes trade go slower.

the simplest solution is not always the best - but when it comes to communication, it often is.

[mikesanimation]

Yeah I agree with Traceur on this. If you have those three things, you can do everything. This is actually why MO is what it is, in that, it is completely a sandbox game, everything you want to do, you can do (I am definitely taking some assumptions here, I could be wrong). So if you want to start a business where you buy items from other people for cheap prices, then resell them and make money, go ahead! Or just find a little house or area inside a city and sell your items there.

However, I do feel that some sort of system already created could make it somewhat easier. I'd rather not have an AH, as said earlier, it would be "too safe", global chat sounds not like something that would be in MO, and a trade forum...well i don't know.

I do like the stall system. However, if SV makes the game any good, then you won't even need a system, you can just drop your stuff on the ground (or buy some sort of a stall to put it in) and sell it from there.

But I know that some people will say "That's too time consuming!"...in which case, find someone who has a business or a shop that they run, and sell it to them for a cheap price, then they will resell it. You get rid of your junk, they make a slight profit. It's a win win situation, really.

Following up on what I said earlier, MO is a sandbox game, so there will most likely be businesses to take the places of NPC's, in that, instead of "vendoring" items (Selling them to NPC vendos), you will sell them to some sort of a business.

Also, I really like the idea of being able to create adverts in the game. Maybe have your company's name and address painted on a stone wall on the way into the city. This could definitely help players find services (from other players) they needed.


So all in all, I think that there should not be any trade systems, but only the three things that Trace mentioned a while ago. Because in the end, that is all that is needed.

[Defiant One]

For me, the best options fro trade would be: local chat(as described by OP), auction houses (not WoW style), stalls(as described), and option to hire NPC to hold this stall for you(with various options as price hiding, least price to sell an item and option for NPC to buy items which his employer needs.)

Let me explain my view on auction houses. I think it would be nice if in towns we could have special halls for players to rent and hold actual auctions. Player would rent it for certain amount of set time, pick items he wants to sell and starting bids for them.
That way the timetable of auction house would be formed and players could check auction holding times and items being sold.
I think feature like that would be very social in comparison to WoW style auction houses.
Thoughts?

[Mathael]

Originally Posted by Defiant One

For me, the best options fro trade would be: local chat(as described by OP), auction houses (not WoW style), stalls(as described), and option to hire NPC to hold this stall for you(with various options as price hiding, least price to sell an item and option for NPC to buy items which his employer needs.)

Let me explain my view on auction houses. I think it would be nice if in towns we could have special halls for players to rent and hold actual auctions. Player would rent it for certain amount of set time, pick items he wants to sell and starting bids for them.
That way the timetable of auction house would be formed and players co