Curse

Minus Sign · Oct 20, 2006, 07:04 PM // 19:04

We’ve all read posts like this. They pop up regularly and only get bigger with time. There’s a whole thread devoted to the Auction house in the Nightfall section. And while I fully admit that much of what is about to be said here has been said before, I felt compelled to make my opinion heard on this matter. I chose not to include this post in the auction house thread to avoid hijacking. Players interested in an auction house or other centralized trade institution for guild wars should click the link provided below and sign up.

There are many reasons why the current trade system is bad for Guild Wars. And by many I mean so numerous that to list them all would take several pages of triple posting by this commentator. What I wish to do in this thread is begin an open dialogue about what I feel are the top reasons why unregulated trading is bad in this game and converse about a possible solution. Now I’m not an economist and I don’t have a business degree. I’m just another player like you who feels he has something to say to the community at large about this issue.

Now that’s out of the way…

Part 1: Ectobuse

If the developers of this game believed that items were worth more than 100k they would have raised the plat cap that can be given between players at one time. But certain item prices have taken on a life of their own, reaching upwards in the millions of plat (final value) when trading between two parties. Through the use of a second “stable” currency a small percentage of players have effectively raised prices of certain items well out of the reach of the casual gamer or people who don’t “buy low/sell high”. I neither condemn nor laud at these players, but see them simply as opportunists who have taken advantage of a flaw in the current system. One flaw of many.

Part 2: Want To…Something…

Buyer’s remorse is addictive. Players seeking a certain item in this game are often crushed when they firs t find it. Prices for vanity items, novelties, etc are often so high that any player who wants them (for something other than to make a profit on them) is often left out in the cold. They simply can’t afford this item because they spend all their time PvPing, aren’t good farmers or don’t want to bankrupt themselves for a single item they want when there is so much more that they need. Most casual players I’ve spoken to who took the time to “farm up” for the uber item they always wanted suffer from a solid case of regret after the fact. There are so many different things they could have done with that money. But that money is gone now, the ectos with it, and they have their purchase whether they still want it or not. That would be okay if item prices were more stable than they are. Certain rare skin items—rare skinned golds and the like—remain stable in their price. But greens, mini-pets, craft materials often don't.

Seller’s remorse is addictive too. It’s a simple fact of life: if everyone wanted to haggle for everything then Wal-Mart wouldn’t be in business.

So the other side of the coin is finding a buyer in the first place. Out of the thousands of players on every day, how many want and can afford to pay for a low req rare skinned item? Finding a buyer who is actually willing to purchase the nice item you found (but can’t use) for any price often tempts players to accept paltry sums when compared to the items accepted value. EX: the first time I found a req8 15^50 murrsat bow, I was jumping in my chair. It was only after I went to LA and tried to sell it that the truth of trading sunk in. Knowing the value of the item, I tried to find a buyer who wanted it for a respectable price. I wasn’t asking in the upper range, but near the middle and hoping for a little less. After the third PM of “I’ll give you 20 k for it; hornbows suck u ask 2 much” I gave it to a guildie.

Players who may want to resell that uber item will find themselves stonewalled by the market and its buy low sell high mentality. They don’t have the time to spam in LA all day to get what they paid for the item—to get a respectable price in some cases—so they are either stuck with it or sell it for less.

You do not want people linking frustration to your trade system every time they enter a transaction. Worse: many players feel that trading in game is only a way to lose money; you'll never get the items real value unless you spend day in day out spamming in LA.

Part 3: The Current “Solution”

Some players have found a way around this time constraint however. Bot Trading in Guild Wars is an easy way to spam in LA while you do other things. You can work on one screen while your bot does the work for you. Who wants to sell a high value item for less than its worth? No one. Who wants to spend hours of their day (or can really afford to) clicking Enter/up arrow/Enter over and over again?

This, of course, violates EULA and can get your account banned. It’s a sure fire way to get your PC infected with viruses, keyloggers and other nasty programs. Honest players avoid botting in any form because it’s not only dangerous to your PC but can have the effect of destroying your account and ruining the game.

Which means that all too many players avoid the trade system. Frustrated, burnt out and seeking some compensation, they sell the item in disgust to the buy low sell higher or farm that extra month for their FoW. People who hate to haggle hit the merchant and avoid the issue altogether.

So what’s the current solution to people who want to buy and sell things for a respectable price but don’t want to spend a month finding each other?

Right here. Forums like GWGuru have sections devoted to trading items in game for in game money. Volunteer mods monitor transactions to make sure the transactions are plat for item instead of plat for dollars.

Now I ask the reader: why is this the worst possible scenario for Guild Wars trading?

Answer: The easiest way to get what you want is to leave the game entirely to do it. That’s not a good thing. In fact it’s very bad!

The current trade system—wait for it…wait for it—actually promotes eBay mentality in Guild Wars! If we have to leave the game to conduct our trades its just a hope skip and a mouse click (mentally and RL) from the GWGuru’s sell forum to ebay.com or wherever stuff is being sold atm. I mean hey: I need my plat for FoW, right? I farm my brains out for my ectos. Why am I goanna waste it on a FellBlade when I can buy one for a couple bucks?

There’s a reason why ebaying exists in games like this. When someone decides to do this they’re already out of the game. They’re “off the radar”. You can’t monitor these transactions (legally) in any part except for the very end when random guy goes up to random guy in game and gives away an item.

Prove he’s not my RL friend who decided to tweak me. Prove I didn’t do him an RL service and he bartered an in-game item for non-monetary gains. And while many here will say “they can do just that; ebayers follow a predictable pattern and its just down to catching them by watching the servers” I feel I have to remind the detractors how often we see someone in riverside complaining about being banned for botting or other infractions that they claim innocence to.

You can suspect anyone of anything. You can know to your toenails that someone is abusing the system. But suspicion—no matter how strong—is not proof.

Part 4: Change Is Like an Enema

How much server resource does a player take up while idling all day in LA. How much does he use when he keeps saying WTS WT S over and over again in trade or all chat?

And how useful is the all chat in any trade center when looking for quests?

A Centralized trade post would allow players to use fewer resources per person while conducting business with one another. It would allow them to trade while off-line and serve to bring control to an economy that has been out of control since its inception. It will allow players to conduct business in the game world with players all over the world, in different time zones with unanimity. In short: It would allow buyers to find sellers, and vice versa.

It would also allow enforcement of the 100k trade cap for items.

By also increasing the drop ratio on ectos and shards, the economy would be forced into a semblance of stability by destroying the currency that is used to inflate these rare items beyond their value. Without a separate form of currency players would be forced to use the new trade system.

Will players still ebay? Yes; I’m not foolish enough to believe that making something easier will stop lazy people from seeking “the shortest route”. The real questions about it should be: will ebay actually look appealing? Will the masses envy ebayers because they’ve got the balls to thumb their nose at the system—a broken system mind you—while we suckers plod along on our farms and chest runs? Centralized trade will reduce the appeal of ebaying; certainly.

Will a small minority be upset over this change? Absolutely. But the only players I can see who would be upset over this are those who exploit farm ectos and shards for profit and those who buy low and sell high on a regular basis. But the masses have spoken time and again, and its time to do to trade what you did to HA Anet:

Give the masses what they want.

No more waiting. No more “its on the to-do list”. Lets put it on the “its done list”. Centralized trade for Guild Wars.

Thank you for taking the time to read this. To repeat; one proposed solution underway is the creation of an Auction House; click the link below to learn more.

Play Fair and Good gaming

“-“ Minus Sign

http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...ucti on+house

Jetdoc · Oct 20, 2006, 07:13 PM // 19:13

I completely concur about the use of a centralized trading system, much like an auction house, but more for convenience reasons (i.e. no spamming) than actual economic resasons.

The"buy low sell high" players will still exist - in fact, they will actually thrive in an auction system.

Why? Because of its centralized use, there are many items that will "fly below the radar", which those traders will be able to scoop up at very low prices and sell at the high prices.

The institution of a "price cap" in that trading system will do nothing to the 100K+ items either - there is still a mechanism outside of the game that will facilitate/allow those trades. Anyone selling an item that would likely fetch 100K+ would simply be ignorant by utilizing the ingame system, in other words. And those buyers that realize that would simply "buy low" on those items and sell them for more than 100K on these forums and the like.

Beat_Go_Stick · Oct 20, 2006, 07:39 PM // 19:39

Nicely put. I don't see the "buy-low-sell-high" traders as an argument for centralized trading but there are those of us (myself for example) who would happily put a sword worth 100k+20e up for bid on an internal trading system for 100k.

Do I lose money on it? Sure, but I also get to just throw it up there and have the sale done with instantly. Not having to worry about checking an auction, go find the player, worry about him changing his mind, etc. etc. is worth 20e for me.

The trade functionality of this game needs to be addressed. Plain and simple.

actionjack · Oct 20, 2006, 10:15 PM // 22:15

Nice post... sorry if I only briefly scanne throught it.

I think it is a safe guess to say that A.net didn't actually anticipate the inflation and the trade/economy that we see today. I think they were expecting player to play throught the story, and casually play the game in extra PvP and PvE... and not actually become a hard-core famer who hord the gold.

That said.. a thread I made before asking people about how they feel about the 100k+ items... and for most people, they say they don't care. So it is less of a problem. (thought I do think it has a adverse effect of turning-off the new players)

One partcial "solution" would be to introduce a global trade market (like that of WoW's Auction House) This helps create a better "Perfect Market" (ecom term), as the supplier and demander have the perfect information and match up, thus creating a equalibrium of price where neither party will gain profit (atleast not alot, as nothing is ever perfect). This will effectivily reduce to the price of those over-price item down to their true price.

Another thing needed is to get player off farming, or hording of gold. With new addtional "currency" that is none-exchangable (like a Token or new type of Faction points), it would help de-emphises the need for gold.

Anyhow, in short, a game should be more about fun, and not how much you grind to make virtural gold.

Yawgmoth · Oct 20, 2006, 11:11 PM // 23:11

/NOT signed

The trading system in the game is horrible and needs a major improvement - it's a fact
but
You (the OP) are concentrating on wrong aspects of it and it seems you don't understand a few basic things! You don't criticise the trading system but the way the GW economy works. And in my opinion the economy is working very fine and there's no need to change it (and certainly not destroy it by removing alternative currencies and capping prices, as you suggest)

And there's completely nothing wrong with having a few very rare and expensive items in game. They don't afect the masses at all! There's no phat ubar epic stuff everyone has to get to remain competetive in GW, the expensive things don't give any advantage so there's really no reason to complain.
For the casual masses, there's almost no difference if something sells for 100k or 100k+xx ectos. They're not going to pay more than 5 or 10k for one item ever anywyay. And they dont have to.

Obviously, the current system **does not promote any eBay mentality in gw** as having lots of gold or expensive items has such a low meaning in the game. Maybe the OP is very poor and jealous and feels the need to eBay himself?
The fact there are alternative currencies like ecto is not bad, it actually makes a healthy economy! You want to increase their drop rates to make them stop being currencies? Nonsense! I think you just want a cheap FoW armors for yourgreedyself because you can't afford them now without ebaying.
So cheap FoW armors for everyone is the solution to the economy so that no noob will ever feel the urge to ebay some gold? Thats just ridiculous

The real problems right now are:
-difficulty to find sellers/buyers for certain goods
-difficulty to get certain cheap things, like elemental upgrades because nobody wants to waste storage space and time to sell them.
-the need to waste long hours spamming to get something you want or sell something for a reasonable price
-the inability to sell things passively, without interaction with other players, the unpleasant expieriences (there are multiple solutions to it present in other mmo games)
-artifical inflation of prices by item hoarders and trade spammers - the trade system should encourage selling, make it easier, and give the buyers other ways of getting
-inability to easily present what are you selling to a large group of potential buyers (item links in wow are a work of a pure genius)

A centralized auction house would solve them all but i'm completely sure we won't (unfortunately) see it, ever.
That's because from technical point of view the whole system itself would use more bandwidth and server processing power than the whole game uses now. It's just impossible. Remember that we don't have separade 'shards' or servers in GW and try to imagine hundreds of thousands players interacting with the system, making queries to the database with millions of items being sold.
Instead, we should get a district based solution, a way to leave a selling stand in a town with some items for sale and be able to do something else at that time. Because time is valuable and having to waste it trading is just not fun.

Malice Black · Oct 20, 2006, 11:21 PM // 23:21

Never use WTS/WTB yet I sold my items with no problems. Auction house would be nice but there is ways around the supposed trade system we have now.

Mars Dragonblade · Oct 21, 2006, 03:53 PM // 15:53

I read every word of that, it's a very well thought out and very well constructed arguement which I agree with 100%.

Minus Sign · Oct 21, 2006, 04:55 PM // 16:55

A few clarifications if I may: while this post may appear to villify buy low/sell high players, that was not my intent. As stated, I believe they are only doing what any player would given their resources: exploiting a flaw for their own profit. Thats not a bad thing, its in-game life. Runners do it to make money (well; they did. Locked gates FTL...). Solo farmers do it to make money (wait...anti-farm code...). Hardcore HA players strategize long and hard about the best build to hold Halls and grab loot (er...hmm...).

So I do not look down on buy low sell highers and hope players will consider that before they come in here and accuse me of being a greedy, poor/bad farming casual playing loser. I'm merely stating that trading needs to be fixed to make it more accessable to the masses and not just a few individuals.

FYI: in the interests of disclosure I wish to admit that most players might consider me "poor". I spend most of my time in PvP now adays and ramping up PvE toons to be PvP ready is an expensive process.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Yawgmoth

from technical point of view the whole system itself would use more bandwidth and server processing power than the whole game uses now. It's just impossible.

Cite your source please and add relevant information to prove that centralised trade is adverse to the servers. If you are a programer or have expierince building and running servers, please share why something so many other games have is out of GW's reach.

Hockster · Oct 22, 2006, 03:45 AM // 03:45

There's nothing in the game a player needs that can not be bought from vendors. I've yet to see any proof that an auction house, or any trade overhaul, would decrease the ebay mentality, or the bot problem.

While a central trade area would be nice, I don't see an actual need for it. Certainly not while other, more important, features are still needed. Reconnects, fixing the stuck bugs, and a few others are much more important to game play.

"Give the masses"..... The hard core traders are definately not in the majority of game players. Those that do nothing other than spam WTS/WTB messages are easily ignored, and do not add nor detract to anyones actual game play once they've an outpost.

For all the wordiness, this really sounds like another whine about not being able to afford something.

/not signed cuz the suggestion while wordy isn't all that crucial to real game play.

scrinner · Oct 22, 2006, 04:09 AM // 04:09

I Whole heartedly agree to a centralized trading system. If its not implemented atleast add a new island on the zaishen islands and let us have filters for specific items.

But The centralized trading system is a very needed feature.

Navaros · Oct 22, 2006, 04:19 AM // 04:19

None of the stuff listed in the original post has anything to do with why the trade system is bad for Guild Wars.

Why the trade system is bad for Guild Wars is because one must give himself a migraine headache along with much mental anguish and become a hardcore trade spammer in order to buy or sell anything. That is by far the most important reason why the trade system is the most fundamentally game-breaking thing in Guild Wars and an Auction House is desperately needed. End of story.

jesh · Oct 22, 2006, 08:13 AM // 08:13

I've known quite a few people since I started playing that look forward to pretty things that their friends show them, only to find out that black dye costs 10k and that sword is way more expensive.
Even if arena net doesn't care about the new players who lose interest because they can't feasably get what they want.. they would have more people buying their new chapters and continuing to play gw. It's really in *their* best interest, I think.
Besides, the principle that we're arguing for here is a centralized trading system - so - /signed

Roshi_ikkyu · Oct 22, 2006, 08:27 AM // 08:27

Anet has never controlled and can never control prices.

Without adding a price tag which is the required price to every weapon!

There will always be high end items!

....enforcement of the 100k trade cap for items
lmao

/notsigned it a messed up idea

Lexar · Oct 22, 2006, 01:05 PM // 13:05

The very fact that free mmorpgs have far better trade systems really puts GW to shame. that alone should be enough motivation to get it done as soon as possible.

Pandora96 · Oct 23, 2006, 02:13 AM // 02:13

Ok, so I didn't read the whole thing. But I do agree the current marketplace in GuildWars is horrible. I don't want to sit in Kaineng for two hours spamming. I rather play the game. And the Ventrai's sell forum is even worse. You put up a page it takes days for someone to buy it, then even longer to find the person in-game.

But...would this "auction house" Be like the bot in WoW? Or an..auction house? Because an auction house would seem like Kaineng spam with pretty colors.

MegaMouse · Oct 23, 2006, 07:07 AM // 07:07

I totaly agree with the original author of this post. The current trade system is broken and needs fixing. At the moment it can create problems(hackers stealing items from under your nose) and NC-Soft wont do anything aout them. If their was an auction house then use it as the new trading system. If you want an item go to the auction house and get bid on it. I have seen the auction house in another MORPG that will go unnamed, and it is set up very nice. Only the character putting the item up for auction can withdraw the currency made on the sale less a small fee for the running of the auction house. This could kill a few birds with one stone:
Thieves stealing your account info and stealing all of your items; if they cant trade the items and gold directly to another account they will be stopped cold.
Spamming in different towns (Lions Arch and Kieneg center I no longer care to visit). If you cant sell directly to another player then you wont have a reason to spam that you are selling something.
It could stabilize the prices for certian items by placing a maximum limit on the amount that an item can be sold for(example make it so that soething cannot cost over the ammount a character can crry in gold or 100 plat)

Some players will not want a auction house just for the reasons that I have worded but these reasons are enough for me to say yes to a wel thought out auction house ingame.

Mega Mouse

Jecht Scye · Oct 23, 2006, 11:06 AM // 11:06

Increadibly valid points. I detest spamming in Kaineng or LA trying to sell items and would MUCH rather be playing the game while my items are being sold. Not only that, but there would be much more competition in terms of prices because more would be available to buyers. The trade system needs a huge overhaul and I'll sign that post you linked to.

/signed

Maria The Princess · Oct 23, 2006, 11:27 AM // 11:27

Guru auction site anyone?

works great for me, never have to spam in towns, items are selling themselves

DCramer · Oct 23, 2006, 11:35 AM // 11:35

I just sell items to merc or salvage. just dont bother trying to sell to players. just a waste of my time.

LifeInfusion · Oct 23, 2006, 05:03 PM // 17:03

This is why I don't bother trading ingame... the auction sites at Guru and GW online are more efficient. When I log in I use my time for playing missions/quests not selling stuff.