Curse

thunderai · Apr 23, 2007, 01:49 PM // 13:49

Hi, I am curious if there was ever any serious talk from Anet as to if they would ever have a general merchant or auction house system in game. The reason i ask is because I would be interested in making an internet based merchant system where buyers and sellers can post requests for items.

The downside to this is that it isn't in game and there by not immediate. What I think is plausible is two things, which could be agreed upon by the seller and buyer upon listing or the item.

a). They organize between themselves the exchange; or,
b). A 3rd party purchases the item upon listing and holds the item until a buyer is found.

I tend to think option b)., is preferable as it would prevent scammers and allow the site to verify the lagemamciy of the item. This would require special field operatives who would be approved to handle such exchanges by the site.

The site would work somewhat like ebay and have the user interface of guildwars to maintain the connection. Before I go nuts programming in PHP and MySQL I want to know if there is something already like this and if not would this service be of any interest to those people who farm and make a "living" off selling stuff to other people?

It should not take to long to make, and if i did would anyone be willing to sign up as a field officer for the Xunlai Mercantile Exchange System?

thunderai · Apr 23, 2007, 01:51 PM // 13:51

I should also add that there would be no real money exchanged. The Field Officers would be paid for their time in game money based upon a percentage of the listing/buying cost.

thunderai · Apr 23, 2007, 06:48 PM // 18:48

20 views and no comments. maybe this is idea is not wanted. Should I submit this comment elsewhere?

Alaris · Apr 23, 2007, 07:31 PM // 19:31

I think that there are no comments for 2 reasons:
(1) some web sites already offer this, in the form of trade forums, and
(2) nobody wants to be that 3rd party buyer/seller, and risk getting stuck with items they don't want, unless there is serious profit to be made.

That being said, idea (a) is good, and would work well if you find a way to make it easily searchable.