The Xunlai Marketplace thread

I am not going to cross my fingers for this although it would be nice.

Yes, nobody ever claimed anything more (although some jumped to conclusions), except the fact that they exist in multiple languages, which means they were part of production.

As such, they could literally be nothing, part of test, or part of next patch's full implementation. Look at thread title - it's not about what is in game right now.

It might have been a test

Or part of some merchant improvement, such as search

Or who knows what

And there's some related code in the client

But yes, they are just strings. They do not mean marketplace is coming, or that something it was ever implemented, or that it's even part of game. It could be something for GMs.

And you have just become my favorite person . Sounds like its fairly fleshed out. Even if it isn't introduced/realized, it would interesting to hear where they were planning on going and why it failed.

Now THAT is cool Antheus. Thanks for that.

Zinger claims EVERYTHING is shopped.

but thing about screenshots is that they usually prove NOTHING. http://img255.imageshack.us/img255/7628/gw133qa8.jpg (yes, it is fake. honest.)

Oh, so it looks like you could filter perfect and imperfect items and sorft by inscribability. Interesting. Care to export more stings from that location?

Actually I just found that block in my DAT file... They may not have the same ID number, but I sorted by size and looked for an "unknown" with the same uncompressed size and found that exact file.

It looks like I have an older gwdatbrowser though as yours shows compressed and uncompressed size, mine just shows uncompressed.

Blah, if it was a failed experiment, Gaile or someone else would have dropped in to stop further speculations. I am sure Anet has a pretty well thought plan how much programming time they need to invest into GW1 to maintain /delay the erosion of the current player base. Smaller and bigger upgrades are probably scheduled until the marketing value of GW2 news kicks in. Marketplace is obviously on the upgrade list, scheduled for fall/summer/spring who knows.

1. It's about time.

2. Success/failure will depend on the precise mechanics. Implementing a posting fee to deter people from selling utter junk and remove gold from the game is sensible.

3. Where you'll feel something like this is not in power trading, but in buying commodity items (that don't have traders) and low demand items. This will reduce the transaction costs on selling such items dramatically, resulting in lower prices on commodities without reducing the profit of the farmer (assuming the farmer can play and sell at the same time) and enabling you to buy items with low demand (and thus low prices) where the current system results in market failures.

Don't expect miracles. Do expect that your quality of life will improve, and that it will be much less of a pain to buy items such as unusual weapon mods and rare items with common skins.

I would not allow selling items which already have traders in a system like that, unless the reflect the demand in the Market into the traders themselves.

For me, it would mean to actually start selling stuff, since I have no patience to sell in-game, and by outside methods (forums, etc) it's a nusance that require people to be online at the same time to finish the transaction.

Instead of selling to the merchant all those req9 perfect things I walsys get, I would sent the to the market.

You guys realise this could just be what they were experimenting with before they realised their short-sighted database design made an auction system not work well in this game, and were too lazy to remove the code, right?

SHHH! We gotto sound positive so Gaile will be forced to either confirm that its not gonna happen or keep discreetly denying knowledge.

Except for the fact that there are text strings indicating that you cant sell a "dedicated" minipet. Since the original excuse of not being able to do it was prior to the HoM this would indicate that this discovery is not from the previous attempt

Also they told us they couldn't do an "Auction House" which would imply bidding, reserves, preventing false bids, and other administratively complex things. They never said they couldn't do a "Trading Post" with simple mechanics, in fact they have always alluded to trade "improvements"

Good point on the dedicated thing.

Yes, because the dedicated addition was whipped up overnight and given to us as soon as they came up with the idea... Chances are it was in their test while they were working on more important things, while they were also testing the auction system.

Why don't you work out a timeline on that. See how far you can push back the marketplace while still orienting it around GW:EN developments. Come up with a good reason why they wouldn't have implemented dedicated minipets when the HoM was first introduced, if they were already planning it out.

Of course it wasn't whipped up overnight; it took them about a month. They worked on it after the release of EotN in response to complaints about the customized minipets in HoM. Also, it's not an auction system, so if they were testing this, they weren't testing an auction system or they scrapped that for this.

Hate to say it, but all these things are in this thread over and over if you would just read it. It is true this was all just a test, but then why would they test it if they weren't planning on implementing it? Why would they get to the localization stage, translating the text to different languages, if it was just a test for something they don't think they can actually make live?

EDIT: Something else to consider about the dedicated thing - chances are, different development teams don't communicate with each other while they are working on features. Hell, chances are there is only one development team left working on improvements for GW1. That said, the dedicated thing had to have happened first, then this market testing, or at least the market testing was edited at least once after the dedicated thing for it to be included. Very doubtful they were worked on at the same time for the reasons above.

Especially when Anet tests stuff in English only.

Because features sometimes sound better on paper than they actually work. Why do you think Arenanet don't tell us everything they are working on until it's sure you actually be in the game? I'm sure there's plenty they got to implementation stage with on test servers only to scrap the idea.

If the feature doesn't work that well, or they decide it's not worth it to work on the feature any further for whatever reason, why would they get anywhere near the implementation stage? That simply doesn't make sense. They wouldn't be finalizing it and putting on the finishing touches to a feature they didn't test fully and were 100% positive they would be adding it.

Not saying it isn't possible, just saying that scrapping this idea as far as they have gotten with it is highly unlikely, and that there is proof this feature was worked on within the last 3 months. Both of those facts point to a very high probability that they are still working on it, and it is not scrapped.

I hope they do it, would help the game immensely. +1 vote for it