Deferred trades: an implementation

I couldn't find a related thread in Sardelac so here goes:

It isn't currently possible to do a deferred trade in GW. This has various consequences, including the hoarding of in-game items as auxiliary currency and various scams. A method and implementation for deferred trades is presented below:

1. implement a new pair of items, called 'safe' and 'safe key'. Safe acts like a container that can hold money or anything else that one inventory slot can. Safe key can be applied to the safe to toggle it's state between open and closed. It is possible to see the contents of a closed safe but items can only be moved in and out of the safe when it is open.

2. safes and safe keys are sold by merchant for a token sum. They are dedicated when bought and their name says 'belongs to <player name>'.

3. when a player wants to make a deferred trade, s/he buys a safe/key pair, puts the tradable item into the safe and closes it with the key. S/he then gives the closed safe to another player who can verify the contents. Once the other player has met his/her part of the agreement, the original player gives the respective key to the other player who can then open the safe and access its contents.

4. a closed safe cannot be trashed, put into storage or traded out by anybody else than the player to whom it belongs (anti-griefer measure 1).

5. a safe key cannot be trashed, put into storage or traded out to anybody else than the player who has the respective safe (anti-griefer measure 2).

6. a closed safe, its contents and the respective key disappear if the safe remains unopened for a period of N days (anti-griefer measure 3).

I guess this is supposed to prevent people from clogging someone elses inventory with worthless safes and/or ransoming their inventory place for large sum of gold.

But 4 & 5 seem to be designed to prevent griefer from trashing someone elses valuables. Which he would achieve by just waiting.

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Anyhow, what is the point of being able to trade this way? Scenario?

The safety features are a compromise since it's conceivable to have a griefer on either end of the trade.

Primary scenario: run (or any service). Because you cannot put a service to a trade window, either side can always walk out of the agreement. With a deferred trade, you put the run bounty to a safe and give it to the runner. After the run is completed, you give the key as well.

Possible scenario: high end trade. You put the 100k+ item in the safe and trade it for the first 100k. The following trades are one sided gold from the buyer to you until at the last payment trade the key. Very high value items may require specific precautions to avoid scenarios like 'paying 100k to get a rare mini destroyed and thus raise the value of remaining minis of the same kind'.

this idea seems like it would just add to the problem of storage no thanks.

Bad idea, overcomplicated and still not safe enough. Requires absolute trust from both players, as they can make up different price/conditions after first trade with safe was done.

Also, this idea doesn't solve the "problem" of alternative currencies - players rarely have enough pure gold to pay for the high-end items and storage for gold is still extremelly limited, so selling items worth now 100-600ectos would be a horrible pain and often impossible without usage of multiple accounts to store gold. And there's not enough gold in the economy to pay for the expensive items, even uber rich players often don't have millions of gold, but they have stacks of ecto/zkeys/armbraces which are widely accepted forms of currency.

If this was implemented, players would simply not use it and stick to the old better way.

Better just add stackable 100k tokens (but that would cause economy collapse, killing alternative currencies and ruining fortunes) or the best option - do nothing, don't fix what's not broken.

/notsigned

sounds like it would just make things more complicated to me... i do like the idea of 100k token, i dont think they would be very hard to implement either
/not signed

You are thinking real life. That would actually be harder to do than many other things already suggested here.

There's a part of me that really thinks this is a great idea, but there's a hint of doubt in my mind about it, mainly because it seems like an overly complex idea and still not grief-proof in some way, even though it's already very much so.

/not signed

Bad idea. Scammers can hold keys hostage. Stuff gets lost. Yay some more junk to clog my storage box.

And worst of all... why deferred trades? I've been playing since the game came out, and I've never felt the need to "hang on to an item" while the buyer spends time raising the funds. We don't need a system for resolving those types of deals.

You can either afford the purchase or you cannot. Raise the ectos and get back to me. I may or may not still have the item you want. End of problem.

/not signed
Theoretically its a good idea, but alot of work and not scam proof.