Local chat is doomed -_-

- A trade island or zone is not going to solve the problem. The same rude people who sell in local will use the same logic. "I can't sell my stuff fast enough on the trade town. No one is visiting so I'm going to keep spamming local."

- An auction house is not going to solve the problem because as Arkantos or someone else pointed out earlier then people will just spam their auction # in all available channels. We would still have the same situation.

- A constantly updated filter might help a little but will require a lot of overhead at ANet. This situation isn't totally their problem, but is part of the communities problem as well.

- Weapon/Mod traders. This very well could solve the problem or at least make a huge dent in it. The game should have weapon, offhand, and mod traders just as there are material, rare material and rune traders. They would buy from people for a higher price than the merchant price and then be available for people to purchase.

This way people don't have to waste so much of their time playing trader unless they want to. The people who like to wheel and deal can do that. Having the traders will reduced the amount "wheeler dealers" and could also help keep prices down on gold, greens, and mods.

Exactly, that's all I keep hearing too. Just more excuses not to use what was provided for trade.

So, their solution is to take over a different channel and spam there as well? Because:

1. It's too hard to read
2. Nobody buys from there
3. The text is pink
4. There's too much spam in there already
5. It takes too long to sell
6. It's broken, because nobody buys my junk

Now, I know there's been suggestions in sardelac for an auction house of some sort, but in the meantime, these are just excuses. Will the auction house (if one is implemented) be declared broken too, because nobody buys your junk?

I think even if an auction or trade house was implemented, you guys would still be disappointed to some degree, and probably refuse to use it once again. Who's to say that everyone playing doesn't have everything they need already anyway?

If you can't beat them join them...

Rather than trying to get players to use the correct channel, encourage ALL the trade spammers to use local chat.

Advertising in a chat box that half of the world leaves muted 90% of the time seems like a rather fruitless endeavor, does it not?

There is no reasonable alternative! You can't ban people for driving the economy. Half of the GW balance system is based upon trades between players.

IT"S PINK!! The pink blends into the game while the stark white stands out. On top of that it's actually the variance between the two colors that helps your ad get noticed. If all of the ads were just in trade chat it would be harder to single out an ad in the blur of pink. Same goes for when the majority of the people are using white chat. I use whatever chat color most of the advertisers aren't using and just pick one or the other when the color variation seems balanced.

And let me repeat this last phrase again because people don't seem to be notcing the irony here:
The people that say we should all use trade chat are the exact same people saying they frequently mute trade chat.

Exactly, and what was the point of turning that channel off again? lol, oh that's right, because people aren't interested in buying anything usually, or don't want to see spam.

That wasn't his point. A lot of times people buy/sell when they aren't really interested in doing so. In a sellers perspective, if most people automatically have the trade channel disabled.. then why use the trade channel? It's just not reasonable. Using the local chat seems like a viable alternative even though nobody appreciates it that much. I am almost sure that a lot of sellers/buyers would stop using the local chat from time to time if an improved trading system is implemented. In the meanwhile, the argument works both ways.

Well said TheMosesPHD.

Ok, this is the only on-line RPG I have ever played, so my xp is limited to
GW, do the other biggies like WoW and Everquest do it this way ?????
I personally would love to see an auction house, now how well this would
work I don't know.
If there were an auction house I could spend less time trying to buy or sell
things, you could just pop into town see if what your looking for is available
and then leave and go back to playing, seems like a good idea.

p.s. I know to use the scroll bar to go up and down to look for stuff, but my
poor eyes are getting old and just gets tiring after awhile.

-thx

Hmmz. Not sure about WoW. I tried out Lineage2 for a very short while and just started up Silkroadonline to see what it was like. Lineage and Silkroad have a thing where you set up a "stall" in the middle of town or where ever you're standing and you can put a text box above your head to explain what you're selling like "Armors/Weaps lvl 30-37 | Weap Elixer". I don't think this would work too well in GW because there are just so many people in each district.

Here's the trade in Silkroad

I imagine in GW it would be at least twice as cluttered as it is in the screenie.

You're exactly right, TheMoses. So why should those that don't want to see your trades be forced to view them? They turn the trade chat off For a reason. Nobody likes to be forced to view advertisements. Doesn't everyone skip the commercials when they have a chance? It's just plain rude to spam the local channel. Period.

LOL, thats usually what I do.

Ive noticed people saying there should be a weapon/mod trader like their are material traders. A good idea so people can get more money than a regular trader a slow down the spam everywhere.
But I don't like the idea that much seeing as how I think most (not all) weapons and mods are worth pretty much what they say underneath. Merchants are the all mighty price checkers. Sometimes I think if we follow theier way and adjust gold drop, the economy would be more smooth.

I once heard someone say "I don't use the trade window becuase no one is in there and it's dead"
You're one of those really special people who types your sales adverts in all CAPS I bet...I'm among the crowd that is annoyed by the trade spam in the local chat and yes, I do mute the trade chat 99% of the time. Also seeing as I don't buy weapons or items from other players ingame (thus my reason for muting trade chat in the first place) you posting in the local chat doesn't increase your chance of making a sale to people like me anyway, it just further serves to annoy us. Logic, try it out sometime.

Soon I'll be keeping Local muted along with trade and seeing as I spend more time with Henchies than with people, my game will soon becuase a lot more quiet.

Let's see then. Now there are only two things I can think of that one would use Local Chat for other than advertising: Forming groups and having conversations.

The above quote applies to having conversations too. If you're looking to hang around in channel and chat you can easily take a few seconds to switch districts. If you're just passing through the town to move on to something else you can easily mute the chat, or just plain ignore it. You still have plenty of the light on your monitor that's not dedicated to a chat window.

Actually I do not type in all caps.

Get your head out of your ass man, you're not the only person in the game. Oh noze I can't sell items to "people like you". The people I can sell to, though, is everyone else on the planet. And why are you even posting in this thread? You said you don't buy from other players in-game so this thread has nothing to do with you.

This thread has plenty to do with me as one of the many people who are sick of the spam.

I’ll admit I might have come of a little harsh, but still the fact that you’re trying to defend your position as a local chat trade spammer is laughable. It's like the Nazis and the KKK defending their right to have marches and speeches expressing racism and hate mongering.

"If you don't like the spam in the local, go to a higher district" And why should the people who are using the local chat for what it was meant for be pushed out by the spammers? Logic again.

TheMosesPHD, you make great cases for the "Why should I care about you? This game is all about me" population. Except this game isn't all about you. If it were single-player and offline, you'd be right. But it isn't. It's an online game with thousands of people playing. No offense, but your making 500g is not more important than my ability to have a conversation in local chat. You are not king of the world, so get the hell off your pedestal you selfish jerk.

This exactly the selfish attitude I'm talking about. Local Chat is not for trade, so this thread has something to do with everyone. Get the hell over yourself man, and respect those who wish to use Local Chat for what it's for.

The auction island/house/zone would work if they made trade advertising in the normal areas a bannable offense ;]

Indeed.

You're so right. Comparing Local Chat spammers to notorious hate-mongering organizations isn't an overstatement at all.
...The hate is coming at Local Chat spamming, not from it.

So moving the problem to another district is going to decrease the problem? You'll still quite often get zoned into the district where all the trade spam is, so you would have to zone to the first district instead of zoning to the later district anyway. It's no different than zoning to a later district. International district? There has been plenty of discussion about why dedicating a district just for trade has no appeal at all. And though the first districts are in a way dedicated to trade, people randomly zone into the first districts and have a chance at seeing your ad. People don't usually randomly show up in international districts.

The international districts used for trade don't work that well anyway. Do you know how many hours those Chinese farmers stand around in Droks id1 spamming their ad? It's many more hours than I actually have time to play the game.

And of course you don't buy from players, and you said you use henchies all of the time. I'm still not seeing why you have a reason to be in this thread.

It was an analogy for how ridiculous you sound trying to defend you “right” to spam the local chat with your trades.

Get over yourself man.

Well this thread looks like its turning into a flame war, and people are ignoring good arguments from both sides and repeating how local chat is not meant for trading. That is obvious.