disappointment about trade system

Now i have waited the last BWE to see if they decided to finally put effort on the empty trade system. Many suggestions have been made for months like auction houses, personal shops etc. YET they decided to implement the worst and cheapest solution: a dedicated trade channel where spamming will be the rule,and that rarely anyone uses. Its really getting on my nerves that no real effort has been done on that important part of gameplay since the game is beta, and that crappier mmorpgs have such important basics (personal shops, vendor houses etc), but not guildwars. I'm really really disappointed.

I think the choice of implementation is due to deadline constraints. There's only so many things you can do before the release, and these kinds of 'cheap' solutions (same with pet AI) slightly improve several issues without taking up too much time in development. I think we'll definitely see more concrete solutions after release, once the launch craze dies down a bit and the developers return from their well-deserved vacation to start improving their game.

It actually works pretty well, I mean, I am dissapointed that there isn't an auction house... but still, you can find what you need pretty fast, and sometimes even for a reasonable price :-D. But I still hope that it was implimented due to time constraints, and that they will implement a full fledged trading "System" later on.

I'm sure a better trade system is still in the works. I was happy to see the changes I have.

Account based storage is in.
Your custom UI now carries over to all your characters.
Your chat now appears in a box above your head.

That's what I've noticed so far.

I have been relatively surprised by the trade channel ... in regards to the fact that people are actually using it. Part of this seems to have stemmed from the community policing itself, i've watched people inundate the open channel with trade spam, and people then replying (to various degrees of politeness) for them to use the trade channel. Lo and behold, quite a few actually have.

That being said, the issue of an auction house or a map area that is the designated trader hot-spot .. NPCs to sell things for players, etc, has come up quite a few times - and always has a lot of positive backing to it. I don't doubt that the idea is never far from the designer's minds when they hear "Trade", but as has been pointed out... we're just a few days away from release. At this stage of the game, for Alpha testers, Beta testers that are feeling benevolent, internal staff testers, programmers, designers.. the emphasis is in the fine tuning and polishing of all of the mechanics that are in the game before adding new ones. We might see something like this in the works after release due to the way streaming content works.. who knows?

do they really seriously think that a trade channel is sufficent to handle business of dozen of players? beside what if you need cash, or need materials urgently, or simply wanna make money with trading,,do they really think that you have time to stay on the channel all day typing your same demand repeatedly like crazy, while others do the same, and hardly anyone can skim thru offers to buy? they made it sound like a fishing open market where the one that will spam the most will get the most attention from customers!
i suspect the lack of a real stress beta (in which there is way more ppl and more time than a mere monthly bwe) will reveal other faults in gameplay design when ppl start to mass in towns.

Remember that it took Everquest years to get a solid working trade setup with Luclin. Even then the Bazaar was late with the release. The Bazaar was laggy and was a headache to get around in. The Dev team at Anet I am sure have an idea about what to do. Most likely there will have to be a Trade Zone or limit the amount of people who can sit down and open shop in towns and cities. One thing for sure I would find distasteful would be trying to navigate through town and then try to get around all the people that are afk trading. It would be a headache.

not only that but it would be a waste of bandwidth to keep them connected to the game. If a trading system is put in i'd advocate in the following order:

1. Auction house. Simply the best solution.
2. if player specific shops are done, they should be offline only. I personally hate this idea tho
3. trade channels, independent of district. (spans all districts in the current zone) but be able to create links to the items (like with AO and WoW) by shift clicking the item

I like the trading system. I dont think they chose it just because of time restraints. It fits in nicely with the overall chat system and, most importantly, allows people to haggle. This was something that people really wanted and were worried that an auction house wouldn't give them. As for the speed of trading, I posted a WTB and had an offer and then trade completion within 2 minutes.

obviously you dont except more ppl than the ones that beta to play this game? dont you know there will be thousands of players once the game goes retail? i give you my arm and leg if you manage to get something sold in 2 mins with the full spam that will happen when crowd will invade big towns.

Districts should mean that player numbers in any one district aren't much higher than they currently are, so these are expected spam levels give or take alittle because beta/opening week is a real differant flavour from standard play afterwards. Might mean abit of district hopping if you're trying to buy a speciality product though.

That's unless we hit some unknown district number cap and they start filling up ...

I'm tired of people telling eachother that all problems will be solved by the streaming technology. The streaming technology should be a solution to provide additional content and updates, not an excuse to release below-par and/or buggy game. This reminds me of the resentment felt by many that developers release buggy unfinished content with additional patches later to fill in the blanks...but with the barely noticeable style of the streaming technology, the scope for abuse is much greater. I'd rather not have anyone condone it by telling people that things will be fixed for sure with the streaming tech, especially with the way that Guild Wars is marketed as a pay-once barely-MMORPG game.

Trade is an important issue depending on what you want from the game, personally I just want the PvP so its not so high up the list (fixing crappy skills comes higher). But I would like to see a much more fleshed out system with the Guild Halls having public shops sanctioned by the guild or an individual member.

Mastermind, trade chat is only within your current district. Each district of LA for example only has 100-200 people or so, and on release that will not increase. There will be many more districts, but each one will not be more crowded. That means trade chat now is the same as it will be at release, except it will be a larger (and maybe less controlled) community on release.

I love the game, but am also very disappointed about the trade system. Slap a trade tab on chat and call it a trading system....doesn't really work for me. Regardless of whether it is a MMORPG or a CORPG, there are needed items that must be traded. There are few big changes that I thought needed to be made before release, but this was definitely one of them. I really hope they change this in the future. Until then I am thankful we have a designated guild trader/banker. I could never waste that much time in game in the trade spam channel. (Thanks Rock! )

Its not that good a solution but hey, it works doesn't it? Wait for them to fix some of the more pressing issues before coming to these "value added" stuff.

Although I agree about the trade channel not fixing it. For those that do want to haggle could haggle at the auction house. That is what people that do want to do it go to in FFXI and WoW. Anyhow this conversation seems to be a little too unfriendly please lighten up everyone even if you have to pretend to be carebears...

Ahem anyhow it is sad when I see someone in the trade channel ask for a black dye and a certain sword type over and over. After I did a mission came back he was still actually there asking... either he wanted to have more than 1 or the trade channel didn't work and he couldn't get a hold of anyone with one. So it was really sad and made me chuckle a bit. And yes it actually did happen last bwe although I don't remember the sword he was asking for, but anyhow with an auction house he wouldn't need to sit around for 30-45 minutes asking for an item rather check up a auction house, and if it isn't there then check back later.

This may seem like a petty and immature complaint, but other than the trade system, I am very dissapointed about the sprites for the items in your inventory...the items both in combat and in menu look bland and indistinguished.

.. I remember you.

You were in another thread complaining about something else.

My experience with MMORPGs is very limited.

I tinkered a bit with Everquest. I really loved Meridian 59. I played Lineage 2 for a few days. And right now I'm playing Ragnarok Online.

I love what GW has to offer, though maybe that's because I've been sheltered for most of my MMORPG-life.

we all know that the trade channel isnt a permanent fix, but saying that the streaming technology doesnt help anything(Everous) is nothing but laughable. Your main complaint is that the developers are being rushed to put out a incomplete product. I find that rather idiotic(since playing it last bwe i can tell you its anything but incomplete, especially compared to most other games on the market atm). The developers arent putting a incomplete system, they are just going to add a better one later. Like new areas and/or features, just because they arent in now doesnt mean its a unfinished product(itll never be finished but you get my point)

The game will never be done, in the future there will be new areas, new features, maybe even new classes and/or races(just saying there could be, what theyd add besides dwarves i don't really know). Auction houses are a great idea i agree, but it really is just "fluff" and not required for game mechanics. Heck you don't even have to trade....just be very lucky, or have a good guild.

a unfinished game would be buggy, missing features that are important to gameplay, or server instability. Or total lack of content. IE WoW. When it was released it was barely finished, beta quality at best. But GW in beta feels like a final product, everything just runs so well. I'm one of the most adamant supporters of a auction house, the only problem i see with it, is that it would have to span all districts, otherwise itd be frustrating going district to district looking for the best deals, especially at how fast the good items would go. assuming there would be a buyout option. And without a buyout option alot of time would be spent "camping" the auction house. When/if it gets put in, lets just pray they add a advanced search option so you can find specific items, like with special traits etc

This is not a personal attack on any of you, I'm just going to state my opinion...

You trade-happy people are getting on my damn nerves. Damn capitalists. Why are you trying to make an economy out of nothing? It is not that kind of game. If this is what GW is all about for you, I'm sure Arenanet is happy for your money anyway, but I'm certain you'd be happier with the whole items thing in Lineage 2 or Mir 3? Where you can literally kill someone in RL over your items.

Look, this game doesn't have 10,000 items that will determine if you're paste or a god. And if you think the difference between a 9-12 sword and a 15-18 sword is going to make you win the fight everytime, well, you are playing the wrong game. It's just to make it interesting. A twist, to help in the immersion of gameplay. As you explore, per your environment, do you think there's that much difference between the normal/rare/uniques you get from drops? Of course not. A point here, a point there. This was a basic design philosophy. The best thing about the items system is for guild building. Offer the newbs some good starting gear (the veteran's hand-me-downs) it's part of the process... but make them find their own dyes! :P

GW has more in common with an FPS than an MMORPG. It's gonna come down to twitch factor and tactics, not the difference between a +15 energy and a +20 energy artifact. Skill and cunning, not items. This was stated from the get go, years ago. If you're Pacified and your healer is dead or out of range, I guess that uber sword is still useless, ain't it? Not that getting an Empathetic whack from a big sword feels good, either. Ah. Items, yea neat. But can we get back to fighting?

Hey look, I know everyone's going to play it for their own reasons. I'm sure there's more than a few that are just going to use it for MMORPG-emulating graphical avatar chat system. You don't have to pay a monthly to play GW. You can stand around in your s3xy armour and chat up the little boys just like an MMORPG, for free... Firing off endless /emotes because, well, you like it.

Ah well, I can't convince you what it's not, you already have decided what it IS. I just hope to hell the /ignore list is unlimited because I have a feeling I'll be adding quite a few tradespam abusers. :P