in-game item catalog

Hi all,
I think an in-game stock market/item catalog that tells you the price of certain items for that week (for a fee of course, otherwise its gonna be abused), and then you know how much an item really is worth (not merchant value, since merchant will never be able to pay the full amount of a sup. absorption rune to someone who is wanting to sell a sup. absorption rune), but you have to drag an item into a window/type in the name (similar to a trade window). This is all done through a button (similar to a trade button, just that says "value" instead of "trade")

PROS
-harder for people to scam/con you
-people wont be able to sell for extremely high prices
-perfect items wont be very hard to buy/sell
CONS
-harder for people to make money if actual value is lower than the predicted/estimated value
-people that win HoH a lot may have difficulties selling perfect items from the HoH chests
-items may be valued too low (lower than merchant)



what do you all think about this?

Cool idea...this is is similar to the RPGTrader made available for EQ1 back in the day in my opinion. Agree with your concerns, but remember that the impact is probably not going to be that great. The assumption is that most (>50%) of players rely on the catalog. Most "sales" folks in game don't use current net pricing from what I've seen...many sellers try selling their items for way too much in the hopes that some noob, or someone with loads of cash, just jumps on it because they don't know better. Of course, there really are just as many people who sell for much less than the "going price" just because they don't want to deal with the whole sales process (I tend to be in this group of people).

Anyway, I think the concept would be useful for those that are trying to understand the value of the item, myself being one. And it would help provide a baseline for pricing (like a "suggested retail" price). I don't see this, at least at first, being a major influence on pricing. The auction house/bazaar/market area ideas would be the most influential part on managing prices and avoiding "scams." Just my two cents

Acolyte Devathi

I like it, and i must say, you are a photoshop master.
/signed

Me and a guild mate were discussing something similar to this. Instead of haveing the prices listed however, there would be an area that worked similar to a flee market.

You pay a certain amount to put your items for sale at a vendor, you list a price you will sell for and when someone buys it, you get the $$. I was thinking however, that with the large amount of people selling, there would be so many vendors.... To help solve this, have a limited number of vendors that have itesm listed. If an item you are trying to sell is already listed by that vendor, you are put ina Que. Also, have different amounts each vendor charges. The more you pay, the faster you will be listed (more people will pay the lower amout to list). I think you guys get the point though, what do you think about this idea?