Idea for trading

Well, I'm lvl 18 and learning GW the hard way lol. It's a lot to take in...

One thing I hate is the way trading is done. I also hate selling stuff becaue it seems as though you have to spam to be heard, and since I don't like spammers, I have trouble selling things. Have trouble buying things too.

My idea is as follows:

Create a trade window screen where sellers can drag 'n drop their items for sale with the price. Any other person can go to the trade screen and browse through current items up for sale. Would also be nice to see items for sale catagorized via drop down menu.

Expanding on this idea further...
It would be nice if bidding were allowed (if you choose to make it a bid for item), with a reserve limit (so that the bidding starts at X price and goes up from there). Also of course display the persons name selling it so that you may speak to them directly.

I think a system like this would dramatically clean up trading. As it is now it's very difficult to trade something.

Another idea along the same vein is to set up shops, where players can go from shop to shop looking for items. This also leaves the possibility for me to go and deposit some items in the shop and have them purchased while I'm off doing other more important things.

I'm going to sound like a prick for saying this, but intelligent suggestions only please. I've seen many ideas completely tainted because of the morons posting in the thread. THis is about making trading more convenient as well as making trading a fun thing to do.

Must agree with that point, there seems to be people here that do nothing but dismiss everyones ideas.

I like your ideas, and I couldn't agree more.

Auction house, everyone says they need one, a nd that is the best thing. Granted I long for the days of EQ's originall mad market, we on Rallos Zek used Kelethin, though the Bazaar did great things, and the biggest problem here is that, the district system doesn't allow you everything you need. Auction house is the best way to go, give everyone the massive market necessary, though a more intimate hand in it, sure have a few really quick auctions after it begins, plenty of preset prices, but have only active merchants, and I mean only, no AFKs and no offliners, so that you can negotiate a price if neither of those is set. Then have a simple interface to pay for the item and recieve the item without shifting districts.

the above sounds ok, but it needs structure. Without a good structure a system like that could be as bod or even worse than the current one.

technichly i dont see how it could get worse, we have no strucure as it is, and an idea like that is atleast some kind of structure more than we have

everyone got that right?

Using the same chat window that people converse with, find groups with, or ask for information with for advertising items for sale is a bad idea from the start. Even in a game people get greedy, want to be the only ones seen, so they spam the window with all-caps lines using crazy characters, in order to sell their uber-1337 firey dragon sword of kill-em-all deathdealing that is really only just as good as any other 15-22 sword with swordsmanship +1 and health +25. Everyone just wants the cool stuff. Anyway, I go along with the auction house idea. If you put an item up for auction, you lose it right there, and when it sells (user-set time limit on the auction) you get the highest bid worth of gold directly deposited into your account. You don't even need to be online. Set a reserve like Ebay and you're good. If you want to sell at a set price, you have the choice of taking it down if you change your mind, or if noone buys it. If you want to negotiate, leave that as online-only, just for common sense purposes. You don't need to be online to sell an item for a fixed price, if the item and gold change hands fairly. It would be nice to have a record of transactions as well.

Leave the current trade function in place as well, for on-the-spot trading between party members and friends, and everything is set. Then you can just get rid of the trade feature in the chat box altogether.

I come from FFXI and would like to suggest an idea but it might be infringing copyrights. I believe the auction house system tends to make inflation so I don't support that idea. Instead there's a mode called bazaar. If you're not familiar with it basically you set prices for things in your inventory that you would want to sell. Any person would be able to browse through your bazaar and purchase whatever they needed for a price that you set. I don't think it would totally eliminate spamming but would help very much for people who may not know exactly what they're looking for and just randomly look through everyone's "for sale" items.

I brought up this idea from EQ in an earlier post. Also EQ had a search function that worked pretty well. However most of the kids in here commented that they completely hated the idea of having a personal shop. I would think that auction houses might make it harder to get what you want due to competion veruses everyone having their own personal shop. But i've heard GW wants to bring in the auction house...

Auction houses are essentially a "laissez faire" or free market system. The game makers are hands off on the economy and the players set their own prices in competition with others. This is diplomatically the most efficient option. It allows for all players in a town or district to be able to see the offered goods at the best or most reasonable price without having to hunt down someone to get to their "bazaar". This "Auction house" system worked really well for EQ and could make the days of trade spam a thing of the past; most players will rest with the satisfaction that their item is properly displayed to a wide market with an "auction house" than with a "bazaar", because with a "bazaar", the items are still in their shop and thus they are still responsible for moving the merchandise, so they will still spam the trade or all channels in announcement of their great deals.

The "trade-in-the-moment" feature in place right now is still a good system for small trading between friends and common acquaintanses, it is rather poorly effective in a "mass market" that has swelled up due to the influx of gold and other superfluous item "farmers". There will always be those that need the best item, the coolest looking item, or both; if we can satisfy their carnal lust for materialistic gain, (although how dense can they be when this is a game?) the general gaming populace will be able to roleplay and associate as the gaming developers constructed this game to be: a great society of players that give feedback and support where and when it is due, and a very enjoyable entertainment program that will satiate many fans, most definitely those that post on this forum.

As for the auction house, a superb idea. But inflation will become a serious problem...

I think that there could be a separate map location (city) where players could buy a shop (for a lot of money) and have to really invest in being a merchant, rather than just deciding one day "I'm going to sell overpriced items to all the noobs fresh from pre-searing". Also, there should be some kind of weekly charge to keep the shop running (forcing you to actually sell stuff and add to the economy in some way). It would be the place to go to buy items, and become a hub for commerce, thus getting rid of this trade-channel crap (and maybe deactivate any trade channel in this "town"). Also, this would combat inflation, as your prices would have to be fairly low to sell stuff. Also, along this line, maybe you could set up a shop for your guild. Would be basically the same, but guild-wide.

My 2 cents...

I don't think the auction house system is necessarily the best system. I'm pretty sure stuff is going to inflate pretty fast because when we resort to auction houses, there will be less money sinks. That would also mean any gold you're not spending is going to lose value pretty quick. I am against the auction house system. FFXI auction house system is all messed up but partially due to limited availability of certain items because people would monopolize mobs that drop unique items. A total free enterprise economy, and I'm almost sure people down the road are going to complain about inflation.

if you go to www.gwonline.net they have a link to rpgtraders. The same site that hosts off game auctions for diablo and WoW now hosts an auction house for guildwars. Still figuring the system out but it doesn't seem too bad.

i once played a game called cronous. You could open a "shop" in it. Basically a textbox sort of thing above your head with an advertisement and colored different than other text. People click it and buy from you like a merchant. you set the prices when you set up the shop. It was a good idea and really cut down on flooding crap. also made it much easier to sell things.

Why do people think an auction system would cause inflation? Inflation is caused by growth in the supply of money available compared to the pool of goods available, not by how money is spent....

I like the auction house idea as the quickest route to an efficient market. The problem with the 'shop' idea is that it requires each seller to discover the market price for every item by themselves...

At any rate, I think we can all agree that the current system is a mess...