Steve wrote:But apart from the secure trading - I can't see how Salem, even if it had a secure trading system, could develop a good economy.
I think it can with the right tools in place (which I will elaborate on below).
Steve wrote:From what I've seen almost all trading in the game is from more developed players to less developed players, i.e. iron bars, nails, the occasional backpack, seeds, a few select inspirationals (primarily the C&D variety).
Yes, but this is not 100% exclusive. If lower-level players had nothing of value for higher level players, they'd never be able to make money outside of Savage Charms. And yet they do! One of the most common low-level to high-level trades is things like Hay purchased in bulk.
Steve wrote:Less developed players are the buyers in Salem - but once they are more developed they don't need trade anymore: given enough time (or enough botting) every player can produce everything themselves.
Yes, but that doesn't necessarily mean they want to put the necessary work in. If someone sold me, say, 16 coal for 4 silver - I'd probably buy it, especially if I have no available coal at home.
EVE Online is a game with similar economical aspects to Salem. Once you have the skills (and the blueprints) you can make almost anything. Even so, that requires raw materials. A low-level player in EVE can be in a decent mining ship in a couple of weeks and start making money by just selling off raw ore (no need to even refine it!)
That's why I think for the system to thrive there should be proper stalls and AHs, and there shouldn't just be the capability for selling. There should be the capability for buying as well. This is also in EVE and works pretty well.
In EVE you can place "buy orders" - you pre-load the money into a space station for a fixed number of purchases. As an example, you might put 10,000 Isk in the station to buy 200 units of Veldspar. The money is already there. People who sell things to the station are actually selling them to the players with buy orders out (unless there's no buy orders, then it gets vended to an NPC or can't be sold).
So as an example for economic opportunities for low-level players in Salem, stalls (or the auction house, however they manage to do this) could have "Purchase Orders" created. Say I'm a farmer and I go through hay like Elvis goes through peanut butter. I could place a buy order for Hay at 5s a piece and for 100 units (for a total of 500s). The stall holds onto my money, and every time someone "sells" hay to the stall, it gets deducted from the escrow and the hay is moved to the inventory of the stall.
This does several things at once. It creates way more safe economic opportunities for players (especially new players) - the stall is not gonna scam you out of your silver or try to murder you. Higher-level players can trade the silver (which they have in spades) for things they need that they are unwilling or unable to collect.
I've seen players in Tier 2 clothes offering to pay 1-3s each for mushrooms or other easy-to-collect things because they need them in large quantities for gluttony-related baking. I've seen players offering pretty good money (5s-10s apiece) for easy-to-get inspirationals like seashells because they have a friend who joined and they want to get him buffed up.
The best thing about something like this is that the market will handle things beautifully. Suppose that there is a major shortage of low-level players, and no one thinks that selling Hay for a measly 5s apiece is worth it anymore. Some enterprising buyer raises his price to 6s, and suddenly it's palatable to someone again. Perhaps somebody has an hour to get his fields fertilized before he goes on vacation, so he places a buy order for Hay at 10s because he's in a hurry.
There could be players who do nothing other than "play the market". Raise some initial capital, buy components for crafted objects (such as inspirationals), and then sell the resultant inspirational - all in the same stall. Perhaps someone could buy Singing Old Logs at 20s, Hay at 5s, and then sell the resultant Wicked Wicker Man for 40s - a nice 15s profit, and all he had to do was invest the initial money.
Oh, and an addition to my previous posts - here's the part where Seatribe should care about this stuff. Who is going to pay real money for silver when it can so easily be stolen or scammed? Why I would I pay real money for something that has so very few real uses?
