Poll On Stalls vs. Other Trade Methods

[Otis]

Let me start by saying that I have had (or had access) to a stall since the August wipe, so I have been using them for some time now. I would like to suggest a few twists to the idea of an Auction concept in the hopes of adding some realism to this. Let me start with some assumptions

Everyone wants access to trade (whatever the solution)
There should be a cost/tax (lets call it a silver sink for lack of better terms)
Distance should be a factor. There is a cost of living far away from everyone.
Realism should not win over practicality

So let's treat this as trade mechanics and not some traditional auction house. Some components of the system should be:

• Once you develop the right skills/technology you can build a General Store.
• General Store should have upkeep, but not huge.
• True cost is covered in consumption tax (buy/sell expenses)
• The store will ‘feel’ like an auction house (buy/sell tabs) and be searchable.
• The store could also have a tab for ‘regular’ items in game stalls today (buying glass, etc)
• You will be able to ‘sell’ items to the store (like filling a stall today).
• Items for sale will be visible to everyone who has a General Store
• Items are visible to stores in Boston (unless the fast-travel of goods is to be removed)
• The buy price in the store will include the cost of the distance items will travel
  *lets pretend some npc trader is moving the goods and needs to be paid
  *This should apply to both your own store or the ones in Boston.
• If a General Store is destroyed all its goods for sale would spill onto the ground.
  *raiders could ‘remove’ items for sale also - larceny (assuming they don't want to destroy it)
• Long term different types of stores could be added if the mechanic is worth it
  *Small/Medium/Large that vary the amount of items you can sell.
  *Stores for villages vs private claims
  *Stores that can cross servers (trading companies)
• Mechanic could be added to place orders ‘tab’ but again distance will be a factor.
  *buyer needs to factory in the travel costs.

Obviously this removes people going to Boston, so that could be considered a negative. Also not sure if the Dev’s consider trade a priority with so much else in the works. Regardless thanks for reading my rambling.

[Procne]

Interesting, but instead of simple fee for distance I would add this:

Buildable trade wagons and craftable food rations. You need wagons to transport bought / sold goods, each wagon has limited capacity. You "pay" with rations for distance traveled. Wagons which you use in trade are not visible in game world, they are just "consumed" when transaction is accepted. After some time, depending on distance, wagons return with goods. Wagons should also wear down over time, preferably depending on amount of time spent traveling and amount of goods carried, so you would have to replace them now and then.

[JeffGV]

teleportation is required in order for people to collect their store purchases. I doubt it will ever be removed.

simple hud collection option can be created when interacting with the cash shop.

Would totally remove the need to go to town.

Really the only purpose of the town right now is tutorial and cash shop/trading. If you get rid of the need to trade in town and the need to go to town to recieve your cash shop items, then the only remaining purpose of Boston is simply to leave it.

Indeed. Well-developed players wouldn't need anymore to go near Boston (at least until server travel isn't introduced, that would means that people would have to travel with their goods to Boston for departing, and to do the contract for the Hudson Bay Company). On the other side, it would help players in the early game to stay near the town and eventually even form communities near there. Let's face it, as the game stands now no one live near Boston cause everyone can gank them easily due to the Boston teleport.
But sure, first we would need mounts, roads and wagons, to be able to travel faster and while transporting goods.

As for the cash shop items, as i said, they would be delivered to home. For this purpose, maybe the homestead itself could work as a mailbox, or you could have to build an actual mailbox to have items delivered home (especially if they implement mailing for players as well later). Albeit, i would place a fee for the stall items if delivered home.

And last, i'm against an auction house cause it would further render useless banding with other players. At least, with my suggestion, forming villages would help with access to the HBC office and the use of village stalls (that must be protected in some way, obviously). Whileas auction houses would further kill social interaction.

[CharlesM]

Indeed. Well-developed players wouldn't need anymore to go near Boston (at least until server travel isn't introduced, that would means that people would have to travel with their goods to Boston for departing, and to do the contract for the Hudson Bay Company). On the other side, it would help players in the early game to stay near the town and eventually even form communities near there. Let's face it, as the game stands now no one live near Boston cause everyone can gank them easily due to the Boston teleport.
But sure, first we would need mounts, roads and wagons, to be able to travel faster and while transporting goods.

As for the cash shop items, as i said, they would be delivered to home. For this purpose, maybe the homestead itself could work as a mailbox, or you could have to build an actual mailbox to have items delivered home (especially if they implement mailing for players as well later). Albeit, i would place a fee for the stall items if delivered home.

And last, i'm against an auction house cause it would further render useless banding with other players. At least, with my suggestion, forming villages would help with access to the HBC office and the use of village stalls (that must be protected in some way, obviously). Whileas auction houses would further kill social interaction.

With your system, another thing that could be done to tie people down to Boston would be to make all taxes payable only at Boston. So to pay for your claimstone, you'd need to go to Boston and talk to a tax collector, to pay for your Trading house, the same thing.

[weedaholic]

I just copied this which is my reply to the pre-announcement thread...

I really don't want an Auction House in Salem. I have played Final Fantasy 11, WOW and now Diablo 3 so I have a decent idea of what an AH can do to a game. The AH can either make or break an economy. Like previously said it would make market manipulation very easy but my main issue is because this is salem. If anyone can sell things as easy as an AH would allow then making silver would be too easy. As it is now early on you either have to work at finding indian charms or you have to use the trade wind or go trade in boston either way it takes work. With an AH everyone would just sell hay and rabbits or whatever to make their money. Also would an area as large as salem be able to trade to the masses like an auction house would allow in frontier times?

I think the stalls need a reworking. Open more stalls, give them a weekly or daily rent, force any item in the stall to have an asking price, and tax the money made from the stalls. Also I think we need claim stalls or something. Basically a stall that we have on our claim. Maybe have it attachable to a wall so we don't need people to be able to trespass to buy from us and also maybe have an item storage that goes inside the wall so that griefers could destroy the stall but that would just close trading until it was rebuilt instead of destroying or stealing all the items.

Also obviously simple character to character trading needs to be improved. Simply have a trade screen that allows both players to see what is being offered and have an accept trade button like in diablo 2.

These are just things I came up with on the spot right now... this is my first post but when I saw talk about an AH I had to say my two cents.

[JeffGV]

With your system, another thing that could be done to tie people down to Boston would be to make all taxes payable only at Boston. So to pay for your claimstone, you'd need to go to Boston and talk to a tax collector, to pay for your Trading house, the same thing.

I would rather not do it. Imho, people shouldn't be forced to go to Boston unless there are special reason behind that (server travel or the office contract). Living near there would be a choose, after all. And without the threat of teleport and crimes, it would be a justifiable choice.

[Procne]

Interesting, but instead of simple fee for distance I would add this:

Buildable trade wagons and craftable food rations. You need wagons to transport bought / sold goods, each wagon has limited capacity. You "pay" with rations for distance traveled. Wagons which you use in trade are not visible in game world, they are just "consumed" when transaction is accepted. After some time, depending on distance, wagons return with goods. Wagons should also wear down over time, preferably depending on amount of time spent traveling and amount of goods carried, so you would have to replace them now and then.

Hmm, and to avoid using this system as a vault, gaining control over someone's "general store" gives you access to all items its (previous) owner put on sale, allows to turn back wagons in transit and collect any goods brought by the wagons.

[Potjeh]

If there's no gathering in Boston, how would removing Boston and trying to rely on players creating market areas help? Especially when no one ever wants to admit where they are at, and walks to these player markets would be very long.

You're not fully considering the social implications of my proposal. With distance becoming a factor in trade, neighbours gain a lot of value. With stalls that can buy materials, newbie hermits from your local area change from competition for forage to tools for foraging. With advanced infrastructure, you can easily make stuff in an hour that can be sold for 5-6 hours worth of foraging. And they'll be selling to you, because your stalls are the closest.

The exact profitability would be determined by good old supply and demand, ie the goal would be to get the ratio of newbie customers to stall owners as high as possible to drive the forage prices down. Of course, you'll hit a point at which you can't increase sales any further via price gauging, so you'd let the more advanced neighbours set up their own stalls at your market for a fee. Bigger markets draw bigger crowds, so it should be possible to balance expansion of competition with rent for a net gain in wealth.

Making trading depend on having lots of neighbours also rewards peacekeeping factions. Whoever makes their area the safest for newbies would gain the most wealth. Hell, people might even throw in extra perks to draw in the newbs, like publicly accessible mines or stamp mills. The overall effect would be making the game a lot more social rather than the current red square = log out approach.

As for Boston, personally I'd like to see it gone. Sadly, devs have made it perfectly clear it's not going to happen. If it's going to be there I'd rather not have AH since it'd lower the value of neighbourhood trade, but since most people seem rather keen on having AH I guess it could work with a really high tax rate.

[malaclypse]

I just want to +1 Otis and Potjeh's suggestions. They both are infinitely more interesting than an auction house, and more in line with what seems like the game mechanics and theme of Salem.

[MagicManICT]

While I agree with you, Potjeh, I'm past the realization that the central colony city just isn't going to go away. I get the feeling that they only got rid of RoB in HnH only because they had no other choice at the time. They also seem to be married to the central trading area idea, as without being able to travel town to town to trade, players do need some way to trade with each other. I'd hate to have to trek 3 or 4 hours to meet someone to trade a few measly items compared with being able to make multiple trips to Boston and back.

Of course, the central towns could yet remain--only remove safe trade options (stalls). They could then be social hubs, at least, and jump-off points for new players to get the core game mechanics down.

The downside to that idea is that in HnH the stalls weren't secure. If you left them outside your walls, people stole from them. Would that be the case here, or would they be secure like they are now? (Maybe I'm just barking up a tree here and stalls will remain as secure trading points under that idea, but it still seems a scary idea.)