Market Stalls, destroy them all.

[iamah]

OP needs to "understand" how old players have advantage...

[SammyWeston]

I think the trading system is fine for now. there just needs to be a way for newer players to make money more easily. I mean come on, killing 11 crickets and walking around for hours to find a feather and a arrowhead isn't the way most people want to spend there time if they can't tan or hidework or mine and crap. People are lazy and the current system makes them work too hard for anything worth getting. I know thats how most games like it, but still new players unless are hooked up into a village that's already developed, are going to get chewed up and spit out easily.

[Rantul]

Trading system is near non-existent, why would you say it's fine for now? I read the poll for auction house and player trading. Secure player trading is absolute must have to consider trading at a crude level. At the moment trading is non-existent and I won't include stalls since those are of no concern to most players, because of the cost. Back in 1993, one of the most famous MMO's was born, basically the first of its kind. Ultima Online, it has secure trading, vendors for rent to available to everyone. Simple system, sell nothing, make nothing eventually they decay to nothing. Now, 20 years later, we are trading in a barrel, no secure trading, no vendors, no system of any kind.

I read several posts of people who think the system is fine, or it's good enough, but not one single good reason to support that remark. The only reason I can think of is to keep some kind of advantage with current trading methods. I can even think of one, maybe to keep price on objects higher I don't know. Some comments suggested that would bring more silver into the game. Which is totally false, silver coming in remains the same, what changes is how fluid trading becomes, it changes hands more often is all, but the same amount of silver is still there. I've come across many different types of trading systems over the years, many have good aspects, many are very good systems. Just a rough list how some markets and system characteristics that make them good.

1. Searchable markets. A few systems are searchable for items, I seen as a right-click and view market details like in EVE, seen as a click hold and drop to chat box giving ability to search by name as seen in Star trek and Everquest. Couple other methods some of you prob came across I don't mention, I am not trying to mention everything.

2. Sort by type. Many systems have types, categories, which help track down objects by type or in Salems case, characteristics would be important. You may not want to list teir 1 or teir 2 food products, but the same product made with tier 3 flour for example.

3. Cost of Transaction. Some systems have no cost at all for transactions, however as in EQII you basically need a subscription to do serious trading. I have seen some initial cost with % of sales.

4. Availability. How many items should a player be able sell at any given point is a consideration, and with Salem multiple alts and accounts to get around this would definitely happen. Since we use skills for a few things, number of items that one can sell could be based on characters skill level, would help encourage people to advance trading skill and curb the need for multiple alts to sell. Obviously, more advanced players could sell many different items, and never have an issue compared to someone who just starting out and can't post any.

5. Buy orders. This for Salem would be a true challenge to implement, in order to really get something like this to work, you would also need not just item type, but item characteristics. If your looking for certain purity items, you may only want sulphur purity boards with a min. of a certain rating or %.

6. Ease of navigation and use. Not as important as just having the feature, but does greatly improve your trading experience. Should it really be painstaking or enjoyable?

7. Stalls, vendors, virtual market. How to conduct transactions? Currently, market stalls are the only true means of trading in game. They are a major silver sink to the select few players. Few people actually buy from the stalls on a regular basis, I am not one of them, prices are over their worth in many cases. Some have had reasonable prices, but I wonder if they actually make enough to make using stalls even worth it. Salem doesn't have a large enough population
to make these things effective means of trading. First, "in general", the stuff is extremely over priced. Second, extremely limited numbers and space, this is not a problem for Salem since the population is so low, but would be a serious issue if the game actually doubled its population.
Next is vendors have been used in several games I've come across, they seem to also take form of stalls as well, except with vendors you can place them nearly anywhere. This could cause making a big mess of things, which i never really thought was a good concept, but still better than nothing.
Finally, virtual markets, a more modern mmo concept that promotes trading to its full capacity. I have yet to come across any faster means of trading than the use of virtual markets.

8. Combinations. I have seen combinations of means of trading. Some games with vendors and a virtual market. One with a virtual market, vendors and caravan combination as on Silkroad Online. First, you can search for the item, but then you have to track down the vendor, the caravan trading system involved in buying trade goods to be transported between towns, which of course I don't see how you can make this happen on Salem, unless all roads lead to Rome (Boston). Because inventories are relatively limited, a caravan concept to transport a mass amount of goods from one point to the next would be hard, not to mention it most likely end up revealing your claim to the world. Would be difficult to implement with a practical purpose, and worthwhile risk. In Salem, they would be vulnerable to getting raided and there would have to be a point to it.

This is a rough overview of available trading systems, what exactly would we want for Salem and what direction will it take us is the biggest question to answer. Secure player trading should be the first issue to address. I support the virtual markets, because they can be changed, modified, relocated, take up little space, and would make trading a positive feature in the game. All the most popular mmo's use virtual markets, having a good system like this in place would prevent some players from quitting. Those who really enjoy working the markets can easily ignore the negative aspects. People don't quit games cause they enjoy them...They quit because the game "sucked" and our trading system "sucks". Non-existent, and unsecured.

So the question is, do you want a trading system that is bottom of the barrel horrible bad and smells like rotten fish (Salem's trading). Or make one that is just ok, good, or great. Great takes a lot of work to develop. OK, with use of vendors and more stalls taking up space with lower cost. Good would be a crude virtual market, or auction house as mentioned in a poll that was issued several months ago. Or Great, a virtual market with in-depth search abilities, ability to sell and buy products with specific characteristics.

The reality of it all, I would bet on no changes ever in Salem with a small chance of getting secured trading and a crude auction house that won't really improve things much. This is basically every possible option to us and sums up everything concerning Salems trading.

[ZtyX]

Zomg, wall of text has hit you for a critical 2000 damage. I hope the developers will read this because I doubt many players will.

[ZtyX]

Why would we want secure player trading when trading in a barrel adds a thrilling element of risk and theft?

Trading can be done swiftly by both clicking "Teleport to Boston" from their homestead. They can even bring their inventory with them. Seems swift enough to me. And it's secure enough if you do the trade quickly or choose one of the barrels further away from the center.

An "automated" marketplace/bazaar with search functions and goods from all players makes no sense because manual work is normal in Salem. It doesn't fit into the storyline to have available such a complex trading system. Our poor single programmer Loftar would also probably be swamped utill kingdom come to develop this. The current stalls would be worthless and with them you also take away a huge money sink, symbol of power and wealth and an interesting property that people envy each other over in game. The current market stalls are an interesting and unique feature of the game. I enjoyed having one and it requires effort to do well with it. A bazaar would make trading so easy that everyone can be a trader. That would mean the end for the dedicated traders we see now. Nobody will be making posts with pictures of their goods anymore and thus you take away another sandbox mechanic by streamlining it. Prices of goods would also go down a lot because supply will be very high. Demand is already low as it is because most players are self sufficient. Prices would be killed and bazaar speculators would further hurt the market.

[Ass_Kraken]

Trading system is near non-existent, why would you say it's fine for now?

Item -> Barrel -> Trade Items.

[DarkNacht]

Saying that Salem does not have a trading system is like saying it does not have a PVP system, its crude, the game does not hold your hand, and if you screw up then you are *****, but that does not mean that it does not exists.

[Dallane]

Trading system is near non-existent, why would you say it's fine for now?

Item -> Barrel -> Trade Items.

zero trade system

[SammyWeston]

Why i say this is because markets become overly saturated with trolley prices and takes the role play out of the game. Half the adventure in salem should be to make money by meeting people and actually doing the leg work to find people and contacts. If this game formed a auction house, that would destroy this games ideals and fun of the hunt for a good deal or hunt of a good distribution pipeline or even being able to set up your own distribution networks. Auction houses i think would just do way more damage then the market stalls.

[Potjeh]

Just remove the stalls, no need to replace them with AH.