Discussing solutions to the problems that uncontrolled player trade creates in game systems

Sinist

This thread is to discuss various solutions to problems that free and open player trade creates.

Obviously the goal is to allow freedom of choice in player trade, but without restrictions such often results in rampant abuse that is fueled by RMT.

What solutions can be presented to deal with these uncontrolled elements that support game play and reflect the tenants of Pantheons systems? Keep in mind that the tenants promote risk/reward game play, and that with great risk, comes great reward. So how can such be achieved in the trade system that does not allow players to circumvent that risk/reward that is met in the adventure play?

I will start by suggesting that a system be one that promotes game play, but does not hamper legitimate player actions. The best solution is one that only the abuser sees, but the honest player does not.

I also think player trade should provide elements of game play that it currently does not contain.

What ideas do you have?

Sinist

Here is some discussion on the matter that another brought up that I thought was a good point:

unkkut said:

I say, give the illusion of free trade, but don't have the restriction in your face. Have all sells brokered, depending on the item sold. Depending on the "epicness", that determines how much of a fee you pay for the sale. Maybe the brokered deal fee would be something that needs to be obtained from the world, which can deter the sell to begin with.

Just my thought.

That would control wild sale attempts (ie posting an item at ridiculous values and sitting on it waiting to get rich), If you don't price your item appropriately, you risk paying an exorbitant amount of money. It would certainly put some weight in someone understanding the trade market, what people are buying, what they are willing to pay. I kind of like it, it is a subtle fee that provides increased reward, but at increased risk. It would have to be a lock in fee though to work. That is, if your item doesn't sell in the allotted time, you lose your fee investment and have to re-post.

In the terms of how they might be doing Pantheon, it could be an automated process of placing items into a trading satchel which requires a "license fee" for each item to be sold approved by the trade guild in the area you are selling it (ie one faction may have different fee requirements/item restrictions than another).

So, you put up a "rusty sword" for sale, you select how much you think it is worth and what you think people will pay. A percentage of that price is immediately deducted from your money and the item is put into your satchel for a given time.What this simulates is that you have a permission or writ to sell this item at that particular market place.

If you don't have the money to afford your sale price, well... you will have to earn it up first. This disallows low levels selling items for big cash without having the coin to attend to it.

Edit:
I think the following is likely better than the above.

Or...  you could collect the percentage after the sale, putting a charge on the sellers account they must settle before they can sell anymore items. The kingdom has to get their share you know! Maybe the account balance approach is better as it allows anyone to sell without immediate hassle, but there is risk that if they are unprepared AND did not properly assess its sale ability, it can get costly and impede further trading.

Edit 2:

Another idea is to confiscate the item until all fees are settled. That way, if someone throws up some item for 1000000000 and it doesn't sell, the item gets confiscated by the trade association until it receives its percentage fee. If the player does not pay it in a certain amount of time, the trade association takes it with a purpose they explain as their own trade interests in another out of game region. This gives a means to remove items from the game as well and adds risk to the system.

I also like your trade "adventure" idea. You can sell the item, but you have to run a given task or process in order to sell it. With non-special items and trade items, this could be more simplistic and low time/effort, but with dropped items of rare and unique quality, it could require a more in-depth process (call it the trade guilds bureaucracy) to sell the item.

Did I summarize the base of your suggestion correctly? I might have went off on a tangent being that your mention started giving me ideas.

Those are some interesting ideas Unkkut.

One thing to keep in mind though is what effect this will have on RMT, how people might circumvent it, also... more importantly how will this harm the honest player? We don't want it to be like TLC where it is a slap to the face of honest players to try and reduce abuse.


I just thought of something else on top of that idea. What if a player circumvents the trade license and just tries to sell outside of the market off somewhere in the world?

Well, this might be an interesting solution:

Players who trade without licenses start to gain attention of the local factions and they do not approve of people trading in their territories without paying them their fees. So, a player doing such transactions gets flagged, and becomes KOS to that faction and all allies to that faction as well.

The player then must seek out a specific trade representative of neutral faction to represent the player in a negotiation where the player must pay any back fees, fines, and then be put on a probation of increased fee percentages on a sale. If the player disregards seeking this resolution soon, a bounty by the faction and NPCs are spawned (could even allow players to pick up a bounty order to allow them to do the same) to apprehend the player where they port him to a jail where he stays until a period of time (maybe days, week, month) or until he pays all of his fees, after which his trade privileges are revoked by that faction and all allied faction for a period of time.

May have too many abuse holes and problems, but I thought it was kind of an interesting approach.