An incoherent/disjointed rant about the economy

Trading
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Long Rant Below:

My honest opinion about Boundless and the current economy is that this game will never grow until we have an in game way to find items/shops. I know a lot of people are set in their ways on how the current economy is how things should be, but at some point we have to try something different.

I agree that we should not be able to walk to some form of auction house, make a couple of clicks and suddenly have an item appear in our mailboxes. Instead, if we had an in game version of Boundless Trade Network or something similar then we would see more people involved in the economy. The only condition is you still need to visit the shop stand to buy the item.

This does not prevent players that want to explore from exploring. This encourages people who only want to shop to also explore. I didn’t shop pre BTN, its frustrating and a waste of time. After BTN i discovered more new places than ever. Now that the site is down again, i stopped shopping again. I know I’m only one person, but I know I’m not the only person.

We should not have to use out of game means to do anything. Discord, forums, etc. should not be the main source of the economy. Wasting time traveling through countless dead shops is a slap in the face, i’d rather go play monopoly by myself.

I don’t want to take away some people’s main way to play Boundless, but I also want to think about players who just don’t want to be bothered with the current economy system. Players who are just starting out and have no idea about malls/markets/these massive shops. Just because some of us like to explore doesn’t mean the next person wants to spend 2 hours of their day looking for someone selling silver bars.

My Only Alternative to an Auction House/Item Locator
Fix the chat system so the in game trade system is usable. Fix the pm system.

I am, however, open to the devs introducing more tools before fully committing to an auction house to see how it goes. But in my opinion the economy needs to be the next big feature that gets a change going forward.

Now flame me!

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$%+^%^$!# you little $%#@&%&%$#$!%$#&

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Yesss keep it coming!

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I found that the organized mall has a good layout. Labeled halls. I usually go there first, but prices are high on some things.

It also isn’t full of shops, but if shops were aligned more like this I think it would help. Especially for organized guilds.

But I think this also relies on people focusing on specific products and not selling across the board

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I don’t doubt that the economy needs a lot of work in this game. There are many things I like for suggestions and many I think are the wrong direction. Either way, something needs to happen.

But, I don’t feel that people should spend so much focus on the economy over other parts of the game. This isn’t called Boundless Shop Owner Sandbox. It is a sandbox for a variety of game components. The game certainly is not completely tied to only the economy. Others have echoed this as well and it doesn’t feel right to say it won’t grow unless we fix the economy. I am sure there are many areas that can be fixed that would cause the game to grow just fine even if we never touched the economy.

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Pretty sure the focus on economy lately is because any time someone has a complaint about an item, they’re told to get involved in the economy so they can make money or get what they need instead of doing it their selves, solo. Hard to do that when finding things to buy/sell as a consumer is the biggest gripe anyone has.

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Yeah good point there and very likely one key reason. thanks. I guess in a MMO that makes some sense.

I still believe we need to do our best to separate MMO requirements from Solo requirements in this game and support each side appropriately. It seems the game would grow more with that versus just focus on the economy.

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I think the economy ties heavily into the NPE, at least the way the game is currently being developed. From making us spec into a certain profession and not being good in another (miner vs hunter) to locking new items behind the forging system.

It basically requires people to participate in the economy. So we say go find someone selling or come to forums/discord. Someone not yet hooked into the game will say F it and quit. I feel like a lot of us are so used to navigating the game we forget how hard it was to find stuff when we first started. And not everyone is willing to use outside resources to play a game as it breaks immersion.

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Yup I would agree the NPE pushes people in that direction a bit. That is why I think we need to separate NPE, Solo, and MMO. The economy should be an “addon” kind of thing instead of a direct link. It gives people freedom, lowers confusion, and certainly protects the game from some of the current challenges.

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My idea was always To make shops like the way settlements get prestige EXCEPT we use currency exchange amounts as the prestige factor this then goes on each planets tab list in order of currency transfer. So a seller goes to a planet looks at the weekly top currency stores and this gives him a broad idea where to sell or buy knowing these shops are active.

this does 2 things it creates a real competitive nature with shops to sell n buy more to be on top (like a mini game) and the customer doesnt have to guess where to start looking to buy n sell. This also keeps things out of auction house needs and I see no real disadvantage but Im open to suggestions.

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Firstly great rant! I think I made it out with my brain intact.

I quote your lines above because in theory it’s a great idea you have there but in practice for our guild anyway to maintain shop stands in every hub we own aswell as our stores would become a chore.

I do agree though that many people expect to sell and don’t make as much effort as they possibly could. Also as you said understanding the market knowing what’s a hot seller can really reward even if short term.

Look forward to more of your rants

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Ultimately, the only path forward is an auction house of some kind. Anything else is a half measure.

For example:

  1. location token: you still have to run there, and it isn’t guaranteed to be there.
  2. world vs galactic index: you are stuck checking a multitude of “shopping” planets.
  3. no changes at all: the devs continue to get flack for doing no QOL changes.

Whatever is done needs to be something that meets three criteria:
A) improves the player economy experience
B) reduces the amount of time spent “shopping”
C) is scalable for growth

There are two ideas that work, because everything else is either stagnation or regression.

I) a true auction house where you transact on a galactic scale.
II) a machine that indexes all buy and sell baskets. You want to buy or sell something, it opens a 30 second portal to that shop. Shop gets the footfall and the visitor.

If someone presents another idea, I’d love to hear it, but until it comes up, this is where we are.

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Right I’m dust going to drop a few last thoughts and leave it there because I truly believe this has been done to the death and people are of course going to want different things from the game.

So thanks all for reading, sorry to your brains, but try being mine and see how you get on!

I think people get so worked up about this topic because they genuinely see it as a problem and they feel so strongly about this game that they only want to see it succeed, and as a result when people disagree on how this can be achieved. So @Fallon my apologies if I did get a little defensive, it’s one reason I tend to stay out of these topics altogether

It seems everyone can agree that some changes are certainly warranted, but what game MMO isn’t constantly evolving/improving?? The devs can only focus on so many things at a time and patches will role out one by one, so I personally will be patient and work with the tools I have available in game.

I’m sorry to those that are pressed for in game time and to those that don’t want to participate in the economy as it is now, I do understand, but I can’t offer you any advice because you seem more focused on getting it changed to what you want rather than listening to others actually trying to help.

What I can do is offer any little bits of help that are within my means. If you truly NEED something to play/enjoy this game then send me a PM and I will do what I can to help, I have thousands of hours into this game and I have hoarded 90% of the stuff I have collected so I might just have the thing you’re searching for. This way you neither need to find someone to buy your stuff or a shop to sell you stuff. I can’t help those that aren’t here to read this I’m afraid and I won’t help anyone who is just asking for stuff because they are too lazy to get it themselves or is looking to make a profit off my time spent playing.

So question one… I’ve decided what I’m going to do about it, but what are you going to do about this “problem” in the meantime, because if you want to play and enjoy this game you have to live with it until we get something that works right? And I doubt that’s happening in the next 5 seconds.

Question two is: What proportion of people playing the game now truly feel strongly either way about an auction house?? A lot of people do not visit the forums so are we just hearing the vocal few here or are we truly representative of the entire population?? I don’t know the answer to this myself.

You all enjoy yourselves as best you can today and try to be nice to one another, because it seems we are all after the same thing in the end and thats a game that becomes as successful as it has the potential to be. Even I who thinks it’s pretty freaken awesome just the way its is looks forward to all the improvements to come.

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Burning Dog Poo and the Human Response please!!!

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Yeah that’s about the only catagory I’m an expert in too. Lol.

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Struth…head just exploded…that’s it I am jumping off a boori platform…best rant ever…hahaha

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Boori has platforms? Bahahaha. Now my head exploded. What next an auction house?

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Wow, just wow. @georgegroeg @superman101, everyone in here is just having a bit of a laugh and then you two just have to come up in here pushing your hunting platform and auction house agenda on everyone. Nice one guys, grow up!! :joy:

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Ah. I enjoyed reading this thread all day. I think it’s time for a beer and to turn on the old PS4.

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