Sorry if the little edit changes the meaning. But, yeah. This is a big part of it. Also, the noise from people putting out baskets with silly prices on them to get around certain rules.
There’s a little bit of comparison between request baskets and buy orders on commodity markets or auction houses. And I think they MIGHT have a place in a healthy economy. But to date, and in my opinion, the uses they have been put to in large part have frustrated people tremendously, and put a lot of noise into any attempt to firm up markets.
Vansten no offense intended or anyone who uses their baskets to create a real market. Specifically you’re not usually a lowballer and you don’t have tens or hundreds of baskets out asking for things you don’t really want at ridiculous prices trying to catch someone when they’re desperate.
There are delivery services and other things around in real life, but those people do business at their own, fixed prices. And they don’t have to go randomly down streets checking at everyone’s door to see if the homeowner wants anything they have to sell, judging random prices for viability and/or opportunity cost. Maybe skipping around to the back porch too since some people would rather leave their baskets out back.
Orders in a centralized auction house don’t have the time cost and they offer a great deal more transparency regarding what’s available in a centralized market, and the actual prices where supply is meeting demand. Request baskets obscure this information rather than clarify it. There is some basis for comparison here but it’s certainly not 1:1.
I’d be happy to be educated but I’m not aware of any successful economy that has included this sort of thing as a primary mechanic. I’m not even sure how it would be viable for any large group.
With all of that said, I think they could be a great boon to an otherwise healthy economy. But together with the pressures of footfall and some other things here in boundless they’ve been a huge barrier to economic development. I’m braced for some flack on this but, just sharing my honest opinion here.
There are people that pay good prices and use baskets to run steady shops, buying mats and other items the consistently need. And those people are quickly recognized by the active player base IMO.
I like this idea, it’s very different. I’ve never played a game or participated in a real or virtual economy that facilitated barter like this.
However it’s only going to continue to be an additional barrier to a coin economy and that is what most people know and crave. And the devs are adding more coin generation and more coin sinks to make this even more necessary. I would 100% support this idea into a non-coin economy. In parallel, even though I like it, I think it would cause more trouble here.
I think you might be amazed at how many people would choose not to do everything if we had a stable market. If I put out a request basket, you can bet there are shop stands selling for less. I buy bones steadily for 1c or less even while my basket sits there paying 1.5c each and not touched for nearly a month now.
Even while someone else fills an order at 0.75c!
I’m just saying if we could ditch request baskets for a while, a real market economy would develop quickly, and of necessity. I don’t think they’re ‘bad’ in any fundamental way, but they can and have been used badly and at this point they’re a huge obstacle to this economy. They are heavily used (again no offense to our real market makers intended) to create footfall traps, and to express the disrespect that most people have for other people’s time.
/rant. Sorry …
