How about you let people sell items through some sort of auction system like other MMO’s, but with a different delivery system.
For example, you buy whatever you wanted, but you have to go pick it up at the shop location. The shop owner can only list what they have available on the stands. So you would still need those set up to have a shop. You would still get foot fall when people come to pick up their items etc.
Then shop locations could be on lower tier weapons on starter worlds, higher tier on T-4-5-6-7 etc that mid game and end game characters could get to. You might even be able to sell a copper or iron tool once in a while.
Mailboxes have been suggested by several different people, several different times (bear with me):
Other threads have likely been created but I thought I would put up links to some of the threads about the subject so previous suggestions can easily be seen as well. All the mailbox threads have slightly different ideas, including the suggestion on this thread, I figure that’s probably a good thing.
Just going to leave the reason there isnt an auction system here but if i understand your idea its essentially like making an online purchase but you would need to go pick it up at the shop. If thats the case, it seems kinda pointless since i can just go to the shop and buy it. I guess what you want is a central place with a list of all shops and items being sold. That list is going to be massive but i can see that being useful. I think the devs wont implement anything like that just because it removes the exploration part of searching out an item for the lowest price. Sure your suggestion will give the shop owner the footfall but what about all the shops that get visited just to see what is sold and at what price.
As far as an auction house goes, if the devs don’t come up with something people will eventually just sell things through the forum. It’s already going on in smaller scale, but if and hopefully when they pick up a decent amount of players it will become the leading way to buy and sell.
Just like in real life, online shopping crushed brick and mortar stores. It’ll happen in game or externally, but it’ll happen.
there is a website that I think someone was working on that was a form of auction house or online list of all the active shops… I’ve never used it and can’t remember what he called it but I doubt it was finished because it takes constant work…
Why does a shop that does not have what I want in stock deserve any footfall? Why does any shop deserve any footfall? If they have the item a player wants in stock then they make coin on the markup. You can say they make an effort to keep items in stock, but the player having to search out the shop is also making an effort and does not get any coin for going to the store. Why is the game favoring the shop owner over the consumer?
You mean Boundlessskill.com? It’s actually still up and running. The responsibility of updating shop info lies on the shop owner, so it’s not that much work. Also, shops that don’t update regularly don’t get displayed, so its relatively up to date too
