Shop searching

Suggestions
#33

If it has no prices then I stick with the shops I know like Omni, Grump Store and hopefully soon the Gemporium I have no interest in wandering the universe for an hour to find the lowest price. I will just assume between the 3 stores I can find the item and buy from whoever has the lowest price. Everything in the game (except maybe some of the forged items) is a commodity. There is no difference in a refined block or a machine from store a or store b. Commodities are driven by lowest price.

Amazon also offers home delivery. People like the convenience of being able to have things delivered to their door. Amazon does not always have the lowest price, but I will buy certain things from them in order to save having to go get it. So far, that is not possible in boundless. A shop close might be more attractive, but if I do not know what they have and how they price, I will go not be going there.

Also the volume game, can the larger stores not already be doing that? if they buy all the resources and only make a 2% profit why not? This is a game it is not like they have to meet payroll or will have to close down the shop if they do not make enough profit. As long as someone generates a surplus of coin they can stay in business.

#34

That was just one example, i also suggest more localized search where you search an item and shows you locations on compass too. whatever works as a compromise is ok with me,anything is better then nothing at all. i’m intent on using shops and working with others to progress in game, but so far i’m selling tons of ore, coal, wood, and more. and not able to find things i need back in return except for more tools to get more mats, where are people turning these mats into things i need to progress my quests, build up my base and maybe one day be able to forge things?

the fact that i’ve spent my whole day off being unsuccessful in making progress on my goals is a fail in my opinion in current system that is supposed to be designed to make players work together, yet way i see it, strongly encouraging people to play game as single player right now. Not to mention i’ve spent hours today waiting to access area’s due to portals being full just exaggerating this problem even more. . So just doing only thing i can do, keep gathering basic mats so i can sell them as i find people willing to buy, building up currency that i can maybe use to buy stuff i need back. perhaps in months from now game will be much better established in this regard and i’m going nutz over nothing, but i feel a search of some kind would help all this.

#35

Really dislike the idea. Only encourages undercutting and kills any potential to play the market in buying low and selling high.

#36

I’m not sure how to word this but like, I’ve played other games with auction houses that you can sort by price, and trust me, 100%, people buy low and sell high.

This wouldn’t change that. There is real world, factual evidence that proves it.

#37

Maybe you are not considering that kind of games has PvP.
There is a risk involved (to get ganked and lose all your loot).
Eve, Albion, EQ? have this feature because it encourages players to travel far away to buy low and gankers can set up their ambushes in strategic commercial routes.
Risk vs Reward.

But that system will not work in Boundless because there is no risk.
Only ultra rich players who will undercut everything forever.

1 Like
#38

That works in Eve and similar games due to completely different mechanics that don’t exist in Boundless. Right now you can buy low at one shop, take it to another hub and flip it if you know the markets and prices well enough.

An auction house will make that incredibly easy, will show everyone the prices in (insert location distance here) and make it so that higher prices don’t exist as everyone will literally go to the breakeven point for a sale and those without the tax skill will 100% be undercut. Right now it’s not required (should have it tho) but you will guaranteed make no profit if there’s a show price in x location feature.

#39

A Rich Level 50 Shop Owner has’to spend the same amount of time gatherin’ materials as a poor Level 50 Shop Owner.

There’s a hard ceiling. if it takes 1 hour to collect 300 diamond, it takes both the rich shop owner, and the poor shop owner, the exact same amount of time to collect 300 diamond, therefore, their prices are going to be identical.

Havin’ your items be listed in a shop guide in-game would help you GAIN money, not lose it.

1 Like
#40

There are non-PVP MMO’s that introduced auction houses and traders still exist and can still affect the market.

Why is this bad? Most other MMO’s have auction houses and traders do just fine.

2 Likes
#41

The breakeven point is totally up to the seller. A person can gather everything themselves so technically their cost is zero coin. Another can buy everything in which case you can argue the breakeven point is the cost of the resources. The cost of someone’s time in game is really at the discretion of the seller. No seller necessarily has the same breakeven point anyway. Why is this bad for the consumer. We seem to be awfully concerned about the seller where is the concern for the buyers?

As far as the person with the Tax Skill having a lower cost, you are correct. Just like someone that is crafting has to have the correct skills maybe someone selling needs the correct skills also if they want to succeed.

1 Like
#42

I will disagree in the real world this action is called Arbitrage (you night know this not trying to be condescending). The stock and commodity markets all have their prices listed and people look for arbitrage opportunities between markets and some are successful at it. Perfect information does not limit arbitrage opportunities in the real world so why would it in Boundless?

#43

I’m sure there were people who claimed the internet would destroy the “skill” and “career” of stock trading. And here we are, decades later, and stock trading still takes skill and still employees a lot of people.

#44

I actually work in the industry in real life so I totally get your point Kai :slight_smile:

The stock market is incredibly different than the economy Boundless though, let’s be fair Creative.

I get both of your points, I’m just tired of seeing auction houses ruin the fun of trading by making it “pull up market, go to the cheapest store, done”

2 Likes
#45

Look man if you dont have a portal to your shop area no one is walking there… if you haven’t noticed the places with portals and signs that state where to and what to get the most foot fall and customers… if you want to pick off your neighbors by making them walk to the capital to get the better prices guess who’s not gonna stop at your shop in the future…

#46

I would say, because you can hand trade and avoid the tax, that there’s still plenty of incentive to trade and socialize.

And forcing the user to actually travel TO the shop would also be far different than a mail-system.

#47

Last place I saw Power Coils for sale was on Lamblis, but good luck getting on THAT planet these days…Purple something or other was the dudes name. BIG Purple building right off from the hub. :wink:

#48

I work in the industry also, buy side pension fund.

I do not want to take the fun out of running a shop. But at the same time the universe is large and getting larger. As a buyer I am not willing to run around for hours to check out a bunch of shops. I do use the websites already out there if I decide to buy, so the smaller shops might already be losing business from others doing the same.

Where do you think the happy medium between store owner and buyers is?

1 Like
#49

Instead of a global list I think it might work better to have a list of all the items with active buy or sell orders in a given settlement. And rather than just listing coordinates, each would have a button to click that sets a waypoint on the compass. This would prevent the list from being too long to browse through and still encourage people to explore new markets.

#50

Most of the people I talk to are active on the forum and Discord. Let me know if you would like an invite link. I’m a member of a few different servers. Lots of community support there.

#51

Just remember there are many ways this can be implemented. I don’t know why some people are insisting all or nothing. It seems like a universal search is going to anger a lot of people so why not a more localized search that isn’t going to be affected as much by this worry some of you have about prices stagnating. Like i proposed the EQ1 style search, you can only search your local area, your compass then shows you where you can find said items you searched, that’s it. No universal searching, no price listing, and keeps sense of exploring, finding deals, still have option of finding area’s where you can buy low and resell high in other areas, etc. I think this is a good compromise at the very least and a win-win. Certainly better then what we have to deal with right now as shoppers.

btw i finally found 1 shop selling pwr coils. again this was after all day searching. Price significantly higher then i though so i’m continuing to look or save up for them. (probably why they are still for sale, due to high price, more then i’ve made since i started playing the game)

Auction House
#52

If it’s not universal your going to still have alot of people hogging planet space because they are searching and then traveling to the new planet to search… to travel to the new planet to search… sounds like ALOT of messages sent to the already overloaded servers… when you could search universally from the comfort of your home beacon and then make the ridiculous journey through the Worlds full portals…
Honestly this could be a game changer…
No longer wasting time sitting in front of portals just to get on planet that doesnt have what your looking for…
Not everyone plays on pc, ps4 player here, nor loves to sit in game searching stuff on there phones just to end up at the shop that sold out…
I haven’t been to an actual shop in 5 days… no one ever has what I’m looking for or it’s already sold out…
Atm we have enough problems with people keeping there shops stocked, let alone a reasonable price…
Not everyone plays 100 plus hours a week…
Some have jobs and family…
Not everyone wants to be a seller but everyone wants to buy stuff…
Someone needs to step up and set some real buying and selling prices…
That are reasonable for the casual gamer…
YeH I could spend my time grinding alts up to get easy money…
And then what waste it in 2.2 buying the one thing I needed, cause the one guy I found is selling g at max price, but couldn’t go farm myself due to the world full errors or the endless waiting at an unloading portal…
Come on guys…
I did love the post about the ability to coordinate your beacon to say
Trader, Amusement Park ect…
Added to the search functionality… then we could have access to other types of fun things to do other then
Bash bash bash bash bash bash bash bash… Kaboom… Dead… (meteor unexpected waves of mobs)

2 Likes