Basically, my idea would be to have it so that when you interact with a shop stand or basket, either as the owner or as the non-owner, it would show average gamewide price for each item to buy (if interacting with a shop stand) or to sell (if interacting with a basket). This would reeeeeally help with some of the insanity with “IDK how to price this item” 
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I like this idea in theory - not sure how outliers would affect the average. As long as it doesn’t say where to get the cheapest , etc (which in my opinion would reduce the amount of exploring /adventuring) I think it could be implemented well.
I would use the median not the average. That way the lows and highs do not have an oversized affect on price
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I wouldn’t like this as a player - I like shopping around and seeing what people are doing for what this week. This’d take all the fun out of it, might as well be a central auction house at that point.
As a shopkeeper I could see its advantages and disadvantages.
I’m more a player than a shopkeeper so I’d prefer we didn’t get this. You’d never need to leave one hub assuming everyone played that game.
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Though this can work in theory, there are trolls out there like Centless who actively increase the cost of everything just so desperate players have somewhere to shop (literally avoid this place. The owner told me “It’s in stock ;)” so) and then there are people who use shop stands with things as decoration putting up the price of things to 99,999,999c so that would further increase the average. Median though sounds plausible ^
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If they wanted to be fancy they could list the average sold price and the average overall price.
But yes, don’t list where to find things, just list what the prices are, roughly, so people get ripped off less. Or at least, know they’re overpaying.
Also, on the flip side, many merchants have no idea how to price things, and unintentionally get stuck in a cycle of having overpriced items but good selection / location, e.g. Krafter, AJ’s and Ace’s in Ultima. They didn’t mean to overprice, they just figured it was supply-demand and not other factors.
I’m not suggesting that they list all shop stand locations, just that they tell users the average selling and buying price gamewide. It would still be up to us to explore and to pass the word by mouth.
But if everyone can see the average, wouldn’t shopkeepers just use that as a guide to meet or beat the median by 1c? Presumably until it stabilises at a price only those with cheap time on their hands can afford to sell at.
I quite like that some people gouge, some people sell cheap, some misunderstand markets, some are generous. This feels like it’d break that. Could be not but once people can know the average why would price different knowing it’s visible to everyone?
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If people beat the median by 1c, it will push prices down and then stabilize at a fair price. Also, if inventories of in-stock stores went down, prices would go up. I think overall people abuse low-priced shops - keep them secret, don’t warn the shopkeeper they could up prices, etc. I also think if people knew that an iron hammer should be 110, they wouldn’t pay 150 unless desperate. At least people on remote settlements would have a better idea of prices without having to trek to the city and run all over town. This would still allow people to gouge or offer deals, it would just put more info out there. Plenty of people will pay double for 1 or 2 of something even if they know they could find it cheaper, just to save time. This wouldn’t change that.
IDK, IRL there’s the internet and other resources to make pricing fairer. I think Boundless could use this. Also I’m seeing increased bad blood at shops that overcharge wildly, which is bad for the community. We’re all here to have fun and work together
I’d also love to see something like Scrap.tf (team fortress 2) for boundless. Users post things they want to buy or sell and for how much, and either username or location, and then the website makes a giant price list for everyone. This would “break the game” more, based on comments above, but it would certainly be nice…
BTW, even with a centralized auction house in other games (WOW, FF online, others IDK about), there is still wiggle room for higher and lower prices. The low prices sell out fast and prices adjust. The high prices don’t sell and people lower their prices. Slightly higher prices get purchased when the cheapest are sold out.
Piggy backing off this - it may be that something is in higher demand on a given world vs. others, therefore the average would not take into account that you’re on a world this mat isn’t naturally obtained on, which would make a variation in pricing make sense. What I’ve been doing (since i’m connected to Biitula Shoping Hub) is going through a few stores before I price things, doing an average in my head, and undercutting by ~5c.
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I hate this idea as bith shopkeeper and shopper, as it would force me to match other peoples prices or i would not get any sales, i already sell for lower than the average across several hubs so it would TECHNICALLY help me by letting me raise my prices and get more, however im pretty out of the way and if the central shops have the same price as me why would anyone come to my shop if im so much further away? And the counterside is i also would no longer be shopping just going to the largest supplier and wheres the fun in figuring out that this guy has 1000 of x so ill be coming here. Another way to say it is someone will become a walmart and ill be the thrift shop who also buys from walmart
Portals help negate this distance difference.
Also, if footfall didn’t exist, people wouldn’t be crowding the capitals as much. They’d still go there, but there’d be more variety.
Wouldn’t you save time since you’d no longer put stuff on a stand and have zero sales for two days due to overpricing?
So if everyone had the same price give or take 2 to 10 coin youd still go shopping around to save that coin?
Also, where’s your shop? Friend me
Its in the biitula hub northwest corner top shelf - pofs’ caveland.
I don’t go shopping around to save coin, I go to where I can find what I want to buy.
If I walk in a portal and a store has what I want, and I have the money, I’ll buy it. I, and others, have no interest spending hours searchin’ through convoluted city streets on a 0-agility character checkin’ in on countless empty shops to find somethin’.
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This is exactly my point. You dont want to go further than you have to
I’ll have to check you out pofs