Oh sorry about that, I knew what you meant! I call it an AH in general terms/out of habit :<
Think we could make a gleam club perk out of this?
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no worries 
well, i think it should be available to everybody, othewhise that would kinda suck.
When I had talked to @james during a call, a while ago, I mentioned us needing something like this to help people find “active” shops. It was some sort of yellow pages. Basically a book that helps me know location and details on the shop, etc. I also mentioned it in a post I did a bit ago… I was most focused on “location” so people would be still exploring.
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I agree that it might possibly be a good idea to not have prices listed (even though that would be a useful info it might lead to pricedumping, which would be bad).
An economy listing would be very useful already if it would show for shopstands what item, where it is located and how much stock there is, and for baskets how much funds they have for what item and their location.
Yeah personally I lean towards a much more simple solution at first due to the coding requirements of a larger design.
For me it was a simple book like the guild control that you could place in your shop and register it. It would register location and if you were buying and/or selling. Then something would be needed to ensure it stayed “active” so that listings didn’t get stale. This at least would help us find places that were regularly active.
In future updates it could maybe start taking on more features, etc. Initially we just need help in separating active from non-active people and those that don’t know where all the shops are.
A few questions, what is most important here:
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Showing the variation of prices on a world or across the entire universe?
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Showing the locations of items?
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Listing all items with all details that are available to buy and sell across a world?
Is all information (price, item, quantity, location) that only solution here? Or is there a subset of information (price distribution, location) that satisfies the need?
- When it comes to location do we want “45N 32E” or “James’ Mega Store in London”?
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This isnt something this game needs. There isnt that many items in game. More lag from a server collecting even more stats. And cut shopping down to a few exchanges.
Everyone will be beating ea other prices by 1c til everything is pretty much 1c. Would kill a free market.
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I would like to see the average shop stand price of actual sales for an item over the last 7 days across all worlds… not sure what others would want.
Maybe one for request basket buys too?
Could have the number update once a week on Tuesdays, not necessarily daily.
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- The lazy me would want universe prices in one place. But I think maybe world prices would be enough. At least make us travel between worlds to check all prices there
- Location would be key. Losing one hour to travel between empty shops is no fun.
- Lets keep it simple. Item name, quantity, price, location. That’s it.
- I would prefer beacon name and settlement name (including larger settlement). To make players look around a bit and not just follow coordinates.
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How about putting a shop stand or request basket in to an atlas to show where shops are active. Maybe they only light up if refilled in the last week or so.
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Well, there really is no price difference from planet to planet necessarily, since portal hubs are so well established and efficient. It’s not like sweet beans sell for 30c on Lamblis but 200c on Besevrona, for instance.
Wouldn’t this just lead to the person with the most market “muscle” dominating? They’d undercut everyone and everyone would see they’re cheapest forcing even more deflation.
Portals already make it very hard to be distinct - your location almost doesn’t matter.
This would basically leave us with 1 shop? And that shop owner would be able to buy at rock bottom prices as no one else would have any coin in their baskets.
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This, no data sceens or lists.
I still say the best option is a “Shop Stand Atlas”.
The atlas shows all the shop stands. Add an item to show shop stands selling only that item.
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Atlas idea could be cool. Hotter zone for recently filled baskets
The only thing I can agree with what you’re saying is how there aren’t that many items in the game. That will change.
This whole fear of “racing to the bottom” is pretty irrational. This doesn’t happen in real life. Certainly doesn’t happen in retail or video games. It just doesn’t happen. You think Steam has made competition between game companies force prices to be sold at rock bottom? No. This has never once happened in the history of Steam.
There’s zero evidence that having a snap shot of the market of Iron Bars or Compact Diamonds is going to cause those items or any other item to start going lower in price.
If someone wants to start undercutting the person next to them by 25%, then they can no differently than how they can right now. Doesn’t mean that they can sustainably hold that 25% undercut to everyone else. The best shops are going to run off the idea of using a strategy that is sustainable and reliable rather than flash sale pricing strategies that really aren’t competition anyways.
I really wouldn’t worry to much about these two bolded points you made. First of all, even without a world or universe market screen someone can already dominate the market of certain items. It’s just about putting the time and effort into it. Having 30 million coin does help, but if you’re willing to put the time and effort into preparing then it will do you a lot more. The coin does help. The issue with all this fear though around these kinds of ideas is that it wouldn’t be much of a thing if we had 10 times as many items in the game and that won’t happen until years from now.
I don’t see it being a negative thing to have when we have thousands of items in the game. Right now, I can agree that the world market screen idea doesn’t really have a place in the game. Cause when there’s tens of thousands of players in the game and literately thousands of portals going all over the place across a couple hundred worlds, then something like a world economy screen would be nice to have.
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Racing to the bottom is irrational? Coils went from 10k-2k in a month. Bitter bean prices went from 120c to 60c in 2 weeks. Its not irrational at all.
And 1 guy undercutting another in a city doesnt effect the market as a whole, right now.
But it would if it was listed for everyone to see, because then a new person will think thats the right price. and all of a sudden the market value is down 25%
Edit: You cant base steam and IRL prices for games as the same as in game coin.
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If the game provides a central bank or market or general prices, then it should be pulled from across the universe.
If the info is provided in a world UI or something similar, I think that average item prices from within the world would suffice.
I think it would be awesome if it would say “John’s Beans & Brews / Some-town”. This would help keep the personal feel & branding. Good shops/merchants would become known. ie: if I’m running thru Finata and I see “Sally’s Gems & Machines” I could be like “Oh yeah! I remember her store on Angel & it’s great…I’m going to stop here”.
Maybe it could be listed in a new shop stand UI and you could select it like a location in your locations list. You would then follow your GPS to the shop.
If you’re going with #3 and decide to pull a lot of info from the DB, maybe an average price of all items would be helpful. Not sure how much lag this would cause tho.
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Instead of trying to explain why it is I’ll just say I’ll just agree to disagree with you. Saves us both time.
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The real world isn’t a very good analogy. There’s no difference between any of the bitter beans. In the real world consumers are sensitive to differences even if they are just image, presentation or imagined. The ONLY difference between your beans and my beans is price. Even location hardly matters.
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Price lists are a terrible idea. It would lead to market stagnation. All the smaller shops would be wiped out. The big guys would just undercut them. There is a reason why the U.S. has laws against undercutting prices.
The SEARCH for the lower prices, finding the hidden deals, is one of the great things about this game.
Everyone having the same prices would be terrible and damage the economy even further.
No price lists, not ever. That’s a deal breaker for me.
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