In Game trading has become a lost Art.

[tiffy33]

Im sure everyone remembers that back in the day trading use to be far more sociable experience in MMOs. I know the idea of being social seems to be lost in MMOs today but lets just stick to this topic. in Ultima Online people sold their crafted armor and weapons around smithing areas. They set up vendors at their own houses, usually in popular hunting or well traveled areas and advertised around popular hang outs such as banks and shops. Some people would even use the largest houses, castles, as sort of a mall allowing people to have their vendor inside that maybe didnt have a house in a good location. In Everquest we used to use the tunnel in East Commons and people would use zone chat to say what they were selling. Usually it was just as simple as"WTS 6 bags of stuff at t1" People would gather around this player and he would show all his bags to perspective buyers. If you saw something in one of his bags that you liked then you haggled for a fair price. People knew who the scammers were and avoided them. People would also keep using the same people every time so if you made a name for yourself as having lots of cheap crafting materials then you would get a lot of repeat business. Or maybe you always had the high end gear for sale and everyone knew to come to you.

But thats all lost these days. Now the person you buy from could be a scammer or a shitty player and you would never know. There is no longer any form of bargaining. People just deump everything on the Auction House and then go to sleep. Is there any way to make trading fun again? Bring back player run shops or even massive malls run by a guild. Here are some pics from a game thats 10 years old of how cool trading can actually be compared to boring ass auction house.

Here is the outside of a shop:


Here are a few interior pics of different shops:




So how is it that a game from over 10 years ago has better trading than games today? Im not saying go back to sitting in a zone for 8 hours a day trying to sell your wares. But something like player run shops that can you decorate is a hella lot better than boring ass auction house. I dont think we should get rid of auction houses because there are times where you just wanna buy something and be done with it. But every now and then it it cool to wander around for 30-45 mins checking out shops and looking for some good deals or maybe a rare item.

[Marthenil]

So how is it that a game from over 10 years ago has better trading than games today? Im not saying go back to sitting in a zone for 8 hours a day trying to sell your wares. But something like player run shops that can you decorate is a hella lot better than boring ass auction house.

The issue I have with trading in MMOs nowadays is that people refuse to haggle, and frown upon haggling in general. You advertise your wares, they ask for a price, they don't like at they just go nope and leave.
Same when you try to haggle a price down, people generally go nope, that's it.

I think people are too used to automation at this point.

[dense]

Haven't played in a while but is there really anything you need trading for? Almost everything half-decent is bind on pick-up anyway. Being able to remove the "soulbound" might revive some trading.

[Deleted]

snip

I think the main problem for WoW at least is that there isn't anything interesting that you can sell at the moment.

In MoP there are three things you can buy:

- Consumables (potions, flasks, gems, food, glyphs, etc.) -> Nobody takes a time to haggle for these low cost goods to save 10g. There are 1000s of people trying to sell/buy them too so they aren't rare by any means.

- Gear -> Only gear that you could buy is "normal" quality and takes a long time to make (daily/weekly lockout). People will haggle for them during the first week of the tier but after that they are unimportant becasue they suck. Only 2-3 pieces per class are available.

- TCG stuff -> People usually try to haggle for those to save a few thousand gold (I know I do). However there is very little demand for such items. Why spend the time to grind a few 100k and then use it on some mount? (Most people don't care.)

In the end the common goods are too common and the rare goods aren't interesting enough / too expensive to result in an interesting trading experience.

My guild recently dabbeled into the "selling services" kind of market. And to me that one is rather interesting and has much buyer/seller interaction. Including a ton of haggeling. Again tho probably less than 1% of the wow population participate in that.

[TEHPALLYTANK]

I hate haggling, it generally just ends up with people mad at me because they're too cheap to buy at the price I'm selling at. There is no point in lowering my price if I can just sell it to a different customer.

[NuLogic]

Auction Houses are perfect for a casual playerbase that just wants to get the game over with asap everytime they login. It makes you really wonder why people play games if they don't really want to take the time to play them.

Yep. I too miss the trade guilds and player-made shops of older MMOs.

Hmmm playing with friends or standing around trying to advertise your stuff? Trying to add a time sink to every menial task is overkill.

[catcommando]

Auction Houses are perfect for a casual playerbase that just wants to get the game over with asap everytime they login. It makes you really wonder why people play games if they don't really want to take the time to play them.

Yep. I too miss the trade guilds and player-made shops of older MMOs.

My play time is limited. I'd rather actually play the content in the game than waste time haggling with other people over the price of pixels.

[Queen of Hamsters]

If I wanted to play a trader game, I'd play Banished.

I know that art is subjective, but calling trading a lost art.... Thank the Light for the auction house. Also, you people must never have the trade chat open...I see people advertise wanting to sell and buy and trade stuff all the time. There, social "interaction" for you since it seems to be too difficult to do it without the forced way for some. I have bloody autism and NEVER had a problem being social and making social connections in this or any other online game...you people remind me of school kids saying that the other kids are mean for not wanting to play, but when asked it is revealed that there's never even been an effort to make contact from the complaining kid taking on the role of victim...

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Auction Houses are perfect for a casual playerbase that just wants to get the game over with asap everytime they login. It makes you really wonder why people play games if they don't really want to take the time to play them.

Yep. I too miss the trade guilds and player-made shops of older MMOs.

And again blaming casuals. GG there.

/Not casual, much prefer the AH over standing around like some vendor npc when I can actually do things I want.

[Vaxall]

My first mmo besides "Habbo-Hotel" :X, was Pristontale and there u could sell stuff by goin afk, popin a Bubble with ur selltext and the item u want to sell. U could also say XY trade for ZY. I realy liked that but i was diffrent then WoW, cause u could use some Gems to Upgrade ur Items +1 to +15 i guess and everytime there was a chance that the item "broke" and was gone. But thats way off topic

I would like the idea and keep the AH open.

[Nosdrone]

In LotRO, on the Landroval server, we used to have a 'swap meet' once or twice a month in Bree. People would set up booths (RP) and barter with each other over goods. It was a lot of fun.

[Deleted]

Idk if you did have to person to person trade all kinds of consumables I would be upset.

Buying a few stacks of potions and a few flasks isn't meaningful game interaction to me. And what's the difference if I bought them from some AFK vendor or the AH?

I'm not going to haggle over 10g. Either I get those flasks/potion/gems or I wait for someone to log on in guild and ask them about it. (And probably get it for free.)

[Spase Peepole]

When I played Starwars Galaxies way way back, you had so much room for negotiation. This was due to the fact that all crafted armor, weapons, etc, depending on quality of materials and quality of crafting station used, would result in almost infinite finished products. Harvesting the raw materials for the best attributes was a game in itself, and farming the additional items to further enhance an item, see Acklay Bones (YEAH AWESOME POWER HAMMER!), Krayt Scales, etc. It was a very long and involved process, and with the addition of durability loss that eventually lead to the item becoming unusable, the market was always solid for business.

The MMO market has changed, and has become a fast food, mass market basic loot with little variety establishment for the people not patient enough, or just lazy. This is why an involved sandbox game in the realm of crafting will possibly never become a thing again. It is unfortunate.

[barackopala]

Auction Houses are perfect for a casual playerbase that just wants to get the game over with asap everytime they login. It makes you really wonder why people play games if they don't really want to take the time to play them.

Yep. I too miss the trade guilds and player-made shops of older MMOs.

AH are even better for hardcore players, if you play your cards correctly you can swim in a ton of gold

[Tekkommo]

I loved it in SWG, you could just go and explore the worlds and find player shops everywhere.

Or go to the forums and trade with people.

AH are just far too convenient and too many will complain if a game removes them. Didn't ESO try something like this?

[TEHPALLYTANK]

Well you'd always have that freedom to play with your friends if you'd like. But if you don't spend time trying to sell your goods you'd just be poorer.

It's all about meaningful game interactions. Just wanting get your cake and eat it too cuz limited time, isn't a very interesting design choice.

I don't want currency to have meaningful game interaction. /thread

[Dezerte]

I'd love an MMO where you actually ran a real store, I'm not a fan of the text chat trading.

[tiffy33]

i think a mix of both is best. auction house is needed for buying really common things like gems or crafting materials. Its also nice to just buy something right now when you need it. But arent these supposed to be MMOs? it seems like games like WoW are just FPS games. Some times its just nice to take a stroll through a player mall or player run town and browse the different vendors. Or is everyone today just a machine?

"Beep Boop Beep"
"I must log in and queue for dungeons. Human interaction not necessary and is an illogical waste of time."
"Beep Boop Beep"

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AH are even better for hardcore players, if you play your cards correctly you can swim in a ton of gold

u mean the lazy people. I mean anyone can run an addon that scans the AH 1000 times a day and alerts you to an item thats priced too low but what fun is that? I used to find all kinds of steals in Ultima Online just wandering from house to house. Hell sometimes it literally was a steal because people might set their house permissions wrong and I just walk in and clean them out lol.

Trading in Ultima Online just seemed like it would have been back in the middle ages. I used to just sit at the blacksmith shop and advertise my skill since I was a grandmaster smith. I would also repair armor and weapons for donations. It was like running my own little shop. Id talk to people and sometimes would make deals to where hunters would always buy weapons and armor from me. Then I would talk to the miners and buy their ingots in bulk when they had them. Not to mention they would tell people they knew to buy/sell to me so i always had a steady supply of both customers and suppliers.

But in WoW and even other modern games you dont have any of that. No one builds up business relations with other players to drum up business. There are no more loyal customers or business partners. I mean do people even know who they are buying stuff from off the auction house?

[barackopala]

i think a mix of both is best. auction house is needed for buying really common things like gems or crafting materials. Its also nice to just buy something right now when you need it. But arent these supposed to be MMOs? it seems like games like WoW are just FPS games. Some times its just nice to take a stroll through a player mall or player run town and browse the different vendors. Or is everyone today just a machine?

"Beep Boop Beep"
"I must log in and queue for dungeons. Human interaction not necessary and is an illogical waste of time."
"Beep Boop Beep"

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u mean the lazy people. I mean anyone can run an addon that scans the AH 1000 times a day and alerts you to an item thats priced too low but what fun is that? I used to find all kinds of steals in Ultima Online just wandering from house to house. Hell sometimes it literally was a steal because people might set their house permissions wrong and I just walk in and clean them out lol.

Trading in Ultima Online just seemed like it would have been back in the middle ages. I used to just sit at the blacksmith shop and advertise my skill since I was a grandmaster smith. I would also repair armor and weapons for donations. It was like running my own little shop. Id talk to people and sometimes would make deals to where hunters would always buy weapons and armor from me. Then I would talk to the miners and buy their ingots in bulk when they had them. Not to mention they would tell people they knew to buy/sell to me so i always had a steady supply of both customers and suppliers.

But in WoW and even other modern games you dont have any of that. No one builds up business relations with other players to drum up business. There are no more loyal customers or business partners. I mean do people even know who they are buying stuff from off the auction house?

Sorry to hear you're weeping about addons :'( but people who are smart enough can do that stuff, i'd rather use the AH than get some cammy deals, some games even work around that like gw2 does, I like playing the AH, it saves me time doing stupid transactions to no end to get my goal.

I still remember those trading days, and seriously I hate them, it took a hell of a lot of time to get a freaking deal done.

"Beep boop, need to talk and coordinate with my friends-guild members for a cooperative effort on taking a raid boss"
Yep just like a machine would, team effort, or
"Beep boop, need to spamchat for a trade on getting X item i need to for an Y ammounts of days of farming due to artificial timeconstraints"

[kail]

I find that EvE has the best form of economy and trade compared to other modern MMOs. This is mostly because it has the convenience of the AH with the need to travel in order to make the better buy or sale because the AH are location based (meaning you can't buy something on the other side of the game because that AH would be too far).

AH simulators tend to have their own fun embedded when there are players wanting to control some (or most) of the economy.

[Saxtorph]

The issue I have with trading in MMOs nowadays is that people refuse to haggle, and frown upon haggling in general. You advertise your wares, they ask for a price, they don't like at they just go nope and leave.
Same when you try to haggle a price down, people generally go nope, that's it.

I think people are too used to automation at this point.

That's just real life working it's way into the game. Do you haggle when you go to the market or when you go out to buy a new shirt? Chances are the answer is no. Plus you have to remember that with the preponderance of children in-game the culture slides more toward a state of intolerance and greed. Again, much like real life.