IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER: I know many of you will not enjoy my following suggestion. But please, bear in mind that my point here is not to "please" the current players, but try to fix a strong negative point of our game that undoubtedly made us lose many potential players after a couple days. Namely : The market in-game, and the fact it's almost empty.
Our market is deserted.
Yesterday again, I was looking to buy Medium Slugs (blue ammo) in Tellesis (blue island) and I barely found 20k ammo on the market. Then I wanted a simple Sequer to grab my loots home, and there was only 3 of them on the market, at TMA (green Island very far away), for 4 millions each (overpriced).
Think about how you play. Do you often put things on the market? No, most big producer joined a corp, and produce for the corp. Ever if you were to sell your stocks, it takes a lot of time to simply transport the stuff, and you will probably not spread the 10 bots you are trying to sell between the 6 Alpha Island. It's tedious and boring. All the same Players will not run around all the 6 Alpha to find a couple modules... provided they can even find the module they are looking for at a normal price on the market.
StEvE managed to make it somewhat works. But StEvE has auto-pilot and much better population. Our curent population does not permit such mechanic, and quite frankly, Perpetuum offer much less chances to run away from a fight than StEvE, therefore we lose more bots and must produce more.
I really believe there is no need for Perpetuum to be as tedious as StEvE.
My goal is to reach a wider population of players, and bring an easier in-game market for everyone, and more particularly a casual audience.
I would like to fuse all separate markets as one single global market between every outpost.
Players will be able to buy and sell from any terminal.
Transport of goods will be courtesy of "The Syndicate" (for a tax).
When placing an item on the market, you will pay the market fee, and when the item is sold, players will receive it in the outpost they bought it from. You will receive the price the player paid, minus the taxes for handling & shipping (15%).
Of course, such system poses a couple issues to be addressed:
Quest Items will be non-tradeable on the market (I believe they already are)
Plasma will no-longer be tradeable on the market. Instead, a terminal much like any mission drop terminal will be available outside every outpost for you to drop your plasma and receive the corresponding price.
The plasma is a special case. I know this is killing some very easy money for people who buy plasma on the market and transport it on their Beta island to sell at higher price. But if you think about it, isn't that a bit too easy to just buy NPC drops to resell at other NPC ? This is just a profitable transport mission. I did it myself a bit, and I don't really care if it disappear in the profit of a better market full of modules & stuff.
Dropping the plasma should be free of taxes, and always available, even if the outpost is locked. This will encourage roaming of bots in ennemy territories to drop plasma near their terminal!
Buy offers will still be available, but items will be stored in a temporary storage until ou accept the delivery in your curent station.
To prevent abuse, it will not be possible to select the offer you want to buy. You will automatically buy the lowest offer. If it still too high for you, you can place a buy order.
Likewise, to prevent abuse, it will not be possible to select the buy offer you want to sell to. You will automatically sell to the highest offer. If it still not enough for you, you can place a sell order.
Obviously, such a system is here for easy access for our current small population. Should the population grow, we might want to separate Alphas from Betas, or separate green/blue/yellow as the population grow.
Frequently Asked Questions :
- Are you not killing the point of transport and freighters? People will sell at one terminal to buy in the other one!
Well, first, real freighters are not available in Perpetuum. Even a scarab full of minerals is barely enough to produce 4 or 5 mech. This mean that people gather minerals around the same place they will produce.
No one was really Freighting for a living before, and fusing the market will not change anything for thoses who do not use it.
Plus, do not forget that Selling/Buying on the market will be affected by the 15% taxes, and you most probably won't be able to buy your own offer unless you are the only one on the market. You will probably sell your stuff at a slightly lower price than buying it (or risk that someone outbid you, and you won't be able to buy what you tried to sell on the other side for "safe transport".
Possibilities to exploit such system for a safe transport of your own goods are very limited. You will most probably sell all your stuff on one side to get NIC, go back home, and use the NIC to buy what you really needed. Therefore, generates activities and trading on the market.
People who simply do not wish to buy to other players, or wants to avoid taxes, will still be able to transport their goods.
Please comment.
