1 Topic by Gaulois (edited by Gaulois 2012-06-04 22:58:08)

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Topic: Fusing Markets to increase activity

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.

My blog about MMO design:
http://mmockery.wordpress.com/
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Re: Fusing Markets to increase activity

All the market orders were cancelled in the patch.

No one has any stockpiles of Siglum, and the new Prismo plant was bugged for 2 days, meaning supplies for the new materials were very low, but that's temporary as these new materials aren't rare, they're just new.

Once producers become comfortable with supplys they will start producing again, and market supply will increase again.

Tl;dr - Its too soon to call for any changes in the market based on changes in the patch. Give it a while and if it's still borked, then revisit.

3 Reply by Sundial (edited by Sundial 2012-06-04 20:31:40)

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Re: Fusing Markets to increase activity

The market is not usually this bad. All of the sell orders got reset during the expansion resulting in a completely desolate market. The change in the layout of islands does not help at all either.

A better idea would be to seed common items at alpha 1 islands at much higher prices than it would cost to buy from a player (lights, assaults, commonly used T1 items).

You don't need to redesign the whole system to be newbie friendly throwing away all its depth in the process when you could just tweak it to be more friendly to new players.

Looking forward to new players and new conflicts.
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Re: Fusing Markets to increase activity

Well, while all offers were cancelled recently on the market, I base my suggestion on the last year I experienced on Perpetuum.

Fitting a bot in Tier 4 is awful to do, and selling stuff is also a tedious process. I like to play mainly fighter. Making cash and replacing bots lost in PvP is just hideous without a corp.  Nothing change the fact that running between all 6 alpha just to fit a bot is less then entertaining.

If you want to keep the current system, then I believe we need a better freighter than scarab, options to buy and specially sell from distance, and autopilot.

Fusing all markets looks actually much easier development wise than the rest.

My blog about MMO design:
http://mmockery.wordpress.com/
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Re: Fusing Markets to increase activity

Gaulois wrote:

Well, while all offers were cancelled recently on the market, I base my suggestion on the last year I experienced on Perpetuum.

Fitting a bot in Tier 4 is awful to do, and selling stuff is also a tedious process. I like to play mainly fighter. Making cash and replacing bots lost in PvP is just hideous without a corp.  Nothing change the fact that running between all 6 alpha just to fit a bot is less then entertaining.

If you want to keep the current system, then I believe we need a better freighter than scarab, options to buy and specially sell from distance, and autopilot.

Fusing all markets looks actually much easier development wise than the rest.

The rest of it would preserve the depth of the system instead of throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

Looking forward to new players and new conflicts.
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Re: Fusing Markets to increase activity

I think there should be the ability to remotely purchase an item. then you can go pick it up at your leisure. But the market will recover  from the wipe and the last 3 weeks of people not selling in prep for gamma.

Remote buying +1
Fusing all markets -1

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Re: Fusing Markets to increase activity

+1 to fused market and remote delivery both.  This game needs *something* to take away from the grind; especially for the alpha newbs who just got rat *** by the teleport system.

Population graphs

<GM Synapse> please don't abuse our fresh players before blowing them up. And for god sakes, don't do that after it!
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Re: Fusing Markets to increase activity

Add remote buying and contracting system.

Problem solved without removing any sand.

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Re: Fusing Markets to increase activity

Sundial wrote:
Gaulois wrote:

If you want to keep the current system, then I believe we need a better freighter than scarab, options to buy and specially sell from distance, and autopilot.

Fusing all markets looks actually much easier development wise than the rest.

The rest of it would preserve the depth of the system instead of throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

Well, I really do not believe this is "throwing out the system". The current system is not working as intended, we do not have the population for the current system to have an healthy concurrence.

Fusing the markets is certainly a big change, and I know that it will not please everyone. But I beg you, think about it from the point of view of all the newcomers that couldn't even afford basic gear (or it was spread across every islands) and simply left.
I remember having troubles to simply afford basic ammunitions if I left the blue islands.

My blog about MMO design:
http://mmockery.wordpress.com/

10 Reply by Lucius Marcellus (edited by Lucius Marcellus 2012-06-05 00:19:41)

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Re: Fusing Markets to increase activity

I think fusing the market is a bit too extreme of an action to ask for. Further, as Arga already pointed out making such a cry just after all market orders got reset is a bit unfair.

What we really need is some small and in my opinion quite straightforward changes that have been requested for a long time:

  • Spark teleport -  This would essentially half the travel time.

  • Remote buying - Will make it much easier to buy.

  • Allow more market orders - Will allow people to actually post all the stuff they want (I'd personally love to make a serious effort to post T1-T4 gear on the market, but I really don't have enough orders to play with).

  • Decrease taxes - Current taxes really only favour dedicated traders, and this is really bad.

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Re: Fusing Markets to increase activity

The market is screwed and will keep going the way it is the more the devs mess with Resource's. They not only wiped what little was on the market off. But to boot changed what was needed to build almost EVERYTHING. On top of all that roaming resource nodes and the fact most of the bots bigger then assault now take Brio/Esp/Alligor ....to build a Termis?.....Prices will more then likely go down a bit but not much and market will most likely never recover from this as most have stopped mining.

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Re: Fusing Markets to increase activity

Zigzagman2 wrote:

Prices will more then likely go down a bit but not much and market will most likely never recover from this as most have stopped mining.

Source?

Looking forward to new players and new conflicts.
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Re: Fusing Markets to increase activity

Sundial wrote:
Zigzagman2 wrote:

Prices will more then likely go down a bit but not much and market will most likely never recover from this as most have stopped mining.

Source?

 

go look around its not hard to see..... game pop is already down half what it was patch day.

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Re: Fusing Markets to increase activity

Zigzagman2 wrote:
Sundial wrote:
Zigzagman2 wrote:

Prices will more then likely go down a bit but not much and market will most likely never recover from this as most have stopped mining.

Source?

 

go look around its not hard to see..... game pop is already down half what it was patch day.

Server is highly active still in my time zone; aka - can't see this problem from my desk.

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Re: Fusing Markets to increase activity

Zigzagman2 wrote:

go look around its not hard to see..... game pop is already down half what it was patch day.

lol

patchday was friday, the server was down almost until saturday (my timezone)
two day weekend after a new patch, and for the british player, two national holidays to cherish their queen.

having a lower population on tuesday then on such a weekend is an indicator for you that the patch was a fail?

*Disclaimer: This post can contain strong sarcasm or cynical remarks. keep that in mind!
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16 Reply by Gaulois (edited by Gaulois 2012-06-06 21:28:48)

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Re: Fusing Markets to increase activity

Annihilator wrote:
Zigzagman2 wrote:

go look around its not hard to see..... game pop is already down half what it was patch day.

lol

patchday was friday, the server was down almost until saturday (my timezone)
two day weekend after a new patch, and for the british player, two national holidays to cherish their queen.

having a lower population on tuesday then on such a weekend is an indicator for you that the patch was a fail?

Well, I don't think this patch was a fail. Quite the contrary.

However, I feel the devs are just trying to add more grind and more complexity to please their current population. The more difficult and grindy you make this game, and the less it gets viable for casual players / Players with one account / solo / non-blob.
(you know, those silent guys representing up to 95% of MMO population but who never speak on the forums nor in-game?)

Anyway, I fear adding more complexity for the sake of complexity will only decrease our population over time.

If you do not want to fuse the market for accessibility, that's fine too, but then we need urgently what Lucius said :

Lucius wrote:

- Spark teleport -  This would essentially half the travel time.
- Remote buying - Will make it much easier to buy.
- Allow more market orders - Will allow people to actually post all the stuff they want (I'd personally love to make a serious effort to post T1-T4 gear on the market, but I really don't have enough orders to play with).
- Decrease taxes - Current taxes really only favour dedicated traders, and this is really bad.

I don't see the point of taxes either. It force people to use an alt for trading/selling. Little solo casual fighters can't even sell their plasma without taking a full blow from the taxes. Remove the taxes skill plz, and decrease taxes for everyone (or remove them.)

My blog about MMO design:
http://mmockery.wordpress.com/