(Cross-posted from reddit)
tl;dr: Replace the current origin-centralized and omnipresent auction house with physical player-owned storefronts to allow for more variety in the economy and more gameplay opportunities.
The Problems:
My Solution:
The Pros:
The Cons:
Anyway, if you've made it this far, thanks for listening to my ted talk and all that, and please offer any other constructive criticism or ideas you might have. While I do enjoy the study and discussion of game design, I'm also certainly not perfect myself, so there's more than likely some major glaring issue just waiting to ruin my day.
Cheers,
- Lan
tl;dr: Replace the current origin-centralized and omnipresent auction house with physical player-owned storefronts to allow for more variety in the economy and more gameplay opportunities.
The Problems:
- Currently, there are pretty much only two ways to exchange your hard-earned goods for credits: NPC origin shops and the auction house.
The NPC origin shops serve to create a default minimum value for every product to prevent them from crashing into the ground, so those can be left alone for the most part. The auction house, on the other hand, is where things start getting a little more complicated. - As it stands, the auction house is currently a magical, omnipresent (at least at origins) system.
Right now, the only viable way to trade is to can float your goods into the aether for a fixed price and hope someone else buys. If someone is selling Bastium for 2300 credits, then I have no choice but to either match or undercut that price, since there's nowhere else to sell other than at the default minimum price. (Yes, players can trade independently, but this is far and few between, and also prone to scams and other such trust issues which may discourage manual bartering). - Since it is unknown if there are plans to bring auction house functionality to player stations or the moon cities, we can assume that this is currently the only viable way to trade between players at the moment.
- Thus, having essentially a single hub for all trade results in only a single price at any given time for basically all items. Unless I'm searching specifically for bulk offers to reduce the time spent clicking, I'm always going to take whatever offer's the cheapest, because... why wouldn't I? So then, what's stopping players from engaging in a near-endless trade war of continuously undercutting each other's prices as they slowly approach that default minimum value? At that point, why even bother with the auction house when it might be faster and easier to just sell to the NPC shop?
My Solution:
- Require Players to Physically Transport Items to Trading Locations
Instead of letting players use their magic station inventories to magically teleport goods into some system where they can instantly be exchanged, I'd like to see the introduction of physical trading locations in stations and moon cities where storefronts can be created, rented, and managed. This would decentralize the economy and allow for different places to sell things at different prices rather than everyone being a slave to what the lowest price currently is. This would also allow for trade to be possible at places other than just the origins, allowing the playerbase to spread out beyond the confines of the starting ringle. - Storefronts
Storefronts would be physical locations where goods can be put up for sale. They would feature an internal inventory to which items can be transferred to and from the station/city inventory to be put up for sale at fixed prices. They would also feature trading terminals that function similarly to the auction house where all available wares as well as their stocks and prices would be displayed and could be bought. Players would also be able to create their own buy orders to which others could sell to, which could even be further expanded to allow for bartering for non-credit items, such as trading one ore directly for another or other valuable commodities. Finally, similar to the currently defunct origin stores, they would also offer cosmetic furniture items like display cases and racks to further customize the look of your storefront, which could also offer some monetization opportunities. - Storefront Creation and Management
In public areas like the origins and moon cities, open bazaars will exist where one can temporarily rent a premade storefront for quick and easy selling of goods. There will probably have to be some kind of instancing shenanigans going on to allow for larger amounts of stores, but otherwise players will be free to open their own shops instead of being forced to use a single centralized auction house. Private areas like player stations would instead allow players to make their own custom storefronts using the same station-building tools currently available. Player stations would also have the option to rent space out to other players as well, allowing them to earn a small tax on goods sold and allowing for those who don't want to go through the trouble of making their own station to instead set up shop at someone else's. This performed on large enough numbers could even create entire hubs of trade separate from the origin stations.
The Pros:
- Variable Pricing
The current economy is exceeding simple, as there is pretty much only one price listed for an item at any given time. Prices may rise and fall over time, but unless you're some sort of psychopath, you're more than likely just going to buy whatever the lowest available offer is. Requiring trading to occur at physical locations instead of a centralized and omnipresent system would allow for shops to offer items at different prices depending on the supply/demand of the local market instead of a single boring price that can't be changed unless someone undercuts it. This also introduces the ability to potentially make bigger profits by buying up items from a place where they are abundant and selling them to one where that item is more scarce, aligning with how markets work in the real world. - Introduction of More Gameplay Options and Player Interaction
Variable pricing would make mercantile gameplay a much more viable option alongside store management. Due to the requirement of physical transport of goods, trade outposts and trade routes would also have to be secured, introducing more piracy and anti-piracy opportunities than just camping the edge of safe space. Things such as caravans and bodyguarding would also become viable options due to the necessity of physical transport. This would also bring in more demand for larger cargo ships, and consequently more ships for both attacking and protecting them. The idea for this system actually mostly comes from my time roleplaying as a merchant in the Mount & Blade games, where each city had different prices for goods based on local scarcity and market fluctuations. You had to actually listen for (potentially inaccurate) rumors on the market prices in other cities and suss out whether or not the risk vs. reward was great enough to invest in those products and make the journey. Of course, this being an mmo, the depth of such gameplay becomes so much wider as a result of having far more variables at hand to deal with. - More Public Stations
Right now, a large majority of stations are private, whether to a company or solo players. This is mostly because there really isn't a reason to give away your position to others, especially considering that there isn't much reason to visit another player's station. Physical trade locations would become that reason, as players could open their stations to others for the purpose of selling goods or renting lots, becoming hubs of travel to spice up the current emptiness of space. For an mmo, there really isn't much interaction with other players at the moment beyond the very occasional instances of pvp or coming across someone afk at one of the origin facilities. Since anyone within 2 km of the origin stations can access the auction house, more often than not we have ships just floating around the station, not interacting with each other at all. More reasons to travel to other stations would also become more reasons to deck out your station to make it look more appealing to incoming travelers (which will also allow for more cosmetics to be sold hint hint wink wink).
The Cons:
- Item Exclusivity
While I would love to have this idea implemented as soon as possible, there is a lot of groundwork that would have to be done to make it a reality. For example, there would have to be a lot more location-specific items, gathering methods, and specialized manufacturing processes to create exclusivity. Currently, most items are very widely available, partly due to a lack of demand, but also because of resources being only distance-based, which means anyone with a decent ship and enough time to burn can go out and bring those resources back. More variety in items would create exclusivity between areas of space, giving an actual reason to ferry cargo to and from different locations, since not every item will be readily available. - Prerequisite Systems
There are also a lot of systems that would still need to be implemented before an economy overhaul would be within sight. Inventory 2.0 would introduce the ability to haul items and not just ore. Station functionality is also a must if we want to eventually leave the origin ringle and become truly self-sufficient. This means things like the ability to access the SSC, insurance transfer facilities, factories and other manufacturing processes, rentable lots, player ship shops, and other things to separate ourselves from the origins. These systems also tie into solving the previous problem of not enough item variety as stations become more specialized in what they can produce. - Too Small a Playerbase
Contrary to my section on Issues, one of the biggest pros of the current auction house system is that it's a magical and omnipresent system. Considering the relatively small playerbase the game has at the moment, this is really the only viable option, especially considering that the playerbase is also split across different timezones and has clear primetimes of currently online players. For a physical shop system to work, there would need to be enough players to support having a decentralized economy system, since even if we get the ability to open our own shops, it'll be for nothing there's no one to come along and buy. The ability to simply put an item up for sale on every origin station simultaneously greatly raises the chances that at least eventually a buyer might come along. - Too Large A Playerbase
Now in contrast to my previous point, having too many players would also pose a problem, especially to public areas like the origins and moon cities. Open bazaars are a good idea in concept, but also likely need to implement some sort of instancing system once the amount of player storefronts becomes too much. A good solution for this problem comes from the game Phantasy Star Online 2, which also features public player-run shops. PSO2 allows players to simply search for the items they want, and be given a list of stores that sell that item and for what prices. The problem with that, however, is that we now come again full-circle to everyone undercutting each other until the default minimum price is reached. My hope with this system is that such a problem will only be a local one that exists at particularly large trade hubs, since the decentralizing of trade would allow for prices to fluctuate between different locations. - Advertisement Spam
No one wants to be obliterated by a deluge of people advertising their shops, and while something like a market channel for the chat and forums could be implemented, it would also introduce a lot of moderation work. However, these issues have already been dealt with in other games with a player-run economy, so I don't think this is too much of a problem.
Anyway, if you've made it this far, thanks for listening to my ted talk and all that, and please offer any other constructive criticism or ideas you might have. While I do enjoy the study and discussion of game design, I'm also certainly not perfect myself, so there's more than likely some major glaring issue just waiting to ruin my day.
Cheers,
- Lan
