derpsticks wrote: »

Hello all,

I have been toying with this idea in my head and believe that it has potential. I will admit that I have not read the giant AH thread that seems to be growing by the minute. So please excuse me if this idea was already mentioned in that thread.

I would like to start a discussion to explore the possibilities of using a one way exchange for trade. Essentially I am imagining a trade system where players are only allowed to place buy orders for various items in the game.

For instance, if I wanted to place an order for a stack of 100 calcinium ingots at 10g each I would deposit 1000g into the exchange, and place the order accordingly. Now, another player that is selling calcinium ingots could see this order and decide whether they would like to sell their ingots at 10g each. Of course other players may attempt to outbid me by placing a buy order at a higher unit price. The important thing about an exchange is that the highest priced buy order must be filled prior to filling any orders that are priced lower. So if someone outbid me at 11g per ingot, all of the 11g order would need to be filled before my 10g order could even be touched. Another reasons I like the idea of an exchange is the potential for incremental purchases. So given a large buy order, wouldn't it be nice to be able to purchase a portion of a stack of the items offered? Or wouldn't it be nice to place an order for a massive amount of dwarven oil that arrives piecemeal as people sell you 1-2 at a time? This is all contrary to the current system where the stack for sale is the stack for sale, no negotiating, no finding a smaller stack at a higher unit price, no need to divide that 100x stack of food into 5-10 stacks of 10-20, wasting precious guild store listing space in the process.

Another important feature to note is that every order placed at the same price per unit would be indistinguishable from each other. So if five players place orders at 10g per ingot and each wants 100 than the exchange would show an order of 500 ingots at 10g each. This prevents sellers from excluding anyone when selling their wares. Obviously as the orders are filled there could be various arbitration schemes implemented that determine which orders are filled first for a specific price point. These schemes include first in first out, round-robin, order-size weighted, exchange fee based, etc. This would be up to the programmers.

By having an exchange as opposed to an AH every player would be driven to outbid each other in order to get their respective orders filled sooner. This would allow items to rise in price until someone sees a price point appealing enough to sell. This is much better than a traditional AH where players cut their prices repeatedly when there is competition. I believe that a system where players need to raise the amount they are willing to spend on an item would increase the circulation of goods in the economy. Considering that someone might not be inclined to sell or move their possessions with artificially low prices. Instead, a player might be more inclined to sell something they otherwise wouldn't because the price is too good to pass up.

What I really like about this system is that it would tremendously cut down on the WTB WTS spam in zone chat and it would alleviate players from having to constantly and actively seek out the items they want to buy. By placing an order and forgetting about it, players could concentrate on other aspects of the game that they otherwise wouldn't be able to. I see this as a huge plus for people with limited hours to play the game. Why waste 30-45 minutes attempting to buy or sell something specific when you only have 1-2 hours of play time?

I would also like to note that since players could only place standing buy orders, there would be no way for gold farmers to actively push their wares and instead they could only fill any buy orders that have been placed. While technically a well stocked farmer could potentially wipe out an entire order book if there were enough buy orders, I think they would have more incentive to limit the number of sales they make since holding their mats and slowly selling at a higher price would most likely be more profitable than running the market into the ground constantly. I contemplate that this system might actually enable ZOS to better manage the bot problem / gold sellers. I believe that this system would allow them to spot and thwart potential in game economy abuse because they could easily monitor the exchange for obscurities such as a player or players flooding a specific market and stopping the abuse almost instantly. This could easily be accomplish by executing the entire exchange on intervals of 5-10 minutes. This way for each given time period every transaction is executed substantially simultaneously (obviously checks and balanced would be needed to ensure transactions meet requirements and are always in line with current prices). Therefore, if during one time interval a massive sell off of Kuta runes takes place ZOS would have ample time to verify the transaction and correct it if necessary.


Anyways, I hope everyone can offer some constructive thoughts on this.

At the very least, if ZOS can take one thing away from this post, it would be that I would really like the option to place a standing order for certain items that I could set and forget. I would much rather be able to see which items a player wants and the price they are willing to pay for those items.

Thanks for putting up with the wall of text.

derpsticks wrote: »

I disagree with your idea and here is why:

For instance, if I wanted to place an order for a stack of 100 calcinium ingots at 10g each I would deposit 1000g into the exchange, and place the order accordingly. Now, another player that is selling calcinium ingots could see this order and decide whether they would like to sell their ingots at 10g each. Of course other players may attempt to outbid me by placing a buy order at a higher unit price. The important thing about an exchange is that the highest priced buy order must be filled prior to filling any orders that are priced lower. So if someone outbid me at 11g per ingot, all of the 11g order would need to be filled before my 10g order could even be touched. Another reasons I like the idea of an exchange is the potential for incremental purchases. So given a large buy order, wouldn't it be nice to be able to purchase a portion of a stack of the items offered? Or wouldn't it be nice to place an order for a massive amount of dwarven oil that arrives piecemeal as people sell you 1-2 at a time? This is all contrary to the current system where the stack for sale is the stack for sale, no negotiating, no finding a smaller stack at a higher unit price, no need to divide that 100x stack of food into 5-10 stacks of 10-20, wasting precious guild store listing space in the process.

me and my buddies want to control the purple improvement material market. we constantly outbid and mark up our prices for a huge gain thus increasing prices. i can do this because this is all what if anyhow. since under your system all higher bids must be filled and me and my associates have unlimited funds how does this stop us? conversely if you have an auction house with posted items competitors can undercut each other to drive prices down. i don't see how you can keep prices low with your exchange idea. plus putting money into the exchange without getting anything in return (until my bid wins) is money i can't use when i need it.

By having an exchange as opposed to an AH every player would be driven to outbid each other in order to get their respective orders filled sooner. This would allow items to rise in price until someone sees a price point appealing enough to sell. This is much better than a traditional AH where players cut their prices repeatedly when there is competition. I believe that a system where players need to raise the amount they are willing to spend on an item would increase the circulation of goods in the economy. Considering that someone might not be inclined to sell or move their possessions with artificially low prices. Instead, a player might be more inclined to sell something they otherwise wouldn't because the price is too good to pass up.

see prices go up with your idea. you even say so yourself. as a consumer more often than a seller i want lower prices. and lets look at the extremes in both cases. exchanges with rising prices can eventually get too expensive to afford anything worth while. on the other hand auction houses with obscenely low prices means you don't have alot of currency being spent per purchase but can afford many things.

What I really like about this system is that it would tremendously cut down on the WTB WTS spam in zone chat and it would alleviate players from having to constantly and actively seek out the items they want to buy. By placing an order and forgetting about it, players could concentrate on other aspects of the game that they otherwise wouldn't be able to. I see this as a huge plus for people with limited hours to play the game. Why waste 30-45 minutes attempting to buy or sell something specific when you only have 1-2 hours of play time?

no i don't think that will happen because we see so much of it now its become habit or second nature to spam chat for your trades in many people's case. i think it willstill be there simply because of instant gratification. i know if i can move more product faster by spamming chat i'll do that (no matter if there is guild stores, exchanges, AH, or whatever system the game uses)

I would also like to note that since players could only place standing buy orders, there would be no way for gold farmers to actively push their wares and instead they could only fill any buy orders that have been placed. While technically a well stocked farmer could potentially wipe out an entire order book if there were enough buy orders, I think they would have more incentive to limit the number of sales they make since holding their mats and slowly selling at a higher price would most likely be more profitable than running the market into the ground constantly. I contemplate that this system might actually enable ZOS to better manage the bot problem / gold sellers. I believe that this system would allow them to spot and thwart potential in game economy abuse because they could easily monitor the exchange for obscurities such as a player or players flooding a specific market and stopping the abuse almost instantly. This could easily be accomplish by executing the entire exchange on intervals of 5-10 minutes. This way for each given time period every transaction is executed substantially simultaneously (obviously checks and balanced would be needed to ensure transactions meet requirements and are always in line with current prices). Therefore, if during one time interval a massive sell off of Kuta runes takes place ZOS would have ample time to verify the transaction and correct it if necessary.

you do know that botting and gold selling are two sides of the same coin. the botters sell what they farm to legitimate people under your exchange system. thus enabling that bad behavior this same system is supposed to help curb. and the gold sellers will continue to sell gold because people will want to buy gold to put into the exchange to feed the botters to buy more gold feeding the gold sellers.

where as with the auction house you still have those botters and gold sellers but the system doesn't force you to support them. i can willingly not buy the botters items and also not buy the gold sellers gold.

under any economy you are gonna have botters and gold sellers. its just simple supply and demand. i simply believe AH is better than what you proposed for exchanges