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Freeport Marketplace - Auction House -   

69 members have voted

  1. 1. Should a Marketplace (Auction House) be added to Freeports?

    • Yes, A Marketplace should be added, connecting all Freeports.
      26
    • No, A Marketplace shouldn't be added, connecting all Freeports.
      6
    • Yes, A Marketplace should be added, but each Freeport is its own trade hub, Marketplace not connected to the other Freeports.
      37


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Goal Accomplished. Free-Port Shops (Player Ran) with actual item/gold price setting, to be put in Free-Ports come Feb.




Good evening,

As the game continues to combine many facets from Ark and EvE Online many a question has cropped up regarding an Auction House. I am personally in the party that suggests an Auction house is created in the game, so I have taken the time to create this poll. There are a few options so first allow me to explain what an Auction House is for those that may have not played MMORPG's, then follow it up with choice descriptions.

Auction House

An Auction House or in this case Marketplace, is a tool that players may use to buy/sell/trade goods they've crafted/gathered/plundered. Generally an Auction House is not filled with "Dev Goods", and everything on the Auction House comes directly from the work of another player. Players are able to set price for the item they're selling, or ask for a specific number of items in return. Here I will list some common items that may be traded.

Seller 1

1,000 Fiber
(Asking Price) - 5 Gold Pieces 

Seller 2
500 Metal
(Asking Price) - 15 Gold Pieces

Seller 3
100 Stone Foundations
(Asking Price) - 100 Gold Pieces

Seller 4
100 Seeds
(Asking Price) - 200 Alloy

In general buyers will find said items and make a purchase, thus instantly receiving the item into their inventory or a predetermined box, such as a Mailbox. In our case, we would need to have a mailbox of sorts. Or a "Pirate" near the Marketplace holding onto our bought and sold items so that we may pick them up. Or have a build structure known as a AH House box that is Pin-Coded to exchanged goods.

Now I will discuss the options at hand.

1. Option 1.

A Marketplace is added to all Freeports, connecting all Freeports to eachother.

This option would add the classic Auction House experience, such as World of Warcraft. Where the entire server is connected and able to buy/sell/trade goods. This allows players from the North/South/East/West to access goods they would other wise have to travel lengths to get. Overall, this experience allows for trade, however often times ends up inflated as goods become easier to acquire.

2. Option 2.

A Marketplace isn't added to the game, and the game remains in its current state.

This option completely eliminates the idea of an Auction House, keeping the game as it is. The only trade in the game is single, out in the field player to player interactions. Decent enough for survival games, but lacking for MMORPG games.

3. Option 3.

A Marketplace is added to the game, however Freeports are not connected, thus creating individual Marketplaces, or trade Hubs.

This option would add a modified Auction House to the game, this is an experience akin to EvE Online. In which ports would have goods brought in and created by players, working in a similar fashion to the Classic Auction House, however these Auction Houses are not connected, creating true High-Low markets, making some Ports better than others, while keeping identity to zones. This experience allows for trade, and generally does not inflate while keeping the market competitive. That being said, this option does not give all items at your disposal as a option 1 would and would still require you to travel great distances in order to obtain some items, but allows for better Craft/Trade overall.


My personal take

Personally, I am a fan of Option 3. To me this keeps markets competitive, and allows traders/crafters to really learn their craft and make a better profit for the time and effort they put in. It also keeps all Freeports hot and bustling, preventing a central Hub from completely taking over (though you will have some places better than others). It will have a stronger effect over the political game, and Empire late game. Thus it allows for more Pirating, and random events in the open to happen. Creating more content.

Anyway, goodluck. Thanks for voting. 
 

Edited by Tarvald
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15 hours ago, Katastrophe said:

Love this idea! Hopefully some more votes come in :)

Same, seem to be getting some. Hope to see more.

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really love the idea. but I am against one hub connecting all ports. i would much ather see NPC / ai ships that transport goods between those. 

they are in convys, have NPC´s on board to defend the shop and NPC warships offering protection. 
the more valuable the cargo is, the higher tier the defenses. 
so a ship that transports might be a sloop with two swivel guns on it, while a gold transport (maybe a timed event 1x per week or daily or so ? ) is heavyl guared by multiple ships

that would bring some life into the seas . and further establish trade in the game

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1 minute ago, psykikk said:

really love the idea. but I am against one hub connecting all ports. i would much ather see NPC / ai ships that transport goods between those. 

they are in convys, have NPC´s on board to defend the shop and NPC warships offering protection. 
the more valuable the cargo is, the higher tier the defenses. 
so a ship that transports might be a sloop with two swivel guns on it, while a gold transport (maybe a timed event 1x per week or daily or so ? ) is heavyl guared by multiple ships

that would bring some life into the seas . and further establish trade in the game

Agreed, that is why option 3 is my personal choice. Where each free-port has its own non-connected Auction House. I feel in this way that it would create content by still requiring trade on the open seas.

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Yeah, I don't like the idea of an Auction House, Maybe Trade post. Auction Houses (like in wow) bring a ton of problems with it.. and I think most of you who have played games with  player driven auction houses, know what I am talking about. This set up posted here isn't too bad.  I still like the company driven Trade Post (they can set up at their Company owned land/port that links to a Company Bank, better.  I am not sure what the already re opened Trade ships have on them, though 🙂  or what more the npc's are selling , now.

Do know that a lot of people seem to want a wider range of npc interaction in the homeports to make it feel like a "living city" but, not sure how quickly they want to add stuff in while they are still working on bigger issues. lol.

Edited by Liatni

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I don't belive a player driven auctionhouse with resources and items is a good fit within the game scope.

While you don't have it, you need to establish allied trading routes towards multiple cells in order to manage to get the resources you'd want, generating sea activity regularly in different directions depending on where you are established and what are your needs.

If you were to have it, you would have everyone sailing centralized towards their closest freeport/s, sailing the exact same routes and on top of that being risk-free since freeports have no PvP, which, if anything, would overpopulate freeports, which in turn would make it worse for starting or restarting players. We all remember what happened when there were too many active bodies in freeports.

Do you really need resources that you don't have anywhere close? Do your research. Are they too far? Need help? Explore. Make allies. Trade somewhere in the middle.

I thought that pirates and merchants spent time in the sea during the pirate era, not afk in a safe spot or idling in front of an auctionhouse. What will be next, asking for mailboxes? This isn't wow, fellas. The game is about playing.

It could be cool to have  players being able to establish tradeports somewhere in their own claimed areas, to ensure people sailing in/from multiple directions in order to import/export local products and trade with them. Centralized auctionhouses automate things too much and make people lazy.

Player interaction should always prevail over automated systems. There are more than enough active players for that to happen as of now. The game has just seen its launch.

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Of those options, I like 3 the best, but voted for 2 because I think we could do better than all of them.  If this is supposed to be a game where territory matters, and sea travel is important, let's keep trading regional.  On the pve servers, the only real competition there is economic, so let the companies vie for the best islands, and the traders work hard to get a shop on a good  island with high traffic.  It makes it worthwhile having to pay taxes to some company if you can get a great vendor spot, and if your wares and prices are good enough, people will come from all over to shop there.  (Hell, I just went 8 servers away just to get salt!)  Once this is up and running, do away with all the NPC vendors except for newbie stuff and cosmetics and let the players provide it.

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you have the exact same thing in EVE online. 
central trading hubs,. the major differnece ios only zthat those hubs are protected by AI ships. 

so in order to implement this, you would need AI navy ships ptralling the sctor, as well as cannons on the ports protecting the harbor. 

 

 

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connecting all of the freeport auction houses as one would take out the need for not only traders (by specific definition, someone who goes to get maize far away to bring it to a freeport in an area that has none to make max profit.) i agree that some sort of marketplace would be awesome, but connecting them all would totally cut out what i consider to be one of the most potentially awesome aspects that could come to the game.

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Option three is the best.  Connecting all the Freeport will make this open to Chinese farming companies that have plagued other games.  By keeping the freeport markets independent, they cannot dominate one area with a free port and flood the whole game with materials. Materials rare and uncommon in one area could then  be moved by bold traders looking to make a profit. Lone traders or trading fleets will provide fun content.  Trading companies will form.  Piracy will be more profitable.  Mercenary companies providing protection for a price can thrive.

 

Connecting all the markets eliminates this totally.

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For safety within the freeport zones you could handle it many ways.  A "Commonwealth" of Allied Freeports that have their own powerful fleet that will appear and destroy you if you fire on another vessel or take aggressive action.  Hanging cages in the freeport attacked with the skeletons of those who defied the Commonwealth Laws of Peace.

Concord of Peace - when you cross into a Freeport zone you automatically agree to a Concord of Peace. None of your weapons will work.

Now, the zones adjacent to the Freeport zones will be where Pirates and Pirate killers will roam.  Ships will wait for War Declared enemies to emerge and attack.

 

Player created content is the BEST content.

 

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4 minutes ago, Temijin DeathStalker said:

For safety within the freeport zones you could handle it many ways.  A "Commonwealth" of Allied Freeports that have their own powerful fleet that will appear and destroy you if you fire on another vessel or take aggressive action.  Hanging cages in the freeport attacked with the skeletons of those who defied the Commonwealth Laws of Peace.

Concord of Peace - when you cross into a Freeport zone you automatically agree to a Concord of Peace. None of your weapons will work.

Now, the zones adjacent to the Freeport zones will be where Pirates and Pirate killers will roam.  Ships will wait for War Declared enemies to emerge and attack.

 

Player created content is the BEST content.

 

sounds a bit like this in a way

 

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Even if you do not include a Market place in the Free ports, I think creating a "Trade Chat" type system that worked in freeports would be productive. i dont crave a way to instantly buy and sell goods, i crave a way to communicate with ppl in game to try and facilitate the buying and selling of goods. As is, i can communicate with people in my server cluster concerning goods not found on all islands in the server, but the game is lacking a way to readily establish trade across map regions. 

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Please don't screw this up.... A markedplace was too often the end of an economy of a game. Deflation is always happening way too fast. 

I would prefer the implementation of a playerdriven market. Perhaps some of you know ECO. You have a cash register where you insert your gods and give them a price (or the other way around). So the player yould build markets on their islands if they want. And to be known you have to stick together on an island, form a settlement known for it. I hope thats what the devs thought of when they told us "player will make the world".

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I really enjoy the idea of option #3,   the whole market idea is really great and adds a lot of opportunities for players, and a lot of jobs right off the get go,  it keeps more players with things to do which in turn keeps them coming back to play more ATLAS.   It also adds a lot of immersion to a 'pirate game'.  Players, and even WHOLE company's could specialize in simply buying low from one port, and selling high in another... and with this comes a lot of high risk, high reward opportunities.   We are indeed pirates who could ALSO take the opportunity to sink these traders for plunder. 

 

I dunno man,  i dig it. 

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Definitely not connected auction houses, if connected at least a waiting time for that item to be delivered from another freeport.

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On 1/7/2019 at 7:12 AM, Astronovalol said:

I really enjoy the idea of option #3,   the whole market idea is really great and adds a lot of opportunities for players, and a lot of jobs right off the get go,  it keeps more players with things to do which in turn keeps them coming back to play more ATLAS.   It also adds a lot of immersion to a 'pirate game'.  Players, and even WHOLE company's could specialize in simply buying low from one port, and selling high in another... and with this comes a lot of high risk, high reward opportunities.   We are indeed pirates who could ALSO take the opportunity to sink these traders for plunder. 

 

I dunno man,  i dig it. 

I'm glad its jiving for you brother

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On 1/5/2019 at 11:00 AM, psykikk said:

you have the exact same thing in EVE online. 
central trading hubs,. the major differnece ios only zthat those hubs are protected by AI ships. 

so in order to implement this, you would need AI navy ships ptralling the sctor, as well as cannons on the ports protecting the harbor. 

 

 

Actually, I don't believe we would need A.I ships.

The game is built around Piracy, more so than EvE as this game is directly a Pirate game. The Freeports themselves would still act as a "no shoot" zone, but outside of those zones, would be completely up to players. Would it be farmed absolutely, but that in itself creates content, opens up opportunities, and makes the goods more valuable.

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The reason it should be connected is so those form different regions can put up their goods for sale from arround the atlas. People can sell honey from near the equator and people can sell gems from mountenous regions etc. They just have to go to their local freeport.

 

+1000

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5 hours ago, EvilDunk said:

The reason it should be connected is so those form different regions can put up their goods for sale from arround the atlas. People can sell honey from near the equator and people can sell gems from mountenous regions etc. They just have to go to their local freeport.

This is exactly what we don't need though. That doesn't improve multiplayer game play. It just encourages people to play solo and make a profit. 

What this game needs is to mimic Eve. Isolated trade hubs where you can place buy and sell orders. Those trade hubs should be defended by the Queens Navy (aka CONCORD) and prices need to be defined by the players and therefore by the market. 

The games design needs to be made in a way that prices will fluctuate between regions. They also need a merchant system in game that allows you to place transport requests. Let players ask people to transfer X from A to B for Y profit. This will in turn create game play opportunities.  

People will start to play the market. Buy low, sell high. There is risk involved as they need to actually transport goods to the region where they will make the most profit. Pirates get juicy targets to chase. Merchants get the thrill of trying to avoid being captured. 

The Queens Navy is a necessary AI mechanic to ensure humans don't ruin the experience. We know they will try so something is needed to ensure that doesn't happen. I believe it should be possible to attack these trade hubs. But it needs to be raid level difficulty. A very large organised attack with incredible risk but amazing reward. 

On top of this we need some sort of system that defines players are criminals. I have no idea how to make this work as we all know bounty systems get gamed hard and thus ruined. Perhaps just a wanted list that updates with stats of players and their criminal activities so that the players can create their own manual bounties and run our own hangings. This is a hard one but would definitely add a required element to the game.  

Aka this game needs less Ark and more Eve

Edited by Sklex
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I would prefer to see a "trade dock" be a craftable building like the bank where when you moor a ship at it it connects the inventory allowing you to buy/sell items out of a trade box on the ship and in the trade dock with either set gold prices or with an accept trade Warcraft style if trading for other materials.

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5 hours ago, Sklex said:

 

This is exactly what we don't need though. That doesn't improve multiplayer game play. It just encourages people to play solo and make a profit. 

What this game needs is to mimic Eve. Isolated trade hubs where you can place buy and sell orders. Those trade hubs should be defended by the Queens Navy (aka CONCORD) and prices need to be defined by the players and therefore by the market. 

The games design needs to be made in a way that prices will fluctuate between regions. They also need a merchant system in game that allows you to place transport requests. Let players ask people to transfer X from A to B for Y profit. This will in turn create game play opportunities.  

People will start to play the market. Buy low, sell high. There is risk involved as they need to actually transport goods to the region where they will make the most profit. Pirates get juicy targets to chase. Merchants get the thrill of trying to avoid being captured. 

The Queens Navy is a necessary AI mechanic to ensure humans don't ruin the experience. We know they will try so something is needed to ensure that doesn't happen. I believe it should be possible to attack these trade hubs. But it needs to be raid level difficulty. A very large organised attack with incredible risk but amazing reward. 

On top of this we need some sort of system that defines players are criminals. I have no idea how to make this work as we all know bounty systems get gamed hard and thus ruined. Perhaps just a wanted list that updates with stats of players and their criminal activities so that the players can create their own manual bounties and run our own hangings. This is a hard one but would definitely add a required element to the game.  

Aka this game needs less Ark and more Eve

Interesting post, as well as your link. A quality read I highly reco to anyone.

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So far the poll is at,

A. 23
B. 6
C. 27

Seems many folks would like the Trade Hubs Auction house option. Overall seems most so far would like to see an AH of sorts.

Yes: 50
No: 6

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