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Sighdawg

Future NPC Trading? What do we know?

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As the title states, what do we know of the future of trading in PvE? Other than big end game baddies like the Kraken I firmly believe Trading will be what keeps the PvE servers relavent. So please, grapeshot, take your time and implement this the right way! 

 

Personally, my company is for NPC traders strictly for Region specific or even ESO style where every NPC has different stock. This is an exploration game! Please do not boil us down to standing in front of an auctionhouse for hours on end everyday! Keep the MMO in Atlas, begging you. That being said i am very excited to be able to peddle our wares. 

 

Please allow us to hire NPC merchants for our player trade ports! For anyone playing on NA PvE Hydra’s Den come on by O9 and visit the DarkSea Dawgs port city currently being fleshed out! The tavern is ready for players to dock and relax! Were also always open for new Sailors/Tradesmen/Architechs and Nomadic Explorers! We offer weekly pay for players filling our shops as well as a percentage of their own sales ( this is all tentative depending on how trading is implemented of course )

 

 

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O9 is close to my home.  I'll swing by for an ale sometime  

Edited by MrHeid
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Currently the game requires traveling all over to get resources.

Would be nice if the trading is implemented such that it doesn't require traveling at all or not very far. This would give you the option to get resources without having to travel long distances. If it does require you to travel to where the resources are stored, you might as well go get them yourself, so that would make no sense in my opinion.

I think the only way you can currently get resources without travel is to have a bank and claim the land that they are on so you can collect them every time someone harvests some.

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if u read upcoming they are adding player shops that can be placed in the freeports , 

 

doesnt sound like a good idea to me as the freeport zones are the start zones , if they are full contaly with 150 + players then its going to be a lag fest 

 

they should add completly new zones for the trading hubs 

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They've wasted alot of area on the grids with just a couple of islands, plenty of room to play with on each server. I enjoy playing the game but it does get frustrating, if they just reduce those god damn ghost ships. I wish they would also protect your ship if your game crashes, why can't they just make the ship invisible until you log back in instead of leaving it there for the ghost ships to destroy? Can be very disheartening at time through no fault of my own.

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4 hours ago, UDO said:

if u read upcoming they are adding player shops that can be placed in the freeports , 

 

doesnt sound like a good idea to me as the freeport zones are the start zones , if they are full contaly with 150 + players then its going to be a lag fest 

 

they should add completly new zones for the trading hubs 

BRILLIANT ATLAS THIS WILL CHANGE EVERYTHING AS LONG AS IT ISNT A LAG FEST with player owned stores blocking the starter zones...! When is this due ?

 

Edited by hands solo

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Player shops should be available in three areas, not just freeports.

Should be: freeports, lawless, and claimed territory.

No one is going to enjoy having their shops in freeports because of the increased ship decay rate.
Ideally, having player shops in claimed territories can allow players to turn their islands into really interesting trading hubs.

I think it would be very interesting if a certain area or island was known for having good prices/rare resources.

It would encourage trade routes and people to travel.

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14 hours ago, OnlineHandle said:

Player shops should be available in three areas, not just freeports.

Should be: freeports, lawless, and claimed territory.

No one is going to enjoy having their shops in freeports because of the increased ship decay rate.
Ideally, having player shops in claimed territories can allow players to turn their islands into really interesting trading hubs.

I think it would be very interesting if a certain area or island was known for having good prices/rare resources.

It would encourage trade routes and people to travel.

thes the point of the decay they dont want players just parking in the zone set up your shop go shopping and leave not stay there all day every day 

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3 hours ago, UDO said:

thes the point of the decay they dont want players just parking in the zone set up your shop go shopping and leave not stay there all day every day 

Right, that makes sense for a freeport. But it will penalize players for taking their time browsing shops in free ports. If there are hundreds of shops with different prices and items - I would like to look at a lot of them. Maybe even talk with some of the owners.

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1 hour ago, OnlineHandle said:

Right, that makes sense for a freeport. But it will penalize players for taking their time browsing shops in free ports. If there are hundreds of shops with different prices and items - I would like to look at a lot of them. Maybe even talk with some of the owners.

Ya, hundreds of shops would be needed if they chose to allow each and every company to have a shop at every freeport. This is exactly why a system like that would be a failure from the start. There are lots of examples of games that had a trading system that didn't involve a shop for every single person that wants to trade. They could use any of those to model the trading system on. One where you must setup a shop and transport your goods to it and then every player that wants to buy must travel to the shop is a really bad idea in my opinion. 

A better system would be a bench or shop you place at your location or one your ship. From that location you can sell and buy anything on the entire server that is for sale or trade. You would not have to travel anywhere, and by that same means, no other player would have to travel to you either. No messy markets at some location that is not in the game yet (there just is not room at the freeports for a bunch of trading booths). Just add the trading bin, bench, or whatever you want to call it to the game.

Also it would make sense to add a trading option for person to person trades. A window where you can exchange inventory and both agree to a trade without dropping items on the ground and picking them up.

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3 hours ago, wildbill said:

Ya, hundreds of shops would be needed if they chose to allow each and every company to have a shop at every freeport. This is exactly why a system like that would be a failure from the start. There are lots of examples of games that had a trading system that didn't involve a shop for every single person that wants to trade. They could use any of those to model the trading system on. One where you must setup a shop and transport your goods to it and then every player that wants to buy must travel to the shop is a really bad idea in my opinion. 

A better system would be a bench or shop you place at your location or one your ship. From that location you can sell and buy anything on the entire server that is for sale or trade. You would not have to travel anywhere, and by that same means, no other player would have to travel to you either. No messy markets at some location that is not in the game yet (there just is not room at the freeports for a bunch of trading booths). Just add the trading bin, bench, or whatever you want to call it to the game.

Also it would make sense to add a trading option for person to person trades. A window where you can exchange inventory and both agree to a trade without dropping items on the ground and picking them up.

 

I completely disagree. The second they link every shop to a single NPC is when they kill the social aspect to this game. You might as well be buying NPC goods. The whole point of the game is exploration and socializing with other players. The system your suggesting caters to a moreso single player experience and boils your login ritual to a single stop.

 

I dream of searching distant shores for rare items ive never seen and never knew i needed. Perhaps give me a beacon or some sort of idea where the player NPC trader would be but not much more. Give me a challenge and feeling of accomplishment at finding a great trading companies port or finding a Beastmaster selling high tier creatures. 

 

Please dont make me stand in front of an NPC refreshing a menu for hours on end... thats not a entertaining trade model imo

Edited by Sighdawg

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45 minutes ago, Sighdawg said:

 

I completely disagree. The second they link every shop to a single NPC is when they kill the social aspect to this game. You might as well be buying NPC goods. The whole point of the game is exploration and socializing with other players. The system your suggesting caters to a moreso single player experience and boils your login ritual to a single stop.

 

I dream of searching distant shores for rare items ive never seen and never knew i needed. Perhaps give me a beacon or some sort of idea where the player NPC trader would be but not much more. Give me a challenge and feeling of accomplishment at finding a great trading companies port or finding a Beastmaster selling high tier creatures. 

 

Please dont make me stand in front of an NPC refreshing a menu for hours on end... thats not a entertaining trade model imo

The social aspect of any game is driven by the players. If players want to socialize, they will whether the game has a feature that requires it or not. If they don't want to socialize, no game feature is going to force them to. You will just drive away the solo players that don't want to interact with other players, no game mechanic will ever get those players to play differently.

A trading mechanic that makes interacting in real time with players an option is not going to kill exploration and socializing. Normally, purchasing the resource from a player or some in game mechanic is never even remotely the cheapest way to get a resource, it is just the quickest way. Many or most would still explore and find it for themselves, but in a pinch, they would have an option to get a small amount when needed (for instance to do a one off tame).

I too like the exploration of the game, although I tend to do less than I would like, as the risk verses reward in some cases doesn't quite balance out just yet. I don't take my only ship and only tame on a long voyage. I wait until I can afford to lose it before going, so end up doing less than would be fun if I could.

I wasn't suggesting an NPC does the trading. I've seen games where you put your resources in a chest, and mark them as for sale in a game interface at a particular price and quantity. Players then typically buy the lowest priced resource of that type that they can find. When lower priced ones are sold, yours eventually get bought and you get the coin or whatever in exchanged for it.

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51 minutes ago, wildbill said:

The social aspect of any game is driven by the players. If players want to socialize, they will whether the game has a feature that requires it or not. If they don't want to socialize, no game feature is going to force them to. You will just drive away the solo players that don't want to interact with other players, no game mechanic will ever get those players to play differently.

 

Respectfully, I disagree. As I believe the majority of people will always take the path of least resistance. Whereas if someone quits because it’ll take more to trade then they’ll prolly quit anyway. I could compromise and say maybe one Trader per grid but I’d rather say per island tbh. 

 

I think this model would allow companies to set up their own trading port at their base or other allies bases using a hired NPC merchant similar to ship crew. Could even have a variable tax rate up to each company to encourage shopping around.

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26 minutes ago, Sighdawg said:

Respectfully, I disagree. As I believe the majority of people will always take the path of least resistance. Whereas if someone quits because it’ll take more to trade then they’ll prolly quit anyway. I could compromise and say maybe one Trader per grid but I’d rather say per island tbh. 

I think this model would allow companies to set up their own trading port at their base or other allies bases using a hired NPC merchant similar to ship crew. Could even have a variable tax rate up to each company to encourage shopping around.

Not sure why you'd need to tax someone for buying your stuff at your trader, but ya, I can see them setting up something like this. 

If this is done, it should show up your map with some special marker to show where the trader is. This would encourage players to visit more bases.

Currently, I kind of miss ARK's flyers, but not for the reason you might think. In ARK I would fly around and look at other player's bases, not usually to chat with them but just to see how they built their base, what kinds of tames they had, stuff like that. This is very difficult to do in Atlas and there is not much motivation to take a long trip by ship and land when you could easily lose your ship, your tame, and all your stuff in the process. It is pretty low risk when you can fly.

This is the main reason I'm suggesting a method of trading that doesn't involve travel. Currently in Atlas, travel is a high risk activity. Until that changes, trading that involves travel will never be a huge success.

Atlas really needs a way to travel that is much lower risk than the current methods available. Along with that a way to transport goods with lower risk of losing them.

I'll throw out one new idea:

TRANSPORT SHIPS:

Each player builds a trading port. Once constructed, you place your goods in containers at the port. Players can visit your port and trade with it directly, but also a trade ship comes by every so often and picks up and drops off goods that you have bought or sold using the trading interface I mentioned earlier. You would see these out at sea (like you do now). If you follow them, you would find your way to someone's trading port. 

As part of this, you might have to actually build a trading ship that is run by an NPC or it could just use ones provided by the game. Either way could work.

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1 hour ago, wildbill said:

Not sure why you'd need to tax someone for buying your stuff at your trader, but ya, I can see them setting up something like this. 

If this is done, it should show up your map with some special marker to show where the trader is. This would encourage players to visit more bases.

Currently, I kind of miss ARK's flyers, but not for the reason you might think. In ARK I would fly around and look at other player's bases, not usually to chat with them but just to see how they built their base, what kinds of tames they had, stuff like that. This is very difficult to do in Atlas and there is not much motivation to take a long trip by ship and land when you could easily lose your ship, your tame, and all your stuff in the process. It is pretty low risk when you can fly.

This is the main reason I'm suggesting a method of trading that doesn't involve travel. Currently in Atlas, travel is a high risk activity. Until that changes, trading that involves travel will never be a huge success.

Atlas really needs a way to travel that is much lower risk than the current methods available. Along with that a way to transport goods with lower risk of losing them.

I'll throw out one new idea:

TRANSPORT SHIPS:

Each player builds a trading port. Once constructed, you place your goods in containers at the port. Players can visit your port and trade with it directly, but also a trade ship comes by every so often and picks up and drops off goods that you have bought or sold using the trading interface I mentioned earlier. You would see these out at sea (like you do now). If you follow them, you would find your way to someone's trading port. 

As part of this, you might have to actually build a trading ship that is run by an NPC or it could just use ones provided by the game. Either way could work.

Because there are only two guarentees in life; Death and Taxes. I dont care if its taxed tbh I was just throwing that out there.

Again, I disagree.. Aside from game breaking issues like crashing when changing servers or SoD’s on rapid fire I would like to see the game stay high risk for moving goods! After all if you do sink you have the ability to salvage your wreck which i think is an AWESOME mechanic! Otherwise the sea would be incredibly boring after a few calm, lame ass trade runs.

 

I do agree, NPC trade runs would be awesome, but again there should be a risk of that NPC being sunk. Maybe even give the option of sailing with the NPC to protect it.  I would love the ability to attack NPC tradeships in the future, but obviously that wouldnt be PVE so maybe non player NPC trade ships you can happen upon. ( Trade convoys with fleet protection would be awesome! )

Edited by Sighdawg
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I'm just really hoping that if they're implementing player traders through freeports they also allow player traders on claimed lands.

I too hope they retain the need to travel, no global auction house (though I don't believe it would even work in a shard type server system), player run merchant ships travelling the seas would be fantastic targets in PvP (and PvE wars) and immersive and community building for PvE.

The Atlas is vast, lets keep it that way... if we wanted to be playing on a 3x3 grid we'd be playing private servers.

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The secret is not allowing eople to log off and have their store or market stall still selling. No pets selling for you 24/7 and no stalls doing auto sell. If your not online then your stall despawns - PERIOD. Yeh stalls can be set up on ships why not. You could also have 24/7 vending machines which are built near your base, in goes the gold out comes your product, obviously the 'vending machine' isn't holding gold, it would be in your/the sellers inventory upon log in. 

This is what islands SHOULD be doing - rentals should be for shop space. We have all paid for the resources and to be able to harvest them. Player constructions however (renting a room or a shop) is a different matter. I would try to own a tavern maybe.

J

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11 hours ago, MisterMyztik said:

I'm just really hoping that if they're implementing player traders through freeports they also allow player traders on claimed lands.

I too hope they retain the need to travel, no global auction house (though I don't believe it would even work in a shard type server system), player run merchant ships travelling the seas would be fantastic targets in PvP (and PvE wars) and immersive and community building for PvE.

The Atlas is vast, lets keep it that way... if we wanted to be playing on a 3x3 grid we'd be playing private servers.

I love it when people say "we" like that makes their opinion more legitimate or better than others.

I don't know the number, but can say confidently that most people playing Atlas are not on the official servers, and that 2 x 2 or 3 x 3 is probably the most common size map being used.  So yes, "we" do want to be playing on a 3 x 3 grid and not on the official servers.  See how legitimate that sounds?

I personally do prefer the smaller map. Sailing for hours on end is really not that fun, it is in my opinion one of the more annoying aspects of this game. I love a map with the islands jammed in together as close as possible. Lots of exploring to do, and lots of short trips in the ship.

So you stay on your official server with the vast map because you like that, just don't assume that is what everyone that plays this game wants.

If they do add trading in freeports, they will need to be completely redesigned. I can see the red markers going up around them and all the bases right next door having to be destroyed now 🙂

Edited by wildbill

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1 hour ago, hands solo said:

The secret is not allowing eople to log off and have their store or market stall still selling. No pets selling for you 24/7 and no stalls doing auto sell. If your not online then your stall despawns - PERIOD. Yeh stalls can be set up on ships why not. You could also have 24/7 vending machines which are built near your base, in goes the gold out comes your product, obviously the 'vending machine' isn't holding gold, it would be in your/the sellers inventory upon log in. 

This is what islands SHOULD be doing - rentals should be for shop space. We have all paid for the resources and to be able to harvest them. Player constructions however (renting a room or a shop) is a different matter. I would try to own a tavern maybe.

J

Secret to what? Keeping the no lifers having the advantage in this game?

I've seen taverns in games, normally they are just cosmetic. Someone on a server I play on built a bunch of beach huts to make it look like a resort. People love to create the fantasy of something, but I've never seen it actually work in any kind of functional way in a game (although I don't play a lot of different games).

I think when it comes right down to it, a lot of people playing sandbox style games like making stuff and modifying stuff in the game to give it a personal touch. If you can only rent and not build, that just isn't appealing to me or most people. I've seen that rare player that likes to remain mobile and have a traveling base. That person might want to visit or stay at one of these places a short while, but so far the fantasy of living on a ship is not really a thing in Atlas.

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On 1/24/2019 at 10:10 AM, wildbill said:

I love it when people say "we" like that makes their opinion more legitimate or better than others.

I don't know the number, but can say confidently that most people playing Atlas are not on the official servers, and that 2 x 2 or 3 x 3 is probably the most common size map being used.  So yes, "we" do want to be playing on a 3 x 3 grid and not on the official servers.  See how legitimate that sounds?

I personally do prefer the smaller map. Sailing for hours on end is really not that fun, it is in my opinion one of the more annoying aspects of this game. I love a map with the islands jammed in together as close as possible. Lots of exploring to do, and lots of short trips in the ship.

So you stay on your official server with the vast map because you like that, just don't assume that is what everyone that plays this game wants.

If they do add trading in freeports, they will need to be completely redesigned. I can see the red markers going up around them and all the bases right next door having to be destroyed now 🙂

Alright, dude. This is a thread pertaining to the Official servers.  Can we please discuss the topic at hand and not get personally offended because someone phrased something in a way that apparently offended you? Don’t worry “we” will definitely stay off your server. 

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58 minutes ago, Sighdawg said:

Alright, dude. This is a thread pertaining to the Official servers.  Can we please discuss the topic at hand and not get personally offended because someone phrased something in a way that apparently offended you? Don’t worry “we” will definitely stay off your server. 

No thread in General Discussion is only pertaining to Official Servers.

I've actually been discussing the topic of this thread, but like everyone else, I address how I feel the feature should work and how I'd like to see it implemented. No you seem to be attacking me for having a view point that you don't agree with, apparently including the "we" (all official server players?).

The title of the thread is "FUTURE NPC TRADING? WHAT DO WE KNOW?"

NPC trading is listed in one of the features to be added in the 16.x update. That update goes out to official and unofficial servers, so I can assume it will be present for pretty much everyone that plays Atlas, not for just the official servers.

You may have created this thread, but you certainly don't have any control over it and can't exclude people from posting opinions just because that don't seem to fit into some box you have of what is an appropriate response.

Until they make a section in the Official forums that is just for people playing on official servers, I'll continue to post threads and responses to all of the topics in "General Discussions".

Or maybe when I see the word "We" in a thread topic, I just need to assume that only includes people on Official Servers? I guess you are all a special bunch.

 

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Rather than degrade into an insult fest why don't we just put it another way, the unofficial servers which are miniscule in size, are not MMOs so the caveats I mentioned around retaining the vastness of the atlas does not apply in any way to the unofficial. 

Although I fail to see how sailing 2 grids to do your shopping is going to put such an imposition on your game... they are unofficial servers and if you want a setting on them which allows the trade to be global or the npc shops to be spawnable/activatable in other regions surely this is what you would be requesting rather than affecting the vastness of the official servers with something that could be easily modded in for unofficial? There are in fact already plenty of mods for trade in ARK, I imagine it would be the same for Atlas unofficial servers and as they seem to use a lot of the same code I imagine it wont actually take the modding community long..

*I* was discussing the trade system on the official servers.

Global trade negates the need to travel which turns a 15x15 grid into a 1x1 and that to me would be a tremendous disappointment.

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4 minutes ago, MisterMyztik said:

Rather than degrade into an insult fest why don't we just put it another way, the unofficial servers which are miniscule in size, are not MMOs so the caveats I mentioned around retaining the vastness of the atlas does not apply in any way to the unofficial. 

Although I fail to see how sailing 2 grids to do your shopping is going to put such an imposition on your game... they are unofficial servers and if you want a setting on them which allows the trade to be global or the npc shops to be spawnable/activatable in other regions surely this is what you would be requesting rather than affecting the vastness of the official servers with something that could be easily modded in for unofficial? There are in fact already plenty of mods for trade in ARK, I imagine it would be the same for Atlas unofficial servers and as they seem to use a lot of the same code I imagine it wont actually take the modding community long..

*I* was discussing the trade system on the official servers.

Global trade negates the need to travel which turns a 15x15 grid into a 1x1 and that to me would be a tremendous disappointment.

I certainly see your point. Of course most players on official servers are there because of features specific to them, such as the vastness of the oceans and the distance between islands.

It is certainly a challenge for the developers to implement features that will be useful on both the official and unofficial servers. 

I doubt most players that play exclusively on official servers realize that there are some unofficial servers that are not minuscule in size. I've played on one that was 5 x 5. Also when you are not a hard core player and can only play a few hours a day, a 5 x 5 feels just a vast as the 15 x 15 of the official played by a hard core player playing over 8 hours each day.

I would call it a stretch that Atlas is actually an MMO though, more like they found a clever way to link hundreds of servers in a nearly seamless way.

Yes, I do hope that some mods for ARK will be ported to Atlas. BTW, ARK mods can not be run on Atlas without modification as far as I know. Currently there are a few good Atlas mods, but really not that many, I think many in development though.

I'll try and preface my posts with the words "unofficial server" in the future. I didn't think it was that important, but apparently is is more than I was thinking.

I would sure like to see some numbers though, but I do think that there are way more people playing this game on unofficial servers than the official ones. Those players seem to be much less vocal here for a variety of reasons. A couple being: 1) They can change the game independent of Grapeshot, since they can install mods. 2) They can adjust settings on the server, mainly through ini files. 3) They can even turn off or turn on features they like or don't like. 4) The servers they play on are mostly highly moderated.

I too had high hopes for the official servers. I played there a few days (I've played months on ARK officials), and it was obvious to me they would be no different than ARK's officials, so I no longer play there. I'll try keep in mind that many posting here are still playing there.

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