Direct player to player trades. Why is this missing?

[The Nude Wizard]

I really don't care for the comparisons to other MMO's re gold farming/selling in defence of the game missing many social and organisational tools.

The main reason most MMO's have a burgeoning gold selling market is they are based on class/character progression with multiple gold/time sinks to keep you playing/needing more money, and gives you the ability in most cases to play, and level up multiple characters, different classes and roles etc. Elite has none of this.

Elite has one use for money, buying and equipping ships, thats it. No character progression, scaling gear or novelty/prestige items/achievements to persue etc etc as in a "regular" MMO

In Elite once you've played for a short while and have every ship you want. There is no market for gold selling unless you're new and completely incompetent at the game, and then you sure aren't effecting anyone elses "experience", just presenting more soft gooey targets for everyone who has a clue.

 

[X-Terminator]

Precisely. In ED money makes no difference to what you do. You still must learn to fly and know what you're doing. Anyone who invests time into that will not need to buy CMDR accounts unless they are mugs!
Besides, being able to trade credits makes no difference at all. People will still fly what they like to.
BASICALLY, every argument for a god given great idea is crapped on for paranoia. Why? It makes me wonder!

 

[s0laris]

What this game is missing is incentive for player interaction.

And those who say that in-game money has no importance: please tell me what you smoke, i want some too!

 

[The Nude Wizard]

And those who say that in-game money has no importance: please tell me what you smoke, i want some too!

I smoke mostly weed, not lately, but that aside doesn't change the fact I haven't needed to spend money on anything other than than repair or fuel costs in months, I've inadvertently earned millions in that time, enough to buy almost all my ships for a 2nd time, and that would border on a year if you take out the Corvette.

Said Corvette I don't even use, along with the a dozen odd other ships sitting in a hangar fully spec'd and ready to go, but lacking any reason.

Imagine any other game where your biggest time and money sink is just an ornament you don't use because the idea of easily earning more money is considered a waste of my time.

I've also played for the last couple of weeks going to Sag A* and back, again its cost me nothing but time and I've made millions repeating the same 2 button presses over and over.

Money is not important after a few weeks of playing the game and working out what you need rather than just want because its shiny and new, and when you're experienced enough that death is the result of stupidity and inattention, there is no way to die if you're awake or purposely invite it.

 

[s0laris]

I smoke mostly weed, not lately, but that aside doesn't change the fact I haven't needed to spend money on anything other than than repair or fuel costs in months, I've inadvertently earned millions in that time, enough to buy almost all my ships for a 2nd time, and that would border on a year if you take out the Corvette.

Said Corvette I don't even use, along with the a dozen odd other ships sitting in a hangar fully spec'd and ready to go, but lacking any reason.

Imagine any other game where your biggest time and money sink is just an ornament you don't use because the idea of easily earning more money is considered a waste of my time.

I've also played for the last couple of weeks going to Sag A* and back, again its cost me nothing but time and I've made millions repeating the same 2 button presses over and over.

Money is not important after a few weeks of playing the game and working out what you need rather than just want because its shiny and new, and when you're experienced enough that death is the result of stupidity and inattention, there is no way to die if you're awake or purposely invite it.

YEYYYY, a Corvette owner is lecturing me about the unimportance of money. Lets talk! What is your forecast for me, as a fairly new player who owns an A spec Vulture to own an A spec Corvette? Im base trader, i hate trading, the only thing i enjoy is bounty hunting. How much time i need to WASTE (partly waste it is, it makes me better at shooing stationary rolling NPCs) with grinding to get into a ship that will aid my wing (or having a selection for different situations, like a FAS, Conda and FDL)? Yes, my wing! I do not give a damm about sandbox, i want to play with friends. NO, i dont want to make the journey to Sag A for a couple weeks, time is too precious for me. If you enjoy the same 2 button presses over and over again, well... i rest my case.

 

[The Nude Wizard]

YEYYYY, a Corvette owner is lecturing me about the unimportance of money. Lets talk! What is your forecast for me, as a fairly new player who owns an A spec Vulture to own an A spec Corvette? Im base trader, i hate trading, the only thing i enjoy is bounty hunting. How much time i need to WASTE (partly waste it is, it makes me better at shooing stationary rolling NPCs) with grinding to get into a ship that will aid my wing (or having a selection for different situations, like a FAS, Conda and FDL)? Yes, my wing! I do not give a damm about sandbox, i want to play with friends. NO, i dont want to make the journey to Sag A for a couple weeks, time is too precious for me. If you enjoy the same 2 button presses over and over again, well... i rest my case.

Don't get me wrong, i dont enjoy it per se, I just have little else to do in the game any more, so figured I might as well.

All i've ever done, and I dont play the game religiously or a lot is monitor forums and reddit for trending gameplay/ways to earn money, see how other people are making money or having fun and I replicate, I have a job and life and so forth, i've literally played the game in a couple of weeks spurts over the past year or so, things have changed a lot since I "leveled up" so to speak so specific advice I'm not so great on, but most people talk about long distance smuggling missions a lot, and earning 1-5mil a pop depending on rank and it can be done efficiently with an asp explorer which i think you would only need about 15 mil for? Which is an achievable amount of money to get even if you just sit in coflict zones etc and shoot things.

The thing is, we actually quite agree that more social tools in the game would make your, and would have made my experience in the past game much better, i was mostly arguing against comparisons to other mmos and gold selling as an evil boogey man preventing Elite from having any. People wanting and buying gold happens at all levels in other MMO's because they have the money sinks to keep you comming back. I only illustrate how easy money is to come by at the "end game"

I too originally envisioned playing with friends, but every one of them has quit after a few weeks complaining about the exact same things you are, and I was arguing earlier that after a short time playing the game, you find what interest you and money is irrelevant and not changing anyone elses game

 

[Glacies Lupus]

How about this. Add in trading but only allow a certain amount of wealth accumulation. Go off of galactic average. So if I want to trade something worth 1000cr Gal Avg. I can only give you say 10,000cr worth of those more than whatever you are giving me. So I can trade 100 of those 1000cr items for 1 100,000cr item. Make the limit 10,000cr times your rank per 24 hour period. This will make it so you can still help new guys but will keep people from giving them everything thy will every need. This will also allow vet players to trade very rare stuff that one may be having a hard time finding, but another has several of. This will eliminate "gold bots" and "gold for cash" sites. Quite frankly, they already could exist just by jetcanning meta alloys. Runescape and War Frame both implemented this and neither of them have any issues with gold sites. At least, none as egregious as Never winter. (I hate dropping names of other games but it's hard to give representation of the system in use with out name dropping.) People say that it can't be done and it has no purpose. It can be done and it's purpose is to give use to things like the 20 exquisite focus crystals my friend has, yet I have been searching for 4 days and haven't found a single one. Stuff like that. You can't not agree with that via a legitimate argument other than "No because we said so"....which is still not a legitimate argument.