Player to Player ship/module/material sales would be a gamechanger

[ThriveInDark]

Lets be real, I'm a selective grinder. I bought elite because spaceship customization and combat. Hundreds of hours of combat in the same HazRES? I can do that grind. I enjoy that grind. Trading sucks, I don't want to do it in any game and this one is no exception. Not interested in searching ruins for artifacts. I want to go kill things and make the universe safer from piracy (and alien invaders when they get here), and then pay someone else (who enjoys exploring ruins and gathering, yes those people exist in every MMO there is) more and more of my space credits to assemble me better and better ships.

Would this type of P2P sales mechanic bother people? I mean, I know elite's thing is that there are no classes and do what you want. Well what I want is to be a space combat pilot and nothing else without losing access to ship modifications which can be a significant combat advantage. And the gatherers would get the benefit of being able to set their own prices and expand their resources by tinkering out interesting builds and selling them when they get bored of them or whatever. I feel like this would increase people's ability to play how they want rather than hinder it.

In real life, if I'm a racercar driver I'm paying to buy enhanced performance parts, and paying someone to fit them to my car, I'm not involved in the mining of the ore required for casting them or their machining or installation. Why? Because it takes a lot of time to be very good at 1 thing. While the ore mining, machining, and installing was being done I was studying track film, doing test laps, practicing my own totally different skillset. If I get more skill and experience, and win, I get paid more and can buy more of your machining and mechanical skills. If ED wants to be so "real life in a future of colonized space" then this would really only make even more sense, when was the last time you met a miner, mechanic, combat veteran, archaelogist, financier (all in one person) here on earth? Then why is every single CMDR in this game forced to be exactly that by default?

 

[Mohrgan]

I will just say; that there is something to be said for a game, at this time, that actually requires a player to play in order to advance. I'm not going to bring up any other argument. There probably will be many other angles to this discussion. Being rewarded for your applied time is the essence of gaming. If you think doing the same old same old should be rewarded with the entire variety of prizes, then I don;t see the point.

 

[Aussiedroid]

My 2 cents, I think being able to trade/sell such things onto a market would be cool. Direct player to player would invite the gold farming crowd to the game though. If players had the ability to sell to others indirectly though a market then that could minimise the impact of this.

I like the idea overall, but wonder if another exchange mechanism could be used instead. I recall a mention the other day of a broker of sorts for exchanging materials etc which may be in the works. If it pans out then that might offer a good alternative.

 

[Stealthie]

Nope.

Ultimately, anything like this creates the possibility of people being able to charge real-world money for in-game things and that always causes bad things to happen.

The ONLY way it could work (without causing unintended issues) would be if, perhaps, a bunch of stations had an "auction house".
You take your stuff (modules/ships/whatever) there and submit it for auction.
Once a week, anybody can dock at any station with an "auction house", see all the stuff that's for sale thoughout the entire galaxy and bid on it - using in-game credits.

That way, you ensure it's only ever in-game credits that buys an item AND it ensures people can't complete dodgy private deals in remote corners of the galaxy which DO involve real-world money changing hands as well as in-game credits.

 

[ThriveInDark]

I will just say; that there is something to be said for a game, at this time, that actually requires a player to play in order to advance. I'm not going to bring up any other argument. There probably will be many other angles to this discussion. Being rewarded for your applied time is the essence of gaming. If you think doing the same old same old should be rewarded with the entire variety of prizes, then I don;t see the point.

What I'm saying is that ED is sort of like a job. I've PLAYED several hundreds of hours. I'm not advocating free stuff with no work. But combat and trading pretty much only reward in credits for example, meanwhile driving around ruins etc pays very little or costs you money. If someone likes driving around ruins and hates grinding for credits, and I hate searching ruins and like hazres farming, why shouldn't we be able to WORK TOGETHER and help each other? The whole every player does everything means no one ever works WITH (I mean with, not nearby doing the same thing for entirely autonomous benefit) anyone, except for combat, which is the only activity that really benefits from teamwork currently.

So yeah man, I'm all about playing more elite, and earning my rewards, I think there should be multiple avenues to do so is more my point. And honestly, in a world where P2P sales are a thing, what you talk about still exists too. To the people who are willing to go search ruins etc themselves to engineer better ships for other tasks get actual control over their rolls etc, which is a huge advantage over those who buy from said people. But earning hundreds of millions of credits bounty hunting or trading isn't done in 1-2 hours either.

 

[ThriveInDark]

Nope.

Ultimately, anything like this creates the possibility of people being able to charge real-world money for in-game things and that always causes bad things to happen.

The ONLY way it could work (without causing unintended issues) would be if, perhaps, a bunch of stations had an "auction house".
You take your stuff (modules/ships/whatever) there and submit it for auction.
Once a week, anybody can dock at any station with an "auction house", see all the stuff that's for sale thoughout the entire galaxy and bid on it - using in-game credits.

That way, you ensure it's only ever in-game credits that buys an item AND it ensures people can't complete dodgy private deals in remote corners of the galaxy which DO involve real-world money changing hands as well as in-game credits.

Yeah I meant an auction system, its the future man, not a flea market swap. Though honestly if legit auction houses are a thing I'd like to see black market swap meets too honestly which could act as a local only auction house or maybe one that can only be accessed from a certain set of locations

 

[Limoncello Lizard]

If player ship and module trading was a thing.
1. How much would you have paid, in real money, for a god-rolled Corvette a month ago?
2. How upset would you have been when FD reset all the cheat-ships?

 

[Stealthie]

Yeah I meant an auction system, its the future man, not a flea market swap. Though honestly if legit auction houses are a thing I'd like to see black market swap meets too honestly which could act as a local only auction house or maybe one that can only be accessed from a certain set of locations

Fair comment.

The "auction" probably wouldn't be too hard to implement.
Just bung it in the station "contacts" menu, so you could click on it and then scroll down a huge list of "classified ad's" (possibly divided up into sub-sections for ships, weapons, shields, PPs, FSDs etc) and make an offer on anything you want.
When you "bid" you deposit the credits into the system.
At the end of the week, highest bid gets the item and the credits get transferred to the seller (minus a commission for the station) while everybody else gets their credits reimbursed (possibly also minus a commission?).

One thing I've always said about ED is that it should have more "organised" illegal stuff.
There should be dangerous systems where a brave person can go to find/do things that reward their courage.
Perhaps the black-market auctions would charge less commission to make it worth risking?

Definitely, nothing that allows a buyer and a seller to hook up directly and trade though.
That leads to sweatshops full of korean children churning out magic swords and selling them on eBay, and we don't want that in ED.

 

[ThriveInDark]

Fair comment.

The "auction" probably wouldn't be too hard to implement.
Just bung it in the station "contacts" menu, so you could click on it and then scroll down a huge list of "classified ad's" (possibly divided up into sub-sections for ships, weapons, shields, PPs, FSDs etc) and make an offer on anything you want.
When you "bid" you deposit the credits into the system.
At the end of the week, highest bid gets the item and the credits get transferred to the seller (minus a commission for the station) while everybody else gets their credits reimbursed (possibly also minus a commission?).

One thing I've always said about ED is that it should have more "organised" illegal stuff.
There should be dangerous systems where a brave person can go to find/do things that reward their courage.
Perhaps the black-market auctions would charge less commission to make it worth risking?

Definitely, nothing that allows a buyer and a seller to hook up directly and trade though.
That leads to sweatshops full of korean children churning out magic swords and selling them on eBay, and we don't want that in ED.

Honestly, it could be as simple as cargo flagged as illicit or stolen could be sold there. Naturally it would sell for less than market retail because it is "hot goods" and untradeable on main auction, but because its stolen and not bought it is all pure profit. That provides motivation for both a buyer and a seller.

 

[Spacecat]

If you could sell engineered modules, that would pretty much defeat the whole purpose of engineers (and planetary landings), so they would never do this.

 

[DNA-Decay]

Game Changer?

- It would indeed.


I'll give you $80 Australian for a basic Cutter Hull, if I never have to grind Empire Rank.

$10 each for half a dozen Shock Mines with Ion Disruptor or Reverberating Cascade special effects.

$5 each for small beam lasers with healing.

And I've got 7A G5 Thrusters for sale. POA.

 

[House0fDerp]

I will just say; that there is something to be said for a game, at this time, that actually requires a player to play in order to advance.

I'm not sure I've played a game in a while that deviated from that. From the perspective of my admittedly quite limited gaming experiences, this is a norm and certainly not rare enough to be worthy of praise.

If you think doing the same old same old should be rewarded with the entire variety of prizes, then I don;t see the point.

I think having a job has ingrained what you see as pointless as a status quo for me. Though fundamentally, there is the whole, it's a game, one that at times claims to be a sandbox, and fundamentally, specialization in the areas one finds fun shouldn't necessarily be a complete inhibitor to progress.

If you could sell engineered modules, that would pretty much defeat the whole purpose of engineers (and planetary landings), so they would never do this.

Hardly, it would just give those that prefer that content all the more reason to do it.

 

[House0fDerp]

I'll give you $80 Australian for a basic Cutter Hull, if I never have to grind Empire Rank.

Given my personal wealth and opinions on the value of money, I can only interpret that as a condemnation of the ranking process rather than the ops idea.

And from that perspective, I kinda agree.

 

[h347h]

Sure, as long as they use different currency than credits for player trading then cool. If it's credits that is a big huge nope.

 

[khaos526]

No Auction House, we don't want this game to start to be come World of Spacecraft...

 

[Heavenly-Hammer]

No thanks.

 

[Calrissian]

Absolutely NOT!

Players in this game can't even play without exploiting/cheating with the engineers, combat logging, and abusing SOLO and PRIVATE modes. There isn't enough collective DISCIPLINE around here to simply handle those.

You've got to be kidding me!

 

[Valethar]

Nope.

Ultimately, anything like this creates the possibility of people being able to charge real-world money for in-game things and that always causes bad things to happen.

Strangely enough, they're already doing that. If you look in the right places, credits are available for real world cash.

If I recall, one player here openly admitted to doing just that. A few days later, his account showed up banned. Not sure if it was a temp or permanent, but according to him, he had multiple accounts, and spent his time farming credits to sell.

Opening up an economy similar to the OP's suggestion would just encourage the mass farmer sites to flood us with spam about 'you buy creditz, velly cheep at mmo.loser.lol' type garbage.

Frontier has been adamant that they don't want that sort of thing in ED. Don't expect that to change any time soon.

 

[Mohrgan]

Absolutely NOT!

Players in this game can't even play without exploiting/cheating with the engineers, combat logging, and abusing SOLO and PRIVATE modes. There isn't enough collective DISCIPLINE around here to simply handle those.

You've got to be kidding me!

There is simply no way to abuse Solo, and Private Groups. Only whiney attempts at gaining some form of Open Cred for dissing the other modes.

 

[Shanaeri]

The other factor to consider is that as soon as you move from a fixed price system to a player generated price system you need to introduce measures to counteract inflation.

E.g a class 8 prismatic costs the same now as it did at launch, as soon as you allow players to assign a new cost, then that price will change, making it harder for newer players to afford it.

You then get into the realm of needing gold sinks, so we would probably see stuff like docking fees, increased rebuy costs, module degradation, more expensive fuel, auction house fees and all sorts of stuff you see to counter this mud-flation

You would also get the issue of people getting boosted by friends so you end up with even more support tickets and the like caused by players who had been given a billion credits and no idea how to play the game

This then also brings in players being scammed, a system more open to exploits, market manipulation etc etc

So.. just no