Horizons Players' own station

[fish7385]

Let's face it, engineers are weird. I quite don't give a [up] to the engineers, but that's not what I want to talk about.

I want to talk about how certain players prefer different styles of game play, combat, mining, missions, exploring, gathering. I will use this to demonstrate how the community could come together to help each other out.

Grinding. Everybody hates it with the new engineers, but what if there was an incentive to keep mining for materials of any kind? What if you felt like making more money by going to a player-ran trade center? A short example being; You're a miner, you've found polonium, but you really don't need it anymore, and with these material keep gathering up, I'll have to ditch stuff soon. Imagine if players have an excess amount of stuff they have no need for, while a different player really needs to find say tungsten and is having no luck with the search. Frustrated, he vows to quite the game! What if they're was a terminal, where you could buy things from materials, data, and commodities from different players?

What if players could set their own price on rare materials to make mining, or gathering more profitable? This would bind the community together, and create a reason to go in the mines and sell rare materials at a very high price, or it could create competition between different players, creating a need for cooperation, determination, and endurance.

Players who enjoy trade could sell everything that they could get their hands on to the station, which would have needs and demands just like any other station.
Combat players could be rewarded for finding those chemical processors that you're always out of and selling them to the community.
Exploration based players could sell their exploration data of systems to players who need to find planets with different materials and think the station's price is too high

Engineers would become a huge thing, rolling several times to give an edge over the Ai, or an edge for mining or gathering to sell more materials. This would also need to come with an Ai buff, but that is for FD to figure out.

Federation or Empire? I don't think the players should be bashing their heads over one another to get the station to be aligned with one or the other, it should be independent, period.
Power play. No. I think we should get all of the power play people to agree to keep their hands off the station or system.

Building this station? Players could help by bringing building equipment to speed the construction process along, maybe even actively participate by "welding" the station, using certain commodities or materials to help build the station. Combat based players could also be used in the sense of constant fighting. Combat players would be needed to protect the traders bringing in materials and commodities by patrolling around in super-cruise, and standing by players "welding" the station.

Station type? Let's assume that the players love this idea and all travel to it, you'll have a ton of traffic and lots of players and Npcs trying to dock. Sorry FD, but we need a mega station, one no like the others. We may need over 60 or 80 docking spots for a project this intense.

Npcs? Mission board? Npcs should live here, like other stations, offering missions, but have the players have the most influence on the system. Missions, npcs will offer as they do. However, players could make this be huge! Players who are super busy with other tasks around the area may need a ship transported here, or may need commodities for the station. The players should be able to set the reward of the mission, but cannot offer less money than it would to buy commodities, or pay for fuel. Players should not be able to abandon these missions at all. The time limit should go along the lines of scaling, consider the distance it takes for the players to get the items or ships, you could even have the option to create or select a category for a mission. "gather 4 of this material" you should be given at least a week to finish this. "Transport this ship in this system to here" once the player gets to the system start a time to return the ship. "source and return these many commodities" min of a day to finish this mission.

There could be a new type of player, an information broker of sorts, those who get information on different groups, finding their intentions and selling the data of possible "raids" to the station which alert the nearby players of possible attacks (hopefully with a time-frame so we're not up all night.)

Explorers, there would be much need for them. While the station is under construction, they could be finding ideal systems for the stations final location of the station, perhaps having a vote in the community to determine it's final destination, and the name of the station. In order to submit the final system, the system must be fully explored by you if you want to suggest a station. Example, discovering all planets, asteroid belts (or maybe a few,) black holes, stars with a tier 3 scan. I don't think the players should be able to suggest systems that are already populated. This is to prevent a location be super favorable to one player over the next player.

I'm sorry for any typos, for I am typing this without my glasses and I can't see anything. I love feedback!

 

[Tikanderoga]

I love the idea.
Just a few changes:
No NPCs - don't add even more traffic to the mega station.

Prices: player drives, totally, but there are always trolls, either pushing the prices from one extreme to the other. 1 credit vs 99'999 credit. You obviously got an excess of something, so it isn't worth a lot to you. People who are into crafting and customizing, they will have money. But they don't have money because they are spending it by the 99'999s. Either fixed prices, or prices vary by supply and demand. make a range, say from 1000 - 20000. One is available, it's 20k, there are 100 available, you can get them for 1000 cr. But the range should be fixed.

Having only 1 such station would be a huge headache though. Where to place it? No matter where you put it, some people won't be happy with it. I would suggest building 1 every 500 lys or so, and once a week, the good would be balanced out towards the closest hubs.

 

[Alex Brentnall]

What you seem to want is a player to player market.

What you are asking for (player owned/controlled station) will never happen in the game because the whole point is you arn't CMDR X hero of space. You are a man with a ship . Giving player or several players any form of control over a station, markets or anything like that will lead to more trouble than it's worth.

I'm trying to stay a little impartial here, p2p markets are something thats been asked for before but with humans there will always be some people there to exploit any flaw in the system meaning it'd have to be very closely controlled.

 

[Maun]

I think a player market place should be implemented soon really. Its worked in other games quite simply. It would take away from the grind of various things, and would encourage peeps to do different parts of the game etc.

Not sure how it would be done, black market type of thing only at random stations? anarchy space only?

 

[wize5]

i like the idea but there are some flaws

make it more like a exchange where players can see the average price that an item in the exchange is currently going for, then when a player decides to sell set a limit of the price (no higher than 10% or no lower than 10% the current average price)

then they post the items to be sold on the exchange, look around maybe buy something while waiting for it to sell run off and explore fight whatever.

when the items do sell they receive a notification in their comms panel letting them know it's been sold and that the credits are being transferred directly to them (or if you want to be evil make them come back to the exchange station to receive the credits).

finally you need to set an expiration date so the items won't just sit on the exchange for eternity (something like 30 days tops) and once they expire the player has oh let's say 2 weeks to pick up the expired items or the exchange will destroy them.

 

[EzeThieL]

What you seem to want is a player to player market.

What you are asking for (player owned/controlled station) will never happen in the game because the whole point is you arn't CMDR X hero of space. You are a man with a ship . Giving player or several players any form of control over a station, markets or anything like that will lead to more trouble than it's worth.

I'm trying to stay a little impartial here, p2p markets are something thats been asked for before but with humans there will always be some people there to exploit any flaw in the system meaning it'd have to be very closely controlled.

(I hope you guys have patience to read all this stuff, I got bored at work )
Even a small insignificant man with a ship could/should have a small place to call home. In a gaming world were there are so many sandbox games (not space related) they all figured something that attracted many many players and that is the false feeling of propriety, of owning something that could be called your home. Elite Dangerous could be the next best space sandbox game if they give this little huge thing to us, of course, among other great things, but this will be a start, good as any other . I know with what most of players compare ED and with what game ED should look like...you guess it? It's EVE Online. Yeah, I know, again somebody that's wants ED like EVE....I don't really care because that formula EVE used worked big time for me and so many others, the downside of that game is like playing EXEL in space, but I remember when I owned an POS (player owned station) and that feeling of having something of that (even if it was something little for the game scale) was awesome and overwhelming. The gameplay, the possibilities, the friendship, the wars, the frustration and the joy were the most greatest things that I got altogether only in that game. OP maybe is asking for a big station for a player to own, I would feel satisfied with a little room and an hangar (both that could be upgraded and personalized). Imagine an far away system where an clan could make a small place to call home, what will that bring? Co-op gameplay, small/big communities, pvp, pve, base maintenance mechanics and, this brings me to the next important thing, trading of far away stuff.
Trading, as in real life, will always have scammers. This ones will always try to steal or cheat you for your money like it or not. It's up to the player to pay attention when is making an transaction and this is hardly an game flaw. I never ever got scammed in any game, instead I founded many and they are somehow easy to spot, tho I was very close to get cheated. The only times I got cheated was by myself, I was not paying attention to what price I put for the stuff I wanted to sell and I sold lots of good stuff very cheap But you know what I have seen everywhere even with all this scammers? An stabilized market mostly all the time, of course with dev's help or player help, who knows. But after some time they were stabilized and everyone that was honest was able to do the trading that he wanted. We all played more or less online games and having possibility to trade to each others was the most simple if not logical thing to do. Have a friend in game that wasn't able to play for some days and he needs some stuff really quick? Why he isn't able to recover from the time lost in game by buying the stuff he needs? Or better yet, you to help him? What is wrong with that? I don't get it....
For an online game as this scale, trading is inevitable or else people start getting the wall of logic in their face. Maybe FD don't have this in mind, maybe they want to do things different but dodging an must needed necessary player interaction mechanics isn't the way to go, they can do different some other stuff, not the basics.
And for player owned homes, well, this have been proved as necessary also for the happiness of players and different gameplay in an sandbox game, why this shouldn't be present also? Something small, not to complex, just us to have this false property thingy for us to play around.
Just my 2 cents on the matter, I hope FD will listen and they get Elite holding the lottery ticket as they get many more players for the complexity they can give for the money

 

[M_Biscotti]

Please Frontier,

Never add an Auction House to this game. It has never, anywhere, been a good thing.
Just a place for virtual investors, and gold sellers.

 

[EzeThieL]

Please Frontier,

Never add an Auction House to this game. It has never, anywhere, been a good thing.
Just a place for virtual investors, and gold sellers.

Err, never, anywhere?? What are you talking about... Did you even played some online games with great auction system? Or if you did, how much did you used the market? And if you actually used that market, how many of them were scammers and how many were honest players? On the contrary, it was one of the best feature on trading. Virtual investors? they are in any online game with some potential, and gold sellers are so easy to spot and avoid, tho they still give a pain in the ass to devs. You used the word gold, are you coming from WoW? How did them ruined your trading there? It's a difference from chat spamming for selling gold to browsing the auction and buying what you need. Did they somehow managed to sell gold for real money in the auction? I don't think so. They were selling stuff that they gathered with mining bots or different macro type programs, that are banned every week, tho I guess is really hard to avoid all of them in one time. Still, there is a difference to a game that gives love to players and good content (and this actually bring more profit to the company having a much bigger player base) and the groups of farmers that want to make profit on that, the later it's a matter of game protection and not game mechanics. As a poor analogy, imagine they will ban cars on the roads because of the ones that sell cheap counterfeit gasoline....

 

[M_Biscotti]

I didn't directly answer you, I just forgot to select OP's post ^^'

But anyway until now Frontier didn't allow player to player direct sales. I fully agree with them after having seen how it works in WoW, Aion, GW2 and Neverwinter and how it's working in ESO (better, not ideal, but far better)

 

[EzeThieL]

I didn't directly answer you, I just forgot to select OP's post ^^'

But anyway until now Frontier didn't allow player to player direct sales. I fully agree with them after having seen how it works in WoW, Aion, GW2 and Neverwinter and how it's working in ESO (better, not ideal, but far better)

I still can't see where is the problem in the markets and auctions of said games, I played a lot all of them, never seen any problem, instead I always founded what I mostly needed. So, where is the problem?

 

[Tolmir]

So to summarize a player auction house.

 

[david6768]

Let's face it, engineers are weird. I quite don't give a [up] to the engineers, but that's not what I want to talk about.

I want to talk about how certain players prefer different styles of game play, combat, mining, missions, exploring, gathering. I will use this to demonstrate how the community could come together to help each other out.

Grinding. Everybody hates it with the new engineers, but what if there was an incentive to keep mining for materials of any kind? What if you felt like making more money by going to a player-ran trade center? A short example being; You're a miner, you've found polonium, but you really don't need it anymore, and with these material keep gathering up, I'll have to ditch stuff soon. Imagine if players have an excess amount of stuff they have no need for, while a different player really needs to find say tungsten and is having no luck with the search. Frustrated, he vows to quite the game! What if they're was a terminal, where you could buy things from materials, data, and commodities from different players?

What if players could set their own price on rare materials to make mining, or gathering more profitable? This would bind the community together, and create a reason to go in the mines and sell rare materials at a very high price, or it could create competition between different players, creating a need for cooperation, determination, and endurance.

Players who enjoy trade could sell everything that they could get their hands on to the station, which would have needs and demands just like any other station.
Combat players could be rewarded for finding those chemical processors that you're always out of and selling them to the community.
Exploration based players could sell their exploration data of systems to players who need to find planets with different materials and think the station's price is too high

Engineers would become a huge thing, rolling several times to give an edge over the Ai, or an edge for mining or gathering to sell more materials. This would also need to come with an Ai buff, but that is for FD to figure out.

Federation or Empire? I don't think the players should be bashing their heads over one another to get the station to be aligned with one or the other, it should be independent, period.
Power play. No. I think we should get all of the power play people to agree to keep their hands off the station or system.

Building this station? Players could help by bringing building equipment to speed the construction process along, maybe even actively participate by "welding" the station, using certain commodities or materials to help build the station. Combat based players could also be used in the sense of constant fighting. Combat players would be needed to protect the traders bringing in materials and commodities by patrolling around in super-cruise, and standing by players "welding" the station.

Station type? Let's assume that the players love this idea and all travel to it, you'll have a ton of traffic and lots of players and Npcs trying to dock. Sorry FD, but we need a mega station, one no like the others. We may need over 60 or 80 docking spots for a project this intense.

Npcs? Mission board? Npcs should live here, like other stations, offering missions, but have the players have the most influence on the system. Missions, npcs will offer as they do. However, players could make this be huge! Players who are super busy with other tasks around the area may need a ship transported here, or may need commodities for the station. The players should be able to set the reward of the mission, but cannot offer less money than it would to buy commodities, or pay for fuel. Players should not be able to abandon these missions at all. The time limit should go along the lines of scaling, consider the distance it takes for the players to get the items or ships, you could even have the option to create or select a category for a mission. "gather 4 of this material" you should be given at least a week to finish this. "Transport this ship in this system to here" once the player gets to the system start a time to return the ship. "source and return these many commodities" min of a day to finish this mission.

There could be a new type of player, an information broker of sorts, those who get information on different groups, finding their intentions and selling the data of possible "raids" to the station which alert the nearby players of possible attacks (hopefully with a time-frame so we're not up all night.)

Explorers, there would be much need for them. While the station is under construction, they could be finding ideal systems for the stations final location of the station, perhaps having a vote in the community to determine it's final destination, and the name of the station. In order to submit the final system, the system must be fully explored by you if you want to suggest a station. Example, discovering all planets, asteroid belts (or maybe a few,) black holes, stars with a tier 3 scan. I don't think the players should be able to suggest systems that are already populated. This is to prevent a location be super favorable to one player over the next player.

I'm sorry for any typos, for I am typing this without my glasses and I can't see anything. I love feedback!

It sounds like you are want something fun and engaging to the game, this goes against the "developers vision" of Elite Dangerous being a grindy unfun experience!!!

 

[Agony_Aunt]

The problem with infinite collectable resources and player markets is ultimately they will stagnate unless the devs introduce ways of reducing deflation by artificially limiting supply.

They start limiting supply and requiring player to player trades to get the more exotic items, you will have solo and group players up in arms. Also, if those things are used by explorers (for example, jumponium) its going to be a pain for them as well out in the black.

They don't start limiting supply, and everyone will soon be selling the most exotic items for really cheap prices.

Seen it happen before, and one of the problems with player driven markets. There is nothing that can set a price, and things, unless curated, can quickly go into freefall, because no game economy is truly balanced.

I've heard of similar problems in EvE with its player run economy. Devs had to keep readjusting the value of something... sorry for lack of knowlege here, i don't follow EvE, was just something i read in passing. I'm sure some EvE players might know what i'm referring to and can expound further.

 

[Havoc4U]

why not let the player have 1 storage unit at his home base with a limited amount of storage. Then he can market items in that storage either for auction or on a materials/commodities market either for credits or trade. Then anyone that would need an item would put in a bid & if awarded that item would travel to that player's home port to either trade items or pay credits to that storage. If/when the owner of said storage wanted to move he would put his storage on a ship & transfer it to another station. Another idea would be to also allow said storage to be implemented on a planetary site like a storage unit in a canyon crater or on a mountain etc. Brainstorming here - something to think about. Cheers!

 

[EzeThieL]

The problem with infinite collectable resources and player markets is ultimately they will stagnate unless the devs introduce ways of reducing deflation by artificially limiting supply.

They start limiting supply and requiring player to player trades to get the more exotic items, you will have solo and group players up in arms. Also, if those things are used by explorers (for example, jumponium) its going to be a pain for them as well out in the black.

They don't start limiting supply, and everyone will soon be selling the most exotic items for really cheap prices.

Seen it happen before, and one of the problems with player driven markets. There is nothing that can set a price, and things, unless curated, can quickly go into freefall, because no game economy is truly balanced.

I've heard of similar problems in EvE with its player run economy. Devs had to keep readjusting the value of something... sorry for lack of knowlege here, i don't follow EvE, was just something i read in passing. I'm sure some EvE players might know what i'm referring to and can expound further.

Well, if they don't give something to build and to use/sell, we don't really have much to trade. Starting limiting supply isn't a solution, better give much more usage for a mineral and if it's needed for building a power cell per example and that power cell could be needed for building lots of things and with those lots of things a player builder builds ships modules, ships and station modules i think you will have a steady requirement of that mineral, because this will bring players that will like to mine, builders, new items, blueprints and so on. But, we don't have that yet and it's a long way to implement that here, an small player market of small items, just to be there is most welcome at this point. Better yet, we could use personal cargo for ship items to carry around if in need to adjust a fit or something. And of course every player driven market needs dev readjusting, in EVE they do it all the time for minerals and blueprints. There was a time when they were in need to readjust everyday prices of some minerals, it was a crazy period o pyerite, kernite (2 minerals mined by players for ship building and such), blueprints went crazy for so many times so there is always an need to readjusting, and I'm sure as in every game with p2p market

 

[Agony_Aunt]

Well, if they don't give something to build and to use/sell, we don't really have much to trade. Starting limiting supply isn't a solution, better give much more usage for a mineral and if it's needed for building a power cell per example and that power cell could be needed for building lots of things and with those lots of things a player builder builds ships modules, ships and station modules i think you will have a steady requirement of that mineral, because this will bring players that will like to mine, builders, new items, blueprints and so on. But, we don't have that yet and it's a long way to implement that here, an small player market of small items, just to be there is most welcome at this point. Better yet, we could use personal cargo for ship items to carry around if in need to adjust a fit or something. And of course every player driven market needs dev readjusting, in EVE they do it all the time for minerals and blueprints. There was a time when they were in need to readjust everyday prices of some minerals, it was a crazy period o pyerite, kernite (2 minerals mined by players for ship building and such), blueprints went crazy for so many times so there is always an need to readjusting, and I'm sure as in every game with p2p market

Yup, there are ways to handle a player based economy, but none of them are simple. Even getting a non-player based economy working well is a hell of a task, and i can imagine doubly so with a system as complex as ED's BGS, where states can affect prices and much more.

When i was looking at revamping the economic system on the server i worked on, i hunted around for all the info i could gather about how to make a decent working economy in an online game.

This one was a very intersting read: http://www.mine-control.com/zack/uoecon/uoecon.html

And this is similar, but is designed to go with a presentation and focuses more on the problems and solutions: http://www.mine-control.com/zack/uoecon/slides.html

And an interesting PDF that analyzes some of the problems as well: http://web.stanford.edu/group/htgg/sts145papers/mmicheletti_2003_1.pdf

All interesting reads for anyone intersted in this sort of thing. Helps you understand some of the issues with Enviroment based economies and Player based economies.

TL;DR - its not as easy as some people think.

 

[Cybermykl]

Agony-Aunt, this was a very interesting read. The link to the economics of Ultima Online show similarities to our economy in E. Especially interesting were the similarities noted with types of players UO has compared to our own. Very interesting read. It explains a lot when you see certain player's take on the game vs. other player's take, etc. and the rants, complaints and praises. Very enlightening. I see myself in the description as well.

 

[EzeThieL]

Yup, there are ways to handle a player based economy, but none of them are simple. Even getting a non-player based economy working well is a hell of a task, and i can imagine doubly so with a system as complex as ED's BGS, where states can affect prices and much more.

When i was looking at revamping the economic system on the server i worked on, i hunted around for all the info i could gather about how to make a decent working economy in an online game.

This one was a very intersting read: http://www.mine-control.com/zack/uoecon/uoecon.html

And this is similar, but is designed to go with a presentation and focuses more on the problems and solutions: http://www.mine-control.com/zack/uoecon/slides.html

And an interesting PDF that analyzes some of the problems as well: http://web.stanford.edu/group/htgg/sts145papers/mmicheletti_2003_1.pdf

All interesting reads for anyone intersted in this sort of thing. Helps you understand some of the issues with Enviroment based economies and Player based economies.

TL;DR - its not as easy as some people think.

Exactly what kind of data I was looking for, but with EvE market. This will do as well, thanks for the links, is a good read and explanation of things. Of course isn't so easy to pull off an p2p market, but if others did it I guess it can be done here as well right?