With the release of 2.1, I think Galactic Trade Centers (aka auction houses) could add a lot of much needed depth and sense of purpose to the game.

[ketnehn]

With the release of 2.1, I think Galactic Trade Centers (aka auction houses) could add a lot of much needed depth and sense of purpose to the game.

X-post from r/elitedangerous:

Having played ED on and off for a few years now, I realize this is quite an old and controversial topic. I'm fully expecting this to be shot down rather quickly, but I'd like to gauge the community's general reaction in light of the current state of the game. I also have no faith that anything resembling this will ever be implemented, given historical patterns, but I just want to put my name in the bucket for supporters of such a system.
Mind you, I don't have a fully fleshed out system in my head of how this could work logistically or economically, but I'm mainly exploring the possibilities that could retain non-hardcore players' interest and mitigate the things that drive new (and old, including myself) players away.

The Idea

• Designated GTC's around centers of human-occupied space (possibly one or two per PP faction)
  
  
• Commodities and materials can be bought and sold player to player through these GTC's
  
  
• Stock of items available purely dependent on player contribution
  
  
• Large % of sales profits goes to the contributing CMDR of the item
  
  
• To help prevent rampant undercutting, price of listed items is restricted to a certain range within the Galactic Average for that item
  

Why GTC's?

• Current Problems: Every single one of my friends who played ED with me in the past have quit and never looked back. I'm also perpetually on the edge of doing so myself. 90% of my involvement in ED is in this subreddit, waiting for some new, compelling content that can keep me playing. You've all heard the complaints: it's too grindy, confusing, shallow, barebones social interaction, etc.
  
  
• Better Experience for Casual Players: It can reduce the grind for non-hardcore players who want to enjoy the game, but have a difficult time doing so due to time constraints and/or unwillingness to crank out hours of mundane, rng-dependent activity for a marginally small upgrade.
  
  
• Better Sense of Purpose & More Economic Incentives:It provides a better experience for the people who do like to grind out these activities to profit from their work. At the moment, why does anyone search hours on end for arsenic? probably for some immediate FSD upgrade, and nothing beyond that. Why not reward those who like to salvage by letting them make a steady income from it? Hell, I know I would definitely explore in my SRV a lot more if I knew I could earn some credits doing so, and if I knew there was an existing demand for it by other CMDRs.
  
  
• Better Sense of Community: Having a limited number of trade centers can give a better sense of community and increased CMDR to CMDR interaction. In any mmo I've played, I've probably spent most of the time at city hubs where I could relax and run into a large number of players. I know a lot of players here want to distance themselves from other mmo's, but let's be real here: ED has all the grindiness and RNG of any other mmo, but without the depth or community interaction that make those activities worthwhile in the first place.

 

[Andovar]

Good idea? Yes.
Will we see it any time soon? Probably not.

I imagine this would be a pretty large undertaking, and I think they have some more pressing issues ahead of it... *cough* storage *cough*

 

[vizvayu]

I've been wishing for auctions and player market for a long time. I hope they implement it sometime, but just like Andovar, I don't expect it anytime soon either.

 

[Archvillain]

I'm mainly exploring the possibilities that could retain non-hardcore players' interest and mitigate the things that drive new (and old, including myself) players away.

One thing that drives new and old players away is boredom, and one thing that generates boredom is playing in just one corner of the sandbox without fully exploring what else the sandbox has to offer, and one thing that arguably makes it much easier and more tempting to stay in one corner of the sandbox is auction houses (ie it allows buyers to get whatever they need without trying anything they're not familiar with, it encourages "gold-farming" which incentivizes sellers to stay in their corner too, etc).

So I suspect that devs might consider "retaining players" to be a check against auction houses rather than a check for them.

But I suspect a bigger reason against auction houses might that player commerce results in cheating and cash-for-gold / pay-to-win becoming firmly established in games.


So us players would like the feature, but I assume we're probably not likely to get it. At least not any time soon.
It's a classic "This is why we can't have nice things" [sour]


(On that assumption, I think we could take matters into our own hands and use the engineer bases as informal 10pm trade/market places)

 

[Julio Montega]

Why do you want the centers to be placed around pp factions,
why would a known pirate venture into these dangers just to get the mats
and risk destruction?

Here is a suggestion thread to include trade ins at engineers,
i'd prefer that over inflating player driven markets,
or as an addition to the markets.
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=259570

 

[ketnehn]

One thing that drives new and old players away is boredom, and one thing that generates boredom is playing in just one corner of the sandbox without fully exploring what else the sandbox has to offer, and one thing that arguably makes it much easier and more tempting to stay in one corner of the sandbox is auction houses (ie it allows buyers to get whatever they need without trying anything they're not familiar with, it encourages "gold-farming" which incentivizes sellers to stay in their corner too, etc).

So I suspect that devs might consider "retaining players" to be a check against auction houses rather than a check for them.

But I suspect a bigger reason against auction houses might that player commerce results in cheating and cash-for-gold / pay-to-win becoming firmly established in games.


So us players would like the feature, but I assume we're probably not likely to get it. At least not any time soon.
It's a classic "This is why we can't have nice things" [sour]


(On that assumption, I think we could take matters into our own hands and use the engineer bases as informal 10pm trade/market places)

I'd disagree with your whole cause of boredom statement. for me, and I imagine a good number of other players too, the problem is that the current activities I do enjoy are too one dimensional. at the moment the sole purpose for gathering materials is simply to work towards a single upgrade or something similar. I don't want the only compelling reason to drive my srv to be for my own upgrades. I want to have the option to think "Hey, I know there's a huge demand for arsenic at the moment. I think I'll go down in my srv and make some profit off of them!"

- - - - - Additional Content Posted / Auto Merge - - - - -

Why do you want the centers to be placed around pp factions,
why would a known pirate venture into these dangers just to get the mats
and risk destruction?

Here is a suggestion thread to include trade ins at engineers,
i'd prefer that over inflating player driven markets,
or as an addition to the markets.
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=259570

Like I said in my original post, I don't have this whole thing figured out in my head as a perfect idea. but to answer your question, my first thought was that having something called a "Galactic Trade Center" would make most sense to exist near centers of political power. Why would they be in some dangerous, remote area? It makes almost no sense, logically and lore-wise. That would be like having a real World Trade Center located in the middle of Somalia.

So yes, it would be dangerous for known pirates, and just about as dangerous as criminals raiding Wall Street en masse

 

[Don Alvarez]

I've been wishing for auctions and player market for a long time. I hope they implement it sometime, but just like Andovar, I don't expect it anytime soon either.

Before engineers there was really no need for one, the market being what it was and tied somewhat to the BGS was fine as it stood.

Now that there is crafting and player made items along with real demand for certain goods, it makes perfect sense. In MMO's, crafting and auction houses go hand in hand really.

 

[Odan Brota]

Excellent idea. We do need module storage first, though.

Perhaps it would be best to let Frontier set up three auction houses, once in each capital? That way there is a place for players to naturally coagulate.

 

[Archvillain]

I'd disagree with your whole cause of boredom statement. for me, and I imagine a good number of other players too, the problem is that the current activities I do enjoy are too one dimensional. at the moment the sole purpose for gathering materials is simply to work towards a single upgrade or something similar. I don't want the only compelling reason to drive my srv to be for my own upgrades.

You might be demonstrating my point. "I don't want the only compelling reason to drive my srv to be for my own upgrades" is the sort of thing you might hear from a player who mainly just plays for the pew-pew, but then when the tantalizing upgrades provide enough incentive to temp the player into actually driving the SRV, they might during the course of that process discover that SRV pew-pew missions appeal to them too.

I say that because it seems intuitively true to me, but on reflection that off-the-cuff example is not even a hypothetical - one of my pew-pew friends has had Horizons since the very beginning. In all that time he's never tried to visit a planet surface, and wasn't playing the game much any more... until last week when Engineers gave him a reason to go to the surface, and last I heard he was having a blast with surface pew-pew (after setting up SRV bindings for the first time).

If an auction house existed, he probably still would not have discovered how much fun he could be having, and I think game devs are aware that this is sometimes/often a thing, and I think that is part of why Engineers is designed the way it is.


I agree with you that an auction house would be nice, and like you I would also like to have one. I'm just pointing out some of the reasons why it might not happen.

 

[srfrogg23]

X-post from r/elitedangerous:

Having played ED on and off for a few years now, I realize this is quite an old and controversial topic. I'm fully expecting this to be shot down rather quickly, but I'd like to gauge the community's general reaction in light of the current state of the game. I also have no faith that anything resembling this will ever be implemented, given historical patterns, but I just want to put my name in the bucket for supporters of such a system.
Mind you, I don't have a fully fleshed out system in my head of how this could work logistically or economically, but I'm mainly exploring the possibilities that could retain non-hardcore players' interest and mitigate the things that drive new (and old, including myself) players away.

The Idea

• Designated GTC's around centers of human-occupied space (possibly one or two per PP faction)
  
  
• Commodities and materials can be bought and sold player to player through these GTC's
  
  
• Stock of items available purely dependent on player contribution
  
  
• Large % of sales profits goes to the contributing CMDR of the item
  
  
• To help prevent rampant undercutting, price of listed items is restricted to a certain range within the Galactic Average for that item
  

Why GTC's?

• Current Problems: Every single one of my friends who played ED with me in the past have quit and never looked back. I'm also perpetually on the edge of doing so myself. 90% of my involvement in ED is in this subreddit, waiting for some new, compelling content that can keep me playing. You've all heard the complaints: it's too grindy, confusing, shallow, barebones social interaction, etc.
  
  
• Better Experience for Casual Players: It can reduce the grind for non-hardcore players who want to enjoy the game, but have a difficult time doing so due to time constraints and/or unwillingness to crank out hours of mundane, rng-dependent activity for a marginally small upgrade.
  
  
• Better Sense of Purpose & More Economic Incentives:It provides a better experience for the people who do like to grind out these activities to profit from their work. At the moment, why does anyone search hours on end for arsenic? probably for some immediate FSD upgrade, and nothing beyond that. Why not reward those who like to salvage by letting them make a steady income from it? Hell, I know I would definitely explore in my SRV a lot more if I knew I could earn some credits doing so, and if I knew there was an existing demand for it by other CMDRs.
  
  
• Better Sense of Community: Having a limited number of trade centers can give a better sense of community and increased CMDR to CMDR interaction. In any mmo I've played, I've probably spent most of the time at city hubs where I could relax and run into a large number of players. I know a lot of players here want to distance themselves from other mmo's, but let's be real here: ED has all the grindiness and RNG of any other mmo, but without the depth or community interaction that make those activities worthwhile in the first place.

I thought this kind of player driven economy was already something that was being planned by FD. I could be wrong, but I thought it was included in the sales pitch to the kickstart backers from the beginning, more or less.

 

[Barmatyr]

Depth and sense seems to not be the purpose of Elite in anyway.