Update the Bazaar!Follow

SOE needs to update the bazaar of EQ1 to something more like EQ2 or WoW with no more need for unplayed bazaar mules,a larger and more competetively priced selection of items, and WAY more time to have items up for sale and hence more plat for real players that work hard for their plat instead of buying it. It's gettin to be regoddamndiculous that we are still using this outdated bazaar system. We pay good money for this game and the least they could do is make it easier for us to keep playing.I will be /petioning and /buging everytime that I play that they should change this ( hey it worked when I did it to get a banker in Surefall Glade and it only took a year of /bugging every day)and telling everyone in my guild, on my friends list, and anyone I see that day. I will be posting about this on every message board I can find and screaming it on my bazaar mule on the few nights when I dont have a corpse rotting somewhere and remember to log on my mule to start sellin.

well this makes no sense now that ^ changed post

Edited, Nov 4th 2006 at 4:32pm PST by pandorass

The market you talk of, EQ2 (Put items in your house vault and a person buys them for a 10-15% cost increase), or WOW where a person just sets a item into an auction where people bid for a set time, floods the market. WoW being the better of the two I will agree.

When I played EQ2 the market was already weak. After they changed it to allow players to sell offline it was ruined. Items began to flood the market. People who sold started to lose profit due to people undercutting them. I saw items vanish from the market almost all together because people didn't want to compete with 20 other people. People turned to chat channels somewhat to sell. This was caused by the ability to just put items into your house and sell them virutally anytime since it didn't have a fixed duration. Having to force people to BE on and IN merchant mode IMO is better. If you want to sell stuff simply take out some time of lvling and set in bazaar.

EQ II and WoW charging for purchases helps regulate the currency that is in game which helps regulate prices. Other then the SH casino and tradeskills, EQ really has no way to regulate the currency in game. PP just goes from PC to PC and as more PCs make more and more PP the prices go higher and higher. They need to stick some higher end items like an AoN (just using this as an example because of all the discussion over AoN prices with the halloween mask being around) on a NPC vendor somewhere for 250K or something. They need to give players a reason to give large amounts of currency to NPCs instead of just bouncing it from PC to PC.

Edited, Nov 6th 2006 at 7:00am PST by Raolan

/boggle

Think of EQII as a broker. You drop off your item, set the selling price. You can go off an play your character (or log off) while your item is with the broker.

Potential buyers come to the broker, scan the available wares (sort of like the current bazaar search system), and they buy the time from the broker's NPC window.

You come back later. If any of your items sold, you can claim your money from the broker (less the broker's fee).

In my opinion, here are the good points about it:
- Allows you to sell and adventure at the same time.
- Allows buyers to buy 24/7. Currently, you have more sellers during non-peak hours since they play during peak hours. A buyer playing that same schedule could miss what you are selling.
- The broker's fee will take some money out of circulation.
- Less bandwidth for all of the accounts logged into the game just as sellers.

Here are my bad points:
- Eliminates any haggling. Yes, currently, I will see if the person is at their computer and try to haggle on a price.
- Once deposited with the broker, I don't think the item will ever decay. So you could have something from five expansions ago priced outrageously and it will stay that way (more abuse with the broker than with the current bazaar).
- No maximum amount of items that you can sell. So lots of trash items show up all the time.
- Price undercutting is even more common since you never really have to check on your stuff.

I kinda envision a updated bazaar as one large room with about 20 NPC's, all of which perform one simple task. These NPC's accept goods from you, say a max of 50 items, and you set your selling prices for those items. Then you walk away, maybe to go play on a toon, sleep, play EQ2, bash WoW on boards, or even go outside. This NPC places your items and prices in the bazaar search so anyone else can come and view your items and prices just like how we do now. If they decide to buy it then they go to the NPC, any of em, and search for the item they want, select from the list of sellers, buy it, and walk away. To encourage repricing and clearing out of old junk items sellers would have their items taken off the market after say a week if they dont come on and check their inventory through said NPC in the new one room bazaar. Seems like a simple idea to me, and one that would save countless hours of wasted time, energy, and real life money.

Edited, Nov 8th 2006 at 12:23pm PST by pandorass

Edited, Nov 8th 2006 at 12:24pm PST by pandorass[b][/b]

Edited, Nov 8th 2006 at 12:26pm PST by pandorass

I have trader mules on all my servers. I love playing the bazaar just as much as I love being on the player toons.