how about a one-time purchase to make a trader-only account

Discussion in 'The Veterans' Lounge' started by bortage, Jun 29, 2020.

  1. bortage spammin lifetaps

    let's get some hot economic action going on in this here game

    20 bucks and you can make a special trader-only account that can only make dudes parked in bazaar, new account only, they cannot zone out or level up, they must be ogre warriors and their names have to be references to commerce or their size so for example largewallet or bigbux or hugedeals, that sort of thing

    have 'em spawn in with a full array of trade sachels too
    dreadlord likes this.
  2. Gotn New Member

    Make it also one per email account. Otherwise the bazar would be overrun. As for the names, maybe have it game generated names only, where you can random till you get a name worthy. I don't see devs putting in time to make this happen though. If they did, they would probably charge a lot more then just $20. Maybe make them all gnomes, have you ever tried getting past a wall of ogre merchants in the seller rooms, could even have their own wing of the bazar (new green or yellow wing) for selling or buying sides.
  3. Dythan Ban Lev in Plane of Fire guy

    Or continue to take on money on a monthly basis from people like me who keep an account active solely for a bazaar mule.
    Tucoh, KermittheFroglok and code-zero like this.
  4. bortage spammin lifetaps

    is it more money this way though? if there's more movement in the market it introduces more people to the possibility of buying kronos to sub spurring more krono buying, right now on non-fv servers the bazaar is pretty barren outside of what's currently in style, if it were easier to introduce lower ticket items to the economy then you'd see an uptick in things to buy, which results in more people having plat to buy kronos and more people wanting to sell kronos for plat

    it's also worth considering that this is the only mainstream mmorpg that has this bad of a system for selling drops and you'd still need a traditionally subbed account to sell things in the tunnel on early tlp servers
  5. Shanarias Augur

    I was on Xegony last night, perusing the Bazaar. It took me 20 minutes to get past the Traders whose names started with B. I don't think your statement in Paragraph One is valid.
    KermittheFroglok likes this.
  6. GNOME_POWER Augur

    I think there is a limit of 1000 traders.
  7. KermittheFroglok Augur

    Why would DBG take $20 upfront instead of $120 a year? Just pay for your trader account with Krono, if you don’t already sell enough to do that then the issue is more likely “what” or “how much” you’re selling not when, if you feel like you aren’t making enough plat.

    Otherwise, buy/sell Krono if you feel like you’re not selling enough of what you do have on your part-time offline trader. From my experience it’s a simple decision tree:

    Am I selling enough decent stuff to fund a trader with Krono?

    YES: Use plat to buy Krono for dedicated trader, if you think you need it.
    NO: Still passively sell offline, but accept your toon isn’t generating enough in game value to have a dedicated trader. If you need a lot of plat., plan to buy Krono since you can’t generate the plat as quick yourself with a second AllAccess account. (Unless you have other uses for another AllAccess account, then go for it?)

    DBG understands how valuable a trader is hence why they DIDN’T grant it to Silver members years ago.
    code-zero and Corwyhn Lionheart like this.
  8. Seor New Member

    I’d rather see a market access per regular paid account that isn’t dependent on have it a toon. Just pay a fee and get a 50 or 100 slot access to list things on a stall. Like barter. Don’t see any reason for occupying a toon or account to list something. Make one price per toon or an alternate better deal per account on a server...like shared bank...shared market space. But end the tether to having to sign in or log in to a specific toon. The current setup was poorly conceived and excessively cumbersome.
    Coagagin likes this.
  9. dreadlord Augur

    This is a really good idea for one simple reason...
    Most players are casual-ish and play during main playtimes. So when most people are on, most traders are not.
    this isn't good for players or traders - folk don't want to be logging in at 3am to bazaar-hunt a rare collectible or tradeskill stuff

    I don't think this will lose anyone cash - I'm certainly not going to pay a full sub for another acc just to run a trader; but I would pay a one-off or annual fee
    I also don't think this should be instead of the current arrangement, it works for a lot of folk
    And agreed, the trader should only be available to all access folk (or we just flood the bazaar with bot loot - even more than it is now)
    Weebaaa likes this.
  10. Weebaaa Augur

    This is a very good point here!
  11. KermittheFroglok Augur

    According to who!?!

    This is a niche game frankly funded largely by whales and boxers, my family are casuals and we’re whales.

    https://forums.daybreakgames.com/eq/index.php?threads/how-many-paid-accounts-do-you-have.257684/

    Yes, casual are on/off during “peak” but what your argument forgets are time zones and that people roll on/off with their time zone, in fact many casuals only play a few hours a night for 2-3 nights a week, there stuff is listed the nights they aren’t playing. A casual listing casual items isn’t going to help DBG at all since casuals rarely get items worth selling for a Krono unless it’s from a loot crate, but loot crate rares still can sell easily off peak.

    This would lose DBG cash as many people DO have dedicated trader accounts. Traders being up more really won’t help Krono sales much since the games mechanics already create a scarcity of the big ticket items. Most people with stuff that’ll sell for Krono already box and can often find their trader account with Krono.

    The coding time and lost revenue it would take to do this doesn’t seem worthwhile to the community as a whole. I get the idea, people want more features for less money but this isn’t the same ask as wanting DBG to grant another old expansion to everyone, this would have many people pay for one fewer account which would add up quickly. If a lot of accounts desub then you risk having AllAccess rates go up again.
  12. quseio Augur

    they should sell in the shop a service one or 2 slots to sell stuff people would still have a reason to set up trader accounts
  13. dreadlord Augur

    That is a very small thread vs the number of players - most folk, ofc, don't come on these forums. I'm not sure what point it makes?
    Not sure I understand your obsession with kronos?
    (I've never used one and only know one person who does - altho maybe this varies from server to server?)
    As a business model it's not great - all business want, as much as possible, to have folk tied into subs and, top a great or lesser extent, everything else is just icing
    Again, on a Euro server, people tend to play at Euro times - that's the reason they're here (in the main)

    I don't see this as 'more for less' - I'm offering an extra lump of money for a trader account; limited, as the OP suggests to being a trader. I'm not willing to pay the current sub level just to have a full-time trader - so it would be 100% gain for DPG
  14. Dalrek_MM Elder

    Great idea - and also with bigger bags - 100 items just isnt enough :)

    Got 1 gold and 2 silver accounts I use daily - so I can only sell on 1 account when log off after 11 pm. And both my main char and several mules are filled up with items for bazaar. Collectibles alone takes an insane amount of space. So now Im not putting some items on sale because I have to prioritize and so many items are left in my banks that people might actually be looking for

    Would benefit everyone to make trading more available. Might even upgrade one of my silvers to gold with Kronos, but the requires I can sell enough stuff first
  15. Flatchy Court Jester

    They basically do everything you want now (except the free trader bags) but their cost is slightly more than your 20 bucks. Sounds like another free player wanting something for nothing. No thanks. There is enough competition in the baz already.
    code-zero likes this.
  16. KermittheFroglok Augur

    1) That's not a "small thread" there were over 5 pages of 80 different players responding they had multiple accounts subbed, many with Krono, hardly anyone from that sample had only 1 account. It's actual DATA which has more weight than your anecdotal experience as a casual that's not on much. True, the forums aren't necessarily the most representative sample, but given how heavily skewed the response was to multi-subs, I don't think it'd matter if you brought none forum players in. The forums consist of both casuals & hardcore players, and that's the fallacy of your counterargument.

    2) I'm not "obsessed" with Kronos, I just understand that it's a major part of DBG's monetization strategy. It’s a lost to DBG to offer a one time unlocker.

    1 player with dedicated trader account = $360
    (Assumes, 3 year game life with 1 year sub. Really more given Krono are being used.)

    $360/proposed $20 unlocker = 18 "casual" traders needed to offset each lost sub from competitive traders.

    I doubt 18 people will buy the unlocker for every competitive trader that'll be able to drop a sub from this. For example, on Vox it seems like we have about two dozen 24/7 traders, I don't see 432 unlockers selling on a server that peaks around ~500 accounts because many of those 500 accounts are boxers, they're not going to buy an unlocker for each account, just one.

    In the end it's math, DBG loses more than they gain in the scenario. Does everyone want more for less, sure, but in this case it'd be a terrible business decision for DBG.
  17. Sobmre Augur

    i said this long ago, but i said a trader merc ect
  18. dreadlord Augur

    If you're referring to me, I'm not a 'casual player who's not on much' I'm raider and on pretty much every day and have been for 18+ years.That was a very strange assumption to make.
    80 players out of a population of x many thousand is not a statistically significant number, especially when the sample is in no way representative - stats 101

    I don't know anyone with a dedicated trader account. I know/have known far far more folk in EQ than your sample above. I'm not saying they don't exist, just that my unrepresentative sample of friends and guildies over the years doesn't have a single one. I can think, without trying hard, of a dozen folk who would pay for the trader account.


    Perhaps. Or DBG could get a cash injection with a one-off trader fee. Or just do things that are good for players; having a small number of traders and artificially high prices is only good for the plat farmers/botters
  19. svann Augur

    The exception does not provide logical basis.