After a pretty long break, I've only recently started playing again. I can't help feeling, though, that I'm completely overlooking some very basic steps that might make bazaar trading easier. I don't raid, so I don't have an endless supply of Kronos or platinum. I'm paying for three accounts out of pocket to support three traders. I'm still needing, at least, one buyer, though. And I also think that I'd rather enjoy having the option available to play on, at least, one account. In this day of age, is it possible at all to do these things without completely losing the traders' abilities? In this day of age, are my traders (and/or buyers) actually tied up to doing those activities only or completely missing out on them? What are some obvious steps that I'm clearly overlooking that would simplify things and still allow me to trade?
No your not overlooking something. There are no free traders or buyers. I have 4 accounts and have never taken a break from this game since 2004 , why do you need so many traders? Sounds like you play the baz more than the game.
I don't mind paying premium to use the market features, but I'm certainly hoping that it's possible to do so without completely tying up those characters. Can I enter "offline" mode with traders and/or buyers and use other characters on the account? If not, is it possible to use the trading character in other ways? EverQuest is the only game that I can think of that seems to completely tie up a character or entire account in this way. Shady, I guess, but, I'll have to admit, it's pretty genius design.
Your not playing your mains 24/7 right? So that off time is when you run your traders or buyers. And they should be alts on your account, not the main character. When your done playing your main that day then you pop over to the trader alt, double check his prices or add items to him and go offline. Come back next time you want to play and log into the main and play. Rinse repeat.
In my case, I'm retired and have a good bit of time available. I'm also coming back after a break of several years and have decided to start several characters completely over. I'm considering starting on a completely new progressive server, but I had hoped that it might be possible to trade off some of my older items. Without completely tying up a character or entire account, I mean. I had hoped that in this day of age trading might have improved a bit.
So what your saying is that you do play 24/7 and cannot spare a character on that account to run over on a live server as trader when you sleep? There are a lot of us retired now, the game is that old, with lots of time. No matter how many hours a day I can sit and play, I still have to take breaks now and then and sleep at night. That is when I run the baz. I make out fairly well. Sounds like you just want to ask for the ability to run 2 characters on the account at one time. There is no need for that since as I mentioned we all have to sleep at some point
It's an archaic design that ties up an entire account to sell in the Bazaar or Barter. Some people pay for an account just so they can be buying/selling during prime time, and I don't think DPG have any plans to change it. I may be wrong, but they haven't hinted at any changes that I know of.
Thank you for the answers. There's a sucker like me born every minute, I guess. Why would there be any change to a system designed to fully lock up an account? My expectations weren't very realistic...
I operate similar to Catspaws - I have multiple paid accounts - I leave them in bazaar mode when I'm not actively playing, I just deal with not having them up for the few hours that I'm actually out actively playing and I put them in offline mode overnight. Yes, I may not have them up during peak evening US hours - but I still make more than enough plat for what I need.
Just out of curiosity, why do you need 3 full traders? Are you generating that much in-demand loot that you need 300 slots to sell it all? And if you really are, one approach might be to lower prices a bit, and make stuff move/sell faster. In other words, get the sell rate approx. equal to the loot generation rate. I also 3 box, and don't raid, etc. But I don't generate decent loot to sell at anywhere near the rate to fill up even one seller. And on those rare occasions when I have, I just fill the seller's bank with the overflow, and eventually the sales pick back up, and I bring in more stock from the bank. What I would suggest is to look over what you're selling. I bet most of it is relatively cheap items selling for a couple hundred plat or less. That kind of stuff (unless you're selling stacks and stacks of it daily) doesn't really generate THAT much plat. Bank it, keep the good stuff stocked on the seller, and bring it down to 1 or 2 sellers. Then bring back the cheaper stuff when you have slots to spare.
You are trying to bring logic into the realm of emotions. Some people are OCD'd over bazaar trading, some people have more sinister reasons based on emotion of greed. Those are irrational reasons. For a majority of EQ players who see value and pleasure in actually playing the game the current system of bazaar traders is adequate to the purpose. There are 2 smaller groups who may be unhappy with that - commercial traders (buy-markup-sell) and ocd victims (those who feel uneasy about every second their ornate defiant gear is not being for sale on their trader while they are farming for another defiant drop). No amount of reasoning will alleviate their unhappiness. There is also a possible moment of frustration for even common folks when another Ice Fiend Blade drops in Griklor's chest while the character, trader and shared bank already have that blade. Oh the irony! A Lore item will rot this time! Although, if trader's price on it was lower, perhaps it would have been sold last night on the trader. Imho, bazaar traders are fine. Nothing to see here.
Actually, the entire account isn't locked up. It is locked up for the one game, but you can play EQ2 while you have an offline trader on the same account in EQ (you can actually even have an active character in both games at the same time, if your computer can handle it). I was shocked and amused when I accidentally discovered this. As for "prime time", that's actually pretty fluid since there are players in many different timezones. I am in Pacific time zone but have a regular Sunday group with some players in Switzerland and about half of my guild are in Eastern time zone. Most of the "prime time" for Switzerland is while I am at sleeping or at work. Most of the "prime time" for east coast North America is also when I am at work and most of mine is when they're sleeping. When EQ2 started, you also had to have a character online in 'trader' mode (no offline then) in the character's housing. It wasn't until years later that they brought in an 'offline' method that also worked while you had a character logged in doing stuff. In EQ2 -now- you have a house item like a depot that can be placed as well as a 'bulletin board' that can also be placed to allow you to buy or sell from the house. There is also an 'agent' (I forget the name) that is like a merchant in several locations that will allow you to buy. To sell, you have slots where you can place the depots (varying sizes and some are limited to specific contents). I think the maximum size of house you have still governs how many bazaar slots are available to you with a minimal number if you don't have any houses. Like EQ, you still need to subscribe in order to sell (and I think buy, too, I haven't played much EQ2 in recent years). When EQ2 launched, there were actually 2 bazaars, one for the Qeynos (good) faction and another for the Freeport (evil) faction. If you wanted to look at the bazaar of the other faction (let alone buy from it), you needed to use a "Fence" that was in a hidden location in the city. The neutral faction had access to neither because that faction was originally intended only for someone temporarily switching from Qeynos/Freeport. It was a few years after launch when they were combined (and, as a roleplayer, I really missed the split bazaar but as a seller/buyer I didn't).
Can anyone tell me the most populous server with adults to play on? Live Server I mean please. I'm just returning to the game after a long absence. I'd prefer to play on a US server with high traffic that is primarily adult. Suggestions greatly appreciated??? Thabks in advance!!!! A nice selection at the bazaar wouldn't hurt.
"With adults"? LOL This is Everquest. The only young people who play are family members (read: children or grandkids) of other EQ players. Average age across the game is probably in the 40s.
Most kids are no longer playing this game since it does not give them instant gratification or paper reward certificates and its too much work for them to figure out a quest or even get all the way thru one if they hit a bump or long camp waiting for the mob. So there are not 100's of Monks running around or others doing the "duck" at you. There are some adults that are juvenile but that happens in real life and they are easy to ignore. I think they congregate towards the TLP servers. I think overall, Tunare, Xegony and a few others are pretty smooth. Maybe check out the guild recruitment forum - you can tell a lot from a server by how the guilds on it advertise for members - ie what they say WB!
You know DB earn money for each account you have in play? that is the easy answer to your long rambling about that you want to have your cake and eat it. Should have learned more by now since your retired....
Unfortunately, you won't be able to tell anything about Tunare from the guild recruitment forum. The only guild which has posted there in the last three years is the top raiding guild. I know there's more going on there, but none of the guilds post in that forum. (this is based on searching for "tunare" in that forum's post titles. I suppose some of the posts may be from Tunare, and they just don't mention it in the title, but that would be a bit strange.) This is not a knock on Tunare, I enjoy playing there. Just can't understand why NONE of the guilds there post, other than LU.
Fair enough. I did go back and check now, and other than LU posts, there were posts in May '21, August '20 and May '19 with folks looking for a guild on Tunare, but no other guilds posting looking for members. I guess it's just an insular server.
With 3 full time traders shouldnt you have plenty of kronos? Or if they arent making you money why have 3?
