I’d like to outline a concept that has been floated before (long ago), but may not have been well articulated. I made this suggestion at a FF dev Q&A back in 2005 (I think it was), and the response seemed positive, but I haven’t seen any movement so here’s my helpful requirements document. I’m not particularly interested in claiming original credit for this idea as we all know other games have something similar, my sole interest is to see that this concept is given proper consideration. Guild hall amenities are ubiquitous. I’d venture so far as to say they make up a very significant portion of the time players spend in the game. We have our banker, broker, etc. What is missing (among others) is a consignment merchant. What do I mean by this? An NPC or interactive item that serves the function that a player house does for placing items for sale on the player market, but for the guild separately. Allow me to explain the rationale behind this idea. Currently if a guild wants to put items up for sale to the general public they have the obvious option of auctioning them in a public channel, etc, OR entrusting a guild player with the items and either creating dummy character(s) or using their regular character(s) to place the items on the broker. “What’s the problem with that?†you may ask. There are several very important problems with the arrangement described by the second option. 1. It creates a potential for what I call single point of failure. If the player becomes unavailable for any reason (sickness, suspension, banning, loss of interest, being eaten in a zerg attack, etc), the items become unavailable to the guild. Yes, through working with SOE support they can sometimes be salvaged, but the point is still clear. 2. It creates a trust issue. The player can take the items themselves. They can skim the profits or take them entirely. They can leave the guild/game, taking the items and the profits with them. 3. There is no accountability. The game provides logging mechanisms visible to the entire guild for the guild bank. When the player takes the items for sale, there is no easily verifiable way for the guild to track what happens to the items and the profits, short of contacting SOE support and requesting an investigation. 4. In the case of dummy characters, the player is giving up a character slot for the sole purpose of becoming the broker mule. 5. In the case of using regular characters, the character is giving up the space required to post the items. It also creates an issue where unless the player is exceedingly diligent, guild items can get mixed in with personal items. The idea here is to solve these issues by creating a mechanism by which the guild can reliably post items for sale with complete accountability. Practical Implementation: An NPC or interactive item which could be the existing market board or the broker NPC, with a context menu option like the Banker (Bank/Guild Bank) which could list the 2 options (Broker/Guild Broker). This would open a window which could be exactly like the player broker window, with the guild name at top, and show the consignment containers. In fairness the number of consignment slots should be significantly more than the player broker, and could scale with the tier of the guildhall. I won’t get into how many slots, as that is a discussion that can be pursued later. A tab would need to be added to the guild management window, called something like Broker Log. This would function like the Bank Log tab, with any broker activity shown. The placed item for outside players to open to browse and purchase items could function either as player housing does with each container separate, or as one easily recognizable item which opens a window listing all available items. A number of configurable permissions would need to be added to guilds: · Add Items to broker · Remove Items from broker · Set Price for broker items To remove the trust issue concerning profit skimming, I would propose that there be an option restricted to leadership which would set which guildbank any consignment money should be automatically deposited into. This would remove the player’s ability to skim profits from the consignment slots, since all purchases would be indicated in the Broker Log and the money would be automatically deposited into the configured guildbank. There should be a default guildbank required and there should be no option for money to be held by the broker and collected by a player directly. Thanks for your consideration and I hope this is helpful and look forward to seeing this implemented should the player base express support for it.
Reposted in Old Fart Friendly text: I’d like to outline a concept that has been floated before (long ago), but may not have been well articulated. I made this suggestion at a FF dev Q&A back in 2005 (I think it was), and the response seemed positive, but I haven’t seen any movement so here’s my helpful requirements document. I’m not particularly interested in claiming original credit for this idea as we all know other games have something similar, my sole interest is to see that this concept is given proper consideration. Guild hall amenities are ubiquitous. I’d venture so far as to say they make up a very significant portion of the time players spend in the game. We have our banker, broker, etc. What is missing (among others) is a consignment merchant. What do I mean by this? An NPC or interactive item that serves the function that a player house does for placing items for sale on the player market, but for the guild separately. Allow me to explain the rationale behind this idea. Currently if a guild wants to put items up for sale to the general public they have the obvious option of auctioning them in a public channel, etc, OR entrusting a guild player with the items and either creating dummy character(s) or using their regular character(s) to place the items on the broker. “What’s the problem with that?†you may ask. There are several very important problems with the arrangement described by the second option. 1. It creates a potential for what I call single point of failure. If the player becomes unavailable for any reason (sickness, suspension, banning, loss of interest, being eaten in a zerg attack, etc), the items become unavailable to the guild. Yes, through working with SOE support they can sometimes be salvaged, but the point is still clear. 2. It creates a trust issue. The player can take the items themselves. They can skim the profits or take them entirely. They can leave the guild/game, taking the items and the profits with them. 3. There is no accountability. The game provides logging mechanisms visible to the entire guild for the guild bank. When the player takes the items for sale, there is no easily verifiable way for the guild to track what happens to the items and the profits, short of contacting SOE support and requesting an investigation. 4. In the case of dummy characters, the player is giving up a character slot for the sole purpose of becoming the broker mule. 5. In the case of using regular characters, the character is giving up the space required to post the items. It also creates an issue where unless the player is exceedingly diligent, guild items can get mixed in with personal items. The idea here is to solve these issues by creating a mechanism by which the guild can reliably post items for sale with complete accountability. Practical Implementation: An NPC or interactive item which could be the existing market board or the broker NPC, with a context menu option like the Banker (Bank/Guild Bank) which could list the 2 options (Broker/Guild Broker). This would open a window which could be exactly like the player broker window, with the guild name at top, and show the consignment containers. In fairness the number of consignment slots should be significantly more than the player broker, and could scale with the tier of the guildhall. I won’t get into how many slots, as that is a discussion that can be pursued later. A tab would need to be added to the guild management window, called something like Broker Log. This would function like the Bank Log tab, with any broker activity shown. The placed item for outside players to open to browse and purchase items could function either as player housing does with each container separate, or as one easily recognizable item which opens a window listing all available items. A number of configurable permissions would need to be added to guilds: · Add Items to broker · Remove Items from broker · Set Price for broker items To remove the trust issue concerning profit skimming, I would propose that there be an option restricted to leadership which would set which guildbank any consignment money should be automatically deposited into. This would remove the player’s ability to skim profits from the consignment slots, since all purchases would be indicated in the Broker Log and the money would be automatically deposited into the configured guildbank. There should be a default guildbank required and there should be no option for money to be held by the broker and collected by a player directly. Thanks for your consideration and I hope this is helpful and look forward to seeing this implemented should the player base express support for it.
Here is a PM I sent to Rothgar in 2010 about a way to impliment a similar idea that would not be programming intensive. That was the reason listed previously for why guild brokers were not implimented. To note, Rothgar's response was favorable and he intended to look into it when he could: ------------------------------------------------------------------------- I know you guys have looked into a guild broker before, but just wanted to throw this out: Instead of a seperate broker, just add a right click option to boxes in the broker window that make them 'Guild Only'. Then adjust the search result code to filter on a optional hidden GuildID field only if it matches the searcher's GuildID. If the GuildID field is null, don't filter. I know its an 'arm-chair' developer idea, but in concept it doesn't sound too taxing and could enable the 'guild based brokering' option that players are looking for. Anyway, just an insomnia based idea I had and thought I would share. -Atan -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I love this idea Would make sense to have a guild broker of sorts to add to the list of guild hall amenities.
Atan@Unrest wrote: I LOL'd, then I 'd As I realized it helped.... I do however like this Idea, paired with a lessening of the increasiingly insane trade restriction could bring alot more life back to this game.
I see no real reason not to implement something like this, they could even go as far as selling right out of the guild bank if its easier for them.
Atan@Unrest wrote: (thanks for the repost Atan, i was gonna ignore his post till i saw yours) 1) point of failure, everyone is at risk of this for more reasons you've posted (anything can happen) true under the current system you cant avoid this risk, but the real chocie is participating or not participating 2) trust - why even LET someone sell the items if you dont trust them? If you have a reason not the trust the person and you dont have the power to change the "trustee" raise your issue with someone who does. Everyone you have dealings with ingame or otherwise you are taking a risk with regardless if you trust them or not, betrayal is a part of life, would you rather someone betrayed you outside the game as opposed to ingame? at most you lose some pixels and some play money. 3) i do agree here but you still do have a way to track what has happened through CS 4) everyone has different tastes in charater counts, and even if that player has alot of charaters if he's gold he can easily buy a extra slot with his free SC, whether he/she makes a mule is up to them. 5) there are enough broker slots for bags to prevent this, you dont need to be attentive the broker stores funds based on bag it's child's play to put a 40 capacity box on the last broker slot for guild items and then fill the other slots with 40 capacity bags so at a glance you can see which is which. Then all it is making sure the guild items are always put in the box and not the bags.
I don't think anyone has any illusions that there are always ways to exploit any system General, and that there are lots of ways to workaround the current issues. The point here is to put in place something that minimizes this risk in a constructive way just as many other games have done.
