Buy Orders - why I think they will be a perfect addition to the game

Basically, a buy order is when a player places a request for an item or x amount of resources in the market place. The money for the buy order is taken immediately from the player or node when placed, but they can get it back if the buy order is cancelled obviously. Eve Online has well-designed system for this, if you want to look up examples in other games.

1. It promotes trade and crafting

Let's say a guild or node in the mountains need timber and/or lumber. They can simply place a buy order for this in their marketplace, at a premium price. Gatherers and Processors from all over the world will be able to see this, and they can load up their caravans to fill those buy orders. At the same time, perhaps the mountain node has plenty of cheap stone and metal that other nodes pay a premium for, so players can fill up their caravans again for the return trip. Everyone become rich and happy...

2. It promotes Caravan PVP

Obviously with many caravans come the thieving thugs intent on stealing the goods. They can also see those buy orders, and may plan to wtfpwn the n00bz for riches. The guild or node receiving those goods might have to send defenders to protect the caravans, resulting in a grand ole open world PvP fest.

3. It promotes player driven politics and node/castle wars and thus a less stagnant world.

Maybe the above mentioned thieving thugs aren't your random lowlife players. Maybe they are a mercenary guild hired by a competing node, intent on stopping the progress of the mountain node. Maybe said mountain node discovers this, and declare war on both the mercenaries AND the node that hires them, resulting in big battles and much smack ta.. I mean, political discourse.

I think buy orders will add immensely to the game, above and beyond the immediate convenience factor.

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Comments

Niraada

I was thinking about this differently, but I quite like your suggestion.

(I thought about having purchase orders in player stalls, which I think would be problematic levels of automation)

CaptnChuck

Great suggestion. Definitely adds a nice element to the game.

Nerror

Edit: Oh you edited the comment

Hrm I am not sure I understand why you think a second account is a big advantage here Niraada? You don't need to be active at your personal stall to do transactions with others. And specifically with buy orders, you need the money up front to place them, which I guess you could give to your alt account, but I don't see the point. It would make sense to have an alt character near the stall obviously.

Niraada

@Nerror it's a question of efficiency, effort and opportunity costs.

If I can be out in the world, doing all the things I need and want to do while simultaneously have a constant, persistent presence within an active node purchasing materials for me, ensuring that I never miss out on when other players are offloading their gatherables, that's an incredibly large advantage over someone who can do either or.

For someone with a single account, there's an opportunity cost to running the stall vs going out into the world, whereas having a second account that can automatically purchase could eliminate that opportunity cost.

If I choose to go out and gather, I can't maintain my stall and presence purchasing from players who might be returning with gatherables on a single account.

With a second account however, you're not losing anything by having an account you're not actively playing sit in a node handling automated purchases for you.

Nerror

Ok thanks for the explanation.

I see the problem as smaller than you see it I think. It's a simple matter of logging in and out of an alt, if that becomes necessary. But either way, I believe any issue is outweighed by the benefits of having a buy order system

Niraada

@Nerror having buy orders implemented through a Node Market as you suggested vs Player Stalls I think would be a much better option and would eliminate the potential for people to gain unreasonable advantages through use of secondary accounts.

unknown

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CaptnChuck

Niraada wrote: »

@Nerror having buy orders implemented through a Node Market as you suggested vs Player Stalls I think would be a much better option and would eliminate the potential for people to gain unreasonable advantages through use of secondary accounts.

Isn't that what he said in the first place?

Niraada

CaptnChuck wrote: »

Niraada wrote: »

@Nerror having buy orders implemented through a Node Market as you suggested vs Player Stalls I think would be a much better option and would eliminate the potential for people to gain unreasonable advantages through use of secondary accounts.

Isn't that what he said in the first place?

Unless I totally misinterpreted it, which is super possible because I didn't get a lot of sleep. x.x

Niraada

I interpreted the original suggestion as players being able to place a buy order within a node's market facility by essentially putting down currency that would be used for the purchase of specific gatherables or crafted goods. When those goods aren't currently available in the market, it could then offer a per unit markup to encourage player caravans to make the trip and a market fee in order to sink a portion of the supplied currency out of the server economy.

Wiplasher

Niraada wrote: »

I interpreted the original suggestion as players being able to place a buy order within a node's market facility by essentially putting down currency that would be used for the purchase of specific gatherables or crafted goods. When those goods aren't currently available in the market, it could then offer a per unit markup to encourage player caravans to make the trip and a market fee in order to sink a portion of the supplied currency out of the server economy.

Exactly how I read it. Which I assume this was already going to be part of the auction house mechanic

Niraada

I'm definitely interested to see how commodities trading will be handled as we get more information. Playing a well structured economy is one of my favourite things to do in an MMO.

Nerror

I actually don't see a huge problem with it being for personal stalls as well, but adding it for the larger marketplaces and such first, is probably a good idea

Lazyactor

Oh hey I actually have something to chime in on from my MMO experience.

So the issue with buy orders is pretty simple but most honest people wouldnt think of it.

In albion online which is a full loot on death game, players could go to markets and set up a buy order like this.

400 iron ore at 13 silver per ore.

They put the money up front and people could full fill the order.

Their are two issues with these systems.

People will under price on purpose hoping to get expensive items for basically nothing by preying on player mistakes.

The market price of items change too quickly to allow buy orders to stay relevant for long.

Example would be when you log in leather is commonly being sold and purchased at about 25s per. you go out to find some leather. You come back with your haul and the price per leather will have likely changed either up or down. You dont care because you will sell that leather anyways at market price. Maybe you hold on to it for the price to raise but you dont lose anything because you farmed that material yourself and intend to sell it at market price.

On the other end when using a buy order. You decide that you need to sleep or whatever. However you want leather ready to go for the next time you play. You check the market price of leather. At the moment it is selling for 25s per. You list up your order of 400 leather for 25s per. You log off expecting others to full fill the order as you sleep or work or whatever. You log back on. There are exactly three things that happened. You bought 0 leather defeating the purpose of the buy order. You bought a few but not even close to what you wanted. You bought all of the leather.

In scenario 1 you didnt manage to purchase a single leather. Why? Well when the order was listed the price was 25s per. Shortly after your post others started selling there leather for 26s per. Why would anyone sell to you when they could make more by selling to someone else.

Scenario 2 is roughly the same but with more time between the market price changing.

Scenario 3 is the worst case scenario. You managed to get all the leather you wanted. However you noticed that in the night the price of leather plummeted and you got taken advantage of. It is now selling for 15s per while you were buying it for 25s. You drastically over paid for the material you needed to create your items and chances are once you create the item you wanted the leather for it wont make you much profit either. Other crafters are listing that item in a finished state based on the cost of materials and the expertise they offer by being able to craft it. They spent 75s per item that uses leather per craft and you spent quite a bit more. Now they are selling their items for less than you can if you want to break even.

In summary buy orders become basically useless since it will always be better for the buyer if they simply exchange goods in real time. We call this sellers advantage. Or the demand for the item. Static listing a price isnt realistic unless you can base that price on some value that never changes. Like a npc selling leather for 30s. Obviously you cant ever price at 30 or more because then people just buy or sell to the NPC.

So the only use of a buy order system is for scammers to set up 500 pages of scam offers that only trap people who didnt know any better. IE newer players. For every 1 legit offer you find it will be overshadowed by 50 scam offers trying to take advantage of someone.

Buy orders are nice in theory but I cant think of a single way for it to work in practice based on my own personal experience in other MMO's with buy orders.

Nerror

It comes down to implementation of course. Your examples can be mostly mitigated. Obviously there's also a volume factor, where higher volume can stabilize things. Have you ever played EVE Online? Because it works pretty well there, and that is localized markets as well.

Players quickly adapt to volatile prices. If, to use your example, the price drops drastically overnight, and you bought leather for higher, well, lesson learned. Don't set it at sugh a high price next time. As long as there's a time limit on taking buy orders down and putting new ones up, or at least a percentage cost involved, it mostly comes down to players learning the markets. If nobody fills your buy order over night, it's quite possible you set it too low. Make a new one with higher prices, or pay the current cost if in a hurry.

Jamation

I think this could be a cool addition to the game and economy. I like the idea of the risk v reward with trying to manage different markets buying vs selling.

Zelel

I agree on buy orders... sometimes you don't want to craft something that goes for a lot of $$$ if you don't know that it will sell. Some items will only be made in games like BDO if crafters see there is actually a person trying to buy the thing for the billions of currency that it goes for.

Jubilum

I have an Eve trader alt that peruses buy orders as much as sell orders. i have 12 years worth of rare resources and fittings stockpiled, just waiting for the right person with the right price to post a buy order. I make as much or more profit filling 5 buy orders than selling 1000's of sell orders.

HiddenDaggerInn

Yes crafting orders is a good idea, a board the crafters can go to in the major cities and fill orders for experience.

NelsonRebel

I like this idea. It would give crafters a nice go-to place to see if they can help craft people stuff. Instead of always missing people who are on/off at different times and crafters feel less engaged

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