Splinter Topic: Local vs Regional vs ServerWide (vs GameWide?) Markets

In a game where crafting and the economy is supposed to be important, and access to items is supposed to be limited, do you have any specific opinions on how the Markets should work? Any experience from prior games would also help the discussion.

Ashes of Creation intends to start with primarily local markets, and require Nodes (and specific types of Nodes, too) to develop to the point where we get powerful regional markets.

Personally I've played games like this before, FF11 started with Markets being regional, and BDO was like this 'sorta', but as usual, I suggest not going too far into trying to understand things BDO did. It worked at the time. SW:TOR had very similar implementation for a while too, but theirs was also not quite 'quick explain' so I'll leave that to fans of that game.

As the FF11 playerbase matured and the game expanded, the Auction Houses were consolidated, because the specific form of travel and trade involved was no longer a positive game loop. Basically, it stopped being an adventure. As far as I know, this is the primary reason it was changed, since if it wasn't, then obviously those who 'seek convenience' gravitate toward one market.

Games with much more defined hubs can manage with just Player Stalls, as long as the area where people gather to sell things is easy to understand for newer players, but this is somewhat less convenient than an auction house and easier to abuse.

TL's upcoming method goes even further and makes the Auction House beyond 'server wide', incorporating all the (for example) US East Servers into one Auction House even though players cannot easily swap servers. Presumably this is to improve interaction between fans of the game within a geographical region, and to help spread out megaguilds due to their current guild-relationship implementation (which theoretically clamps guild relationships to aliances of about 4x70). But, on the other hand, they (maybe Amazon's 'fault') intend to lock AH participation to level 40 or higher.

ArcheAge's handling of this is similar to the 'usual' from later FF11 and BDO, but you need to have specific statuses/licenses to sell things.

Ashes of Creation has various economic reasons to limit either the availability of goods through Auction Houses, or availability of specific items from different POI in the open world (I'm not arguing against having both, I'm simply saying it's not necessary to have both with the currently known design). So, for a single question:

Would you prefer larger regional access to Auction Houses (like, a whole nation or two) and stricter itemization, or the opposite?

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abc0815

If there is only local trading (or maybe a single/two trading hubs per Server) a Discord per Server (or channel) will be used. PoE is one example of this. Trade should never be across server. Granted the 10K Players might not be enough for every Server to work. For a proper economy you need different economics actors. Not just merchants (or RMT bros).

Ludullu

Azherae wrote: »

Based on what you have provided me over the years, though, and my own research, L2's economy does not come close to what is required or optimal here. If you have more information about how player hubs worked in C3 specifically, I'd appreciate it.

Obviously I can only speak from my own experience of private servers, so I'd need @JamesSunderland to weigh in on how different my experience is from the official one.

But what I've always seen in L2 is "each town/city has a small market with players selling local items (including tradeable quest items that you get in that town) and/or soulshot-related trade".

Soulshot-related trade included selling/buying of SS, crafting them at the player stall, selling/buying of direct mats that are involved in craft of those SS and sometimes (though mostly in lowbie areas) buying of full items that can be broken into mats that are used in crafting of SS.

This would then also be separated by grade, which was related to the lvl of mobs around the town/city. And full item purchases were based around the stuff that people could loot in those locations. In L2 town portals could TP you to certain spots around it and then if you used a TP scroll at those spots - it'd get you back to the same town, so if people knew "spot A is accessible from town A and you can loot item A there" - traders in town A would set up buy-stalls for item A.

Then on top of those local markets you'd have either 1 big market hub or maaaybe 2. In earlier days (C3 included from what I remember of it, though it's been almost 20 fucking years), that hub was usually a port TP from one of the big cities (Giran). That city was almost in the exact middle of the map and was a good TP-hopping if you were moving from one city to another for some reason. It was also the town that had the TP to one of the big dragons, which also led to people favoring it.

And Giran had a port near it and had a TP to it. And that port was filled with traders who'd sell/buy/craft alllll kinds of stuff. Quite often you'd be able to find nearly every craftable items in the game there.

In later updates a certain location was added into the TP lists of all towns, which then obviously led to this location being the main hub. This didn't remove the local markets, but on the feel/memory alone, I'd say that they became smaller due to this change. But this is definitely a very nebulous thought, cause all servers were different to some extent, so I might've just experienced the once that got the most influenced. I'd assume James would have a much better impression if this change influenced the game in its proper flow (cause while official servers grew from update to update, private ones were always locked into one update).

And as for the second potential location I mentioned above - that would usually just be the main biggest city. So, along with the port, Giran itself might have a huge market with all kinds of items (see this, but think x10 the amount of stalls)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J9cCT2h4xuw

Azherae wrote: »

And of course, people will always create online repositories for information. "All Fantasy MMOs also have the Internet". That's not something one 'fights' because one doesn't have to, you just assume every economic actor has perfect information and continue from there. It doesn't meaningfully affect the design, as long as the system doesn't allow Buy Orders and the Econ Designer is savvy.

This answers another part of my question in the parent thread. Instead of trying to thinkg about "how many people really access 3rd party info" the answer is simply "assume everyone does".

Azherae wrote: »

This will also come down to whether or not 'delivery' is magical and always safe or not. Right now, we don't actually know with certainty if the items a player buys on a distant Auction House will be delivered to their residence/current node/warehouse without any chance of disruption.

My current expectation is that there's 0 system-based delivery. You buy a thing (that is if we even CAN directly buy, instead of just seeing what the market has) and then you gotta go pick it up at the location you bought it.

Azherae

Note that we do have some data, I should have been clearer about that.

Just this much though:

Purchases of materials and gatherables will be automatically deposited within the listing node's local warehouse. Players will need to travel to that warehouse to retrieve them. Players wishing to move these items elsewhere will need to utilize the caravan system or other type of transportation.[9][4]
Purchases of anything other than materials and gatherables will be mailed to the purchaser.[9]

The second one is most important because this affects food, potions, some particular types of scrolls, maybe, at the moment.

Definitely implies that you could theoretically buy new gear from your Economic Village node without traveling all the way to your Metro, to me.

But it also refers to only 'integrated Auction houses' in those quotes, so back to ~shrug~.

EDIT: Also, in case anyone missed it, I realized I didn't provide context for that EITHER so here:
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Economic_node_superpower

First section.

Ludullu

Azherae wrote: »

Definitely implies that you could theoretically buy new gear from your Economic Village node without traveling all the way to your Metro, to me.

Yeah, I tried checking the "marketplace" page for this, but shoulda went deeper than that when I found nothing.

Well, it definitely does seems like even processed stuff will be mailed (unless all processed items are "materials"). I'll be real curious to see how exactly will the economy push people to trade in non-mailed things.

Caravans bring in large base costs and insane risk (supposedly/allegedly), so, unless building up nodes/freeholds requires gatherables from the entire world, I don't really see why people would risk the tranfser.

Ungohil

Azherae wrote: »

As the FF11 playerbase matured and the game expanded, the Auction Houses were consolidated, because the specific form of travel and trade involved was no longer a positive game loop. Basically, it stopped being an adventure. As far as I know, this is the primary reason it was changed, since if it wasn't, then obviously those who 'seek convenience' gravitate toward one market.

If I remember correctly the same happend in New World briefly after release. Auction houses were linked then. So, same fate.

The simple truth is, although regional markets can be fun and meaningful, they feel inconvenient (especially for the potential buyer) when it comes to price transparency and potenially can be time sinks.

If (only if) a player has the possibility to know the average market price of an item and has the option to travel to that location to advantage from the best possible price, then players will try to achieve that, so they will accept other costs (time -> opportunity costs). We experienced that entirely in New World due to regional markets.

Happend in New World (sticking to this example because its quite „fresh“) like this, which led to a „walking simulator“ game, because traveling was expensive at first. But there were other restrictions (ie. lack of storage, so materials were distributed in different towns, or dependencies to the level of the crafting station of the particular town, because gathering and crafting was/is a huge content in New World) as well.

Personally I‘m lazy in games, so I really appreciate global markets and global pricing. It provides some kind of psychological saftey that I‘m not wasting my ingame money to someone trying to get an advantage over lack of (price) knowledge. But, it will not be a deal breaker for me in Ashes, and tbh I expect that sooner or later the markets will start to get more global, perhaps outside of the game (external fan sites, database websites, …) if systems (nodes!) or developers are not supporting/changing it ingame.

Quite same for personal player stalls. Ive experienced them in another MMO, cant remember which, because I fully ignored them and will do so in Ashes. It takes to much time, to my understanding, that I run around screening all those player shops/stalls one after the other. I cleary prefer: Gooing to the one and only auction house, selling all my stuff by knowing the average market sell price (usually at the end of a playing session before logout) and buying my stuff by seeing and knowing the average market buy price. Thats comfortable, thats time efficient, thats fine.

If I cant get the information about these market prices for me personally an essential QoL feature is missing, an issue that global chat or external sites can solve a bit (depending on the community, because asking in global chat needs some mature guys being online to receive honest and reasonable answers/whispers).

(sorry for EN and typos, from mobile…)

Lodrig

I'm a lot more open to letting players see prices beyond their buying 'reach' because lets face it everyone can access that kind of information out of game. In game that ability might be restricted to Economic nodes or even universally available. Player will then decide if hoofing it is worth a price discrepancy and merchanst will likely adjust prices to be right at that break point and other players will engage in bulk arbitrage to essentially do the leg work for others.

NiKr wrote: »

Well, it definitely does seems like even processed stuff will be mailed (unless all processed items are "materials"). I'll be real curious to see how exactly will the economy push people to trade in non-mailed things.

Caravans bring in large base costs and insane risk (supposedly/allegedly), so, unless building up nodes/freeholds requires gatherables from the entire world, I don't really see why people would risk the tranfser.

I really think that Intrepid should block any mailing of gathered or processed materials. If Crafters can just buy materials from where ever they were it deeply undercut the Caravan system and also decrese the uniqueness of regional crafting output. An area with say for example a lot of copper should actually see a different mix of products get crafted because local materials are cheaper and the whole flavor of the item economy shifts to reflect that and has downhill effects into combat, for example people use more medium armor in an area because it's cheaper, while in another area they use more heavy armor because iron is more plentiful.

Azherae

NiKr wrote: »

Azherae wrote: »

Definitely implies that you could theoretically buy new gear from your Economic Village node without traveling all the way to your Metro, to me.

Yeah, I tried checking the "marketplace" page for this, but shoulda went deeper than that when I found nothing.

Well, it definitely does seems like even processed stuff will be mailed (unless all processed items are "materials"). I'll be real curious to see how exactly will the economy push people to trade in non-mailed things.

Caravans bring in large base costs and insane risk (supposedly/allegedly), so, unless building up nodes/freeholds requires gatherables from the entire world, I don't really see why people would risk the tranfser.

I don't think it would be vital to run caravans for this, because depending on certain implementations, solo players would travel to the place with the workspace and the abundant materials, while carrying the rare ones and trying to sneak their way through/in, whereas Caravaneers would probably make more money from Glint (I'm looking forward to seeing if Intrepid can design a schema where this isn't the case, but I won't hold my breath, that said, you could fill a caravan with what Glint-Commodities you have, and fill the rest with materials.)

If time has a clear cost, then the equations for travel-based pricing are easy. We might get 'undercutters' from the Caravaneer groups, but I'm sure the local syndicates will 'persuade' them not to do that.

Ludullu

Lodrig wrote: »

I really think that Intrepid should block any mailing of gathered or processed materials. If Crafters can just buy materials from where ever they were it deeply undercut the Caravan system and also decrese the uniqueness of regional crafting output. An area with say for example a lot of copper should actually see a different mix of products get crafted because local materials are cheaper and the whole flavor of the item economy shifts to reflect that and has downhill effects into combat, for example people use more medium armor in an area because it's cheaper, while in another area they use more heavy armor because iron is more plentiful.

If feel like the current system will simply lead to localized crafters, so they'll just be crafting whatever they can within their own node. And with crafted items being mailable - that crafter doesn't need to move to sell their stuff.

And maybe that's exactly what Intrepid are going for with this design. Gatherers being the traveling kind of players, processers would be tied to big nodes and FHs, while crafters are loot-location-based dudes.

And if this is the case, then I sure hope mountains have iron/steel sources, cause I wanna be a weapon/armor crafter and I'm gonna need those!

JamesSunderland

NiKr wrote: »

Azherae wrote: »

Based on what you have provided me over the years, though, and my own research, L2's economy does not come close to what is required or optimal here. If you have more information about how player hubs worked in C3 specifically, I'd appreciate it.

Obviously I can only speak from my own experience of private servers, so I'd need @JamesSunderland to weigh in on how different my experience is from the official one.

Not entirely sure which specific information you seek, but will try to provide a somewhat generalized answer regarding the topic.

Regarding players main hubs in the early versions it was mainly dependent on the target buyers, because towns where mostly in the middle of specific level farming regions it usually dictated its market, usually D grade items and resources would mainly be sold in Gludin/Gludio/Dion, for C Grade a lil in Dion but mostly Heine/Giran/HuntersVillage so on and so forth, also keep in mind the restrictiviness of teleportation prices.

But throught the whole game there were 2 places which mostly outclassed the rest in terms of main player hubs for general items Giran and Aden for 4 different reasons: Wide range of level farming regions, Amazing repeatable quests, Things/services npc only in those towns provided and relatively lower price of common items sold by npcs.

But eventually one place outside of those became dominant and the main player trading hub, Monster Race Track, simply because it was accessible to teleport from any town for free.

Ludullu

JamesSunderland wrote: »

Not entirely sure which specific information you seek, but will try to provide a somewhat generalized answer regarding the topic.

And that was the exact info I needed

Just a confirmation that official servers had the same stuff as what I described from the private ones. And I'd personally chuck it up to the design of the game, rather than private servers copying the official ones, cause I've known countless people who never played on official servers, but they all knew how/where to buy stuff they needed.

Maybe the one big difference (unless you just forgot to mention it) was the Giran port. Cause I've definitely seen several servers that used it as the main trade hub of the game (before MRT) and so if the official servers didn't have this then I'd consider it a private server special

JamesSunderland

NiKr wrote: »

Maybe the one big difference (unless you just forgot to mention it) was the Giran port. Cause I've definitely seen several servers that used it as the main trade hub of the game (before MRT) and so if the official servers didn't have this then I'd consider it a private server special

Giran port was quite a big trading hub but it wasn't long lived as such, its main attactive was that it was the closes teleport to the very popular zones Catacombs of Branded and Pirate Tunnel/Devil's Island when there weren't teleports directly to those and was a non-town safe place, when most people's level went past 55 it wasn't as attractive anymore. Most private servers used it for the same reason or sense of nostalgia.

Azherae

Thank you both, this again confirms my information, though.

L2's economy absolutely works with 'just player stalls', as does FF11's old economy actually (though in the case of that game, it's not a 'stall', but the ability to check any player for the items they have placed for sale directly from their inventory), but whereas FF11 only 'benefits' from the Auction House in the old model, Ashes absolutely does not work with just player stalls even if we get the 'you can set up the stall and have some random NPC run it'.

Not even with the FF11 Bazaar method, would Ashes function correctly here, because stalls are tied to the leveling experience intricately, and the leveling experience of Ashes is unlike nearly any other game that most players of the modern era understand.

Ashes is one of those games that needs to tune its First-Time User Experience to a razor's edge, but also wants to have Gear Durability and no town safezones. Player stalls are absolutely not gonna cut it past level 25.

Y'all know I don't like to claim things about this game so early in with certainty, but this time, I'm doing it.

JamesSunderland

Addressing the threads main questions.

Q: Do you have any specific opinions on how the Markets should work?

A: I do believe player stalls will have their place and utility in Ashes(even past lv 25), far from optimal even with alts like in L2 but still fuctional.

I expect Global chat[Or Trade chat if also global(do hope it is)] to become first thing people will use when interacting with the market, if not having sucess there then will look for local stalls depending on the intended trade maybe check with clan/alliance chat aswell and finally the Economic nodes as the last resort.

Q: Would you prefer larger regional access to Auction Houses (like, a whole nation or two) and stricter itemization, or the opposite?

A: I personally do prefer ServerWide Markets, but have no problems with both local and Regional ones.
I believe GameWide greatly diminishes a server's identity even if an economical one at that, since it's an important aspect of Ashes game design.

Noaani

My take, based on EQ2 and Archeage primarily, is that unless the gameplay loop involved in transporting and stocking various markets remains enjoyable to enough players for the duration of the game, then serverwide markets are a must (though not necessarily at launch).

The market in an MMORPG shouldn't necessarily be a source of a gameplay loop ain and of itself, as it is a tool used by basically every gameplay loop in the game in question. People going out killing need it, people questing need it, people decorating homes need it, people crafting need it.

If a game has regional markets and the gameplay loop of stocking them with materials that region doesn't naturally produce ceases to be enjoyable to enough people, then the entire game will suffer.

As to gamewide markets, they have their place.

Archeages market was kind of interesting. It was faction only, but you were looking at products across three servers. This meant you were all but guaranteed to find even the most random of items, but it also meant no one could really corner any given market (the game didn't attract guilds large enough to dominate three servers at once).

So, to me, like all game design decision, it kind of depends on the rest of your game. Ashes may well have an enjoyable enough gameplay loop to keep many regional markets stocked, in which case that may work for it. However, if it turns out that this loop isn't as enjoyable as was hoped, keeping the games market functioning properly should come before keeping that gameplay loop in the game.

ariatras

I have given this great deal of thought in the past. I set out objectives and described how they would work. Then I reconciled it with what I interpreted from Intrepid's words on the matter, like my own little document of how I would design the system. I wrote this some time ago, as I was waiting for more news on the matter. But here is what I wrote.

The Auction House (AH) system in Ashes of Creation is designed to integrate with the broader world economy, focusing on localized trade, player interaction, and the importance of caravans. Each node in the game, particularly Economic Nodes, plays a pivotal role in how items are traded and sold between players.

1. Localized Auction Houses
Objective:
To create an immersive and realistic economic system that encourages players to explore, trade, and utilize caravans for long-distance transactions while maintaining localized markets for immediate goods.
What are immediate goods? "Immediate goods" refer to items that players need or want right away, typically for short-term use. In the context of a game like Ashes of Creation, these could include consumables, materials, or equipment that players need quickly for an upcoming adventure, quest, or crafting project.
Description:
Each node will have its own Auction House, restricted to the players within that node’s region. Items listed for sale in the AH will only be visible and purchasable by players who are within the same node.
In terms of accessibility. I just went through the stages of the node to settle on village tier. So Auction Houses would be available in any developed node at the village tier and above.
AH listings are only visible in the node where they are posted. Players will need to physically travel to different nodes to access their markets or use caravans to move goods between regions.

2. Economic Node Differentiation

Objective:
To give Economic Nodes a unique and powerful role in the trading ecosystem by providing them with advanced market systems and bonuses that make them vocal points of the game's economy.
Description
Market Expansion:
I would have it so that as Economic nodes grow, they will gain access to a Regional Market Expansion feature. This allows players in an Economic Node to view and purchase items listed in connected Economic Nodes (via trade agreements) within their region, though at an increased fee or tax rate depending on the distance. This feature promotes the role of caravans for long-distance transactions while still offering a unique trading advantage to Economic nodes.
MArket Reach: This I would have Economic nodes view listings from other Economic Nodes within the same trade agreement region.
Increased fees: Purchases from connected nodes come with additional taxes or fees depending on distance, to encourage physical travel or caravan trade for larger quantities of goods.
Revenue Allocation: A portion of the taxes and fees collected from these transactions funds the Economic Node and its mayor, incentivizing players to invest in these nodes.

Trade Hubs:
Economic nodes will have access to Trade Hubs, which allow faster, safer caravan travel between Economic Nodes. These Trade Hubs can be upgraded as the node levels, reducing risks and costs for moving large quantities of goods. Caravans starting from Economic Nodes will have bonuses such as:
Reduced Risk Caravans leaving Economic Nodes have higher base stats (e.g., faster speed, more defensive strength) to reduce the likelihood of successful attacks. And or cheaper guards.
Lower CostsCaravans traveling to other Economic Nodes enjoy reduced fees or taxes, incentivizing long-distance trade through established Economic routes. Which seems to promote one of the game's main pillars being the caravan system

Player-Owned Marketplaces
Players in Economic Nodes will have the unique ability to open personal stalls or markets within designated marketplace areas, similar to Ragnarok Online's vending system. These stalls will allow players to sell items directly to other players in real-time by-passing AH fees (though the right to put a vendor stall up might cost a set amount of money)
Vending Stall Permissions Only players who are citizens of an Economic Node can open a market stall in that node.
Customization: Players can set their own prices, advertise their stalls with custom signage, and offer discounts to buyers who purchase in bulk.
Market Diversity The vending system encourages diversity in goods sold and pricing, as different players will have different stock based on their playstyle and trade routes. Now I don't know if one can set or create personal caravans or if it's a node incentive. But hey, we're just spitballing here anyway.

3. Node Tier Bonuses:

Objective: To give higher-tier Economic Nodes a distinct advantage in global trade by offering unique AH bonuses and trade incentives.

Description:
As Economic Nodes level up, they will unlock new bonuses and features for their Auction Houses and trade systems such as:
Village Tier: Basic Auction House Standard, localized AH that only works within the node.
Town Tier: Regional Trade Connections Players in the node can browse items listed in other Economic Nodes within the same region, with additional taxes and shipping fees.
City Tier: Advanced Trade Contracts The node gains access to exclusive trade routes with reduced caravan fees and bonuses for moving goods between Economic Nodes.
And finally Metropolis Tier: Global Trade Influence The Economic Node's AH gains access to listings from across the entire world, allowing it to serve as a global trade hub. Other nodes will have to rely on caravans to ship goods to or from this node, but Economic nodes can facilitate trade directly.

Now for one of the most important things.
Dynamic Caravan Integration

Objective:
To tie the AH system directly into the game’s larger economic and caravan systems, ensuring players rely on caravans to move goods between nodes and across regions.

Description:
Caravans are essential to the movement of goods between localized AHs. Players wishing to sell items in distant nodes will need to use the caravan system to transport goods. Economic Nodes gain additional bonuses when running caravans between nodes in their trade network.
Dynamic Pricing: The scarcity or abundance of goods in certain regions will affect prices, encouraging players to transport goods where they are needed most.
Caravan Bonuses:
Economic nodes receive bonuses like increased caravan speed or reduced risk when using caravans to transport goods between connected nodes.

Sorry for the wall of text. But this would probably be my ideal system. Though I would like to see player stalls (Ala Ragnarok Online) in all cities, I reckon it makes more sense for an economic node.

Flanker

Caeryl wrote: »

I'm in full favor of local markets.

Central systems unbalance the game population and make market manipulation too easy, along with removing aspects of rarity and scarcity from region to region (something claimed to be a focal point to facilitate node trade)

I share the same opinion. I don't mind having a truly regionalized economy where every node has it's own local market. Not only it encourages travelling and exploration, but also provides more opportunities for merchants

Azherae

JamesSunderland wrote: »

Q: Do you have any specific opinions on how the Markets should work?

A: I do believe player stalls will have their place and utility in Ashes(even past lv 25), far from optimal even with alts like in L2 but still fuctional.

Realized that I was unclear the first time, hopefully it's not needed but...

I meant that player stalls alone or in conjunction with only local markets would not be sufficient for economic play past level 25. This is fairly irrelevant as a whole, because Ashes doesn't intend to have many/any situations where they're the only thing players can rely on.

Got caught up in the L2 discussion, and it probably wasn't fully relevant to even that.

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