My Dream Trading System

[Kintair]

To begin, I am sure everyone is in agreement that the currently available in-game method of advertising, finding, and arranging trades is somewhat lacking in many aspects. Most agree that a new system of some type is needed. What type of system is a subject of debate. I am here to present my humble dream of what I feel is the perfect solution.

 

Where will it be accessed?

I can't be the only one who is disappointed with Darvo's shop. His "deals" are something that could be done from the Market menu itself, leaving him open to host something new. I propose that he and his shop be the location of the new Trading Post.

 

What will we see when accessing it?

Upon accessing the new trading system (via Darvo or terminal in his shop, to help prevent overcrowding around the access point), you'll be presented with three options: Post an item, browse posted items, and view your posted items and the offers they've received.

 

Posting an Item:

When posting an item, you'll be presented with your inventory of tradeable items, from which you'll select one* to post a trade for. After selecting the item, you'll then write a little blurb about what you want in return. And with that, you'll post your item for trade, making it available to be found by others.

 

*Yes, only one. Having only one item per post will simplify the trade filtering immensely, and will also ensure that regular trading still has some minor benefit over using the Trading Post. An acceptable alternative is to allow items of the same "set" to be grouped together in a post.

 

Browsing posted items:

When browsing, you can filter the posted trades by selecting a category (mods, prime parts, weapons, etc.), and/or by typing a search term. You'll be presented with all the posted items, and the little blurb about what the poster wants in return. From here, you are able to select one you'd like to trade for, at which point you can select the item(s) you want to offer in exchange for the one up for trade. The offer is submitted, and available to be seen by the person who posted the item.

 

NOTE:

Posted and offerend items are removed from the player's inventory and stored within the trading post, to prevent the same item from being posted or offered multiple times. This includes platinum.

 

Your posted items and their offers:

From here, you'll be able to see all the items you've posted and all the offers they've received. You'll be able to browse the offers and either reject an offer (which returns the offered item to the owner's inventory), or accept an offer, at which point the trade will go through, the items going into the appropriate inventories. You can also remove a posted item to return it to your inventory.

 

What about trades per day?

These will be preserved and utilized in this new system. When you post an item or make an offer, it "reserves" one of your daily trades, and when the trade goes through, the reserved trade is consumed. The trade will remain reserved even over daily resets, meaning a person can only have as many items posted and offers pending as they have trades per day. If an offer is refused, either directly by the poster or indirectly by another offer being accepted, then the reserved trade will be returned. If a posted item is removed without accepting an offer, the reserved trade is consumed (To prevent spamming the same item over and over to keep it on top).

 

That's it for the basics. It's a simple system, since that's sometimes what works the best. It is, in essence, a UI version of the current Trade Chat, with the addition of allowing for time-defferred trading.

 

Why not player shops?

Because shops require a currency. And while Platinum has become the currency of trading, you mustn't forget that it is the *premium* currency of the game, and systems should not *require* the premium currency to be used, since Warframe prides itself on being a Free to Play game with no Pay to Win.

 

Why not an Auction House?

The same reason as above, plus the fact that Auctions are best in a "Many buyers few sellers" situation, which Warframe is (usually) not. Still want to hold an auction? You can still do an impromptu one using the trading system. Just update the blurb of what you want with the current bid, reject all the lower offers, etc.

 

What about large clans buying up all the cheap listings and selling them higher?

Well, nothing's stopping them from trying, true, but since the posting player needs to manually accept their offers, it'd take them a lot longer than overnight to do so.

 

What about price undercutting?

Because posts won't be sorted by their "prices", finding the "cheapest" item won't be as simple. So finding that "minimum price" either to get for yourself or to set your item cheaper, won't be so easy. Which makes getting that great deal feel that much better, just like in trade chat now. (I use quotes here because although Platinum has become the currency of trades, it is still entirely possible for someone to want an item-for-item trade.)

 

 

Anything important I'm missing? Any concerns that I haven't addressed? Please, point out the flaws in my idea so we can work out the solutions that will make everyone happy.

 

 

TL;DR: Essentially trade chat, but UI-driven, and run by Darvo.

Edited October 19, 2015 by Kintair

[Max7238]

+1, reminds me of PSO2, except you added the ability for multiple people to offer on one item. Those other offers should be hidden from other players, in my opinion... But that would remove the chance to "bid."

[Kintair]

+1, reminds me of PSO2, except you added the ability for multiple people to offer on one item. Those other offers should be hidden from other players, in my opinion... But that would remove the chance to "bid."

Not sure what you mean by PSO2, but thanks for your support!

Also, I only ever said that the item poster could see all the offers on their item (hence why they'd need to change their "what I want" blurb to hold an impromptu auction), so I'm not sure where you got the idea that everyone could see all offers... Could you point it out to me so I can clear up the language?

[Stormdragon]

Agree, much better than auction house but keeping space for trading via chat. I'd only add inbox messages (like the stalker ones) notifying offerings over your items, tradings success or fail with a player, etc. But always keeping a limit to daily trades.

[Kintair]

Agree, much better than auction house but keeping space for trading via chat. I'd only add inbox messages (like the stalker ones) notifying offerings over your items, tradings success or fail with a player, etc. But always keeping a limit to daily trades.

 

Notifications of some kind would indeed be welcome! I think having its own separate area for those notifications would be better than sending them to the in-game inbox (With as large a playerbase as Warframe has, the potential for a massive flood of offer notifications is there, if small), but I'd still be okay with them going there if need be.

[Akiryx]

I like this system but I really don't think it needs to be capped to only one. That doesn't really solve our current problem too much. When trying to sell mods etc. it's not very handy. I'd say maybe cap it at 5. It really wouldn't be hard to just implement a search feature, and then a way to sort those results. 

[Kintair]

I like this system but I really don't think it needs to be capped to only one. That doesn't really solve our current problem too much. When trying to sell mods etc. it's not very handy. I'd say maybe cap it at 5. It really wouldn't be hard to just implement a search feature, and then a way to sort those results. 

 

The main reason I say to cap it at one item (or possibly one "family" of items, so you can still trade full "sets" of prime things) is to keep some benefit to "regular" trading, either via dojo trading posts or through whatever "open for trading" state is coming to relays. Secondly, if you're searching for a specific item, it'd be most beneficial if that was the only item in the post. If all you need is a Lex Prime Barrel, you won't want to "pay" for the Nova Prime Systems it's posted with. If you want to trade a mishmash of random things all at once, you'll have to go through that bit of extra effort.

 

Keep in mind that though you'd be limited to one TYPE of item in a trade, you can have as many of that item in the trade as you want, so if you want to trade fifty Rare 5 Fusion Cores, you can. You just can't have a rare 5 and a paris prime grip posted.

 

Though perhaps a meeting halfway would work? Offers would be fine to have multiple items (Up to the usual maximum number of types of "regular" trades), since they'd not need to be indexed and filterable. So you could offer a core, a mod, a part, and platinum on a post for Primed Chamber.

[Iceheart125]

+1, reminds me of PSO2, except you added the ability for multiple people to offer on one item. Those other offers should be hidden from other players, in my opinion... But that would remove the chance to "bid."

PSO2? That isn't out yet for the US ;w;