Crafting Request System Ingame

[Sornus]

Hey guys, I have no idea if this idea has been mentioned or not (It MUST have been, seems like such a simple idea) but I know many people (including myself) have displayed an irritation with crafting simply due to the lack of demand for it. Most of the time its difficult to come by materials and many times when you skill up for something you end up NPCing or tossing whatever it is that you were working on.

You guys can tell me if there has ever been an idea, or what the problem with such an idea would be, if we had lets say some sort of a booth similar to the AH set up next to the AH itself. This Booth would be dedicated towards crafting and could work as a crafting request center, or something similar.

I am sure many of you see where I am going with this, but I'll just go in a bit further with more examples. Me for instance I have needed insect fletchings and a few particular kinds of arrowheads to level up woodworking for a while now. You could put out a request to have this item made for you, and have an adventurer accept the request and put the item up for you. You could have an adventurer request bone armor for instance and a bonecrafter looking for work could see this request and put some up.

I know, besides the request system it pretty much sounds like the AH we have now. So maybe we would not need a whole new system, maybe we could just integrate a request system INTO the AH we already have. That way if you see an item is not up and see it has not been made for a while you could throw a request up there. More than likely if this system were implemented crafters would begin checking on items more and more to try to find some work. That would mean that the requests would be answered more frequently... right?

I know that we already have forums dedicated to things like this, I know that you can go through the AH History and /tell the last couple of sellers of whatever it is you are looking for to see if they can whip you up another. But what I am talking about is an official SE implemented system to try to get the word out about crafting opportunities. With the AH merger that should be taking place I feel like this could really help get some things on the AH that people are looking for...

What do you guys think? What holes do you see here? What could we do to lift this idea up? Or... has this idea been brought up already and shot down for some really obvious reason I am not seeing?

Thanks! --Sornus

[RushLynx]

That's actually brilliant... Most crafters check AH history and prices on a regular basis to see what's profitable and try to get an idea of what people will buy... This would completely eliminate the guesswork...

I would like it better if there was a way to actually accept pending requests so that you didn't get 20 responses to the same request... that would kinda ruin it...

I suggested in another thread here that there should be a way to search for crafters the way that you would search for certain jobs and levels when making a party... that way you could just ask the crafters directly... The problem with that is that most people would probably ask the top crafter over and over and they would get most if not all of the requests... But this system allows people to accept the request on a first-come first-serve basis...

[Chimera]

absolutely brilliant idea... the only clarification I would want to see is a expiry time system on item requests... Someone puts up a request for an item and a price they're willing to pay... money goes into escrow (on the system) until someone either fulfills the order or a certain period of time elapses. If the order is not filled the money gets sent back to the user via the /mailbox system. If an order is accepted it is locked out for a period of 24 hours so no one else can accept it as well... if the order then goes unfilled for that 24 hours it is opened up to everyone else again and the person that had the original hold on the order would have to take the order again.

Just to prevent a potential scenario where a single user could lock out the bid indefinitely I would suggest that if an order goes unfilled, the order can not be retaken by the same user account (pol account, not character) for a further 12 hours. perhaps even a system where a single character could not take more than a certain number of orders in a set amount of time. who knows... this idea has so many possibilities to control it effectively it's hard to delineate all of them. times can of course be juggled and balanced around as needed, but I like where this idea is heading and would absolutely love to see a system like this in game!!

[Sylvane]

Overall seems like a decent idea, depending on how well it would be implemented. I know I'd occasionally check it to see if anyone needed anything made. The only issue I could see is maybe availability of materials as well. It isn't exactly a lack of crafters being motivated, as it is a lack of materials and time/profitability. Maybe have them list what they'll be willing to pay/supply as materials and

Just to prevent a potential scenario where a single user could lock out the bid indefinitely I would suggest that if an order goes unfilled, the order can not be retaken by the same user account (pol account, not character) for a further 12 hours. perhaps even a system where a single character could not take more than a certain number of orders in a set amount of time. who knows... this idea has so many possibilities to control it effectively it's hard to delineate all of them. times can of course be juggled and balanced around as needed, but I like where this idea is heading and would absolutely love to see a system like this in game!!

12 hours is a bit extreme, but I wouldn't want to lock other people out just because someone is a pain. Also would be very annoying if you were limited on the amount of orders past a certain amount. maybe 3 at a time, but it wouldn't be hard to fulfill 3 orders in short time.

[Sornus]

I am glad it seems like an okay idea. I was thinking you could just put up the gil for the item you are looking for, and whenever the item that you are looking for was surrendered onto the AH your money would be sent to the supplier and you would get your item. I was talking with my buddy and he thinks it would be a good idea not only to do this for crafting but hand a supply system in place for all items. You know how the little number pops up next to the item on the AH when it is in stock? Well we could have another number next to that in red to show how many requests there are for that item or something like that.

[Cljader1]

Nice idea I like it!

[Wenceslao]

love the idea, i stopped crafting due abyss left my clothcraft useless with the new gears, but if someone would post to a npc a need for some item i can make and he's gonna pay for it, all of us are winning, this a good idea and i think its a not so hard to put into action by SE, hope someone from de DEV staff check this out and give us a coment about it