Analysis of Current Market System and What's Needed For Improvement
WARNING: INCOMING WALL OF TEXT
The discussion of AH versus current system is in my opinion a moot endeavor since it would be swapping the current flaws for new flaws. A better approach is to design and implement a system that avoids the current system's flaws to the extent possible within the capabilities of the technology driving it and development team working on it. In order to do that, we must first analyze the current system and identify where it succeeds and fails.
Analysis of a System
A successful MMORPG requires a thriving economy; a thriving economy requires a successful market system; a successful market system requires an appropriate balance between accessibility, usefulness, informativeness, interactivity, and flexibility. What does all that mean? I believe these dimensions -- accessibility, etc -- are fundamental game-play elements that can make or break player motivation to use any particular system and therefore directly affect how successful a system is. These elements each have their own spectrum of degrees, to which players will respond favorably or unfavorably uniquely.
In any given player base, there is a "critical mass" of players that must view these elements favorably in order for the cost-benefit ratio of designing and implementing a system to be worth the effort at all. A driving force in designing any system is to get as many people as possible to want to use it and be able to use it well.
Current Market System
So, how does the current market wards system measure up in terms of the above elements? I'll attempt to analyze the current pros and cons with a + and - sign.
Accessibility
+ Players can purchase items from a central, familiar location in each city
+ Retainer also acts as storage, providing a single interface for storing items and selling items.
+ Limit on salable items is the limit of retainer space
- Cities are not linked, requiring players to have to teleport to other cities' market wards. [The natural consequence of this is that players have taken up to using one particular city as a main trading hub, leading to the same problems experienced by players in Jeuno in FF XI and reducing interactivity in other cities]
- Buying requires searching for a specific item and then looking for users within wards that sell said item
- Latency affects how well users can successfully interact with the wards and retainers. This is a problem in the player-accepted trading hub.
- There are an overwhelming number of market wards, requiring extensive travel (time) between wards to fulfill a shopping list.
Usefulness
+ Players can buy a variety of items they would otherwise have to acquire themselves.
+ Players can trade goods for in-game currency at rates higher than NPCs offer
+ Provides an engine for player driven economics
- Penalizes users who have a wide range of goods versus specific goods to sell in the form of taxes to encourage sellers to make things easier for buyers. [This is a clear disconnect between what developers see as the system's responsibility and the players' responsibility.]
- Due to cities not being linked, cities other than the player-accepted trading hub languish in trade, leading to uselessness of market wards in those cities.
Informativeness
+ Search function provides information of where desired items are located.
+ Retainers with searched for items have a beacon over their heads to assist with acquiring items.
- No record of market values of items to provide base line
- Extensive research of retainers must be conducted by players in order to determine "fair value" of any given item. Items with little inventory in markets provide a particularly difficult challenge here.
- Due to cities not being linked, it is impossible to determine if an item is available in any other city or even at all without having to visit other cities.
Interactivity
+ Provides a means for players to interact with other players via commerce, even if indirectly.
+ Search function is a simple, responsive interface that does not require much menu navigation
+ Players have a familiar location to interact with others in each city
- Due to cities not being linked, it is not possible to directly or indirectly interact in commerce with players in other cities.
- The crowding of market wards in the player-accepted trading hub causes latency to go up, causing interaction with the wards and players to suffer.
- Players have to spend time searching through individual bazaars by communicating with individual retainers. This is a very inefficient, time consuming process.
Flexibility
+ Players can put a large number of items up for sale
- Taxes on items outside of designated categories for a ward decrease flexibility in item placement in bazaars and retainer placement in wards.
Key Remedies Needed
With the above, it's pretty clear to see that there are several key points that could be improved on that would improve the current system and lead to greater success in players using it. Specifically:- Link the commerce between all 3 cities
- Reduce the effort required in the commerce between players
- Improve the feedback that is provided to players regarding market values of items
These are some of the major points being brought up by players advocating an AH system, since an AH system rectifies the above issues. However, an AH system also negates many of the plusses of the current market ward system, and I will venture to say that it is not necessary to do so.
A Modest Proposal
I propose a market system that incorporates all of the above benefits of using an AH with the benefits of the market ward system. As to what it looks like, I have a few ideas.
Game Play- Players walk toward the current market ward entrance and teleport
- The area they teleport to is much like the instanced mog house in FF XI, except it is essentially a storefront with their retainers and a moogle.
- Interacting with the retainers will allow players to exchange and designate items for sale
- Interacting with the moogle will bring up a search function to search for items up for sale in the market system. This market system is linked with all retainer bazaars in all cities.
- Selecting an item brings up an option to view recent sale prices, view current sale prices, view buy orders, etc.
- Players can then buy the item that shows up in the search for the prices they see available.
- Players can also sell items to players for buy orders that have been put in for that item. These sales are instantaneous and allows for demand to be generated.
- Players can set up buy orders to allow players to sell directly to them, benefiting the buyer with item acquisition and benefiting the seller with an instant sale.
Changes- Linking the current search system to include searches in all cities
- Changing the zones of the market wards to a single instanced "Moogle Net" type storefront
- Setting up a new table of buy-orders
- Adjusted UI for the new storefront
- Inventory and gil transfer for items sold or bought
Technical Benefits- Reduced load and latency issues. Loading a small instanced zone is simpler than an area with lots of characters to render and reduces the system load on the client as well as server
- Improves the current system without having to design an AH system from scratch, while providing essentially the same benefits that would come with an AH system and preserving the benefits of the market system in place today.
- Less intrusive of a change on the back-end than a complete overhaul. This change should be feasable in terms of using existing data structures and database-table designs with little to no change to the existing data.
Conclusion
I hope that I've been able to coherently outline some of the major problems with the current system in terms of user experience and functionality and provide some constructive input on how much of the flaws can be remedied with relatively little change in how the system currently works and is (perceived to be) handled on the back-end of things. I'd be interested in hearing feedback on this if I've misssed any points or if others see any inherent flaws from the perspective of the fundamentals of the system's design.
