Third Party Trading
Allow players to post sales with the goods at the current goods price, to be bought by the next player(s) who purchase that item from the goods. Unlike selling directly to the goods the seller would not receive payment instantly but would instead have to wait until the good was purchased (they would still place the goods to be sold in the trade chest with a Teller just like any other transaction). When someone makes a purchase from the Goods they will automatically receive the lowest cost units from both the goods supplies and independent sellers who have previously posted a trade. In the case where the item being sold is as cheap from the goods and from player seller(s) the units are first purchased from the seller(s), then the goods. In the case where multiple sales have been placed by different people at the same price the units alternate between each of the sellers such that no seller will ever have sold more than 1 unit more than another in the time that both of them have posted their trades.
Advantages:
- This would not change either the Teller's or Buyer's interface (nor the interface for people who just wanted to sell directly to the goods).
- It would also provide depth and stability to the goods' item allowing people to use it as a Market or Store in addition to using it as a commodity exchange without causing large unpredictable fluctuation in prices.
Details:
- In addition to the current columns on the inventory page add "Trades at Current Value" and "Trades at Higher Values" between "Current Value" and "Value in Stock". Whose values are equal to the number of units being sold by players at the current goods' price and higher prices respectively.
- Create links from clicking on these new columns which display graphs (or tables if it's significantly easier) of the change (derivative) in total cost over the number of units purchased. This would simply be a graph of y = log2(S-x+1)-log2(S-x) * 10,000 where S is the number of units the Goods has in stock unless there were third party trades offered in which case this graph would have plateaus corresponding to prices where third parties are offering sales.
- Add a "Post Sale" radio button in addition to "Buy" and "Sell". If a seller of an item attempts to buy an item which they have a current Sale offer on at the goods they first have their own units returned to them for 0 Goodscrip each. (This could be replaced with a nicer Trade cancelation interface but this one would take minimal work to implement).
- The Goods would need to reserve the right to cancel trades (quit players, trades being over priced for an extended period of time, etc) making some well defined "reasonable attempt" to return the canceled items to original seller.
- Any rounding error would still go to the Goods not to the third party seller or player purchasing the item(s).
After conversations with Eldrad Ulthan I withdraw my objections. This would require significant support from the website, but I'll let TpcT decide on that part. --Yendor
TpcT's notes
Thanks EldradUlthran.. The idea seems good to me. Let me try to break out my thoughts on the task here. Feel free to comment.
- Perhaps sellers should have the option to set the price (in GS) of their shared-inventory items in addition to an option to use Goods valuation. Would a deposit/withdrawal by an individual have the ability to change the value of every existing posted trade? Is there a way to mitigate that?
- Perhaps sellers should be able to deposit items that the Goods doesn't carry. This would require a new, public item management interface on the website, and a way for traders to filter items listed on the valuation page. The valuation page sort of sucks anyway; I've been thinking about rewriting it.
- I like the concept of 'deposits' and 'withdrawals' to the personally-owned-goods-inventory. Maybe each item on the current trade list would have a checkbox for 'deposit to / withdraw from shared inventory'.
- A lot of this requires hard authentication on the website for traders. Just a to-do.
- Shared inventory space shouldn't be free. My first impression is to sell blocks of 10k bulk for the materials for a huge chest. An admin page for maintaining users' space data (& etc.) would be required.
What else would be required?
Eldrad's Responses
- Not needed, just adds complexity. The price of a posted trade wouldn't change as the Goods' stock changed. If someone posts a trade at the goods for 10,000gs each then someone else comes along and sells that item to the goods the posted trade will sit doing nothing at 10,000gs until the Goods' stock is reduced back to 1.
- I completely agree... but I was going to post it as a 2nd suggestion since it'd require a fair amount more User Interface work, but if you want to go for it I'd help out any way I can.
- - 5. The advantage of the simpler version I suggested is it wouldn't require authentication (other than the normal in game teller sees player) or much in the way of extending the existing interface or charging for space/storage. Though it also wouldn't allow for any transaction without a teller present (for example someone who had posted a trade of 100 therms for 5,000gs each would have to cancel it by purchasing 100 therms from the goods and would then need a teller to hand them back before the trade would actually be terminated).