MagiStream

We need a place where we can buy/sell and easily research prices for what we wish to sell. Just one search would bring up all current listings for the creature YOU want. Person selling what you want offline? No worries! The creature is in their player shop/ the auction house! You can purchase it even if they are offline. The money you spend will go either directly to their hand OR be able to be claimed by them later from the Auction house/player shop.(whichever would be easier to code).

Really surprised that magistream doesnt have an automatic player shop/auction house tbh...

vanillachapter wrote:Hey! This idea sounds like it could save people a whole lot of trouble. It’s convenient, I like it!! The only drawback to me is that I kind of like that the current system makes people interact and communicate more, and I feel like that’s one reason why the community is so tightly knit. I might be wrong and I’m honestly a sucker for social interaction, so this is just me being me.

Not everyone is about that social interaction. I dont really mind it but I get really shy and awkward when discussing prices with folks as I have no clue what stuff costs and I hate feeling like I'm being greedy when I ask for more :/ plus even after the deal is done I sometimes end up feeling cheated if I find similar (say a parentless hybrid/0% frozen) creatures priced far higher than I sold for. I would rather sell impersonally and get my social interaction from the discussion forums and personal messages.

Also I am not saying do away with the merchant district. I know some people prefer the social interaction. Also the merchant district is the best place to find 0%s/100%s and parentless hybrids. The auction house/player shop would be best served for shy/awkward sellers and people just wanting to sell off lots of creatures that they dont want to have to nurse a quicksale/sale thread for.

It's an awesome idea actually, and I'm, too, surprised, it wasn't implemented (or at least suggested like 100 times? maybe it was?) earlier. Not all the people like social interactions; I personally do, but in most browser-based games there is an option for socially awkward audience to play without directly interacting with other people. Like, you can buy pets (accessories, food, whatever) via auction or market or some other automatic system; and there is no need to post on the forum or to PM other players. Good examples - Flight Rising, Dragon Cave, many others.

Merchant District can stay for those who need some special creatures (frozen at some percent; hatchies at lowest percent possible; parentless) or for those who constantly buy \sell many creatures, or for those who prefer the trade idea (like "your pet for my 2 pets and 100k gold, deal?"). But the automatic market is definitely needed.

The only problem I can see with an automatic market is newbie players, not knowing the value of something, could be taken advantage of by other players when they price something exceedingly low for it's value. How would we mod that? The automatic transfer would make that very difficult.

Prices of creatures are set by the community, not by the mods or admins. The only way I can think of to prevent people from being taken advantage of would be to program a minimum value, set by the mods/admins; that won't allow a player to post a creature for sale for less than that value. Which would be the mods/admins setting the value, not the community, which, if I remember correctly, is not something the mods/admins want to do.

There is no way to program such a minimum value for each pet, I'm afraid. And there is no need to. Each and every market, in every world (fantasy or no, game or real) balances itself, so people will just look at the prices that are already set and price their pets accordingly. And, of course, prices will vary from day to day, from holiday to holiday, maybe like 1000-2000, or maybe like from 1000 to 50k for one and the same pet. And one or two rich player(s) buying one special pet can completely ruin the market for a while. It's all totally okay! And it's all part of the good fun actually.

Again, Flight Rising (is it okay that I bring this game again? It's not an excellent game and has its flaws, but I love how they work with the market) isn't micro-managing the market at all. It's... well, alive. Players - they set the prices, and it works.

Usually when it comes to making sure people don't get "scammed" using an AH type tool, that's up to them to research prices before they list things. It's not something that should ever be up to mods/admins to police.

I personally would love a little user shop I can post stuff in.

laertid wrote:There is no way to program such a minimum value for each pet, I'm afraid. And there is no need to. Each and every market, in every world (fantasy or no, game or real) balances itself, so people will just look at the prices that are already set and price their pets accordingly. And, of course, prices will vary from day to day, from holiday to holiday, maybe like 1000-2000, or maybe like from 1000 to 50k for one and the same pet. And one or two rich player(s) buying one special pet can completely ruin the market for a while. It's all totally okay! And it's all part of the good fun actually.

Again, Flight Rising (is it okay that I bring this game again? It's not an excellent game and has its flaws, but I love how they work with the market) isn't micro-managing the market at all. It's... well, alive. Players - they set the prices, and it works.

Which is why it would be difficult to mod. We do monitor the market prices for those things, and the "balancing out" that you mention doesn't help the players who get scammed. Players do set prices on Magistream now. It is just as "alive" as Flight Rising's market is. Flight Rising, is a completely different game, that is run by different people. That is how they decided to do their game, and there's a reason I quit it, and have not quit Magistream.

Now don't get me wrong. I would love to have an auto sales system in place. Look at the date of the OP of my QS, of course I would love not to have to keep track of it and constantly bump it trying to get people to buy my excess creatures. But the problems I see it causing me in my job as a mod outweigh my desire to have one. We have a "no scamming" rule in place for a reason, that is why we mod the MD, instead of having it all be automatic.

Meggle wrote:Usually when it comes to making sure people don't get "scammed" using an AH type tool, that's up to them to research prices before they list things. It's not something that should ever be up to mods/admins to police.

I personally would love a little user shop I can post stuff in.

But we do police it, as it falls under the "Do not scam other players" rule. Many new players have no idea how to "research prices" which is why they often also don't post set prices when they make a sale thread, so they get called out for haggling, which is also against the rules.

The thing is, researching prices will be actually easier with an automatic auction house \ market board \ something like that. You just put the name of the creature in the search tab and voila - you have the prices set, from lowest to highest, so you can immediately buy what you need. That's how most MMORPG auction houses \ market boards work, I think. Even a new player will understand such a system, mostly because it's pretty simple and logical, and works even on eBay.

Now on Magistream, if a newbie wants to know a price for a creature, they need to browse 3 different forums (sales, buying, shops), searching each, opening lots of tabs and looking for prices other people set. It's a lot of work, and that's really confusing for a new members. And it opens more possibilities for scamming - and haggling, yes. Haggling is impossible when you have automatic market board.

Firstly, the How Much is it Worth thread exists for price checking(as does a search function, I tend to use use the search function in the Waynal to see what other people are selling things at). And newbies(and non newbies) already don't use them. And you don't have to check 3 different forums, you really just gotta check Waynal since that's the selling forum.

Just because an automatic shop is in place doesn't guarantee people will use it for price checking.
I mean, I can't even get people to do the simple act of reading the title of my sitting thread! So, there's nothing to guarantee people will use the automatic thing.

Plus, I don't know if that kind of thing can be coded into this sort of site.