Master Trader

The trade office is cumbersome. The huge spreads (= difference between selling and buying prices for the same goods combination) show that it is also often highly inefficient. Also, as pointed out repeatedly here, some players place predatory trades that seem to be just hoping for accidental clicks. Hence especially new guild members or often confused and scared by the trade office, making trades they regret afterwards.

I understand that BB is unwilling to spend the high amount of resources needed to change that via any market guiding mechanism of their own, so why not use the high level players and open an new avenue of activity: Master trader.
In my experience many high level players are
a) trading only at what they consider "fair" prices, i.e. not trying to take advantage of others and
b) hoarders, i.e. having huge stockpiles of many goods "just in case".
So, why not allow those players to act as brokers (intermediates/market makers) who benefit from aiding the market, not just from selling for a profit? I'll gladly help BB with setting up such a mechanism (being a business professor should help there:D). It would make the market more effficient, put those hidden resources to use and offer another route to keeping high level players happy and busy. It could be implemented by adding new tabs to the trade office - making it upgradeable (e.g. at levels 60, 70 future levels 80, 90 and 100). If the market were efficient, it would also reduce the problems arising from having many (de fact) currencies in parallel: gems, gold coins, guild coins, star coins, pumkins, presents, Easter eggs, footballs... which so far further increases the lack of transparency of the market.

i totally agree. although i dont understand all ur solutions i'm sure some1 at bb can follow it :)

surely TO should be a place for players to help others yet it just seems to bring out the greed in ppl. i do fear that those same players who spoil trade office will be able to continue this practise as brokers.
Would removing coins help? i see no need for this as is it isn't really a resource and players could barter instead of amassing a huge treasure chest. I hear prices on other servers r much lower than northisle. would it be possible to make TO cross server and would this help? or perhaps a bidding system where u set a starting price, set the length of time and a buy now price?

I fail to understand why you mention Gems and Star coins since they can not be traded.

I presume you have something concrete in mind beyond the minimal outline you have suggested here would you care to flesh it out some ?

An intriguing idea, but some some more detail on what the idea is and how it might work would be good, maybe some examples?

Guild and or Friends is where you get help.
TO is where you trade stuff you have for stuff you do not have, at a price you are prepared to pay.
I choose to trade my stuff, or horde it, or give to guild members, or just brag about it. Prices set by a few supposedly benevolent chosen one's sounds like a very bad idea to me.

I agree with Kriegor, there is no benefit giving over control of the market place to a few high level players based on the assumption that they will `play nice' for the benefit of all. The guild structure should be a place for those not understanding the price structure of the game to be protected and learn what is fair, or you can learn the hard way on your own in the TO.
I do not see the need for a market place to be `efficient' but usable, the TO has developed nicely from the early beginnings ( remember stacks? ) Above all its control is firmly in the hands of all players, and we all have the choice to buy and sell at prices that reflect our economies as individuals and across the server on which we play.
There will always be selfish players, however in this game they are considerably out numbered by the generous, and players who look out for the vulnerable, quickly buying `mistakes' and refunding those players making them once they know it was not intended.
What is being portrayed as cumbersome is in my view `choice'. I can sell what ever I want ( That is able to be traded ;) with anything else, not what is deemed to be suitable by a third party. I can do so at what ever quantity I want ( subject to set limits per trade), if some player likes it they can trade, if they don't they can ignore, If they want to over charge on that trade they can put up their own, and if they feel they can do better they can undercut me. Its not broken, so does not need fixing its a free market, that's how free markets work ;)

Nothing wrong with the current trade system that I can see. Please leave it as it is. The spread of prices encourages seller competition and gives buyers the opportunity to shop around for the prices that suit them; much like shopping in real life. There already appears to be a pricing agreement on lootspots and I a not convinced this it to the benfit of the buyers in particular.

Someone who claims to be a business professor should know that some of the worst market corruption comes from the marketmakers abusing their position in the ecosystem. I don't trust in even more people with ability to influence prices.

I agree with lordloocan that there is a definitive price fixing going on, it's not entirely bad however, as having those who can easily star a million granite can spend some of the resources buying ls:s lower down.

You can tell from market prices how the lvling slows up as you need dozens of tens of million to lvl people aren't as keen on buying ls anymore either since a couple of Pandas don't cut it anymore.

Lots of questions raised, so let me try to elaborate a bit. The trade office in its current form is an inefficient market. BlueByte made clear that they will not provide a price monitoring system or act as a clearinghouse, so we need a way to improve the market that means a limited effort for BB (thus the Trade Office building upgrade as a basis).
Higher level players know the game (and prices); they often have hoarded huge piles of resources. Let's give them an incentive to help with making the market more efficient for everyone. The idea is NOT to give them power but to use them for making the market more efficient. In my experience high-level players care about XP more than about getting "rich". So, let them provide their excess resources to the market and let them gain XP not for buying and selling but for doing both in equal amounts. That means no XP for dumping stuff/selling cheap or for selling high. Instead, my proposal is to have them gain XP for enabling an efficient market. Thus XPs are gained for transactions only once the same amount is bought and sold by them at identical prices. They don't need a margin (spread) - the XPs are their "fee"
That way the incentive is on finding a price enough people see attractive enough to buy and sell for (i.e. a true market price). So, if they set the price too low, they run low on stock, if they set the price too high, they keep hoarding in that trade office account without gaining XP. Economists like to use people's selfishness for the public well-being (that is one of the things markets do).

The whole concepts is based on making the trade office a better market. So what makes a market more efficient?

a) Good markets are transparent

That is currently not the case as obvious by the many websites trying to provide price information. Only one (osettlers price calculator which is systematically flawed by not differentiating game worlds/servers) uses cross-tabulation, i.e. shows how much a resource costs in terms of units of all other resources.
An efficient market would need more of that, so my suggestion is that the Master Trader feature allows to trade for the currency (gold coins) only - if this is efficient enough, you can exchange all goods by going through the currency, just like we do in the real world. Many trades in TSO are not using gold coins but exchange goods for goods (barter), a sign for an inefficient market - money was invented in real life to make transactions easier, in TSO it fails to serve that function. My comment on the de facto existence of multiple parallel currencies was just meant to highlight that this reduces transparency and thus makes the market even more confusing for new players.
The Master Traders could help gold coins to (re)gain their function as the game currency and thus help market efficiency. Eventually, BB could list goods in order of increasing cost instead of the current (chronological?) order - best offers first to make buying and selling easier. That changed order will expose predatory pricing (deals that are way out of the ordinary, apparently only hoping for accidental clicks). Once the market prices have settled, BB might even use the current market prices for goods to order barter prices by value, too.
An easy to implement feature would be colouring Master Trader offers in let's say blue, loot spots and other low prices in green and the highest prices in red to aid transparency further.

b) Good markets are liquid, i.e. have a lot of sellers and buyers.

The Master Traders would act as both (gaining XP only by buying AND selling). They basically "dump" excess resources into the Trade Office, set a price and set limits how much they want that stock to fluctuate until selling/buying stops. Ideally, they sell as much as they buy - showing that their price is exactly the current market price. But nobody is online 24/7, so this "stop-loss" protects them from selling out if prices change while they are offline. Example: During the crisis event the gold coin price for map pieces increased within a few hours at least by a factor of 4 (I saw offers up to 16 times the pre-event prices). An imbalance in buying/selling indicates the need for adjusting prices, so this feature would protect the Master Trader from running out of stock or piling up goods at costs above the current market price. The sooner the Master Trader adjusts prices in such a case, the more (s)he will benefit compared to other Master Traders. So, there is a competition whenever prices change even after the initial swings that are to be expected. Master Trades will strive to be efficient and predict changes in market prices (e.g. prior to events) because that has them gain more XP than other Master Traders.
The proposed market mechanism will not make rare products more common, it will just make prices for plentiful goods more transparent and trades easier. Prices for stones and pinewood logs, for example, will soon settle on a consensus level. That will make trading a lot less confusing for entry-level players who care about those simple products.
The normal trade office functions will continue to exist, as will loot spot selling or giving away goods to non-friends. All normal trades are still working as usual. The Master Traders' prices will provide market participants with reference prices and increase trade volume though. Players could buy/sell even when few other players are online. The better market prices will also obsolete many of the "price check" questions in the trade chat. :-)

c) Good markets have low transaction costs

For the Master Traders, there would be no transaction cost on their automatic transactions, especially no limit to the number of concurrent trades. That makes the market more efficient. If BlueByte decides that the trade office sales for gems are a key part of their business model (I doubt that it outweighs the benefits and think it would be compensated by higher earnings through retaining more new players), the Master Traders could be restricted to not actively posting trades but just reacting to the trades users post. That would greatly reduce the benefits for all players though.


Details of implementing such a feature are of course tricky as usual: We need to set the incentive level high enough for participation but low enough to not have people rushing to 75. This obviously needs more thoughts and analysis. We need to also ensure that people don't benefit from fake transactions like double trades. The proposed market mechanism will not make rare products more common, it will just make prices for plentiful goods more transparent and trades easier. I'd gladly work with BlueByte on the details - their database of trades should actually not just be a good foundation for establishing the mechanisms needed here. It would probably also serve as a neat "market" providing fodder for a few journal articles. :-)

Lmao, You've not been playing long have you? The player base is very good at making the most of opportunities, ( often unintended by BB )and completely ignoring those that don't work for them. Everything you just wrote if implemented would play into the hands of a few, those with sufficient resources to `play' the market. Friends and guild mates could easily round trades indefinitely just to gain xp, they could easily create a false value by exploiting `time of day' player traffic.
Lower level players would have very little influence, as they have limited resources, and different requirements and priorities. If anything those benefit more with the current system than with what is being proposed here, and I would feel disenfranchised in the market place if it was being run by high level players maxing out xp with no real regard to the market for all players.
As for implementation, if word got out, that this was to be implemented, what would happen to the market then? Everyone in a position to do so would hoard everything, then the market would crash as soon as it became live when everyone tries to get the most xp benefit. Players , especially low and mid level use the TO to `survive' not always to make a greedy profit. Would these players hang around till the market found the new level....?
This is a game, there are economic lessons to be learnt from it which would benefit real life on occasions, not the other way around ;)

Level 55, so not a complete newbie. Besides, attacking the person rather than discussing the idea is always bad style IMO. If you had read what I wrote, you'd note the "fake transactions" thought. Ensuring that players don't abuse the system is important, especially as people around here (and everywhere else) are known to "play the system". I don't think the experienced players would or could abuse trade if the conditions are set right. And low level players HAVE little influence on market prices - the amounts they bring to the show are just too small and their economy cannot possibly compete with a fully buffed level 6 economy. They would benefit from a more efficient market and from reliable prices (for many basic goods they are relatively stable already in my experience, that is just not transparent and visible to new players and only holds true during those times of the day when a large number of players is online). The market would not "crash" on a new feature, it would thrive because the hoarders will suddenly have an incentive to part with some of their holdings. That is bound to benefit those with fewer resources: price spreads would shrink.
BB has been good at keeping secrets and even if you were right: What difference would a few days of hoarding by high-level players make who often have starred millions or resources anyhow? Prior to Halloween people were unwilling to part with their gold coins and saved buffs/buildings for selling. Did the market change? Yes (e.g. accepting other resources for loot spots). Did the market crash? No. There will always be people wanting something and offering prices that others find attractive. That's how markets are.
With all due respect: claiming that the real world can learn economic lessons from this game rather than the other way around must be just an attempt to prove that irony never works in written communication. Instead of trying to kill the idea, how about thinking of ways to make it work?

What you're asking for is a group of high level players to "fix" the market values. Yeah, of course they are going to "fix" them to their own advantages. It would not benefit the trade as a whole, just those in control of the market and prices.

Sorry, never going to happen!

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Originally Posted by Wuselwirbel

Lots of questions raised, so let me try to elaborate a bit etc-)

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''Higher level players know the game (and prices); they often have hoarded huge piles of resources.''

They do know the game and maybe they could already help others by selling resources at a lower price. Why don't they? Simple if they do they get bought and then sold at a profit by someone else so the only one who benefited is the one/s who bought the cheaper item. As you said, they know the game and know what would happen.

''That way the incentive is on finding a price enough people see attractive enough to buy and sell for (i.e. a true market price)''

The true market value is what players are willing to pay. Can just see Lidl being told by Tesco what they must sell their goods for.

''In my experience high-level players care about XP more than about getting "rich"....''

Really, so is that why we see so many higher level players selling lootspots which they could be giving for free to guild mates? On two of the world's I play lootspots are happily given to lower players in the guild, on the third all loots are sold even during events and when people need a lootspot for a guild quest or to, for instance, gather field refills.... Reason is they want the coins. Have even seen players gloating at having to star a million coins to add to the millions they already have starred.

You also quote in a later section that you are level 53. It is not about level it is about time playing the game etc that gives experience. My guild got a player to level 50 in 17 days for the fun of it, does that mean he has tons of game experience?

''Many trades in TSO are not using gold coins but exchange goods for goods (barter), a sign for an inefficient market - money was invented in real life to make transactions easier, in TSO it fails to serve that function.''
and
''The Master Traders could help gold coins to (re)gain their function as the game currency''

Nothing wrong with trading a resource for a resource, after all that is all that a gold coin is on tso. If you look at economy it is listed as a building material, so is no different to any other resource, it is simply that we are used to buying items for coins. We could equally be trading using wheat as the base item, so why bother fixating on gold coins? You can buy anything for anything on the current trade system even if you have no coins. Gold coins have never been the sole in-game currency, that is the strength of the trade system as it is.

I could go on but see no reason. If you give control of the trade system to a few ''Master Traders'' then you may as well blow up all the trade offices. No-one should be told by anyone what they can sell an item for. We already have an invisible version of this going on with the sale of lootspots and your idea wuld merely magnify this problem.

PS: Who decides these Master Traders? Who ensures all 3 EU servers run at same trade pricing? And that's before you add in all the other world's.

Can assume that it's a no from me.

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Whoever offers to another a bargain of any kind, proposes to do this. Give me that which I want, and you shall have this which you want, is the meaning of every such offer [...]. It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest.

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Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations


Big misunderstandings all over (forgot that most here are not business people and thus don't understand what markets are and can do): My proposal is not about reducing or "fixing" prices. It is about increasing the efficiency of the market by reducing the "spread". That is how traders call the (in TSO often huge) differences between selling and asking prices. Prices are decided by the market participants, nobody is forced to buy from anyone else. My proposal is not about free loot spots for guild members or benevolence either, we can't have one new feature solve all of your desires. We cannot change players and personally, I think we shouldn't even if we could. Everyone has the right to be happy doing what they do in the game as long as it is within the rules and they conduct themselves in a socially acceptable way (no swearing, spitting, ... :) You know the kindergarden rules).

If players want to amass coins, the Trader role will not be for them. The way I envision it, the only things they get out of it are XP and (maybe) their initial resources.
And you are right that gold coins are a resource among many others. I just felt it psychologically the easiest resource to establish as a means of exchange (= "currency"). Actually, the thing closest to a currency right now seems to be grout - nobody can produce it themselves. So, if you wish, we could base the economy on grout. That is not the main point here.
And yes, I have not played Settlers Online as long as some of you have. Yet, I have ample experience with people and markets, so could we focus on the issue rather than start a gloating war about who is the most experienced player around? :D
Another misunderstanding in a few comments was about the Traders having "control". They don't. In a functioning market, nobody controls price, just their own offers. And if others like them, they accept these offers. The idea is to make it the self-interest of the Traders to find as many people on both sides (buyers and sellers) liking their offers, so that they increase the efficiency of the market. Such a broker function is easiest, if you have either information (too complex for our purpose here) or a pile of goods, so that you can trade yourself. Thus, we need hoarders willing to part with some of their stock. Why did I mention high level players? Firstly, because I assumed that they would be more likely to have such huge stockpiles. Secondly, I assume that BB is willing to offer additional game features to them (see the "Journey to the North"). So we have a group of players capable of making the market more efficient, a game provider potentially interested in offering them new features - that is a good starting point. Nobody is forced to become a Trader, so if you don't like it, don't do it. Nobody but the players themselves decide whether they want to be Traders. If you are at the required level and have extra resources (we are talking a lot of resources, though), go for it. If you don't, no problem - just like nobody is forced to do expeditions. And there is no need or benefit of having all servers have the same price. They don't now and BB made clear that exchanging goods among servers is not an option, so we have each world being their own market. Yet, unlike today, I would assume that prices will move closer together given that the underlying fundamentals (e.g. production costs) are the same in all markets. That is however neither necessary nor the goal here, it would just be a side-effect.
My vision (and that is one of the things up for debate) was to have players at level 60 up to trade the basic resources against the "currency", players at level 70 up intermediate resources and so on. And yes, you can see the long-term time horizon of this by me thinking of level 80/90/100 players, too. I assume that elite resources would be to someone on level 100 similar to what stones and pinewood logs are for most of us - a commodity in ample supply. Giving 1 million logs into a Trading House and then having it aid the efficiency of the market could be OK to some players, even if there was no mechanism to reward them but as economists do, I believe in advancing the greater good of society by channelling self-interest into activities that provide a benefit to all.

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Originally Posted by lordloocan

Reason is they want the coins. Have even seen players gloating at having to star a million coins to add to the millions they already have starred.

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It never ceases to amaze me how illogical people can be, hoarding metric tons of one of the most useless resources in game, just because they associate coins with wealth.

-1
Suggestions here are not really considering the cause of the issues they're trying to fix. - lack of (new) players and too many hoarders.

I would rather have a fix BB_Alex mentioned on testserver forum..

Spoiler

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Originally Posted by BB_Alex

There are several changes, I personally would like to see in the game, which would improve the economy building part of the game in my opinion. All of them might have a negative impact on the community.

Let me show an example. It is just an example and not a planed change:

Resources from adventures, quest and trade are always going into the storage even if they would exceed the capacity. The overflow will not be transfered to the star menu and will stay in the storage. This overflow will be halved every day as sort of an upkeep for exceeding the storage capacity.
Only resources from the merchant will go to the star menu.
This would require improvements telling you, if you would exceed your storage when buying a certain amount in the trade. Of course this would only work with the cooldown on loot mails, you mentioned. The goal would be to get rid of all stuff allowing you to use the star and the mails as a storage with an infinite capacity.

Can you imagine the impact?


Have fun
BB_Alex

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I think this could work well if also (R)PH would keep sending their production to star menu.

..combined with a weekly (cooldown) function to try get some few extra crystals from volcano offerings.

Spoiler

Question 159:

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Originally Posted by Siedler-Junkie, Germany

Is it possible to create some kind of trash bin for the Star menu for items that I will never use anyway?

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Originally Posted by BB_Alex

We do have some gags related to this topic. We even thought of making the new mountain a volcano, where you can burn items. It would be nice to have a mechanic which allows you to get rid of items. Right now it's not our priority and we haven't though of a proper approach for this yet. Maybe someday we might implement such a mechanic into the game. No plans for now.

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If you see a lack of new players, wouldn't a more transparent trade make them more likely to stay?
My suggestion gives hoarders a reason to put some of their resources into the market (XP).
While the suggestion you linked sounds interesting, it does not fix the market, it just abolishes star storage. An interesting idea but not in competition to mine.

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Originally Posted by sparkz

It never ceases to amaze me how illogical people can be, hoarding metric tons of one of the most useless resources in game, just because they associate coins with wealth.

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Totally agree sparkz, makes no sense at all but happens all the time.

Last comment from me on this thread as originator seems unable to consider alternative views which is part of the purpose of a thread.

Your claim to being a business professor tells me you are qualified to teach people how to run a business, this means anything from the corner shop to a international conglomerate. What it don't tell me is how qualified you are on how a economic system should work. To me your claim is as like a airline pilot saying this is how control of a national air space should be done. In both cases you have the right to having a valid professional view point on the subject but it does not tell me that you know enough of the inner workings of such systems.

The trade window is the tool BB have given us so that we may trade, you have asked for a better tool because to your knowledge the tool we have is not up to the job you require of it, yet the additional functionality of trade listings you ask for is already built into the trade window already.

Leaving event currencies to one side as they are a special case we have 3 main currencies in game, gold coins, guild coins and beans. Gold coins are the general medium of exchange while the other two are intended to be used as a medium of exchange by a subset of players, namely guild members and higher level players. In real life you have people using cash, cheque's or plastic or electronic transactions. That we have players using other mediums of exchange shows that some of those with a overabundance of some resources are already trying to put those items back into the system, some resources however players gain that much through game play that they can't be put back in the system because everyone who uses those resources already has more than they need. What about the items which by there usage would be the exception to your idea like fish, as fish are used as both a trade resource and a trade token could fish be brokered.

What you are asking for is not something which can be done with a bit of code, the first question I would ask is would it require a dedicated server of its own.

Trying to mimic a games trade office to real life is kind of what we are trying to get away from, real life. It's kind of why we are here playing. With all the many online games I have played I find the TSO one to be the least boring because items can be sold for other items not just sold for coins. It generates creative ways to sell. Yes, some new players may suffer depending on their level of caution but what a great place to learn hard lessons, in a game! It's a tricky balance to make something that works for beginners but at the same time not ruin it for experienced players, besides experienced players is where we are all headed. "Good markets are transparent" is a fair statement but within context. Remember this is a game and the idea is to have fun. Depending on events and other situations in game, certain values of things tend to go up. Watching some players protest and other players bumping up against the market to see how far they can push things is a fun thing to experience. There's a lot of gooey stuff in games that even designers didn't think would come to be. I hope these many things are preserved and there are certainly a lot to mention in one post. If they were to introduce any kind of new system that stiffens, restricts, etc., we may lose a lot of the good things that a free kind of wild wild west system gives us. Sometimes I drop my fishing line into the market to gather some grout just after an event, how is a system supposed to keep up with all of the many situations which create sometimes very small windows of opportunities. I remember once TSO did not allow the trade of fishfarms, I posted fishfarms on a 6 hour post JUST before they took servers down to make the change, once servers came back up I had fishfarms for sale (lots so them) and no one else was allowed to sell/post. How do you put a value on that. It's a game so I try to do fun things. I could probably come up with a hundred of these wonderful fun things to do that makes a monitoring system irrelevant and dry. When you don't have a system to hold you by the hand, your senses get sharp and you go from there. You learn a lot about yourself. I don't buy many things much anymore with an approach of what a fair price is, I buy things mainly now using forsight. What will the item I buy be worth in a year in game. Again, fun to do. I find in one way having a monitoring system making new players even much more vulnerable in certain areas. The new players may dump a lot of items now, that may be worth a lot in a month because they don't visit to test server or check certain web sites and check whats to come. Anyone trusting a system to do their thinking for them may be in big trouble.

I always tend to lean towards few tools with more creativity than a hundred tools providing 100 solutions. Very stiff environment. For example...Yes, the loot spots could be in a tab all by itself but how it's done now works very well without any new features implemented. Trade office gets used for other utility exchanges outside of normal trading as well, not just loot spots. Players are doing creative things with it. Price checks in trade is a great thing. You see sometimes multiple responses and debates which makes it enjoyable to see. Again, price check chats provide a lot more things than just a price. I think we might miss those.

If I had one wish for TO it would be posts that last longer than 6 hours. Make the trade office building upgradable so at level 6 we can make 24 hour posts.

I see TSO resources in basically 3 categories; automatically obtained, semi-automatic and manual. That's the general yard stick I go by. It's a system that has done me well over the 5+ years playing this game. I avoid adventures where possible and really play the game to build, produce, and trade. I'm not sure if I would be called a hoarder, players on my server may have another name for me :) I treat TSO very much as a game and have fun trying and testing things and taking risks that you may not take in real life. Playing a lot of other online markets over the years, I find myself missing the TOS one. I would have to say that TSO's market is the most enjoyable really. It has to do with a lot of things but primarily the ability to trade a resource that you don't want for something that might be of value to you at this time but not to others so much. It leads to many variations of trade. Sometimes I might make posts of things that I don't need, BUT I will take it for THIS if I can get THAT price for it, let's try. Many game pieces to play with in the TO. If I can trade an automatically obtained for a semi-automatic like iron ore or even a better trade for some manually obtained I feel good about it. Some people are on for hours a day so the automatic resources are much like the semi to them as they may enjoy mining and may have 8 build slots (max) and do so while adventuring. To have any kind of system which may not allow a player to entertain all kinds of ideas of their own may move their gaming experience to a bad one in the long run.

"Fair pricing" in a game is almost as boring as "balanced" game play in many aspects (not all, it's vital in some areas). I don't see new players so much as victims here. I know a lot of stories players giving new players resources and even buildings just to see them post for coins soon after. Bad things have gone both ways.

I like that you have opened up something fairly bold and if it would be crafted with enough assurance that it wouldn't destroy the great things that the TO has already, I would be more open to it for sure. Thanks for posting your ideas.

Couple of points

What metric could you use to determine fair pricing. Fair to who? at what point in the game is it fair? What seemed just a dream at some point in the game, say for example 10,000 Granite. At level 70 is nothing at all. Just a few days to collect.

What difference do you think unlimited storage actually makes? I have for example 1,700,000 on the island, never mind star, and i know i am not alone. The numbers got silly long ago.

the spreads used to be a lot smaller when there were more active players. there was actual competition.. these days not so much.
if you want frendly prices or charity go to guild.
what would happen if starred res would be forced to be traded? everything would cost 1 fish. hows that for a great market?

Thank you for your many comments and suggestions. Let me try to summarize:
Many high level players have "silly" (thanks, Kriegor :D) amounts in storage. The game currently does not offer them enough of an incentive to put those on the market. If we had more trading, price spreads would be smaller. Some of you are opposed to that, liking the opportunities for getting "rich" of these inefficiencies. To those: Rest assured. Stupidity, genuine mistakes and inexperience will remain, so there will always be buyers for just about every kind of deal. :-) Yet, the majority of people who commented here or in private messages to me see a more efficient market as worth pursuing. So far, suggestions to change that were
- increase the number of active players (Q: how? BB will probably shower you with gems for good ideas on that)
- a ebay-like bidding system including a "buy now" price,
- abolishing star storage to force goods into trading,
- allow more or longer (I suppose: "free") trades by players, and my
- Master Trader suggestion.
I apparently did not make it clear enough to be understood. So, let me try an example: A "Trader" sends 1 mio. marble into their upgraded Trade Office, sets a price and waits. The system then posts trades (buy and sell) at that price - even when the player is offline, so the market is having larger volumes available in slow hours. The traders have the adrenaline rush every morning to see how their stock performed (trust me, that can be quite thrilling or frustrating;)). If the price they set is at the current market price, there will be active trading in both directions. If the price is too low, the Master Trader will soon hit their pre-set "stop loss" (let's say: no more sales once stock drops by 25%). If the price is too high, the trader will hit the "purchase limit" (no more buying if stock increased by 25%) - both a sign that the price needs to get adjusted to match the current market situation.
The incentive for the player to act as a broker is NOT getting rich (no payout of profit ever, at best the chance to get the initial resources back) but to get XP as a compensation for being a broker. To avoid abuse, trades by friends/guild members and multiple transactions by the same player(s) in a specified time will probably have to be excluded to avoid gaming the system. Other ideas for precautions are welcome.
The functionality I suggested is not part of the current trade office but it would not require a dedicated server, just some programming and data tables. Nothing out of line with what BB does already.

To clarify some recurring misunderstandings: "Fair" prices were never my point. Fairness is subjective and I just mentioned that word as part of my impression that some players are benevolent. Others made clear that they know selfish and irrational players. Fine, the game can handle that, the new functionality would not even be affected. And yes, guilds are often an alternative to the trade office - in mine, most things cost a fish and a thank you. That does not eliminate the benefits of a more transparent market. We'll still be able to have a lot of fun even in trading - some goods like grout will remain rare, market prices will remain irrational at times (we are all humans after all). Events, quests etc. will ensure that prices will fluctuate like they do in all markets. So, don't fear boredom, folks. :)

It sounded like in your original post it was an intertwinded system with the current one with your desire/preference to reduce the amount of price checks for example, when the verdict of those wanted or not is not out.

New players may become weaker wisdom wise if we have a kind of suggested retail price running parallel along side the current system. This is an example of what I said earlier where new players may be more vulneable. Besides having a system in place making new players weaker (long term) by not thinking on their own, they might trust this new system as the bible of trade. I know you mentioned a few things like effeciency, XP for players but the new players seemed like your flagship issue. Experienced traders find the variances and phases of trade office refreshing and challenging for them, keeps them entertained.

Let's put it this way, I will try to use the current TO to support your system. Once in a while you see a post of 1 million units of something. Chances are it has a bulk sale price attached to it. I know many players watch this sale closely. Ones who are especially interested in such a resource. If it doesn't sell for that bulk cheaper price, then it gives a player a good sense of it's worth. Epecially over a few of those by different players. This does not have the same kind of resolution as yours where players would see a fractional result as it's posted, and may also be someone who has big plans with this amount and buys it. But, it's a very strong guage for players to go by, and if that 24 hour post suggestion I had earlier came to be, it would be posted long enough so players won't wonder if it expired or sold. A 24 hour post of 1 million units at bulk price can give ALL players a good sense of an items worth. If trade was as busy as it was a few years ago it would probably work. Because it seems to be much slower now, your system kind of places artificial multiple orders to compensate that in a way so I find your idea in itself is welcome.

The other trade system we have already that runs along side of what we have is "giving". It's very clear the value of the gift because the giver usually has a sense of worth in TSO or genuienly doesn't care. It's very one dimensional and doesn't affect trade directly as it's a very periodic system.

Game design is a huge topic and still at its infancy and sometimes even going backwards it seems. This is a design not a suggestion so keep in mind the devil is in the detais as they say. It's amazing just how much changes from the original idea once implemented. So if I/we were to at least try to boil out your design for some stand alone solid ideas and try putting those parts together I would try them. In fact, throw a few more stand alone trade systems that carry a guaratee not to turn the current TO upside down and I would treat them like toys. There's more things in game then to play around with while looking out for the advantages and pitfalls. So it would be pretty rare I would refuse any new trading features but I would hope what comes in new, preserves the great things the current one generates.

If I was to shoot from the hip here and say TO is perfect, I would put a lot of focus on the side effects if a whole new system is going to run beside what we have already. If you get a lot of resistance from wanting anything significant added to the current TO by players, it means they do like the way it is. You may not get enough feedback though unless you finish your design.

I know you're trying to solve a lot of things seen as problems in one system. Reducing a lot of resources hoarded in game can have so many possibilites. I'm almost hoping for something along the lines of using them in a type of adventure in very large numbers. Things like the balloon event was a neat thing giving players a chance to commit a lot of resources but wouldn't be a long term thing unless the first one had a huge success and could do once a year. Maybe if there was a large tier system of rewards next time.

I'll look forward to your 1mio "guidance" trades. It will be interesting to gauge the impact on trade prices. (My guess: not much at first but I know that in Sandycove the trades by Star*** serve that function to some despite always being a bit pricier than going market rates.)
In my guild, there was a consensus that the Crisis Event looked like BB tried to drain stocks prior to Halloween by making people spend huge amounts of resources on those quests. So, I assume that BB is contemplating ideas for dealing with the stockpiles. Hence, maybe your balloon event (or the volcano ideas) will come to life. Who knows....?

Solzar, just hit me: Your one million stones etc. "guidance trades" will be invisible to low level players as they will not have the resources (gold coins or whatever) to buy so much. The standard in the TO is to not show such trades, so the effect of guidance trades might be rather limited unless they are posted in smaller quantities (which then leads the to the "risk" of them being executed because people want the resources, not just the price guidance).

If I was a low level player concerned with prices I would click that option on in hopes of more price samples, simple. I myself always have that option checked whenever I do a Refresh Offers. I know a lot of players do not bother with it which I'm sure suits them or can't always be bothered to switch it on but if your hoping for more examples of worth, it's just 1 click. That's of course if 24 hour posts came in along with maybe another feature I will mentioned below...

If BB said we are allocating 3 weeks of work into the trade system, "what do you guys want?". I could come up with a wish list of 12 things. One of them as mentioned earlier was the longer posts. Even if they just doubled it to 12 hours would be fine as I log in twice a day. 24 hour long posts are ideal because of the way the game is set up. Players need to log in once every 24 hours or producion stops (unless they get a wake up buff). It's actually twice a day for optimal production realistically. If you only log in once a day you can lose 1 or 2 hours of production I find. Twice ensures you got it all coming in. When you get into doing a lot of things in TSO, you will find twice a day gets you everything. Has a lot to do with Explorers and Geologists. I play another game that allows for posts up to 3 days which can be nice. It allows me to try posting things for a better price in case a player out there is really anxious for a particular type of resource. The 24 hour long one is ideal, since players who care about producion must log in once a day and therefore will see the post.

A second trade feature I would love to see is "Repeat Post(s)". So for example my last 11 posts would be repeated with one click. This suits well a player who is in a major production of a particular type of resource. I would put up maybe 5 slots of 4 lots let's say of something. As you may have realized if a stack of 4 lots are up, player A can only buy one of them and the post then dissapears for them. If we had just these 2 features alone I bet we would see a lot more posts up. I still have millions of Saltpetre which I purchased before you started playing. Most all of it was obtained at 15.88 units for 1 Coin (some calculator fun for you on todays value). I don't bother to sell it because of the micromanagement involved with trade office currently so I just keep the powder hut running 24/7. Even if Saltpetre went down to 1:1 I would say to myself I would rather keep it avoiding me from ever mining for it. That, and also will be used on recipe perhaps in future and Scenarios etc. No regrets. You give me 24 hour posts with a repeat feature I would have a new love with the trade system all over again. Many of my posts would attract resellers and others might be a mix of things. Like things I may not want to part with but if the price is right, perhaps. More to play with.

So with the above said, I would rather have a few really nice features we would all want, than a new system running parallel with one we already have.

When they mentioned PvP was coming, I was dreaming of a situation where our main islands were directly involved. It was about taking caravans of resources from your main island to the PvP area. It would be a simple conquest game like Risk. Kept simple, but resources shipped from your main island would play a huge part. So players who do not wish to get involved with PvP could make bread production for example to fund the wars. Trade Office would be very active and may even sell out on some items because demand is so high. Maybe they can call the current PvP system something else and do something like this. It would be a strong and simple way to get trade really flowing. New players would be very active as things like stone and pine logs would be used for repairs let's say. Gunpowder would be in great demand and metal bars of all kinds would be needed to repair and make things. Even the Leather collectable may be used to make those rare air balloon bombers players want to make for battle. Traders would be flowing with production, forsight, regrets, drama, riches, plans. Would be something wonderful I think but until then I will have to keep hoarding stuff until the battle starts :)