- Joined
- Jun 27, 2013
- Messages
- 896
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- 166
I think you're both right.I disagree, player-owned shops may very well be the key to all this.Fixing shops will not fix the economy nor add play value to the game. Players make the economy, ripping that from the players and giving it to an NPC which can not be haggled takes away from player interaction. It takes away mining corps, logistics corps, traders who buy low and sell high, security contractors who are paid to protect shipments etc.
Fixing the shop will only add reliance on servers not players and resource rarity. It does nothing in the means of creating roleplay and functionality.
Suppose all player-owned shops, and their goods, were registered centrally. Then suppose the quest system was implemented, and players could request something to the effect of "Buy this much of that there, sell it to me here". Wouldn't this allow for exactly the kind of trading you suggest?
Shops are undeniably broken at the moment, however enhancing them to tie into a bazaar system is another thing and not what I'd call simply fixing them. Yet without some enhancement like that, I think it's difficult for any meaningful trade to develop.
The shops as they are designed right now (even if they were working as intended) are too limited in scope to allow a decentralised player-run economy to flourish; currently only the Trading Guild has the grand picture of which of their own shops needs what restock, but players lack the necessary communications and analysis tools for that.
The idea of some kind of a stock exchange absolutely makes sense from my point of view. I don't know whether I'd want it to have global scope, ideally I think there should be some kind of hierarchy involved, allowing to have different price ranges across different regions, but on the other hand that may be a bit too involved.