N.B.: I will probably update this post as and when I have something new to add.
While trying to trade things in the game I was wondering why there was a 10 min limit on the trade. Of course the 10 min limit is justifiable, otherwise it will be really difficult for players to browse through the endless list of items that are on sale. Well, I had the following points to suggest:
Complete New Web Page for Trading
What I am suggesting is an entire web page - akin to ebay.com or amazon.com (say castlempireonline.com/trade) - for trading the goods in the game. The account should be tied to the player's account (in other words, it should be the same account). When a player wants to sell a particular good, say 400 fir-wood for a 1 week period, when he puts it up, 400 fir-wood will get locked into trading account for 1 week. If the trade doesn't happen, the 400 fir-wood will be returned to his inventory in the game after the 1 week period.
"Bidding" tab and "Buy-it-now" tab
Like ebay it can have the "bidding" option or the "buy-it-now" option. To buy or to bid, the player needs to have the necessary resources.
No 400 (or any upper) limit
The thing in the current trading I dislike the most is the upper trading cap of 400. In the online version of trading, such a cap can be easily removed.
A possible problem!
In the real world money is money - we don't barter say 1 bread loaf for a 6-pack beer. I suppose a really really small percentage of trade on ebay will be barter exchange. But the castle empire trade model is essentially barter exchange. Well castle empire does have coins, but that's largely a floating currency. It will be really difficult to determine reasonable rates for the gold coins - such a task is best left to the market.
To solve this issue, the seller putting up the auction can ask what he wants to be paid in and even then he is very likely to get a reasonable deal. For example, lets say a seller asks for beers as a cost for his 100 swords and the highest bid is 400 beers. A buyer who wants to bid higher, but has excess of tools (say 1000) instead of beer, will very likely be able to buy 500 beer for some number of tools in the "buy-it-now" category and then place a higher bid.
Of course whenever a bidder enters into a bid, the resource that he bids with, is locked till the auction ends or till he is out-bidded by another player.
What's in for the developers to undertake such a huge effort?
Such a trading page can be a source of significant revenue through advertising. Currently, if Ubisoft starts advertising in the game, it will be very intrusive and will piss-off most players (at least that's my guess). The gaming experience will be significantly marred if ads keep popping up.
But on the trading site a non-intrusive advertising column can be easily put up as it would not significantly alter the information available to a trader (one can confirm this by simply visiting amazon.com).
I am pretty sure this will significantly add to the gaming experience. Also it should be pretty easy for the developers to add such a feature, considering the crisp quality of the game that's presently online. I am trying to put up a poll for these suggestion. Be sure to let me know through the poll or through comments.
Regards,
-sgsawant
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Originally Posted by AGamer
