New trading system requires free players to quit.

[Dovahkin341]

I see another downfall-sure you only have 4 lots or 10 mins to sell your wares-solution 400 limit is gone sell your lot of 5000 granite in one shot-problem? the cost to the purchaser. For a bulk trade of that magnitude only certain people would have the resources to make the trade so you could be waiting all day for playerx with the resource to log on and purchase it. I personally dont like the fact that with the new system I can't see who has purchased my trade-I like to know if the same person buys more than once as then I can send them a mail asking if they would like more. IMO the current trade system is fine except for the 400 limit and ability not to place more than one trade at a time.

[EpsilonSilver]

You are so wrong.
Go to the test server and test some more.
You can sell MUCH larger lots than 400.
Extra sell slots can be purchased with gems OR coins.
There is no conspiracy against free players.

I do not use coinages to produce gold. Instead I sell resources to other players.

I sell brew, hard wood logs, hard wood planks, marble, bread, iron ore and coal. On average I probably move around 20k resources per day or more.

Unfortunately, under the new trading system, I can only sell 4 stacks at a time every ten minutes because I am not a gem buyer. That means I will basically have to sit in front of the computer and post trades all day long which is impossible. In other words, under the new trading system, I cannot play anymore.

It is perfectly clear that Blue Byte wants to convert their free-to-play game into a pay-to-play game by requiring gems to do anything in the game.

You could say, good ridden, you don't support the game by buying gems so you're just a leech anyway. But the thing is, I do buy silos and noble deeds from other players. So I buy gems indirectly through other players. You could also say I encourage other players to buy more gems than they normally would by rewarding them with gold payments.

What I'm saying is, even free players do contribute, but now we cannot even play under the new system which requires gems to do anything.

Gems for building queues, gems for selling lots, gems to be able to post more trades. Pretty soon it will cost gems to even log on the game.

Oh well, it was a good game while it lasted, but island maintenance was getting to be too much of a time sink anyway.

[Nynaeve]

I like that they got rid of the 400 limit. I don't like that they limit you to 4 lots. I like that they put the trades in it's own section (where you can see who bought from you). I don't like the time limit. I think people should be able to choose to use gc or gems if they want to do so. I think people should be able to set a time limit on their trade being up from 10 minutes to 1 hour.

In all honesty, I like the current system, but would like the 400 limit upped to 10k, would like to be able to sell unlimited lots, would like the slider to stop at high likelyhood points like 1000 and 5000. and think the folder for trades should be included. I also like that adventures can be included, and think Lootslots would be great to be included.

[Fraxinus]

Sell your goods in bulk in the global-2 auction channel. Problem solved.

[RecklessRue]

I have not been to the test server, so I have not seen this in action. However, I have a huge concern for the price of goods without a limit to the size of the trade. Let's take water, for example. One stack usually goes for 1gc. Remove the limit. People can now sell lots of 1000 water for 1gc. No big deal you may think. Now let's look at a pricier commodity, such as d-swords. A stack of those usually goes at the rate of 1gc to 1 sword, so about 400gc per stack, give or take. Remove the limit... in order to beat out the competition, people will offer more swords at the same price. Good for the buyer, of course. Very bad for the seller. No size limit to lots in trading could quickly undermine the economy. Already, people foolishly sell constructed items (swords, tools, etc) far below the actual cost of the materials to make them.

At the rate things are going, I'm wishing for an NPC to sell my goods to. But I'd probably get robbed there as well. =/

Oh... and I like being able to walk away from pc for 10 minutes to be productive elsewhere as my goods are selling in trade tab. I do not want to sit in front of my monitor for large chunks of time watching my trades.

[Arcain]

All this complaining about limits and bulk selling is pretty much the whole reason for the auction channel. Sure you might not always get "market value" on items, but hey, its sold quick and you're done. No sitting all day selling on trader. And when you are a buyer, you can find a good deal yourself, sometimes. With trader, it doesn't matter what the limit is, 400 or 10,000 bc there will always be people selling way too cheap and others selling way too high. And remember, price of goods drop as supply raises and demand lowers. Higher the level the player, the fewer building materials like hwp and marble they'll need. And even most higher weapons bc once they get their troops built up, they don't need to buy the weapons so much. I know personally I haven't bought and weapons other than b swords, and rarely horses, in several months.

[Khalida]

My gripes about new Trade:
- 4 Trade Limit w/o coin is a step backwards.

- Item sections are a good idea, but it's awkwardly implemented.
If you could select the item you want to buy/sell it would better help than a general trade tier.
Also maybe a secondary sort that lists items based on exchanged items / quantity?

- Buying Slots. I can appreciate the gold sink, but the grand nature of 10 slots that have to be bought all of the time is daunting.
Perhaps a system where 5 slots can be bought permanently... and 5 slots temporarily?

[Bystander]

If people are buying and selling by the truckload when do they find time to play the game?

If youve played for a while , your production can approach the point where if you keep up maintenance , the resource piles up very quickly.

~~

On topic, Id have to agree we signed on for a game in development (beta really) and got to play for free. It behoves you to at least SEE what form the new trade system brings and to at least try as a free player to continue with it in place and THEN decide if it ruins the game experience for you too much or whatever.

UBISoft takes on (they dont have a choice) responsibility to try to keep the most players they can while maintaining or improving their income stream at every turn. It can be worth giving up some of this income making things 'free to play/access' IF there might be a longterm increase in player base (some of whom eventually pay to play, or engage pay to play players to help them with cash buys - a very good thing currently in place with the gem:GC economy - kudos there and its making you alot of cash if you dont realize- ).

BB has already mentioned its on their minds and in consideration to maintain balance to a point with Free to Play : Pay to Play and Id guess these reasons are at the front of this innitiative.

Dont sell them out until you actually see what they do.

To BB - GL walking the tightrope here. Ill hope you make the right choices to keep this an involved and entertaining game. Thanks for letting me play!

~B

[Entharion]

Here's the way I see things, as a free player (level 40). I've never bought gems, and likely never will (yeah, will be a long wait for extra licenses with free gems, but w/e; lol.)

With that said, I feel the OP of this thread is going way too far in making a conclusion about the new trade system. I will grant that, perhaps a couple months ago, in the roughest stages, the new trade system felt foreign enough to be shocking. But what I see on test these days is very positive improvement over the current system, with but a small amount of quirkiness or potential for annoyance or frustration.

The #1 most important feature improvement (which basically sells me on the new system itself alone) is Removal of Stack Quantities. This was the single-most annoying drawback of the original trade system.

The second best improvement is likely the removal of the seller having the option to accept or decline the trade after someone 'sends a trade request' from the trade tab. This was an utterly annoying and extremely abused quirk of the original system. Anyone who puts an offer up for trade had darn well better be ready for it to be accepted as placed. Enough with the buyer-beware philosophy. Seller-be-certain will be the new norm. Common abuses of the old system ranged from sellers garnering more offers for the trade than they could fill with their inventory at the time, to patterns of securing sales prior to purchase of the goods to be sold, to downright mean people making ridiculously low offers in order to simply tie up a large amount of gc or other resources for 8 hours at a time. Good riddance, I say.

The new system offers 4 lots for free (with no stack caps other than inventory capacity) and the option to add more than one trade at a time for gc (or gems, but I don't go that route.) Also, the latest adjustments to the new system on test server give 6 hours per trade; not 10 minutes. The free trade lots can be cancelled at any time with no cooldown period needed before placing a new offer. So if you place an offer and want to change it, you can remove it and put a new offer up right away. Nice. And, when was the last time you could have more than one trade going at a time in the old system? Never, I think. Also a nice change.

The new trade system also adopts new avenues for trade as well. Adventures, deposits, buildings (i.e., nobles and silos) and buffs are all tradeable via the market. This makes a number of old and oft-attempted scams virtually obsolete. And that can only be a good thing. I like the thought of shorter bad trader lists.

A few people commented here about lootspots. Won't happen. BB already has made it clear that anyone selling lootspots (or buying them) is doing so at their own risk. It is not possible to make this safe via the market, considering the need for the buyer to tag and the seller to actually finish the adventure. New rules for recently-acquired friends will enforce this as well as regular trading safety. There will be a 72-hour period after friending someone new in which trade, buffs to the new friend's island, and adventure invitiations will not be active with the new friend. This is also true for new guild members. The main purpose for the 72-hour probationary period is to discourage immediate transfers between multi-accounts. However, some may complain that this will kill the auction channel(s). I hope it does. Too much drama and nonsense there anyway. This is a game; it should be fun!