The market... Could it be better?

[SilentTrouble]

<p>I dont know if this is where this goes as there really isnt a good guide as to where a question like this would go on the forums. Not reall a development ideas section so  here goes.</p><p>Has the idea ever crossed the minds of those in development to change the market system to have the sellers pay the broker commissions, instead of the buyer. In many other games and even in real life its widely accepted that the cost of listing anything for sale is the responsibility of the seller. Usually this is passed on in the cost of an item. When I talk about this i think of EVE online and some the other unmentionable MMOS that we dont talk about.</p><p>You see by charging the sellers the listing fees you force them to price items conservatively and profile to one group of people. Your not going to put up a conj mage pet for 360plat if you know you gotta pay 36 plat just to put it up. Unless you do so in hopes that some raiders with massive amounts of plat come rolling through.</p><p>As it stands now there is no risk by the sellers to sell their wares and the consumers get hosed. Apart from the fact you can 100% circumvent the whole listing process by going to a house and buying an item. The brokers "union" as I would call them still have to pay their people to tell you the item is in a house somewhere, as well as stand around selling while you get free advertising.</p><p>There are an endless amount of reasons why this fee should be on the seller and not the consumer. I just wondered if anyone ever thought about that.</p>

[Glerin]

<p>only thing this would lead to is even more spam in the 70-79 channels "WTS (Insert thing here)" then before, no one would use broker for expensive stuff - also you currently have an option to not pay any fee by visiting peoples house to pick the items up</p>

[SilentTrouble]

<p>Right its kinda odd that brokers would list your item for you without charging a fee... Even if its not bought through them would they basically advertise for you for free... Although I agree with your WTS statement, thers always been sale channels that this happens in. Using the broker to sell for you is a convience and such you should pay teh charge even for more expensive items just figure that in the price you want to get for the item its not that hard. If you want to sell by hand you pay no fee. Is it that unreasonable?</p><p>You pay real estate brokers a comission to sell your house or you sell by owner for example</p>

[Keiran_Halcyon]

<p>Very bad idea. I can not imagine anyone here in EQ2 willing to pay for listing an item that anyone may - or may not - buy now, in the future, or not at all. The server populations are far too low for such an attempt.</p>

[Detor]

<p><cite>SilentTrouble wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Right its kinda odd that brokers would list your item for you without charging a fee..</p></blockquote><p>You know what's odd?  I ran into a floating monster that opened a void portal while he was trying to kill me.  Then the instant he died a magical chest appeared out of nowhere into existence.  It's a fantasy game - those NPC's don't have anybody that has to sit there doing something for you all the time, so for the benefit of the game it makes plenty of sense they wouldn't charge a listing fee.</p><p>If they DID charge a listing fee, well, have you ever had some guy on your server who everybody tells to shut up and some people even threaten to petition him because he keeps saying "WTS xxxxxx item!"?  If you forced people to pay a listing fee based on what the item MIGHT sell for all you would end up causing is a TON of spam in the OOC/shout/level chat channels clogging up everything but auction sell shouts.  With anybody on the server able to talk in those channels while they do other things you can bet the moment you turned the channel on you'd have pages and pages fly by faster than you could possible read them rendering them completely useful for the things they were intended for.</p>

[Child]

<p><cite>Zizil@Valor wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Very bad idea. I can not imagine anyone here in EQ2 willing to pay for listing an item that anyone may - or may not - buy now, in the future, or not at all. The server populations are far too low for such an attempt.</p></blockquote><p>City of Heroes/Villains does this</p><p>it's one of COH/COV's biggest flaws, many people say.</p>

[Noaani]

<p>This change would lead to nothing but heartache for new players and tradeskillers, if nothing else.</p><p>For a start, there is not enough of a low level market on any server to sustain a reasonable amount of low level gear. If players had to pay to have low level handcrafted gear listed, they simply wouldn't bother making it. When players new to the game come along, they will have nothing to buy off the broker at all, and will need to rely on drops and quest rewards until about level 30, when there is a market on most servers for crafted gear. Unfortunatly, these new players are the same players that are least likely to know how to get hold of gear in any manner other than the broker.</p><p>For tradeskillers, it would mean that harvesters would no longer list their raws for sale for a copper each. People that go out harvesting for long stretches at a time often harvest several thousand of each raw from the level range they harvest in, and put these on the broker for copper, or silver for the more used ones. These often stay on the broker for months before they all sell, simply due to lack of demand for massive quantities (they are often bought by high level crafters for one off combines). If the seller is needing to pay to list these raws, they will simply destroy them instead, as even at 10% of the sale cost per week, they would actually lose money by trying to sell them.</p><p>The system of having the seller pay for listing an item works in a world with a smaller number of items to be sold, and a constant demand for all items over a large range of levels. Since EQ2 is not desinged that way, with an item only being usable in the 10 level range in which it comes from (with very few exceptions), the system simply does not work.</p>

[Brinelan]

<p>Eves market is worlds better then any market in any game i have ever played.. it is also the most complex. heck it is a game in and of itself.</p><p>You pay a base of 1% to list the item and another 1% is sales tax.  The sales tax can be reduced up to half based on faction, the broker fees are also reduced up to half based on skills.   The market is also broken up by region, it is not game wide.  The equivilent would be a quenos market, kelethin market, freeport market and gorowyn market all being seperate here.  It opened up aton of opportunity to make money by buying in one area and selling elsewhere.</p><p>There is also detailed sales statistics (hi sell price, low sell preice, qty sold etc) for every item.  (I do wish they would do that here.. it is so hard to play the market blind<img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />  )</p><p>10% - 40% does seem a bit excessive for fees and while eves market might be a bit complex to have copies here, some things scaled down would make the market a bit better.. and possibly make playing the market a bit more of an option for gameplay (and also make things more competetive and more pro consumer).</p>

[wellehad0]

<p><cite>Zizil@Valor wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Very bad idea. I can not imagine anyone here in EQ2 willing to pay for listing an item that anyone may - or may not - buy now, in the future, or not at all. The server populations are far too low for such an attempt.</p></blockquote><p>simple just make it IF you take the item off the market you are refunded the money back</p>

[Cloudrat]

<p><cite>Ifury@Nagafen wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Zizil@Valor wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Very bad idea. I can not imagine anyone here in EQ2 willing to pay for listing an item that anyone may - or may not - buy now, in the future, or not at all. The server populations are far too low for such an attempt.</p></blockquote><p>simple just make it IF you take the item off the market you are refunded the money back</p></blockquote><p>Even simpler is not to charge it to seller until the item is sold. LOL problem solved.  The reason for buyer to pay it is back in the olden days there was a black market that allowed you to buy from the other alignment which cost you more. Since they have merged the brokers I would say that isnt an issue any more and allowing the seller to absorb the fee sounds feasible, not however, imho a good idea. You pay sales tax irl when you purchase something and that basically is what this is.</p>

[Lethe5683]

<p><cite>SilentTrouble wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I dont know if this is where this goes as there really isnt a good guide as to where a question like this would go on the forums. Not reall a development ideas section so  here goes.</p><p>Has the idea ever crossed the minds of those in development to change the market system to have the sellers pay the broker commissions, instead of the buyer. In many other games and even in real life its widely accepted that the cost of listing anything for sale is the responsibility of the seller. Usually this is passed on in the cost of an item. When I talk about this i think of EVE online and some the other unmentionable MMOS that we dont talk about.</p><p>You see by charging the sellers the listing fees you force them to price items conservatively and profile to one group of people. Your not going to put up a conj mage pet for 360plat if you know you gotta pay 36 plat just to put it up. Unless you do so in hopes that some raiders with massive amounts of plat come rolling through.</p><p>As it stands now there is no risk by the sellers to sell their wares and the consumers get hosed. Apart from the fact you can 100% circumvent the whole listing process by going to a house and buying an item. The brokers "union" as I would call them still have to pay their people to tell you the item is in a house somewhere, as well as stand around selling while you get free advertising.</p><p>There are an endless amount of reasons why this fee should be on the seller and not the consumer. I just wondered if anyone ever thought about that.</p></blockquote><p><span style="color: #993366;">Think of it as sales tax.</span></p>

[Aule]

I would pay as much as a 100% markup to have access to a cross-server vendor for (Master I) sales. But in regards to the fee to the purchaser not the seller, think of it as a convenience tax for having the broker union deliver the item to you rather than forcing you to hike to that person's house. Could you imagine how much of a hassle it would be to purchase collection items if you had to write down everybody's address and then walk to their house to buy the item?