Marketplace Upgrades

Mr Damage wrote: Maybe the market should get robbed by the factions every now and again, that'll make people think twice about using it as a vault.

Putting food in the marketplace is a long used method of storing more food in your city since food is such a valuable commodity and lots of people run negative food production.

i totaly opose to the minimum and max prices (being those)

Prom, what you're missing is that basic resource prices have a wider variability compared to their average price than do advanced resources.  The percentage difference in typical buy orders and typical sell orders is also much greater.  Buy orders for basics tend to be around 1.5 to 2.  Sell orders for basics tend to be around 3 to 4.  That's already a 100% difference between just buy orders and sell orders at the most common points for each.

Promasean wrote:

I think setting a min max price would help stabilize the market and make our wonderful graphs more representative of what the real value of commodities are.



It's obvious that trades that are made for the sole purpose of moving up the leader boards distort and ruin the charts, but they have little if any effect on the markets.  The majority of these trades are picked up in seconds, and no one else even sees them happening.  The fact that they ruin the charts should be enough for the Devs to step in and stop this practice though.

I think if the trade board was untied from the overall leader board it would stop most of this happening though.  Keep the trade leader board for informational purposes, but take away the primary incentive to manipulate it.

If my alliance is is any example the only players that watch the Trade boards are the ones that actively trade.  The handful of us active traders know who is really supporting the market and who is gaming the system.  If you trade much you can look at your own personal trade boards and see who the real traders are.

The Devs have called the trade boards meaningless in the past since many have inflated numbers, but I think it still has value.  Names like Boromir, Mr. Fitz, Rupe, Nipirt and Mandarins, the guys that helped build up the market to start deserve a place to highlight their work.  With the newer blood of Kelis, Deimos, Tan d'Serrai, NightFury, andDealer89 carrying on and keeping the markets liquid.

My personal opinion is we need to make using the market easier, not more difficult.  Placing limits, even generous limits would just add another hurdle for those learning the Illy market.  I would hate to see a new player trying to sell off his 1000 wood for 10 a piece and have his trade rejected if it fell outside of any new artificial parameters set on trade prices.  The Devs have hinted at adding a per trade Tax which I think would be a step in the wrong direction as well.

The vast majority of players use the market when either they need something, or they need to dump something.  There are too few traders helping to build a healthy and active market, and any step that might keep new players out should only come if no other less restrictive option can be thought of.

If you have followed the price of advanced resources for over a year, you have seen a steady slide of prices on every item.  There have been short term bounces around events but the long term trend has been downward.  Currently the game mechanics make it easier to create advanced resources than it is to use them.  Unless you are betting on a change of the game mechanics it only pays to "invest" in the market if you plan on being very active and taking advantage of the sometimes large spreads, or playing one of the short term bounces. 

Well I'm off subject and running long... the short of it, I agree there is a problem but I would hate to see regulations added that would do more harm than good.

Here is hoping that Trade (version 2) will come soon and render most of this moot.

R.