Offline Selling coming to EQ2

[UD_Delt]

Sassee: Many players continue to dislike the fact that you have to be online and in your house to sell items, especially if they live in a time zone in which server downtimes are especially inconvenient. Will there be any changes to the market system to address these issues?

Steve "Moorgard" Danuser: One of the key reasons we launched with an online-only selling system is that we didn't want to flood the marketplace with items and make the economy grow too rapidly. We still believe there needs to be careful control over how goods flow through the marketplace.

At the same time, we don’t want crafters to feel like they have to sit in their house in order to earn a living, nor do we want players in non-US time zones to be especially inconvenienced by our vendor system. So in the coming updates, we're going to make some major changes that players should find appealing.

In phase one of these changes, you will be able to list items located in your house vault for sale on the market. This will give everyone more space to sell items, plus you will no longer need to clog up your personal inventory with stuff you want to sell. If you are online but not in your home, you will be able to leave your store open and the items in your house vault will still be up for sale. For instance, if you own a standard single-room apartment, you can buy containers and put them in your two house vault slots, then fill them with the goods you want to sell. Go out adventuring or crafting for the evening, and those items in your house vault will remain up for sale even though you aren't in your house.

Phase two is an even bigger change. If you are not online and you leave your store open, items in your house vault can still be purchased from the broker. That's right: we will be introducing offline selling.

You'll still need to remain online and in your home if you want to sell items from your character's personal inventory, but everyone will be able to maintain their store via their house vault regardless of whether they are online at the time. This will fulfill our goal of keeping the number of items in the marketplace under control while providing a lot more flexibility to our players.

This will be a great and much needed change. Also fixes one of the common complaints I've seen about the game.

[Murgos]

Dumbasses.

Why does SOE have to fight thier players on every decision?  Your crafting sucks.  No, it doesn't.  Yes, it does.  Ok, we'll change it.  Your solo content sucks.  No, it doesn't.  Yes, it does.  Ok, we'll change it.  Your selling sucks. No, it doesn't.  Etc... etc... etc...

Almost every element of this game is going through this evolution right now.

Maybe in two years once they are done with this little bit of petulance and they completely revamp the character models the game will be worth picking up again.

[Toast]

These changes confirm that the initial design was rife with obviously stupid design decisions. That being said, they are patching with gusto and fixing a lot of mistakes. They are plucking low-hanging fruit, so to speak. This is certainly a nice change for current players!

[kaid]

I think one of the reasons for them doing this is not only player complaints but the fact that even if only for a short while the servers are rebooted every day. This pretty much made me unable to sell offline for more than a few hours as the restart happened usually right as I was heading to work. An online vendor method dosn't really work if you cannot leave your characters online while you are not home.

I would not much care about offline vendors if the only thing they add is the ability to sell out of your house while online. That would solve just about all my issues with the vending system.


kaid

[Merusk]

These changes confirm that the initial design was rife with obviously stupid design decisions. That being said, they are patching with gusto and fixing a lot of mistakes. They are plucking low-hanging fruit, so to speak. This is certainly a nice change for current players!

It'll be even nicer for those of us who might check it out after we're bored with WoW in a year or so... if the 'grindy' part goes away that is.  I liked some of the stuff I saw, there was just so much of it spread so thinly.

[kaid]

Grindy part? I am not sure what grindy part you mean. I am leveling up in eq2 almost as fast as I do in wow and I have never ground for xp yet. Hell my problem is I am almost leveling to fast as I am trying to work on 3 or 4 heritage quests and my xp is going up so quickly that there is a danger I may grey some of the stuff I want to do out. But thankfully they put in the mentor system so I can likely still get it done with some help with a lower level person if I want to experiance the stuff while it is still a challange.


kaid

[Aenovae]

One of the key reasons we launched with an online-only selling system is that we didn't want to flood the marketplace with items and make the economy grow too rapidly. We still believe there needs to be careful control over how goods flow through the marketplace.

So, uh, if they allow anytime selling, how exactly will they control marketplace flood as they intend?  Every player would be able to sell about fourty different items 24/7. It seems like they're just giving up on flow control and capitulating to player complaints.

[Lanei]

So, uh, if they allow anytime selling, how exactly will they control marketplace flood as they intend?  Every player would be able to sell about fourty different items 24/7. It seems like they're just giving up on flow control and capitulating to player complaints.

There will still be flow control.  The flow rate will just be somewhat higher than it was before.  The offline and online not-in-house selling will always have a smaller inventory than online in-house selling, because you can't sell out of your character's inventory unless you are in online merchant mode.

[Furiously]

so like 40 items versus 120 items (potentially 160) if you are in your house...

[StGabe]

I think this is a good thing but it will hurt the already ailing crafting economy.  The economy is unstable and not very robust and I understand why they are nervous about opening things up.  The bigger problems aren't selling, they are the details of the crafting system, the lack of a renewable market, etc.  But since the crafting market isn't very robust, and players will have stuff up for sale at all times, it will be bad for crafting.  Maybe SOE is just giving up on that.  Other changes to the crafting game indicate this.  The only crafting games I see having a potential future are woodworking and alchemy because they make consumables and I've already given up on crafting being very interesting in EQ2 so it doesn't affect me that much.

Grindy part? I am not sure what grindy part you mean.

Don't mind them.  They have to believe that SOE sucks and this is a stereotype that gets the job done.  It's not like anyone will actually tell you how the game is any more grindy than any other games on the market (say WoW).

Gabe.

[Strazos]

Grindy part? I am not sure what grindy part you mean.

Don't mind them.  They have to believe that SOE sucks and this is a stereotype that gets the job done.  It's not like anyone will actually tell you how the game is any more grindy than any other games on the market (say WoW).

Gabe.

You must have missed the part in school where they explain Subjectivity vs Objectivity.

And also, SOE only sucks, on a personal basis, when they make a game the person doesn't like. Way to be an biased hypocrite.

[UD_Delt]

I think this is a good thing but it will hurt the already ailing crafting economy.  The economy is unstable and not very robust and I understand why they are nervous about opening things up.  The bigger problems aren't selling, they are the details of the crafting system, the lack of a renewable market, etc.  But since the crafting market isn't very robust, and players will have stuff up for sale at all times, it will be bad for crafting.  Maybe SOE is just giving up on that.  Other changes to the crafting game indicate this.  The only crafting games I see having a potential future are woodworking and alchemy because they make consumables and I've already given up on crafting being very interesting in EQ2 so it doesn't affect me that much.

Actually the last patch with the imbuable items picked up the crafting economy immensely. I can no longer keep up with direct orders for imbued items (rare and non-rare both). I typically have 3-4 emails every time I log on my weaponcrafter and my alchemist is constantly getting hit up to make the essences.

Then again with 4 tier 4 crafters I had no problem with the economy any way and typically made 10-20g each night I went into trader mode between totems, weapons, and jewelry. I'd probably make even more if I had time to start making the melee skills.

[shiznitz]

I don't think offline selling will have much of an impact. Look at it from a supply-demand perspective. Supply for some items will probably go up, but non-rare resources are already selling for 10c or less most of the time. This is GOOD for tradeskillers since they don't have to harvest at all at those prices. Offline selling is not going to encourage new tradeskillers. Therefore supply of tradeskilled goods will remain the same. Supply of dropped loot and collection items will increase. Dropped equipment that is better than crafted items trade at a nice premium now, so that premium might shrink, but imbued items counter that nicely. Adept I skills will be more prevalent, driving down prices of App IVs. The collection market has always been screwy with prices all over the map. Prices will come down across the board, but I don't consider that a core part of the economy.

Bottom line, there are lots (in an absolute sense, not a relative sense) of people with a separate account for a vendorbot. They are ones that have the most to lose as pricing swings due to peak play times are lessened. People that play at off-hours should be rejoicing.