Player Shops

Discussion in 'Mechanics' started by Hong Meiling, Mar 1, 2012.

?

For or against?

  1. For (please say why)

    69.8%
  2. Against (please say why)

    7.9%
  3. For, but needs some work (please say what and why)

    15.9%
  4. Undecided (please say why if you can)

    6.3%
  1. Hong Meiling

    Hong Meiling Phantasmal Quasar

    I read about how every item was going to be heavily randomized, and this idea IMMEDIATELY came into my head. Took a little bit to formulate it completely, but I think I have what I want to say properly mapped out.

    So, the idea is simple; allow players to make shops to sell their individual items. Since money is going to be heavily influential (to quote Tiy), why not have a way to supplement a player's income? They can sell off what they don't want to other players for a little extra money while the buyer gets that snazzy new weapon they wanted.

    This would also be done in a different multiplayer section so other people can't tamper with your goods. Each player could go into "shop mode" where you can stock, remove, reprice, and even set a requested item you want traded for in exchange if you don't want money. You would also be able to haggle, of course; if you're in the shop when a person requests to haggle you can begin dynamic haggling where you two decide on a price through use of a lucrative chat feature and maybe a box to type in how much you want to raise/drop the price, depending on if you're the buyer/seller. Certain story items would be restricted, of course; no forced plot progression here. :p

    Now, the one primary concern is that of overpowered items. I'm sure an immediate concern with many people regarding this idea is the potential chance to buy an OP item early in the game and then blaze through. Now, this is a real and fair concern, so the best thing I can see doing is putting a cap on certain shops so you are only allowed into shops of your general level (and a little higher and lower) to prevent getting any overpowered items early in the game. After a certain point shops would be uncapped and you'd be able to browse all freely.

    UPDATES, SO MANY UPDATES! I'm just gonna copy/paste some of them, since they're already typed up. :p

    Here's one addressing some problems with the idea, and resolutions:
    First off, thanks for the support! I was afraid this would fade into the background like my other idea, as well as other ideas. Nice to see somebody who appreciates how hard I think about these things.

    Now, to address your many valid points, in numbered format:
    1. The best idea I can think of off the top of my head is to create a deadlock mechanism for people who directly tamper with their saves. This way the people who choose to mess with their saves can, but it would prevent them from having online interactions with that character. If chests are going to be map based, however, then this would be rendered useless (to an extent, at least you couldn't acquire more than what you already have).
    2. Now this would be a really tough nut to crack. There are two ideas that immediately come to mind, one being harder but more rewarding than the other.
      • The developers could create a bit of a trigger (of sorts) that detects when a mod is installed. There would be a protocol integrated into the game that lets you install mods almost seamlessly, and once installed are used as prerequisites when a person wants to connect. This would be the more difficult of the two, but would be the most rewarding for both the devs and players, since it would make modding far easier for both groups. Devs could also use this as a proprietary base for expansions and updates, and seamlessly upgrade while not forcing players who want to stay back a few versions to update.
        • A mod database could be implemented on the forums as well, with a list and a download being made for each one. There would be a dedicated staff to manage it, and it would be the central hub for mods to go. This way it's all easy access for both the devs and the players, and everything runs nice and smoothly.
      • The second option would be to do it the old fashioned way, like Minecraft does. Everybody knows how poorly that works, though...
    1. (pretend that's a 3, it's still a bit finicky) I personally say no. If you do that, then it really restricts trade between people and I feel it would restrict the community as well. If my first solution (the number one up top) is implemented, it would pretty much prevent people from hacking in money (hopefully), and letting players hold their money across servers encourages people to open up their own shops as a sort of entrepreneur venture, and would add a cool element to the gameplay. Restricting it to the server where you got the money in the first place prevents you from buying stuff anywhere if you're just playing with a few friends, too. This way you can still play with friends but still go "shopping" alone if you so choose.
    Yes, very much so, but I don't see this being that difficult. I can see something like Runescape's trading system working fine.
    Honestly though, I personally feel that NPCs and junk to moderate while we're gone detracts from the experience. I can see some kind of server private messaging system working fine, where you can just call the player to come discuss haggling and such. Why have an NPC do it for you when you could do it yourself and get more money out of it?
    If you aren't there, though, then you could just implement a silent auction setup. Have a clipboard next to the item, and players who want it write down a price lower or higher than the one you set (higher if other players have started bidding and it went over the buy now price if one was set). When the player gets back on, he checks the prices and can personally contact the highest bidder/choose the price that he wants and sell the item to that person.

    UPDATE #2: Dasaki posted this, and it gave me a TON of ideas, so I'm going to quote his post since he was the one who made me think about it in the first place.

    Indeed there is! So, let me begin with a few ideas that directly address the idea in question (not so much buying land to make a shop, but what shops themselves could do). Going to do this in bullet format, since that's just so much nicer looking.

    • SERVICES. I am absolutely blown away that I didn't think of this before, and it opens up a WHOLE OTHER dynamic to the shop idea. Instead of selling items, you could sell a service at a certain rate type (quantity, hourly, hourly with down payment, lots of leeway here). Need a certain material gathered? Pay a guy 600 Crasilies (name patent pending hurhur) to go collect 300 tree branches, or something like that. There is a LOT of potential for this, and it wouldn't be much harder to implement either. Just selling a service, not an object.
    • Land ownership. (This idea is pretty much Dasuki's, I'm just expanding on it a bit) Plots of land could be purchased from other players (this is big scale here, wouldn't work on small servers) and then the players that bought the land in the first place can remold it into whatever they desired. This can be taken a step further, however, and be made so that you can rent land to a player, at a certain rate based on size and other variables.
    • Employees. This is a bit of a stretch, but it could certainly be possible. You couldn't control the player, but you could "hire" a player to do a service for you, using the same payment types as stated in the first idea. The players are completely independent, of course, but it's up to you to decide if you want to pump more money into their wallets for their work. You could also choose to layoff, suspend without pay, or layoff with a recommendation. This also presents the opportunity for a rating system of sorts, where you can rate a player after they've been fired/laid off based on performance, punctuality, and other such job skills. You could run your own empire of employees while you rake in the cash! (that wouldn't be very fun though...)
    • DYNAMIC ECONOMY. God yes dynamic economy. The entire economy could be run here on the forums, too. Players set the price, rates, everything. The devs can just sit back and watch while players can interact on a level that rivals MMOs, without all of the bots and the crap that comes with it. This, I feel, is one of the best ideas I can think of to go with the player shops system.
    That's pretty much it. Lemme know what you guys think, please!
     
    EclipseTech, Nixter, Aer_ and 4 others like this.
  2. Zeldo

    Zeldo Big Damn Hero

    Huh.. interesting. I'm not totally sure how the whole over-powered weapon deal will work. I don't think there should be level caps, because if this idea comes into play, all I can see being done with this is a bunch of shops that are basically pawn shops. Not many are going to sell purely, say, level 1-10 items. People are just gonna throw their junk in the shop no matter what level. Unless people actually decide to sort out their items and create shops for them accordingly.
    Other than that problem, (which I myself have no idea how to deal with) I very much enjoy your idea, China :>
     
  3. Hong Meiling

    Hong Meiling Phantasmal Quasar

    Well, I don't quite think that's the case. Tiy stated himself that money was going to be heavily influential in this game and based off of that I think a lot of players would want to supplement their income a bit. If they really didn't care, then they wouldn't use the shop function in the first place were it to be implemented. As for the whole tiered shops thing, it could go by item. So all shops would be accessible (yay window shopping), but you would only be able to buy stuff you could afford and is on the same level as you are.

    Also,
    [​IMG]
     
  4. HellKnightX

    HellKnightX Void-Bound Voyager

    I really support this idea for a number of reasons:
    • As you mentioned, Tiy indicated that money would be significantly more important this time around
    • The procedural generation of weapons, items, and armor (think Borderlands) will mean players will always try to get better items
    • Endless quests and challenges are scaled up to levels that will always be challenging, requiring the players to always be on the lookout for better gear
    • Server-side support is supposedly getting a major overhaul, meaning server admins will probably have a way to deal with griefers more readily
    Some things you'll have to consider about your idea though:
    • How will this system deal with cheaters or save editors? Terraria stored save files client-side, allowing players to edit their saves to obtain anything they wanted.
    • Should this system allow for server-side mods to the game? Note that not all mods are created equal. If players are freely able to move from one server to another, what's to stop them from going to a modded server to acquire massive amounts of currency. The economy is as weak as its most cheat-y server.
    • Should servers force players to only be able to use currency, items, or characters created on that particular server?
    Lastly, for a true trading system to exist, you'd need to design and implement a system to easily facilitate player trades securely. The days of throwing items on the ground and hoping you don't get cheated are long past. We'd need at the very minimum a functional trade window. Optionally, but also highly desireable would be an overhauled chat window that allows the linking of items in chat. The game would also need either Player-owned NPC vendors or auctioneers obviously, to run a player-driven economy.

    I think all of this is achievable, but will take some real effort.
     
  5. Hong Meiling

    Hong Meiling Phantasmal Quasar

    First off, thanks for the support! I was afraid this would fade into the background like my other idea, as well as other ideas. Nice to see somebody who appreciates how hard I think about these things.

    Now, to address your many valid points, in numbered format:
    1. The best idea I can think of off the top of my head is to create a deadlock mechanism for people who directly tamper with their saves. This way the people who choose to mess with their saves can, but it would prevent them from having online interactions with that character. If chests are going to be map based, however, then this would be rendered useless (to an extent, at least you couldn't acquire more than what you already have).
    2. Now this would be a really tough nut to crack. There are two ideas that immediately come to mind, one being harder but more rewarding than the other.
      • The developers could create a bit of a trigger (of sorts) that detects when a mod is installed. There would be a protocol integrated into the game that lets you install mods almost seamlessly, and once installed are used as prerequisites when a person wants to connect. This would be the more difficult of the two, but would be the most rewarding for both the devs and players, since it would make modding far easier for both groups. Devs could also use this as a proprietary base for expansions and updates, and seamlessly upgrade while not forcing players who want to stay back a few versions to update.
        • A mod database could be implemented on the forums as well, with a list and a download being made for each one. There would be a dedicated staff to manage it, and it would be the central hub for mods to go. This way it's all easy access for both the devs and the players, and everything runs nice and smoothly.
      • The second option would be to do it the old fashioned way, like Minecraft does. Everybody knows how poorly that works, though...
    1. (pretend that's a 3, it's still a bit finicky) I personally say no. If you do that, then it really restricts trade between people and I feel it would restrict the community as well. If my first solution (the number one up top) is implemented, it would pretty much prevent people from hacking in money (hopefully), and letting players hold their money across servers encourages people to open up their own shops as a sort of entrepreneur venture, and would add a cool element to the gameplay. Restricting it to the server where you got the money in the first place prevents you from buying stuff anywhere if you're just playing with a few friends, too. This way you can still play with friends but still go "shopping" alone if you so choose.
    Yes, very much so, but I don't see this being that difficult. I can see something like Runescape's trading system working fine.
    Honestly though, I personally feel that NPCs and junk to moderate while we're gone detracts from the experience. I can see some kind of server private messaging system working fine, where you can just call the player to come discuss haggling and such. Why have an NPC do it for you when you could do it yourself and get more money out of it?
    If you aren't there, though, then you could just implement a silent auction setup. Have a clipboard next to the item, and players who want it write down a price lower or higher than the one you set (higher if other players have started bidding and it went over the buy now price if one was set). When the player gets back on, he checks the prices and can personally contact the highest bidder/choose the price that he wants and sell the item to that person. ​
     
  6. ChibiErick

    ChibiErick Void-Bound Voyager

    I really, really like this idea. However it should only be able to used from items obtained in a "stock" world (That is to say without any mods, or file alterations done to them.[It should be possible to detect this right? I don't see why not...]). That way it might be possible to trade items within servers and such. Actually... maybe they can implement two different list of servers, one that allows mods being run in them and another that does not. A la Dungeon Defenders. It might split the community into two different sections, but I know myself that sometimes I want to experiment with the game a bit(Via mods, testing stuff around, and just fun), and others play the game as-is.

    I would love to see player shops integrated into star-bound one way, or another. With at lest some-type of prevention system that keeps clean items separated from faux-items.
     
  7. Hong Meiling

    Hong Meiling Phantasmal Quasar


    I don't see why people shouldn't be able to trade modded items between servers with the same mods. I actually thought of a great way to prevent any problems regarding mods; I'll repaste it here.


    For the Dungeon Defenders idea though, there would have to be a central server that hosts that stuff, which I don't mind, but it isn't exactly necessary in this case.

    Thanks for the support, in any case.
     
  8. Zenuel

    Zenuel Cosmic Narwhal

    I rather like this idea, it's very EVE Online-Esk, gives a chance to boast a different type of gameplay all together, not to mention bring a player based economy, and personally I'm all for that~
     
  9. Hong Meiling

    Hong Meiling Phantasmal Quasar

    Happy to hear you support it. Also, thank you for posting saying why.
     
  10. Kohjix

    Kohjix Star Wrangler

    I love this idea. A player based economy would be amazing! :D
     
  11. Dasaki

    Dasaki Pangalactic Porcupine

    I'm so for this idea, and to further brainstorm, the item shops can be in a larger station than that of the station you own. You can choose to go to this station from anywhere, even from the planet's surface. The station can be colony sized even to support the influx of players wanting to buy, sell, and auction. It'd look like Earth, but within a huge multi layered panel in the living quarters of this massive space station. With that it could also open the way for social gameplay, opening up buying land on the station, and running private auctions and such within the confines of your building.

    There can be so much opened up with peer to peer marketing.
     
    Hong Meiling likes this.
  12. Hong Meiling

    Hong Meiling Phantasmal Quasar

    You just gave me another 10 ideas with that post alone, and you are awesome for that. I'll be adding them in the opening post within the hour, so check back. I'll probably end up posting when I've done so, too.

    Also, you're awesome for having that Kenshin Himura avatar. LOVE Rurouni Kenshin. :3

    Edit: UPDATES! UPDATES OUT THE WAZOO!
     
  13. Nithilus

    Nithilus Big Damn Hero

    Without a doubt i will be able to find heaps of valuables during my pillaging and pirating. I could call it "Nith's House Of Legally aquired Swag" or NHOLS for short :p.

    It would be nice to rather then sell stuff you no longer need to a vendor someone who wants it can get it easily from your store, you get money, they get item. I personally see no downside other then how it is put into game.
     
    ChibiErick likes this.
  14. Dasaki

    Dasaki Pangalactic Porcupine

    Thanks, I've got a lot of ideas for this game, and the more I learn about it the more I'd love to see in it.

    Kenshin is my favorite anime character. :D
     
  15. x-adam1234-x

    x-adam1234-x Scruffy Nerf-Herder

    I don't like the idea of not letting people go in certain shops.
    For the OP item problem, why don't you just put a level cap on the items.
     
  16. Dasaki

    Dasaki Pangalactic Porcupine

    there are just sometimes you don't want anyone but your closer friends in on trades, purchases, and sells.
     
    ChibiErick likes this.
  17. Alvin Flummox

    Alvin Flummox Existential Complex

    I do have to say that I haven't entirely read the whole thread, and i'm not entirely sure how the items are going to work in the game, so sorry if any of these things have already been discussed. Anyway:
    • Firstly, assuming that the items have some kind of level attached to them I think it would work out better if they just limited it to only being able to buy items with a level similar to that of your character, rather than limiting the whole shop of higher level players all together. This would mean that people of a higher level could still sell to lower level players, just with a limited stock, and it would help to prevent players buying massively overpowered items for their current stage in the game.
    • Secondly, assuming that competent servers will be able to handle much larger numbers of players than the 10ish that Tiy currently said, I love the idea of having a central hub where the shop keepers can have their own bit of land. It would be amazing just to walk around and see the different shops that people built. I think for this system to work however there would have to be some kind of shopkeeper npc that the 'owner' could just give items to with set prices. This would mean that players could browse the shopkeepers stock and purchase items (without haggling obviously) while the actual 'owner' player was away.
    • Still the major issue that I think will destroy the whole system though is cheaters. Even with some kind of deadlock mechanism in place it would still be pretty easy to get around it. There would just be no way to prevent the inevitable massive inflation of the economy as a result of huge influxes of cheat-money. Even if the deadlock mechanism was watertight for the cheating character, what would prevent that player from just giving their cheat-money to another, legitimate player? They could then happily go and spend away, as I think it would be impossible for the game to keep track of a label any of the said money.
    • The only possible way I could see this being controlled would be to limit currency per server as HellKnightX said, but that would require massive servers to make it a viable option.
     
  18. Hong Meiling

    Hong Meiling Phantasmal Quasar


    I'll address these in order;

    1. That's fair, and I've thought about doing that. However, I think that complete barring is a bad idea. It prevents players from having the choice, which I believe they should have. A simpler, more elegant solution, would just be to charge more for items that aren't at your level or lower. Seems like a bit much, but they can still buy it; it just takes more work to do so. If they want it badly, they'll do what it takes to get it.
    2. Yeah, NPC shopkeepers would probably be a good addition.
    3. Cheaters would be locked from transferring money or items. Period. You can't drop them, you can't use them on anything but NPCs, and the items bought from that cheated money would be unsellable to anybody but NPCs. You could just have the deadlock check to see if the player has cheated; and if he/she has, prevent giving any items to other players. Simple enough.
    Thanks for the comments; nice to see this idea isn't being ignored completely. :rofl:
     
  19. Alvin Flummox

    Alvin Flummox Existential Complex

    It's always good to have a discussion about things! :)

    • My main point was preventing players from gaining the use of items that would 'ruin' their game though. A lot of people think its great fun to just have the best items as early as possible, irrespective of when they should actually 'legitimately' obtain them. If they're available then why not? The problem is that they then blitz through the game on super-easy, lose interest because nothing is a challenge, but then don't go back to play the game the way it should be played. Hell, I've done this myself on occasion. It's just so easy to unintentionally ruin the experience for yourself this way though.
    • And also, if the prices are player controlled there would be no way to make lower level players pay more. If the prices were already set on items it would kind of make the economy moot, as prices wouldn't be able to fluctuate over time at all. Although I guess that could be an alternative but it may be hard to procedurally generate appropriate prices on items.
    • With regards to cheating, I don't believe this system would prevent cheating though in a game like this. The devs just aren't going to spend the time (and it wouldn't be worth the effort) on making a completely uncheatable system, which I don't think would be doable anyway without restricting currency to a server. Companies spend millions on DRMs, and they still get cracked within the first day of release, sometimes even before. There's no way that any system that they could put in Starbound, especially something as simple as 'ticking a box', that couldn't just be unticked again by a simple mod. Ie Cheat money getting its dirty mitts all over the place again.
    • I'm not saying that having an economy wouldn't be a good thing, I especially love the idea of having actual player owned shops as I said before. Just don't expect it to not become super saturated with cheat money pretty quickly. It's the way of the world in games that aren't MMO's.

    On a side note I would absolutely LOVE an MMO version of Starbound ;) If it had enough quests and everything it would be amazing to have to find your own planet and little bit of space to claim your own, and going around and exploring the endless universe with a load of other people. There would have to be some pretty strict anti-griefing rules though so alas I don't think it would really be a viable idea :(
     
  20. Hong Meiling

    Hong Meiling Phantasmal Quasar

    1. I've done that myself a few times, and I know what you mean. It sucks pretty badly, to be sure.
      What I was going for, though, was freedom. If they want to break the game for themselves, they can. It's up to them, and they should have the ability to make that decision, no matter how stupid.
    2. They could if a multiplier was added to the prices depending on the player's level in regards to the item. I can see that being pretty simple.
    3. It's hard to prevent cheating, granted, but I feel it's important. It might be possible, however, to prevent purchases from the shop side; sort of like how Oblivion has stolen items marked as unsellable in normal shops and you can only sell them to a launderer. Just give players the option to accept cheated goods if they want.
    4. Yes, modding would be easy, but only in singleplayer. It's far harder to get mods to work both single and multiplayer, and it would be a relatively simple matter to make that check server sided so it's far harder to bypass. Besides, mods can be made to make things more secure, too. :p
     

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