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#### Curmugeonly: SDB stores? Rly?

I right a rant along these lines about every three months.
A hole in the Glitch design right now is the lack of reliable ongoing drivers of action. There's all kinds of things to do, but outside of quests, there's not really any reason to do them. Like, when people are like "where are moar quests?!" and "sandbox group!" those are responses to that.
In my opinion, though "moar quests" is kind of untenable (and wouldn't be really successful.) Glitch quests do a good job of running you through game mechanics so that you know that they're there. Writing "enough quests" would be a gigantic timesink on the part of the limited devs, and and wouldn't really solve anything. Quests would eventually be about the same as "donate more of the things" - a bit of churn to get more iMG.
Upgrade cards, at least for me, we a bit of a bridge on this. "What upgrades are there for me today? Okay, I'll make enough iMG for *that*" But eventually, it all comes down to "make more iMG or currants faster."
For a long time I've wanted to see official buy orders in Glitch. Basically, imagine if there were a list of what other players were willing to pay for the things you can make. I yearn to log into Glitch, check the Orders Board, and say "wow, look at the bid price for Girders (say) today!" and go about making some Girders.
Maybe they'd have the same problems that Quests and Upgrade Cards do (another grind for resources) but at least I'd feel like I was doing things for other players - that somewhere there was a player out there who was glad to be getting the thing they needed (and maybe another who'd been too slow to fill the order). I'm heartened in this conclusion because of the enjoyment I've had trading emblems to make Icons.
But vending SDBs in Towers feels like exactly the opposite direction from that. It's the auction house, but with less transparency and more hassle. You can still only *sell* and only at a particular price. The prices aren't going to be globally accessible or comparable, so there'll be much less idea *how much* to sell things for, and the popularity process that's (in my opinion) showing up in resource loops is going to be heightened in terms of selling things.
I'm dismissing with contempt the idea of a "trading channel" as a solution for finding the prices for goods. Advertised prices need to be *persistent* (like the prices in the AH) not *transient* (like chat entries in a channel).
Group Halls (as variants of Towers) might well ameliorate this somewhat. Add Buying SDBs ("This SDB wants more Meat and will pay 8 currants per, out of its 5000 currants") and a market board in the Hall, and maybe we're somewhere.

Posted 5 months ago by Yarrow | Permalink

### Replies

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- Actually, loving the idea of centralized 'buying order' board...like you, would love to know that I'm making something that someone needs, and my competitive spirit is enough that I understand the fun of 'beating someone else' in getting that done. Though, I wouldn't mind the option of partially filling orders...say I can get one, someone else gets three and someone else gets one done for a person that needs 5 of something. Sort of like dynamic, mini, player-oriented projects. IMO, a very cool idea.
  Posted 5 months ago by b3achy | Permalink
- Personally, I love the idea because I am more likely to buy from (1) folks I like and (2) folks that have stuff I want. This creates a system of stores as locations as opposed to the "doesn't exist in the physical world" of the auctions. Currently player/player sales via auctions feel disconnected from the world and the players. Towers feel much more social to me.
  I do like the idea of buy orders for large sums... but I never buy in large batches so that wouldn't suit me so much.
  But I do understand what you are saying. It just wouldn't suit MY play style. (Nothing wrong with that of course.)
  Posted 5 months ago by Lord Bacon-o | Permalink
- The problem with the chat channel is that a) you will need to be online to tell people that you have stuff to sell and how much it is and b) you will need to have that channel open all the time which I would find annoying and distracting. Having to monitor the channel constantly would take away from gameplay, unless your focus was on buying and selling.
  Posted 5 months ago by Captain Daisy | Permalink
- I cannot believe that a chat channel will be the ultimate solution to commerce in Ur. It just makes no sense.
  I can imagine a "marketplace" location, with billboard-type interfaces to one's home street SBDs, advertising prices and availability. (This would jibe with Stoot's remarks about easier ways to have shortcuts to home streets.) That way, one could comparison-shop a bit. Perhaps there would be filter-goggles you could set so that you only see signs for spice, or boards, or whatever it is you're interested in buying.
  Getting this commerce stuff right is an ENORMOUS usability/interface challenge. There has to be some degree of centralization either in 'location' or conceptually in the software, or as Yarrow says, it'll all wind up being a popularity contest (which is likely to be reasonably efficient but very unfair) rewarding those who have resources and networks of friends to make their goods known.
  If there's too much friction and/or 'noise' involved in buying and selling, the whole system will come grinding (pun intended) to a halt. If there's no way to define flexible "batches" of items, the economy will be either too granular or too bulky and therefor highly inefficient. And if it's all manually controlled (no flexible ranges for selling or purchasing at varied prices), it is likely to be pretty tedious to manage.
  Markets need a story as much as any other part of our lives—a story we can believe in, subscribe to, promote, and participate in.
  Posted 5 months ago by Pascale | Permalink
- "For a long time I've wanted to see official buy orders in Glitch." This. It is something I love about EVE.
  There is a trade-off, however. Adding complexity to the economy, and this feature in particular, encourages certain behavior that not all MMOs wish to encourage. I would not be surprised if they don't add it (though I wish they would).
  Edit: "Getting this commerce stuff right is an ENORMOUS usability/interface challenge." +1 to this too.
  Posted 5 months ago by Meromorphic | Permalink
- +1 to Yarrow's post
  Posted 5 months ago by OMG BACON!! | Permalink
- Lord Bacon-o, I actually feel you didn't understand the OP, as I don't think anything you said contradicted what he was asking for. And what you want to be able to do you would still be able to do in that system.
  Which brings me to my point, home street stores can be completely workable with buy orders and listings. But without listings, they really aren't all that useful or accessible to most players except as a fun distraction. And trade channels are terrible in games that DON'T need them in order for players to locate goods.
  Well, I have to switch teams now. As long as the trade channel and tower stores are our only ways to make sales outside the auction, I hope the vendors never disappear.
  Posted 5 months ago by Red Sauce | Permalink
- I wouldn't mind seeing SDB-vendors and Auction House sort of merging. What is currently the Auction House becoming a location to find items for sale in the world.
  Posted 5 months ago by Lord Mogra | Permalink
- *eating cookie*
  Sorry, what?
  Posted 5 months ago by daniel5457 | Permalink
- agree with op - yarrow.
  and also with what pascale said.
  and do not want a chat channel for buying and selling .uggh.
  Posted 5 months ago by serenitycat | Permalink
- I can't believe I'm even saying this, but this is something that Neopets did right. (I know, I know, just bear with me.) The shopping interface looked very much like our Auction House -- you searched for an item you wanted, and a list of users selling that item appeared. But there was one important difference: if you clicked through on an item you were interested in, you were taken to the seller's "shop", where you could see everything else they were selling as well. Shops were customizable to a limited degree -- you could choose backgrounds, "shopkeeper" graphics, and welcome messages. Sellers who had one thing at a good price often had lots of bargains, and you could leave with virtual armloads of stuff that you didn't even know you wanted.
  As I see it, this is the best of both worlds. You don't need to go "on foot," as it were, to look at every seller in the world if you're only after one thing. But doing a search on a specific item you want is also not sterile and divorced from the community, like the current Glitch AH is. If going to a "shop" means an (optional?) trip to the seller's home street, then all the better. You could search for things you want through the AH interface and combine that with a walk through the world, if you like.
  Posted 5 months ago by Pale Queen | Permalink
- +1 to Pale, is better worded way of saying what I was. Sorry, limited brains in this rotting shell of mine ;)
  Posted 5 months ago by Lord Mogra | Permalink
- yes to Pale Queen's idea.!!!!!
  What she said is what I envisioned when I heard tower descriptions and it is what I'd personally like to see happen. ;)
  Posted 5 months ago by serenitycat | Permalink
- 1. One thing at a time.
  2. Towers aren't something we're doing instead of buy orders (they have nothing to do with one another). We're adding towers because we wanted a more public alternative to houses — space that players could customize and decorate, but which were not so closely tied to private resources, production, etc.
  3. If I have learned anything in the last few years, it is the wisdom of "there are no silver bullets" (cf). It may seem like "Glitch as it stands now" + "buy orders" = "all problems solved" but there's no guarantee of demand: just as we deferred player-created stores for a long time because "lots of people want to open a store; not so many want to go shopping at player-run stores" (because it's frustrating to try to find what you want, prices might be out of whack, etc.) there's not much that leads us to think that, in a world of near infinite abundance, there will be people bidding ever higher and higher amounts for girders or EHSP or rookswort or whatever. I'm not saying it's not a good idea (it's something we intend to add in the long run) but I don't expect magic results.
  4. The enjoyment that people derive from arranging a selection of things to display/sell in a space they designed in a structure that they built and named is just different from the enjoyment they'd get from pressing a button to fulfill a buy order. No reason you can't have both, but vending SDBs are meant to be useful additions to towers — not the sole means of economic interaction between players.
  5. Visiting a tower allows the possibility of serendipity, meeting new people and seeing new things (we anticipate that towers will be the anchor, display space and portal to other creative features we're working on now and in the next round).
  6. If you don't like trade channels, there's no requirement to open them (just like global or live help, etc.) However, having a place to say "anyone selling boards?" or "full set of cubimals here!" with the possibility of near-instant home street visiting for fulfillment is a good and useful thing for those that want it. (Also, trade channels will take *maybe* a few hours or work to add vs an unknown number of weeks/months for a scalable demand-side auction system integrated in the game server.)
  Posted 5 months ago by stoot barfield | Permalink
- wait, was there cookies? gimmie, gimmie
  Posted 5 months ago by ☣ elf ☣ | Permalink
- but vending SDBs are not meant to be useful additions to towers -- is this supposed to be "are meant" ?
  [Edited to answer: yep — thanks!]
  Posted 5 months ago by diaveborn ♥ | Permalink
- Yarrow, I was also about to suggest we add bid prices to the SDBs, so we could sell items *into* the SDB. So +1 to your basic idea.
  It won't work though, until the existing artificial price floor called the Cebarkul Tool Vendor gets a serious correction. For instance, with the morass of pigs, plus the huge herds, there is no way meat is worth 8¢
  Edit: I was typing slow, so stoot beat me! ty for the comments!
  Posted 5 months ago by Sturminator i` | Permalink
- Stoot,
  To some degree, I harp on buy orders as a proxy for players setting meaningful goals for one another. There's many players who are fine without outside goals, or with the Sandbox group style freeform goals. A buy order would be something in that direction, and trends would be reasons to develop a certain way.
  Even more core is: the appeal of Glitch, a game of Giant imagination, was of one where players get to contribute creatively to the world. I pictured something like a well-themed bucket of Lego or Construx - but it's felt, so far, like a sticker book. I like the stickers and wouldn't want them to go anywhere, but I want to be able to put them on the ... big ... *thing* I've been building. And that thing could be a pirate ship or a commercial enterprise or a group with a common goal or a strategy to defend Pookaloo from the Rook Menace.
  Buy orders just seemed like the obvious thing in that direction. As I said: the emblems/icons thing has been a definite step (even though eventually, I'll have all the icons...) - the process of trade with other players has been rad.
  Posted 5 months ago by Yarrow | Permalink
- WHO CARES? The world's gonna end this year anyway. *Eats another cookie*
  Posted 5 months ago by daniel5457 | Permalink
- My biggest problem, personally, is with the trade channel and not with towers. My experience in the past is that they do not work the way you've described. A message like "anyone have any planks for sale?" will just be lost among the repeated spam of people hitting *up arrow* *enter* every so many minutes. The same thing happens with Guild/organization recruitment channels. And they do not scale: the larger the game population, the more repeated spam messages there are to hide the questions or requests.
  I really hope it's a short-term solution.
  ***somewhat off-topic: I think it is next to impossible with the current state of the game to assess whether there is an issue with demand. I needed things from other players much more often when I first started playing. The game is currently very top-heavy, probably the most it ever will be -- even those not at max level at the conversion likely have all the skills and most if not all of the skill upgrades. Right now, demand is only "I don't feel like gathering more of that tonight" -- later it will be "I really want to plant a certain tree here today but I cannot season beans for a few more weeks"
  Posted 5 months ago by Red Sauce | Permalink
- wrote
  Posted 5 months ago by Phoebe Springback | Permalink
- Saucelah,
  As a whole other concern, I feel like there should be some ongoing bonus/penalty to encourage specialization. What if you brain over-capacity also effected your skill bonuses? Mining IV takes you from - what 20 seconds to 4, right? What if you had to give back up to half of that 16 seconds as you learn skills past capacity?
  It'd become much more interesting to interact with other players after that, but it sure would suck to, say, have specialized on alchemical stuff and not have mining if no one was selling chunks and you couldn't say (in a useful way) "Hey, I need chunks and will pay for them!"
  Posted 5 months ago by Yarrow | Permalink
- I'd like to have the option to sell things for iMG not only currents. Hah, let's see which people value more...
  Posted 5 months ago by Verge Venus | Permalink
- There WAS cookies and I dint get any...wth!
  Posted 5 months ago by ☣ elf ☣ | Permalink
- just few suggestions for running a shop:
  - trade channel : alert/offers/demand can be made every "tot" minutes so no spam risk
  - tower's shop: keep SDB filled up and priced - use the trade channel for special offer and advertise as well
  - a hot key for trade channel could be usefull
  - at some point if there will be "a lot" of towers'shop places, could be usefull a map of the locations available in the marketplace forum.
  Edit: I have forgot one thing organizing live auction in the shop or street location could be really fun!
  Posted 5 months ago by babi | Permalink
- babi, you can set a limit on posts to a trade channel but that doesn't solve the problem. For one, limits on posts of any kind, rather than identical repeating posts, guarantee the channel will be for advertising and not for requests -- no conversations would be possible in the channel. Limits on repeating posts sound like they solve the problem, except the problem I was describing was not one person spamming the channel, but many people spamming. No matter what limit is set, it still will not scale. The limit could 20 minutes but with forty people advertising, the channel would still be nearly unusable. And that limit can easily be evaded by very slightly changing the sentence every time. Problem continues.
  Trade channels are not some new idea that we have no idea how will play out. I am describing how they play out accurately. The only games where the channel is usable at all are games where there are central listings and games where trade is uncommon or unnecessary. And then the trade channels are only usable because few bother to use them.
  Posted 5 months ago by Red Sauce | Permalink
- I think what would be much more useful than a trade channel would be a RSS feed of search results from the channel. No way I want to sit in the channnel for hours listening to ads for every item in glitch, plus a million restaurants, plus a million please come harvest my street.
  BUT I would love to be able to (when I sign into glitch) see a listing of the past 24 hours of every post that mentioned the word "planks." This could easily use the same display system that the AH currently uses, except that instead of clicking through to the AH listings for planks, I would click through to see dated posts with names and home-street links of everybody who recently used the word "planks" in the selling channel.
  Posted 5 months ago by Vocable | Permalink
- @Saucelah I agree with but as they talked about a "channel" I think that give a time limit per each offers/demand could be a solution or as also made in other games, create an alert system like spotlight with the latest offers; obviously imho is really better try to have more social contacts between seller/buyer and a good and more focused used of Forum Marketplace could help a lot and a trade "channel" just for spot offers or demand.
  Posted 5 months ago by babi | Permalink
- Yarrow wrote: As a whole other concern, I feel like there should be some ongoing bonus/penalty to encourage specialization. What if you brain over-capacity also effected your skill bonuses? Mining IV takes you from - what 20 seconds to 4, right? What if you had to give back up to half of that 16 seconds as you learn skills past capacity?
  Really really really against this. Glitch is a game that I play for fun. I don't play it in order to be told I can't do stuff or to be penalized for doing the stuff that I want to do. That is not fun at all.
  Posted 5 months ago by Flowerry Pott | Permalink
- And yet there are incredibly successful games that do exactly that, some from the moment you create a character, others naturally over time. It's a matter of perception: you choose to look at it as being told you can't do something. In other games, people look at it as "meaningful choices" -- and have more fun with it as a result.
  Posted 5 months ago by Red Sauce | Permalink
- The fact that there are other games that do it successfully is irrelevant to the discussion of whether or not it should be done here. If we were in love with those "other" games, wouldn't we be playing them instead?
  I also have no interest in playing a game that penalizes me for playing certain aspects of the game.
  Posted 5 months ago by Shallawalla | Permalink
- Market streets where you buy a licence to locate vending boxes.
  Be fun to see if streets attracted similar produce, so a food (Smithfields) markets street, construction (Wall Segment ) streets.
  A random produce area - obvs cheaper trading licences - Boot / Yard sales
  Even more fun to name them all.......
  Input/deposit SBDs
  Where you post a want to buy price? Deposit the items and flood the market lol
  Posted 5 months ago by Sonneratti's Ghost | Permalink
- @ Sonneratti's Ghost >> +1 for market streets.
  This holds a LOT more appeal for me than 1000 home streets each with a random store of random products. Who needs a channel? Just go to the High street. Finally, interaction again. At this point it is rare occurrence to see anyone on the streets. Why mess with Groddle Forest if you can do the Bean run so much more easily...
  Posted 5 months ago by Pancito | Permalink
- +1 for Ghost's idea too! I love the idea of public streets full of people. Home streets are a bit too inconvenient and definitely too secluded!
  Posted 5 months ago by Reirei Umezaki | Permalink
- I could see it as an opportunity, for some who post on the Auction all the time, to create their own identity, selling what they already have sold,and flourish as his/her own business. Just a slight bit more personable. I can't say how many EHSPs I've bought off WalruZ. And also just a walk away, instead of 10min off. Without listing fees.
  Posted 5 months ago by Mr. iOuS kEiPhErs | Permalink
- +1 to market streets but what about the lag factor?
  Posted 5 months ago by Reni's Mum | Permalink
- I love the concept of market streets but also wonder about the lag issue.
  Posted 5 months ago by Mostly Mellow | Permalink
- +1 daniel and +1 elf. Oh, and if there are any extra cookies please send me one! My little Gordon never had a Glitch cookie!
  Posted 5 months ago by Gordon Lughsen | Permalink
- Re the lag issue - Glitches can only cope with so much retail therapy. Maybe a similar process as the AL?
  Combined with a limit to the number of Glitches on a street at any given time...
  Posted 5 months ago by Sonneratti's Ghost | Permalink
- How about using the existing auction system, but allowing people to visit a player's home street to buy the item? The advantage to the buyer would be that they wouldn't have to wait for delivery. (The other advantage is that it doesn't require adding another system.)
  FWIW, I'm not a fan of trade channels either. (They are usually the first channel I disable when starting to play an MMO.) I also hope that TS doesn't see the trade channel as the primary mechanism for searching for and advertising goods.
  Posted 5 months ago by Janitch | Permalink
- Sigh, it is only a penalty because you choose to look at one aspect and not at others. Fact is pretty simple: you'd probably still have plenty of fun doing whatever it is you want to do even if you couldn't do it all with one account.
  And the game would be much healthier if there were reasons for economic interdependence. These towers will pretty much only be useful for cubimal sales otherwise. Think about it: stoot says he has a store set up to sell gems. Who the hell is going to buy gems? Someone who chose to focus on something other than mining. But everyone can mine, so no one will buy gems.
  I'm pretty sure if they release 100 new skills tomorrow, neither of you would rage quit. You would keep doing the things you enjoy while being forced to make a choice about which new things are important to you. And ultimately, I think anyone who wants to do it all without any reason to have anyone else playing the game needs to quit playing MMOs and try out farmville or perhaps a Harvest Moon game. They would be right up your alley.
  The fact that it is in other games is not irrelevant. It is simple proof that specialization does not remove fun.
  ETA: it honestly feels to me as if anyone vehemently against specialization is A) not very familiar with massive online gaming and B) less worried about the health of the game and its ability to retain players than they are worried about being able to treat Glitch as a single player game with a chat room.
  Posted 5 months ago by Red Sauce | Permalink
- I don't think we'll know how towers shake out until we have towers and put them into action. That said...
  People are experimenting with in-house 'shops' and what I see so far is a mixed bag. If all you have is a hodge-podge of goods at a variety of prices then I think you'll only get curious street-wandering customers looking for a steal.
  What I do see the possibility for is the establishment of shops with real reputation. Take Jessenya for example. People already know that she is the first name in buying and selling cubimals, and it's because she puts real effort and currants into developing a stable inventory. Conversely, people seek her out for cubimals rather than using fishing around trying to figure out who might have them.
  Other category-specific businesses might spring forth. Consider a potions shop where everything you want is always available at a reasonable price for instant purchase. If you're on your way out the door to go quoin-hopping, would you snag an Elixir of Avarice from the auctions with it's 10 minute wait, or might you just hop over to a store you know and grab one from their stock. You might even have a list of your favorite 'stores' bookmarked in your browser so that you can bypass street loading.
  'Real' reputation will be available to people who play a lot, put effort into an area of specialization and spend money to build inventory. I think if you are a player who is fairly active and "looking for something to do", making a name for yourself in this new retail economy would be a great challenge.
  I actually hope that the auction house goes away so that glitches would participate in a "supply at wholesale, buy at retail" type of economy that more close mirrors our RL economy. Thoughts?
  (eta: +1 Saucelah)
  Posted 5 months ago by WalruZ | Permalink
- @Saucelah: 2 things.
  1) Being against specialization does not equal only wanting to play alone. They are 2 different things. Interdependence is cool. Forced interdependence is not. Which leads me to....
  2) I'm not against specialization. I'm against forced specialization. I want to choose for myself what I want to spend my playtime doing. Example: Blockmaking. Tried it, didn't like it, unlearned it. If I need urth blocks, I'm happy to pay another player for them. But I did have the chance to try it, so now I know.
  Bottom line is: I'm choosing to play this game with my discretionary free time and my discretionary funds. I need to have the ability to do what I want in it, not what someone else thinks I should be doing.
  Posted 5 months ago by Flowerry Pott | Permalink
- I hope that nothing goes away but new things are offered.
  If player-to-player trades are better than vendors and AH, you won't need to force them on unwilling players by killing off the AH and the vendors.
  If specialization offers play value, ppl will choose it. You don't need to punish ppl for choosing a different style.
  Posted 5 months ago by Vocable | Permalink
- +a million to Flowerry Pott. Also to market streets. They sound like more fun than waiting for auctions and searching lonely home streets. Or maybe all of our towers will be smushed into a Glitch mall. Or each could have a door that opens onto a public street. A Glitch has gotta dream, no?
  Posted 5 months ago by Aleph Zero | Permalink
- Group Halls would also open possibilities for commerce on a shared street. Just sayin'.
  Posted 5 months ago by Pascale | Permalink
- @Pascale was that Group Malls you meant ? :)
  Posted 5 months ago by Sonneratti's Ghost | Permalink
- @ Saucelah, "...[players who are ] less worried about the health of the game and its ability to retain players than they are worried about being able to treat Glitch as a single player game with a chat room."
  Exactly this. Thank you.
  Posted 5 months ago by Sloppy Ketchup | Permalink
- +1 to Saucelah
  I think we need more interdependence in this game too! Otherwise, like Saucelah said, you just get a one-player game. Having more interdependence would increase interaction. Of course, people should be able to try out new things, but having one person capable of doing everything kind of ruins the point of a multiplayer game.
  Posted 5 months ago by Reirei Umezaki | Permalink
- +many to Flowery Pott!
  One of the things that first attracted me to Glitch was the wide variety of activities, and I've enjoyed everything I've tried. (to varying degrees) I've learned all the available skills and have no plans at this time to unlearn any - I enjoy variety!
  And yet - somehow - being a generalist is not preventing me from interacting with other players... imagine that.
  I'm still playing Glitch because nothing in the game mechanics is forcing me to specialize - yet.
  The learning penalties are pretty severe, and brain capacity upgrades are becoming extremely expensive, so it's pretty obvious that specialization is being strongly promoted if not outright enforced. When the time comes that learning new skills is simply too cumbersome to continue with, Glitch may lose it's appeal for me. I'm specialized enough IRL, and feel no need to bring that situation over into my playtime as well.
  Posted 5 months ago by LynnieR | Permalink

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