Trading System revolution: ‘The Mediator’

I've seen some similar suggestions in the past but i want to give my version of this, with some more details and with a concrete structure. I don’t know, whether something like this is already planned. I just want to point out what ideas I’ve had, while thinking about this topic.

Here is my version:

The Mediator is a NPC, that is standing in every encampment, like a vendor. You can make WTS requests and give him Items, or search for specific Items and make the seller some offers.

If you talk to him a window with 3 tabs opens. (you find some "paper" mockups at the bottom of my post ;) )

In the first tab[1], you can create a new offer. Here is an inventory, as big as the inventory from any other vendor where you can place some items in, and a text field where you can write down what you want for this stuff. So you can also place multiple items/orbs in it and/or write different possible things you accept for that stuff in the text field. This text is just a suggestion for the trade. If the buyer wants to give you something else for that he is free to send you this as an offer. The items you want to sell are sent to the mediator and are no longer in your inventory. The trade request lasts for X days (I suggest 1 or 2) and is cancellable all the time. Cancelled, ended or successful trades are sent to a remove-only stash tab in your chest in the league you made the offer.

In the second tab[2] you are able to search for items. You can search for:
-item type/orb
-base item
-rarity
-name (if unique)
-count
-specific stats
All uploaded offer-inventories are searched for this item. The resulting offers, that contain your item, are shown in a list. (Maybe you can add multiple items to your search. Only offers that contain all items in your search pattern are shown.) If you found an offer, you can make a counter offer. You also get an inventory frame to put items into, the seller wants or you offer him. So this system is a division of the 2 inventories of the classic trade window in an asynchronous way, to make it easier and time saving, including a search feature. If he accepts the trade, you will receive the items in a remove only stash tab, otherwise (decline or offer runs out) you receive your counter offer back instead.

The third tab[3] is for managing your offers. Here you got a list of all your current running offers and for each of them, an indicator for new incoming counter-offers, which were made by others. You can cancel running offers or view what other people are offering you for it.


The positive aspects are:
-search functionality, find your items faster
-spend less time for selling items
-you and your possible trading partner don’t have to be online at the same time
-no more trade chat spamming or reading for hours
-no need to make the “whisper -> party -> meet act 1 normal -> trade” chain
-no hard-price auction house like in D3, just an offering platform:
---->free offers
---->free counter-offers (text in initial offer is just a suggestion)
---->freedom for the seller to accept or not to accept one of multiple offers.

Maybe the trade chat is faster in some cases. It can stay as it is. This suggestion is not for making trades faster; it’s for making trades easier and time saving. Especially for people who don’t want to stay in trade chat all day long spamming their WTS offers or those who search for specific items.

Feel free to add some further additions to my suggestion here. If you find weak spots, feel free to point them out and please make suggestions to fix them.

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tl;dr: New NPC for managing trades, make offers that are searchable by others, get offers for your offered items, accept them if you want. (like the current trading system, just asynchronous)


[1]

[2]

[3]

+1

It won't happen imo. They would do that ages ago, maybe with the open beta release but obviously they don't want to do that, dunno why. I couldn't sell my 93 spell damage wand. I bought that for 2 exalted orbs then didn't use and wanted to sell. There was not a single offer for 93 spell damage wand! Okay maybe it is not really OP like %150 or more but 93... come on it deserves some respect.

Non-existence of a market system is the worst thing for the game. We need to spam dozens of times to sell some items? Open a thread on forum bump, bump, bump and no body gives a damn? So how we are going to sell it, we will wait 1 week to sell a single item or what?

Hopefully they will release a good market system for the game, but when?

I disagree with you accused, I believe it will happen. I agree with you accused, why hasn't it already?

This has to be a priority on the retail/final version, I have no inside information, but still feel 99% confident it is.

Otnev, when you are wanting to sell or buy, you could make the widget much bigger. You could just combine them all into 1 window, even full screen like the skill tree. Less mouse clicking the better. Even entering something like /offer alt+click(item) note:"this item rocks" would be just fine if the stats actually propagated and populated the other fields beside the note.

However, I don't see the backend mentioned in your posting. Currently, the trading system is so scattered across servers and has such fragmentation that any interface into it would be too time consuming, or at the very least, totally amateur. I don't see the point in creating any querying interface until they fix the backend.

"

Otnev, when you are wanting to sell or buy, you could make the widget much bigger. You could just combine them all into 1 window, even full screen like the skill tree. Less mouse clicking the better. Even entering something like /offer alt+click(item) note:"this item rocks" would be just fine if the stats actually propagated and populated the other fields beside the note.

Don't get me wrong, the pictures are not intended to be implemented as the final interface; i've not considered any usability or HCI aspects. They are just to support the text and to clarify how the process of selling and buying should work. The arrangement of the controls and widgets is not important atm. A command line interface for making offers, like you suggested, could be implemented in addition, but doesnt replace the need of an interface. On the one hand some people, especially newcomers, would prefer a easy understandable interface. On the other hand searching a specific item and browsing through the results can't be done with a command.
The main goal of this suggestion is to make trading more comfortable than using trade chats.

"

However, I don't see the backend mentioned in your posting. Currently, the trading system is so scattered across servers and has such fragmentation that any interface into it would be too time consuming, or at the very least, totally amateur. I don't see the point in creating any querying interface until they fix the backend.

Of course the storing and indexing system for the uploaded offers has to be on a separate server from the game servers. All trade queries from the single clusters, gateways etc. have to be collected to a centralized server. As offered items are sent to this trade server and get removed from the inventory of the seller, they also get removed from the single game servers. After finishing/cancelling the trade the items will be sent back to the game servers in the remove only stash tabs. So this trading system doesn't require big changes on the existing game server structure, just an interface for sending and receiving items and a completely new server.

*plop*