Rushin; Yes I read that thread, thanks for pointing that out to me again though.
So, for the OP (original poster), I don't think the addition of more money sinks, or even the addition of periodic costs is not needed, an d I think in this sense the outposts have failed
I think that is an interesting observation.
To the repliers;
It should be noted that I am operating on the basic premise of more people playing Ryzom = better. This is not an option, in my opinion, especially if you've read some of their statements regarding the financial strength of the company. In any venture capital deal there are four basic outcomes of the deal, one the company goes public, two the company is sold to another company, three the company makes a mild profit but not an attractive sell nor buoyant enough to go public, four the VC's pull the plug and salvage what they can. Based on what I have read recently, Nevrex is going to need to make some serious improvements in their product line in order to survive to the next round of VC finance.
That said, I'm not advocating revolutionizing what makes this game special. Part of the beauty of this game, if not the biggest selling point to me is, you are not "forced" into anything. You want to forage today? Ok. You want fight today? Ok. Had a bad day at work and want to blow some stuff up? OK! You can do it all. You can do none of those things and still enjoy the game of Ryzom and that is part of what makes Ryzom a beautiful game.
I noticed a lot of people either skimmed what I wrote and then replied or didn't understand fully and then replied. I am not sure, honestly, who is who. If someone has a question for me or they want me to be clearer on something please PM me.
There are two topics I saw come up in the past two pages several times and that is of the auction system proposed and that of barter in general.
Barter, as I mentioned originally is trade. Trade is economics and therefore is a reflection of economic activity. There will always be barter. No matter what system is proposed in any game or any real world civilization people will always barter. No one is going to take away the human to human contact, the day to day trade that is going on and nor should any system be implemented where barter is eliminated because that would be bad on many levels.
About the auction system. Personally, I love auctions. I like the idea of it in game. One thing I want to ask you all however is two things. Firstly, if the UI changes went into effect as marct proposed with the search function that I asked for wouldn't that be, in effect a real time auction house for minor every day goods?
However, the UI system wouldn't "capture" 100% of the surplus for the most unique and rare items. For that some universal auction system would work great. One idea is to hard code such a thing into the game, another would be more ad hoc. I know we don't have universal game channels and that is too bad because it really detracts from the game, however, that would be one player created solution.
The solution to auction houses is already at our finger tips though and it is a system that worked well in Eve. Players already have auctions in the bazaar forums.
Here is some random auction I pulled up. You can see basically how it works:
http://myeve.eve-online.com/ingameboard ... dID=285374
These are the rules from their forums:
7. Auctions
- [AUCTION] tag in thread title
- Starting/minimum bid
- Minimum bid increment
- Closing date and time.
You may want to include:
- Reserve price
- Buyout price
- Sniper rule
- Item Location
Note - The Eve system isn't *different* from the Ryzom in this respect, except they have hard and fast rules for conducting these auctions for everyone to see. The advantage is everyone is on the same page every time. The Ryzom forum system works implicitly the same way, however, some of it is guess work and the rest is netiquette. Having everyone on the same page everytime is part of eliminating that "transaction cost" I mentioned earlier. Experienced players I'm sure are rolling their eyes, however for newer players the rules aren't as clear.
As far as auctions being in other games and wanting Ryzom unique, well, Ryzom is unique and no one can take that away. There is nothing wrong with taking systems which have worked well in other games and implementing them in your own, otherwise you constantly need to reinvent the wheal.
I am fairly certain that my idea couldn't be implemented 100% of the way, even though I think it would be ideal. The amount of time to code such a project would be immense and that time would be better spent doing other things. Although, I think most or at least part of it could be implemented as part of the next large patch of expansion. Maybe we can come up with some community consensus, what needs to be done in regards to this matter and what should be a priority. My own thoughts on this briefly? I think the UI changes mentioned would go a long way to solving a lot of the problems. Crafters will be able to demand exactly what they want and when they want it. Foragers and hunters will know exactly what is being demanded and when to provide it. However, something should be done for the reasons stated in my first paragraph.
As always, I look forward to your feedback.
Edit - I changed some things regarding forum auctions for clarity.
..except the guy with little dapper and the guy who just like to complain cuz evrything is just wrong 
