Contracts?
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Ah... Contracts... A lawyer's favorite subject. Technically, you can't truly have a player driven economy without contracts! But then... contracts are incredibly shady and infinite in diversity. Left unchecked they will bring tons of exploitation while checking them is titanic work. Waking this road can make or brake a game. Succeeding though, makes it legendary! I'd love to see this feature implemented, yet for every example presented in this thread I could think of at least one way to exploit it that has already happened IRL. At least IRL there are severe consequences for getting caught, but what would happen in a game environment? Who can predict... maybe a wave of vocal dissatisfaction that can put a stigma on the game, or maybe a timely solution that would bring dramatic spotlight time for the game and lure in even more players... A fine thought @EvolGrinZ . A fine thought indeed! Kudos!
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@darian tell me of some exploits. let's have a discussion about the system and it could give some ideas, both pro, con and exploit, to the developers.
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An exploit that is happening in EVE is people set up a contract or something worthless, put up a high collateral value on it and a good payout. They also usually pick a location with 1 way in and out and then just camp there when someone picks up the contract and when the person who took it gets into the system they jump him and destroy the ship.
Since the delivery failed, they get the collateral value payed out to them.To counter this you simply could add a thumbs up or down vote in the end of a contract so it's easier to spot who the trustworthy ones are and who not.
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@evolgrinz said in Contracts?:
An exploit that is happening in EVE is people set up a contract or something worthless, put up a high collateral value on it and a good payout. They also usually pick a location with 1 way in and out and then just camp there when someone picks up the contract and when the person who took it gets into the system they jump him and destroy the ship.
Since the delivery failed, they get the collateral value payed out to them.To counter this you simply could add a thumbs up or down vote in the end of a contract so it's easier to spot who the trustworthy ones are and who not.
This is another reason why an insurance feature would be of great help. In this instance, let's say the insurance features are:
- collateral aligned with value
- a premium 'safe'
An example:
A Trader goes into a contract with A Courier to move goods of let's say 500 gold worth of value.
The courier charges maybe 250 gold for his/her services.- The contract should ensure that the collateral is not higher than the estimated value of the goods
- Security should be paid for by the courier- let's say - 20 gold to each member of the security team upon delivery
- Supplementary insurance feature - let's say a premium "safe and key" created by a player master smith/enchanter, costing said creator 30 gold to produce.
- The Courier might decide to buy this safe at let's say 50 gold. The key is then handed to the trader. The trader could also buy the lock, apply it to the goods and keep the key.
- If the courier is robbed during transit, the thieves will need the key to get into the safe.
- The only other way to break into the safe would be to use a master 'thief' skill and a premium lockpick that costs more than 50 gold.
This way, a lot of player occupations are involved - merchant, Smith/enchanter, courier, trader, thieves.
I'm not saying there won't be loopholes to exploit regardless. What I stated above is just a simple example, not very well thought out.
My main point is - an insurance feature should be in place for a true player-driven trade system to succeed but said insurance feature should not make it impossible for bandit roles to succeed either.
Obviously, the matter of how plausible it is to implement such features is another thing entirely.
Just here, throwing out crazy ideas :man_playing_handball_tone4:
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@jetah Looks like EvolGrinZ, just answered your question. Another exploit is the ability to trade illegal items with no risk at all. Have someone deliver the package. Inform the receiver of the identity of the courier, have the courier get ganked on the way. Another thing is using timed bombs/disease into enemy territory since the content of the package is secret. Probably more complex exploits can be developed with the aid of a little bit of espionage. You know a rival guild will send an important package and have a "friend"/alts take the contract. Anyway, probably the most common exploit would be abusing lack of knowledge of new players and give impossible delivery times on low value objects with a slightly higher collateral or the one already mentioned.
The thing is that down voting the contractor will not really work since the player has no way of knowing he has been scammed... He'll just think he failed, and feel guilty about it. Down-voting the contractor will likely be the last thing to cross their minds. Worse, if that happens often... players will rather think the game and it's community are bad, with gankers who just wait in choke points and attack everyone for no apparent reason.
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we're not sure of the land layout in Fractured. of course there could be some instances where people do that. Sandboxes shouldn't hold everyone's hand and have a 'safe spot' everywhere (beastkin safe spot exception). When someone sees a contract with a 'too good to be true' then they could not accept or hire some support. it's also possible for the courier could make a claim to others who go and PK the insurance fraud players. Who's to say the contract writer was the one to stalk the courier?
If I want something moved and I have a chance of losing it then I want to be paid for the time to acquire the item and well as the replacement. If that 500g value took me 20 hours to acquire I don't want to lose that 20 hours of gold value.
In Eve the ship was scanned by the police. Maybe the cities could have a customs npc or with enough charisma you could bypass it. Customs could fine the courier and maybe have jail time!
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@jetah I get what you mean. However, rarity aka "time to obtain" should be incorporated into the value in this case, said 500g
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Contract Type: Delivery Contract
Pickup Location: Arboreus Capital City
Dropoff Location: Middle of nowhere in Tartaros
Dropoff Time: Suspiciously tight timeframe that looks like a given player's weekly logon time.
Contractor's Name: Griefer McGankypants
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In EVE the map layout has obvious choke points, because you travel with jumpgates and certain paths only have 1 route to go through, unless you want to detour for 30+ jumps.
My guess is that for fractured the worlds are more open and will have less choke points.
And besides, maybe the feline beastmen will have a stealth skill, so they can just sneak through any choke point with bad people.@Jetah You in EVE Concord (space police) scans ship for illegal cargo, but there is a good way around that and that is by putting your illegal goods in a container and then put that container in another container.
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@evolgrinz sounds creative to me. people hide drugs in automobiles all the time. sometimes officers don't find them. sometimes they call k-9 units in. I saw a video where cuban's were putting drugs in pallets!
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@finland No, no they shouldn't. An auction house ruins player trading and traveling merchants. It has degraded every single MMO I have played that has had them.
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I can agree though it is pretty convenient. it sucks having to ask in trade or post on forums for something and is usually fixed via a person or team putting a trading site together and people use it.
I remember in DAoC, we had vendor NPCs which would sell goods but we'd have to hit up each house. they came out with another NPC that would search all of the houses in the zone and list which house had it. that was more helpful.
AH aren't bad if post limits exist, although people will be pissed because they hit their daily limit. I'd prefer a Market instead of an AH.
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What about a system like EVE. You can search market places around all over the map, but when you buy goods they will not be instantly delivered to you. You will have to go and pick them up yourself. And this is where contracts come into play to get goods moved.
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@dagimir said in Contracts?:
@finland No, no they shouldn't. An auction house ruins player trading and traveling merchants. It has degraded every single MMO I have played that has had them.
I don't think so you have spots where sell and buy things! Save lots of time plus you can buy with the best price otherwise you would have to ask billions players before find the one with the cheapest one.
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@finland That is the point. You will not always get the best price available between the three worlds. This makes you have to haggle with the trading merchants in the area that you are.
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@dagimir said in Contracts?:
@finland No, no they shouldn't. An auction house ruins player trading and traveling merchants. It has degraded every single MMO I have played that has had them.
A global auction house is also an open invitation to gold bots, unless you do what Black Desert Online did and make the auction house completely #@^!ing suck so that neither gold bots nor legitimate players can use it.
However, local auction houses that have a separate market for each city are a great idea.
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I'll just use a website, it'll be so much better. I can list the items for sale and a person could just PM me. No need to deal with systems in game.
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@fibs said in Contracts?:
However, local auction houses that have a separate market for each city are a great idea.
Thank you!
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Trade chat is a terrible idea to be honest, just look at the trade chat in Warframe... The messages scroll by so fast, you can barely read any of it and trying to read it gives me a headache. And even if you see a good deal, it's another challenge to click that persons name to whisper him and set up the trade.
A system where you can see the prices in a small area with perhaps special trader skills that increase the range of this area with perhaps at max level the ability to even see the markets of the other planets.
This way you can choose how far you want to travel for the best price, but the lowest price might also be the trickiest or most dangerous to get to.
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@evolgrinz said in Contracts?:
Trade chat is a terrible idea to be honest, just look at the trade chat in Warframe... The messages scroll by so fast, you can barely read any of it and trying to read it gives me a headache. And even if you see a good deal, it's another challenge to click that persons name to whisper him and set up the trade.
A system where you can see the prices in a small area with perhaps special trader skills that increase the range of this area with perhaps at max level the ability to even see the markets of the other planets.
This way you can choose how far you want to travel for the best price, but the lowest price might also be the trickiest or most dangerous to get to.If we have any kind of wide-range chat, there will be trade chat. Even when there's a dedicated trade channel, people don't give a damn and post their trades in the general chat anyway because more people see it.
The only way to stop spammers is to not have anything they can spam with!
