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DEVBLOG: A MARKET IN SPACE - discussion thread


NQ-Wanderer

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I  have mixed feelings about a market in space  I think it would be convenient and pretty cool but in the changes two the game I think markets are just about the only resin two go two a planet 

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*cough* Utopia Station *cough*

edit: For reference, Utopia Station is about 1SU from the centre of the safezone. We've been there for over a year. It would have been great if this was a player element that could be attached to existing, long-standing, trade outposts.

Edited by Shockr
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Space market is good addition how ever not as NPC marketplace.

 

@NQ: Now you have a change to finally  introduce player-run markets and take first steps to real player run economy. 

 

 

Other note:

50KM no-build zone is way too small. It must also include deploying dynamic constructs.

Also it must have quite short "parking permit"

Otherwise it is no use to approach with heavy hauler.

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I am very glad to see this happening.  Planets are so inner. I am opposed to all of the forever hungry ore bots, so I'm glad to hear that this one is bot-free.

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3 minutes ago, kulkija said:

Space market is good addition how ever not as NPC marketplace.

 

@NQ: Now you have a change to finally  introduce player-run markets and take first steps to real player run economy. 

 

 

What NPC's are you talking about? There are none. (Edit: There are likely no schematics there either, as these count as "bots" too.)

Edited by Distinct Mint
Added schematic comment.
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4 minutes ago, Distinct Mint said:

 

What NPC's are you talking about? There are none.

 

All markets are atm. NPC markets.

 

Player run market is one with market unit owned by player or org.

There owner can set up fees such as taxes and other. Owner also keeps that income.

Also owner decides who can access markets. etc.

Plauer run market are part of the original game consept.

 

At current NPC market "owned by aphelia" NQ is setting taxes and fees, etc.

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Just now, kulkija said:

 

All markets are NPC markets.

 

Player run market is one with market unit owned bu player or org.

There owner can set up fees such as taxes and other. Owner also keeps that income.

Also owner decides who can access markets. etc.

Plauer run market are part of the original game consept.

 

At current NPC market "owned by aphelia" NQ is setting taxes and fees, etc.

 

Ok, well don't hold your breath there then. Player Markets are a definite post-Launch thing.

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I do not see any benefit of this space market for new players.

New players do not have Warp capabilities or the ability to haul a lot of cargo long distances.

This may only benefit established / veteran players.

A better idea(s) would be to implement the player markets / mechanics as has been promised

 

I vote NO to this Space Market

 

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https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1949863330/dual-universe-civilization-building-sci-fi-mmorpg/posts/1692359

Dev Diary: Player-driven economy

 

Quote

Dev Diary: Player-driven economy
NovaquarkCreator
September 27, 2016
Dear Backers,


We are going to release a series of written dev diaries in which we will discuss the game mechanics. We start today with the topic of the player-driven in-game economy. There is already a devblog post talking about the market economy and how price equilibrium will be achieved in the game, so we recommend that you start there. If you have not done so, go take a look at it!  

 

NB: As a word of caution, this devblog was started more than two years ago. Some of the ideas depicted in it might have evolved slightly, so take it with a grain of salt! Also, what is described below might evolve and change a lot during the game development process for various reasons, as we are still far from the official release.  

 

Now on more specific questions:  

Is there a way to conduct basic bartering in the game?  

Yes, it will be possible to simply barter with a nearby player in order to reach an agreement on a list of assets + money on both sides of a barter window. Upon official release, this will work like a classic “exchange window” as in all other MMORPGs; if you simply want to give or trade items to a nearby player, you will be able to do so.

After the official release, we will probably further develop this feature to add new possibilities, such as being able to barter from a distance. If the player to whom you give the item is not nearby, it will stay in your inventory but the ownership will change. This is an important difference from many other games: your inventory will be able to contain items that you don’t necessarily own. You will be able to transport items that belong to somebody else.  

 

How can one create a market?  

Markets are built within a construct. It starts with a Market Unit, which is an Element that you can craft or buy, and that you deploy somewhere in the construct. Various levels of Market Units will exist to stage the maximum number of orders it can support. Skills will also be involved to know whether you can operate a market of a given level.

Players will be able to interact directly with the Market Unit, or remotely using Trade Service Units connected to the Market Unit (proxies, basically, to offer several access points). There are also some remote access methods that will be described below.

For the market to host sell orders, or to receive buy orders, it must have containers connected to it. The simplest connection method will be direct contact, but we are still working on other ways to establish a connection between Elements in general. The important thing to understand is that the size of the container(s) will determine the capacity of the market, because everything that is traded on it must be contained inside those containers. This will favor very large structures to host large-scale markets with thousand of items on sale.  

 

Will there be market NPCs?  

Yes, to help boost the economy we will introduce market NPCs, or “bots” (we prefer this term because they won’t have a physical presence in the world). Bots will appear as buy or sell orders in the list of player-made orders. The difficulty is to make sure that they stabilize but not disturb the natural market dynamics driven by players, which involves a bit of AI to get it right. Bots will amplify player activities, not replace them. If you set up a market in the middle of nowhere, isolated, don’t expect thousands of bots to come and sell you everything you need! Note: this may be different in alpha, as we will use bots on market to provide you with assets that you cannot yet craft. 

In the long run, our hope is that bots will become less necessary, or even completely disappear, as humans take over the whole economy. 

 

How can one access information about available markets? 

You can directly interact with a Market Unit or a proxy connected to it, called a Trade Service Unit. This is absolutely necessary when you want to place a sell order, as you have to deposit the asset you want to sell in the market containers (no need to access the containers, the interface will take care of the transfer). 

If you simply want to buy, put in a buy order, or check what is available in a market from a remote place, or view all markets in a given radius , you will use an Information Unit (IU). The IU will come as an Element that you can deploy, and which will have a radius of action depending on its level, or as the integrated IU inside your Nanoformer, which has a limited range but is always accessible. NB: The Nanoformer integrated IU should be available at release, but the IU Element might make it in a further expansion. 

Information Units will be able to collect all orders on various markets within their range and present you with an aggregated view, which will allow you to find the best price (to be balanced with their effective location, which can be far away). You will be able to place buy orders, or fulfill existing buy orders from them. The exciting thing is that if you own several active Information Units, they can form a network; when two IU zones overlap, they can access each other’s information. We plan to make it possible (in a post-release update for players to rent access to their IU network, creating telecommunication business opportunities all over the galaxy! 

 

What level of customization for markets will be possible? 

 We want players to be able to make a business out of running a market, so it will be possible to set up fees with a large variety of models: fees based on the number of items traded, their price, their volume, per month, per transaction, etc. The goal is to let market owners compete with different models and different specializations.

 

How can one sell something on a market? 

To sell something on a market, you have to physically transport that thing to the market, and then interact with the Market Unit or a Trade Service Unit connected to it. This will open your inventory and you will be able to transfer the items for selling, either immediately (if there is at least one buy order pending), or through a sell order with a price of your choosing. In any case, the item will then disappear from your inventory and go inside the containers of the market. 

 

How can one buy something from a market? 

You can either put [in] a buy order or get the best offer among the sell orders for an instant service. Whether it will be possible to do this from a distance will depend on your skill level. Once the order is completed, you can check what is in the market containers, but you will only see the items that are yours (for example, items that you just bought). From there, you can drag & drop them to your own inventory and go. 

In the long term, we may have short-distance proxy units connected to your own containers that will be able to transfer bought items directly onboard your ship if it is not far away from the market, in order to avoid tedious back and forth logistics. Think about refuelling your ship, for example. This is still in discussion and won’t make it to the initial release in any case. 

 

How can one sell ships? 

Every Market Unit is surrounded by a visible bubble whose size depends on the market level. This bubble is called a "trade zone." Trade zones cannot overlap. For any construct inside the trade zone, it is possible to interact with the Core Unit to request a sell order that will be affiliated to the Market Unit in the trade zone, and the usual Nanoformer integrated Information Unit UI opens to set the price. When the sell order is validated, the construct then enters a frozen mode: it cannot be moved or interacted with in any way. Buying a construct from a market simply unfreezes the construct in the trade zone. The player can then simply go and retrieve it. 

We have plans in a future expansion to introduce Hangars, which will be large areas that automate the process of parking ships and constructs, in order to avoid the difficulties of avoiding obstacles when moving in/out of crowded areas. 

 

How can one set up an auction? 

An auction is basically defined as soon as the order book will only one sell order (that defines the “instant selling price”) and a set of competing buy orders. Once the time for the auction is met, the best buy order wins the competition and gets the item. 

That’s it, we hope this answered some of your questions and gave more details about this very important gameplay aspect. Looking forward to hearing your feedback and questions, as usual!


The Novaquark Team

 

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The game simply cannot scale without player-run markets -- especially with the new FTUE giving players a hex and outpost so early. 

 

One of the core issues with FTUE is not solved -- that markets become further and further away over time, so the new player experience inevitably becomes worse over time.

 

I don't get how the core market tech could be developed without this in mind...but my guess is that it simply wasn't designed to be this flexible (despite devblogs that make it clear that they did eventually want to roll this out?) 

 

Unfortunately, it's too late now -- NQ still isn't thinking at an "MMO scale" or considering how churn rate will degrade FTUE month after month.

 

That aside, it'd be nice to actually have a reason to visit other players' creations and Aphelia's market clones are both boring and slightly immersion breaking...not to mention degrading the idea of a single-shard system because markets are functionally identical to instances. Especially as a new player it is hard to take "single shard" seriously when the first thing you need to do is figure out which market instance you're at if you want to play with a friend.

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I do like the new market in space, it is good for players with warp-drive and space ships.

For new players, - no use.. I remember playing first 3 month without space, orbit max.

 

I wish there could be a solution for custom shops:

we really need to somehow make our dispensers prices to appear in public market window, so to attract players to visit our base / custom shops.

Why we need it? - we want to ear taxes instead of Aphelia, - we want people to visit our bases.

 

Or make the public markets to be owned by an org, and the let the org to set taxes? And make the game-play to conquer markets

 

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50 minutes ago, Shockr said:

*cough* Utopia Station *cough*

edit: For reference, Utopia Station is about 1SU from the center of the safe zone. We've been there for over a year. It would have been great if this was a player element that could be attached to existing, long-standing, trade outposts.

I agree. A station like Utopia and others already established should be the actual port of calls not another AI run market. NQ should have spent time developing the tools for player run market mechanics.  If NQ wants to push the concept of "player created content", then give the players the tools to do it. Make building something have a purpose. 

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Currently in the game Market 6 is the only real market used. Sure other markets see trickle of players from time to time, but not enough to justify their existence.  This new market in space will be dead.  There really is no reason for 90% of the player base to fly to the middle of the safe zone on a regular basis when they can just go to market 6.  The ONLY way this market will do well is if TAXES are removed from it.  Make it a free market.  No taxes on products sold or purchased.  Since players will need to fly for an hour to get there and back, the cost of hauling/shipping is on them already. (unless they place a beacon close) DO this if you want it to be used as a functional market, not just a complete waste of development time and effort.

Planet Markets- Heavily taxed as they are now.
Space Markets- Tax free markets.

A tax free market would encourage players to pay for hauling, could encourage "Transportation" players and things like Freighter gameplay. 

Though this blog says that there will be no bots at this market, you do say including the new Alien core resources.  Does this mean that these resources can't be sold at any other market? If yes then it will drive traffic to the market, if no and these resources can be sold elsewhere, then they will just end up at Market 6 anyways and players will again have no reason to use this "middle of the safe zone" market.


Some ideas

Many people believe this is a complete wasted opportunity.  Player markets will benefit some, but thousands of scattered player markets don't really help the game.  This single space only market should have been placed in the middle of pvp space.  Where it could encourage pvp, group play, escort play, freighter play.  It should have also included 4 capturable points around it (new pvp objectives) that when held by a single org allow them to earn a portion of revenue from the station.  This would encourage large scale pvp combat for those looking to hold the market, also would put pvp orgs on the defensive as they would wish to protect those using the station from pirates to ensure they are making quanta.  This would change the dynamics of pvp from attack miners to more natural flow of point capture and hold for increased org revenue. (sure you can hold and attack freighters, but then you limit your income and lower your reputation in the community). 

PVP Salvage Market Sales. - One of the core space content parts of DU is and always has been PVP.  With PVP the result of lost lives on elements has been ever-present.  These elements cannot be sold on existing markets.   This new space market should have that ability.  This would give salvagers a place to sell their hard earned elements to other players through the traditional market system.

 

Constructive Feedback

The addition of alien cores for resources and a space only market is very encouraging overall.  Many feel this is a good direction overall, though many existing industrialists are miffed that the schematics they paid millions for will change and their factories will change with the introduction of these resources. (yes some existing factories will need new schematics to function after this patch based off the pts)  That said, it is paramount that NQ listens to player feedback here. Many of the above posts and posts to follow will contain valuable information from players who actually play the game in this fashion already.   As this is the pre-release patch that has the opportunity to bring hype to the community and by proxy bring in new players, every bit of attention should be paid to those taking the time to provide any feedback that is constructive. Thanks NQ and good luck.

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IMO player-run markets don't really work in a 100% safe zone because markets are part of the PvP game and if somebody's market is undercutting me, giving preferential treatment to my competitors or whatever I should be able to get some friends and try to blow it up.  Given that we're only just getting started with static constructs in PvP space I think this NPC-run space market is a great addition.  In the last PTS iteration I visited it and it looks really good, although having an 'open air' space market is an interesting choice.

 

On last PTS release there was no short-parking limit when parking a construct next to the space market though.  Is that going to be added, or is the market going to end up completely surrounded by constructs which spawn in suddenly as you get close to them, making it harder and harder to approach over time?

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"the Market station provides a new dynamic in the transport of cargo, in that merchandise can be bought and sold without the need to make planetfall."

so like any of the already existing moon markets, without the moons. 

 

Market 1 Alioth moon 1 is:

-closer to most players

-also in space

-more landing space

-easier landing, because a tiny bit of gravity is nice to have

-you can already warp to a moon, no public warp beacon needed

 

I have no idea how the new space market adds anything in any way for anybody except the Utopia guys, that was not already provided by any of the moon markets. Unless the fact that there is a moon below the moon markets is an issue, which I doubt, the new market is not going to see a lot of action, it is yet another waste of time.

 

Next time players ask for something that would actually be nice and make the game more fun and the devs say "we would love to, but it isn’t priority, maybe later we find the time" just remember there was time enough for this thing.

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1 hour ago, Zeddrick said:

IMO player-run markets don't really work in a 100% safe zone because markets are part of the PvP game and if somebody's market is undercutting me, giving preferential treatment to my competitors or whatever I should be able to get some friends and try to blow it up.

Financial markets need stability to be truly successful. I.e. you will never get a player driven equivalent to DS6 if it can be "blown up" at any time, or if players feel unsafe while staying there.

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So no bots at the space, including schematics?

 

And the normal bots for t1 and schematics stay the same...

 

Hire an economist and play your game. This implementation is backwards. Nobody is going to use this market without making some changes that actually make sense.

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40 minutes ago, Gottchar said:

"the Market station provides a new dynamic in the transport of cargo, in that merchandise can be bought and sold without the need to make planetfall."

so like any of the already existing moon markets, without the moons. 

 

Market 1 Alioth moon 1 is:

-closer to most players

-also in space

-more landing space

-easier landing, because a tiny bit of gravity is nice to have

-you can already warp to a moon, no public warp beacon needed

 

I have no idea how the new space market adds anything in any way for anybody except the Utopia guys, that was not already provided by any of the moon markets. Unless the fact that there is a moon below the moon markets is an issue, which I doubt, the new market is not going to see a lot of action, it is yet another waste of time.

 

Next time players ask for something that would actually be nice and make the game more fun and the devs say "we would love to, but it isn’t priority, maybe later we find the time" just remember there was time enough for this thing.

 

Made a post a bit back about how NQ needs to really make a process to best gage how much fun they are adding or subtracting with game elements. This is game, we play for fun, why the devs would ever work on stuff that subtracts our fun is beyond me.  You make a great point here this time and effort could have been placed on other things. I bet you would have much much more wanted a core to core transfer unit or a update to transfer units where we can make sorting systems. 

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