Leyspring Bazaar & Trade System

Hello everyone!

I would like to propose a project that I think would really benefit Leyspring. Skrug and I already done some build work in alpha for what I'm calling the Leyspring Bazaar for now. I also wanted to figure a trade system for us to adopt and provide to players in Leyspring, but this is a huge undertaking and I could use any help, feedback, or notes of approval. I've started compiling a big document that covers the goals of this bazaar and the major factors involved in making this place a reality. I've also begun to attempt to organize resources and figure out trade values, but it's a slow process and there are a lot of uncertainties.

The document detailing the project can be found on google drive at the following link:
docs.google.com/document/d/1gTKjmvIy9FyXMhcVg_SLGYUSiS0olPJC1nELxPKLnYg/edit?usp=sharing

Some things I'd really like to hear from people:
> What do you think of the idea? The good, the bad, and even the ugly.
> Do you have any suggestions to improve or add to this project?
> Do you agree with any of the suggested solutions I have discussed?
> Let me know if I'm not listing a resource!
> What resources do you really want to able to trade for? What exchange rates do you think are appropriate?
> Do you think the resource trade categories are appropriate?

If you want to get involved in this project just pm me! I'm actually considering creating a guild dedicated to creating and maintaining the bazaar.

- Chamille

I'll check out the google doc later. Let me know how I can support/help!

Wow that is long :)I only kinda skimmed it at the moment, but here are a few quick thoughts until I can read through it more thoroughly.

1.) I am not sure why you are under the impression there will be no in game currency. My understanding was the exact opposite. They have mentioned there will be an in game currency, and when they introduce it, the initial main source of income will be trading resources to an NPC vendor for in game currency. Of course this also potentially conflicts with trade of resources for coin. depending on rates.

2.) What you are proposing seems to involve a ton of effort and coordination that I feel will be very difficult to manage when there is a much easier solution in my mind. Why not consider simply creating a bazaar (similar to what you describe in the "Building the Place" section and we simply promote this as a place to "officially / unofficially" gather for player trade for resources, props etc. Need obsidian head to the Leyspring bazaar and see if anyone has any to trade.

When I first started reading this I immediately got flashbacks to EQ1 and the East commons tunnel, if you did not play EQ in the early days, this was where everyone went to go to spam in chat to buy / sell stuff. In fact thinking of this before I got down to your ideas on building, I was giggling to myself thinking we could actually recreate the east commons tunnel and a small part of the common lands it used to reside in, a desert / tropical border would be awesome for that so we can have the tunnel go out both ends :)Just one of my brain farts I am throwing out there.

Also I was under the impression that we would eventually be getting an auction house style system. If that is the case kiss player on player trading goodbye very fast, at which point we would need to find other incentives to keep people interested in the idea.


Just my initial feedback after skimming the doc, will add more once I get a chance to read through it more thoroughly.

Thanks for the response Voidlust!

1.) Yes that was some oversight on my part, it is heavily implied that there will be 'in-game coinage' though there has been very little details given. I've only heard that they'll be used for the ley-lines or mini-hub travel and claim upkeep. Given that this in-game coinage will have significant value it would make the trade exchange a lot simpler. I haven't heard SOE mention the trading with NPCs for in-game currency, please pm me a link.

2.) Yes, tons of effort. While your solution is simple I'm not sure players will gather in a particularly place to trade just because we say they should. The idea behind having a consistent trade system in one place is to guarantee that a player can find a means of trade. Meaning we'd do our best to guarantee that we're selling a particular resource even if other players gathered there aren't.

I'm not familiar with EQ1 or EQ2. From your description of the East commons tunnel, I think that is essentially the environment I imagine we'd want to recreate. The bartering system I'm discussing that Leyspring could support is simply a means of getting players to go there, though I would hope they eventually go there just to do as you mentioned in the East commons tunnel. We want players to compete with us and start selling/trading their own resources.

If an auction house system is implemented, I agree that the idea would be less effective and desirable. However, If this bazaar becomes popular enough, the player trading might persist anyway. The auction house can provide ultimate convenience, but perhaps the bazaar will still have the potential trade deals players will be willing to spend time and effort to find.

That tunnel was my EQ1 home (when I wasn't farming the stein of moggok)

WTB - KEI!

Hi peoples, this is my first post as I have just recently joined the community

I read as much as I could of the document, I love that you put so much thought into it! If there was not an in game currency that would have been a feat to pull off but probably pretty great.

"When I first started reading this I immediately got flashbacks to EQ1 and the East commons tunnel, if you did not play EQ in the early days, this was where everyone went to go to spam in chat to buy / sell stuff. In fact thinking of this before I got down to your ideas on building, I was giggling to myself thinking we could actually recreate the east commons tunnel and a small part of the common lands it used to reside in, a desert / tropical border would be awesome for that so we can have the tunnel go out both ends :)Just one of my brain farts I am throwing out there."

Now this I see being an amazing rendition that could be so grand in scope, it would be talked about for a longtime! Very cool idea. I'd feature this build and its progress on a weekly basis in my Chronicle. I already have an idea to dedicate a page to the happenings in Leyspring, directing people to this lovely website! I'm excited!

Welcome Sawlstone thanks for the reply!

Just posting some updates on my progress for this project. Unless people explicitly tell me I should definitely not do this then I'm gonna keep going! The document has been recently updated (edited or added text in red) mainly the resource lists. I'm organizing each resource into tables and attempting to analyze each one's use so that I can determine which ones will be more in demand from players. I have a feeling I won't easily get significant feedback from a lot of people, mainly because I probably wrote too much, so the best thing I can do is get the system rolling and see how people react after I am able to fully support and test it. The next steps are:

- Evaluate resources and assign exchange rates between each corresponding categories and grades
- Create a simple website where tables with the exchange rates can be posted and updated every day for players to view
- Finish building the place in EQNL of course!
- Figure out a way to advertise the bazaar and encourage people to come trade. I'm thinking of doing a grand opening promotion with some rare tool give-aways.

That being said, a lot of preparation is still required. I'm thinking of having a donate box in case anyone in Leyspring wants to donate resources, old tools, anything to this project effort, though I think claim permissions is still a little buggy. More on this soon! Thanks.

- Chamille

In some games the auction house actually produces player to player trading.

The auctioned items sell high but sell slowly, while P2P trades are fast, and usually at some sort of discount.

Interesting idea, creating a hub dedicated to it.

Chamille - if you would like, we should try and combine our efforts. I'm also interested in building up trade / bazaar / auction type stuff.

Definitely Xeidman, I think it'll be great for us to bounce ideas off one another, so I'll be following your thread.

Another update on current activities regarding this project. I haven't started rebuilding the place yet, but I'm really now starting to figure out what kind of trade ratios we'll be getting. Skrug and I have already starting some gathering speed tests, in which we will focus on a specific resource to gather for 30 minutes and calculate approximately how much we were able to gather. By doing this for every single resource we can have a general comparison of the value of resources versus each other.

I think this method of evaluating the resources is better than the 'usability' tables I had been because it considers the time and effort needed to acquire that resource and now they are easy to compare. However, I since I intend this trade system to be dynamic, prices will vary on supply and demand, so we will quickly see an increase in value of popular trading resources as players demand more due to how the resource is used. So the 'usability' value of the resource will still ultimately be considered, just not right away. I will post another update once I think I have done enough speed tests.

Just posting another update. All the ore trade ratios have been figured but could still use some tweaking. The google doc should have the updated tables near the bottom. The trading rules are in bold right before the trade tables. Design work on the website is also coming along and I've been collecting a lot of resources besides the massive amounts of marble needed to begin building.

We are aiming to open trading for at least ores next week, but a lot of building, gathering, and preparation is still needed ( and I should do homework too ). Should this project be successful, I will be creating a guild that will strive to manage, improve, and expand this organized effort to establish convenient and steady player trade. For now I am calling this organized effort of Leyspringers the Fae Market, and the bazaar location on Courage-Spring will be called The Spring Court. Should future bazaar locations be established they will we themed around each season accordingly. As you can see I am very hopeful for this project. Also I will be posting events proposals in the events section of the forum soon, so please check regularly if you're interested!

The chests are full and couldn't deposit axes, rings or picks 8(

There should be 4 chests total and one of them is still fairly empty. Adding another one right now, thanks for depositing stuffs

When I am not running around throwing TNT everywhere I will be happy to help farm mats, just leme know what to hunt and who to dump em on.
I also have some old items taking up space that I wouldent mind having open

That'd be great Olive. Right now having any extra mats would be great, especially gems and higher tier ore. Right now I'm working on just getting the bazaar built up and getting enough of a resource buffer of ore to start trading that first. A lot of the information in the current google doc will be condensed and presented on the website I'm preping, and I'll be making another doc that will be actually updated with all the resources the bazaar has in stock. Unfortunately this week really tanked down on my progress due to irl work coming up, but still trying to push for delivery asap and any help or suggestions are appreciated.

Hi Chamille
I'm Merma, and Tsagh "pointed your way" yesterday during a vent chat when I asked where I could start helping out. I would love to give you a hand with anything you need over the next few weeks.
My main log in times are after work 5:30 to around 10 EST, most days however it is playoff season so I will be semi-distracted at times (good that I have a HDTV next to my gaming rig)
I am in Leyspring Chat when on and can hop into vent whenever you need me too.
Give a shout if you see me on, I will send a friend invite tonight after work.

Stopped by this morning...."Hung around for a while"
Lots going on here, looking forward to getting together in game.

Hey Merma!

So here's kind of a list of stuff that needs to be built for the current design plan.

Shops: Currently I've started a red-brick build for in the right on the pic Merma posted. These will have certain themes as far as decorating and display windows. Right now I'm kinda waiting for glass props to be released before finalizing the walls. Some of the shop themes I've thought of are tailor shop, gem store, flower shop, furniture/interior design.

Vendor Tents: These are stands or tents that vendors would normally set up shops under for open markets. In Landmark these will work a little differently. Thematically I want these, but they also need to serve the player in their trading purpose. By putting numbers on top of them, I found out that they can be easily identified from the map if you zoom in on the claim, thus being perfect for shouting out exact locations to other players should that become necessary. Some prototypes have been made but I'm not very happy with them yet. It'd be nice to get some unique tables or maybe small carts. I really just want them to be sharpened up a bit cause they are very bland right now.

Grand Exchange: The plaza/center of the bazaar acts as the market area for players. The grand exchange will be a building used by official Spring Court traders to conduct trades at the specific ratios posted daily. I'm trying to design this building like a mall, where there's several floors and rooms, and each room, instead of being a shop, is where trade for a specific resource will be conducted. Right now I'm still working out the details for a streamlined trade systems, where I'm hoping the organization can help.

Ice Cream Wagon: This was a little idea I had awhile back. A wagon that would feature ore themed ice cream. It would essentially be a template that can be easily dropped for events and resource sales. This isn't super important part of the bazaar though it's something I'd like to have eventually.

Plants: This is called the Spring Court, but right now it looks like a bunch of brick patterns. So we need to liven the place up by adding plants, including trees. Having planters outside the shops, on the walls, or hanging from the buildings where we can place plant props would do the trick.

Banners: Advertising! I think it'd be cool to have some banners, big and small, hanging against walls or something with advertisements on them since this is a marketplace. What would be really neat is if we could have these advertisements be mocks of real life ads. For example, "Got Rubicite?" or "Coca-Cobalt." However, I'm not sure if that would cause legal issues or not...

Airship Port: This is mainly for thematic purposes, a port featuring a airship which would theoretically be used to transport resources. Skrug has done a lot of building with the airship already but it's pretty huge. We may want to make it smaller. No construction has been done on the port yet. We also aren't super bent on having this in the bazaar but so far no other ideas have overtaken it.

I think even though there's a lot of big things, the little things will really make the bazaar an impressive place. While I'm working on the major buildings, if anyone wants to design some of the aforementioned things that would really help. Just contact me in game when you want to show me your stuff!

- Chamille

Hey, New member (keep hearing about you guys and watched your twitch recorded stream so i jumped servers to peek about) Love everything your doing and are all about!

Ran across Chamille earlier which prompted me to check out your site and i have read the whole document and i feel no only is this idea a step forward in creating player immersion but also jump starting the games economy! Coming from a Retail management background i love the detail and presentation of your idea and how its being implemented.

My only downside is i live in the land down under so my hrs are completely skewed but in the wee hrs i do tend to grind ore (old MC habit) when im tired. i'd love to be able to help out where i can even if its just infrequent supply.

Your Society is a credit to this game and i feel it deserves our full support.



Currently on Serenity -Rapids (with my partner) which is far less populated it seems the courage. Might it be easier to collect the ores on a larger scale on a less populated maps or is that difference negligible?

Chamille wrote:

Shops: Some of the shop themes I've thought of are tailor shop, gem store, flower shop, furniture/interior design.

Great concept! ...Placing different items in different areas could be something we would want to continue for the general market outdoors too.

Chamille wrote:

Vendor Tents: Some prototypes have been made but I'm not very happy with them yet. It'd be nice to get some unique tables or maybe small carts. I really just want them to be sharpened up a bit cause they are very bland right now.

Started cleaning up the stand you saw at my claim. That was one I was just trying to get my head wrapped around for size and general concept stuffs, lol. I like working with wood, all the types we have in Landmark too. I will use the general size from the ones you made as a guide.
Another thought I had....Having some more "permanent" vendor stands in the Plaza, as well as some more "pop up" type. Reason being, Not many stands, and the place looks barren. Too many EMPTY stands, and the place looks like a prop, and not a viable place to sell stuff. This way we can allow first come users to fill the permanent structures, and on busy days we can pull up some planters and plop down the more temporary ones. Kinda like flea market style. It could become an incentive to get set up early and get one of the permanent structures too.

Chamille wrote:

Ice Cream Wagon: This was a little idea I had awhile back. A wagon that would feature ore themed ice cream. It would essentially be a template that can be easily dropped for events and resource sales. This isn't super important part of the bazaar though it's something I'd like to have eventually.

Awesome, like a food cart we can take to others events! Sell some and ADVERTIZE the court at the same time. I am loving this one. And actually sooner may be better than later considering the advertising aspect.

Chamille wrote:

Plants: ...we need to liven the place up by adding plants, including trees. Having planters outside the shops, on the walls, or hanging from the buildings where we can place plant props would do the trick.

Samples for whats on sale at the Flower Shop?

Chamille wrote:

Banners: Advertising!

Also one of those "You Are Here" Maps >.<

Chamille wrote:

Airship Port:

Another option would be to have a mock mine with an entrance from near the exchange.
Altho' the airship would make it easy to spot the court from a distance. (or even both?)

Chamille wrote:

I think even though there's a lot of big things, the little things will really make the bazaar an impressive place.

I agree this is a very important part of a place like this. If we want people to spend more time than a cursory look through, and especially to come back, we want the place full of interesting little discoveries for folks to find. Its a shame that individual items cant have separate permissions. (thinking about the mess some template swaps became) It would be sooo cool to leave a discount coupon or two lying about (like behind something) where players could find them pick them up, and use them during an exchange purchase.  Maybe a code etched somewhere? as an alternative? Templated into a wall where it could be removed and reused somewhere else on another day? This is the kind of thing that makes people want to come back I think.

Merma wrote:

Chamille wrote:

I think even though there's a lot of big things, the little things will really make the bazaar an impressive place.

I agree this is a very important part of a place like this. If we want people to spend more time than a cursory look through, and especially to come back, we want the place full of interesting little discoveries for folks to find. Its a shame that individual items cant have separate permissions. (thinking about the mess some template swaps became) It would be sooo cool to leave a discount coupon or two lying about (like behind something) where players could find them pick them up, and use them during an exchange purchase.  Maybe a code etched somewhere? as an alternative? Templated into a wall where it could be removed and reused somewhere else on another day? This is the kind of thing that makes people want to come back I think.

i love this!!! its the detail you see that goes into any claim area that makes people stop and stare, it triggers the "impulse buy" mechanic in the mind.

I had an idea of putting said code or coupon thing in an area that has an interactive prop covering it (like those swinging doors) eg making a face cellar and put it on the wall or ceiling, or placing letters of the word of the day/event around and make it a puzzle...or encode it in binary....sorry im just really buzzed about the bazaar it feels close to the 'market wards' concept they poorly tried in FFXIV 1.0, bringing the economy to the people not the machine.

I love the tables you've put in the document setting up ore value. Just sitting here staring at the screen i had a semi formed idea not sure if its what your looking for or if it helps at all but i was thinking we use a formula based off a data log of avg yield per swing/swings required to get 1000(or 100/10 for rare items) units ((using a basic max level pick /axe)) and like most currency conversion sites just do a direct comparison of ratios between all tiers. Or maybe have your conversion rate as calculated on harvest yield per unit of time + convenience surcharge (or maintenance cost if that sounds nicer)

merma wrote:

Another thought I had....Having some more "permanent" vendor stands in the Plaza, as well as some more "pop up" type. Reason being, Not many stands, and the place looks barren. Too many EMPTY stands, and the place looks like a prop, and not a viable place to sell stuff. This way we can allow first come users to fill the permanent structures, and on busy days we can pull up some planters and plop down the more temporary ones. Kinda like flea market style. It could become an incentive to get set up early and get one of the permanent structures too.

Another approach to this is to have multi-tiered levels or extenstions in the main area that are initially 'bricked off' and can be opened up as the need arises (and closed off during slow trade hrs) but this may create space constraints or impact the visual open feel of the market that you want and would greatly depend on the floor plan of your design.

Welcome Allukos! Sorry for not replying earlier, it's great to have you here!

Allukos wrote:

My only downside is i live in the land down under so my hrs are completely skewed but in the wee hrs i do tend to grind ore (old MC habit) when Im tired. i'd love to be able to help out where i can even if its just infrequent supply.

Yes, I definitely want to take into consideration that many people are in different time zones and will probably plan for a couple blocks of time for the exchange to be in service on a given day during the week. Will have more exact details as we approach a deliverable state.

As for gathering it'd be really nice to get more people doing tests to acquire initial trade ratios. What I'm doing right now is focus farming a resource for 30 minutes and recording how many I acquired in order to easily compare them. If you try to gather the resources in the most efficient way possible that should be fine, and you can even reduce the sample time a bit. The numbers I have now are sadly out of date since they changed how resources will be distributed in last week's patch, but I'm almost through gathering data on all the ores again. Next will be gems and core woods.

I don't really have any retail or economic studies background unfortunately so I am not sure about coming up with a more mathematical method. I figured once we have the initial values set up though, we'd apply some sort of growth/decay factor depending on a resources supply and demand so that the resources reflect more the actual usable value rather than the gather time.

Allukos wrote:

Might it be easier to collect the ores on a larger scale on a less populated maps or is that difference negligible?

I haven't noticed any problems with maps being populated to a point that it interferes with farming, but typically I farm near the edges of the map in desert area so that I can see resource veins easily.

Merma wrote:

It would be sooo cool to leave a discount coupon or two lying about (like behind something) where players could find them pick them up, and use them during an exchange purchase.  Maybe a code etched somewhere? as an alternative? Templated into a wall where it could be removed and reused somewhere else on another day? This is the kind of thing that makes people want to come back I think.

We could have the claim message display some sort of word puzzle or riddle and give prizes to the first ones to figure it out too. I think having regular events can also contribute to the lively feel we want. The code etching is actually similar to the scavenger hunt event idea I threw on the Event sections of the forums earlier if you want to check that out.

UPDATE:

I forgot a really important part of the build! We of course want crafting stations to be available to players so there needs to be a crafting terrace of some sort! This also means probably not gonna add the airship port but that was purely fluff anyway.

Chamille wrote:

I don't really have any retail or economic studies background unfortunately so I am not sure about coming up with a more mathematical method. I figured once we have the initial values set up though, we'd apply some sort of growth/decay factor depending on a resources supply and demand so that the resources reflect more the actual usable value rather than the gather time.

Maybe set a minimum supply value for each resource, and then if it falls below then the tax added is
required ore = [desired quantity x Value ratio] x [100 - [actual supply stores] / [minimum supply value] ]

now that might go nuts when it works out to be anything greater then 20% and depending on the number of concurrent trades could get really complicated (might need a series of 'trade accountants' if you want the system to function live) so maybe have that tax value divided by 10 (move the decimal one place to the left)


potentially if we start getting an oversupply do the same with an upper limit value, and then set a max value to stop ridiculous storage costs...speaking of which are we planning on having a large vault? 10k per stack is going to take up space very quickly if this takes off.