Cross-sever influence transfer?
By
13th_Stranger,
Posted on: 2007-03-08 09:32 in The Market and Inventions
[ QUOTE ]
Player A1 puts up a Level 12 TO for 5,000,000 inf.
Player B1 puts up the same Level 12 TO for 1,000 inf.
Player A2 (trying to transfer funds) offers to buy that level 12 TO for 5,000,000 inf.
Since player B1 wants less, and is obviously trying to move his items faster, his "for sale" is processed first, so he ends up with 5,000,000 inf (minus fees).
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I like this. This means you get what the buyer thinks something is worth rather than what you think it's worth. So if I put it into the AH for 5000, I'll get any offer 5000+. IMHO, ingenious. I'll always get my personal minimum without having people buying my stuff only to "play the AH".
I know that I always had issues with AHs in other games because the items I needed would be outrageously priced. And I'm not talking that they were outrageously priced because that was the worth of the item. I mean that they were outrageously priced because players didn't want to sell within reason.
For example: A while back in WOW there was a "supply event" where you could turn in stacks of hides for items and cash. Well, that sucked for crafters because the price of hides suddenly increased out of proportion. I know that's just "supply and demand" but it caused a standstill in the AH after a week because noone was selling hides for less than a gold piece. It would be like a DO suddenly selling for the price of a HO.
In COH's new system, I like how you can't see what other people are selling for. That means there's not going to be outrageous prices for salvage because people aren't going to know the market value of a particular item is....just what NPC vendors will sell for and what you want for profit over that.
I do have a question though, and forgive me if it's been asked:
But how will you recieve an item from the AH? Will there be a mailing system or will it automatically pop into your tray when you buy it? And if it just pops into your tray, what happens if your tray if full and you didn't notice?
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I've written up a ParagonWiki page on the subject of Influence transfers. How they can potentially be intercepted, and proposed strategies for avoiding interception. All totally speculative at this point, but it gives a starting point, and tries to be a summary of the hazards, pitfalls, and possible solutions for making this work. Any comments/updates either here or on the wiki are welcome.
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Good answer, but at the same time, doesn't that cast a shadow of guilt on anybody going into the consignment house? The official purpose of the place isn't to launder/transfer money.
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I hope you're not replying to me, because I can't understand how that applies to anything I'm talking about. Griefing, though, is defined as an intentional activity, if the interception isn't intentional, then it's not griefing.
More generally, it doesn't matter WHAT you do to grief, if the intention is to grief. If someone finds a way to grief by healing people, then it's griefing, but that doesn't mean healing is griefing. If someone finds a way to grief by chatting on a channel, then it's griefing, but that doesn't mean chatting is griefing. It is the intent to cause harm that is griefing, not the actual action involved.
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Yes, there are going to be those of us attempting to use it like Western Union or an offshore bank. But to call an interception griefing seems a bit... harsh to me.
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It's all intent-based. There are posters, way back in the early stages of this thread (and others), who have indicated that they will go out of their way to attempt to disrupt such transfers. If the intent is to disrupt another player's experience and harm their enjoyment (assuming that they are deriving "enjoyment" from a non-exploit portion of the game that does not in any way harm anyone else), that is where some folks could perceive it to be griefing.
Random interruption of a poorly planned transfer during a busy time of day? Not griefing. Part of the system.
As to the rest, it's too early to call any of it griefing (even though I've used the word myself, I'm willing to admit when I'm wrong). We don't know the rules and we don't know what will be possible and/or allowed. We haven't seen the system in place, and the information we're working from is incomplete.
~Wyrm
My postings to this forum are not to be used as data in any research study without my express written consent.
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Player A1 puts up a Level 12 TO for 5,000,000 inf.
Player B1 puts up the same Level 12 TO for 1,000 inf.
Player A2 (trying to transfer funds) offers to buy that level 12 TO for 5,000,000 inf.
Since player B1 wants less, and is obviously trying to move his items faster, his "for sale" is processed first, so he ends up with 5,000,000 inf (minus fees).
[/ QUOTE ]
I like this. This means you get what the buyer thinks something is worth rather than what you think it's worth. So if I put it into the AH for 5000, I'll get any offer 5000+. IMHO, ingenious. I'll always get my personal minimum without having people buying my stuff only to "play the AH".
I know that I always had issues with AHs in other games because the items I needed would be outrageously priced. And I'm not talking that they were outrageously priced because that was the worth of the item. I mean that they were outrageously priced because players didn't want to sell within reason.
For example: A while back in WOW there was a "supply event" where you could turn in stacks of hides for items and cash. Well, that sucked for crafters because the price of hides suddenly increased out of proportion. I know that's just "supply and demand" but it caused a standstill in the AH after a week because noone was selling hides for less than a gold piece. It would be like a DO suddenly selling for the price of a HO.
In COH's new system, I like how you can't see what other people are selling for. That means there's not going to be outrageous prices for salvage because people aren't going to know the market value of a particular item is....just what NPC vendors will sell for and what you want for profit over that.
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Pretty much my thoughts on the subject. The problem here is that some people are upset because it makes it harder for them to transfer influence to their alts, despite the fact that this is NOT what the auction house was designed for.
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It would be like a DO suddenly selling for the price of a HO.
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One thing to remember is that there already is a certain upper limit of price already established by the presense of the stores. If you can't buy an SO for a reasonable price on the AH, you can always go to a regular store. And that will always ensure that the prices of standard Enhancements will be relatively steady. So TOs, DOs, and SOs will not suddenly be selling for the price of HOs. (as there is no rational reason to pay that much for one outside of influence transfers)
This doesn't apply to IOs and HOs, though. It's possible that IOs and HOs (and the Recipes and Salvage to make IOs) will be the only thing traded in the AH, and "normal" Enhancements won't be traded because the players that use the economy features consider them unsellable, or outside the realm of the "economy". I'm not ready to say that's certain, though. (I feel casual players will probably support a DO/SO traffic, as well, saving money over the stores)
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I'm on ParagonWiki!
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While we will not really know until we get to start trying things on Test, you gave a step-by-step way to possibly avoid interception. It was seeing the proposals from you and Zombie Man that prompted me to write up that page. I wanted to preserve your ideas so that, when we get access to the system on Test, they can be tried out. If Interception is as possible as it looks to be, it would be nice to have ways to avoid the problems. If your two plans are just left in the middle of this huge thread, who knows whether they will be easily findable once Test goes public? Preserving them keeps them ready for testing and trial once the time comes.
And, in a way, both you and Zombie Man have the same idea at the core. Your plans are not so much about preventing Intercepts as they are about detecting them in time. If you can detect a Interception in progress, you have the ability to, at worst, walk away from the situation and try again another time.
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Sister Leortha - Lvl 50 Emp/Rad Def
Puffball - Lvl 50 Inv/SS Tank
Triumph Server
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It would be like a DO suddenly selling for the price of a HO.
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One thing to remember is that there already is a certain upper limit of price already established by the presense of the stores. If you can't buy an SO for a reasonable price on the AH, you can always go to a regular store. And that will always ensure that the prices of standard Enhancements will be relatively steady. So TOs, DOs, and SOs will not suddenly be selling for the price of HOs. (as there is no rational reason to pay that much for one outside of influence transfers)
This doesn't apply to IOs and HOs, though. It's possible that IOs and HOs (and the Recipes and Salvage to make IOs) will be the only thing traded in the AH, and "normal" Enhancements won't be traded because the players that use the economy features consider them unsellable, or outside the realm of the "economy". I'm not ready to say that's certain, though. (I feel casual players will probably support a DO/SO traffic, as well, saving money over the stores)
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I think they'll be traded for the simple fact that you can't get a level 5 SO in a store, but I've gotten one on a character before. So normal SOs and DOs SHOULD be allowed in the AH, but that doesn't mean there will be a market for the normal ones.
Edit: Oh wait, the dev already used a player trading TOs as an example....so I'm now assuming it will be allowed.
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Yes, there are going to be those of us attempting to use it like Western Union or an offshore bank. But to call an interception griefing seems a bit... harsh to me. Almost a "guilty" verdict for what will probably be a normal part of consignment shop life - buying and selling of "junk" items by people who are trying to get better than vendor prices, but aren't trying to transfer funds or intercept them.
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Personally I think most interceptions will be purely accidental. If someone wanted to grief a transfer of mine, how the heck is he going to know what item I'm using to do it with? Given the sheer number of things you can sell, there's no way anyone would know what item to buy or sell to grief you.
Plus, we haven't seen how the search feature works yet. For example, if I wanted to buy some level 27 magic damage SO's, will it just show those or will it show everything within 1-2 levels (25-29)? If you can only see the level you're searching for, it can be pretty hard to find a specific item to intercept. With 26 different types of TO's and 53 levels for each one, that's 1378 different possibilities. DO's and SO's have up to 6890* possibilities each and I don't even want to try and calculate how many different recipes there are.
Unless the person knows exactly what item you're using for the transfer, I don't think there's any practical way to intentionally grief someone.
* that assumes a level range from 1-53. I don't know how someone could get a level 1 SO or DO, but I wouldn't rule out some weird buggy drop.
It was more based off the answers given, not to just one poster.
I'm just afraid of pointing fingers, yelling, screaming, paranoia, etc., running rampant at WW, and generally souring the mood/experience.
"OMG, somebody intercepted me! I'VE OBVIOUSLY BEEN GRIEF'D!"
There is no way to interpret intent in this case unless someone goes around bragging about it.
If it keeps the mood/atmosphere more pleasant for the community as a whole, then I hope they do put in inf transfers just so we can skip this whole laundering/interception back door nonsense... which I'm sure has already been suggested (on break - can't read the entire thread as I'd like).
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Random interruption of a poorly planned transfer during a busy time of day? Not griefing. Part of the system.
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Prediction: There will be dozens of lowball sales of each level and type of TO and DO (yes, i know that's thousands) within the first three days of I9 going live. That means there will be hundreds of thousands of nearly worthless items, all waiting proactively to intercept an attempted Influence Transfer instead of reactively as everyone else has assumed.
While this may be acceptable as a deterrent it will be totally unacceptable from a performance standpoint. Managing this type of enormous (and i believe at least partially unexpected) database is, in all likelihood, going to be much more load on whatever server it resides upon than the devs are expecting. If it is to be available across all game servers, i believe that we can expect the insuing lag within the first week to be astronomical.
Please, devs, reconsider this method of consignment. You are about to open the equivalent of Pandora's Box. This attempt to prevent us from spending our own money could (and likely will, from what I've seen in the past) be extremely detrimental to the game.
As a contingency, or to validate my claims, please at least test this by specifically reproducing this "worst-case scenario" on the test server under a heavy load. Then multiply that load by the factor of it being accessed by all live servers simultaneously.
My Guide to Illusion/Kinetics Control.
CoH_Player_101: It's okay. Your choice in avatars makes up for a world of indiscretion.
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* that assumes a level range from 1-53. I don't know how someone could get a level 1 SO or DO, but I wouldn't rule out some weird buggy drop.
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In theory, SK a level 1 character up to assist in defeating an AV that is -4 levels to the mentor. Sking up to fight a AV even to the mentor will get you a +4 (or lvl 5) SO. Have that AV be -4 to the mentor should place the SO drop down four levels as well, or place it at level 1. Possible in theory, but never tried to do it myself. (What would be the point, normally. )
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Sister Leortha - Lvl 50 Emp/Rad Def
Puffball - Lvl 50 Inv/SS Tank
Triumph Server
[ QUOTE ]
Player A1 puts up a Level 12 TO for 5,000,000 inf.
Player B1 puts up the same Level 12 TO for 1,000 inf.
Player A2 (trying to transfer funds) offers to buy that level 12 TO for 5,000,000 inf.
Since player B1 wants less, and is obviously trying to move his items faster, his "for sale" is processed first, so he ends up with 5,000,000 inf (minus fees).
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Can we assume that it works the other way for LTB listings (looking to buy).
Example:
Player A1 puts a LTB for tech wings at 5 mil
Player B1 had a LTB for tech wings at 10 mil
Player A2 offers tech wings for 5 mil (to transfer to his other character A1)
Player B1 gets the wings since he had the higher offer
And notice, B1 wasn't trying to intercept the wings. His offer could be nearly 7 days old. He just really wanted to buy them for himself.
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Player A1 puts up a Level 12 TO for 5,000,000 inf.
Player B1 puts up the same Level 12 TO for 1,000 inf.
Player A2 (trying to transfer funds) offers to buy that level 12 TO for 5,000,000 inf.
Since player B1 wants less, and is obviously trying to move his items faster, his "for sale" is processed first, so he ends up with 5,000,000 inf (minus fees).
[/ QUOTE ]
Can we assume that it works the other way for LTB listings (looking to buy).
Example:
Player A1 puts a LTB for tech wings at 5 mil
Player B1 had a LTB for tech wings at 10 mil
Player A2 offers tech wings for 5 mil (to transfer to his other character A1)
Player B1 gets the wings since he had the higher offer
And notice, B1 wasn't trying to intercept the wings. His offer could be nearly 7 days old. He just really wanted to buy them for himself.
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IMHO, the concert of Intercept really only applies to transactions intended to transfer Inf. Transactions to try to transfer actual items are much trickier, and much riskier for exactly the scenerio you describe. What you describe is very hard to avoid, and is not, IMHO, an Interception. It's a built in part of the system. Assuming that highest Buy-order gets it, which would be the logical counter to what Positron wrote about the sell-orders, then this would indeed be the logical way to get the seller the biggest profit for his item. That it makes it difficult to transfer items within one account is a side effect, IMHO.
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Ms. Tempest - Lvl 50 Storm/Elec Def (577 badges)
Maiden Dark - Lvl 50 Dark/Dark Corr
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Sister Leortha - Lvl 50 Emp/Rad Def
Puffball - Lvl 50 Inv/SS Tank
Triumph Server
Gentle reminder: Using WentPrime to transfer goods or inf is (most likely) technically a 'misuse' of the system. Don't expect it to be protected by the Devs.
IF they decide at some point to put in a 'sanctioned twinking' system, that's different.
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Don't expect it to be protected by the Devs.
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I don't expect them to protect it from grief, but protecting it from spam (and lag) is, I think, a reasonable expectation.
Show us the prices on listed sales, and this won't be a problem. If not, Wentworth's will be the fanciest looking used car lot in town...and the laggiest.
My Guide to Illusion/Kinetics Control.
CoH_Player_101: It's okay. Your choice in avatars makes up for a world of indiscretion.
I say post your items for the same price you'd get from the stores and see what happens. You can't lose, unless they just don't sell at all, and you might win big.
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So basically all I have to do is put up every TO I get at the AH for 1 inf and hope someone uses the same one for a character trade and I get instant millions?
Anyone else see a problem here or am I misunderstanding this?
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Nope, youve got it nailed XD
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Nobody will pay that much for low lvl items because they know there will be no guarantee of the funds going where they want.
I have an idea. It starts with 's' and ends with 'litting their throats.'"
-Belkar Bitterleaf, Order of the Stick
Order of the Stick
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Nobody will pay that much for low lvl items because they know there will be no guarantee of the funds going where they want.
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That may be true...but people are going to try like mad. Which is going to generate tons of spammed orders. This thread shows that pretty clearly.
My Guide to Illusion/Kinetics Control.
CoH_Player_101: It's okay. Your choice in avatars makes up for a world of indiscretion.
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So basically all I have to do is put up every TO I get at the AH for 1 inf and hope someone uses the same one for a character trade and I get instant millions?
Anyone else see a problem here or am I misunderstanding this?
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Nope, youve got it nailed XD
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Nobody will pay that much for low lvl items because they know there will be no guarantee of the funds going where they want.
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That's true of the people that come to the boards and are aware of how this works. Most of the playerbase doesn't come here, and those are the ones that will be victimized.
(QR)
Since I know this is the era of giving players what they want and I know that there's a lot more competition for the MMO dollar these days, I can see a system of influence transfer may come into being.
Still, I kind of miss the old attitude that frowned on "twinking". I'm not saying that I've never done an influence transfer...but when I have it's been because I'm deleting a character. I just try to make my characters stand on their own....save for what someone else might choose to give them for winning a CC, helping out, etc.
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Since I know this is the era of giving players what they want and I know that there's a lot more competition for the MMO dollar these days, I can see a system of influence transfer may come into being.
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My argument doesn't really have anything to do with encouraging "twinking". In fact, I'd be all for preventing most of it by prohibiting trades between toons on the same account (just filter those sale orders and buy orders out of the list). My main concern is that this method of consignment is all of the following:
a) the least fair to the playerbase because they have no real way to determine commodity value
b) prone to generating tons of spammed lowbie enhancement and salvage sell orders
c) conducive to huge (and i believe unanticipated) amounts of lag as a direct result of b).
Twinking, for me, isn't really the issue, though it certainly is the motivation behind the Wentworth's and Black Market casino...erm...consignment house.
My Guide to Illusion/Kinetics Control.
CoH_Player_101: It's okay. Your choice in avatars makes up for a world of indiscretion.
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So basically all I have to do is put up every TO I get at the AH for 1 inf and hope someone uses the same one for a character trade and I get instant millions?
Anyone else see a problem here or am I misunderstanding this?
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Nope, youve got it nailed XD
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Nobody will pay that much for low lvl items because they know there will be no guarantee of the funds going where they want.
[/ QUOTE ]
That's true of the people that come to the boards and are aware of how this works. Most of the playerbase doesn't come here, and those are the ones that will be victimized.
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But even a smart player that doesn't read the forums would probably figure out he needs to lo-ball the initial price to try weed out other peoples stuff. Personally, I don't recall reading anywhere whether it tells you how many of something are for sale, or if that at least one copy is available.
I really don't think it will be that hard to transfer inf to lower level characters. Transfering during "off" hours, picking off level enhancements (not purchasable from stores), and making sure nobody else is selling the item already should make it fairly safe to do.
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[ QUOTE ]
Player A1 puts up a Level 12 TO for 5,000,000 inf.
Player B1 puts up the same Level 12 TO for 1,000 inf.
Player A2 (trying to transfer funds) offers to buy that level 12 TO for 5,000,000 inf.
Since player B1 wants less, and is obviously trying to move his items faster, his "for sale" is processed first, so he ends up with 5,000,000 inf (minus fees).
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since my original post violated forum rules, and was removed, I will post again, in a nicer way.
You sir, are a fool.
This was one of the dumbest ideas Cryptic or NCSoft has ever come up with.
I hope it backfires upon you and I also hope you sleep well at night knowing you screwed the playerbase.
0.02c
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I don't know if it's the worst idea, but I definitely don't like the way it works.
And it sucks from both ends. Not only is the person trying to transfer large sums of money to a specific person getting screwed, but what about people who need to save their money? Do they have to spend all day increasing their bids by small increments until they reach the magic number?
Good answer, but at the same time, doesn't that cast a shadow of guilt on anybody going into the consignment house? The official purpose of the place isn't to launder/transfer money.
Player attempting to transfer: "Get out of here you stupid jerk!"
Player who just wants to sell stuff: "What?"
Another player attempting to transfer: "He's trying to intercept my transfer... what jerkwad."
Player who's new and "doesn't know any better": "Wow! Somebody bought my level 12 TO for 3 million! This game rocks!"
Actual player attempting to intercept: "Crap... too many people all at the same level..."
Yes, there are going to be those of us attempting to use it like Western Union or an offshore bank. But to call an interception griefing seems a bit... harsh to me. Almost a "guilty" verdict for what will probably be a normal part of consignment shop life - buying and selling of "junk" items by people who are trying to get better than vendor prices, but aren't trying to transfer funds or intercept them.