I think people are leaning towards the GE because the first solution, the trading post, didn't work for everyone.
I'm all for the compromise. I'm part of the minority that doesn't want GE for a simple reason: it causes the idea of "negotiating" and "bartering" to become obsolete, which occur through manual trading. The mentality of having to manually trade with someone eventually dies because the GE becomes a giant coin exchange. You put in item, get money out. You put in money, you get item out. Not everyone will trade with just money. I'm part of the people that will accept items if they equal around what I originally wanted in the first place. On top of that, with everyone competing against each other for an item in the GE, it's hard to buy for a "negotiated price" since you don't even know who the seller is.
When GE originally came out in 2007, I thought it included the option to barter/negotiate. It did not.
However, the trading post is closer to what I originally envisioned. With a few adjustments, it can become a good compromise between the "lazy people" and "people who want player interaction," or in my case, the ability to barter/negotiate. Go for the compromise, and I think we can all make this work the way people want it to.
For me specifically, no offline trading. I think you should be able to trade through the trading post, though, without having to be physically adjacent to each other. You can be near a trading post to complete the transaction. Being in different worlds but allowing this to happen also works for me. Just no "central GE hub" and a "giant coin exchange."
14-Dec-2014 06:30:11
