I vote NO to turning the trading post into it into the Grand Exchange. All of the problems that came with the grand exchange are not worth the small convenience, in my opinion.
Among my many reasons for this, I believe it's much better for us to see who we're trading with; that they're not an obvious bot.
In fact, I'd like to be able to "stat spy" or similarly see the stats of the accounts selling the goods, to insure we're not feeding the gold farmers. Obviously, we can already look them up on the High Scores, but the convenience of an in-game interface would be much easier.
I like the "Send 'Trade' requests through the post" idea much better. Currently the main inconvenience is meeting up for the trade, which I'm happy to do most of the time, but It's a painful drain on my law runes (selfish excuse; I know).
If we could make this work across worlds too, that'd be great, but even without that, it's a valuable improvement.
I don't want automatic trading for some of the same reasons I don't want a full GE. It makes it too easy for gold farmers to sell their botted goods. Furthermore, the trading post should be an aid for trade between players, not a bot that completes transactions for you.
I'm also all for a 'Buy' offers option. This allows buyers to have a more balanced amount of control in item prices, and also helps sellers get a better idea for how they should price their items, especially for the rarer, less traded items.
Obviously, when you put up a buy offer, you should have to put up the money for it, just as you put up other items for a sell offer. The trading post would hold that stack of gold, just as any other item, until you use it to complete a transaction. You can obviously get the gold back at any time by removing the offer, just as any other item.
Continued...
16-Dec-2014 04:21:28