The Free Market needs a change.

You're in f'ucking scania i fail to see how this issue isn't grossly worse in your server.

I lol'ed. That was funny.

I'll add this: Remove NX only shop permits altogether. Everyone should be able to sell without spamming up FM. -_-

Half of the spam in ch 1 FME are bots advertising for some meso selling website. Giving everyone free permits wouldn't stop that.

I don't think "merchants" have a right to rip off players. They don't have a right to monopolize certain items, or take over FM rooms by DC hacking anyone who intrudes. If they can't make money with an Auction House, then they were doin' it wrong in the first place.

So you suggest that the "merchants" are ripping people off because they are dc hacking people to take the best FM spots, and since noob A won't search as far as FM 15, the first thing he'll buy is from FM 1; which, the dc hacking "merchant" overpriced because his spot is so good.

That's not really ripping off.

If you want smaller FM, visit Yellonde!

we have only 6-7 rooms full and only in ch1

So you suggest that the "merchants" are ripping people off because they are dc hacking people to take the best FM spots, and since noob A won't search as far as FM 15, the first thing he'll buy is from FM 1; which, the dc hacking "merchant" overpriced because his spot is so good.

That's not really ripping off.

No, ripping off is the guy in the FM Entrance spamming "B> GFA 60% 5mil" when the market value is closer to 13mil... and free owls solves that problem.

You should not have to search through 15 FM rooms to price check every item you buy or sell. That's a sign of a horribly designed market, and it discourages honest business.

Free search, and revisions, would be awesome. Less economical issues if everyone can see the 'average' price of things sold. Let's face it, many of us has asked this one question at least once, or in most cases, many times. "Price Check on ____!", or "How much is ____ worth?", with a revamped system, we eliminate that and decide the general price by looking and comparing.

Aaaand, merchanting won't really take any hits. If the definition of merchanting is buying low and selling high, wouldn't that be easier to do? Of course, everyone has their own definition. But the general idea is the same. They want to make money. Selling items = making money. New ways to sell = more chances at making money. It's all about money. I don't think there's anything else to merchanting.

And, to search all free markets, sometimes it takes me a good hour. Even more if I'm running back and forth to get mesos from storage and buy stuff. Plus, what if you forget a shop's location? Not everyone will jot down market numbers and stores.
That also ends up adding time. To save an hour or two, each time I want to get certain items, or even find a spot and sell things, it'd be the ultimate addition to MS. Let's not forget, accidentally clicking and buying items. I once misclicked and bought the wrong item. It wasn't much, but it was very irritating.

Of course, with 'new system', it'd be more than just a FM revamp. People often auction stuff, but that also occasionally leads to a number of smegas. It can also be a pain in the ass. Not to mention, people will have new ways of dealing with billions of mesos. People buy items for more than 'max mesos'. The current trading/store choice no longer works well due to that. And, tax is meaningless. They could at least make use of that and have a stock market or a lottery to win a portion of a world's tax. Or, if enough tax is collected, it leads to, let's say, a tax refund. Potion discounts, prices of potions are off cut 30%! 50%! NPC resell values of items increased by 10x! Yeah..our tax goes towards an NPC's vacation? Nexon, what kind of message are you trying to promote here? The NPC stopped doing stuff once BB hit, so why does he deserve our money~? /rage

As for the smega-spot bit. There is no 'good' spot. People just don't want to waste a lot of time searching the free market. And not everyone has NX to blow on smegas, just to advertise their shop. The price to pay to find what you want, in the more populated worlds, is a lot of time. New system, new searching, new speed, etc.

The only real negative of a new system is, Nexon makes a bit less cash. I mean, some people do charge just to get a store permit, but that's about it.
And even then, they could make something that could cost, I don't know, 100 nx to get a ticket, to do world trading/selling. More to it, of course, but eh.

Plus, this wouldn't kill off the FM's existence, either. It'd still be a decent place to try to sell items, and to meet up with people, and trade, and such. Otherwise, they could turn it into a park with random stuff. But, these things will probably never happen. And if it does, there'd be a catch or something screwy with it. Or it'd be lacking. Either way, only time will tell.

And, tax is meaningless. They could at least make use of that and have a stock market or a lottery to win a portion of a world's tax. Or, if enough tax is collected, it leads to, let's say, a tax refund. Potion discounts, prices of potions are off cut 30%! 50%! NPC resell values of items increased by 10x! Yeah..our tax goes towards an NPC's vacation? Nexon, what kind of message are you trying to promote here? The NPC stopped doing stuff once BB hit, so why does he deserve our money~? /rage

What impression are you under?

 Spoiler

Once again, like how I told the stories of how labtops came about, I will tell you a legend of origin/conspiracy theory:

Nexon indeed works with these meso selling websites and takes a portion of it (and if not, then they make and run those meso selling websites).

But where oh where do those meso selling websites get money? Vac hacking Curse Eyes for 100 mesos a vac? Physically merchanting?

No no no. Those meso selling websites get the money Nexon gets from taxes on YOUR trades. Even more profit besides nx. And it fits well.

/funhouse

Exactly how would that be when I explicitly specified behaving the exact same way at the exact same costs as the existing NX merchanting based system?
Are thousands of people going to suddenly buy NX just to cram garbage into the new FM? That seems improbable at best and even if they did the whole point of it being in that format would be to quickly wade through the stuff you're not interested in.

I was under the impression you meant it would be a NX-less FM, like the current MTS where it just costs mesos to sell things in it

No, ripping off is the guy in the FM Entrance spamming "B> GFA 60% 5mil" when the market value is closer to 13mil... and free owls solves that problem.

You should not have to search through 15 FM rooms to price check every item you buy or sell. That's a sign of a horribly designed market, and it discourages honest business.

This.
I admittedly skipped the last two pages of this thread, but you said basically the first thing on the first page.

Owls are a needless hassle that have just carried on.
I don't honestly see the logic in Nexon keeping them around while experience cards (temporarily) got the boot.

A non-searchable Free Market needlessly unbalances the market, especially for new-comers.
To compare, the MMO I played most before being introduced to Maple was Neopets.
For those unfamiliar, there they have a trifecta in the form of a shop system, an auction system, and a 'trading post'.
In all three systems, you can search.

This meant that the market adjusts pretty quickly and you're easily able to tell the 'true value' of your items.
Honestly, it was hard enough for me before, but, with Potential, I have no idea what a decent price for most items is.

Let's look at Owls as an item as well.
First of all, they cost 700nx, which is over half of a cube and over a third of a 90-day simple shop permit.
Using a 1:15 estimation of value, that also means you're basically spending 10.5m mesos per search.
How viable is this when you just want to search for something like Pieces of Time?

I'm all for adding a search function and treating it as a meso sink.
I'd be perfectly willing to pay even 200k per search. Even 1mil would be saving me over a tenth of what it theoretically costs now.

The whole "the FM is a physical place" is the most out-of-date part though.
I don't know how WoW's market works, but there's no excuse for players to go around physically clicking on each shop just to browse their wares.
Consider my vote for the "repurpose the MTS interface" idea.

Of course, with 'new system', it'd be more than just a FM revamp. People often auction stuff, but that also occasionally leads to a number of smegas. It can also be a pain in the ass. Not to mention, people will have new ways of dealing with billions of mesos. People buy items for more than 'max mesos'. The current trading/store choice no longer works well due to that. And, tax is meaningless. They could at least make use of that and have a stock market or a lottery to win a portion of a world's tax. Or, if enough tax is collected, it leads to, let's say, a tax refund. Potion discounts, prices of potions are off cut 30%! 50%! NPC resell values of items increased by 10x! Yeah..our tax goes towards an NPC's vacation? Nexon, what kind of message are you trying to promote here? The NPC stopped doing stuff once BB hit, so why does he deserve our money~? /rage

Dude, tax is not meaningless. Every video game economy needs money sources and money sinks. Killing monsters and selling their drops to vendors, and trading the mesos to other players adds money to the economy. With everyone adding money to the economy all the time, you have to start trading larger and larger sums of cash to buy things you actually want. Left unchecked, this leads to a situation where money becomes valueless and everything becomes a barter system. If you've ever played Diablo 2, you should know that no one cares about gold and you need billions of the stuff just to buy gems. Item prices are all based on runes instead of gold. This is just a really annoying system that defeats the purpose of money in the first place, and makes it difficult to get any actual item value. So, that money has to be removed from the game somehow. Potions used to do it, but training costs have become so cheap over time that potions hardly make a dent on how much money is being generated. Mounts hardly account for anything, no one buys equips from vendors, and Maker is seldom used these days and doesn't cost that much in the first place. A tax on trade is actually a great system because it takes most of the money that needs to be removed from the economy any way from the richest players.

Think about the current state of the Maple economy. Is the money you pick up off mobs even worth anything? We need more stuff that takes money out of the economy, not discounts.

Insight

Yes indeed, if anything they need to think up some new effective meso sinks. Don't people get why some mounts cost 50m and the purpose of the heavy prices of the guild skills?

I highly doubt that Nexon will abandon its current system. It generates way too much money with its shop permits, mushies, and owls. Both legits and hackers alike need to purchase these items to make any form of income. When people say that MapleStory is a free to play game, it's only half true. Players need to pay at the start to get themselves going if they want any form of reliable income at all. Only later, it's up to them whether they continue charging their parents' credit cards or use MTS (which also requires people to purchase NX).

Seeing as how Nexon won't change to an MTS or Auction House GUI for Free Market, the things they need to do are:

1) Shop Grids. No more taking up multiple spaces for shops.
2) Automatically have NPC's at each grid spot when a shop is opened. There's no need to sit in FM all day just because you need to sell something.
3) A shop opening fee of maybe 5m. Meso sinks are nice. Only one shop may be opened per character.
4) All players have an initial 8 slots to sell items. To sell more items, they need to purchase NX, that way, Nexon will still generate money.

8 Slots - Free. Tax is equal to that of regular trading.
16 Slots - 5k NX for 7 days. Tax is equal to that of current shops.
24 Slots - 8k NX for 7 days. Tax is equal to that of current shops.
32 Slots - 11k NX for 7 days. Tax is equal to that of current shops.

5) All shops will have a 24 hour countdown before closing. This is already implemented.
6) Searching items in FM can be done at the FM entrance. 1m per search and scans only the current channel you're in and lists the prices of all the items. Once again, meso sinks are nice.
7) Upon searching the items, if results are found, an addition 1m to teleport to the said shop would needed to be paid. Once again, meso sinks are nice.

---------

That said, this will eliminate several problems:

1) No more D/C hacking human shops for hackers to claim spots.
2) With everything automatically NPC driven, no more Mushie locking is done.
3) With an NX-less item searching service, no more need to fight over spots in lower and more popular FM's.
4) With an NX-less item searching service, "super merchants" will no longer place items like Dex Crystals at 6m apiece.
5) Heavy meso sinks reduce the amount of hackers deliberately deflating the price of their goods.

---------

Sadly, none of this will happen though.

3) A shop opening fee of maybe 5m. Meso sinks are nice. Only one shop may be opened per character.
6) Searching items in FM can be done at the FM entrance. 1m per search and scans only the current channel you're in and lists the prices of all the items. Once again, meso sinks are nice.

I think you're losing sight of an important part of the market - the people who are not billionaires. 5 million mesos is just as inaccessible to me as 1.8k NX - I wouldn't pay either to open a shop, because the stuff I sell is fairly likely not to earn that back.

People who are level 30-40, and only have 400-500k at a time, should be able to use the FM to buy items they need as well. So it needs to somehow separate different tiers of searches into different price brackets. You could do this based on bulk - eg. first 3 searches of the day are free, next 3 are 100k, next 3 are 200k, and keep doubling - which has the flaw that people with lots of mules can just keep searching from new characters - or, more sensible, you could raise tax on purchases (at the buyer's end). So if you use the search, you pay an extra 2% or whatever on anything you buy through it. Then if you spend 300mil, that's 6mil out of the economy. If you only spend 300k, then you're only killing 6000 mesos - and poor people can afford to use the same market as rich people.

Anyway, the cheaper you make searches, the more people will use - just a fact of economics. I don't know what price will remove the maximum amount from the economy - but neither does Nexon, cause they never change the prices.

Actually, I didn't lose sight of that in the least bit. While I do understand that not all players have access to 5m readily to open up their shops (and keep in mind, this is a hypothetical amount for a meso fee as it can be 3m or 10m eitherway), this will also reduce the amount of people using mule characters to hog up spots in the FM just to be able to sell more goods and also reduce the idea of people deliberately selling extra low just to sell an item off. The NX costs are for those who wish to earn a little bit more with their shops through using extra slots all while providing Nexon the income they seek from shop permits, mushies, and more.

So you got rid of permits and now everything is the same as a mushie. AKA my characters sets up a shop and can LEAVE.

Talk about drastic change.

So you got rid of permits and now everything is the same as a mushie. AKA my characters sets up a shop and can LEAVE.

Talk about drastic change.

They 16+ slot items were hypothetically priced to match the mushies, no surprise there.

So you got rid of permits and now everything is the same as a mushie. AKA my characters sets up a shop and can LEAVE.

Talk about drastic change.

Our combined ideas did eliminate dc hacking, room hoging and the infernal time sink it is to manualy visit all bloody rooms in the failkid infested realm known as FM. But of course the best ways of using the new system should cost NX or mesos. Nexon needs our business and we need the meso sink to drain away much more than current systems does.

EDIT: I realise now that you might have been refering to ShanghaiDizzy, but since you did not quote...

You guys are thinking of solutions to patch holes within holes. If packet editing is eliminated, some of the measures would not be necessary.

An auction house will be nice; it's hard to sell big-ticketed items sometimes. Two portals within each fm that link to adjacent rooms or a dimensional mirror for easier browsing. Enlarging each FM room allowing up to 40+ shops to be set up will be better. I disagree with the search function; if anything, I don't think owls should exist. Instead, you should be able to register your mushroom shops to an npc outside free or for a fee so people can browse through the list of locations. You can track's permit shops but you can't with hired merchants.

Pretty decent ideas. Here's another one I think would help a lot of people lagging badly in the FM entrance like myself:

Limit the number of characters in the FM entrance of a certain channel (say "25 characters can be in this map on this channel at the most"). That way, rooms with shops in them would almost certainly become more spread out through channels instead of the usual rooms in channels 1, 2, and 3 only. This may also hinder ad-bots from filling up ch1 fm entrance, resulting in a)less players would be able to see their dumb-ass ads and b)less lag.

You guys are thinking of solutions to patch holes within holes. If packet editing is eliminated, some of the measures would not be necessary.

This is exactly what I was thinking. These suggestions are because people are sick of D/C spams, map crashes, botting, monopolies. Why can't Nexon just fix those to begin with instead of making new stuff to avoid them?

This is exactly what I was thinking. These suggestions are because people are sick of D/C spams, map crashes, botting, monopolies. Why can't Nexon just fix those to begin with instead of making new stuff to avoid them?

To clarify, I guess, the OP's suggestions outline a more organized FM.

Haven't really been following along with the rest of it to see what is meant to avoid the hackers. What's more is that we shouldn't even be needing to avoid hackers to begin with; they're in the wrong and should be the ones hiding.

This is exactly what I was thinking. These suggestions are because people are sick of D/C spams, map crashes, botting, monopolies. Why can't Nexon just fix those to begin with instead of making new stuff to avoid them?

It's easier to fix the reason DC hacks are used than to fix DC hacks themselves.

Add more zak channels, change the way the FM works.