Now granted, it's not as bad as buying/selling things in Maplestory where there's a massive pay wall to easily search something or to even setup a shop. It's also not ideal when you look at a couple more recent/older MMO's. My examples I'm going to provide is based on the MMO's I've invest significant time to.
So let's start with what is wrong with Mabinogi's current market system.
- Shops are typically spread out between 2 main market areas (Belvast, Dunbaraton)
- There are other smaller available market areas that are not popular because nobody goes there but somebody may setup shop there
- Buying/Selling is split into 3 different methods (Personal Shops, Kiosks, Housing)
- Shops can be found on all 7 channels in theory (not always true)
- Requires pets to search shop (There are some free pets which makes this not too big of a deal)
- Housing/Shops have a price ceiling in terms of how much you can price items for and how much gold you can hold
- There's a limit on the amount of gold you can have.
- You cannot search by enchant name for enchant scrolls
- Too many enchants are personalized making it even harder to find/sell them
In order to find a particular item you would have to search housing, search the 2 main market areas, and then check other channels. Then do the same for kiosks in Dunbaraton (maybe other areas?)
Basically it's a pain in the ass to find anything in a quick and efficient manner. Not to mention the entire gold limit makes things even harder as rare stuff cannot be sold reliably at all especially if it's over the 20mil limit making us resort to party signs/bugels in the hopes that somebody spots it which isn't ideal for either the buyer or the seller.
Finding enchants is even harder as you cannot search for enchant scrolls as their name does not appear in the enchant scroll item name.
Now that I've outlined the problems with Mabinogi's market system, let's review a couple other market systems and what I like about them starting with Runescape and them moving on to Guild Wars 2
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Runescape has a very simple and easy to understand market system known as the 'Grand Exchange' The grand exchange allows you to sell 7 items at a time (8 for members) and is available for both free players and for players who spend $8-$9 a month for a membership.
You can easily and quickly search for items that you wish to buy and it will give you a recommended price to buy at based on the average price that players have been selling/buying that item at. Prices will automatically adjust over time based on how the market moves. When you buy something, it matches you with the best price around your price range. (doesn't go higher than what you specified as it withdraws the gold needed and puts it in the system) Any unused gold gets returned.
Selling items is as easy as clicking on the item in your inventory and upping or lowering the price or putting in your own price based on the average price (see previous paragraph). The money you get depends on which buyers it pairs you up with.
Most items are stackable in the GE with the exception of things like 'bonds' (essentially trade membership/keys/other things that require rl money for in game gold) where you can only sell one at a time.
In order to sell/buy items in game you have to visit the Grand Exchange which is located in 2 places. One requires a high level members only quest to access.
In order to pick up your gold/items, you can stop at one of the 2 grand exchange locations or visit any runescape bank that's scattered around the world.
You can do alternatively collect gold/items and buy/sell items stored in your bank using the 'Companion App'. An easy to access interface and can be done outside of the game on your mobile device (has two-way authentication with your phone to ensure security)
There also is no limits in what you can buy/sell items for. If you price an item for way below market value it will give you a message telling you that but you can ignore it and proceed anyways.
Gold doesn't take up any inventory space and is viewable at the bottom of your inventory window. You can withdraw that money so it takes up an inventory space so you can do direct person to person trade.
Gear cannot be enchanted but can be degraded (specific high level [80/90] gear). You can't sell degraded gear unless it's fully degraded or hasn't been equipped.
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Guild Wars 2 has something called the Trading Post similar to the grand exchange. It's a bit more complex but you can list the item you want to sell/buy regardless of where you are in the game.
In order to collect your items/gold you have to go to one of many designated trading post NPC's. You can purchase a portable one however if you plan on going back and forth a lot. There are ways to obtain free ones as well via events.
It gives you a recommend price to sell instantly at if you want money fast and quick. You can set your own price if you want to sell it for higher if you aren't in a rush. Players can then search for the items they wish to purchase and can sort by price, name, etc. Basically similar to Mabinogi's Housing Board except items are viewable by category.
There's no app to do this outside of the game.
There is a certain base value that an item needs to be before you can sell it. There's no upper limit to what you can sell an item for.
Most things can be sold/bought but there's a lot of account bound items as well that you get from events and quests. Also equipping exotic/rare/ascended items tend to make it tied to you but gives you a warning message when it does.
Like Mabinogi you can 'enchant' your gear via the upgrade system. Each upgrade item has it's own unique name you can search for and buy off the trading post.
Gold is stored in and displayed in the inventory interface and does not take up an inventory space either. There isn't anyway to turn that into item form and I don't think you can do person to person trading.
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Not going to go into Vindictus but let's just say it shares some similarities to GW2 so I'm just going to skip it cause I've gone on long enough on this topic
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My proposed solution that I previously suggested isn't easily doable and doesn't mesh well with how the mabinogi market works apparently. Thus I've modified my proposal to build off of the current Housing system instead.
1) Increase Housing Limit to 50mil.
2) Change Enchant Scrolls to have their name in their title for easier searchability
3) Improve Housing UI to be able to browse by category
4) Make ability to buy houses available to all players
5) Increase Bank Limit to be 10mil per player
6) Reduce Bank/Housing transfer fees
7) Add ability for players to sell things from their homestead via a similar but different interface. Will require players to have their homestead able to be entered by any player. Homesteads will have a 25mil limit (maybe lower, anything to make it less appealing than housing)
8) Increase Belvast shops to 40mil limit
9) Increase Dunbaraton shops to 10mil limit
10) Increase Kiosks to 5mil per item instead of 1mil
11) Increase item pricing limit for housing to match Belvast
I think if such a thing was implemented my Mabinogi experience would be far better and enjoyable. I hope you guys found this to be an interesting read and would love to hear your feedback on how to make this better.