Prize to open a new trade area

Click this link for updated event details​

I know the idea of opening new trading areas to take the pressure off PA and Twin Peaks has been discussed many times before, but hopefully what I am about to say will be bringing something new to the discussion.

To encourage people to move to a new tp, I will soon be announcing an event with small prizes of 10 PED and 5 PED per week.

The basic premise of the event would be:

1. Anyone trading around the selected tp (Now Hadesheim Central instead of Hadesheim South City) between 2 set dates and times will be eligible to win a prize.
2. A number of judges will tp into the location at random times and may select a trader as a candidate for the prize.
3. After the deadline is up, the names of the candidates will go into a hat and the first 2 drawn out will win the 10 and 5 PED prizes.
4. To discourage the use of spamming during the event, any trader seen by a judge to be using more than 5 lines of chat per minute for trade messages will be disqualified from winning.

Now, before I officially announce the event, I would like some comments from the community about any improvements you think I can make to this idea.

I have tried to anticipate some of your questions with the answers below:

Why such a small prize?

There are 2 answers to this. 1, whatever prize I put up will be a complete loss to me, with no potential for profit. 2, having a small prize will hopefully attract a reasonable amount of people, but not enough to cause severe lag.

Why Hadesheim South City tp?

It is currently a quiet tp with a turret to protect traders, and is fairly easy for new players to get to. (I usually take people on tp runs from Atlas Island North to Hadesheim, and it is a fairly quick run if you use the revival trick). If someone can come up with a better location, then I am happy to hear it. - Location now changed to Hadesheim Central.

Do you think you can really stop people spamming?

Not in the long term, no, but I would like to try to give non-spammers a fair chance for a little while.

Why are you doing this? What is in it for you?

My only reason for doing this is pure frustration at the situation in PA. What I expect to get out of this is a 15 PED loss in the first week, and perhaps more losses if I repeat the event.

Do you think this idea will even work?

Truthfully, I have no idea if this event will work or whether anyone will continue to trade at the new tp after it is over. I at least want to try.

I will now ask you a question.
Is there anything that you can suggest to make this a success?

I also think the trade areas should be moved. It makes the new players have to find the TPs as well


IE: Armour in Billys, Ores in Jason, weapons in Troy etc

Midori Fairlona said:

I know the idea of opening new trading areas to take the pressure off PA and Twin Peaks has been discussed many times before, but hopefully what I am about to say will be bringing something new to the discussion.

To encourage people to move to a new tp, I will soon be announcing an event with small prizes of 10 PED and 5 PED per week.

The basic premise of the event would be:

1. Anyone trading around the selected tp (currently Hadesheim South City) between 2 set dates and times will be eligible to win a prize.
2. A number of judges will tp into the location at random times and may select a trader as a candidate for the prize.
3. After the deadline is up, the names of the candidates will go into a hat and the first 2 drawn out will win the 10 and 5 PED prizes.
4. To discourage the use of spamming during the event, any trader seen by a judge to be using more than 5 lines of chat per minute for trade messages will be disqualified from winning.

Now, before I officially announce the event, I would like some comments from the community about any improvements you think I can make to this idea.

I have tried to anticipate some of your questions with the answers below:

Why such a small prize?

There are 2 answers to this. 1, whatever prize I put up will be a complete loss to me, with no potential for profit. 2, having a small prize will hopefully attract a reasonable amount of people, but not enough to cause severe lag.

Why Hadesheim South City tp?

It is currently a quiet tp with a turret to protect traders, and is fairly easy for new players to get to. (I usually take people on tp runs from Atlas Island North to Hadesheim, and it is a fairly quick run if you use the revival trick). If someone can come up with a better location, then I am happy to hear it.

Do you think you can really stop people spamming?

Not in the long term, no, but I would like to try to give non-spammers a fair chance for a little while.

Why are you doing this? What is in it for you?

My only reason for doing this is pure frustration at the situation in PA. What I expect to get out of this is a 15 PED loss in the first week, and perhaps more losses if I repeat the event.

Do you think this idea will even work?

Truthfully, I have no idea if this event will work or whether anyone will continue to trade at the new tp after it is over. I at least want to try.

I will now ask you a question.
Is there anything that you can suggest to make this a success?

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I really like this Idea, ive been trying to sell my ores at other areas without luck, i will be at Hadesheim for this

BorgCymru said:

I also think the trade areas should be moved. It makes the new players have to find the TPs as well


IE: Armour in Billys, Ores in Jason, weapons in Troy etc

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Excellent idea, MA should try to guide the street trades some how

BorgCymru said:

IE: Armour in Billys, Ores in Jason, weapons in Troy etc

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good idea

Wicked idea, and very public spirited of you too.

t

Would be really awesome to have certain city's for certain items

like mining resources in troy etc, what you said
Nice idea, hope it works

Atlas Haven is becoming a very popular area...

Gets my vote, great idea, I think there should b some movement over to Amethera also, Sakuma is a quiet place, nice trade centre with a TP right outside
Atlas Rocks by the way

I really like this idea but why not use Hadesheim Center instead of Hadesheim South City.


Hadesheim Center has got a storage box 2 sec from tp which is geat if you have allot of stuff

and the skyline of buildings is better over there

Yer Hades C is great for meeting up for a trade.

Zwaff said:

I really like this idea but why not use Hadesheim Center instead of Hadesheim South City.


Hadesheim Center has got a storage box 2 sec from tp which is geat if you have allot of stuff

and the skyline of buildings is better over there

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I considered Hadesheim Central, but it has one fundamental flaw - no turret. I can't even imagine the level of chaos one of the visiting araneatrox would cause to a large group of traders.

Midori Fairlona said:

I considered Hadesheim Central, but it has one fundamental flaw - no turret. I can't even imagine the level of chaos one of the visiting Araneatrox would cause to a large group of traders.

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No that is a bonus brilliant

I think MA should move the Hadesheim Center teleport into the "center" of Hadesheim city near the trade stands/buildings. MA should also switch/split the spawn point of newbies to this location as well as Port Atlantis. Hadesheim's enormous size is jaw-dropping and impressive (was for me the first time I ran through it). It's only depressing because it's a deserted city (though I do like to manufacture there in the quiet/lag-free enviroment! ). This would also increase the need for newbies to get mentors to take them to Port Atlantis or other teleport locations for "safe/easy" sweating.

Nice idea

Yes different places for different items, ores, armours, sweat etc would make selling that much easier

Specialized Marketplaces

Specialized marketplaces is a very good idea -- maybe you could specify in your competition that you want only weapon or armor or whatever traders in that area?

IMOH, Sweat will be sold at Fort Troy or PA atm (many sweaters) or whereever n00bs sweat, but for other items, special locations would really make a difference. Twin Peaks is already in place for the more high level items (weapons, armor mostly). If you try to sell Pixie there you get comments to TT it

So good places to sell newbie armor could be Billy's, Hadesheim, or Atlas.
Same for newbie weapons (but it should be a different place than the armor selling place).

But I guess to establish these as common locations, huge publicity (Ad campaign?) is needed!
Or a very popular thread here
Even better: One thread per item category after we decided on what to sell where (vote?).
Ultimately: Get 711 to make it sticky

But: Do we even have specialized traders nowadays? I have seen that for armor sets but generally, I see more the "SELLING FAP10. Pixie Face (M), Paladin thigh (F), Enblade-3" types of shouts, meaning everybody sells his/her own crap. If we have specialized traders, let's talk them into the locations identified, or better, let them identify a location and publicly annouce that.

I do admit, it's a great idea. I'd love to see hadesheim booming... however... can you just imagine the lag. I don't even want to think about it. You think PA is bad... all those buildings in hades.... oh dear lord. Add a hundred OJ's and forget about it!... lol. but still... i do like the idea.. especially spreading them out... armor at one place, ores and enmats at another. It would be very nice.

Thank you all for your comments. I was half expecting to be drowned out by people shouting "It can't be done!"

It is heartening to see there is some enthusiasm for the idea.

Gingko said:

Specialized marketplaces is a very good idea -- maybe you could specify in your competition that you want only weapon or armor or whatever traders in that area?

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After reading some of the earlier comments on this thread I had considered altering this to a specialised trading competition, but I have decided against it. As far as I am aware nothing like this has been tried before in EU, so there is no way to predict what will happen.

While I have been thinking of this idea for the last month, two questions have constantly returned to my mind.

• Can someone stimulate a large scale change in game with only a small amount of prize money?
• Will the new market be able to sustain itself after the event has concluded?

With this process being a complete unknown, I think I need as many people as possible in the new market to have a chance of it becoming self-sustaining. Excluding large numbers of traders from the event will simply weaken the market's chances. If the event is a roaring success though, I might try to repeat it with the aim of diversification at a later date.

As you said yourself, a lot more effort would need to go into setting up a network of trading points for different items. Too many earlier attempts at creating new trade areas have stalled because people have gotten bogged down in the details. I want to avoid that and keep the momentum of this idea rolling at full speed.

Congadawg said:

I do admit, it's a great idea. I'd love to see hadesheim booming... however... can you just imagine the lag. I don't even want to think about it. You think PA is bad... all those buildings in hades.... oh dear lord. Add a hundred OJ's and forget about it!... lol. but still... i do like the idea..

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If this event is as successful as I hope, a certain amount of lag will be inevitable. What you need to consider though is that the bigger the lag in Hadesheim due to trading, the lower the lag will be in PA and Twin Peaks. It also provides the benefit of you being able to read your chat messages as there will be fewer people trying to drown each other out.

Until MA can find solutions of their own for reducing the lag problem, I think spreading the load across the other servers is the best way to go.

In order to keep up the momentum of the idea, I will be announcing the dates of the event on Sunday. I am currently looking at rough dates of Sunday 17th to Saturday 23rd December. Once the dates have been formally announced, I would appreciate the help of the members of this forum in spreading the word as wide as possible.

I have changed my mind on the location of the event. Hadesheim Central is probably a better site for this. The benefits of the access to terminals far outweigh the potential risk of occasional mob attacks.


If any of you have any comments you wish to share, questions about the event or ideas for improvement, please continue to post them.
Thank you.

Mobs attacking tons of orange suits will be hilarious A few days ago somebody managed to get an exaro prowler and stalker inside the new oxford trade building someone killed the prowler but the stalker was still attacking people so i took out my repedge 1x0 and 18 hits later was greeted by a lootless corpse oh well it was fun lol.

Again I like this idea, the average man in the street will adhere to these rules of sale. The resellers? hmm

Formal announcement

I have now added a thread to the Events forum to formally announce details of the event. The thread can be found here.

If you notice that I have missed anything off the event announcement, please let me know.

Hmmm... You should have thought that through a bit more... Why do people trade in PA? Two reasons, it is the first tp everybody gets... and newcomers go there... newcomers believe it or not pay more for stuff than ubers do... especially after their first deposit ... But as for hadesheim... I wouldn't mind giving that place a use... in fact... I think hadesheim should be the most populated for a few reasons... it is the biggest city and there are more tt items availiable there than anywhere else... and it is also considered calypso's "Capital" But as for south hadesheim... (not sure but...) Isn't that the tp sorta out in the wilderness from the city... Hadesheim Center is much better... closest to everything!!!

Oh, and in the time it took you to post that, you could have made 5$ doing productive work and then you could have made the prize money 50 ped and worth a damn... (Sorry I am an optimistic pessimist!)

Thank you for the comments, it is always nice to hear different perspectives on a situation, even those of an optimistic-pessimist.

Edward Sholz said:

Hmmm... You should have thought that through a bit more... Why do people trade in PA? Two reasons, it is the first tp everybody gets... and newcomers go there... newcomers believe it or not pay more for stuff than ubers do... especially after their first deposit

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Actually, I had given this idea a lot of thought before I proposed it. I am not out to challenge PA as the centre of trade in EU. Wherever MA allow the new players to appear there will always be traders trying to sell beginner equipment. Rather, I want to move a portion of the traders away from PA to make it easier for both the traders and buyers at PA and Hadesheim Central to conduct business. Currently the chat screen in PA moves so fast it is nearly impossible to read a trade offer before it disappears from sight.

Setting up a new area of trade is possible. The shining example of this is Twin Peaks. Why do people trade at Twin Peaks? No new players appear there and the only real attraction is that a number of player-killers make use of the PvP ring. The only reason people sell there is that they know that a lot of buyers hang around there and the only reason that people buy there is that they know that a lot of sellers hang around there. For whatever reason Twin Peaks started as a trading hub, it has now reached a point where it is self-sustaining as people know they have the chance to make a deal there 24 hours a day.

Eventually, market forces will push people out of an overcrowded PA and they will find new market places elsewhere. However, that process will take a long time and have many false starts. What I am trying to do with this competition is give those market forces a little helping hand. By providing an extra incentive for a number of traders to move out of PA and a location for them to move to (Hadesheim Central), I will hopefully make it easier for the new market place to become self-sustaining like Twin Peaks.

My goal at the end of this event (or series of events) is to have trading hubs at PA, Twin Peaks and Hadesheim Central all fully active and all sharing the server load from the ever increasing number of traders in the game.

Oh, and in the time it took you to post that, you could have made 5$ doing productive work and then you could have made the prize money 50 ped and worth a damn... (Sorry I am an optimistic pessimist!)

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If you want to see my reasons for offering a small prize, please re-read my first post in this thread. However, if I had spent the time gathering extra funds instead of posting the idea, the competition wouldn't be going ahead as I would never have time to post the idea.

Also, I get the impression that no matter how much money I put up for prizes, you will always have a desire for a bigger one, and in response to a 50 PED prize I would see the words, "you could have made the prize money 500 ped and worth a damn."

Thanks again for your comments, as well as allowing me to clarify some of my thoughts behind this idea, you have reminded me to update the location in the first thread. The event will be held at Hadesheim Central now.

I'd be willing to donate 15 ped to get this going, so make the prizes a little bigger to entice a couple more people.

just a bump and a not to let you know i will be giving out small prizes at random to traders on opening day

Its a great idea, but IMO if MA put a storage in Billys and Phoenix, that would be the best places, not to many " lag objects" there

But until MA does that, guess your sugestion is the best

Thank you

fluKe said:

I'd be willing to donate 15 ped to get this going, so make the prizes a little bigger to entice a couple more people.

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Draggger said:

just a bump and a not to let you know i will be giving out small prizes at random to traders on opening day

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More and bigger prizes. Yay!
+reps for both of you