I initially thought the trade system was a terrible idea, which I still do. Anyway, since we're stuck with it, I thought it should be a little more balanced and should directly involve an economy as a factor in decision making when trading. That said, I think items should be translated into an actual trading currency. People may think ZC is an actual trading currency, but it really isn't. It's only a failure of one of three branches that would stabilize the Zone economy. When I say trade currency, I don't literally mean cash, like gralats. I mean a translation for each item that's traded, almost like an exchange rate, but I couldn't think of a better term for it.

For example, if I was trading a pumpkin gun with someone for 300 zc, there would be an additional section on the trade table. That table would display a point system, which acts as a trade currency. The trade currency is based on average price, which will ultimately influence trade decisions. The table shows the average price of the pumpkin gun in points, i.e. 48 points, and the 300 zc is an average price of 42 points. But you don't pay with points, you pay with whatever you're trading, which is why I was skeptical in calling it a trade currency. It's more of an exchange rate. Once you notice the 48 points is worth more than 42 points, the one with the pumpkin gun might back off the trade, or he might use some sort of external judgement to make a trade, so it's either a win win situation, or there's no situation at all.

Not to mention, it would turn trading into a practically scam-free system, as you know every detail of every trade. Scams will also ultimately create an outlier in the system, which slightly changes the average points in favor to the one who got scammed, so it discourages scamming in two different ways, one way conscious and the other subconscious. Over time however, outliers won't matter too much, but it still affects the economy.

If multiple items were added to the table, points will simply be added up, but I guess there could be an option to tap the table to get more in depth information, such as the value of each individual item being traded, the difference in points regarding your side of the trade (negative or positive difference), etc.

On a separate part of the room, central to the entire trade house, it would only be convenient to have a trade database. You search the desired item, such as the pumpkin gun, and it tells you how many points it's worth, 48 points. You can also type the amount of each item, and it simply multiplies it, so if you want to know the value of 300 zc, you search Zone Coin, and type the amount 300, and it tells you 42 points. The trade database can also show various economical measurements.

All sorts of measurements can then be made on the economy, such as average value of each trade, highest amount of points received (so there could be a profile statistic that adds or subtracts your trade values that only shows in the trade house), and countless others.

Each value for each item is based on each trade, and which amount of points go to each person, so it's only math. If one person trades a pumpkin gun, and gains 8 points from that trade, the average value for the pumpkin gun goes up based on that factor, so if there has been 340 trades involving a pumpkin gun making an average of 48 points value, the 341st trade will correct the average and make it an extremely skeptical average value of 50.3402777778 (probably wrong, I also got 48.0234604106 using a different formula, which still is probably wrong). If there were multiple items on a table, say 4 items including the pumpkin gun, then the 8 points will be divided by 4, and each item's average value of points that were on the table will now include those two points. Correct me if my math and concepts are incorrect. Even I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around it, but I do know it makes sense.

Of course, modifications or additions can be made to the system to make it more functional. I'm not even sure if this is feasible or possible, but I want it to be. I believe every economy should be as efficient and functional as possible, and free of blindness.

Opinions, let downs, or additions?  

Im sry but I didn't read all that... Too late for me, maybe I'll go through it in the morning. I'll just post my opinion for now... I agree, I don't like the trade system, but since we're stuck with it, I think pretty much what should be tradeable is currencies (zc, graalium, trash, etc.), holiday weapons, holiday items (dances, yoyos, etc.), old store hats that are no longer available, old event hats that are no longer available, and holiday hats. VIP should not be tradeable. Defeats the purpose of it only being available at certain time periods. Auction items should definitely not be tradeable. All that does is unbalance the economy more by making people rich in the trading economy. Store weapons should not be tradeable because that defeats the purpose of having to purchase them. Minerals should not be tradeable aside from Graalium only, since people get minerals to create med/attack bots and make them in mass. The trading system has created a gameplay of get items from others without doing the work to actually get them, and that's what needs to be resolved  

I agree with pig, except for the auction item thing, that ones debatable.
@twiz, i agree trades needs reworking, i like the idea of being able to know the average price of certain items, i think a database should be kept of their values and updated weekly. One issue inhave now cuz of trades is that these guns were made too easy to get, and with end game guns too available, it just ruins the idea of earning anything. I think what should be done, after the hp get raised to 100, is bring most of the guns down by a tier, and rework the tier by replacing tiers like the rippers/alien/rail tier with the upcoming guns, and anything stronger than that would be for special items like pk prize room guns or if we can get a new currency, the top guns in that shop.  

Posted by PigParty

Im sry but I didn't read all that... Too late for me, maybe I'll go through it in the morning. I'll just post my opinion for now... I agree, I don't like the trade system, but since we're stuck with it, I think pretty much what should be tradeable is currencies (zc, graalium, trash, etc.), holiday weapons, holiday items (dances, yoyos, etc.), old store hats that are no longer available, old event hats that are no longer available, and holiday hats. VIP should not be tradeable. Defeats the purpose of it only being available at certain time periods. Auction items should definitely not be tradeable. All that does is unbalance the economy more by making people rich in the trading economy. Store weapons should not be tradeable because that defeats the purpose of having to purchase them. Minerals should not be tradeable aside from Graalium only, since people get minerals to create med/attack bots and make them in mass. The trading system has created a gameplay of get items from others without doing the work to actually get them, and that's what needs to be resolved

I agree with pretty much everything you said, and that's why I said zc is a failed trade regulator. It is a trade currency, but it isn't a true trade currency. It sort of just... evolved into one, the same way shells did in era. Not having an official trade exchange rate is what allows this to happen, which is why I thought up the trade points system. The only thing I disagree with is the graalium thing. I believe minerals should all be tradeable. I also strongly encourage you to read my OP, as it contains the pros of my proposed system, as well as some other information and implimentations.

Ok, after thinking about it, I have come to the conclusion that in Graalian economies, NOT having an official exchange rate causes the unintentional development of subpar unofficial trade currencies, so long as there is a tradeable job item that you can exchange for currency (gralats) or some other desired item such as ZC, and having an official exchange rate prevents this. In Zone's case, ZC=Gralats, as you can both trade ZC and minerals and minerals=gralats. So if you trade ZC with minerals, ZC does equal gralats. ZC buys different items than gralats do, so it basically creates a loop. Since you can buy tradeable items with gralats, and you can trade these items with ZC, you are essentially trading ZC items. This is what I meant by the third branch of the Zone economy, it completely destabilizes it. This is also why I want the trade points system to be implimented, and why I want tradeable items to be revised to prevent that economical loop.

Just as someone regulates guns and combat systems, someone should also manage trading in Zone and other servers. Having a trade admin wouldn't create communism, if that's what any of you were thinking.

I just realized how fun it is to discuss Graalian economies  

nooo the fun of an economy is bartering and making a profit
this would eliminate that  

ZC needs redone too, along with a new event coin system, separate from ZC. As for trade admins, Tashkin hired them basically to overlook the trade building & try to catch scammers/glitchers, which is exactly what ZPs already did. They didn't do anything developmental & stefan/unix fired them and said not to make a position just for that.. lol. My thing with the other minerals besides graalium is those aren't ever used for sale, but are used for building bots. People buy those minerals for just a few ZC, and can create 5+ med bots that they can use at once, without having to do any work themselves. I just think the trade system has allowed for people to not do any work to get what they want in-game.  

Your ideas hurt the scamming community and you thinking about nerfing my rippers again I'll nerf your face unless you keep them the way they are and make a higher stronger tier of guns and also add a portal gun  

Nah  

The beauty of economics is that value is subjective. This is objective value and would ruin it.  

Posted by Platinum

The beauty of economics is that value is subjective. This is objective value and would ruin it.

Then tell me why prices are regulated based on average price in the third best economy in the world? Because we don't want to monopolize. In graal, a monopoly is either the literal definition, or in terms of an outlier, it is a scammer.  

If you want to make ZC worth more, increase the price of the items you can purchase with ZC, instead of 8,000 ZC make it 30,000 ZC and then a lot of ZC won't seem that much anymore.  

Posted by Gitaz

If you want to make ZC worth more, increase the price of the items you can purchase with ZC, instead of 8,000 ZC make it 30,000 ZC and then a lot of ZC won't seem that much anymore.

Most people already have the items, so although it will raise the worth of ZC, it won't drastically change it as much as you would think. It would really just hurt new players, once again, while the current players become richer.  

Its not hurting new players, its just making them actually try to get the item desired. I think raisig the price, making stuff like auction guns primarily collectors items (meaning they wont be stronger than all other guns, just fancier) and adding more hats is another option. Mmo games dont do well when everythings handed out easily  

Posted by GenoIndeed

Its not hurting new players, its just making them actually try to get the item desired. I think raisig the price, making stuff like auction guns primarily collectors items (meaning they wont be stronger than all other guns, just fancier) and adding more hats is another option. Mmo games dont do well when everythings handed out easily

Thing is, almost every player who isn't new has the alien blade or any weapon they want in the ZC shop, so it would essentially hurt the new players who would have to pay 5x more than all the older players paid, which only makes the older players wealthier in the trading economy, especially at first. Raising the prices would in the long term decrease the amount of ZC, but it would take a while. At the beginning, all that raising prices would do would be making 1 ZC worth more, which again, would just make older players even wealthier. Someone with 20k zc would then essentially have 60k ZC. It's really a terrible option. Zone has done too many 'quick fixes' without thinking of the actual consequences, and that's caused many issues, short-term, and long-term.  

Or make better versions of the weapons so everyone has to work for them, and not in zc so everyone starts anew. Raise the hp to 100 allows more options with tiers, take all guns down one and replace the high tiers with thr new currency items (untradable) and the highest tier with special items (spar/pk prize rooms). Make every style of gun in different tiers, same with melees meaning more freezeless melees. No tradable shop guns or special/zc/new currency guns, new currency untradable also. With this, everyone has to do work for thr too guns, current players get a head start at most, any tradable guns are limited edition collection items and will not be tier 1 guns (tier 1- 200k pk/20k spar win/maybe highest of new currency stuff; tier 2- auction/mid prize room/expensive guns; tier 3- railgun, rippers, alien set, old vip; tier 4 and lower-etc), use this system for both melees and guns and thatll take care of that issue.

As for hats, put more of all of them into the game, mainly thru events, no more one of a kinds. Still keep the rare ones rarer but not to where like 2 people make the price (which is usually someone greedy), therefore people have a better chance of getting a hat and at a fair price.

Auction items: no one of a kinds, and auction off more of the ones we have.

As for trade admins, theyll need to document all items of value and keep up with the low and highest selling prices and maintain it.

As for zc, add a ton of new goodies to buy, and more uses for them (like consumables, maybe pay for uploads with them, raffles, etc)