<rant> The Free Market

While I agree with your points, you should understand the effects that it would have on the Free Market should the Owl become a in game purchase. Owls are for convenience, the latter as you mentioned is searching for the item yourself by essentially window shopping. If you enable a global search then every fm spot loses value which causes the prices of the economy to fluctuate based on who has the cheapest for sale. In short, people start losing money = bigger issues than justifying nostalgia

 

I agree that the free market can be frustrated. Myself run into this sort of situation too.

However, I am still going to use the argument that "it is part of the game's nostalgia". Old school maplestory has never been about convenience. Pretty much all games use a central auction house system nowadays because most people prefer the faster pace gameplay. The Free Market is, in my opinion, just a different way of handling player market. Some are going to like it, and some are going to hate it.

Myself is on the neutral side. I dislike it because of the reasons you mentioned. Thought, having essentially free owls would change what the market is like right now. A potential issue that came on top of my mind is that it could be easier for people to control the market. People who have a lot of time in their hands could keep their eyes on a couple specific items in the market, and buy them off whenever someone put one up, then sell them for much more expensive prices. People who don't have a lot of time would have much more difficult time getting good or reasonable deal on rare items.

 

The Free Market was actually implemented in retaliation to North Korea's government and socialistic society. Being a South Korean corporation, Neckson wanted to show their support for western democracy and capitalism. That's why it's literally completely free; Neckson has no control over it (essentially).

As for your suggestion, if you can just find whatever item you want instantly, that means items will start to have a set price instead of a range. You can just search for the cheapest item you want instantly and go buy it. If you want to sell something, you'll just owl and set it to the same price everyone else is doing (or slightly cheaper if you're trying to sell quick). Furthermore, it completely ruins the concept of merching, which is a highly nostalgic feature of the game to some players. People not wanting to spend time searching the entire fm for the cheapest scroll they are looking for will likely just buy the first one they find instead of saving a couple 100k mesos.

It's really not that difficult to learn the average price of things. Start by browsing the entire FM frequently, and you'll get a general idea of what is worth selling and what isn't. And then eventually you can just visit a few rooms here and now to get an idea of how much you should sell whatever it is you're selling. If you use a mouse with a scrolling wheel, you can fly through shops in like half a second while searching for specific items. I can clear the entire FM in about 10-15 minutes (but I also have haste and flashjump, so it's a little biased). You'll also learn to browse more efficiently overtime. Just practice it and you'll catch on.

 

Sorry just realized this is a rant, not a suggestion/debate thread. Yeah I agree it's pretty dumb, especially when people put useless junk in their store and you have to waste time scrolling through it. It's a pretty terrible design, but a lot of things in MS are.

 

The advantage even in GMS is that that is the first store in the first channel.
Generally if you are looking for something general, it will "always/most likely" be there. < This was how it was in GMS.
If you needed ______, you didn't need to waste your time going through 20 CH's of 22 stores all you needed to do was pay a little more.
It's paying for the extra convenience.

 

I don't think the free market is bad...it's just that they have a different vision for the game (more emphasis on fast pace and convenience).

 

After how long? 13 years?
The game is completely different.

Regarding your suggestion tho, I wouldn't mind seeing Owls in exchange for mesos.

 

Ya that was me, 500k was just an example. Price can be discussed c:

SAME

>> Owls-purchasable-for-mesos-suggestion <<

 

it would add a extra meso sink

 

I’m all for extra convenience, I don’t have that much time to play and a lot of my time does go searching through the Fm. But looking it through a business perspective, The cost ratio of Fm spots and items plays a big part on the value of it. Why would I cut my profits of say 25% of a certain item to justify equaling the median of my stuff gets viewed much more frequently. Thanks but no thanks, this is a game but free market is business. You want fairness, just kill mobs for mesos

 

I guess I know who not to buy stuff from..

 

Greetings from Maple world, WoW person! I would say that this is one of those topics which is far more intricate than it appears at first glance.

It certainly can be a drag not to have common access Owls but the argument can equally be made that it is a drag that has its place.

In the wide open Free market, even the smallest things can affect prices on items. Going so far to say that location and maybe even shop name can make a difference. By having manual searches be slow and annoying, it opens the door for more merch possibilities. (enables a larger market to exist) If someone wanted to get really technical, you could almost call being a merchant a game within the game.

Having said that, I would not oppose making Owls easier to get either, since they can be time savers. There would still be the trade off of changing the market dynamics. Possibly for better or worse.

Of course, in the early years of GMS there was also the Maple Trade system in the mix which made things very interesting. (at least before it got taken down)

But I digress..

 

Are there any thoughts about decreasing the shop area around store permits so that more shops would fit into each fm room?

 

I think it should stay the same. If you want to add a few layers on top of each fm room, we can do it but this is a mechanic of the game. It isn't supposed to be like world of warcraft. This game is far more social and tedious in its mechanisms. If you want premium slots to sell items, camp on server resets in fm1. If joe shmoe spends everyday combing through the FM 2-3 times and you come in getting the same benefit then it isn't fair and it is rewarding the people who just want things easier for themselves. You play a Vanilla server for a reason and it's because the same kind of people changed WoW.

 

OH, A RANT THREAD!!! I CAN DO THIS... Hold my beer...

<rant>
Here's an idea: Why don't we, as a community, get together and designate particular rooms/channels for general items?

I had this idea when I played GMS Khaini when I began to see the monetary advantages of merching. On Khaini, the place to sell ores was always Channel 2 FM 1. If you wanted Magic Rocks, Summoning Stones, and All-Cures, you go to Channel 2 FM2. I thought, "Maybe the rest of the channels will be designated for other things, too." But that never materialized. There are so many people who sell a massive amount of random crap that it almost becomes impossible to get people to make a decision where they'd want to set-up shop. But, then I thought, why not allow Channel 1 just be a clearinghouse for random crap? Why not have scroll sellers on channel 3? How about Channel 4 devoted to equips; and then even have the bottom rooms for archers, the Ludi rooms for Thieves, the Perion rooms for warriors, and the top floor for mages...and screw the pirates!!! Just kidding...they can have all of channel 5! The biggest problem with the Free Market, as I've always seen it, was that it relied upon the community - who don't have the ability to truly communicate effectively with everyone else - to organize this massive economic hub. IF, however, people were to start engaging in systematic organization and relegate all stores selling random nonsense to channel 9, then Owls wouldn't be as needed, people would find what they need faster, and the monstrosity that is the FM would be much easier to navigate. </rant>