Expand G & T to allow trades beyond our specific markets .... somehow

Not everyone realizes, but there are 32 markets in Farmerama now. You cannot trade, either normal items or complete official G & T trades outside of your own market. You can do an unofficial exchange where you agree to gift items to someone and have them gift you what you want in return, but that basically just works for people who are logged into the forums and pretty much to those who speak your own language.

As G & T events are numerous, offerings are more and more limited, at least in my market. Some markets are probably morel limited than others. It would be really nice if we could trade beyond our individual market.

I have been given to understand that there are technical reasons for not opening up the markets to everyone. An earlier suggestion I posted to create a new market specifically to the highest level players did not go over well, but there needs to be some way for us to trade beyond our market. So, here are some different suggestions for how it might work:

1. a temporary reworking of the markets for G & T -- a scrambling, if you will, so that who we can trade with during each G & T will differ. You would start with the market as it exists, use that as a base framework, but instead of individual players, use variables, which would be randomly switched around.

2. Offer special premium trade tickets. Each person would only get 1, or they might only be available for purchase and only in a limited number. (You can offer as many as you can handle) These would be offers for the entire community and not just the local market.

3. Create a market for trading ONLY the older items. The older things get, the fewer there are available, but some people still seek them. You can further limit the number of postings to one per player, to make it more manageable. This could even be a special version of the G & T event... an antique sale or white elephant sale. Having it independent might allow enough server space to make it happen.

4. If needed, do limit this new market to higher level players, but give explanation, emphasize that all players go up in level, that the limit is necessary, etc. Also, as above, it might be better if it were separate and much less frequent than the regular G & T. (maybe every 6 months or once a year). You could also add something to "sweeten" it for lower level players. For example, have special gift licenses that participants can use to only gift players too low to participate.

5. Create a (or as many as needed) separate G & T market for new players -- those under level 50, perhaps. Limit the types of trades that can be offered in this special market. No elderberry trees for howie donuts, for example. (see below for better details) Offer separate tickets -- each person might be given 1-2 for this market. Additional tickets might be offered for a slightly lower cost, though there might be a limit to the number of gifts each person can give (and maybe a limit to what folks can receive, though a high limit -- something like 30 or so). You could exclude these players from the regular market, but I suspect that would cause complaints. I am thinking instead of a separate market.

Limits could be set several ways. One idea would be to allow only rare items for rare items. Givers might be categorized by the EP points they give out, so that someone can trade only for a giver of roughly the same level. Items needed for cloud rows might be excluded or limited to just those most recently available. Certain high demand items that are often undervalued by newer players would not be allowed -- howie donuts in particular, but maybe other items. The most recently tradable pens and trees might be excluded as well. (all of these would be available to trade in the normal market).

5??? If anybody else has an idea for how to open up G & T trades without crashing the system, please post here!!!!

 

Are we completely sure that there are also 32 markets for G&T event?

Good ideas woody

 

Yes, when you make an offer with a trade licence it can only be seen by the other farmers in your market. And you can only see the offers from the farmers in your market.

 

Thanks Mir

 

You have some really good ideas, woody, but it seems to me that the success and great fun that we get from the market, is not the focus of BP. And probably because they don't make money from it.
I love playing on the market while waiting for things to mature in the game, but the draconian way that the developers treated the manure market, shows that they don't want the market to be bigger than the game. They took this feature a giant leap backwards and have ruined something that was fun and now it isn't.
Just my opinion.

 

An antiques sale!!!!! Oh, yes, woody!! - what a great idea!!

Only, please, quarterly or semi-annually! A year is way too long to wait!! That's like a whole new market, and could certainly be treated differently......
How about it, bp?? (You know how popular antiques markets are??!!)

 

While I was not happy about the changes in the manure market, this might actually help in many ways. The basic problem is that when older players and newer ones are combined, the older players have distinct advantages with more funds, more goodies to sell, etc. This is one reason I think having a separate market, but also expanding the G & T would offer a way for some of the newer players to obtain these things they might not otherwise have.