GGG... Where is the central marketplace?

Here is PoE, an arpg which focuses on long grind and economy. This is ok if it weren't for the fact that the game economy for which PoE is centered around has no central marketplace to buy/sell in. It's as if all the farmers of a region (here it is Wraeclast) were unable to take their fruits, vegetables, etc. into town and sell them because there is no central marketplace for selling that they all can sell from. Each farmer is left with the task of finding his/her own way to advertise the produce they have and then figure out where they can go to tell everyone that they have this produce. As a buyer of produce, we are all left with the task of having to first locate a seller, then track that seller down, and then hope that the seller is pricing the item at a fair market value. A central marketplace is essential and critical for bringing sellers/buyers together to make the task of buying and selling of any item easier. If I had to travel around to a dozen or more farms to find the ones that had tomatoes for sale and go to all farms to find the best price/quality before buying the tomatoes, well, you get the picture.

I can't believe (well, actually I can because I started playing in CB PoE) that today we don't have a central marketplace in Wraeclast for which we can buy/sell all items found/crafted in PoE and be able to compare prices (by way of a comprehensive search tool) so that we can know if an item is available to purchase and is priced appropriately. The current method of having to track down each and every seller and get an item at fair market value (not get ripped off) is surprising to me and I should think that GGG would be shockingly embarrassed that their game is devoid of a central marketplace in Wraeclast to buy and sell everything. This lack of a central marketplace or "Public Stash" as Chris had proposed years ago for buying/selling all PoE items is made worse knowing that the game economy aspects of PoE are a major priority of the developers. Anyone reading this will immediately think back to the D3 Auction House and while it was ultimately deemed bad and is probably why Blizzard removed it from D3:RoS but PoE is not D3 since there is no gold standard here and knowing that the economy is a key aspect of playing PoE we do need a central marketplace for buying/selling.

Can Some one in the know (preferably a GGG employee) provide a time when this missing game feature will be available? (Please no "by the time act 10 comes out" type of response, thank you.)

Its actually exactly like the real world as there is no central market place other than that created by the sellers/businesses. It is actually a little comical how your 'not the way things are' describes exactly how things are irl. Anyways, if we were to have an artificial market place, as you seem to want, it would change things significantly. Prices would be much more fixed, so no more good deals. Selling gear would no longer be an active part of the game. You may as well just have vendors give an honest price and be able to buy end game gear from them, at least for uniques/maps/orbs. Rares can standardized through masters, no need to trade these at all. Pros and cons it seems. I like the way it is currently, more like the real world.

poe.trade is sort of a central marketplace, with sellers able to put their shops up with prices based loosely on what everyone else is selling for. What I don't understand is why this is done through a third party site.

I kind of understand what Backwoods is saying, that there isn't a central marketplace in the real world, but then again there is. Just look at amazon.com, you have multiple products that perform about the same function listed at slightly different prices based upon individual attributes of each item. Sounds just like PoE. Many different pieces of gear that perform about the same function (each item slot) that are listed at slightly different prices based upon individual attributes of each item (affixes). Pretty straightforward comparison.

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BackwoodsS wrote:

Its actually exactly like the real world as there is no central market place other than that created by the sellers/businesses. It is actually a little comical how your 'not the way things are' describes exactly how things are irl. Anyways, if we were to have an artificial market place, as you seem to want, it would change things significantly. Prices would be much more fixed, so no more good deals. Selling gear would no longer be an active part of the game. You may as well just have vendors give an honest price and be able to buy end game gear from them, at least for uniques/maps/orbs. Rares can standardized through masters, no need to trade these at all. Pros and cons it seems. I like the way it is currently, more like the real world.

 Excuse me, but if you hadn't noticed just about all towns in all countries have some form of farmers market that we can go to sell and where all can come to buy produce. Here in the US we typically go to the big stores that allow a gazillion companies to sell their wares and where consumers go to buy from. We don't waste all our time driving around to dozens of locations to purchase the food and items we need. And I'm using the biggest marketplace of all time (and forever) to be able to have this PoE debate. It's called the Internet. The Internet is the marketplace for the whole world.

 Sp where is the PoE marketplace? No Public Stash for buying/selling is to be found. Not even a whisper from GGG on this in a long, long time. We are all left to fend for ourselves in 3rd party sights and back allies to buy/sell out of our car trunks (trade chat). This fragmented time consuming method is the single reason most players don't sell or buy. This has led to a larger quantity of self-found players than otherwise would be. This has led to more players quitting than need be (would be) if buying/selling was easy to do. Trade chat is making this task artificially harder than it should be.

Buying/selling need not be a major time consuming chore and a Public Stash is not artificial. If anything is artificial it it the fact that GGG has failed to code a proper way to buy/sell in-game and is forcing us to use 3rd party sites and archaic last century methods to buy and sell. This is 2015 and our high powered computers are supposed to make game playing easier, not harder.

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Charanjaydemyr wrote:

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Maswasnos wrote:

poe.trade is sort of a central marketplace

Uhm, no. It's not 'sort of'. It IS.

And who do players have to blame for GGG not making their own? Players for beating them to it, of course. And for not getting that GGG never wanted that but can't exactly fight back the flood either.

Way to go, players.

Actually, pathofexile.com is the central market. Poe.trade is an employee of the market.

This is important because if GGG truly does not want the poe.trade experience, they can shut it down. Remove the shop/item function of pathofexile.com and poe.trade can not function.

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Opinionated wrote:

Actually, pathofexile.com is the central market. Poe.trade is an employee of the market.

This is important because if GGG truly does not want the poe.trade experience, they can shut it down. Remove the shop/item function of pathofexile.com and poe.trade can not function.

There has been trading before the trade forum was up and before a proper interface was implemented. Unless GGG decides to destroy every item that is placed outside your stash/inventory there will always be trading. And people will always find a way to advertise their items, may that be on the notice board, the chat or a 3rd party side.

The real problem is not that too much trading hurts the game (as some devs might believe), it's the lack of social features. Where do I meet people to play with?

Certainly not on the notice board or in chat. The clan forum? During trade in the hideout? Certainly not.
The only place you actually get to see other players are the towns and I don't have to tell you how that is working out as meeting place.

To be fair, I said "the poe.trade experience". I was very specific in my wording there for a reason. GGG can not shut down the site, GGG can however cripple the sites functionality to uselessness.

Poe.trade is simply a filter. You do not trade within poe.trade. You do not list within poe.trade.

Therefore, I can not call poe.trade a market.

I would be willing to concede pathofexile.com as storage though. Except, I think part of the network for the game is actually named pathofexile.com.

Lastly, I have no agenda. I am simply trying to tell the truth of the situation. I am in no way suggesting any course of action.

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Opinionated wrote:

Poe.trade is simply a filter. You do not trade within poe.trade. You do not list within poe.trade.

Therefore, I can not call poe.trade a market.

That is correct. And that's kind of the problem. The poe.trade experience is subpar because you have to jump through so many hoops to facilitate a trade. The worst part is that seller and buyer have to stop playing to trade and that you can't trade if the seller is offline or AFK.

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Here is PoE, an arpg which focuses on long grind and economy.

Every game with any trading system focus on economy in one way or another.
Every free to play game focus on long grind in one way or another.

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If I had to travel around to a dozen or more farms to find the ones that had tomatoes for sale and go to all farms to find the best price/quality before buying the tomatoes, well, you get the picture.

Just open tomatoes.trade and see farmers offerts and then contact with tomatoes seller you want.

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PoE is not D3 since there is no gold standard

we dont have gold coins, we have gold orbs like chaos and exalts. Not really a big difference.

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Col_Jessep wrote:

The worst part is that seller and buyer have to stop playing to trade and that you can't trade if the seller is offline or AFK.

This is the best part, not the worst. Want offline trading? OK. Now all your medicore items are vendor tier and to get good items you have to grrnd 5 times more.

To hard to implement GGG had to write code for backstabbing players because they shouldn't just feel backstabbed they need to see their character drop on the floor after getting ripped off.