SUG: ability to rate other people on trades, or enforce direct trades

[Ramsthese]

I'm not sure if there have been a lot of other posts about this yet, but a user - DeepSeaSeamus - scammed a fair number of people out of goods by agreeing to direct trades and never shipping his half, and then claiming server problems, ISP, "this is a beta, must be a bug", etc. We need a way to either enforce trades or vote someone (in a similar way to ebay for instance) up or down based on goods received or not. I really enjoy the social interaction and trust in this game, but internet trolls have finally arrived...

[abana]

Probably why another player (who was scamming me), argued against a rating system.

[BrazNomar]

Oh, great, I just agreed with a trade with the guy... lol, thankfully it was nothing that important.

[CppThis]

What we need is a contract system, where for a small fee the items all go into escrow until both parties have completed the terms of the trade agreement and everyone gets their goods.

[Amun Nefer]

That sounds like a good idea, that way we avoid problems and people getting upset at each other over tied up ships, or possible scams.

[Tahngarth]

there are 2 trade systems, the market is impossible to scam and requires a fee plus proximity whereas the private trade system is based on trust. Removing the trust element would take too much from the game - there is little enough incentive to use the market as it is. Perhaps it could be introduced for a bread fee, which should be set at a higher level than the equivalent market fee.

[Deguar]

What we need is a contract system, where for a small fee the items all go into escrow until both parties have completed the terms of the trade agreement and everyone gets their goods.

Personally I don't mind the risk, but then I generally trade with folk who I am aware of through market selling/buying. The ones outside the market reach were met over forums or recomendations or just researching that Pharaoh ..

Look at their profile screen before trading.

Pharaoh Deguakay (Rank 232)
Empire Birthdate: Friday, October 31st 2008
Laborers: 395
Donations to the Gods: 261
Market Sales: 286
Market Purchases: 267

Cities
Hetephinushr (59N) (Level 8) Rakheben (49N) (Level 6)

Now I admit to being biased about this Deguakay, very trustworthy individual. But he has a decent rank, been around for several weeks, donates to the temples, has a good balance of import/exports over the market, vaguely sensible Pharaoh and city names, reasonably developed.

Not all of these are factors are important by themselves, it's the overall impression it gives me that yeah this trader is worth taking a RISK on.

Introduce escrow, contracts, enforcable agreements etc takes away that risk and notably should therefore incur a fee of at least 10% to bring it into line with the market costs.

Deguakay

[CppThis]

I don't see any problem with adding a bread cost for added security. Basically I'm looking at this from the perspective of what happens when the game goes gold and there's suddenly a hundred thousand people with level 1 or 2 markets, plus a much highter proportion of griefers who show up now that there's a large audience for their antics (remember, its all about the lulz for these guys and there isn't much lulz in a ~2.5K person beta). And NO is gonna be DOA if a whole lot of those guys get burned, quit, and tell their friends the game sucks.

So there needs to be a limited-trust alternative to the market for handling the situations where the market just isn't going to get the job done due to range limitations.

[Ramsthese]

Well, a built-in escrow system would be nice.. If you could agree on a third party to both pay a bread fee, for instance, and he agrees to forward shipments when they have both arrived, or return your shipment after a set period... but this is introducing too much complexity into the game. I still like the idea of when you receive a shipment of something, being able to mark up someone, thus creating a "good seller" rating.