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Mike'P
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Posted - 2007.09.19 23:44:00 -
[1]
Hi all,
Having just spent the last half an hour going through the daily tedium of <click> check market value <click> modify order <click><click><click>, I can't but wonder whether our beloved benefactors CCP (oh, hang on, we pay THEM.... oh, sorry, right).
Anyway, I can't help thinking that trading - like mining - is purposely kept as a mind numbingly tedious exercise on purpose.
Why do I think this? Well, here's the wishlist:-
- modifying order prices is very error prone as when you click on the price field, it removes the 'thousands' commas - hence promoting errors and breaking a fundamental UI rule - "what you click is what you see is what you get"
- how difficult would it be for the UI to colour your orders to indicate whether you were the current market 'winner' or 'loser' - the short answer is 'ten minutes', because that is the amount of time it would take for someone to do this if the API allowed access to your current orders and the market
- talking of which, why can't we get our market orders out of the API yet ?
- actually, I don't need my market orders, I just need to know how much I have in escrow. Yes, it is possible to calculate this, but you need a a 'time zero' value to go from, and - oh yes - the orders page already has this magic number on it, so why not let us get it via the API.
- [now read this one carefully] when you set up a new buy or sell order, why does it pick up the best sell or best buy number... when, as traders, we actually would like it to default to the best buy or best sell number. ie, if anyone is setting up a buy order, why would they not want to start from the basis of the current best buy order ? Why would the best sell order have any bearing on their thinking ? My best answer is that it encourages errors and mistakes.
So why my inflammatory title? Well, unlike the complexities of T2 BPO->BPC conversions, blobs, heat and NOS nerfs, these seem to me like UI issues that we all struggle with on a daily basis.... that have no other function than to waste our time. Daily.
I've only been in the trading game for a month or so, and I can see the profit to be had, but don't appreciate the mind-numbing tedium of the interface - when - as a programmer myself - I'm sure the programmers at CCP HQ could give me 30 minutes back every day.
Does anyone agree with me, or am I barking up the wrong tree ?
Cheers,
Mike.
[PS, apologies for length but not for girth]
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Galgorth
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Posted - 2007.09.19 23:50:00 -
[2]
I totally agree with this. Trading is a cumbersome, time-consuming activity that, with a UI few tweaks, could easily be made more efficient and less error-prone. The market screen desperately needs some tuneups to bring it in line with the level of UI quality in today's MMOs.
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Shadarle
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Posted - 2007.09.20 00:39:00 -
[3]
Indeed. There are easily 100 tweaks that could be made to the market UI and it still wouldn't be perfect.
Being able to stop refreshing of the market all the time would be nice.
Being able to save searches as quickbar entries.
Being able to add folders to the quickbar.
Having color coded order entries based on if you posted them, your corp posted them, a friend posted them, an enemy posted them, a neutral player posted them, or a random other person posted them.
Being able to update all selected orders by either X isk or X%.
These are just some of the bigger changes. A smaller one is to allow individual players to modify the market graphs with min/max values, etc.
Tanking Setups Compared
Stacking Penalty / Resists Explained |
shags
CyberDyne Industries
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Posted - 2007.09.20 01:56:00 -
[4]
When i read this i thought of a post i saw the other day on eve-search i had made in 2004 about how i wished you could use the market in space (it was not always possible). I got a 1 line reply from a now relatively well known player saying "Why not an automatic miner so I can sit in station and have it mine for me?". Well in the end i guess i was right.
anyways.
I could not agree more with how broken the UI is. The most annoying to me is the auto updating the market does after you modify an order. in laggy regions this practically doubles your time spent adjusting orders.
Coloring orders would also be a great improvement.
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Benvie
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Posted - 2007.09.20 02:27:00 -
[5]
I would happy if they simply made the existing interface more responsive. It is way too bogged down for whatever reason. It shouldn't lag up every time you change screens or modify an order or do ANYTHING.
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Beefy McSlab
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Posted - 2007.09.20 05:09:00 -
[6]
To be honest, I'd settle for it highlighting my orders.
Oh and OP, it takes me around an hour to go through all my orders. I think Shardale once mentioned 900 orders (which would be 3 chars). So count yourself lucky at half an hour :)
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Hanami Paati
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Posted - 2007.09.20 05:43:00 -
[7]
Originally by: Shadarle Being able to add folders to the quickbar.
Oh god. This. Please.
On the general point of Eve's UI being generally appalling: yup, totally.
The market UI is shockingly bad, though I would submit it isn't quite as bad as invention/manufacturing. Submitting each invention job in my POS takes 7 mouse clicks. For 10 (identical) runs that is ~70 clicks when it could easily be 2-3.
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Shadarle
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Posted - 2007.09.20 07:42:00 -
[8]
Originally by: Hanami Paati The market UI is shockingly bad, though I would submit it isn't quite as bad as invention/manufacturing. Submitting each invention job in my POS takes 7 mouse clicks. For 10 (identical) runs that is ~70 clicks when it could easily be 2-3.
Indeed. Being able to set defaults would be nice.
Being able to start from the manufacturing/copyng/research/invention slots and picking a BPO in your hangar/corp hangar from there would be nice as well. Being able to recall recent jobs and re-run them would be lovely as well. Or to save jobs.
Tanking Setups Compared
Stacking Penalty / Resists Explained |
Matthew
Caldari BloodStar Technologies
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Posted - 2007.09.20 08:16:00 -
[9]
Originally by: Mike'P - modifying order prices is very error prone as when you click on the price field, it removes the 'thousands' commas - hence promoting errors and breaking a fundamental UI rule - "what you click is what you see is what you get"
Agree that this should be changed.
Originally by: Mike'P - how difficult would it be for the UI to colour your orders to indicate whether you were the current market 'winner' or 'loser' - the short answer is 'ten minutes', because that is the amount of time it would take for someone to do this if the API allowed access to your current orders and the market
Not as convinced on this one. While you could easily show whether your order is the most expensive/cheapest on the market, serious traders know that that's a very poor way to determine if their order is appropriately priced. It would encourage more mindless undercutting.
Any more complicated order assessment I definitely don't think should be handed out for free by the client - by all means grant the ability to output the data needed to do it, but assesment of the market and maintenance of orders should be work done by the player.
Originally by: Mike'P - [now read this one carefully] when you set up a new buy or sell order, why does it pick up the best sell or best buy number... when, as traders, we actually would like it to default to the best buy or best sell number. ie, if anyone is setting up a buy order, why would they not want to start from the basis of the current best buy order ? Why would the best sell order have any bearing on their thinking ? My best answer is that it encourages errors and mistakes.
Actually, there is a perfectly good reason for this. The market defaults to assuming that you're placing an immediate order (i.e. you want to buy/sell the stuff right this very second). If you want to buy right now, the current best sell price is what you're going to have to pay.
Sure, it's not the way round that traders work, but it's the way round that the majority of your (non-trader) customers will work. Serious traders should never be relying on the default value in that box anyway, regardless of how it's being generated, so setting the default to serve the customer, where it's actually useful, makes perfect sense.
The furthest I'd go here is to say put a tick-box option in the options menu that disables pre-populating of the price field completely. That would avoid you accidentally forgetting to change the value, while keeping a feature that a lot of your customers will use.
Originally by: Shadarle These are just some of the bigger changes. A smaller one is to allow individual players to modify the market graphs with min/max values, etc.
Personally, I'd prefer them to just allow you to dump the values behind the market graphs out. They're never going to be able to put in every graphing and analysis method people want, and I don't really think they should try.
Originally by: Shadarle Being able to start from the manufacturing/copyng/research/invention slots and picking a BPO in your hangar/corp hangar from there would be nice as well.
I was under the impression you could do this (though I can't check right now) - IIRC, just find the installation you want in the Installations tab of the S&I window, pick your slot and it should give you the order window with the slot pre-populated and the BP blank. Then just use the pick BP button. Though admittedly it would be more streamlined if it popped up the BP-picker automatically. ------- There is no magic Wand of Fixing, and it is not powered by forum whines. |
Hoboid
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Posted - 2007.09.20 08:35:00 -
[10]
apart from the already mentioned things 2 options come to my mind:
- being able to bookmark an article from the orders-tab
- a sum of all orders - just as its about std for every stats i know and use in rl - just a simple sum of each column in the orders tab (ok maybe not the location :P)
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Ambo
2nd Outcasters
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Posted - 2007.09.20 09:09:00 -
[11]
Well the tedious nature of the interface boes have one major good point for traders. It puts a lot of people off trying to use it. I'm sure if it was less effort and generally nicer and easier to use then everyone would start using it and profit margins for career traders would suffer.
I'm not saying I'd be against a revamp. In fact I'd like to see many changes but just saying every cloud has a silver lining.
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Luaren Avidius
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Posted - 2007.09.20 10:31:00 -
[12]
As much as I would love to see most of these changes made to the market, there is one change that I want to see so bad, that if it ever happens, I will stop complaining about the market interface for the next year:
Kill the autoupdating on the orders tab. Make it a button you can press, make it a timer you can set, just stop having the damned thing refersh every damned order you have whenever you sell or buy something.
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Hanoi Hana
Mitsubishi Group
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Posted - 2007.09.20 11:12:00 -
[13]
I bet I'm not the only one who tries to beat the autorefresh by viewing the next item's details as quickly as possible. It's a little aggravating.
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Matthew
Caldari BloodStar Technologies
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Posted - 2007.09.20 11:25:00 -
[14]
Originally by: Luaren Avidius As much as I would love to see most of these changes made to the market, there is one change that I want to see so bad, that if it ever happens, I will stop complaining about the market interface for the next year:
Kill the autoupdating on the orders tab. Make it a button you can press, make it a timer you can set, just stop having the damned thing refersh every damned order you have whenever you sell or buy something.
I would think the reluctance to do this will be coming from the fact that there will be a lot more "order no longer exists" errors thrown to users with less frequent updating. What we need to demonstrate is that "order no longer exists" errors are less annoying than the auto-refresh. ------- There is no magic Wand of Fixing, and it is not powered by forum whines. |
Jennine Tyler
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Posted - 2007.09.20 11:38:00 -
[15]
Interesting thread this;
I recently tried the beta for another MMO, which has a similarly complex economy; perhaps less so on the trading front, but more so in production. Everything I did was incredibly clunky compared to the eve ui. All the time I was wishing it was more like eve.
That said, of course the eve-ui still has alot of room for improvement; and many of the suggestions here are good ones. But of all the online games I've played, and there are many, I always end up realising just how polished eve is compared to these games.
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shags
CyberDyne Industries
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Posted - 2007.09.20 12:36:00 -
[16]
i sense the potential to be flamed for this but oh well.
One of the things that kept me playing wow for so long was the ability to completely customize the interface via a scripting language. EVE could really use this. i fear its to late for them to do it now though or they just don't want the players to have that much power.
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Jennine Tyler
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Posted - 2007.09.20 15:20:00 -
[17]
Im fairly sure that oveur said this wasnt going to happen in one of the sessions on eve-tv. A programmable interface puts too much power in the hands of the players; and is too open to exploitation.
He did however say that as part of the engine revamp, the UI would have extensive work done to it; More on the space side than the trade side I suspect, but I hope it wont be left out of the improvements entirely.
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Sir Nurges
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Posted - 2007.09.20 16:46:00 -
[18]
Just remove the damned auto-refresh thing, when orders get modified and it would do fine.
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Benvie
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Posted - 2007.09.20 17:08:00 -
[19]
What I don't get is why the whole entire market interface updates when something changes, and why that has to totally screw with the process of refreshing orders. Couldn't it just update the bits of information that need to be updated instead of basically doing a full wipe. That's why it causes so much damn lag. And that's another question, why does my entire game freeze for a second every time an order goes through? What exactly the hell is it doing that it has to freeze my entire game?
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Shadarle
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Posted - 2007.09.20 17:18:00 -
[20]
Originally by: shags i sense the potential to be flamed for this but oh well.
One of the things that kept me playing wow for so long was the ability to completely customize the interface via a scripting language. EVE could really use this. i fear its to late for them to do it now though or they just don't want the players to have that much power.
Indeed. This is the main reason I played WOW as long as I did as well. I would have quit half a year sooner at least. In fact, the main reason I didn't re-subscribe was that Blizzard broke a few of the mods I used to use and the authors got tired of updating them. I just didn't want to play the game without those mods... they just made the game far more fun.
Nothing I used was exploitative. They just removed tedium. They showed me when abilities were ready. They told me what was happening around me. They would reduce things down from 4-5 mouse clicks to 2-3 mouse clicks. The interface was almost completely customizable but it didn't mean it was easy to exploit it. Blizzard set out certain rules that you couldn't use the interface to do certain things... and if you did they would warn you and then, the key point, they would nerf that tiny bit of the interface so no one would be able to exploit in that way again.
Everyone initially said that the blizzard interface would lead to non-stop exploits. It didn't. It led to a much more fun gaming experience. It's a poor excuse to say a flexible UI would only lead to exploiting.
NO. A flexible UI leads to a better gaming experience. A poorly written UI leads to exploits. You can have a well writen flexible UI which has no exploit potential. It's pure laziness or lack of confidence in programming ability to say that flexibility definitely means exploit-ability.
Tanking Setups Compared
Stacking Penalty / Resists Explained |
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SheriffFruitfly
Caldari Science and Trade Institute
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Posted - 2007.09.20 17:25:00 -
[21]
Originally by: Mike'P Anyway, I can't help thinking that trading - like mining - is purposely kept as a mind numbingly tedious exercise on purpose.
I agree. The lack of availability of full market data, both historical and otherwise, is proof. Presumably they do it to hold the smart folks back, making the game commensurately easier for the dumb and lazy.
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Pang Grohl
Gallente Sudo Corp
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Posted - 2007.09.20 18:01:00 -
[22]
Originally by: SheriffFruitfly
Originally by: Mike'P Anyway, I can't help thinking that trading - like mining - is purposely kept as a mind numbingly tedious exercise on purpose.
I agree. The lack of availability of full market data, both historical and otherwise, is proof. Presumably they do it to hold the smart folks back, making the game commensurately easier for the dumb and lazy.
I think you have the concept backwards here. The lack of perfect data visibility makes it harder for the dumb and lazy. The smart folks have figured out how to compensate for the shortcomings of the interface and are making isk at will.
It's the same reason that we don't have perfect information about combat, invention, drop, and standings formulas. EVE is meant to be played with and experienced, not observed and optimized with a spreadsheet.
Si non adjuvas, noces (If you're not helping, you're hurting) |
SheriffFruitfly
Caldari Science and Trade Institute
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Posted - 2007.09.20 18:08:00 -
[23]
Edited by: SheriffFruitfly on 20/09/2007 18:09:02
Originally by: Pang Grohl I think you have the concept backwards here. The lack of perfect data visibility makes it harder for the dumb and lazy. The smart folks have figured out how to compensate for the shortcomings of the interface and are making isk at will.
That's only by comparison with the blithering idiots - an artificially low bar. Rather than that, you have to compare the smart folks' earning efficiency with what they would be able to earn with access to complete market data. With *that* comparison in mind, the "smart folks" are being held back.
EDIT: I.e., I don't have the concept backwards, *you've* got the comparison class backwards.
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Shadarle
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Posted - 2007.09.20 18:10:00 -
[24]
Edited by: Shadarle on 20/09/2007 18:10:31
Originally by: Pang Grohl EVE is meant to be played with and experienced, not observed and optimized with a spreadsheet.
And yet every aspect of EVE is indeed observed and optimized with a spreadsheet. I've made my own full featured sheets for mining, production, reprocessing, trading, accounting, ship fitting, mission running, skills and investing.
I'm sorry, but anyone who says a game is supposed to be confusing or the interface is supposed to be tedious to navigate is just an elitist. No game should intentionally keep an interface complicated as a way to keep stupid people from using it. And I'm quite sure this isn't what CCP is doing. They want every possible user in EVE they can get. I just think they don't realize how many people they scare away with this interface.
Tanking Setups Compared
Stacking Penalty / Resists Explained |
Pang Grohl
Gallente Sudo Corp
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Posted - 2007.09.20 20:20:00 -
[25]
Originally by: SheriffFruitfly
Originally by: Pang Grohl I think you have the concept backwards here. The lack of perfect data visibility makes it harder for the dumb and lazy. The smart folks have figured out how to compensate for the shortcomings of the interface and are making isk at will.
That's only by comparison with the blithering idiots - an artificially low bar. Rather than that, you have to compare the smart folks' earning efficiency with what they would be able to earn with access to complete market data. With *that* comparison in mind, the "smart folks" are being held back.
EDIT: I.e., I don't have the concept backwards, *you've* got the comparison class backwards.
Nope you've just changed it. People who can't or won't (blithering idiots) adjust their behavior to spend their time in the most effective manner will alway have a disadvantage against those who do (smart folks). Regardless, if it gets any easier to earn isk via non, or minimally interactive methods the game will break.
Originally by: Shadarle
Originally by: Pang Grohl EVE is meant to be played with and experienced, not observed and optimized with a spreadsheet.
And yet every aspect of EVE is indeed observed and optimized with a spreadsheet. I've made my own full featured sheets for mining, production, reprocessing, trading, accounting, ship fitting, mission running, skills and investing.
I'm sorry, but anyone who says a game is supposed to be confusing or the interface is supposed to be tedious to navigate is just an elitist. No game should intentionally keep an interface complicated as a way to keep stupid people from using it. And I'm quite sure this isn't what CCP is doing. They want every possible user in EVE they can get. I just think they don't realize how many people they scare away with this interface.
That's a broad brush you paint with there. I've certainly noticed that, in general, EVE players are elitist. Especially us forum personalities.
I agree that a great deal of analytical thought is directed at EVE by the players. I agree that CCP wants to get as many players as they can hooked on EVE. I agree that the interface can be improved. I don't agree with the thought that making the interface better includes making the game easier. Part of the draw of EVE is that it's a challenge; that you can't go bang around the internet for a few hours, and come away knowing all there is to know about EVE.
Si non adjuvas, noces (If you're not helping, you're hurting) |
SheriffFruitfly
Caldari Science and Trade Institute
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Posted - 2007.09.20 21:34:00 -
[26]
Edited by: SheriffFruitfly on 20/09/2007 21:34:27
Originally by: Pang Grohl People who can't or won't (blithering idiots) adjust their behavior to spend their time in the most effective manner will alway have a disadvantage against those who do (smart folks).
I agree. It's just not what I was ever talking about. Only you are.
It comes closer to what I was talking about to think of the *marginal* disadvantage the blithering idiots are at. That *margin* would increase dramatically if full market visibility were easily available. Qualitatively, it follows from the definition of "blithering idiot" that such a person be at a disadvantage to smart folks. The quantification of this disadvantage is up for grabs though - and it's lessened by not allowing full market visibility.
Originally by: Pang Grohl Regardless, if it gets any easier to earn isk via non, or minimally interactive methods the game will break.
Which is a re-phrasing of my statement that it's designed as it is to hold back the smart folks. :)
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Shadarle
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Posted - 2007.09.20 21:56:00 -
[27]
Originally by: Pang Grohl I agree that a great deal of analytical thought is directed at EVE by the players. I agree that CCP wants to get as many players as they can hooked on EVE. I agree that the interface can be improved. I don't agree with the thought that making the interface better includes making the game easier. Part of the draw of EVE is that it's a challenge; that you can't go bang around the internet for a few hours, and come away knowing all there is to know about EVE.
Making the interface better does not mean making the game easier. I think CCP can provide more information for us, they can make their interface more intuitive (to get more players hooked) and they can add new abilities into the interface... all without making the game "easy".
Making things less tedious is not the same as making things easy.
Tanking Setups Compared
Stacking Penalty / Resists Explained |
Luaren Avidius
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Posted - 2007.09.21 10:56:00 -
[28]
Originally by: Matthew
Originally by: Luaren Avidius As much as I would love to see most of these changes made to the market, there is one change that I want to see so bad, that if it ever happens, I will stop complaining about the market interface for the next year:
Kill the autoupdating on the orders tab. Make it a button you can press, make it a timer you can set, just stop having the damned thing refersh every damned order you have whenever you sell or buy something.
I would think the reluctance to do this will be coming from the fact that there will be a lot more "order no longer exists" errors thrown to users with less frequent updating. What we need to demonstrate is that "order no longer exists" errors are less annoying than the auto-refresh.
Ive had thoughts from time to time of making a FRAPS video similar to some of the more amusing "omgfleet lag" videos some people have made to demosntrate lag, only with me trying to update a single order for 5 minutes and the interface never, ever opening the modify screen.
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damalos
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Posted - 2007.09.21 11:13:00 -
[29]
sorry but this is a maga bad idea, trading is supposed to take time, if u could modify all ur order in a quarter of the time it would take babysitting orders to a whole new level. Its the only barrier that stops the whole of the eve community doing it, if you make it much easier to do although it would be nice initailly it would ruin trading completley.
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Daeva Vios
Ardent Adversary Anvil.
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Posted - 2007.09.21 11:44:00 -
[30]
Edited by: Daeva Vios on 21/09/2007 11:44:27
Originally by: SheriffFruitfly
Originally by: Mike'P Anyway, I can't help thinking that trading - like mining - is purposely kept as a mind numbingly tedious exercise on purpose.
I agree. The lack of availability of full market data, both historical and otherwise, is proof. Presumably they do it to hold the smart folks back, making the game commensurately easier for the dumb and lazy.
Just posted this small blurb, but I'm addressing the whole argument. I actually suspect that this whole argument you guys are having is sort of irrelevant. CCP hasn't had a full-time economist with access to the full scope of market data until very recently. What he has been doing, presumably, is studying the markets and getting a feel for them.
What he will do with that information, ideally, is to then work with the rest of the dev team to improve the market. As an individual who has dedicated his life to the study and nature of economics, he likely has a rather good idea of the sort of features we want added. We can enhance his knowledge with posts a lot like this one.
I don't think that CCP has been intentionally holding traders back. I think they just didn't really know the full scope of what they'd created, in their economy.
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