Trade isn’t great as-is. But auction houses get pushback. What about player shops?

Trade (as-is) and Auction Houses are not the only two options. Player shops might be worth a thought. To illustrate my idea, I’ll explain how shops work in Ultima Online. It’s kinda a middle ground between AH and current Trade.

A player sets a vendor. In UO it’s an NPC. Here it could just be the stash. Whatever, that isn’t important. They list their items at whatever price (like we currently do). There is an in-game item search (basically like our trade website currently) where players can find what they want.

Here’s the difference: upon finding the item, they teleport to the vendor (here, the seller’s hideout), open the vendor, locate the item, and buy it. The vendor holds the proceeds until the seller collects them.

This is basically the midpoint between AH and current trade. There is still minor friction, in that you have to go to someone’s hideout and locate the item on their vendor. It’s not click-to-buy like an AH. But it’s smoother than current trade in that you can actually buy the listed items instead of going through 50 whispers to get it. No one can scam list items at lower prices than they’ll actually sell for. It solves the same issues as an AH while maintaining some (albeit much less) “friction.”

It feels good in Ultima Online. It might work here. Interested to hear thoughts.