Global Trade HQ Margin Trading? Filthy Llamas ...
By far the most frustrating feature of the game and its playability is the GTHQ and the Llamas constantly messing up the bookkeeping. Believe me, I get it, without opposable thumbs no one should have ever let them near the books. Now, Im speculating here, but the problem seems to be that an item lists to the GTHQ and theres a randomness as to who sees which items based on the time the item is listed and the refresh/request to view the market made by the users. That causes a bit of a traffic jam on a high-value item and of course some amount of latency in processing the request, satisfying it, then updating the GTHQ DB. The first person that gets through the door gets the item and the next 100 dont but do get that infuriating Llama error.
The simplest solution, to me, is to trade on margin ... EA's margin, anyway. Hypothetically, if 10 people want a cream, and theres only one, just give all 10 people a cream (or as many as it takes to clear the bottle neck in accounting) and then EA's ledger is in the red by 9 creams. The next 9 cream listed by users1 through user9 never make it to the market place and satisfy the ledger and we're all happy. The consequence is that items will show up less often because some items are being used to satisfy the bookkeeping instead of hitting the market and we who want a cream never see it, but of course the flip side is that users who requested an item got it, so its all commutative and net zero. Also, in the real-world theres price discrepancies and dollars at stake ... sell a stock at $100 someone needs to buy a stock at $100. Simoleans are as real as unicorns so thats not an issue.
Now, Im not referring to when you click on an item in GTHQ and it goes to the neighboring city and its marked as sold. That doesn't bug me. What makes me want to absolutely hammer-murder my iPad is when I'm given the false hope that Im going to get the item and those filthy Llamas stomped on the books again! Anyway, can we do this? Please?
