Re: Global Trade HQ needs to have a "Search" feature.

I have come up with some ideas to possibly make using the GTHQ experience easier and more efficient, considering we are stuck with it as it is. It might require the cooperation of many users however I think we can effect some changes. Here are my initial thoughts:

1. LIMIT OR DISCOURAGE THE SALE OF EASILY MADE ITEMS LIKE METAL AND WOOD  I cannot envision a situation where I do not have 60 seconds to make metal myself and yet I see countless amounts of these for sale. Same goes for wood. The amount of time spent having to look at each sellers items, only to find wood and metal is tremendous. If these were not clogging up the works, we could visit many more sellers and find what we are looking for

2. PROHIBIT THE SELLING OF 1 ONLY OF THE LOWER PRICED ITEMS It takes the same amount of time and effort to find and purchase 5 of an item as it does 1. I recently saw a seller who had plastic for sale 1 at a time and had probably 20 of them

3. PRICE ITEMS AGGRESSIVELY WHEN THERE IS AN OVERSUPPLY When it is obvious that there is an oversupply of items, I consistently see people listing them for the top price. Case in point, this past Contest of Mayors, I personally had 3 assignments to produce and collect electrical components, as I know many others had as well. I personally delivered over 150 of these to the market. Faced with that much supply and wanting to get rid of these, I priced mine at or below the minimum price. I was very surprised to see how many people were selling these for the top price and had 30+ to sell. If people were willing to reduce the prices, these items would sell quicker and free up more items for the market. Same goes for mountain expansion pieces. Remember these items are made for free so whatever they sell for is pure profit, other than time

I know these ideas will not change anything overnight and might not even be feasible. Its obvious something needs to change for the benefit of all of us and that change is not coming from EA

bettysadog wrote:
I have come up with some ideas to possibly make using the GTHQ experience easier and more efficient, considering we are stuck with it as it is. It might require the cooperation of many users however I think we can effect some changes.

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🙂 It' s cool we can come up with some useful actions! But we have to discuss them more extensively.

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Here are my initial thoughts:

1. LIMIT OR DISCOURAGE THE SALE OF EASILY MADE ITEMS LIKE METAL AND WOOD I cannot envision a situation where I do not have 60 seconds to make metal myself and yet I see countless amounts of these for sale. Same goes for wood.

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But there is such time! You mentioned yourself what three times all your factories were busy producing electrical components, each time it's 7 hours! If you want to prepare some other assignments while this waiting period is up, you can find yourself short on metal, wood, plastic and seeds quite often! I sure did several times buy those materials from other cities.

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3. PRICE ITEMS AGGRESSIVELY WHEN THERE IS AN OVERSUPPLY When it is obvious that there is an oversupply of items, I consistently see people listing them for the top price. Case in point, this past Contest of Mayors, I personally had 3 assignments to produce and collect electrical components, as I know many others had as well. I personally delivered over 150 of these to the market. Faced with that much supply and wanting to get rid of these, I priced mine at or below the minimum price. I was very surprised to see how many people were selling these for the top price and had 30+ to sell. If people were willing to reduce the prices, these items would sell quicker and free up more items for the market. Same goes for mountain expansion pieces. Remember these items are made for free so whatever they sell for is pure profit, other than time

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Your point is perfectly valid, but I know why I always put everything at top price, may be others players do it because of the same reason: with big storage space you can keep your produced items longer with not big harm, and all the advertised items will be bought by Daniel in 24 hours anyway... That's what undermines the aggressive pricing in this otherwise market economy!

I fully support your initiative: let us talk about it more and find some interesting solutions!

I will suggest that it is more insidious than what you describe. The problem with "freemium" games is that the vendor will often introduce "challenges" that induce players to spend money in order to circumvent them. The items available in Trade HQ, not to mention the lag when buying, is an obvious attempt to confound players. There are some creative solutions but they also require some effort... 

I would like you to think about why items are scarce, Most club are trading within the club so unless we are overburdened we seldom dump to global market, I may have to buy 5 of 1 item but only need 3 so 2 are put on market.If this continues when I do put items on  global market there can be numerous single or double items.The question I would pose is why there are so many hamburgers or sugar all at once.I have a large city and yes buy metal,wood etc because it will help younger starter club but my factories are full. Made 14 tapes at challenge this way.Not all thins are bad.

"I cannot envision a situation where I do not have 60 seconds to make metal myself"

My factories are all busy with making feed/textiles/glass and I have no spare slots.

There you go, wasn't too hard to envisage a situation.

I heard that mayor Daniel buys items eventually if nobody else buys them and that's why people always sell with top price. Simply remove this crutch, people will start to think about the price when their slots are full and stuff doesn't sell.