Yes and no, Wozarg. Also yes and no, Dugrim. People have implemented cross-game things like this before, with the most basic being a plain ol' community store: everyone uses the exact same store at all times and sees every transaction done by other folks. The nightmare isn't so much in implementing it as in . . . well, two areas: First, filtering out all the junk. I'm sure people would be fascinated to see me add Blunt Sword, Hatchet, Woodman's Axe and so on every day I run through the tutorial levels, but after awhile you might be disinterested to see 300 of them. You might try to solve this by, say, just grabbing a random assortment of "things people sold recently" and putting that in each user's store, but then how would that be different from the current random system? (The answer: it would be worse, as everyone's store would be biased toward "junk items.") Second, real-time competition for the few items that you want. "Click wars," as it were. Those are completely against the spirit of card and tabletop games, where real-world item transactions are deliberate and done between individuals, and I'd rather not see them here. Of course, you might not have wanted a "real-time" component, and meant instead something like a "daily digest." But then, what advantage would this system have over the current one? For stuff from other users, I'd rather trade one-on-one. The main benefit a "shared pool" could give in this game would be a shot at rare awesome stuff somebody tossed out; and even then, the computer gives better variety with less competition.
You're right Sir Knight. Let me explain my thought. My idea is: I sold a Blunt Sword, and the system puts it in the store. Another player sold the same item: the system checks, see that it is already in the store and doesn't put it in. One player buy the Blunt Sword: the system checks and see that the item is a "sold item" and puts another copy in the store (or doesn't delete it). So no click wars, no junk. But I don't know how difficult it could be.
This would mean with a large amount of players that every item would actually be in the store (meaning thousands) - can't say I'd like that.
Yes, that system is identical to the communal system, with the only difference being the visual number of duplicates. I've seen people limit the practical number of duplicates: Cardmaster Conflict keeps a maximum of 5 in-stock and deletes every surplus copy sold when it's maxed out. Which is essentially always, when you consider the cheap stuff. The good stuff, of course, pops up rarely and then everyone fights for it. Junk, click wars. Oh, and the rare occasion when somebody buys out all copies of something minor. The end result is that either system might as well be "infinite copies of all cards but the good ones," because at least you'd bypass the rare annoyance of minor-card buyouts. See, when you brought this up, I thought you were talking about the sort of enrichment promised for the "massively single-player" content of Spore: other players contribute directly to the good stuff in your game. Hence I suggested "things people sold recently" and so on. But a "just add more on the heap" communal store is something that, amusingly, has been implemented since at least the Wizardry games in the 80's (a purely offline game, with different playthroughs all contributing to the same pool): it's not hard to implement, but it's not fun for thousands of players and thousands of items.
Dugrim: Consider this: If items are NOT remove from store: A sell legendary A buy as many copies of that same legendary because it's now in store with infinite stock EVERYONE that's rich (either via long time collection of gold, or selling pizza for gold) also get that legendary Legendaries are now common as soon as someone with money get it. If items (even if limited to rarer items) are removed from store: Click war.
This could raise a sticky situation with people not being able to list their item due to there being a duplicate card already in the store's system. I'd say something like this might be harder to implement customer service-wise more than anything. If a player can't get rid of their items via a store, or say like an Auction House, then they'll be less interested in grinding for gear if they keep getting duplicates. If there's a way to "break cards down" into "materials" that you can use to "bind together" with other cards to form *NEW* cards, then that might solve more problems later down the road with being having an overabundance of the same Blunt Sword, etc.
Roflcat: in my opinion selling a rare/legendary/epic is not worth it, better farm. If someone wants (and can) spend a lot of gold to have 2 or more copies of the same items... Why not? And the "problem" with a legendary becaming common... I don't see the problem, even in PvP, unless most of the players start to battle with the same party/deck. Hexyz: the players can sell their items, but the system put only one of those on the market (if they sold the same item).
