1. Simple Suggestions: These first suggestions shouldn’t be too hard to implement;
1.1 The Trader Post Selection List – Assume the correct Trader Post (or be able to set as default). Everyone here knows what I'm talking about.
1.2 If 1. Is not possible, Alphabetically order the list. Ideally do this regardless.
1.3 Add more Information Columns that is sortable. For example;
a. Price per Unit – So say you have 10 Charcoal at 1 gold, the price per unit would be 10silver. This makes it easier to compare competing trade deals.
b. Approximate Distance between Trader Posts. I assume each Trader Post has a central tile x,y position. It would be great to know the approximate distance in miles/leagues or whatever unit you decide on. Especially when you could filter by distance (later point). Just a (x,y) or (12783,2091) co-ordinate into the formula √((Xa – Xb)^2 + (Ya – Yb)^2) where Xa, Ya = Trader Post A and Xb,Yb = Trader Post B.
**Fake news below - Trader Post Interface edited for illustrative purposes.
1.4 A Filters Bar along the top with minimum and maximum filters OR put them minimum and maximum filters into the filters box. These filters will add a lot of functionality to the Traders Post Interface. A lot of people will only want to travel so far, and the ability to filter out any Traders Post over a certain distance will save them a lot of time searching through the market.
Currently, if you want an item with a quality over 75, the only filter you can apply is 75. If there are no items with that quality, you will have to try 76 and then 77 and so on. being able to filter items between 75-100 would save a lot of time.
1.5 The ability to search a Single Traders Post. Initially, it has all items, alphabetically ordered, then when you click a category, it only displays items from that category etc etc.
1.6 Allow Animals/Livestock to be put into the market. People trade them so they should be in there.
1.7 A Blacklist – be able to add other Trader Posts to a blacklist. I.e. they can’t Trade you’re your Post if they are on it. (Especially if a concept I suggest later is taken on)
2. Contract System
This potentially is a little more difficult to understand and therefore implement but I’ll try explaining the concept in simply as I can. *I have kind of gone for the “complex behind the scenes, so that its easier for the user” approach.
I propose two kinds of contracts, “Pick Up” and “Delivery” and two new Trader Post areas, “Sold” and “Dispatch” (in addition to “Put up for Sale” and “My Offers”).
** Neither contract would be compulsory and people should still be able to buy goods directly from a Trader Post as they can now**
2.1 A “Pick Up” Contract – Very similar to the currently system, except when browsing the market in your home Trader Post, you can reserve an item or items for 24hours so that they still there after travelling 2 hours to get them.
It's not really a big issue now as the volumes of trade through the official Market is low, but if the volumes of trade increased, this would be a must. See rough flow chart below. (Might need to use some imagination here).
2.2 A “Delivery” Option
Similar concept, except in reverse, where a Seller can additional offer to deliver the item(s) to the Buyer, most likely at a greater expense (Time is money and venturing out can be a perilous task for some) This is not overly necessary and would definitely NOT be compulsory but would be a nice and really handy feature. (Blacklist above would be required)
2.3 I have also made up some mock ups of what it could look like;
The "Buy" Tab
The "Put Up For Sale" Tab
You can list an item price for "Pick Up" at a price say "1 Silver"
You can add a item price for "Delivery" within "8 miles" for a price of say "25 Silver"
You can add a item price for "Delivery" within "16 miles" for a price of say "1 Gold"
A buyer 3.4 miles away would see both "Pick Up" Price of 1 Silver and the "Delivery" price of 25 Silver.
A buyer 13 miles away would see both "Pick Up" Price of 1 Silver and the "Delivery" price of 1 Gold.
A buyer 17.3 miles away would only see the "Pick Up" Price of 1 Silver.
The "My Offers" Tab - Same as current.
The "Sold" Tab - I.e. Items that you listed that have been sold through the "Pick Up" Contract - You cannot interact with them for 24 Hours
The "Dispatch" Tab - I.e. Items that you listed that have been sold through the "Delivery" Contract. - You can pull these items into your Inventory for transport.
3. Also, some small issues/bugs (probably not the right place for this):
3.1 Cant drag window larger. The market screen needs to be able to be dragged to fullscreen nearly.
3.2 If you sort by Price currently, it does not take coin value into consideration. I.e. 1 Gold = 100 Silver = 10,000 Copper. It will sort 1 Gold above 2 Copper in Price for lowest to highest.
I hope that wasn't too much to take in. Feedback? Thoughts?
Again, I don't expect the developers to be putting this at the top of their "To-Do" list but it would be nice to add a few of these things especially while there are slowly working on it.
Cheers.