The Grand Exchange Upgrade- As its my baby =p

This is an old/ new thread, thought I would post is here incase I lose it somehow, all the ideas were from my original GE thread in 2006, but others have been removed as they were actually implemented.

Where the font looks funny it means you can copy and paste directly into the RS forums for perfect formatting


Welcome to my Grand Exchange Upgrade thread.


Below I have summarised the few issues I have with the way the exchange operates. There are definitely room for improvements, and a summary of these follows.


Upgrade number 1: Post 3 -6
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An Order Book.

Why? I want to see what price someone is willing to buy and sell right now, and how much they can buy or sell me.


Upgrade number 2: Post 7 -10
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Market data.

Why? this is replacing merchanting, all us merchants want to know what the most heavily traded items are daily.


Upgrade number 3: Post 11 -12
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Numerical Trading book, not visual.

Why? It seems the only reason we can trade a maximum of six items is to compensate to see thing visually. Lines of text could extend to 100 items. We don't need more bank space if we can store half our goods at the exchange.


Upgrade number 4: Post 13 -14
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Negotiated Deals between accounts.

Why? So you can trade with a friend directly when you are offline, or trade between to of your own accounts.


If you have an upgrade you would like please post it, and I will write a detailed post about how it could work, thanks




=====================
Order Book & Operation
=====================

How big can the order book be?
-----------------------------
The depth can be infinite, as its only lines in the book

Example:

There are thousands of players buying and selling each item, searching coal in the forums here, produces hundreds of players buying coal, thus the order book would be hundreds deep, like this:

|------------------------***Coal Trading Screen***-------------------------------|
|
|-------------Buying Coal-----------------------Selling Coal----------------------|
|
|-Price--Quantity--Total Quantity--|-Price--Quantity--Total Quantity--|
|-----------------------------------------------|--------------------------------------------|
|--170----10,000-------10,000---------|------172-----2,000----2,000--------|
|--169----12,000-------22,000---------|------173-----5,000----7,000--------|
|--168------5,000-------27,000---------|------174---20,000---27,000-------|
|--167----80,000------107,000--------|------175-----2,500---29,500--------|
|--166----50,000------157,000--------|------176---31,000---60,500--------|
|--165----10,000------167,000--------|------177-----9,000---69,500--------|
|--164------1,500------168,500--------|------178---90,000--159,500-------|
|--163----10,000-------178,500-------|------179-----2,000----161,500-----|
|--162----12,000-------190,500-------|------180-----5,000----166,500-----|
|--161------5,000------195,500--------|------181---20,000---186,500-------|
|--160----80,000------275,500---------|------182-----2,500---189,000------|
|--159----50,000------325,500---------|------183---31,000---220,000------|
|--158----10,000------335,500---------|------184-----9,000---229,000------|
|--157------1,500------337,000---------|------185---90,000--319,000-------|
|--156----10,000------347,000---------|------186-----2,000---321,000------|
|--156----12,000------359,000---------|------187-----5,000---328,000------|





|--155------5,000------364,000---------|------187---20,000----355,000------|
|--155----80,000------444,000--------|------188-----2,500---357,500--------|
|--155----50,000------494,000--------|------189---31,000---388,500--------|
|--154----10,000------504,000--------|------190-----9,000---395,500--------|
|--153------1,500------505,500--------|------191---90,000--485,500---------|
|--152----10,000-------515,500-------|------192-----2,000----487,500-------|
|--152----12,000-------527,500-------|------193-----5,000----492,500-------|
|--152------5,000------532,500--------|------194---20,000---512,500--------|
|--151----80,000------610,500---------|------194-----2,500---514,000-------|
|--150----50,000------660,500---------|------194---31,000---545,000-------|
|--150----10,000------670,500---------|------195-----9,000---554,000-------|
|--150------1,500------671,000---------|------195---90,000--644,000--------|
|--150----80,000------751,000---------|------196-----2,500---646,500-------|
|--150----50,000------801,000---------|------197---31,000---676,500-------|
|--149----10,000------811,000---------|------198-----9,000---685,500------|
|--148------1,500------812,500---------|------199---90,000--775,500-------|
|--148----10,000-------822,500--------|------199-----2,000----777,500-----|
|--147----12,000-------834,500--------|------199-----5,000----782,500-----|
|--146------5,000------839,500--------|------199---20,000---802,500-------|
|--145----70,000------909,500---------|------199-----2,500---805,000------|
|--145----50,000------959,500---------|------200---31,000---836,000------|
|--142----10,000------969,500---------|------200-----9,000---845,000------|
|--140------1,500------970,000---------|------200---90,000--935,000-------|
|-----------------------------------------------|---------------------------------------------|




With this type of Order Book, you also remove the need for a 5% limit either way. Unbalanced trades can be limited by a 5% cap, but why should the Grand Exchange be limited.

Surely if players can see depth they can also decide for themselves what a good price to buy and sell an item is.

================
Market Data
================

The Grand Exchange is meant to replace merchanting, according to the BTS in November “The Grand Exchange will allow you to spend more time on the things you enjoy, providing a less time-consuming alternative to selling your items on the Forums or amongst the crowds of Varrock Marketplace.”


For this to work in reality though players need to know the price of items. The problem currently with items with value over 1 million gold is that 5% is a big movement either way.

Take a Robin Hood Hat for example. The price range on the GE will be 3.2M – 3.36M (5% range). If I get one from a TT, I want to sell it now but also not get ripped off by 100K. Can I do this? The short answer is no, I cannot.

If I place a Sell at 3.3M, and it does not sell straight away, I have to edit the price down 10k, then 10k again, and finally my price reaches 3.2M and sometimes it still does not sell!

As displayed in the Order Book in Post 3 -6, you can immediately see the depth for items, and what people are actually willing to buy and sell at, the real supply and demand.

The old way in the forums, you could browse 10 -20 threads instantly and see the price players were buying and selling. The GE just displays rough guidelines for price, not actual price or even actual trades



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Market Data - SoLutions!
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Watchlists
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Watchlists are feature that will allow you to watch and track changes of a specific amount of items. If you trade in only 2 or 3 items constantly, you only care to know what those items prices are. We should be able to create several Watchlists that show up to 10 items at once.

What a watchlist could look like:

Name: My Skilling Watchlist

|-- Item Name ---- Bid --- Offer --- High --- Low --- Last --- Volume --- (12hous)* ---|
|---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
|-- Coal --------------- 170 ---- 172 -----175 ----168 ---- 170 ---- 282,563 -----------|
|-- Magic Logs ---- 1152 ---1178 --- 1206 -- 1152 -- 1161 ---- 81,562 -----------|
|-- Nature Runes --- 289 --- 293 ---- 295 --- 286 ---- 290 --- 1,564,589 ---------|
|-- Bow Strings ----- 165 --- 168 ---- 169 --- 155 ---- 169 ---- 956,556 -----------|
|---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

*timeframe: this could be changed to show say last hour, 6hr, 12hr, 24hr, 48hr, week, month, year etc.

Field Explanations

Item Name: Choose any item you want to add to the watchlist
Bid: Current price that someone is willing to pay
Offer: Current price that someone is willing to buy
High: Highest price the item has traded in the selected timeframe
Low: Lowest price the item has traded in the selected timeframe
Last: Last traded price the item has traded in the selected timeframe
Volume: The total volume that has been traded in the selected timeframe






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Market Data - SoLutions!
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Filters
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Filters are for setting certain criteria against all items that are currently trading on the GE.

Areas that you may want to filter against could be the Top 10 traded items on the GE by volume, value, largest % increase, largest % decrease, and many others

The results could display like the watchlist highlighted on the previous post, for example:

Name: Top 10 traded by Volume

|-- Item Name ---- Bid --- Offer --- High --- Low --- Last --- Volume --- (12hous)* ---|
|---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
|-- Coal --------------- 170 ---- 172 ---- 175 --- 168 ---- 170 ---- 282,563 -----------|
|-- Iron Ore ---------- 115 ---- 117 ---- 120 ---- 115 ---- 116 --- 1,181,562 ---------|
|-- Lobsters -------- 196 ---- 205 ----- 207 ---- 190 ---- 198 ---- 1,064,589 --------|
|-- Steel Bars ------- 565 --- 568 ---- 569 ---- 555 ---- 569 ---- 956,556 -----------|
|-- Iron Bars --------- 170 --- 172 ----- 175 ----168 ----- 170 ---- 882,563 ----------|
|-- Yew Logs -------- 352 --- 378 ---- 406 ---- 352 ---- 361 ----- 881,562 ----------|
|-- Nature Runes --- 289 --- 293 ---- 295 ---- 286 ---- 290 ----- 664,589 ---------|
|-- Pure Ess --------- 155 --- 158 ---- 159 ---- 155 ---- 155 --- 556,556 ------------|
|-- Willow logs --------- 26 --- 29 ------ 30 ----- 26 ------ 27 ----- 542,563 ----------|
|-- Law Runes ----- 338 ---358 ------ 360 ---- 332 ---- 340 ----- 481,562 ----------|
|----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|


This shows you the merchant which are the biggest and most liquid markets. Please Note this is a Random Table, and in no way indicates the top 10 items, or even the amount these items trade in a 12 hr period.



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Market Data - SoLutions!
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Trades
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A trades window is very useful in the highly liquid markets to show what the last trades were. Similar to the watchlist and the filters window this could just display the last 20 or 100 trades for that item. But with the specific information you need to know.

For example Coal:

Name: Coal Trades Window

|--- Price --- Volume --- Time --- Buyer (b) or Seller (S) Initiated ---|
|--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
|--- 172 ------ 564 ----- 3mins -------------- B ----------------------------------|
|--- 171 ------ 542 ----- 9mins -------------- B ----------------------------------|
|--- 169 ------ 800 ----- 10mins ------------- S ----------------------------------|
|--- 168 ------ 123 ----- 14mins ------------- S ----------------------------------|
|--- 166 ------ 956 ----- 18mins ------------- B ----------------------------------|
|--- 168 ------ 3,854 --- 30mins ------------- S ----------------------------------|
|--- 169 ------ 12,568 -- 38mins ------------- S ----------------------------------|
|--- 171 ------ 95 -------- 56mins -------------- S ----------------------------------|
|--- 175 ------ 1,564 --- 68mins -------------- B ----------------------------------|
|--- 178 ------ 2,850 --- 95mins -------------- B ----------------------------------|
|--- 179 ------ 752 ------ 2hours -------------- S ----------------------------------|
|--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

Time is how long ago the trade occured


Initiated is as indicator about who sold or bought to who, this gives you an indication of which direction the market is going. I have only displayed 11 lines, but similar to the order book I see no reason why this cannot stretch to be 100’s deep.



===================
Numerical Trading book
===================

It seems the only reason we can trade a maximum of six items is to compensate to see items visually. Lines of text could extend to 100 items. We don't need more bank space if we can store half our goods at the exchange for sale.


Could look like this:

|------------My-Current-Trades--------------------|
|
|--Selling-----------|-Price----Quantity-Left-To-Sell----Total-Sold-So-Far---|
|
|--Coal-Ore--------|---172-----12,000-----------------------------2,000------|
|--Bowstrings-----|---200-----8,328-------------------------------2,612------|
|--Law-Runes-----|---350-----3,200-------------------------------1,100------|
|
|
|--Buying-----------|-Price----Quantity-Left-To-Buy----Total-Purchased-So-Far---|
|
|--Steel-Bars--------|---500-----1,000------------------------------2,000-----|
|--Iron Knives--------|----20-----30,000----------------------------8,000-----|


This way you could see, okay I have sold 2k of my coal at 172 each already; I can go get 354k from the exchange in cash. This is just an idea, but that would be rather more helpful than the visual setup we have at the moment.



=====================
Negotiated Deals between accounts
=====================

What is a Negotiated Deal?

A negotiated deal is simply a trade, exactly how our old trading system worked, but with a hitch, having them go through the GE as well. Note, I am not suggesting the removal of normal trading.


Why would you need to trade through the GE as well? Why wouldn’t you trade directly to that person?

This enables you to trade with other specific players who are not online at the same time you are. More importantly this brings back a bit of a salesman advantage; you can employ workers who are in different time zones, who will always sell to you at the same price. Who you as a skiller can always sell to that player on the other side of the world even though you are never online together.


The last point is that this also allows genuine account trading between your own accounts. If my range character has 3.2M in the bank, and my treasure trail character gets a Robin Hood hat, why can’t I trade 3.2M for the robin between these two accounts?

The answer may be place it on the GE at 3.2, but what if that’s the low and it sells straight away, and now the price is 3.25, I could go earn another 50k, on my ranger, but why should we be restricted, when the GE could complete unbalanced trades between our own accounts.

Neither account is being advantaged as the trade is balanced, so the removal of unbalanced trading also seems to have removed the need for the rule of trading between your own accounts.




Neg Deal Specifics:
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Go to the GE (or even any bank), select Trade Neg Deal. (maybe a right click option straight off)

A screen would pop up with the following Fields that you would need to populate

Buy or Sell

Price

Volume (selected from the amount in your inventory)

Total value would then populate

Enters Players name you with to trade with.


And then a confirmation button.


The other player will receive a pop-up notification when they log in that they have a Neg Deal trade waiting for confirmation.

Neg Deals for the both players will also have a count down timer, so that they expire are 24 hours.

You should also be able to see them on Numerical trading book as highlighted in Post 11, with an extra filed showing how long until they expire.




Thank You for Reading, I hope you like the ideas, and can see the benefits for these extra features in the game

~ trev ~

I'll just say yes... though I their should be an auction option, so for something that sells to a lot of bidders you can make more money out of it.

I agree.

Since we've got a poll on the GE up, I think I should add this to my reliving threads.

Definitely yes!

lol

It's a good idea

Glad I bumped it, then.

so am i