WebTrader
WebTrader
Background Info
A while ago I made a plugin called WebAuction which allowed players to buy and sell items via a website. It had most of the things you would find on in game auction houses in MMOs (WoW, RuneScape, SWTOR etc etc).
However due to various updates to bukkit and other plugins that WebAuction depended on, I decided the code would need a complete re-working for it to be of much use. I mean, you could still get it to work, just about, but I was still interested in expanding it. Anyway I sort of abandoned that project, a few other people picked it up in different formats, but I have not looked to see what has been done with it.
The Idea
If anyone has played games like EVE, SecondLife or Diablo 3, you might see where I am going with this...
An idea that these games (and I assume others have as well) have been using is that they allow users to buy in game currency for real world money, and conversely they allow players to sell in game currency back for real money. (Not quite the case in Diablo)
Well this is sort of the idea I had for Minecraft Bukkit servers.
The whole planning of this is not 100% yet but here are the basic points:
- Will get a secure website hosted to run the webside (no longer hosted by each server).
- On the website players (and servers?) will be able to sign up for an account
- When they have an account they can buy a website based currency for real money (Via PayPal most likely)
- At any time players can request to "cash out" their website currency for real money again (Taking into account PayPal fees there may be a minimum currency you can transfer)
- Each server has it's own trading page.
- Each player has an online inventory for each server.
- Players can put item up for sale (Much like in WebAuction)
- Players pick a price as either server currency (iConomy stuff etc.) or for website currency, or both.
- Other players from the server can buy this item, they will receive the item in game and currency with transfer.
- Each server could pick how much commission it takes on each sale.
- In the same was as players, servers gain website currency and can exchange it for real money again to fund the server.
Sorry about the messed up way of presenting that idea, when I have got further will all the planning and diagrams I will be able to give you a better picture of the whole thing, I just wanted to see if people agree with this plan, see if anyone would be interested in using it.
Let me know what you think.
Comments
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_ForgeUser4509640 Owner
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Posted Mar 8, 2014I want this plugin it looks cool!
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Posted Jan 16, 2013While I think this idea is very neat, and would be cool if you can pull it off. Let me explain a major issue in this. Taking off the example which you gave, Second Life, in that game you can literally create anything at an endless rate, which inclines people to purchase money, land, and objects other people have created. In Minecraft, you have 4 tools, 1 weapon, and a few pieces of armor, that's all you can really 'craft' or 'create' in Minecraft, also, they all break.
So here is what happens, a player 'buys' the currency, goes in game and 'buys' a diamond sword, that sword later breaks, or is lost in lava or something, basically, the money is gone forever. Or route 2, the player buys the same sword, but sells it to another player for a bit more money, so they make a profit, but the same would happen to the second player.
It's because of that, that people will never latch on to the idea. To make this sort of mod truly work, you would need to extend it, like Second Life has, where players can quite literally create a completely new item all together, within the game. Where they can have a custom texture, block, shape, and scripting if needed. They would also need permission control, also like Second Life, where the player can set if the next owner can trade, or duplicate it.
This is also why Diablo 3 does not let you sell currency back for money, the items within the game can be crafted and found, if you let them, you would lose more money then you would make. With your current layout, I could join your server, use xray hack and find a couple stacks of diamonds, make some tools and armor, rip off all your players, and sell the currency for real money, and you just lost a good amount of cash. I'm not really one of those hacker types, it is just an example of how things would go down.
I love the idea, but until someone, or the official people of Minecraft, makes it a true unlimited sandbox game, this will not work, unless you make it where people can only 'buy' currency, but even then you would just be copying Buycraft.
I hope you don't think I am bashing or hating on this, I really wish it could work because I think it would be really cool actually, but it just wouldn't work with how Minecraft currently is.
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Posted Dec 30, 2012-
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Posted Nov 20, 2012and who would govern the money?
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Posted Oct 21, 2012if you get this to work. You will be a god. This is an amazing idea!
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Posted Aug 9, 2012Hey, So your saying: a) Player signs up, adds PayPal info ETC. b) Player can convert real money into mcwebtrader.com (or something along those lines) eg MCCoins. c) They buy things on the website through MCCoins and they get them in game. d) They can convert MCCoins into real money into paypal. Then? I am slightly confused. Similar to Minecraftshop.net actually....
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Posted Jul 17, 2012@Exote
Sweet! I will use WA+ Until this comes out! :P
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Posted Jul 13, 2012@GeneralShep
Yup, this was already part of the plan. We are going to incorporate what is already included with WebAuction into this. Well as much as possible.
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Posted Jul 13, 2012@Exote
I think it would be cool if you made it 2 sections, 1 in real world currency and one in in-game currency, that way people who don't have the money can still participate, but they are in different auction houses IE You can't buy TNT posted in the RW auction house with in-game currency.
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Posted Jul 10, 2012@SharkTankPure
Not really, In buycraft (if I am remembering correctly, it has been a while since I used it) A server sets up a bunch of things players on that server can buy for real money. A pretty standard internet shop, but the products are digital and sent via a game.
The idea here is that players sell items to each other for real money (or real money tokens than can be redeemed at a later date) A deal would happen something like this:
The whole thing is quite hard to explain before we have a working copy of the website, the best comparison is to Diablo 3's new auction house.
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Posted Jul 10, 2012Is this like buycraft.net ?
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Posted Jul 9, 2012I am waiting for this Exote! I can't want to try it out :P
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Posted Jul 9, 2012Hey, fairly sure no one will see this, but I am back to working on this now I have completed my other work.
I will leave this as a sort of change log for the development (partly for my own reference).
Week one:
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Posted Jun 21, 2012@majkykp
While waiting for my other team members to finish up with their current work, I have been doing some research and I discovered: MinecraftShop
From reading their description, it seems a lot like what I have been planning, although it is quite hard to see the specifics in how transactions would work. But they seem to be planning on releasing within a few weeks, so I was waiting to see what they have produced to see if there is any need for me to make my own.
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Posted Jun 21, 2012and when this plugin will be born ? ;) I looking to this page every day..... and nothing.... PLEASE !!!
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Posted Jun 15, 2012@lorenzo_p
lorenzo i must say your one is the best one but what they needed was to be redone totally which is what you are startng to do with your one
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Posted Jun 14, 2012@skylakewalker
are not :-P they're just still works in progress, just like this plugin is. can't expect something that's still being developed to work perfect. both of the other plugins are coming along very well.
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Posted Jun 12, 2012@skylakewalker
Testing will be a little way away, done most of the stuff java side, but most of the processing is going to happen on the website.
@LordBlackwolf
When a player buys some currency on the website, they will be able to use that currency on any server. You will just have a big pool of points on the website, and you can pick which server from the list you want to trade on. Obviously if you have never been on that server then it is a bit pointless, but I hope you get the idea. When you pay real money you are not investing in a particular server, you just have to decide on a per item basis how to handle transactions.
@dobbi10k
When it comes down to handling real money, people will not be very comfortable trusting the server's own website to be secure enough. The the website will let server admin set permissions for various things, so if you only want money transactions on a few items you can, or if the player has to be a certain rank etc.
Yeah I will try and handle separate trade houses within the same server. But no promises with that one.
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Posted Jun 11, 2012sounds excellent
-by the way the other ones people have picked up dont realy work and are REALY BAD-
when do you think it will be up for testing
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Posted Jun 11, 2012Not a bad idea. The only question is the faith of the players in the servers. I have seen many servers come and go. It comes down to the server's reputation and "do I want to deal with real world money." I have also pondered this idea for a while and I say go for it. ;)