Everquest 2: Scott Hartsman weighs in on Online/Offline Selling

One thing that I didn't see mentioned yet -- It won't need to be you standing alone in your room. (Unless something's changed since the last conversation I was in the room for--which could well be.) As of the last plan, you'll be able to set up friends as trustees of your house, who can then also sell there, allowing for groups of friends to set up their own equivalent of mini-bazaars in homes and guild halls all over the place.

There's definitely a lot of convenience in "I can sell stuff without being here!" No argument there whatsoever. However, systems like that tend to have extremely inflated item circulation.

If every character on the server can list items while offline, there tends to be too much item availability for an adventure game. At any given time, let's pretend that 10% of the accounts are online at once. Allowing offline sales means there's a potential for 10x the number of items available for purchase.

If there's too much item availability there ends up being too little adventure, far too early in a world's life, since anyone can get anything, anytime. In talking to some of the folks who've developed similar systems on other games, offline consignment in an economy where items have rarity, (and therefore: value), has turned out to be one of their biggest regrets, as it pushes people away from adventuring as a first choice, and instead toward the convenience of "just go to the mall."

As adventure is our core gameplay element, as well as the primary method of making friends, and therefore the main stickiness for a game like EverQuest II, that sense needs to be preserved above all else, even if it means slight inconveniencies such as this one.