Cash items purchased from your current world become untradable after accepting them from the auction house. They were tradable prior v260 so this seemed like bug. I finally received a response from Nexon support a few days ago stating that it was an "intended change." However, I don't see the logic in this as it feels like a counterproductive change to limit "interactive" servers.
The patch notes were terribly written and a lot of points were confusing. They didn't even specify that items bought before the patch would become untradable after the patch. There was no proper announcement that this was going to happen and players weren't given enough time to take things out between the release of the patch notes and the maintenance. Luckily I claimed all my cash items before the patch but a lot of people left tradable items in the auction house during the maintenance and came back to them turning untradable. That's really unfair to those who paid for tradable perms as now those items can't be resold, traded to another player, or moved to another character. We only get two cash transfers a year and that's no where near as frequent as it should be. KMS had cash transfers every month before merging all cs inventories between classes earlier this month. GMS players are desperate to move both worn and unworn items freely instead of waiting every 6 months. This is a long overdue issue that the community keeps talking about and it has now gotten worse by turning auction house items untradable.
Then there's the issue with NPC Ari as she only accepts tradable cash items to exchange for stamps. The Star Stamp also requires tradable perms to trade in. Since the auction house is the main source for player trading, restricting these items makes it difficult to find someone in-game to buy a tradable version. I think this is a huge oversight as it's already difficult to find a player willing to sell you dozens of tradable fodder at a time. I feel like this restriction has caused an increase of low value items in the auction house since not many players are able to use them unless someone really wants an unpopular item to wear for themselves. It has also caused a lot of anger as perms are now bound to the character that claims them. These junk nx items have always been priced cheaply so the community could buy them up and trade them in for stamps. Now they either just sit in the auction house and accumulate because no one wants the ugly items; or sellers who open style boxes end up retracting listings as they can't get rid of their stock quickly enough like before v260. From June 25 the amount of listings seems to have decreased but I'm not sure whether buyers made a mistake when purchasing ineligible fodder, whether sellers realised they're not making much profit, or if those sellers are now using the junk for themselves instead of allowing average players a chance to acquire items from both stamp shops. Either way, I believe this causes a problem where mesos don't circulate fast enough in the community: sellers can't make profit and buyers aren't interested in untradable items.
Furthermore, there not even a mention of what "some times may still be tradable" means from the patch notes. What items does that include? Where's the clarity? Where's the list? I haven't seen or heard of a single cash item being tradable upon claiming after v260. I'm still waiting for a follow up response to my ticket about this. Also, Nexon support couldn't even consistently quote the patch notes. Times or items?
Next, there's the issue of players changing their mind after buying something from the auction house. Since a lot of cash items are usually only released once in their lifetime, some players buy and store tradable items just to have a copy incase they want to use it in the future. If they decide it doesn't fit their character's look later on, they can resell it to someone else who really wants it. For e.g the dream collector set is supposed to be dyable with the colouring prism in KMS/MSEA, but after players realised GMS implemented their own system, what are they going to do with the unworn untradable items if they don't like the original colour? Having tradable items keeps the market moving; if people are buying tradable items as backup from the auction house, then sellers have more reason to open style boxes to fill that demand. Making things untradable makes players hesitate and save their mesos incase they won't want it anymore. A lot of sellers who originally open style boxes usually quit the game to focus on real life so having backup players to buy their tradable stock benefits the future community and economy a lot. It gives new players an opportunity to buy old and rare items during the time they weren't able to play. However, after the v260 "intended change", making cash items untradable is going to destroy that opportunity to obtain rare outfits in the future. We don't to sit around forever wondering whether something is going to be rereleased or not and when.
TL:DR:
Where and how are players supposed to obtain eligible cash items to trade in with Ari and for star stamps if not the auction house?
If everything in the auction house is untradable, what are buyers supposed to do with an unworn item if they don't want it anymore? There's no chance for them to get their mesos back.
How are interactive players supposed to buy gifts for their friends from the auction house?
How are new players supposed to obtain outfits if old players quit and the ones still playing only have an untradable version that they never wore?
Because of these issues I definitely believe this wasn't thought through before making this "intended change". Although making ONLY crossworld items untradable upon claiming makes a bit more sense so each server has a chance to pull their weight, I ultimately believe there shouldn't be such restrictions for interactive servers at all because players would be less interested in circulating the market. So please Nexon, take note of all the backlash this decision to feed the new star stamp system has caused and return things back to how they were.
Feel free to add anything else I missed.
Comments
Though unfortunately nexon claims they can't do anything for players who claimed items between v260 and v260.4.