Marketplace
The Marketplace is an in-game feature that enables hunters ranked Apprentice and above to anonymously buy and sell various items with other players using gold. Unlike the Cheese Shoppe or Trapsmith, the Marketplace is a peer-populated feature, meaning that hunters looking to buy or sell certain items are only able to find matching items that other hunters have put up for sale or requested to buy.
The marketplace popup is divided into 5 tabs. The Featured tab shows three pages for a total of 18 of the hottest transactions (such as most actively traded, new arrivals on the trading scene, most expensive, large changes in price); each feature shows the current price point and either the number of items available or sold yesterday, along with Buy and Sell buttons to act as the second party to the transaction. The Buy tab lists all items currently for sell; a hunter can either pay the listed price of a pending transaction as second party, or click the button at the bottom to create a new Buy transaction as first party. The Sell tab lists all items that can be sold, along with a checkbox to hide items not owned by the hunter. A hunter can either give up their items at the listed price of a pending transaction as second party, or click the button at the bottom to create a new Sell transaction as the first party. The My Active Listings tab shows the hunter's current transactions, with columns for Item, Quantity, Unit Price, Total, Age, and a button to Cancel pending transactions or to Claim completed transactions. Finally, My History tab shows all marketplace transactions performed by the hunter.
On the Buy and Sell tabs, each item includes a listing of the item's Average Price, the number of those items sold Yesterday, in the last 7 Days, and in the last 30 Days, as well as a bar chart giving a Two Week Price History for price trends. There is also a listing for pending offers, with a listed Quantity, Unit Price, and Total. The total is shown in red if the hunter cannot afford it. The listings start sorted by Unit Price (ascending on the buy tab, so the buyer sees the cheapest offer; descending on the sell tab, so the seller sees the most profitable offer), but the hunter can re-sort by quantity or total, and view other pages if the first page does not have suitable offers. After clicking the Buy or Sell button for a given listing, a hunter is given one last chance to confirm the transaction. If the hunter still has a slot available, they can also choose to post a new transaction via the Create button on the bottom of the popup, which opens a new window. There, the hunter sees counterpart offers (for example, on the Buy tab, the hunter originally sees pending sells that they can buy instantly, but on the create tab sees other pending buys to help determine if they can afford to offer a higher price to find a seller faster). There, the hunter can specify the quantity and unit price, and will be shown a computed total for both buyer and seller; creating a Buy offer also shows the hunter's current gold supply, and the transaction will fail with "Oops! Something went wrong! You do not have enough gold for this buy offer." if the selected values and tariff exceed this value. A message warns if the hunter's suggested sell pricing is "More than 25% below suggested!" or buy pricing is "More than 25% above suggested!", to help hunters avoid a mistaken transaction wildly outside of recent pricing range which would favor the other party. Attempting to obtain more than the maximum of a capped inventory item (such as Minuscule Photo Album) results in an error message "Oops! Something went wrong! You cannot have any more of this item in your inventory."
The King charges a 10% gold tax to the purchaser on all items sold on the marketplace, paid by the buyer regardless of who initiated the transaction. The tariff is rounded up - a transaction for 1 gold costs the buyer 2 gold. Transactions are anonymous; there is no way to restrict a transaction to a particular hunter, or to know which hunter completed the transaction. A hunter defaults to having 3 available Buy and Sell transactions that hold the first half of a pending offer, and can gain more by holding the Lucky Golden Shield or obtaining the Regal Marketplace Display Case and Regal Marketplace Stool from the King's Arms General Store. If the Lucky Golden Shield expires while a hunter already has that slot occupied, the transaction remains on the marketplace, but once complete, the hunter can't create a new transaction in its place without restoring the Lucky Golden Shield.
Due to supply and demand, the lowest pending buy listing price is generally higher than the highest pending sell listing; but sometimes the offers can cross each other. There is no indication given to pending parties when the market is inverted, and no automatic pairing of matching pending Buy and Sell offers; all transactions have to be completed manually. There is no restriction against a hunter making a profit by buying low and selling high, although the 10% tariff requires the market to be inverted by a rather large amount for this to be profitable without waiting for long term trends in price changes.
After creating the first half of a transaction, a hunter will receive a notification of the action in the Hunter's Journal, and the item or gold will be unavailable in the hunter's inventory:
- I offered to buy 100 Curds and Whey for 3 gold each at the Marketplace.
- I have placed 330 gold in the Marketplace Vault (this includes the 10% tariff) and will receive my items when the order is fulfilled.
- I can view my listings at any time to cancel this offer and have my gold returned to me.
- I offered to sell 800 Curds and Whey for 14 gold each at the Marketplace.
- When fulfilled, I will receive 11,200 gold.
A hunter can cancel a transaction and receive their original item or gold back with no penalty, with these messages:
- I cancelled my offer to sell 1 Salt for 9 gold each at the Marketplace.
- My items were returned to me.
- I cancelled my offer to buy 1 Salt for 1 gold each at the Marketplace.
- I was refunded 2 gold. (This includes the 10% tariff.)
If the second half of the transaction completes, a hunter is given another Hunter's Journal message, along with a link to claim the transferred item:
- I purchased 100 Curds and Whey for 3 gold each at the Marketplace.
- I must claim them from the Marketplace.
- I sold 800 Curds and Whey for 14 gold each at the Marketplace.
- I must claim 11,200 gold from the Marketplace.
and once claimed another message appears:
- I claimed 100 Curds and Whey from spending 330 gold (including 10% tariff) at the Marketplace.
- I claimed 11,200 gold from selling 800 Curds and Whey at the Marketplace.
A hunter can perform the second half of a transaction as often as desired, without regards to how many transaction slots they have unlocked and with no limit on the number of transactions completed in a day; with these messages:
- I purchased 1 Salt for 5 gold at the Marketplace.
- I sold 1 Salt for 4 gold at the Marketplace.
The Marketplace is the only in-game feature that guarantees safe trades. However, hunters may also opt to use Give To Friends as a means of trading supplies. Also, there are several items which can be given to friends but not sold on the marketplace.
Items tradable via Marketplace
- NOTE: Wishing Well Basket was available for trading for a limited period of time.
- Winter Charm, Winter Screw Charm, Winter Spring Charm, and Winter Wood Charm were available for trade until 31 January 2012.
- The Dent collectible was available for trade during MouseHunt's Fourth Birthday Celebration
History
MouseHunt 3.0
- On 23 July 2014, the Marketplace underwent a revamp, where hunters could now post Buy offers, and have up to 5 Sell and 5 Buy offers pending simultaneously. The page changed to a popup window, including featured items based on activity and price changes, and hunters could view their entire history of marketplace transactions.
- On 21 June 2010, the Marketplace re-opened in MouseHunt 3.0, appearing under the Shops tab. This version of the Marketplace allows hunters to anonymously post offers selling SUPER|brie+, Moon and Maki cheese, and since 26 August 2010 Zugzwang's Left Socks, and since 11 November 2010 Ninja Ambush Skin, Grungy DeathBot Skin, Fluffy DeathBot Skin and Wishing Well Basket. There have been many other additions to the list of tradable items, especially skins and charms. Once a buyer has confirmed a purchase on an offered item, the seller receives a message on their Journal page instructing them to claim their gold at the Marketplace.
MouseHunt 2.0
With the update to MouseHunt 2.0, the Marketplace was unavailable to players and was replaced by the Trading Boards where only SUPER|brie+ could be traded. In this version, trades would be negotiated through the discussion boards. Once an exchange had been agreed upon, the seller would send a trade request to the buyer who would then confirm the purchase. Hunters could have up to three pending trade requests at any one time.
MouseHunt 1.0
When the Marketplace was first introduced, hunters were able to buy and sell the Key to the Town of Digby, the Burroughs Laboratory Map Piece, and SUPER|brie+. However, the Marketplace interface was the subject of numerous complaints regarding unavailability of goods and difficulty of trading. In MouseHunt 1.0, the Marketplace feature could be found in the shops tab of the game.
