RuneScape Player Market not player-friendly

Now, don't get me wrong - the Player Market is where all of my major cash has come from, so I know the Player Market WORKS for getting some kind of value for your goods, but I'm just saying that it's not a system that is all that friendly to players... especially new ones, or ones with slower connections or computers.

Over the Christmas break, I gained access to a 10-day trial membership for World of Warcraft, and as I've advanced and explored, I've gotten a chance to see their solution to, and support of, the Player Market.

You see, the Player Market isn't anything that was really planned into most Role Playing Games... it evolved partially because of the introduction of unique game items for which the in-game shops didn't properly reflect value. Party Hats, for example, sell for a mere pittance at the shop but we all know they go for millions when sold directly to another player.

Unfortunately, it looks like RuneScape has chosen the "unique items are now untradable" route instead of realizing the inflated values of unique items is a symptom - not the problem itself.

In WoW, the Player Market is recognized as an integral piece of the game and it's been given programmer time. There are Auction Houses in the capital cities where players can buy and sell from other players.

There's no mass hysteria in the banks with 20-50 people using Autotypers like AutoHotKey (which are illegal to use of course, but who wants to type "Selling 1k mith arrows for 50k" over and over and over in a busy bank?) .

There are expensive items, but because multiple players may be selling the same item, there's no word of things that sell for stupid amounts of money.

Plus, the Auction Houses are useful for regular every day players. They're not intimidating, either - you bring your items to the auctioneer, he sets the minimum bid price and you set the buy out price (to end the auction early and get the items right now) and then you go on about your business which even includes logging out, because the mail system on World of Warcraft enables the sending of money and items.

Of course, the mail system likely wouldn't work as well on RuneScape if directly applied, because of the very big difference of how WoW has chosen to handle player-to-server load compared to RuneScape.

But it really does fit together well, and makes for a more pleasurable experience for those who don't want to stand in a bank and watch the scrolling text to catch someone trying to trade them for the items they have for sale.

I wonder if RuneScape is planning to spend some programmer time figuring out how to make that whole process easier and more relevant for everyone? That's the only time I've ever wanted to have an AutoTyper (which is against RuneScape rules to use)...