That is also a good idea, but what if people don't want to go online atm?

Really good idea, aside from, as Juances already said, the spam that's sure to come with it. Maybe you can only post one message per day?

Also, hi Ise! :D

I used play this old game called Endless-Online several years ago and it had this feature. The main problem with it was the game was almost completely unmoderated and people could post whatever they wanted. This meant spam, inappropriate behavior, and malicious behavior in general. Imagine if the forums had no rules. That was what it was. The game has been dead for a while to the point of only a hundred people worldwide playing at a time averagely since the host decided to wipe all character data to counter a few years worth of malicious attacks on the game. If Spiral Knights had a similar feature it would have to be moderated at all times, forever, always; otherwise it would become the same thing. The difference between Endless-Online and Spiral Knights is the former was designed for a small populous of people who do not care enough to do anything obnoxious while the former has a large player base to cater to.

Seeing as anyone can get around filters by the context of their submissions, all notices created by players would have to be moderated. All of them. They could set up a template design for the notices, such as "buying {item} for {crowns, CE, etc.}" but that would interfere with how the auction works. Then the price to create a notice comes into play. Is the price static or does it change depending on the notice? Is the notice board supposed to know if something is more valuable when prices can change at any second?

If we did have the notice board with a template system of notifications to prevent abuse, what would it apply to? Advertising buying/selling on it would remove merchant spam, but would it overshadow the existing auction system? Considering how auctions work, by putting them on the board the item is out of your hands and goes to the highest bidder or until the maximum bid (buyout) is reached and the winner claims their spoils. The issue with this system is auctions only accept crowns in exchange. Say you want CE or a certain item in exchange for whatever you want to barter off. How would that work? See below.

You crafted a +2 charge time Blast (2*, bomb) and want to sell it off. Do you put it on the auction? Nurp, you want a Static Capacitor, the recipes to craft it up to 5*, and 600CE. You already have all the crowns you could want. What do you do? As it currently stands, you stand around somewhere and repeat the same message until someone gives you a stupid offer and you give up by throwing it on the auction. With a merchant notice board your impatience is no longer a valid reason not to make that transaction. Go to the notice board, place the Blast on the "selling" side and select the stuff you want to get in exchange for it on the "buying" side. Your name is attached to this advertisement in case anyone wants to offer you something different, such as crowns instead of CE, or they can make the exchange through the board after both participants agree to the exchange. A message is sent in the mail to the original vendor as though someone bought their item in the auction, but instead of having crowns it only has words:

"{this player} accepts your exchange offer: {shows the exchange advertisement put on the notice board}. Would you like to exchange?"

I know what you are thinking: "What about UVs?" We have two options for those. The first and sloppiest way would be to allow a short message in the advertisement, such as "I want UV {some bonus} on {one of the items being 'bought'}". If a UV is on the item being "sold" it would appear normally as on auction but are likely to have a higher price than the same item without a UV. In the mail notification earlier if a message is in the original advertisement it is included in the message in case the original vendor forgets.

I know what else you are thinking: "Are the advertisements temporary? Would people show off their stuff by leaving things up and never accepting exchanges? What if I only want to find a certain item? What if I only want to find a certain UV with a certain bonus?"

Similar to the auction system, advertisements should not stick around forever; aside from completing the exchange, advertisements would share duration rates with the auction house. No longer than two days at a time.

Do people show off their stuff on auction? Well, yes; but it has a price. The difference is in auction a maximum bid can be set absurdly high, but the item has a preemptive tax based on the rank of the item. Similar to auction, if the exchange is completed the tax is refunded upon completion of the transaction.

It would essentially have the same search function as the existing auction one, except there will be separate "buying" and "selling" tabs. This is to prevent confusion when looking for an item and finding someone else doing the same when you think they are selling it.

A UV search would also apply to the auction search system. Basically, it would be amongst the others; helmet, sword, et cetera. The difference being it is a UV search and has further tabs to filter, starting with the amount of UVs: single, double, or triple. When one is chosen without entering anything in the name search box all items with that amount of UVs are listed. Since only equipment can have a UV on it, it would be redundant to bother having another filter for recipes. Derp. If an item name is already in the text box upon beginning the search and an amount of UVs have been selected, all items with that name and amount of UVs are listed. "What about star rank?" Since there are items which are entirely part of the name of another item, normally something further along its alchemy line, selecting the star rank could also be applicable in the search function. It would have the same drop down list of selections, varying from zero to five stars.

After having searched for the specific name of the item, the amount of UVs, and the star rank there is only one thing left: the specific UVs. This means yet another drop down box. Back up to the amount of UVs; when UV search is selected, a drop down bar appears with three UV symbols. Each of these can be toggled to search for one more or less UV. Order does not matter. On each of these individual UV buttons there is also an option to search for a specific bonus: charge time reduction (weapons), attack speed (weapons), damage against {family} (weapons), or defense against {damage type or status} (shields and armor [helmet and torso]). A specific UV does not necessarily need to be searched for to continue the search, but if you want a specific UV for something you have to look for it. If you still want to find that perfect item with specific details, continue; you have the name of the item, the star rank of the item, the amount of UVs on the item, and what kind of UVs are on the item. Now you have to look for degrees of the bonuses. Yet again on the last item searched, the UV types in this case, you can select the degree of bonus the UV gives; one through six, one being "Low" and six being "Max". Now you can search for the exact item at an exact star rank with an exact amount of UVs with an exact UV effect with an exact degree of that UV. All you can do from here is filter who the seller is, but on auction that would not apply.

This is what I think of a merchant based notice board. If there is another reason other than a social discussion area anyone wants me to describe it shall be done. For science. And peach pie. I am going to have some peach pie right now.

Read it, sissy.