Every silver lining has it's cloud...

[Natron]

Every silver lining has it's cloud...

Nowadays there aren't many down-times, many reboots, etc. so the game is always playable.  This is a good thing.  It's a great thing.  But it does create at least one problem...

Namely, selling stuff becomes difficult.  Every merchant is out of sid to buy goods pretty quickly, so everyone who depends on selling raw materials is SOL when the game has been up for 3 or 4 days.  Further, when the game does crash or there is a reboot everyone who has been unable to unload their goods tries to sign on quickly and unload (You know who you are), which quickly depletes the merchant of sid for other characters.

My solution:

Every morning every NPC merchant has a certain amount of sid, regardless of what they had the night before.  If they have zero sid at midnight then they sold their goods to NPCs and VNPCs to get them back to a certain amount.  If they have too much sid and they ran off to the bank to quickly to make a deposit before reopening in the morning.

First, that when/if NPC merchants have sid is based on the last reboot strikes me as being very OOC, whereas when/if they have sid is based on what time of day it is in the game is very IC.

Secondly, I'm not a programmer so I apologize for the presumption, but I don't think it'd be too difficult to do.  Every dawn every NPC merchant is reset with a set amount of sid I think would be a simple enough trigger...


That's my idea and I'm sticking by it.

-Natron

[Northlander]

Yes, please. Or every IC week or whatever. Anything to make crashes have a less, eh, positive effect on gaming enjoyment - and a less tangible effect on Zalanthas.

[Anonymous]

Adding on to this, I think it would be nice to have merchant inventories stay the same after a reboot but to have random items 'sell' (leave their inventory) throughout the week.

In other words, if a merchant has 5 silk gowns right before a reboot then he has 5 silk gowns right after downtime and the 'oh god reboot time to sell' stuff goes away.  Meanwhile a random number of items are selected at random from his inventory and deleted.  So one day the merchant might 'sell' 4 things (2 gowns, 1 pair of gloves, 1 pair of shoes) and he'll have available slots to buy more.

Going forward I think it would be awesome to base what a merchant is paying for a given item on how many they have and then remove the cap on how many they'll buy altogether.  So if he has no gowns he'll pay 50 sid each, the higher number of gowns the less he'll pay until he's paying 1 sid a gown.  Replace the 'Sorry I have too many of those' message with a 'Well, I got a lot of gowns made of that same silk onhand so I'll only give you 20 sid' message.

[Hymwen]

I completely agree.

There is one place in the world, to my knowledge, where one merchant gets a little bit of 'sid every day and where a certain "easy-newbie-money" item is removed from the store so new ones can be sold.

It's practically impossible to sell hides in Tuluk, for example. The hide merchant is always out of 'sid, and always fully stocked up on all the common hides and pelts, and because the prices are ridiculous, noone in their right mind buys them from the NPC to replenish money.

Equipment items like clothes, armor and weapons should not be removed from the store too fast, but I think materials and supplies should. Once every IC week would be enough, or gradually if it can be done.

And while they're at it, how about making it possible to sell containers and cloaks in Allanak? That always annoyed me

[ThirdEye]

That would be awesome, I have a major problem with selling my stuff...Each place is constantly out of 'sid or has too many.

[Synthesis]

If you want to make a lot of money selling things, pick guild_merchant.

That's all.

[Dakkon Black]

If you want to make a lot of money selling things, pick guild_merchant.

That's all.

Right because you know.. that's what this discussion is about.

I agree with everyone else, this sounds like a great idea, our economy has alway seemed broken for this simple fact, that it all revolves around a very ooc thing happening. Great idea.

[ThirdEye]

If you want to make a lot of money selling things, pick guild_merchant.

That's all.

What about making enough money to live on?

[Synthesis]

Every independent character I've ever played that lasted beyond 8 days died with thousands of coins in their Nenyuk account (or on their person!)...'rinthers, rangers, warriors, assassins...you name it.

At times the lack of reboots can be annoying, but trust me...it's not difficult to make money.  If you ask me, I'd say it's actually far too easy.

Sure, in resource-poor areas, you're going to have to do a little extra scrabbling, if you're trying to survive purely as a crafter, but if you're trying to survive purely as a crafter, you -SHOULD HAVE PICKED GUILD_MERCHANT-, which, when combined with an appropriate crafting subguild for your area, will over time make you obscenely rich.

If you didn't pick guild_merchant, guess what...you're not a crafter, you're a hobbyist.  Make your living doing something else besides crafting, and craft for the hell of it or to add a minor supplement to your bread and butter income.

You shouldn't -expect- to be able to survive on crafting subguilds alone.

[IntuitiveApathy]

Synthesis, I think they're talking more about the problem encountered with selling raw materials more than anything else.

But I completely agree with CRW, a more dynamic market system is long overdue.  With the abolition of the Saturday downtime, this becomes even more important because of the inability to predict crash/reboots.  A system like what CRW described would also will make the NPC merchants feel a lot less like robotic vending mechines and a lot more like real IC characters that depend on current IC events.  (ie. 'today i bought 10 mek hides, i'm setting my prices accordingly because i don't want to be burdened with oversupply.. next week, once my crafters are finished, i'm going to be buying more at better prices..' etc.)  The old southern Kadian shops used to change inventory every weekly reboot, and though the specific inventory sets were generally predictable, it still went some ways to making those specific shops feel realistic because of their comparative dynamism.

[creeper386]

I've love to have shops seem more like a shop instead of a vending machine.

We do have a pretty decent economy for the most part, but the shops do not support this whatsoever in terms of there inventory. I would like to see random removal, I'd also like to see some random stuff sold to the shop as well. Nothing fantastic or anything, but to show the virtual market alittle more. Sure we can't have thousands of people selling stuff every where but it'd be nice to have a more in depth shop system.

Creep

[flurry]

I agree this is one area that could really benefit from some changes.

I think the issue goes far beyond the ability to earn money, which in my view isn't a good reason to make any changes to the way shops work.  I agree with Synthesis that indie characters can already make plenty of coins as it is, but that doesn't mean that there isn't another problem here.

With the recent changes to wildlife, I really like that the world is less likely to be radically different before reboots as after reboots.  Ideally, it would be great if a fresh reboot didn't dramatically change the game world (and result in dramatic changes in behavior).  

I would like it if a shop's inventory and shopkeeper's coins would fluctuate due to virtual buying and selling.   I'm not sure what a good way of doing that would be, but I like some of the ideas others have posted about doing this.  

I'm not sure that this would fix the issue of various crafters all competing to sell some specific item to the one shop that buys it.  But it would keep crafters from feeling like the reboot is a time to hurry up and sell things.  

Keep in mind, though, that you can always try to sell to other PCs.   It's not necessarily easy to find any takers, but I think it's good for driving interaction.

[Synthesis]

In regards to the problem of selling raw materials, the problem seems (to me) to be that there are far too many "gatherers" and not enough "users."

Additionally, the vast majority of "resources" that are brought back to NPC shops are either too expensive to be cost-effective (even with a merchant's uber-haggle), or can only be used by a skilled crafter or require complex recipes that require a bit of OOC knowledge.  (The way the merchant class branches skills creates a severe bottleneck in the demand for certain products.)

Consequently, most "resources" are actually just a bunch of useless junk that few PCs seriously desire to purchase from an NPC shop.  (Why else would these items accumulate to the point of being unsaleable?)

The easiest fix to all of this would be to adjust raw material values downward, so that what few crafters exist could actually afford to purchase from NPC shops.  The reduced income-per-item to "grebbers" would be offset by the increased demand from the NPC shops, which would equalize income potential.  Further, since crafters could now actually afford to purchase raw materials from NPCs, there just -might- be in increase in the number of craft-oriented characters created, since the concept would be slightly more viable.

Of course, low-demand items would still back up in the NPC shops, but that just adds another mini-game to the game:  the high-demand item scavenger hunt.

[Lizzie]

Situation I may or may not have overheard somewhere in the Known World:

Someone chooses outdoorsy type with a crafting hobby.  Shows up in the game with \"x\" amount of sids. First purchase - a kank. Half their sids are now gone. With the other half they buy a waterskin, water for the waterskin, 3 modest (quality and cost) pieces of armor, and a cheap (quality and cost) weapon. They now have under 100 sids, and insufficient armor (they still need something for their head and arms, the rest can wait but those look like they\'re pretty big deals). They can\'t afford to buy raw materials to make use of their hobby. Fortunately they\'re outdoorsy types and as long as they don\'t stray far from safety they can get those materials free. They still can\'t afford the necessary tools to make anything, but they can sell a couple of those raw materials. They have to keep that \"under 100 sids\" to replenish water and unstable their mount.

I don\'t know how Synthesis was able to get rich without severe struggle or insta-clanning, but this scenario seems to be the kind of life that a \"typical\" Zalanthan nobody would live. Someone who might well get rich some day, but shows up in the game and is depleted of their funds within the first hour just getting *some* of their starting equipment.

To then have to go to a shop, be offered 3 sids for something they scrounged around for, and be told \"I can\'t afford that\" by the NPC merchant is crazy. Three sids? ICly, any shop that can\'t afford 3 sids for something he\'s actually willing to buy shouldn\'t be in business at all. And any shopowner who happily buys 5 of everything related to his shop\'s theme, should have some clue that he can sell them pretty quickly. Otherwise why would he buy them in the first place? That\'s not good business.

In summary I agree with what everyone else has said: have the shops start out with a certain \"bank\" (like shops in real life do) every day. And have them sell off random things that they have five of, every day. It would be much more realistic, more logical, make more sense, and be more playable for people who only really need enough to survive, and not get rich on to do that.

L. Stanson

[Marauder Moe]

On the other hand... maybe instead shops should load with less money on reboot.  You'd only be able to sell to a shop that people have bought stuff from or... *gasp!* sell to PCs.  As it is, most shops seem to be a source of money rather than a destination for it.  That doesn't seem very realistic.  It means that few shops are actually even making a profit (on PCs at least).

Food for thought.

[Alberic]

On the other hand... maybe instead shops should load with less money on reboot.  You'd only be able to sell to a shop that people have bought stuff from or... *gasp!* sell to PCs.  As it is, most shops seem to be a source of money rather than a destination for it.  That doesn't seem very realistic.  It means that few shops are actually even making a profit (on PCs at least).

Food for thought.

Except PCs are supposed to represent a tiny fraction of the population. Most people don't go into the desert hunting, mining, and gathering herbs. We are the ones doing the dangerous jobs to supply the citizens. NPCs who do less dangerous work should be buying what we supply.

Also, the playerbase isn't large enough to support a truly PC driven economy. Each player can only buy so many pieces of armour and weapons before they have a complete set. They only need so many clothes.

Also, Synthesis, just because YOU have an easy time making Sid doesn't mean your situation is typical or that there is no problem with how the merchant system works. My experiances have been on the side of not being able to sell anything myself. Chances are you have some method of cash making that you've found that you use with all your characters. Not everyone knows the secret. Or you just unload everything right after a crash or reboot when you know they have money.

[jhunter]

I agree that this is an area that really needs some work. Also, raw materials are far too costly to make it worth buying them from the shops. What one is paid for them seems about right to me so that hunters and gatherers can make a profit from their work but I think the cost to purchase from them should be trimmed down a bit.

The shops that purchase raw materials should "reset" their coins to buy or something, maybe the number of each item they'll accept needs tweaking a bit as well.

[Synthesis]

There isn't one simple method to make money.

There are literally -dozens- of ways you can currently make all the coin you will ever need, and probably much, much more.

The system isn't perfect, but it isn't broken, either.

All you have to do is figure out how to do it.  It takes time.  You don't figure out how to branch a warrior with a few characters...you don't figure out how to become an elite assassin with just a few characters...you don't figure out how to do anything at all until you've experimented and paid the ultimate price a few times.

The reason I can make coins so easily is that I have over 60 characters taking dirt-naps, and I've learned something useful with almost every single one of them.

Until you've explored the depths of the system, you have little ground on which to criticize it, because your analysis is ultimately stunted by your limited scope of observation.

[LoD]

Also, Synthesis, just because YOU have an easy time making Sid doesn't mean your situation is typical or that there is no problem with how the merchant system works. My experiances have been on the side of not being able to sell anything myself. Chances are you have some method of cash making that you've found that you use with all your characters. Not everyone knows the secret.

I don't know that Synthesis knows a secret, but that he's likely spent some time figuring out where things his character accumulates will sell.  I've had several different non-merchant characters that didn't have any problem making a fair living by simple crafting/trading.  Northlands, southlands, different subclass crafting skills allowed me to make money regardless of the way the game reboots.

Some research might have to be done on your part.  You might need to experiment and spend time testing different markets with your wares to find out what will sell, and for how much.  If Shop A won't buy any more of your wooden logs or carved izdari figures, then perhaps one of the Merchant Houses would be interested in setting up some kind of contract with you for consistent deliveries of goods.

Be inventive and creative with your sales.  Try to identify a need that players might have and cater to that need.  Create a reason why people would want to purchase the goods that you're able to make (i.e. There's a drinking contest coming up, so you start peddling drinking flasks).

I've pushed the economy on this game quite a bit to test the boundaries, and there are a lot of ways to make money without being able to craft a single item.  You just have to flexible, willing to research, and, most important of all, patient.

-LoD

[Jherlen]

There are ways to rake in gobs of money without using so much as a single skill, too.

This is one area where I'd actually say I'd like the game made a bit more harsh. I'd rather it be much harder to make a living as an independent crafter, and independent non-crafters should be forced to be either cunning, lucky, or just barely scraping by.

This isn't a defense of the way shops are coded though... the running out of money and only buying 5 items per boot seem fairly kludgy, code wise.

[jhunter]

There isn't one simple method to make money.

There are literally -dozens- of ways you can currently make all the coin you will ever need, and probably much, much more.

The system isn't perfect, but it isn't broken, either.

All you have to do is figure out how to do it.  It takes time.  You don't figure out how to branch a warrior with a few characters...you don't figure out how to become an elite assassin with just a few characters...you don't figure out how to do anything at all until you've experimented and paid the ultimate price a few times.

The reason I can make coins so easily is that I have over 60 characters taking dirt-naps, and I've learned something useful with almost every single one of them.

Until you've explored the depths of the system, you have little ground on which to criticize it, because your analysis is ultimately stunted by your limited scope of observation.

So basically you're trying to say that noone but you has fully explored the system and knows how to use it? That -everyone- who has an issue with it does not understand it?

:shock:

Puleez...things have changed quite a bit since Saturday downtime has gone away. If you cannot see it, it is you who has not completely explored the system as it -currently- functions.

I had no trouble before, but I did have to -work- at it. It does seem like things have changed quite a bit.

[Alberic]

I see. So the system isn't broken, it just only works for people who have been playing awhile. Are you seriously telling me that the way to make money is to just burn through characters learning how OOC so that I can use that OOC knowledge to make money on my next character? Great roleplay guys. This is what makes me mad about Arm players. The experianced ones always give bullshit answers that basicly amount to figuring things out ingame OOC so you know for the rest of your characters.

[WarriorPoet]

I've made far, far, far more coin scratching in the dirt and robbing muffuckas in the Rinth than I ever did being a fancy merchant. It's all in how you work it. I've never cared for the game's economy, but I think people are making far too big of a deal of this. If you're wanting to reap a mountain of coins from your generic bone knives, day after day, you're probably going to be disappointed.

Find a secondary income.

-WP

[Cuusardo]

Do not rely solely on NPC merchants to buy your crap.  There are plenty of PCs who need that crap, including PCs of the merchant Houses.  I knew of a PC once who would buy things almost exclusively from independents, and would only buy from shops what he could not get from them.

That is not to say that NPC run shops could not stand to use some tweaking.

[Dalmeth]

The economy reset after reboots has always led to slightly OOC actions or at least a temptation for such. Anything that can make the economy more sufficient on its own continuously running code is an improvement in my mind.

Make a ticker for each merchant that will replace all standard stock items over a set period of time, including the standard spare money.  Make another ticker, running on a significantly shorter timeframe that will randomly "sell" non-standard items from stock, giving that merchant the money for the item.

One revision is to remove the one-shot spare change replenishment from the first timer and have the second timer increment the spare change toward the standard stock after any "sold" items.

Sounds fun, don't it?  I don't really know how much in the way of resources the things would eat up, though.