Getting orders fulfilled by Kadius/Salarr

[RideTheDivide]

OK - I'm going to start the discussion on this.  Its been bothering me for months now and I want to know how other people feel.

It seems to me that it is nearly impossible to get orders filled by the two major merchant houses (I'm leaving out Kurac because I think they do actually fill orders fairly well).  For one, it can be very tough to find an agent who is willing to take your order.  Then once they do take your order it seems to take *at a minimum* a year IC to fill that order.  Many orders go unfilled for much much longer.

These two Houses hold some of the most interesting and unique gear to be had, and people are dying to have it.  But the way things stand right now it seems that all of those things are rotting in warehouses.

Have other people seen this same thing?  What are people's thoughts on why this is happening and on what the fix for it is?

Disclaimer:  I'm not trying to slam anyone - PC's or IMM's - I'm just stating what I see happening and wondering if there is a way to improve it.

[Samwise]

I have experienced much the same in the past. It seems that a lot of the time you'll have better luck teaching yourself how to make what you want before you can get it ordered and delivered. I've gone two or three IC years before getting a pair of gloves delivered. I can see maybe some intricate custom order taking an IC year, maybe even two, but a pair of gloves? I don't see why the merchant couldn't just mail in or wish up and sya "Hey, can I get a pair of gloves loaded?"

Then there's the fact that many (no specific examples here, and something more aimed to past merchants) who feel that they are better then more or less everyone. You need to woo them jus to get them to take your order, and plead with them to get them to carry through on it. How can they be making any money? I think one thing that may help is if some of their freebies were cut off, then they may be more apt to go out and earn that money, so that they can survive.

[Anonymous]

I consider getting an item (not off-the-rack) from Salarr to be one of the game's most challenging quests.  I don't know if there aren't enough people wanting to play merchants or what.  Seems like Salarr has plenty of guards (who all have nice equipment by the way) but finding a merchant...  Maybe they get scared off by people overwhelming them with requests when they show up.

Here's a suggestion:  Load some of the better equipment and weapons in the main store every week.  Make it random, maybe a couple of items, something, anything.  Put a premium on it if you wish, just get something there.  Heck, maybe it'd create a black market for the items; that would be interesting.

[Delirium]

I think the problem is just finding a merchant. When there are merchants around I have never had trouble getting what my characters wanted. Unfortunately most merchants seem to come and go rather quickly.

[Krath]

I consider getting an item (not off-the-rack) from Salarr to be one of the game's most challenging quests.  I don't know if there aren't enough people wanting to play merchants or what.  Seems like Salarr has plenty of guards (who all have nice equipment by the way) but finding a merchant...  Maybe they get scared off by people overwhelming them with requests when they show up.

Here's a suggestion:  Load some of the better equipment and weapons in the main store every week.  Make it random, maybe a couple of items, something, anything.  Put a premium on it if you wish, just get something there.  Heck, maybe it'd create a black market for the items; that would be interesting.

Damn, exactly what this guy said.

Sandor: Email the account and ask.(non-sarcastic)

[mansa]

There are many things that affect things.  And for this discussion, we're talking about loading 'special' items.

#1)  Making 'special' items special is the fact that they are -not- common.

#2)  Immortals load items.  Usually its on Saturday.

#3)  I'm sure you've noticed, but, there's been a dramatic increase in price for many items.   Ashyom, the Kadian Immortal, has been working incrediously hard to sort through the item database, and make it more realistic, within the game world.

#4)  well..this is just a bit more of #3.  Have you noticed that some items that used to have 'silver' and 'gold' in it's sdesc have changed?  What's going on here?  Well...the items are changing in order to make 'silver' and 'gold' more rare.  Because, right now, it's pretty common.  You have that order for those silver flood pants?  Hmm.  It's going to be put on hold for a bit, till the focus groups and immortals decide on how the world's items should be more fleshed out.  Big project.

[Reiloth]

Speaking as a trainee merchant for Salarr, the fact that you OOCly get frustrated is because there are VERY FEW merchants. And when there are merchants, we get swamped down in flippant requests, that require either an immense memory or lots of paper.

While I do understand your frustrations, you have to look at the other side of the...penny..? what?

We have a very difficult job of keeping everyone happy, and its nearly impossible with the gross amount of requests for random chatchkis we get.

Thats all I will say.

(And as far as Merchants in Tuluk, there are only trainees, nothing more, at the moment. It should become easier to place orders in the future when one of us gets promoted.)

[Samwise]

There are many things that affect things.  And for this discussion, we're talking about loading 'special' items.

I, myself, am not talking about custom order. I've only ever had one custom order, and it took 6 rl months to get.

#2)  Immortals load items.  Usually its on Saturday.

That's one thing I never understood. There are plenty of immortals... it makes no sense to say that none of them have the time to load objects at least a few times a week, in batches.


If I want a pair of black silk gloves, or snakeskin boots, I don't see why it should take RL weeks to order them and get them loaded and delivered. Same with a nice sword or bow from Salarr. Of the hundreds of objects from thsoe two houses that never make it into the shop, you have to pull teeth and wait rl weeks just to get one. I know a few players who don't even bother with pc merchants anymore, because they know they'll never get anywhere with them.

[Gar]

What do you guys mean by custom items and stuff?  And off the rack items?  

-Sandor

By off the rack, I meant the items that are always found in the shop after reload.  These are the common and usually lower quality items.  When you buy one of these, there is always another one waiting for the next customer.

I didn't say anything about custom orders, I just said special items.  These are the ones that are less common and are accessible only to Salarr merchants.  I'm saying that some of these should be loaded in the main shops on occasion so that the general public has a crack at them.  Go ahead and make them high priced, they'll sell.

Now, custom orders are things that you'd need to talk with a merchant about and are made specifically for you.  Let's say you want a sword painted green, 3 cords long, made of some rare creatures bones.  That's a custom order.

[Bestatte]

I'm not going to waste the staffs time with that, they obviously have plenty of work to do, if it isn't in the help files and I don't know what it is I turn here and am scorned for my sarcasm and apparent rudeness which I have yet to see myself be.

-Sandor

http://www.zalanthas.org/ArmDocs/Community/format.html
http://www.armageddon.org/general/clothing.html

There's some info on armor and weapons and jewelry too. Each of these things tells you about what the "usual" things are for the different areas of the world. So if you go to a shop and see a list of stuff, and see pretty much the same list the next week after reboot, you would know that these are the "usual" things for that area. Variations would be for Kadius, which changes colors of their items and some of the items themselves from week to week.

Whatever shows up first thing Saturday morning is the "usual" thing for that location in any given shop. Therefore, anything NOT in those shops would be unusual, and you would need to find out in-game, in-character, how to acquire it. Knowing which Merchant House specializes in which type of thing helps too, and there's pages upon pages of information on the website and in the help files to explain all that.

But then, as you said, you've already read and re-read the help files and are tired of people telling you to do what you've already done. Especially since you have done so, and have come to the conclusion that this information doesn't exist.

[X-D]

I don't know about anybody else, But I want know what a flippant request is to a merchant.

Myself, the smallest order any of my chars has ever placed with salarr or kadius was 1800 coins, the largest nearly 9000 coins. The smallest I've even seen from anybody else was still over 600, and the average seems to be around 1600. I've seen nobles order a single item for in excess of 10,000 coins and still need to wait 1-4rl months.

A couple times my superiors have went and ordered special items from Salaar, and they took quite sometime to show up... but I'm pretty sure they weren't custom in the sense that we wrote them up, but rather items that needed to be loaded, I think the problem was that they weren't loaded in time. Now, the one time I -personally- went to Salaar to get something, I got it right away, and it was a fairly customized suit of armor, that couldn't have taken more work than the average pair of Anakore gloves, or razored wrist wraps. (Both of which have funky prices and abilities... I would want them to only apply to bare-handed combat, or perhaps -much- more rare when in weapon melee)

My solution, for those middle of the road items, halfway between racked and rare, clan Imm load up a bunch of items into different crates, in a room that only the merchants themselves have access to. These crates would be separated by an OOC barrier, with one crate being "One month wait", "Two month wait", "Three month wait". That way, it can be up to the merchant to take the order, put it in, then  "wait" (Even though he can get it right away, and maybe some contracts he would be able to grab right away, you know, Lord Templar Going-to-ruin-Salaar wants a special codpiece for 300 sid, Monsuer Merchant can go grab it right away and say "Well, luckily we had one left", which would make sense, for Salaar to have -some- of most things lying around, for special cases) the time designated for the order to be completed, then grab it from the store-room and deliver. That's what I saw to a limited extent when I went to Salaar, and it would be nice if it were broadened.

[Jacques]

I've got it! Someone go kill off some of their guards, and the players can special app some merchants! Problem solved!

:blink:

What?  :twisted:

[Carnage]

If you want a special order, look around for the merchant for a few IRL days. If you can't find them, just send a mail to the clan imm and CC it to the MUD. The worst possible thing that can happen is they'll tell you to find out a merchant or that the item isn't feasible. If the item isn't feasible, you've just saved days of searching for a merchant who might forget about e-mailing in the order to an imm. Keep that in mind next time.

As to the Salarri merchant who said it was tough: How hard can it possibly be? You don't need a super-duper memory or a huge notebook for these orders. Just pull up notepad and C&P someone's order directly from their say. Or just C&P the few says they have about it, make a long -------------- line underneath it, then move on. Keep it updated to reflect whether it's been sent in and has arrived and so on. It'll get really tough if you get lazy and let it all back up. I personally would send in a weekly request with all of these kinds of things on Wednesday or Thursday, to give the imm time to figure it out for the Saturday downtime. The next step is to try and contact that person and tell them their order is ready. If you can't get them then just go around taverns and make it easy for them to find you. If nothing happens just put it into an IC warehouse or showroom.

[Delirium]

Carnage for Merchant!

[Carnage]

You know, if I was the kind of guy who was a tavern-sitter, I'd do it too. I'm an adventurer though and wouldn't be able to handle the boredom of hearing Byn sergeants telling me that they wanted a new axe every hour. If you're the kind of person who can tavern-sit, though, I say go for it.

[Cuusardo]

I've got it! Someone go kill off some of their guards, and the players can special app some merchants! Problem solved!

:blink:

What?  :twisted:

Don't make me come over there and smack you OOCly.  

[RideTheDivide]

Well, I've seen some great ideas here.  Do the IMMs read this or should I compile the best thing that have come across and email the account?

[Reiloth]

The problem is that the orders, even when sent to the Clan IMM, are not really read I think. I've sent in quite a few orders, and not to complain, but I get neither reply nor warning of these items going into the game. So basically i'm sending out a message in a bottle, and not really knowing the effects of my actions.

Salarr just got a great new Imm, so I think the orders might pick up in a bit.

Just be patient.

[Carnage]

The problem is that the orders, even when sent to the Clan IMM, are not really read I think. I've sent in quite a few orders, and not to complain, but I get neither reply nor warning of these items going into the game.

CC everything to the MUD. If you don't get a reply forward the e-mail again, including the MUD, and ask if it was received. It's intimidating, I know, but remember that other players are relying on you to do something. If it's a big problem that keeps happening, just send a polite e-mail and courteously ask if you could be notified when things are going in, so you can get into contact with the PCs and start making some deliveries.

[Hoodwink]

I have ordered non-flippant custom made items as both noblewomen and commoners, and beyond, and in every scenario the merchant PC taking my order never ever gets back with me, nor does my item ever seem to have even been created (months after the fact) -- I will admit, my online times as a European probably has a great deal to do with this but still...

So, yes, I agree with the inital poster.  I can't speak on other people's behalf but in my case special orders are 100% impossible and as such I have since abandoned the prospect of hoping for custom made gear.  If I want something I try to find an already existing (coded) item which suits my tastes, and if that doesn't happen I force myself to endure without (unless my clan immortal is willing to create me something).

It's a pity acquiring special made gear is so difficult in Arm.  Since our descriptions are (generally) permanent, I prefer to portray additional imagery and a sense of self for my character through their clothing, yet unfortunately I find the availability of existing gear rather limited.

[gfair]

I had an idea a while back to help this along.  Essentially the system was kinda like email OOC, but it would manifest in the game as one Salarri passing on a message to another about a guy who wants something.  But what the PC sees is like the IC message boards, where each entry is part of a little story.

This way, it does work just like email - one person sends in a request for contact for a job, briefly describing what that job is, and the merchant, when she or he gets on, reads the messages.  The queue would have to be short to reflect human memory, but at least once you get your message to a Salarri merchant you know that it is (hopefully) likely to be read as soon as possible.

Just a suggestion.

[Sanvean]

There's a distinction that needs to be made here between special orders and custom orders. I'm defining special orders as something that exists but is not currently loading in a shop and thus not readily available, while custom orders are items that do not already exist and thus need to be written and created.

Why either type may take a while:

The merchant may not be sending off an email the instant you place an order, strangely enough. Most people tend to consolidate orders and include them in a weekly report, which helps keep emails from getting missed or overlooked.

You may then have further lag occasioned by the fact that staff members have real lives and aren't sitting there on the game or by their email, waiting to reply - or that they may be working on other clan related matters. It's not a matter of any staff member online being able to handle it.  Each clan has a staff member that runs the clan - responsibilities that include much beyond creating items.

If the merchant isn't sure of the item or the price, again, email may need to be exchanged back and forth. For special orders, they might say "Noble so and so wants things in red silk - what do we have in that category?", while the staff member in turn would need to search the dateabase, mail a list back, etc. In the case of custom orders, they may need to ask questions like "Are we the right house to handle this? Is this a material we would have access to? Are there IC conditions that need to be fulfilled to make this order, such as a bahamet hunt or trip to Cenyr?" or even "Is this an item that fits in the game?"

If the item is a custom one, it needs to be created, and then checked by a HL+ (staff member who is at the Highlord or above level) - a system that helps us catch errors, inconsistencies, and anachronisms.

Saturdays are indeed when most staff members take care of maintenance work, since much of it can't be done while players are online. Many of the HL+ spend a good bit of our time that day checking items, npcs, and rooms in order to facilitate that.

Even when the merchant has picked up your order, the fact that not everyone logs in at the same time may also affect the amount of time it takes for her/him/it to get it to your character. Believe me, this is as frustrating for the merchant as it is for you - and they have the added bonus of many characters dying before picking up the goods - something that a merchant may not find out until weeks go by without the customer appearing to get their order.

This may sound a little harsh, but to me, it's not a big deal if your character doesn't get his pair of pocketed purple pants with grommets alongthe inseam or her blackened-bone bardiche with a corkscrew and a compass in the handle immediately. Usually, there are a plethora of items in the game already, and no one's character is running around pantless because the Kadians haven't filled their order yet. All pantlessness on Armageddon is usually a product of other factors. There is usually quite a bit of merchandise in the shops, and the fascination with getting non-off-the-rack items is sometimes unpleasantly reminiscent of people slavering over 133+ g3@r in a hack and slash.

It's my impression (and the merchant clan staff members can correct me if I'm incorrect in saying this) that they do load up assortments of stuff for people to sell - and that in most cases, other players won't buy them, but want a custom order.

Simply put, special orders are not a priority. They're a courtesy, the mint on the pillow (so to speak) - and sometimes things like putting sheets on the bed is more important.

To reply to one specific point:

That's one thing I never understood. There are plenty of immortals... it makes no sense to say that none of them have the time to load objects at least a few times a week, in batches.

1) Clans usually have only one staff member assigned to them; a few have two.
2) Staff members are not on 24/7. Many of us have jobs, houses, partners, children and assorted goldfish that demand some form of attention.
3) Loading items is not a priority. I'd much rather someone put time into
running a quest, interacting with a newbie, or otherwise adding to the game than loading items.

[Sanvean]

And, by the way, if you find a shop that does seem to be lacking, feel free to bug it and I'll take a look.

[Barzalene]

Let's all be realists.

It can be very slow to get an order filled. You need to find an in game rep of said house. Said rep has to find their imm. The imm has to get the item in game. The imm then finds the in game rep. Then the rep finds you. And meanwhile who writes the item up.


One idea, and if the imms object I'm sure they'll correct me, is to find the merchant/agent/whosamawatsis then write the imm. Tell them who you dealt with, what you ordered. If you really want it and want it right, write it up yourself, and send the desc along too.

Just a thought.

[Samwise]

I'm not sure about everyone else, but myself, I'm not speaking of the tricked out blue velvet jumpsuit with the rhinestones. I'm talking about regular, every day items. I've been in both the Kadius and Salarr warehouses and seen the types of things there, and it is rather limited. If it's clothing, the Kadius shops are decent, yes.. but that color rotation thing can cause major problems if you have to wait around for a couple rl months to get the color you need. And yes, color is a factor when you work for a House.

I'm talking about having to wait 2-3 RL months for something like a simple pair of pants or a vest. Instead of giving the merchant access to 50 or 60 things, why not much more? Put a few hundred things at their disposal and then give them the freedom to do it. This way you find more people willing to play merchants, and more merchants able to fulfill orders.

I've know players of merchants, and I've known imms. The simple fact remains, from talking to people from both, that when it comes to getting orders that need to be loaded, neither side puts the effort into it that they could. Especially many merchants, who can get by just fine whether they do their jobs or not. So my other suggestion remains, take away the merchant house perks from them. If they spend more time doing their job, they can make fortunes rather easily and would have no need of the house perks.

[Stroker]

As a player for the House Salarr I will go ahead and say (at least in the north) there are merchants out and about and rather frequently I may say .... perhaps you are not looking hard enough, ask around.

[Angela Christine]

So my other suggestion remains, take away the merchant house perks from them. If they spend more time doing their job, they can make fortunes rather easily and would have no need of the house perks.

Um, if a big part of the problem is that there aren't enough House merchant PCs, how will making the job more unpleasant encourage more people to adopt the role?

There is an unpleasant element of OOC work for these roles.  You are stuck between a rock and a hard place.  IC there are PCs with cash to spend and stuff they want.  Then there are your "superiors" who you need to clear everything with, except that you know it isn't really an IC thing because your superiors are really just imm-animated NPCs, and the NPCs reasons for things are really thinly veiled OOC imm preferances.  Some items can be created by PC crafters in the house, but most things can't be, so an imm has to create the item which is inately OOC.
 
I was once in a role (not a merchant, but similar) where I was stuck as the IC interface between PCs and staff, and I hated it.  Hated it.  Some PC would say "Can I have X?" perhaps even throwing in a bribe to persuade me, and all I could say is "I'll have to check with my superiors" which was code for "I'll have to make the request on the clan board or via email, and get back to you when I hear from my clan Imm" because their requests would invariable require some OOC staff intervention to carry out.

Fictional example:  Suppose you asked the Kadian representantive how much a pair of silver parashute pants would cost, and after "checking with their superiors" they quote you a price, say 5000 sid.  It's a bit high, so you spend a few IC months saving up before you make the order.  You go back the Kadian and put down your deposit, giddy that your pants will soon be here.  A few IC weeks later the Kadian returns your deposit with some lame excuse that they are currently out of silver thread, and don't know when more will be available, so they can't take your order.  

What has really happened is that OOC the staff decided there were too many metalic coloured items, so they are phasing out metalic looking items that aren't actually metal.  But suppose that neither the merchant PC nor the customer PC know about the OOC policy change, so they are left scratching their heads.  The customer is angry that they are being jerked around by the merchant, and the merchant left perplexed and unhappy that the "done deal" had been undone for reasons he doesn't understand.  Hated it.

AC

[Carnage]

I don't know, if it really is a problem (I don't know if it is) then I think the imm of that clan needs to go look for some players and start them at a higher level of merchant, (?) instead of having merchants that can't do anything because they are in trainng or some such crap.

I'm not trying to flame you, but please don't make suggestions on things you don't understand. The problem isn't the 'level' of the merchant at all.

[chinwa]

I'm not trying to flame you, but please don't make suggestions on things you don't understand. The problem isn't the 'level' of the merchant at all.

Actually, he is right, in some cases. The merchant houses have different levels amongst the merchant branches, and you will come across cases that a merchant cannot do or sell or get something because they are a base ranked merchant, and it requires the authority of a higher ranked merchant to take care of it (which, lacking a higher ranked PC, means another item that would require immortal attention, thus taking more time).

But again, this is an instance that rarely comes into play.

[Bestatte]

It still has nothing to do with the level of the merchant's rank. It has to do with the newness of the player to that merchant house.

There is a period of adjustment when playing a new merchant, and during that period all flavors of problems come their way.

A lot of it is from the population's relationship with whoever the new merchant is replacing. Past orders that might have been forgotten and the new merchant doesn't even know about. Past hostilities between this or that noble house and the merchant house the new merchant belongs to. Past orders that were promised free of charge by the previous merchant, that the new merchant doesn't know he's not supposed to be charging for. And even further - what a past merchant offers isn't necessarily what the new merchant has to offer. So if Joe offered Sue an ornate choker for 250 'sids because Joe's been sleeping with Sue, why in hell should Amy only take 250 'sids from Sue when she delivers the choker, if she knows it's worth 900?

The headaches go on and on and on, and that's JUST the problems that stem from past merchants' relationships with their customers. THEN you have to deal with a merchant PC whose player might not have ever played a merchant before and is just plain totally new to merchanting, and has to be taught and guided into their new role.

Trust me, it ain't easy.

[Marc]

Couple things no one else mentioned (or I just failed to notice):

The normal stock of a House's wares are the things you can find in their plethora of shops across the Known world.  These are the things the House feels they can sell regular and for a good profit.  They are also the things they can churn out quickly for the masses. These items are what thier crafters are putting their effort towards making.
When you reqest a special or custom order you are asking the House to divert one of its crafters time away from what they know and put it towards a different/new design.  Expensive and time consuming for the House, both in lost labor and, if the crafter hasn't done it before, maybe even lost materials.

Sanvean summed up the ooc concerns pretty well.

Bakha, when he ran Salarr had a very good system for special orders (not custom).  Once a week a merchant would submit a list of items needed and the following saturday they would be loaded up on the quartermaster for the merchant to purchase and then resell.  
It worked well, but was definently limited to what a player knew was available.

An idea:  Ariada (I think) has an under used shop in Allanak with a very cool system.  You can place an order for a certain pair of pants in a certain color of a certain material, you get a vellum ticket and wait while they are made.  The choices are pretty limited and quite plain, but the idea of the shop is very cool.

Why not (and yes this would require a lot of work) put a similar shopkeeper with the different quartermasters to handle these special orders automatically?  If Salarr/Kadius/Kurac has an item the clan imm thinks should be available, but not in the bulk to warrent a space in the regular shop, add it to the shop list for this new shopkeeper.  If a merchant gets an order for that item, they can go and order the item made.  The time this takes can be set to something outrageous like 1000+ hours so it does take a significant amount of RL time to finish, but would also eliminate the need for imm intervention beyond the initial setup.

Ideas?  Feedback?

[Anonymous]

I do think that it stinks when you even work for the house as a guard or something and it still takes an IC year or more to purchase and item that is lying in a warehouse somewhere, you've saved your hard-earned coin for the item and you'll be lucky to get it before some disaster kills your char.
The length of time it takes to get some of these things is ridiculous, I can see the long wait with items custom made or made from really rare materials...but what my char ordered is not made from anything that special and already it's been a few IC weeks since I got the coin and inquired about it. My char was told that there were probably a few of these items lying around in the warehouse...still waiting.

[crymerci]

Why not (and yes this would require a lot of work) put a similar shopkeeper with the different quartermasters to handle these special orders automatically?  If Salarr/Kadius/Kurac has an item the clan imm thinks should be available, but not in the bulk to warrent a space in the regular shop, add it to the shop list for this new shopkeeper.  If a merchant gets an order for that item, they can go and order the item made.  The time this takes can be set to something outrageous like 1000+ hours so it does take a significant amount of RL time to finish, but would also eliminate the need for imm intervention beyond the initial setup.

Ideas?  Feedback?

I'm not sure if I'm understanding this idea...are you talking about regular items made somewhat customizable? For example, perhaps someone wants anakore claw gloves in different colors, or knee-high red boots in both silk and hide.

Or (and this idea intrigues me a lot more) do you mean a bunch of different quartermaster NPCs (like shopkeepers with menus) in the warehouse, carrying all the "regular" inventory stuff which might not be in the current rotation, as well as other common items which are already in the database as "Kadian-made" (or whichever clan).  That way, an abundance of items can be virtually available in the warehouses, without actually clogging saverooms.  

If this is the case, I would personally see it most usable for items which might be just sitting around the warehouse, not for things which would require 1000+ hours of work.  Or perhaps it can include these more difficult items, but say there's only one of them allowed to be sold per RL week, and the next IC "month" the House's workers have made a new one to replace the out of stock item?

With this method, merchant clan imms would only be dealing with true custom orders, or perhaps loading clan-specific items.  And that would definitely save time in the long run.  Also, I'm not sure, but I'd guess that having "shopkeepers" uses up less of ginka's resources than constantly saving the same dusty items in the warehouse.

[Dan]

Anakore gloves are hardly 'regular items' heh. Man, if a SLK heard you say that!

Anyways... I think I get what that person means and I will lay it out for ya.

Set an NPC with a script and have them ask you what type of material you want the weapon made out of. Then they ask what type of weapon, sword, club, mace, axe, dagger, knife, bardiche, halberd etc etc... then they can ask how heavy it would be or something, as in very light, no problem, heavy. Mayby the last would be how much detail to put into it, perhaps, basic, moderate, extensive, and ornate. That would be it. Then, the amount of time it would be to take it would depend on your choices, or mayby just the detail being put into it. If a combination came up where there wasn't a weapon for the coices, the NPC could just say something to the effect that it would take some time to come up with a design like that and they couldn't do it at the moment.

I know there is code already in game for something like this. I myself wouldn't mind being able to pick up a few basic throwing daggers from a merchant like this without having to search the known world for one, since I only know of a couple places that sell them. Im sure they are around and easy to make, but I digress...

What do you all think of something like this. It sounds like a nifty project for an imm that shouldn't take -too- much work, a few weekends of Saturdays mayby. I think it would be worth it though.

[Marc]

Heh, well, you are both partially off.

What I mean is this:

Kadian Merchant Bob goes to his houses warehouse to see about the candy stripped leggings Noble Lady Sally wants.
There he has his quartermaster who is a regular type shopkeeper and has a selection of items the Kadian imm decided to give them that week/month etc.  He types list and sees nothing that fits the bill.
Next to the quartermaster is another shopkeeper who works more along the lines of a tailor.  He types list and sees:

1) a blue silk loincloth
2) a purple stripped, green sandcloth headwrap
3) a dragon-carved obsidian bracelet
4) a pair of tight black silk pants
5) a pair of sable linen sleeves
6) a pair of candy-stripped silk leggings
7) a colorful turban with bells
-whatever# etc etc etc

Bob sees that Kadius DOES have a design for the candy stripped leggings (#6) and places the order with the second kadian shopkeeper.  The shopkeeper gives Bob a ticket and goes off to tell the vnpc crafters of the house to start working on the leggings.
After X amount of time (which again I think should consist of a few RL days at the minimum, hense the 1000+ hours) Bob could "offer ticket", get charged however many sids the leggings cost and get the leggings to resell to Noble Lady Sally.

This would NOT allow custom orders.  It would be limited to the items the clan imm set for the shopkeeper to sell.  If Noble Lord George wanted a pair of silk gloves with long obsidian nails in the fingers and the shopkeeper/quartermaster didn't have it, Merchant Bob would have to submit a custom order just as it is now.

What it WOULD do is cut down the amount of imm intervention needed for House orders that, why not common, are not excedingly rare.

A couple ideas, keeping with the Kadian idea, would be including every item in the shop rotations.  It is the purple load but you had your heart set on that red silk cloak?  Talk to Merchant Bob who can talk to his shopkeeper and have one made.  It might take a few days, but you wouldn't have to wait for the shop cycle to come back around to red and the Kadian imm would not need to be involved.

With Salarr the "fancier" weaponry and armors could be options, letting the merchant order up that set of spiky armor (not talking about spiked bracers or gloves here) or the obsidian studded tandu.  Again, it might take a few days to be completed, representing the crafters putting in the time to actually make it, but an imm would not have to be directly involved, allowing them to focus thier attention on furthering plots and what not.

[creeper386]

Warning: Going off onto lala land on what he thinks would be nifty/useful for this sort of thing.

Okay, first off, each House would need a list of every possible item they use, probably included along with all the other clan files in the mud folders.

Then, a code is implemented with the intention of being put in place in the Merchant House's "warehouses" or crafting area or whichever. This code would work something like a shopkeeper except alot more advanced. It'd be a search type of thing. Could use view with an addition on it to allow more variables, or just use list that would allow variables.

list [generic item type] [specific type of that item type] [keyword] [keyword]

list clothing hat purple fancy

45> A fancy purple hat
59> An obsidian-banded, fancy purple hat
400> A really fancy, purple hat

buy #400

list armor vest studded tregil

list weapon dagger obsidian agate

So on and so forth. Now, I think this would be for the more generic things or the middle of the line stuff. Maybe include a wait period with how expensive a thing is, as cost ussually includes rarity/worth/materials and all that. Probably well never happen, but it'd probably make things alittle more automated, and therefor alittle easier.

Creeper

[Marc]

Being able to list every item available to a house  and then be able to narrow down the list with filters (ie agate, obsidian, silk etc) would be quite a chore.  In otherwords, it would require new code.
However, the code is in place (or very similar code via Ariada's clothshop in Allanak) to just have a generic "list" that might be a few hundred items long that could be purchased and the item then thrown into a tailor-like wait.  You get a ticket for the item and a timer is set.  When that timer has expired, you can offer ticket and get the item.

Pretty simple really.

The real effort there is just setting an npc up to call the assorted obj numbers and arranging the list.

[creeper386]

Hmm... That'd be basically the same thing. Those items in that shop, are still normal items. There are still that fifty of them or how ever many of them are. It could be done that way just the same. Although it'd be just as much work.

And I think making list be able to have variables in order to sort through things would be useful for the whole MUD anyways.

list

1> useful item you don't need
2> useful item you don't need
3> useful item you don't need
...
...
...
500> useless item you don't need
501> useless item you don't need

Somewhere in all that is what you need. Sure things don't get to that extreme... But it would come in handy. And over all wouldn't be THAT hard to be able to search through the keywords in the shopkeepers inventory(shop inventory not inventory inventory). Yes, it would require new code, but making another shop like the one in the Bazaar would take alot of manual labor as well. Specially if you have the list REALLY long. Lots of things require new code all the time. I'm pretty sure this would just need a side addition to the list code and it'd be all done and over with, wouldn't need to grandly revamp things. It'd still take a good amount of manual work to make an NPC or two with all the low level items a House commonly has, but I think that'd be easier then making another shop like the above mentioned.

Creeper

[Angela Christine]

I like Marc's idea.  

It would be a lot of work to set up though.  According to the weekly update there are 16942 objects, I'd guess at least 5000 of them are items that are not sensitive and could be made available by special order or in shop inventories.  Some poor bastard would have to go through all 16942 items, find the non-sensitive items and sort them out into catagories.  Not just Kadius/Kurac/Salarr either.  Each of the big houses would need two or three quatermasters (Tuluk, Allanak and other) and each quartermaster for a given house wouldn't necessarily have exactly the same inventory.  For example, buying "a leaf -carved baobab cabinet" would both cost less money and take less time to deliver in the north than in the south, so the northern quartermaster might deliver it in 1000 hours for 200 sid, while the southern quartermaster would need 3000 hours  and 500 sid, because the materials are not available locally.  Besides  the big three, smaller organizations like the Tan Muark, Harach-Kamud,the Guild and various tribal groups also produce specialty goods, so if you can find  a PC from these groups then that PC should have access to a quartermaster that produces their goods.  Not impossible, but a lot of work.

A similar idea I had, that would also be a lot of work, was a catalog hosted OOCly on the website.  

Each entry would have the item's sdesc, what clan(s) can produce it, and the database item number.  Also helpful, but not essential, would be the main desc, weight, and the container capacity if a container.  
It might also include what items will need to be provided before the imm will create the item, for rare items like silt horror armor or anakore claw gloves the imms might declare that the item can not be created until the house has somehow aquired a silt horror shell or a set of anakore claws.  The existance of anakore claw gloves isn't secret, but they can't be produced without anakore claws and anakore claws are hard to come by, so the house's "virtual" hunters can not supply them.

That way the player of the character who wants the fancy feathered cap (rather than some staffer) can do the work of digging though the "catalog" to find something that fits the bill.  Then when he tracks down an appropriate merchant he can say "I want a fancy feathered cap, in blue, with a purple band."  "ooc Item #BL4309."  Then when the merchant puts in his monthly order he doesn't need a long description of every item, instead he has a nice list of database numbers, so the imm can find and create the items with less effort, if said imm deems it appropriate.  

In a perfect world . . . .

AC

[Bestatte]

Hm. Well I know Diku isn't an Object-Oriented code (at least I think it isn't?)...

But if it supports the use of arrays (and what code initially based off C doesn't?) I wonder if it could do something like this:

Have the objects available be placed in the database, tucked neatly in their own special compartments, or arrays.

Each array would be its own category, with sub-categories within it.

Example:

array 1 = clothing
and within array 1 is
compartment a = head/face/neckwear
compartment b = torso/arms/wrists/shoulders
compartment c = waist/belt/legs/feet

When Kadian merchant looks for the customer's item, the syntax would be something like:

list clothing comp_a
and it would bring up -only- those items that exist within compartment A, and then he can order off that list.
All the other objects Kadius has in the warehouse would exist only virtually until he pulls them up by using LIST, and once he has ordered and received what he wanted all the objects would return back to their virtual status within the database.

I -know- such a thing -can- be coded, since I've worked with a code that does exactly that. I'm just not sure if it would work with Diku or the current incarnation of the Armageddon code.

But basically what this would do is prevent the game from having to store all this "stuff" outside the database and place it instead kinda in the same place characters go when you log them off.

The only time they'd come out of that virtual storage is when you target it with a command, such as "view #7" or "offer 20 #7" or "buy #7". Once it's removed from the list and placed in the merchant's inventory, it is gone from the database and released into the game. But until the Merchant actually gets his hands on it, it remains in either a virtual or semi-virtual state, thus saving tons and tons of data space.

[chinwa]

500> useless item you don't need
501> useless item you don't need

Easily solution. Spread it over more than one NPC. Put the torso items on one pc, the legs on another, the belt/waist on another, the sleeves on another.

I think for the most part items are listed under a certain make, that's why when you submit an item you're asked to put a clan name, if it's from a specific clan, like "Kadian-make" or "Salarr-make". So if that's the case, and the object database is already segmented like that, the clan Imm would only have to go through items of their clan's make to decide what would be put in those NPCs' inventories.

[Anonymous]

I'm playing a merchant trainee at the moment and this is what -I- do when I am approached by someone wanting something.

cut
paste
set in email
wait for someone else

Then, once a -day- (ooc), I send a copy to the clan immortal, the mud and then myself.

Sometimes there is more than one day that goes by and someone doesn't want something. On those days I'm sure my clan immortal breathes a sigh of relief.

After that (sorry to all other merchants who don't do the same) it is up to the -merchant- to act as mediator between the house and the client. I bug my imm every other day for things I've ordered and inform my clients of updates the second I see them.  As a merchant I have no desire to become obsolete by code. That's the entire point of having PC merchants, so that they are used. If your merchant is not taking the initiative to keep you as a client then take your business elsewhere?

You're right, orders take an exhorbitant amount of time to come through and as Sanvean stated, Imms -do- have lives outside Armageddon (the nerve!) and can only do so many thing at once.  Merchants have lives too.

[chinwa]

After that (sorry to all other merchants who don't do the same) it is up to the -merchant- to act as mediator between the house and the client. I bug my imm every other day for things I've ordered and inform my clients of updates the second I see them.  As a merchant I have no desire to become obsolete by code. That's the entire point of having PC merchants, so that they are used. If your merchant is not taking the initiative to keep you as a client then take your business elsewhere?

If only they were all like you

[creeper386]

Most of these ideas wouldn't make a merchant obsolete. It'd make the proccess more automated to take out the Staff's time spent on loading items and such.

See, this way my idea. Make list searchable through the NPC shopkeepers shop list. This would allow a big bonus to the hole MUD over all. And allow easier access to those items when they get pushed OFF the viewable list. Instead of having to type view #367; view #368, so on and so forth.

Then, there can be NPC shopkeepers in the store rooms or what not, for the PC merchants to deal with. When they PC "buy"s something they are giving a ticket, have the wait period dependant on the price of the item. In the south wood is rarer, therefore the price is higher, therefor the wait would be longer. Have even basic items a wait of two or three days OOC*. How this goes. The PC merchant can be told how long the wait is going to be, say in terms of weeks/months or what not. The PC merchant can even hand the ticket over to the person who bought the item. Then if that PC merchant disapears or isn't on, the buyer can go through another PC merchant, or go through a Staff NPC with much less trouble.

This would be done, so that Staff doesn't have to worry about loading up the more basic things. Although I think it can be done with fancier items... I think the really fancy, expensive items would be left off. It'd make it so everything is handled IC(You all I am told know what IC is so I'm not going to reiterate) so that there isn't the concern of someone forgetting something OOCily or an email getting lost for the more basic items and such.

It COULD be done without any code being added, just several NPCs with seperate sections of the inventory, but that'd take more initial work, and wouldn't add anything to the rest of the MUD. All that would be needed was the manual work to sort through the different items. Which as someone pointed out... Most are already clan specific. And then an NPC script to handle handing out the tickets, telling how long it was going to take, and giving out the item when it's done, which could be modified from scripts that are already in the game I'm sure.

Creeper who's done for now.

*The basic wait delay of several days is so that PC crafters wouldn't be considered absolute. Although they wouldn't be relied upon so much untill they get good, and still wouldn't be relied upon too much if there wasn't any coded goods, but when they get better they could still be relied upon for the fancier items, as well as they being able to get out the items faster. Also through RP PC crafters of course couldn't be considered absolute because they'd be no different then the Virtual ones, and I'm sure the Clan Imms wouldn't let a PC role go obsolete.

[crymerci]

Marc, now that you've explained more, I really like your idea.  However, I don't think that a wait is even necessary in most cases.  I think that they probably have several of each "regular" item virtually available in their warehouses.

[Marc]

Very true, Crymerci, but the stock in the warehouse is also constantly being sold and restocked by virtual merchants and virtual crafters.  Maybe the two ruby cloaks in the warehouse are reserved.  By always having a wait it simply represents either A: the time the crafter needs to make the item or B: clearing up the red tape to make sure what is in the warehouse is free to be sold.

More or less, I support a significant delay to eliminate any "instant gratification" ;-)  If Merchant Bob thinks he will have a lot of luck selling a number of candy stripped leggings, have him place an order for them in advance.  Then they are actually there, waiting, and not just virtual.

[Anonymous]

In a world where roleplay is the most important thing, things existing virtually are every bit as important as those that are coded.

I say, if you can afford it, and it isn't something that is custom made or made from hard to obtain materials then there should be a supply and if you have the coin, you shouldn't really have to wait long.

I can understand anakore claw gloves being hard to come by, getting anakore claws being the hard part and all, but things made from leather, bone, obsidian, chitin, or any other common materials you see making up many things in the world every day?
No way!
These houses are supposed to be the major suppliers of such things in all of Zalanthas, they would have a supply and should have no problem selling the things to those with the 'sid who are interested...after all, that's mainly how they make they're coin.

[Naephet]

I'd like to address two points here:

1.  Big list, and big box (more inventory) methods have been tried in the past, and, while they may be done again in the future, they aren't all that great.  For starters, a lack of knowledge of what's available is what seperates a good merchant from a bad one.  The longer a merchant has been around, the more likely he is to be able to handle your orders with ease.  This helps feed a system through which more experienced merchants can be designated to nobles and genuinely important people, while the inexperienced can be sent out to deal with the self-important commoners who most merchant houses really couldn't care less about.

2.  Out of all the potential roles available in the game, merchants work the hardest, next to staff members, because players actually expect results from them.  I have little sympathy for any player that gets annoyed at their ability to serve.  While nobles, commoners, Byn members, and other low-level characters get to just romp around and have care free fun, merchants need to show results.  This means keeping track of orders, following up on them, often writing objects, in-depth correspondance with the staff, etc.  To be perfectly blunt, merchants take so much shit from other players that I'm usually amazed that we manage to keep as many as we do.  If you think the current crop of merchants aren't available enough, or don't do a good enough job of kissing your character's ass, feel free to apply for one, and walk a mile in their shoes.  If you can do a better job than they can, other players will beat a path to your door, and the game will be at your feet.

Naephet

[Anonymous]

Your second point Naephet confirms exactly what some of us are saying, a merchant who is doing their job well, will be the most successful merchant.
Those that cannot handle it, will lose their business to others who work harder at it.

[Krath]

I dunno what the hell you are all talking about. I ordered something from house Salarr THREE OOC days ago and got it yesterday. So I take back all my comments. Keep up the good work

[Impska]

I used to get frustrated with merchant houses too.

Until I played a merchant.

Playing a merchant can often consist of logging in for an hour or two and having that -entire- time be filled with people placing orders. Often unique orders.

I'm sure you can imagine... it can be very dull to have your rp time consist of ten requests for wrist razors or anakore claw gloves.

And then, when the house imm gets busy or backed up, or needs a break from the oh so thrilling job of loading up gear and giving price quotes, the merchant gets to deal with your ic bitching at them for late orders. Ic bitching, for what is essentially, an OOC matter.

Is it any wonder there aren't many merchant around? And is it any wonder they don't seem to have an interest in being on all the time?

It's not a wonder anymore to me... playing one cured me of ever wanting to burden a pc merchant with my unique whims and desires again.

[creeper386]

Someone needs to special app a Salarri Templar... Yeah. And he can sell stuff on the side... See if lots of people want to bitch at that character... Or any of their employees.


Creeper

[kiddgoth]

Just a little advice feel free to take it or not... find a merchant with the house that has the unqiue gear you crave and build a relationship with that merchant... order a couple easy items first, pay for them well and on time,giving a nice tip goes along way to getting that first order filled  buy them a drink at the bar get to know them as they fill your requests. Once you become there friend you will get the service you desire. I start right away... as soon as I log on and get situated I start looking for merchants since I know I cant afford anything I start to build the relationship.. then when I work,find, steal or kill for some sid I already have that inside track with my merchant friend in the house .

Again just something that works for me.

Peace

[flurry]

I experienced the same as Impska in terms of frustrations taken out on a merchant I was playing.   Which sometimes made IC sense, but sometimes felt like other players channeling their OOC frustration into their PCs.  

I found playing a merchant and taking care of orders difficult, and I think you'd have to experience it to understand why.   It got easier as I learned the ropes, but I think it's tougher than it might seem.

One other thing I wanted to comment on:  in my experience, "special orders" were usually filled pretty fast (inside of a week), while "custom orders" usually do take considerably longer.   But I don't remember any orders that weren't filled, except for customers that disappeared.

One thing I did experience a lot were people who asked for a particular item, and when I'd tell them it wasn't in stock at the moment, they weren't interested in ordering it.    Which I wondered if it was because they thought the order would take forever.   (Which again, I found was not the case for special orders).

[Cuusardo]

This, again, is a situation similar to people's complaint about lots of half elves.  Sometimes you see lots of them, sometimes you see none.  Sometimes you have no trouble finding a merchant, sometimes you can't find one for long stretches of time.  Sometimes you have really great merchants, and sometimes the existing merchants aren't all that great at their jobs.  It comes and goes.

[Cale_Knight]

Virtually, there are hundreds of junior merchants in both cities who can get your orders filled for you. You should be able to just wander down to the bazaar, find the Kadian shop, and place an order.

It would be nice if there were some kind of OOC mechanism for doing this, but I pity the extra workload on the Salarr/Kadius imms if that were to happen.

[Morfeus]

It is kind of funny that the main thread is three years old and the "problem" is still the same.

[The Anonymous Kank]

The solution to this is pretty simple.

Each Merchant House apparently has a list of 'special' items, already in the database, that can be sold.

All that needs to be done is to set up a very secure back-room NPC merchant that only select members of the Merchant House can access. This NPC merchant carries an unlimited stock of each of the 'special' items, and sells to the PC merchant at a price that guarantees a decent profit for the house. The PC merchant can then dicker for extra from the customer if he or she is inclined.

The NPC merchant thus defines what can be sold specially and a minimum price, all in one swoop, no IMM intervention needed.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Now we come to custom items. Why not set up a custom item application process similar to character applications?

Only certain House Merchants (of sufficient rank) could use it.

They'd define the custom object; type, sdesc, ldesc, capacity, etc. in a manner similar to the character application process and submit it.

There would be a limit of the number of submissions that could be made for each Merchant House, after which the merchant is told that the queue is full.

The merchant could check on the status of the queue at will, and delete items from the queue if she discovers the customer is gone or changes his mind.

The Imm would simply review the item app whenever he has the time to do it, and then approve or reject them. When rejecting them, the notes the Imm makes are returned to the merchant. If approved, the item is automatically added to the database and an instance of the item appears in the Imm's inventory.

The Imm then just places the new item in whatever backroom location the Merchant House uses for the PC merchant to pick up.

It's all there in an ordered queue for the Imm, with minimal messing about necessary.

[UnderSeven]

Okay.  First of all the list of special items is HUGE.  No one npc shop could carry them all for these houses.  Second that is how it is already more or less done.  Only since it's not really feasable to have one of every item, they just have a bunch.  

This thread needs to die or get locked, I think Sanvean, literally years ago, more or less explained it.  

But incase anyone wants to know how it works, try playing a merchant.  For a game, I'd say it's a position that's almost like a job.  It's a lot harder than you'd think.

[The Anonymous Kank]

Okay.  First of all the list of special items is HUGE.  No one npc shop could carry them all for these houses.

Oh good grief.

Is it? Is it really? How can any character know about them if there are so many?

When you come down to it, even if there are five hundred special items for one Merchant House (which I expect is a vast overestimate), I would be really surprised if more than a handful ever got ordered regularly.

And it would still be possible to use NPC merchants. Please read what I write. I'm not proposing one NPC merchant to serve all the merchant Houses together. I'm proposing one per House, with that House's particular list of special items. One merchant can easily stock a hundred items if need be. That should be more than enough. The Imm could even take the policy of adding a special item into the NPC merchant's merchandise the first time it is requested. Pretty soon special item requests that have to be passed on to the Imm in charge for loading will, by virtue of simple statistics, be few and far between.

This thread needs to die or get locked, I think Sanvean, literally years ago, more or less explained it.

Maybe, but it doesn't need you to say so.[/b]

[Larrath]

I agree with what UnderSeven said.

If you make an NPC shopkeeper with all of the objects a PC merchant can order, that shopkeeper would have, at the very least, some 400 objects for the merchant to scroll through.  Do you know what it is to browse through a shopkeeper's list that spans three full screens?  Madness.

The "simple solution" I've seen above basically says that the PC merchant will need to write the special order objects personally.  First of all, this just means loading more work on a player who is probably already overworked if they're really trying to get the job done well.  Second, Storyteller staff members need their objects to be approved by a Highlord or above before they're put into the game.  The Merchant's things would probably be looked at by their clan imm (to see they're not ridiculous) and only then moved to the HLs for approval.  It's not saving that much time.

I think that more people need to understand that custom orders are pretty much equivalent to asking the staff to alter a room for you.  It can be done if you need it, but don't start changing every room just because you dug a hole in there and spilled some green dye over the side of that dune.  And as for having orders loaded, seriously, just suck it up.
If you think it's so fun and easy to help twenty PCs that all want "a helmet, and the best sword you have" and choose an object, pass it in email and then track it and chase the PC to sell it again, and then repeating that every couple of weeks, you can try it yourself.

If things aren't moving smoothly enough for you, you can slip a bribe.  There's a reason why some orders are difficult to get loaded, and this is because it would be stupid if PC merchants could just toss around objects with diamonds and other rare materials.

[The Anonymous Kank]

When you reqest a special or custom order you are asking the House to divert one of its crafters time away from what they know and put it towards a different/new design.  Expensive and time consuming for the House, both in lost labor and, if the crafter hasn't done it before, maybe even lost materials.

I'm sorry, but this attempt to justify ICly what is driven by OOC concerns doesn't hold any water.

For one thing, most often the changes requests are a minor variation on existing items. It's not like the customer is asking for something brand new to be invented, developed and produced.

Secondly, wave enough money in their faces and logically the merchants should be rushing pell mell to fill the order even if some lowly crafter has to stay up the night.

[Bogre]

I think the special item list is a lot larger than you'd think.

Think about the 10+ years of special items being written and ordered for a house.

[UnderSeven]

Obviously locking this thread isn't for me to say or I would of just locked it.  Duh.

Another couple things to look at, if merchants could instantly get at the whole house stock, which i will re-iterate, is not feasable, anyone who has played a merchant (clearly not the anonymous above) would know that.  But even if it was, what fun would playing a merchant be?  Noble x has contacted you, I want this!  you know that all of it exists on an npc, noble x knows it too, so suddenly merchants who are already given enough demand from players, suddenly are expected to drop everything and go get items now!  I have an idea, if we were going to do that, rather then having pc merchants, lets just make the npc shops carry every single item, I know, we can call it 'Walmart'.  

Second thing to keep in mind, is they're special items, SPECIAL.  Is it bad you have to wait to get them?  I don't think so.  If you could get them instantly they wouldn;t be special anymore.

so in closing, I refuse to listen to anyone complain about this again who hasn't played a pc merchant in a house.  Oh and stuck with it for a little while.

[Maybe42or54]

And noone is telling the merchant that they have to function perfectly. If it looks like what the buyer wanted it to look like, no problem, right? It is the buyers fault if they didn't describe it good enough.

[Anonymous]

If you make an NPC shopkeeper with all of the objects a PC merchant can order, that shopkeeper would have, at the very least, some 400 objects for the merchant to scroll through.  Do you know what it is to browse through a shopkeeper's list that spans three full screens?  Madness.

Oh, come on Larrath. Come on. What's next, Zalanthians don't build stairs because they're too hard to climb?

The "simple solution" I've seen above basically says that the PC merchant will need to write the special order objects personally.  First of all, this just means loading more work on a player who is probably already overworked if they're really trying to get the job done well.

Please stop and think about this for a moment. What does the PC merchant do anyway before he emails the Imm? Just write a note saying "uh... joe bloe wants a ... um, sword, yeah, with like leaves on it" and leave it at that, because he's so busy?

Second, Storyteller staff members need their objects to be approved by a Highlord or above before they're put into the game.  The Merchant's things would probably be looked at by their clan imm (to see they're not ridiculous) and only then moved to the HLs for approval.  It's not saving that much time.

No? Why do we have a character application system them? Why don't we just email our apps in and let the imms type in all the entries into the various fields, set all the flags etc. manually?

And as for having orders loaded, seriously, just suck it up.
If you think it's so fun and easy to help twenty PCs that all want "a helmet, and the best sword you have" and choose an object, pass it in email and then track it and chase the PC to sell it again, and then repeating that every couple of weeks, you can try it yourself.

If things aren't moving smoothly enough for you, you can slip a bribe.  There's a reason why some orders are difficult to get loaded, and this is because it would be stupid if PC merchants could just toss around objects with diamonds and other rare materials.

\

Just to let you know, I personally haven't tried to order a custom item for nearly a decade. But I have been on the merchant side in that time. I couldn't get a simple set of custom tents made for a noble customer in three month RL. Anything that will streamline the process for the imms can only be beneficial.

[Anonymous]

Obviously locking this thread isn't for me to say or I would of just locked it.

Then why did you say anything about it? Waste for words, waste of time to ready. Duh.

[The Anonymous Kank]

The people that post on this board have to be, by and large, the most conversative, negative and opinionated group I've ever encountered. Posting here is simply maddening. No amount of reason gets through.

So I'll leave you all to it. Armageddon is a fine game and I'm sure our characters will meet and have enjoyable RP together. See you there.

[UnderSeven]

The "simple solution" I've seen above basically says that the PC merchant will need to write the special order objects personally.  First of all, this just means loading more work on a player who is probably already overworked if they're really trying to get the job done well.

Please stop and think about this for a moment. What does the PC merchant do anyway before he emails the Imm? Just write a note saying "uh... joe bloe wants a ... um, sword, yeah, with like leaves on it" and leave it at that, because he's so busy?

In case any one else has the misconception about this, let me make this clear.  Most merchants have a back stock, and then they have the warehouse, whch can be one to two npcs, each with at least three screens full of spam worth of items with can sometimes change.  On top of that they might EVEN still have items their crafters have/can make.

So basically a merchant takes an order for a really vague group of objects, then has to cross check the objects asked for against everything they do or may already have.  Yes this can actually be a lot of work, believe it or not.  Assuming they DON'T have anything on hand (and my merchant had easily about a couple hundred worth of things in various places on hand at a given time in various places)  Then and ONLY then do they shoot the email.

But if by chance the pc merchant does have matches, or I should say possible matches, then they have to possibly get those items priced and figure out if they will fill the order.  

Now that's the player process for every single individual order that someone places.  This process can actually take a fair bit of dedicated time, when you add that the player has a real life and this is just a game, and that they probably actually *GASP* want to have fun playing this game, you might be able to imagine how it could take time, potientally a lot of time to get an order, IF everyone really just hoped to on your orders.  

Seriously, when I mentioned the number of items my char had on hand, that wasn't even a fraction of the stuff I could get loaded.  The idea is NOT FEASIBLE.  THERE ARE TOO MANY ITEMS.  furthermore, they are supposed to be special and part of ordering is supposed to simulate the process of having an item specially made and sent, materials.. ect.  

Anyway, if you have something personally to say to me, pm me rather then making everyone else see your posts directed at a single person.

[Maybe42or54]

I would actually copy the list of the NPCs into a word document and then search that when I was given the criteria from a buyer. Then add a quick description to the item and I could look up the item and find it (or not) in 5 minutes or so.

Then I would only give orders away on Thursdays, to make it easy for me.

That list got up to about 5 pages long before I deleted it when my Pc stopped.

[Angela Christine]

A text list could work too.  Players could convert that to a database fairly easily, if they wanted to.  The key thing would be that the list contain the item number as well as the other attributes.  If you know the item number it would make it easier to tell your clan imm exactly what you want, and for the imm to find the object.


Angela Christine

[Aldiel]

OK - I'm going to start the discussion on this.  Its been bothering me for months now and I want to know how other people feel.

It seems to me that it is nearly impossible to get orders filled by the two major merchant houses (I'm leaving out Kurac because I think they do actually fill orders fairly well).  For one, it can be very tough to find an agent who is willing to take your order.  Then once they do take your order it seems to take *at a minimum* a year IC to fill that order.  Many orders go unfilled for much much longer.

These two Houses hold some of the most interesting and unique gear to be had, and people are dying to have it.  But the way things stand right now it seems that all of those things are rotting in warehouses.

Have other people seen this same thing?  What are people's thoughts on why this is happening and on what the fix for it is?

Disclaimer:  I'm not trying to slam anyone - PC's or IMM's - I'm just stating what I see happening and wondering if there is a way to improve it.

While I enjoy the disclaimer, I think the root of the problem is just that we are humans and there are only so many of us.  There are only so many imms, and they can only volunteer so much of their time to make you your items.  The agents are taxed too.  You can't expect them to be on 24/7; however, I will say that some of the present agents are on quite a bit, and on that end, I have had very little trouble.  I don't mind if it takes a few days to place an order; that is the quickest it should be expected.  You could say add more imms, but then there would be less players, and not every player wants to be an imm.  Really, the only way I see this problem fixing is by promoting armageddon and increasing the player base.

[Vanth]

I think the special item list is a lot larger than you'd think.

Think about the 10+ years of special items being written and ordered for a house.

A conservative estimate of Kadian items would put the numbers easily in the thousands of items.

[Bebop]

Basically what I think it comes down to, and this is pretty fundamental.  Is the PC.  Is the PC and person behind the PC good at what they do?  Do they love what they do?  And are they around enough to do their job promptly?  The answer to that is usually no.

As well do the imms fullfill orders on time and so far this hasn't really been a problem in my eyes.

[Cale_Knight]

For the record, doing the actual merchanting as a merchant family member is insanely easy. You take your orders, you email them to staff once a week, and then you fill your orders.

I recently played an Agent for a certain house and was constantly "swamped" with orders, by which I mean I got at most two or three every RL day. When I did, I'd mark it down in a text file, wait until Friday night, and then send in a big order every week. Then I'd fill orders as people found me and asked about them.

It got a bit more complicated when it came to dealing with nobles, but not much.

And this was all essentially a sideline to doing the agenting thing. I sold stuff because there weren't any PC merchants around. And in the process I made silly amounts of coins, all as a sideline. It got to the point where I got a note on my account about how I was really good at merchanting, but needed more experience as an agent.

And I didn't do anything! I just let them come to me and ask to buy things! They were lining up aroudn the corner!

Bottom line is that if someone isn't a capable merchant because it's too difficult, they simply don't know what they're doing. If they're incapable because they find the role boring and don't log much, I don't necessarily blame them. I wouldn't want to be just a merchant, when house agents tend to sell anyway and also get to do other stuff as well.

[Larrath]

If you make an NPC shopkeeper with all of the objects a PC merchant can order, that shopkeeper would have, at the very least, some 400 objects for the merchant to scroll through.  Do you know what it is to browse through a shopkeeper's list that spans three full screens?  Madness.

Oh, come on Larrath. Come on. What's next, Zalanthians don't build stairs because they're too hard to climb?

Zalanthans?  I was talking about the work the player has to put in, not the PC.  I don't think you should expect regular players to start building staircases for you.

The "simple solution" I've seen above basically says that the PC merchant will need to write the special order objects personally.  First of all, this just means loading more work on a player who is probably already overworked if they're really trying to get the job done well.

Please stop and think about this for a moment. What does the PC merchant do anyway before he emails the Imm? Just write a note saying "uh... joe bloe wants a ... um, sword, yeah, with like leaves on it" and leave it at that, because he's so busy?

The PC merchant takes the description, runs it through whatever lists or database he has, and then sends an email to the staff with the best description they can get.  When someone asks for "a light, good sword", this either means finding an object after a lot of searching or getting a very detailed description - "Can you please load me a lightweight bone sword, slashing with a thick blade at the price range of 200-300?".
Because if you ask a staffer for "a good sword" they will die.

Second, Storyteller staff members need their objects to be approved by a Highlord or above before they're put into the game.  The Merchant's things would probably be looked at by their clan imm (to see they're not ridiculous) and only then moved to the HLs for approval.  It's not saving that much time.

No? Why do we have a character application system them? Why don't we just email our apps in and let the imms type in all the entries into the various fields, set all the flags etc. manually?

Two things.  First of all, a format similar to the character application would only save five minutes at most per object.  It's time, sure, but don't expect it to make much of a difference.
Second, this still means that the merchant PC will have to write that object.  Don't you think that's a little rude?  Between having to chase down orders and trying to lead a clan it's already pretty hard to have a good time, and now you want to make merchant PCs write objects?  If anything, the people placing the order should apply for the object, and even then it won't make much of a difference.

I think I'm finished on this thread.  Playing a Merchant, no matter how well organized and how good your object lists are, is hard.  It's hard because it is very tedious to keep working on those orders after three, four and five RL months.
If your idea of a merchant is a character that sits on his ass and sends a little email full of "i want swordz" to the staff once a week... I'm sorry.

The merchanting isn't difficult in many cases, it's just painfully boring.

[mansa]

Wow.  2003.

For the better part of 2003, I was playing a Kadian Merchant.  He was pretty popular, sold a lot of stuff, bought a lot of stuff.  I think he was on par with Marie Tor and Pearl on the ammount of clothing he personally bought.

I would have characters come up to me and ask me for a new outfit.  I would sit them down and get them to describe me the outfit.

This is what an outfit is:

Hat
Cloak
Shirt
Sleeves
Gloves
Pants
Boots

That's what an outfit is, typically.  I would request a set of clothes, of different values, and then I would purchase them all with my own coin.  I would put them in a certain place in the 'estate' and then let people come in and pick what they wanted, and I would tell them the price of it.  It went pretty well that way.  Usually in display cases or table items, so you can touch them.  ( I trusted people not to steal from me, too, but you could easily 'palm' items from those cases )

When I play a merchant again, that's the way I'll go again.



I tried to think of an idea where I would have 'fashion models' load up with different types of outfits on them.  Just an NPC wearing a certain set of clothes, while holding their cloak. (So it wouldn't cover up their body so you can see what shirt they are wearing)  It would be a special 'kadian only' command that would load up an npc wearing certain clothes, depending on the command I inputed.

Like:

>call model tor aide 2
>call model tor scorpion 3
>call model tor silver 1
>call model tor noble 5
>call model borsail noble 8
>call model borsail wyvern 1
>call model borsail aide 4

And it would load up an NPC 'model' with the clothing of the clan.  The odd numbers would be the males and the even numbers would be the females.

***

There are hundreds of 'red' items, hundreds of 'crimson' items, hundreds of 'scarlet' items.  If you set your pagelength to be 35, you would scroll through the 'kadian' list after about 57 pages.  (2000 / 35)  

Oh wait, there's a problem.  The 'list' doesn't load that high.  It stops at 255.

[Yet another]

I don't understand why whenever we talk about Great Merchant Houses, there are always demands to make PCs life easier at the price of nothing: more wages and bonuses to employers, better selection of goods, fast completion of orders to customers, etc. This particular discussion looks like a dispute between managers of Wal-Mart and unhappy customers, I can barely believe that we talk about harsh world of Zalanthas where resources sparse. Or so they say. And they indeed shamelessly lie.

I think some of you guys need to travel, expand your horizons or something. Even in our modern era there are god forgotten towns, where central shops hold three types of t-shirts, two types of pants and a single business suit (not a type, but single item of size that doesn't fit anyone in 100-mile radius). When you are there, you know that Wal-Mart exists and has better selection of goods, but it does not help you because you need to buy a plane for something to be delivered from there.

And now we have a bunch of dirty commoners with firm belief that whatever item was ever made in the world is free for them to purchase. Tell you what, peasants, I think you are wrong and there is a need to change your mindset. All items are handmade, recourses sparse, trade routes unprotected, literacy insignificant. In the world such as this all high-end items got to be rare and money shouldn't buy you everything. And I believe that everything more complicated than loincloth is high-end product in Zalanthas.

Advertising slogan of "harsh world and sparse resources" holds true only when we talk about raw materials. IMO, they are realistically hard and dangerous to get. I believe PC population purchases tens time more of gems than it gathers. I believe only one out of ten hunters who wear carru leather (or don't wear it, because "bleh, it's just carru") was ever capable to kill carru for real. I believe that less than 10% of items used by PCs were made in game, and barely 5% were made from PC's gathered resources. Zalanthas becomes Communism and Utopia, two in one, when we talk about finished products, mostly because of GMH's activity and unrealistic expectations of virtual world that should provide whatever we want. And by Merchant House activity I mean work of immortals loading items made of thin air.

1. I don't buy idea that by making character's life easier, by giving easy access to resources, products and sid, we save their time for "interesting stuff" and interaction. No, this way we just increase the number of idling tavern sitters. Who sit there not because they like it, but because they have no desire and need to do something else - to survive, to be better than your neighbor, to struggle against or for anything.

2. Larrath has said that serving as middle-man between PC-customers and immortals can become boring if done from month to month. He is right as always, because process of getting what customers want is indeed as hard and lengthy as Under7 and Mansa describe and takes time. But I'd bet it's even more boring to be staffer to load these items for years. Do you always dare to ask immortal to help with your project, if you know that they spent hours already to complete twenty orders gathered by kind Cale_Knight while he was skipping his agentry duties?

3. While everything comes out of nowhere Great Merchant Houses will never achieve the real place of economic power they deserve. Right now even family members have no real effect on PC economic, thus their economical protection and political standing are virtual. Kill them and safe bet is that another one will be appointed in a couple of weeks and everything will again appear out of nowhere, so why care about them? I am not even talking about hunters/crafters. They loose in competition to endless virtual vaults of immortals. So who cares if they exist at all, if their work has no effect? Treat them just if they are rinthi breeds, kill them all, burn estates – there will be no delays in orders, because immortals are always there to load everything you want.

[jhunter]

I think the times it has taken for orders in the past has been just fine personally. It seemed realistic enough to me. I don't have any issues with it. Of course, I rarely place orders for anything but anyway....

[spawnloser]

I have a feeling that Cale Knight was playing an agent after there hadn't been any presence by members of the GMH for a while...and was using the, "Well, that's what my IMM loaded," mentality instead of the, "Gotta

I know the character mansa was talking about playing, and I will say that he was one of the best merchants played in my time here, if not the best.  His style of merchanting, allowed choices on the part of the customer.  Sure, he didn't make quite as much per sale, but he made a lot more sales, met more people, and didn't skimp on other duties either.

I know that he put a lot of work into it.  I saw him with a couple consecutive characters.  If it's not at least some work for you the player, your character isn't a fantastic merchant...adequete maybe, but not good.

[FightClub]

I don't know about anybody else, But I want know what a flippant request is to a merchant.

Myself, the smallest order any of my chars has ever placed with salarr or kadius was 1800 coins, the largest nearly 9000 coins. The smallest I've even seen from anybody else was still over 600, and the average seems to be around 1600. I've seen nobles order a single item for in excess of 10,000 coins and still need to wait 1-4rl months.

Anything over a week IG is rediculous really, this isn't a problem that particularly threatens me, but I see the concern.  I mean a lot of it in my eyes would be due to that fact that merchants are boring to play (in my opinion) and the majority that i've met don't play that often.  That placed with tricky play times, and dealing with immortals makes things entirely too difficult.

We need to find a way to resolve this, another points that I haven't looked too much ,or seen mentioned is lost orders, I frequently hear of merchants dying or getting lost, and leaving several orders unfulfilled, resolutions to this? Perhaps a board specifically for orders with an edit function to allow people to say "Hey this was filled"  "Hey this needs attention it's been waiting for quite a while."  This might be in act, but I seriously doubt it.  It's another of many problems that should be looked into, not only by the staff, but primarily by the players, I would hope that more people take responsibility and help with these sorts of things.

[FightClub]

Another concept.  Most of the crafting rooms only contain supplies brought to you by the pc's...  Why not npc's, VNPC's who would be otherwise present, and doing this stuff as well, resolution.

Auto replinished stock gains based on what kadius/salarr/whoever attains and uses most often, by product included -- this might give the staff some leeway from constantly loading things.  Also  I see a lot of mention of staff loading things, why are they, beyond a complete custom build?  The current merchants in place -should- have crafts for every single item they're expected to produce upon entering that clan, branched or not.  

Perhaps -- making seperate craft skills for clan made items only would be in order, that are easily removed, and given upon entering a clan would be good.  like ..

ex: craft salarr (bleh bleh) into (a salarri emblazoned chainmail vest of death)
or
ex: craft kadius (bleh bleh) into (a platinum ring with lots of bling!)

I don't know, just some thoughts.

[Merchant Kank]

Anything over a week IG is rediculous really

How do you figure?  Assume items get loaded by the Imms once a week.  That means that the most you should have to wait is a week, right?  Wrong.  That leaves no margin for error, when sometimes you need a substantial margin.  If you have a PC merchant who is sending their Imm a list of items ordered only once a week, that's probably going to be a long list if they're doing their job as a merchant.  So, you send off a list to the Imms that says, I need one of these, two of these, 12 of these, something that looks like this...etc etc etc.  And the Imms should get it exactly right every time?  I think that's asking a bit much of them to be so exacting with a game that everyone -else- is playing.  Plus, if the order gets messed up, what player is going to go back and bug the Imm about it instead of just waiting another week?  None, I hope, since these players are bugging the Imms for stuff already every week.  PC merchants can usually only estimate prices.  They can only estimate delivery times.  So, when the item doesn't come in or it costs a bit more than the player thought it would, guess what happens?  Customer PCs yell at you.  They accuse your character of being a bad merchant.  Because of things that are out of your control.  Silly me, I'm so sorry, I'll have it fedExed first thing in the morning.  Uh-huh.  This may surprise you, but getting yelled at for things that aren't your fault and having to cover for them anyway is not really any more fun when it happens all the time in a game than when it happens in real life.  This isn't intended as a whine.  I actually like playing a merchant, just trying to give people a view from this side if they don't know.  Yeah, you can bite PC merchants heads off for not having your orders filled on time, but in my experience, most of the time its kinda like when players come back after an absence.  Even if their stories don't quite make sense, you have to give them a little slack to account for the IC/OOC gap.  IMHO

[mansa]

Anything over a week IG is rediculous really, this isn't a problem that particularly threatens me, but I see the concern.  I mean a lot of it in my eyes would be due to that fact that merchants are boring to play (in my opinion) and the majority that i've met don't play that often.  That placed with tricky play times, and dealing with immortals makes things entirely too difficult.

I bolded the part I'd like to speak about.

One week IN GAME is broken apart by 11 days, which is then broken apart by 9 hours in each day.

1 hour IN GAME is consider 10 minutes.  1 day IN GAME is considered 90 minutes.  1 week IN GAME is considered 990 minutes.

990 minutes translates into 16.5 hours.

You're asking that someone should place an order with a PC, and have an immortal LOAD that item within the next 16 hours.


You are asking for an automated system to request items.  That already exists.  HOWEVER Nobody wants the 255 or so items that you can request of.  People want item #4390 and then item #2997, and definitely item #14014.

And that brings into the subject of 'special' items.  They are only special if few exist.  Which means, an Immortal should consider the item request, discuss with other immortals from other clans about the importance of that item and how many should be in existence in game, and then load it.

That sometimes takes 2 weeks to consider, for a lowly item that has one smallest bit of silver in the sdesc.  

Now, should I speak about the technology of the items involved?  I remember when every item that had the word 'VELVET' was removed from the game because VELVET was nearly impossible to create with the technology of Zalanthas.  It should definitely take longer than 16 hours to load your special cloak with a fur frill.