YAET KISS (Yet Another Economy Thread, KISS)

[nauta]

1) Anything left on the ground in a wilderness area will be "covered with sand" after a timer that starts the moment it is populated.  If it is in a container, indoors, or in a city flagged area, it remains. You can "forage artifact" to dig these up until game reboot in which case they disappear forever.

2) Merchants with unlimited inventory such as the hide buyer in Blackwing. Shit, shit prices: but they will buy EVERYTHING YOU HAVE. Everything. Scatter 1-2 of these per settlement. They essentially act as opportunistic pawn shops; they buy any item type (save perhaps components), pay absolute rock bottom, and resell at slightly lower than most merchants so that ICly, it makes sense: buyers know they can go to them for cheap supplies and can likely find what they need, and sellers know they can unload everything they have even if they might not make as much.

3) Give all merchants way more starting coin per reboot. It is ridiculous not to be able to sell more than 1-3 things.

4) Lower buy/sell prices across the board for merchants; except for the sale price of silk and high quality jewelry, keep that shit expensive. Currently it is too easy to make a lot of money off a few things and still have far too much left to sell. That is anachronistic.

5) For the love of Ginka, increase the rate at which VNPCs buy from merchants. Same reason as above.

If we want to be able to support a heavier concentration of players in civilizations we need to open up the NPC market. PC-PC trade, while preferable, is rarely as viable from a playability standpoint.

Let's start it off with Delirium's post, which I think has some good ideas.

Re #2 is a brilliant suggestion.  I also think more of those pawn shop vendors would be nice.  In my view, whatever tweaks have gone into the northlands recently have made it really feasible: I know Nergal tweaked Luir's and Morin's is new.  There's a lot of vendors up there, and a lot of pawn vendors.  It's a good scene.  I wonder if plans are to move on the southlands with a similar approach.

[hopeandsorrow]

I just wanna add,

That the hide buyer in Blackwing is my home gurl.  We need more like her.  At least in Allanak proper if not one in every settlement. 

[MeTekillot]

 

[Dresan]

I don't dislike Delirium's ideas. I don't mind seeing NPC merchant buying more -finished- products, in particular from merchant PCs. However, I would rather see those ideas implemented AFTER more money sinks are added to the game, and not just the equivilant of typing 'junk coins' but some more worth while money sinks, that aren't permanent.

When I look at armageddon's economy it reminds me of a lesson from an awesome teacher in grade seven. He was trying to teach us about stocks and investment and he held up a pencil and asked, "if someone invented a pencil that would last forever, would you invest in their company?". Of course most of us nodded, and why not, everyone would want it or so we thought, it would sell like crazy. He laughed and then asked, well would happen when everyone in the world bought one, and had no one left to sell to. Thats armageddon's economy, the most valuable items on your character last forever. The only reason you can even sell more is because people die, but even then how many times have I found camo gear or ebony gear being sold in the shops, because someone didn't even need it.

If you join a merchant house, you are given everything. THe little of coin you do make from them, you can save or invest in an apartment. That SHOULD be a good trade. Except it isn't because people don't need those coins anyways.  I think it is easy to become rich in the game, however the reason isn't just because making coins is easy (with the right skills and knowledge), but instead because earning an large amount of money is pointless after a certain point.