Wurm to Work - A social assistance project aimed at replacing the Trader income distribution system

[Sevenless 385]

*Nicely detailed comment*

 

Your suggestion is detailed enough to be deserving of its own separate thread for discussion Hussars, Many +1's for you. You are also more intimately knowledgeable of the original introduction of why traders exist, twas long before my time.

 

I personally think encouraging a more brisk economic turnover through some form of permanent stimulus would entail great things for the economy, especially by doing so through involving players in the long term growth aspects of wurm.

 

That being said, I feel your suggestion provides a perfectly valid alternative solution to the system I presented. Thank you very much for your contribution.

 

 

 

If one person expend 50s in a trader contract to plant it, how is fair that anyone can access to it without expending/risking a single cent?

 

I disagree with the capital influences of investment for the sake of income disparity in the first place. Impossible to prevent it existing though, example being investing in gnomes or underpriced enchants and selling them later. Someone nicely pointed out that Traders are a guarenteed investment, and can usually be resold for almost all of their value at any time.

 

My suggestion is to eliminate traders as an investment in general. Want to invest? Do it with player goods like drake sets or whatever. That way at least you're dealing with market risk for your earnings. Personally I would reimburse all owners of Traders in the process, but I'm not a dev and I can only make suggestions.

 

 

Seven I agree to your point in your system, capped total pool works great, but yes something has to be done to allow that money to release into the economy again if it is not getting tapped.

 

Sure. I don't have any disagreements with that. Possibly if you hit your cap, it will drain back to 0 unless you sell something? There could be some requirement (Selling the trader a piece of parchment as submitting a form? XD whatever really) that would start accumulation again.

Edited May 7, 2014 by Sevenless

[Etherdrifter 2,518]

Your idea has merit, however it would discourage players from placing traders to start with as it is a high initial investment.

Adding money to a communal pool would be nice, however I am not quite sure if I have misread but can people who have contributed nothing to the pool still get coin out of it during the intervals?

[Sevenless 385]

Your idea has merit, however it would discourage players from placing traders to start with as it is a high initial investment.

Adding money to a communal pool would be nice, however I am not quite sure if I have misread but can people who have contributed nothing to the pool still get coin out of it during the intervals?

 

Personally I would expect trader form cost to change drastically as a result if this were implemented.

 

You would have to have premium time to get money out. That's either dumping 10s into the game, or dumping money in. Either way the players doing so are contributing to the economy coin circulation or the financial success of Wurm.

[Jeixi 146]

So how do you make money with traders and how much do you make? 

[Druidnature 1,118]

So how do you make money with traders and how much do you make? 

 

currently?

 

Place trader in a 3x3 house on-deed.

 

Drain it every few days, make sure it's ratio stays above 0.1 (so it receives coin from the kings coffers)

 

get X amount of silver per month......(it's been really random lately...around 6-8?) per month.

[Jeixi 146]

currently?

 

Place trader in a 3x3 house on-deed.

 

Drain it every few days, make sure it's ratio stays above 0.1 (so it receives coin from the kings coffers)

 

get X amount of silver per month......(it's been really random lately...around 6-8?) per month.

 

So if I were to buy two traders, I could keep my premium and deed paid simply by "draining" the trader? How do you drain it? Selling items to it or just take money from it?

[Sevenless 385]

So if I were to buy two traders, I could keep my premium and deed paid simply by "draining" the trader? How do you drain it? Selling items to it or just take money from it?

 

Path of Knowledge has info abilities to tell you info on the current ratio, and eventually the amount of cash on the trader. You sell it stuff (jewelery smith items are popular, but anything with decent get price works), and then buy back 10% of what you sell it so it gets the 0.1 ratio.

 

Each month after that it gets a silver deposit from the king. 5-7s is the common amounts, and for every silver you pull out you need to put in 0.1 of course.

 

That's my understanding of how it works, been a while since I did it.

Edited May 8, 2014 by Sevenless

[Hussars 511]

[...]

 

Don't misunderstand, I've been a vocal "anti-trader" person for a long time, but what I was really trying to point out was that what you're looking to do doesn't appear to take into consideration why traders exist or what actual benefit they may (or may not) provide to the game/systems, just at ways to change how they work.

 

As others pointed out, the system has been around for a few years now (in various forms) and a lot of the "extended" gameplay (i.e. Priests, deeds, etc...) options rely on the current system to remain "balanced" or viable for some players.

 

Yes, Traders are simply exploited for coin by some users, but they are used (mostly) as intended by others.  The changes you have outlined don't replace it with anything that actually corrects the problem of being exploited.

 

In your system, as detailed, it remains easy to exploit the trader for coin.  Skill limits on items sold just means that highly skilled player are at a larger advantage, since if a low skilled player purchases a trader in your system, their lower skill level limits their max coin to much lower levels.  While you say you believe highly skilled players don't need the trader funds, then why do they use them now?

 

Why would they not use them in your system?

 

Higher skill = higher ql = larger percentage of the "pool"

 

What you're really doing is rewarding higher skilled players for doing what you're trying to get them to not do.

[Sevenless 385]

I agree that my suggestion is not respecting the original reason traders existed, but I do feel it has the spirit of attempting to replace what traders have become for our economy.

 

 

Higher skill = higher ql = larger percentage of the "pool"

 

What you're really doing is rewarding higher skilled players for doing what you're trying to get them to not do.

 

Each player would receive the same potential income per month. Lets say 1s. That part is important, whether you withdraw from the pool or not, if you are below your total cap, no money is lost.

 

 

Low level player makes Q10 items, high skill makes q90. Both are skill 10 and 90 respectively. High level player makes and sells 1 q90 item, gets 90c. Veteran player HAS to make an item close to their skill, and that takes effort. I'd tentatively suggestion 90% of your skill value, up to but not above your skill. So a 90 skill BS could make needles q81-90 to sell. One quality 90 item is enough to drop the pool to 10c.

 

Low skill player has to make 22 quality 10 items to reach 90c. This is good for their skill. The low skill players are guaranteed work that will also engage them in long term skill growth.

 

I have no issue with high skill players getting an advantage (Grinding a skill is supposed to be a benefit) of taking out their money from this, but it gives everyone equal opportunity to access it. Low skills are in no way barred from accessing the pool. Furthermore you can use any of your skills to do this, high or low.

 

I don't see how this system as I've presented it is furthering the same issue of income disparity since everyone is capped at the same monthly and the workload is not unreasonable in the slightest.

 

 

Edit: Also forgot to mention that traders would likely be cheaper to place after implementation of this, or perhaps this system could also work through tokens. It needs to be accessible above all else.

 

Sorry hussars XD

 

An error occurred

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Edited May 8, 2014 by Sevenless

[ScarfaceRo 79]

I think you're making one mistake.

I think we both agree with a few things:

- Rolf wants to recirculate a certain percent of money spent on deeds in the system

- while the exact numbers vary by deeds being set up / disbanded, the value should be identical in both systems, otherwise the economy will be messed up and CC would end up losing money

- so the only think you may aim to achieve is to distribute the same pool of money among more players

Now a traders gives around 5s per month (varies from month to month and server to server, but that's a good estimation). And yeah, I know that looking at the most vocal and hardcore players, it may look like almost everyone, has at least a trader, but if you take in consideration all players (and more exactly all characters), I'm sure that for every trader there are at least five characters without a trader.

So this means that without changing the total pool, the individual pool would be something around 1s per month. So quite a bit of work for devs, quite a few unhappy people, and hardly anyone excited for the option to earn 1s per month.

Why not just KISS and just spread the money in a more simple way:

- suggestion one: just give 1s for every premium purchase from shop (equal money distibution to all premium players without more NPC selling which kills the sandbox aspect)

- suggestion two: just make it easier to sell to token (like no need to carry corpses to token, but just get the coins when burying) and remove the limit per hour with a limit per day (this will favorize your exact targeted category)

- suggestion three: keep traders, but make the share they get dependant of number of premium players on a deed, actually encouraging communities to form; this will let anyone have a trader, it will still make anyone a profit after a while, but at dunno 2s per month that will take 18-24 months, so won't really be such a deal; at the same time a big active deed with 10+ premium citizens, could get 15s per month, paying for deed maintenance and the town's priest premium

[KanePT 699]

I agree that the placement limit change would address the issue of first come first serve that I raised. I do not think it is a fix to the entire system personally however. Thank you for your input

That limit is purely theoretical and except maybe on affliction i doubt it has ever been hit in any server.

Wurm is too expensive of a game to be tolerable without the option to reduce your costs through ingame coin (and i'm not speaking just about traders). Leveling up takes way too long, crafting takes ages, its simply not possible for anyone not filthy rich to keep a decent set of characters needed to build anything decent in the game and pay upkeep and premium without retrieving anything from traders.

And seriously people overestimate the returns from traders. Last month i got 5s from my trader, there's people doing more than that with the token selling thing. I did 20s in a week not too long ago from selling ql 70 goods.

 

As for priests making a profit in PvE. That's after at least 3-6 months of premium time payed. Up till then you're paying premium for a cook/farmer that will be probably lower level than your main depending on when you make it (i was already 60 farming when i started my priest for example).

 

So yes, traders are kinda unfair, sure. Not working as intended, apparently. Totally bad, the spawn of the devil, something to not have. Not as wurm is today. Wurm has a tiny pop as it is. Most of the long term players are playing cause they have traders to support their expenses.

Removing traders would be less of a issue if the game had a better balanced economy, less grind and faster craft/resource gathering (which would facilitate the economy). Drastic reduction on deed upkeep and deed costs. Finally multi-character accounts, with a single subscription for all those chars. I mean Wurm costs nearly as much as AAA titles like WoW, but while in those games you can have a bunch of different characters for one subscription fee, here you pay one subscription per each character, and unlike most games where you do those chars to experiment new classes, on Wurm you either have extra characters or you have to pay (and without traders) the equivalent to a monthly subscription or more for your items. So yeah its unreasonable to remove traders and money recirculation as it is today. If anything remove the 63 tile restriction so more people can have traders without having to deed somewhere in the boonies (since although there's lots of undeeded-trader-free space in most servers people tend to congregate in small areas and that might pose a threat. Maybe keep the limit of 1 per 63 tiles only for traders within the same deed, to prevent people having 100 traders in one house.

[ScarfaceRo 79]

Finally multi-character accounts, with a single subscription for all those chars. I mean Wurm costs nearly as much as AAA titles like WoW, but while in those games you can have a bunch of different characters for one subscription fee, here you pay one subscription per each character, and unlike most games where you do those chars to experiment new classes, on Wurm you either have extra characters or you have to pay (and without traders) the equivalent to a monthly subscription or more for your items.

.

You miss an important thing - there you can only log one character at a time. If you want to log them at the same time, you need two different account there too.

[KanePT 699]

You miss an important thing - there you can only log one character at a time. If you want to log them at the same time, you need two different account there too.

We log 2 at the same time cause the game is slow, grindy and you can play 3 chars AND watch a movie at the same time. If it had a different pace, or simple multi-character accounts without mutiboxing, nothing would change, i play 3 chars because i can, but except for stuff like doing confessions with priest for alignment or the random refresh cause i forgot to eat i don't NEED all the chars online at once. You have them because the game is a painful slow grind and you can do it.

Edited May 8, 2014 by KanePT

[ScarfaceRo 79]

Well, than what you ask is a much bigger change than just multi char account - you want more action, less grind game. Well, thete are many other ones like that out there. I like WURM how it is.

[KanePT 699]

Removing traders would be less of a issue if the game had a better balanced economy, less grind and faster craft/resource gathering (which would facilitate the economy). Drastic reduction on deed upkeep and deed costs. Finally multi-character accounts, with a single subscription for all those chars.

Which is why i said this. If you like wurm as it is, then you don't really like wurm. Wurm as it is right now is doomed to fail in the next couple of years because it will be replaced with better more modern games. Which is why if we like wurm we need to think of how to improve it, and make it attractive and competitive. The price already ramped last year, as people start leaving this game for better ones then there will be less and less people to play (and pay) and eventually the price would have to rise beyond the point where its reasonable. Players are the lifeblood of any game, the more the better, wurm is historically bad at keeping a decent pop.

[Gavin 971]

Low level player makes Q10 items, high skill makes q90. Both are skill 10 and 90 respectively. High level player makes and sells 1 q90 item, gets 90c.

 

I'm not going to touch most of the suggestion because I personally believe that traders are fine; but let's just hypothetically say that this suggestion gets implemented; what incentive exists for players to be productive and crate items to sell to other players?

 

Why would I make a 90QL tool and place it on a merchant (that cost 10s to purchase in the first place that I expect a return on) where it _might_ sell after X amount of days/weeks/months for _maybe_ 1.2s (where the merchant takes 10% as tax so I'm left with 1.08s) when I could just go to the token or whatever and sell it for a guaranteed 90c? And if I somehow manage to use up all of my available 'pool' have the other 80 active premium players in my town sell items for me and keep a small cut for themselves?

 

It just seems utterly unproductive to me; I feel like it would mean for many people they stop stocking their merchant and selling items to other players and instead just sell items to the token all day; and where do these items even end up? Would people have the chance to purchase them from traders or would they just get deleted from the database?

 

 

 

 

I personally believe that before changing traders (if even necessary) Wurm needs to focus on actually fixing the way people trade with each other; back when Wurm had maybe one marketplace with 20-25 merchants and everyone lived on 2 servers it was fine but now there are so many servers and marketplaces with 100 merchants in each it's all a huge mess; the last time I went to Freedom on a shopping trip the merchants were all named totally irrationally so you had no idea what they were selling (ie Merchant_Sam instead of Merchant_90QL Tools) and like 95% of the merchants had absolutely nothing on them; I felt it was a huge waste of time and ended up only spending maybe 5s and coming back (when I'd happily spend a few gold if there was stuff I liked)

 

Why not add a feature where you can search for the item you want and the game tells you what merchants sell it and where they are located (ie search for rare tool with option to limit it to the server you are on)

Why not allow _ALL_ items including nodrops to be sent via mailbox? Why not create a more cost effective way of purchasing bulk items?

 

Wurm is shooting itself in the foot with these artificial limitations that prevent people from willingly spending money and that is something that needs addressing first.

[Audrel 2,223]

He would have to severely reduce or completely remove the cost of deed upkeep to do this, as many deeds are funded solely by traders. Keep in mind that with priest restrictions, it is very difficult to play a priest main, and many people pay for priests with trader money. Removing traders would ruin a lot of things.

 

Why would he have to reduce the upkeep? Deed it or lose it is now the ultimate law with no enclosure rule. How about now putting in "pay for it or lose it"? Removing the enclosure rule ruined a lot of things for a lot of people too but that's fine and dandy because they weren't paying for it. Milking a trader is not really paying for it either. While the tulips are being trampled, why not run crazy like the Wurm bison and pack the whole damn playing field flat.

 

EDIT: I don't endorse my own idea there by the way. I'm just saying what is fine for the goose should be fine for the gander. Because the goose paid 50s for a trader does not make a bit of difference over the guy who paid out more with premium time in the same year length of time but decided not to have a deed. He didn't pay for his (formerly) legal enclosure with cash any more than a trader deed pays for itself with cash. Let's stop being hypocrites shall we?

Edited May 8, 2014 by Audrel

[MrGARY 12,421]

-1 to spreading the "wealth", if you want the money, sell stuff to earn it or make the investment

[Marshlander 188]

In real life, you can invest a small amount and see a fairly large return from it, over time. It's called an investment. The stock market is swayed by it.

If you live in America, the government cash bond you can buy at your local post office is the same thing...

It's not the same. Here's the major difference:

 

Traders: aren't even advertised as giving a return on investment, or to what extent. As a new player (or one who has never owned a trader) you won't know where those 50s go or if you'll ever see them again. If you own a trader, or someone who plays the system, then you'll know and buy more.

 

Bonds: not sure about the US, but over here they have a transparent dividend rate.

 

The whole intransparency - and the fact that the trader mechanic can be adjusted/nerfed at whim behind the scenes - makes this system deplorable IMO. That mostly, and the fact that the reason for buying the majority of the existing traders differs so glaringly from their original intended use.

 

I'm all with undocumented game mechanics and discovering while you play. But not with features that are bought solely with cash. If it has a price, give us the specifics.

[Etherdrifter 2,518]

Hrm..

A slight alternative : Why not stop trader coin regen but, instead, whenever a player buys a "cash shop" item such as a settlement deed the owner of the trader can keep x% of this (10%?).  Allow owners to lower the price of such items BUT this comes directly out of their cut (so they could sell settlement deeds at their trader for 9 silver each but they would not get anything from it).

Optional Extra : Spawn traders charge slightly more (10% more) for their goods to encourage players to visit markets to shop for bargains.

This combined with some more "cash shop" items (silver mirrors and some kind of clay/tar/moss/peat rod spring to mind!) would encourage the use of traders as they were intended, as well as create an interesting dynamic between markets.

[Becket 843]

-1 Traders are fine as they imo.

[Hussars 511]

-1 Traders are fine as they imo.

Rolf appears to disagree with this statement in his last few posts about traders.  So I'd expect changes sooner or later.

[As_I_Decay 1,592]

The people who are comparing traders to real life investments are leaving out one major thing, there is no real inherent risk involved in this investment.  

Oh, there is plenty risk... Rolf could end up doing away with traders tomorrow and not offer a refund. Wurm could cease to exist in a year or two.

Honestly, my government bond is far less risky of an investment. My government's been around for a few hundred, can't say that about Rolf or Wurm.

 

[As_I_Decay 1,592]

Traders: aren't even advertised as giving a return on investment, or to what extent.

 

 If it has a price, give us the specifics.

The specifics are posted all over the place. Anyone with a sliver of interest can type "traders" as a key word here in the forums and learn all about how they work.

The cost is 50s upfront. If worked properly each month, you can drain roughly 5 silver 

The only thing different between this system and an American bond is that an American bond's interest rate fluctuates, depending on its age. A trader doesnt see more money just because it's been on the map longer.

 

[Proximo 402]

I know the attempt is for a reasonable and fair solution, but I honestly don't agree with the "money for everyone!" approach.

The idea that traders are for the "elite few" is a bit of a misconception too, anyone can purchase a trader and set them up.

Traders currently take 5 or more months to pay back their initial cost, at best, youre more often than not looking at 7-10 months, after that is a small but steady income. this is the trade off, high initial cost vs long term low payout, it isn't a get rich quick scheme, its setting up to recoup money in the future, the initial sale is from the shop or from other players.

The idea that the economy is broken because not everyone has money isn't true either, barter systems can be in place, or doing work to earn silver and therefore have silver to spend, handing free money out wont suddenly make players buy more, taking general players into account it will go straight back into deeds which is what trader owners are being accused of here.

I myself own 5 traders, with a total of $230 usd spent in purchasing them. As a result, I gain approximately 20-25s back a month, some of which does go into upkeep, but the rest? I've bought several lots of bulk materials, several enchanted tools and items, and also a referral from a new player, all with one months income.

one person having the money or several, the outcome will be the same, free money doesn't change attitude.

 

 

Don't you think the economy is a little off when you're spending like $230 USD on traders?  In a video game!?

 

Oh yeah "anyone" can use traders and set them up.  Provided they spend hundreds of dollars in real money.  I mean..lol, seriously?

 

What possibly incentive does Rolf have of making any meaningful changes to the economy, when players such as yourself are so willing to dump huge piles of cash into the game?  None, that's what.  This is pay to win in it's purest form.

 

Everyone knows traders are broken.  We all know it's an I-Win.  But I doubt much will get changed.