Traders and the freeloading elite problem

[Vetarnic 41]

Hello,

 

I was considering playing Wurm again since I stopped in 2012; there is something quite pleasant about this game in spite of all of the grind. However, what was unpleasant then is still unpleasant now: how this game is rife with elitists who are so obsessed with their little privileges that they complain every time they see them as being put in peril.

 

I am referring, for example, to the trader situation. I see that Rolf is beginning to see the problem with traders, even if he is reluctant to address it. At least he spelt it out in his description of the game here: "You buy a trader contract in order to place them, but you never “own†a trader since the idea is that they should be made available for public access." Yet we all know what happened in reality, with traders in the middle of a 3x3 locked room regularly milked by their owners and their owners alone.

 

I have read that on Xanadu - where I'm not but where I may go as soon as I build a new ship because Celeb looks like a dump where nobody seems to play anymore - the private traders have been prohibited. But what do I also read? That the old Wurm elites are whining about how they can no longer leech off their traders, while the few public, game-owned traders are camped by alts.

 

I do not own a trader. I not only could not afford it, I never wanted one, because I could not see myself grinding junk to sell to it in the first place. When I first read about traders, I immediately detested the fact that I, a once-premium and deeded character who never owned a trader, was in effect subsidizing the Wurm elite players so that they could renew their premium/deeds/alts at a fraction of what it would normally cost them -- and that's if they paid anything at all in real money to Rolf. I suspected that many paid exactly nothing, since established players were bending over backwards to buy the 20-day referrals from new premium members in coins when a 30-day premium bought directly from the store would have cost them about half the price they were paying in coins -- and if there is one thing I know, it is that generosity towards new players does not exist in this game. It's a no-brainer that this preference only makes sense if the coins used to buy the referrals were money obtained for free in the first place.

 

I see that cash shop prices have increased drastically last year, by 60 percent or so. Yet the trader money fountain remained in place for more than a year, and I'm guessing it still exists on servers other than Xanadu. In other words, while traders continued to drain the game's money to the established elite, the rest of the players were paying for Rolf's reluctance to turn off the faucet.

 

To re-inject coins once taken out of the game by one of the existing sinks (upkeep, premium, etc.) is bad enough. To re-inject coins in a way that only a select few get to benefit, when the sinks affect everyone who paid any money, is worse.

 

I cannot say if Rolf's company is struggling, but there are at least two serious problems with his game currency flow which at first glance undermine his business model. The first is traders. The other is players' ability to cash out of the game by selling their coins on the market. Yes, the buyers of those coins will re-invest them in the game or sell them back at a markup to someone who will. But any private buying of coins only makes sense to the prospective buyer if the asking price is lower than what Rolf sells the same coins for in the safety of the cash shop. By allowing the private buying and selling of coins (many of which, one may suspect, were obtained through traders at a cost of exactly zero), Rolf in effect enables people to undercut his prices, reducing demand for his own supply of coins, crippling his income and forcing price increases on everyone to compensate for this.

 

Simply put, the traders have to go. Not just the private traders, but also the public ones. Or at the very least their ability to buy stuff from players. Every coin that went out of the game through a sink should never go back in the game, except under exceptional circumstances. Traders are not among them.

 

And as I always highly disapproved of the notion that a player can cash out of the game, since I would never have wanted to do that myself, I think that Rolf should ban private transactions between players.

 

I have seen old posts by people here who refer to the player base of this game as "investors" and "workers", as though everyone's main preoccupation was with making a buck and exploiting some other sap into cutting 500 bricks that you're too lazy to make (while harping on the virtues of "self-reliance"). And frankly, it shows. You know what I have seen this game called? A pyramid scheme. But it's especially ironic that here it's not even the guy who created the game who seems to benefit. Instead, it's all about a little, very vocal, very vituperative, elite at the top which wants to parasitically go on draining whatever life exists in this game for the sake of a few bucks while they frantically insist that the game must absolutely not be made easier for new players.

 

And frankly that has to end.

Edited December 2, 2014 by Vetarnic

[Aetherwalker 1,863]

Xanadu doesn't have private traders, problem solved.

[ago 470]

There's the option to sell stuff (like corpses) at the token for a few coins. You can randomly get coins from foraging and killing animals. The traders on Indy give between 1 and 3 silver per month now.

[Vetarnic 41]

And I'm not on Xanadu yet, not sure if I won't try to stick to Celeb.

 

Not to mention that even the public traders are bad if they are also money gushers.

[Archaed 2,280]

traders bring in 2-5s a month, hardly freeloading elite

 

wheres that dead horse gif when you need it?

[Alec 728]

Wurm's economy is a frelling joke that only benefits the already established-long term players. Just ignore it and play as long as you can stand it.

Edited December 2, 2014 by Alec

[Maxthx 642]

I'd like to vote this thread be locked.

 

This kind of thread doesn't need to be open.

[pugwash 52]

ill agree with Maxthx.heard this rubbish to many times 

[Emoo 4,357]

I love being elite. 

[Alec 728]

I'd like to vote this thread be locked.

 

This kind of thread doesn't need to be open.

Edited December 2, 2014 by Alec

[eyerobot 202]

Well traders being inaccessible to the public just strikes me as being wrong in the first place.  I believe they should be changed so that people want to put them in public places, And the owners get a percentage of the money they take in. They shouldn't buy anything from players, And they should allow them to be way closer together than they are now.  They should also be usable as merchants by the owner, With an expanded inventory much larger than a merchant can hold.

 

However this is just my opinion.  In the past the wurm team has surprised me a few times with their ideas.  And I believe they can do it again with traders. 

 

Rolf did give us the impression that he was trying to come up with a new system for them, And were on hold waiting for that, So we will see.

[xzea 20]

I agree, never understood why the option to buy prem ingame with silver was added or why traders function as they do.

[Jet 81]

[CHORUS:]
What about me, it isn't fair
I've had enough now i want my share

[Evilvision 301]

Traders are pretty much dead as money makers now that he has diverted funds to other methods.  Most people I have talked to about it only get about 2.5S now a month and that's declining. I have made a good 4S at-least in the last 2 weeks hunting and foraging (which any one can do free unless someone would like to ###### about how its unfair someone takes the time to hunt). I think its time to finally put all these damn trader posts to rest now and if the trader posts wouldn't mind to take the sailing sucks posts along with them as they leave id be appreciative.

[froggy25 81]

There are quite a few of us that play Wurm out of a reason that it is free if u have spare time to make it free. It's hard to find a job where I live so being able to pay from premium with 10s is a blessing. While I do own a trader on Celeb, she doesn't give me enough to pay for upkeep and i don't really feel like foraging for hours to get free coins...

So I just thought I'd go defend the ingame silver premium option

[Rozwell 24]

Would you like some cheese to go with that w(h)ine?

 

 

[Klaa 4,872]

I love being elite. 

[Miretta 1,415]

I do agree that traders need to be changed, I always hoped they would be openly accessable at some point, that players wouldn't have a reason to close them in, so that we can actually use them as a trading platform for those who don't want to buy a merchant and to be able to buy things like magical chests, deed papers etc.

but I don't think we should tell rolf HOW he wants to earn money though, i think he made it clear that he wants to encourage player transactions outside the game, for ingame currency and i think there is a pretty good reason for it:

 

There are players who HAVE good amount of money in real life, whom are WANTING to spend money into the game, "just" buying premium is not really "satisfying" and they are maybe also wanting to use their hard earned money to gain a small advantage ingame. Buying "time" from other players in exchange for real money. In it's current state, I don't even see a big problem with it, because they still can only get what other players can get aswell Since other players made it.

 

Then there are those who are having trouble in real life with money and they are very happy, if they have an option to earn their playing time with ingame currency AND they can even sell whatever they do ingame for real money, which for some people is serious real life income

 

yeah of course....nothing is perfect, but the way rolf currently handles it, he actually gains MORE costumers and more money than he maybe looses through current trader system. And with current system implemented, that you can gain coins through hunting and botanizing (which is being taken from trader pool) he actually did a step into fixing traders a little bit.

[Aetherwalker 1,863]

Have Nots are *always* gonna complain about things that belong to the Haves, regardless of it being fair or not. Such biased opinions are not worth listening to.

[froggy25 81]

Such biased opinions are not worth listening to.

[Becket 843]

So the op doesn't even play the game and wants to ######.

[Busted 289]

I love these posts. They usually come from secondary forum accounts of moany existing players who feign indignity at a thing just to cause drama or stir the pot they can't do on their usual account without getting massively flamed.

 

Who are you really moany pony?

[Grimleaper 16]

 

 

Who are you really moany pony?

 

 

....*breaks out the Wurm Woodchuck's Guide to Forum Beasts

 

*thumbs quickly through the dog-eared pages to review the distinguishing differences

between the common drama llama...and the moany pony.

[Cerberus 247]

I'm still trying to get into the evil elitist secret society. I make a few gold coins per month from sales. Whom do I contact? Or do they contact me? Keeping or removing traders won't effect my income.

[Marshlander 188]

I'm still trying to get into the evil elitist secret society. I make a few gold coins per month from sales. Whom do I contact? Or do they contact me? Keeping or removing traders won't effect my income.

I heard that in addition to a high income (which by itself, as evil as it is, just isn't enough ), if you demonstrate a case of

 

1) GMs enforcing something in-game in your favor, like busting deed defences or reverting something

2) Developers making a ninja nerf to your specifications

 

that they will contact you immediately.

Edited December 2, 2014 by Marshlander