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Arvid

Change merchants to hold their goods in a designated "warehouse"

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After reading another recent topic on merchants, this idea gradually emerged in my mind:

 

How about fundamentally changing merchants so that instead of putting items for sale on the merchant itself, we let a player link his merchant to a house designated by the player as a "warehouse" and allow the merchant to sell any items in that house actively pricetagged by the player. The link could created simply by putting the merchant inside a house or in a way that would allow the merchant to stand right outside the "warehouse".

 

By putting items for sale in a warehouse like this, we wouldn't need a limit on items per merchant and we could have full containers, wagons, boats, horses, you name it, for sale through the merchant. We could be able to browse the contents of all containers for sale through the merchant, but buy individual items from unlocked containers only (so for example we could sell only whole sets of armor). When buying large items they would be magically taken from the warehouse and dropped at the buyers feet.

 

Additionally I would love to have all merchants networked serverwide, so that from each merchant we could browse what's for sale through every single other merchant on the same server. I don't like the idea of having any of those items magically transported to the buyer though. Just this. Through the network we would get the name of each merchant and its owner and would have to find it just from this information. Maybe merchants should be sorted by distance so that local merchants would be listed first.

 

Also I would love to be able to put buy orders on my merchant "buy 12 bsb's full of minimum 35 ql stone bricks for max 95 copper each" or "a barrel of 45 ql wine for max 1.30 silver" or "a full set of appropriately enchanted golden chainarmor" and have these browsable through the network. Whatever the merchant buys would be dropped and stored in the warehouse linked to it.

 

 

Edited by Arvid
Clarification
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I like but it probably will get -1 for the sake of local economy. +1

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"For the sake of local economy"?  I believe this suggestion will help strengthen local economy. Don't you like local economy?

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There has to be an economy for it to hurt one.

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2 hours ago, Depends said:

There has to be an economy for it to hurt one.

 

You hit the nail square dead on the head there.  It's really a damn shame to because if Wurm had a economy similar to Eve I believe we'd have plenty more folks here.

Edited by balthasar

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I believe this suggestion would help the economy greatly, because I can see how it would present lower level players with a much more viable and convenient way of selling bulk goods (dirt, rock shards, ore, logs, meat, farm produce, foraged stuffs, etc) than what we have had until now.

 

I could also see some players making a buck by looking for good deals (maybe meat being sold at a low price at one merchant and bought a bit higher at another) and fullfilling these by travelling back and forth between merchants.

 

I believe my suggestion here would be greatly help local economy, because if by one quick search I could find which of my neighbours has some specific goods for sale (even if they might never be online when I am and never read or post on the forums) then why would I want to travel to the other side of the server for it?

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I think the beauty of the Wurm economy, is that you don't have "instant" delivery of goods across the server/server clusters.

 

Someone, who is a nobody, has a chance to make a sale and earn wealth just by "showing up" at the right place, and at the right time.  As opposed to making it absurdly easy to not only buy anything, but to post anything for sale, anywhere at any time.

If I have to put 0% effort in filling a merchant by simply linking all of my merchants around the server to my single warehouse, you begin to create a mass network of goods that increase "supply" and drastically reduce demand when "everyone and their dog" start spawning merchants everywhere.  If its "easy" everyone does it, and no one actually makes any meaningful profit for the time they put into gaining the resources or crafting the goods.

in this case.. the "Easy Button" should not be utilized, and the "Hard" button should be pressed several times over, to encourage "local economies" and reduce the chance for server wide "monopolies"

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I didn't imagine this to be "easy button" anything.. The idea was to have each merchant standing in or right next to their own local warehouse, if that was not clear. The network would be for searching and browsing only. There would be no "instant delivery". We would be able to search for and find what we want pretty much from our own deed token, but would have to travel to the merchant holding it to get it and this is why I believe my suggestion would help encourage local economy.

Edited by Arvid
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there really should be a way to "teleport" bulk mats while staying true with the concept. an imaginery shipping company would be nice... you would have to buy the npc to be able to buy/sell using it (just imagine that you are paying the guy to carry your bulk stuff with a ship) and the npc would have some comission like the merchant has now. who wants to pay 1 silver for selling/buying 10k vegetables? how about 5s comission for 50k vegetables? delivery would still be relevant as long as it is a great ammount that is delivered and if not, I dont think it is worth it to pay the delivery anyways. you would have to wait several days (possibly more than what it would usually take to deliver) for it to arrive since the imaginery shipping company will take time to deliver it! this way it would not be vastly superior to delivery but simply just better for people who dont want to arrange delivery times and wait for it etc. and also people who want to make bulks but dont want to deliver

Edited by Simyaci

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16 minutes ago, Depends said:

I wouldn't hold your breath.

 

Thank you. I wouldn't want you to hold my breath anyways.

Edited by Arvid
Clarification

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53 minutes ago, Simyaci said:

there really should be a way to "teleport" bulk mats while staying true with the concept. an imaginery shipping company would be nice... you would have to buy the npc to be able to buy/sell using it (just imagine that you are paying the guy to carry your bulk stuff with a ship) and the npc would have some comission like the merchant has now. who wants to pay 1 silver for selling/buying 10k vegetables? how about 5s comission for 50k vegetables? delivery would still be relevant as long as it is a great ammount that is delivered and if not, I dont think it is worth it to pay the delivery anyways. you would have to wait several days (possibly more than what it would usually take to deliver) for it to arrive since the imaginery shipping company will take time to deliver it! this way it would not be vastly superior to delivery but simply just better for people who dont want to arrange delivery times and wait for it etc. and also people who want to make bulks but dont want to deliver

 

I think that's an entirely different suggestion. Go make your own thread please.

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I see that another player has suggested pretty much the same idea as I:

So allthough this thread hasn't yet received all that much attention, it's clear that at least some other players would like to see merchant "warehouses" or "stores" implemented in some form too.

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On 3/23/2016 at 1:07 PM, Arvid said:

After reading another recent topic on merchants, this idea gradually emerged in my mind:

 

How about fundamentally changing merchants so that instead of putting items for sale on the merchant itself, we let a player link his merchant to a house designated by the player as a "warehouse" and allow the merchant to sell any items in that house actively pricetagged by the player. The link could created simply by putting the merchant inside a house or in a way that would allow the merchant to stand right outside the "warehouse".

 

By putting items for sale in a warehouse like this, we wouldn't need a limit on items per merchant and we could have full containers, wagons, boats, horses, you name it, for sale through the merchant. We could be able to browse the contents of all containers for sale through the merchant, but buy individual items from unlocked containers only (so for example we could sell only whole sets of armor). When buying large items they would be magically taken from the warehouse and dropped at the buyers feet.

 

Additionally I would love to have all merchants networked serverwide, so that from each merchant we could browse what's for sale through every single other merchant on the same server. I don't like the idea of having any of those items magically transported to the buyer though. Just this. Through the network we would get the name of each merchant and its owner and would have to find it just from this information. Maybe merchants should be sorted by distance so that local merchants would be listed first.

 

Also I would love to be able to put buy orders on my merchant "buy 12 bsb's full of minimum 35 ql stone bricks for max 95 copper each" or "a barrel of 45 ql wine for max 1.30 silver" or "a full set of appropriately enchanted golden chainarmor" and have these browsable through the network. Whatever the merchant buys would be dropped and stored in the warehouse linked to it.

 

 

 

I posted a similar idea just recently and I'm sorry that I didn't read yours prior to this.  I blame the poor search capacity of the forums.

 

my post is strictly about merchants being able to be put in buildings that can be changed into a Shop mode, which makes every item in that building list able for sale; and it would allow you to have items inside crates, BSB, and FSB for sale at a per unit cost.

 

I also support the notion of Purchase orders, not so sure about linking the merchant search though.

Edited by Tallios

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25 minutes ago, Tallios said:

My post is strictly about merchants being able to be put in buildings that can be changed into a Shop mode, which makes every item in that building list able for sale; and it would allow you to have items inside crates, BSB, and FSB for sale at a per unit cost.

 

I also support the notion of Purchase orders, not so sure about linking the merchant search though.

 

Yeah, this thread is really about 3 separate suggestions, of which the first is very similar to yours.

 

I once got a few enchanted tools off someone elses merchant very very cheap, because the seller had forgotten to set a higher price. Because of that I don't want every item in the building automatically listed for sale. Only those actively pricetagged by players.

 

Also I think I'd like a right-click setting on the merchant with which I could say that it's allowed to sell all actively pricetagged items in the building it's in now. Or maybe it should be enough to just set up the merchant in a building to have this functionality? (To clarify; the building (with appropriate permissions) is necessary to prevent potential buyers from just stealing the goods.)

 

Why are you "not so sure about linking the merchant search" ?

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29 minutes ago, Arvid said:

 

Yeah, this thread is really about 3 separate suggestions, of which the first is very similar to yours.

 

I once got a few enchanted tools off someone elses merchant very very cheap, because the seller had forgotten to set a higher price. Because of that I don't want every item in the building automatically listed for sale. Only those actively pricetagged by players.

 

Also I think I'd like a right-click setting on the merchant with which I could say that it's allowed to sell all actively pricetagged items in the building it's in now. Or maybe it should be enough to just set up the merchant in a building to have this functionality? (To clarify; the building (with appropriate permissions) is necessary to prevent potential buyers from just stealing the goods.)

 

Why are you "not so sure about linking the merchant search" ?

 

Well all items placed in the Shop would have a -1 cost so they can't be sold, this would allow you to decorate your store but not sell everything.  Like selling armor but not the stands they are on, if the item is picked up, or otherwise removed from the shop, it should delete the Current price.  

 

Shop Mode would be a completely separate series of permissions, that allow people to come in and buy things.  Nobody could take items from the shop unless they are purchased.  For items that would need to be "loaded" I would suggest a Ticket is generated that would allow the purchaser to bring a wagon or cart inside the store, placing the ticket inside a wagon would give a "load" option. that would transport the goods from the shop into the transport.

 

As for the World market link, while I like being able to search things, I think it would be best to have at most a Deed only search.  maybe make a "market master" who does this and give people the name of the store.

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If it's possible to have the cost of items set to -1 when first placed in the shop that could of course work too. I must admit that I don't quite have an idea on a mechanic to let players actively pricetag items in the shop though..

 

I had imagined that buyers would not never directly take items from the "shop", purchased or not, but would instead be transferred to their inventory by the merchant, much like it's currently handled. For large items (animals, ships, wagons, bsbs, etc) I imagine that they should simply by teleported outside the building (preferably at the feet of the buyer) by the merchant when purchased, since this would mean simpler code and for me would be good enough.

 

As for serverwide browsing and searching for items, what do you see as downsides?

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On 4/30/2016 at 3:07 PM, Arvid said:

If it's possible to have the cost of items set to -1 when first placed in the shop that could of course work too. I must admit that I don't quite have an idea on a mechanic to let players actively pricetag items in the shop though..

 

I had imagined that buyers would not never directly take items from the "shop", purchased or not, but would instead be transferred to their inventory by the merchant, much like it's currently handled. For large items (animals, ships, wagons, bsbs, etc) I imagine that they should simply by teleported outside the building (preferably at the feet of the buyer) by the merchant when purchased, since this would mean simpler code and for me would be good enough.

 

As for serverwide browsing and searching for items, what do you see as downsides?

 

Server wide browsing will make the world far more selective and smaller.  If this is enabled, the mail order hermit will become even more pronounced.  By at least separating things you will create local markets and economies.  Then you let people who want to be traders, get to do exactly that.  They know 3 clicks south there is a market where there is a sweet deal on bricks.  So they risk the time, money and effort to sail down, buy, transport and resell to others.  By having server wide listings... you kneecap everyone who lists or wants to sell.  Suddenly it's all about the cheapest price listed.  People need to be able to score victories on some level.  Let the bold profit from them by exploring, meeting and doing.

 

It's allowing some controlled difficulty into the game; everyone benefits from increased trade, but traders can actually profit a bit.  And maybe, just maybe... the trade forum gets used a bit less.

Edited by Tallios

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I just realized a critical thing that would need to be added as well.  Bookkeeping!  The merchants will have to report back WHAT they have sold, not just "here's your coin".   Crafters need to know what is sold, and this can easily be done by giving the merchant paper, ink and quills.  They will then summarize and mail the letter to the owner every day?  

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6 hours ago, Tallios said:

 

Server wide browsing will make the world far more selective and smaller.  If this is enabled, the mail order hermit will become even more pronounced.  By at least separating things you will create local markets and economies.  Then you let people who want to be traders, get to do exactly that.  They know 3 clicks south there is a market where there is a sweet deal on bricks.  So they risk the time, money and effort to sail down, buy, transport and resell to others.  By having server wide listings... you kneecap everyone who lists or wants to sell.  Suddenly it's all about the cheapest price listed.  People need to be able to score victories on some level.  Let the bold profit from them by exploring, meeting and doing.

 

It's allowing some controlled difficulty into the game; everyone benefits from increased trade, but traders can actually profit a bit.  And maybe, just maybe... the trade forum gets used a bit less.

 

It appears you're missing an important part of my suggestion. The "serverwide browsing" I'm suggesting is strictly that. It's stated in the OP that this would not include magical mailbox-like delivery, so this would not affect the mail order hermit at all. "Serverwide browsing" would strictly be for discovering which merchants has the items you want. So if you find that both your neighbours merchant and a merchant 2000 tiles away has bricks, chances are that you'll go to your neighbours even if he's slightly more pricey. "Serverwide browsing" is primarily meant as a fairly convenient way of finding goods for those players who isn't interested in spending time trawling the forums for offers.

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