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Odynn

Traders. What? When? Where?

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I know we have a whole topic dedicated to the new RMT / account sharing policy... but i'm making this one to have the questions and answers in a readable format. Ie, this one is only here for subjects related to the matter... take the heat to the main topic please.

 

Basically on the traders :

  • Can we expect a one (and only one) free relocation of them. I'm certainly not the only one that will disband useless traders deeds and have said traders on the ones I really care about.
  • If the previous point is a big non negotiable NO... a refund of them on disband of said deeds (to buy new traders for the actually important deeds).
  • How will the upkeep reduction exactly works? Capped amount on the percentage?
  • New Edit : Will it be possible for lower upkeep deeds to remain (virtually) free as long as the mayor frequently log in (1).
  • (reserved for more questions that might come sooner or later)

 

Feel free to ask your own questions as well and lets hope we will get some official words here or on a dedicated official topic.

 

Foot notes.

(1) -- Currently traders completely pay deeds with 3 or less upkeep, is it thinkable that tied to the mayor activity, a deed with such upkeep and a trader have a complete upkeep reduction (and remains free), with the full knowledge that no money will be generated in the upkeep (no money gain) and if the player stop logging in the deed will still disband.

Edited by Odynn
Roaming thoughts and questions... or roaming questions and thoughts... your call.
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I think it should be pretty obvious what is a purpose built trader deed that will have debatable backgrounds and traders on legit actual "home" deeds.  Traders that are able to be proven legit would be nice to get any kind of reimbursement or relocation.   Deed history that GMs can see can prove that I've had a trader on my deed for like 9 years maybe and I had my deed since the start of the server itself so it's clearly bought and placed by me, let me move it to where I want it to be now?

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Although I think it is fair that those who >>>actually purchased<<< a Trader should be able to turn it back into a Trader Deed (or whatever the term) and once again place it >>>one time<<< with a 1 month expiration date on it to place, the actual means to determine which Traders qualify for this treatment may be impossible to determine. Any who have been within this game for years back will know that many Traders were obtained by others at no cost at all since when deeds disbanded at the times the Traders would remain standing out in the open for anyone to claim with another deed placed over it or simply a house of any size built over it to protect it from others using or deeding immediately.

 

So yeah, if means can be found to determine those who purchased the Trader then they should be able to take it and replace elsewhere (once).

 

=Ayes=

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I assume the game database records who placed any object or entity into the world from their inventory. The person who placed a trader could be allowed to reclaim it for a month before its gone forever, maybe with the caveat that traders off-deed become totally nonfunctional during the transition. If you didn't originally place the trader (or placed it on an account you no longer have access to) then I guess it's tough. 

 

I think putting all traders back into circulation for people to place again would result in too many active traders. There has to be some fair and reasonable limit.

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The term trader deed is negatively in my view. A deed only made to drain traders. Exploit the mechanism. I hope they just disappear and the traders too, long time deeds have traders payed back long time ago.

 

Actually I had hoped traders were just removed all together and the items on then could be purchased from deed tokens, similar to marks shop.

 

If I had to decide, I have no influence on it, there would be no reimbursement :p

 

Traders doesn't really have a purpose anymore in wurm.

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On 1/31/2020 at 9:24 PM, Retrograde said:

Initially launched as a means of offsetting the high upkeep costs of large deeds, traders have since been used as a means of farming silver from the coffers on a large scale, using minimum size deeds which goes against the original intention and is not ideal. 

I'm quite glad @Retrogradementionned the origin story of the traders on the main topic... and THAT origin remains a purpose in Wurm... offsetting high upkeep costs.

 

The traders trouble was the abuse that came out of them... and the golden goose image they left behind (you will be happy to get 3s from a trader nowadays) and because of that i want to oppose two terms :

  • Trader deed (small 11x11 deed with a 3x3 shack on it) with the sole purpose of having a trader on it.
  • Deed with a trader with any kind of purpose that actually have a trader on it for the actual upkeep reduction of it.

I believe we can all agree that the first one are bad and i will be glad to get rid of mine that were solely design to host a trader... but the others have an history, a purpose, a reason to exist and sometimes their upkeep forced you to rely on the "trader deeds" because of the blatant abuse of them.

 

I always had faith in the traders being used for good, either by being akin to shares of CCAB or investing in the game future... while being fully aware that they needed changes to make them works properly. Changes I've promoted myself quite a few times. Right now saying traders are evil is akin to saying CAPITALISM is EVIL... COMMUNISM is GREAT! both systems are flawed and by the same usual sin : greed, making it a moot point.

 

Optimising the traders and using them as a retention tool could and should be the goal. Many online games offers similar systems where for a one time investement you gain some extra bonuses over time, usually in term of ressources, cost reduction or premium currency.

 

44 minutes ago, Ols said:

[...]

I think putting all traders back into circulation for people to place again would result in too many active traders. There has to be some fair and reasonable limit.

 

Trouble of traders and trader deeds is the fact they can have changed hands a couple times... the first owners being sure to be fully refunded on them, but whoever gained access to one lately absolutely not. And no, with the current (not fully disclosed) change, there is no reason anymore to have traders everywhere. The limit will be set itself by the upkeep reduction worth of the trader... and the actual use of said deeds.

 

Nota. Added a roaming question of late on the first post.

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27 minutes ago, Sandyar said:

Traders doesn't really have a purpose anymore in wurm.

 

They actually do if you are part of a unique kill group and need to buy an orb to help pen it.

 

It would be unfair to expect one member to spend their marks to purchase an orb.

 

Items such as these being purchased from traders has long been a source of income for the game, a small source perhaps but still one, so I do not think that removing all traders is a good thing at all.

 

I think a "one time" pick up to move or sell traders as a viable way to phase out a lot of "trader deeds", but removing all traders does not seem like a fair option for lots of us players who purchased our traders years ago. I like the idea that using them to purchase items will give a deed they are on a % discount on deed upkeep for that month.

 

Like lots of items in the game when a deed drops the first person to get access to all the treasures becomes the new owner and fair is fair and finders keepers. Removing the ability to "farm" the traders makes them just another treasure that was found by the lucky person who got there first.

 

☮️💜 Sun

 

 

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It's fairly easy to pen a unique using strongwall provided you design an appropriate pen for it to allow you to run it in a circle for 3 minutes.

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it was confirmed already that movement of traders wont happen..

...because bunch of the trader deeds.. are re-sold old deeds traded for symbolic value.. not even close to trader's value...

...and making them transferable.. could and ... "will" make the new change pointless.... turning random small deeds into valuable possessions lowering upkeeps or turning deeds free to have(dont think anybody have confirmed that much benefit... what OP patch notes said was.. that traders will offer discount to upkeeps if I remember right..)

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Execute all traders.  Reimburse the owners of the recent purchases only.  Don't make any kind of deed discounting solution that grabs money up front for reduced or free deed upkeep down the road, other than simply paying more upkeep than needed.  Put all of the discounting structure for this game into purchasing more game time up front and purchasing larger amounts of game silver.

 

Why needlessly complicate things with gimicky game mechanics that will only cause grief later for players and devs.  This makes zero sense to me.

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It is possible for players to steal traders without the deed falling! I resized my deed awhile ago. The trader was outside the deed border and yet still a member of my deed. Later someone deeded over the trader and blocked it off from everyone else including me, the guy who paid the 50s for it.

 

The theft is supported by the game rules apparently so even though the trader was purchased by me and still a member of my deed, someone else can prevent me from getting to it. Not sure how that's considered "fair" in anyone's mind. Obviously if they give the one free move then I will move the trader from it's current location to my current deed.

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I'd just like to add, retro did talk a bit about traders in his video(It's time for the Wurm Online Community Stream! Grab a coffee or tea and sit down with Retro as he returns to his roots on Independence) the other day.  About 41ish mins in, and 49is mins in.  By the sounds of it, if the min. upkeep is 1 silver there may not be discount with a trader on deed.  But the team still has to come to a decision on this as I gather also gather. 

 

Hope this helps people. 

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4 hours ago, Ols said:

It's fairly easy to pen a unique using strongwall provided you design an appropriate pen for it to allow you to run it in a circle for 3 minutes.

 

Issue with that is not everyone has access to a priest that casts strongwall.

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Well, there are shaker orbs. but then again, drakes were never intended to be in the game in the first place. :P  Then they became something. Then they were never intended to be more then one. The came eggs, they were farmed, then no more eggs, and so on..

Just wounder if all this will get nerfed/or un-nerfed /or reworked again too. Just thinking, After all we are getting to the core game roots and balance issues, and drake hide/ scale had a big impact on the game.   just thinking..🤔

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What is the reasoning for traders not being movable, especially now that they cant exist on the wild or be used for milking silver? They are expensive enough to avoid abuse.

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4 minutes ago, Angelklaine said:

What is the reasoning for traders not being movable, especially now that they cant exist on the wild or be used for milking silver? They are expensive enough to avoid abuse.

I'm in favor of it.

 

At the very least let us move them around on the deed its self.

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The clock is ticking, slowly but certainly, toward the march update... any official news yet?

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We won't be offering reimbursements, we believe the majority of traders around have most certainly paid off their investments. 

 

Upkeep will be a set percentage, I'm not aware of any cap. 

 

And no, it won't be possible to have a virtually free deed as long as you are active. 

 

As for the relocation, we're looking into the possibility and how it can be done without being abused. If it can be done it would likely be only one trader moved due to the inability for one to have been placed on the main deed due to the 50 tile limit

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21 hours ago, Retrograde said:

As for the relocation, we're looking into the possibility and how it can be done without being abused. If it can be done it would likely be only one trader moved due to the inability for one to have been placed on the main deed due to the 50 tile limit

What is the potential for abuse that concerns the staff? Without the ability to pull money out of them and traders not being able to be off deed I can't think of a way for traders to be abused. Its a 50 silver item. Sucks to have them go up in smoke if you suddenly want to move your token's position and need to re-drop your deed.

 

I think making them work like a merchant (drop wise) may be more acceptable.

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The potential for abuse is the ability to sell them on and essentially create a massive flood. That's not what traders are for. 

 

The way I believe it will work best is one time trader relocation for traders that were placed because they could not fit on the main deed, not for multiple traders. 

 

I'm open to feedback on that idea, but we do not want this to become an opportunity for profit or advantage by selling them to someone else to have moved to their deed, so it would require significant rigidity 

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It's sort of funny to me this level of concern about people profiting from traders being moved. Let me explain why.

 

A while ago I reduced my deed border so that my trader was now located off deed. Since it remained a citizen of my deed it never disappeared. For awhile it was available to the public to use during their travels which was my intent. Eventually someone came along and tried to deed over top of it to take it over. Even though that didn't work they still blocked it off from everyone else including the person who paid the 50s for it in the first place.

 

Apparently this is allowed behavior in Wurm. It's OK to separate someone (on Freedom) from a 50s item completely legally in the eyes of the game. It wouldn't surprise me at all to see them somehow ending up owning the trader without me being involved in giving them permission to have it.

 

Seems like the thief profits here rather then the person who paid money in the first place (and for those interested the trader was purchased after the "getting rich" window closed since I just wanted to learn more about traders at that point).

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There have been MANY abuses with traders in the past, and yes, not all have been handled well. 

 

What we want here is a way for us to handle it as best we can to help those legitimately affected because of it. Not just those who bought an existing deed. 

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2 minutes ago, Retrograde said:

There have been MANY abuses with traders in the past, and yes, not all have been handled well. 

 

What we want here is a way for us to handle it as best we can to help those legitimately affected because of it. Not just those who bought an existing deed. 

I completely understand and support that. Hopefully this will also fix the theft issue that I've experienced. The trader was purchased for my deed by me after I created the deed.

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I bought my (one and only) trader four months ago for my main deed and its first month it was missing a load of inventory, so it had to be destroyed and re-placed by a GM at the start of November - it hasn't had even half the chance to earn its keep in three months of play.

 

So this update means I've paid £50-60 for the privilege of not having to travel to the starter town to buy personal merchant contracts (which is about the only thing I'll buy from traders' core inventory) and the dev team are not even considering reimbursing the silver spent, even as game time, not even for poor plebs who haven't been sitting on several-year-old-possibly-inherited-traders?

 

I try super hard not to be negative on the forums because I love Wurm and there's enough negativity about, but boy do I feel like I've just been taken for a ride. I'm not rolling in money, I have to pick and choose very carefully where I spend it on games - it was meant to be investment in my continuation of the game and maintenance of my deed. If I'd bought a thing in real life that lost a major part of its functionality inside of four months, I'd be taking it back to the manufacturer for a refund or a credit note at the very least. I understand the intent behind getting rid of the trader problem as is and kinda agree with it, but I've had mine fully functioning for just three months. What a kick in the teeth. :(

Edited by crimsonearth
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38 minutes ago, crimsonearth said:

I bought my (one and only) trader four months ago for my main deed and its first month it was missing a load of inventory, so it had to be destroyed and re-placed by a GM at the start of November - it hasn't had even half the chance to earn its keep in three months of play.

 

So this update means I've paid £50-60 for the privilege of not having to travel to the starter town to buy personal merchant contracts (which is about the only thing I'll buy from traders' core inventory) and the dev team are not even considering reimbursing the silver spent, even as game time, not even for poor plebs who haven't been sitting on several-year-old-possibly-inherited-traders?

 

I try super hard not to be negative on the forums because I love Wurm and there's enough negativity about, but boy do I feel like I've just been taken for a ride. I'm not rolling in money, I have to pick and choose very carefully where I spend it on games - it was meant to be investment in my continuation of the game and maintenance of my deed. If I'd bought a thing in real life that lost a major part of its functionality inside of four months, I'd be taking it back to the manufacturer for a refund or a credit note at the very least. I understand the intent behind getting rid of the trader problem as is and kinda agree with it, but I've had mine fully functioning for just three months. What a kick in the teeth. :(

 

Traders will give a percentage based deed upkeep reduction after the changes, so you will continue to get a return on your investment and it will help with the maintenance of your deed, exactly what you said you bought the trader for. So what is the problem?

Edited by Ecrir

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