Drogos

If traders are removed, how could they keep the 35s for 20% discount going?

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Since removing traders might be a thing. How could they do this change without removing the option to pay 35s for a 20% discount? I start off with some ideas here, feel free to add more!

 

* Just reduce the price for everyone with 20%, no purchase needed.

* Purchase option to choose token type, can choose between the original / gold / silver / slate / marble / etc / etc, cost is 35s and gives you 20% discount on upkeep!

* Bribe local authority with 35s to permanently get a 20% discount.
* If an account who holds a deed has over 1 month of premium time, his/her deed gets the 20% upkeep discount.

* Let players exchange 1s at the token to get 1.25s worth of upkeep chips.

* You can buy a 35s statue, that reduces upkeep by 20%.

* Upgrade to rare token for 35s to get a 20% discount.
* Upgrade to rare token for x silver gives x % discount, supreme token for x silver gives x % discount and fantastic token for x silver gives x % discount.

* Make a way for the upkeep to be paid with euros/dollars and the give 10-20% off for those that wanna spend more then 100 euros, dollars etc

Edit: I see people also post off topic posts in here. To make it easier to get an overview over suggested fixes, I will copy paste all points to the list in this first post, so people do not have to read thru everything else to see a suggestion list.

Edited by Drogos
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Aye some kind of purchase option: pay a lump sum now for cheaper long-term payments. Then credit the existing deeds with former traders this option, or credit the deedholders in equivalent marks.

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An option where everyone is left in the same position as before will create the least drama.

 

-> Players spend 35s to get a thingy-MA-jig that reduces upkeep by 20%. This could be a statue we place on the same tile as the token. To make it the same as before, you can't move it after it's been planted on a token. And it will destroy when the token goes away.
If Wurm wanted to be nice, they could make it work with load by the mayor so it can be moved to a new deed. Although, it is supposed to be a silver sink. If players can move it, they will try to sell it. The sell part lessens effectiveness as a silver sink.

* Price reduction for everyone removes a silver sink from the game. 

* Grandfathering in the %20 discount for existent traders creates a situation where future customers will be displeased.

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In case it isn't clear yet, it's not the traders that got removed from the game but the 20% upkeep discount.

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i like having the wagoner , merchants and trader on my deeds. makes it seem alive.  really easiest thing to do is just leave them as is.  and add the items to the shop is good too. for those who don't have access to a trader nearby.   

 

Adding the items to the shop. truly does not mean we have to remove the traders at all.  no need to waste time doing that and ticking off a good % of the player base.   just leave them in and add the items to the shop. done easy ...?

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Would be easiest to just leave the traders in and not update what they sell as honestly what the traders sell right now is worth the 35s to have access to it at your deed and I rather talk to a npc in a dedicated spot at my deed then yet another window tucked away somewhere that has no ingame presence beyond our character hallucinating it(aka for the sake of the actual player)

I always liked how wurm had the traders and merchants and always been one for more npc's that you can trade with and was sad when they destroyed the old traders instead of just fixing the item value=favor issue that caused people to be able to drain traders for free upkeep.

A trader who stays at your deed and buys your random things from you and then sells them on/destroys a part of its inventory(selling it off) to get funds from the kingdom funds always seemed like such a unique way of handling things but alas its not meant to be I guess :(

It was fun starting out forever ago as a teenager going to uni having no money yet being able to make 20s from trading precious gems and high quality items directly to the trader or for other items that people sold to it it was its own little fun market place at new town and something a lot of us loved doing but alas

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Quoting what I said in the valrei topic, in terms of solutions:

 

4 minutes ago, Lycanthropic said:

So yeah, the 20% upkeep discount with current traders...

 

Seeing the dev's avoiding to say it straight: "With this change, the 20% upkeep discount will no longer apply", and Keenan not popping in here, for further clarification, gives me the impression that they dont have plans to put the 20% discount back ingame after the traders are completely removed.

Perhaps they are testing out to see how bad the negative feedback will be, and when it grows to big, they'll announce: "No worries, a replacement is here."

 

Let me give some potential solutions to not anger to many deed-owners AND even pormoting loyalty in the progress:

  • If an account who holds a deed has over 1 month of premium time, his/her deed gets the 20% upkeep discount => promotes players to stay loyal and keep their premium time topped up.
  • Let players exchange 1 silver at the token to get 1.2silver worth of upkeep chips (like the ones we get from treasure maps) => this way you dont de-value the silver bought in the shop, and you actually make the entire playerbase happy , because now everybody can enjoy a discount for upkeep => encouraging more people to make deeds, thus increasing the need for silver from shop, thus more money for the ceo's/dev's/etc

 

 solutions that dont cost a player (really) anything extra, and which result in more money for you guys AND don't result in negative publicity (steam ratings arent good already, negative changes like this are a sure way to get it review-bombed even harder).

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will they be refunding the silver it costs to buy a trader ? just leave them be.

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16 minutes ago, tomcatvmp said:

will they be refunding the silver it costs to buy a trader ? just leave them be.

yes as stated in the valrei post, it's unknown which value from before or after trader rework, either way difference wont be more than ~5silver 35-40sworth vs old cost 50s.. but you get to sell few items to the trader and cash back instantly when you buy one.. so it wasnt really 50s before anyway

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A discount to the upkeep for the mayor being prem sounds good, but I think 20% for that would be far too high, make it 10% and you hit that sweet spot

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Sweet spot for whom?

Maybe some research should be done about the way people spend and what drives them.. give them ridiculous amount of dumb cactus skins and watch them throw money at you.. raise prices for stuff which were cheap already and you'll see a few pitchforks.

 

There are plenty of money to be made... add extensions to characters... more spells, more abilities, more skins, more recipes as personal visuals or visual for other while you wear/use something, but not as sold item, this effectively makes a burned skin, it never transfers, it turns into collectible for the character, once bought from Ann or Bob, well it dies with them, to get them to Tom.. well Tom, Zoe and so on.. need to go use the marketplace and buy their own.

Sell costumes, make them customizable, so players could change the way they look even if 10-40 on the same server wear literally the same damn thing, the colors will add variance + item or w/e else they have equipped in addition to the armor skin(not applied to actual armor)

etc etc etc etc....

 

Plenty of money are within gcg's grasp, just takes better approach to keep everybody happy.

 

People spend ridiculous amount of money on simple items and services, cashshop could offer cool stuff and sponge a large amount of the money and drive the economy.. as long items are also tradeable.. whoever can buy something could also trade it for a service, etc, not just proxy purchases through silver transfers alone.

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Oh I don't think this is about making money at all from their part, it's more about levelling the playing field for those who can't afford a trader upfront. 

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3 hours ago, Archaed said:

Oh I don't think this is about making money at all from their part, it's more about levelling the playing field for those who can't afford a trader upfront. 

leveling the playing field?  how is it not leveled?  everyone can get one. make 9k mortar on NFI  and buy one.  18k i'm guessing for SFI. 

 

But those who can't afford a trader most likely don't have high upkeep and would not need a trader to save that 1s a month taking 3 yrs to pay off the trader.

 

it's those who choose to have larger deeds for many reasons and did so thinking they can save some of the upkeep cost for life with a trader. now possibly loosing that extra savings. 

 

we all chose to play this game , and play the way we like "sandbox" and we base the play on the set of features in the game with the knowledge of new things coming. not having any expectations of loosing what we already have. 

 

i think one way to state this . is for all these other mmo's out there. most of them have a best class to play  . i feel this is like taking the best classes that most play in wow. everquest black desert guildwars2 FFIVX ect out of the game. and just tell the players that played that class. go play the other classes. that is gut retching to some of us. 

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12 hours ago, Archaed said:

Oh I don't think this is about making money at all from their part, it's more about levelling the playing field for those who can't afford a trader upfront. 

I personally feel the Trader should be difficult to afford up front, it should be purchased as a long term commitment to the game. I purchased mine knowing the rewards would only come a year or so down the line once I've broken even on the purchase cost.

 

Of course the current implementation allows larger deeds to break even much quicker. Hindsight is a wonderful thing and in hindsight maybe Traders should have had different purchase cost tiers, the larger your deed, the higher you'd need to pay for a Trader that can apply a Discount to your deed size. For example Tier 1 only does up to 50x50 deeds, Tier 2 costs more but does 100x100 deeds etc... The point being it will take all deeds regardless of size, around the same amount of time to break even and start to reap the benefits.

 

Not that any of that really matters because we already have the current implementation and I personally feel it should remain as is for everyone. If the Trader itself is being removed but the Discount remaining then my suggestion would be.

 

I think for the immediate future the token upgrade sounds like a good idea. In the shop there could be an option to upgrade token to a Supreme version for 35s which applies the 20% discount.

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19 hours ago, Archaed said:

A discount to the upkeep for the mayor being prem sounds good, but I think 20% for that would be far too high, make it 10% and you hit that sweet spot

 

So, lets take a moment here and look at the main players in this run.

 

At the moment:

 

Deed Size Cost (Silver) Upkeep (Silver) Initial Trader Cost Monthly Discount (20%) Months Till Paid Off Profit After 10 Years (S)
25x25 6.25 1.25 35 0.25 140 -5
51x51 26.01 5.202 35 1.0404 33.64090734 89.848
101x101 102.01 20.402 35 4.0804 8.577590432 454.648
             
             
             
             
             

Premium Only:

Deed Size Cost (Silver) Upkeep (Silver) Initial Trader Cost Monthly Discount (20%) Months Till Paid Off Profit After 10 Years (S)
25x25 6.25 1.25 0 0.25 0 30
51x51 26.01 5.202 0 1.0404 0 124.848
101x101 102.01 20.402 0 4.0804 0 489.648
             
Deed Size Cost (Silver) Upkeep (Silver) Initial Trader Cost Monthly Discount (10%) Months Till Paid Off Profit After 10 Years (S)
25x25 6.25 1.25 0 0.125 0 15
51x51 26.01 5.202 0 0.5202 0 62.424
101x101 102.01 20.402 0 2.0402 0 244.824

 

So, as things stand, the current system rewards large deeds at a much greater rate.  With a 10% discount you'd halve the savings for a large deed (your whales) but for smaller and medium size deeds (the newer players whose field you want to level), you'd be hitting them much harder.

 

As it is' I'd have to play wurm for longer thab 10 years to make a profit on the investment - for a small deedholder, it's not just being priced out, it isn't really worth it (I don't have a trader because of this little bit of mathematics).  The premium path is not a bad discount after 10 years for just playing though with 20% or even 10% (better off).

 

Medium deeds are the "normal" case to consider, and those are going to lose out the most since, at the moment, it makes good sense to buy a trader (2.8ish  years in, and you're in profit), but afterwards the profit margin is somewhat smaller.  10% hits them pretty hard/

 

Larger deeds are likely to remain unchanged (whales are whales, and if £200 from a whale over 10 years is worth the loss of goodwill, you're probably doing your mathematics wrong).

 

 

Keeping it at 20% and making it something you have to pay a one-off for might be a better option since then the folks who currently use it will keep on dong so, and those who don't won't be any worse off.

Edited by Etherdrifter
Wrong table copied in
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Maybe this isn't about profit on investment, but rather an incentive to remain premium? 

 

Like, we don't have to split the haves from have nots, not every player has 50s to pay upfront into a deed, and your argument about it hitting smaller deeds harder is misleading, as they're not likely to have traders as begins with, so infact smaller deeds are more likely to gain from this as it's a flat 10% discount without having to invest in a trader and recoup it, whereas the larger deeds still get a discount, but it's not as pay to win a system as investing 50s for a 2 year return. 

Edited by Archaed
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20% upkeep discount for premium mayor - Some players have F2P alts they use to hold other deeds. These players are going to feel wronged by the mayor thing. 

 

Next, was the 20% discount broke before? I think not. The change is more about increasing access to trader items. So if the 20% wasn't broke, how about we don't try and fix it? Following this thought, we should add a new 35s expenditure to reduce upkeep by 20%. 

 

Lastly, I'm struggling with the silver sink idea. I'm guessing that most players who buy traders have reasonably large sized deeds and play long enough to easily pay for the trader via upkeep savings. Afterwards, they are paying less in upkeep. By this logic can we say that traders aren't a silver sink? So if they aren't a silver sink I can't see any reason for not doing a flat 20% price cut on all deed upkeep.

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Make a way for the upkeep to be paid with euros/dollars and the give 10-20% off for those that wanna spend more then 100 euros, dollars etc

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7 hours ago, Tor said:

Make a way for the upkeep to be paid with euros/dollars and the give 10-20% off for those that wanna spend more then 100 euros, dollars etc

i once thought i wished upkeep could be subscription based.  like every 3 months charge my credit card for 3 months worth type of thing based on silver needed converted to well, my currency CND .  this would prevent forgetting and losing the deed. could do the 10% discount prepay 3 months , 20% anything over 6 months ect.   

 

But the easiest thing is leave the dam trader as is.   no need to fix whats not broken.  remove the items for sale off the trader if needed and just leave them in the game and still accessible .

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I'm really affected cause I might have one of the biggest deeds in wurm my deed is Night Blood Forest it is 273x175 with a trader an the 20% discount i pay 76s44c a month with out I was paying around 95s or 96s that's a big difference over a year that's 1g 40s a year increase.

I'm not rich I work hard for my money. I'm not about to be crapped on an told well you just got to pay more mr deep pockets so you can compensate for those that pay there premium and deeds by making items in game which these people play for free who use this as a system. People Know I buy gold all the time 1 to 2g at a time and buy goods from everyone in large orders. My wallet funds the game in a major way. Take my small discount away I'm gone back to WU and back to modding. I choose to pay to play but I can always go back and any thing this dev team can do I can do and do what they want do. Anyone who knows me from WU knows I have the knowledge and programs to do so.

 

As much money as I boat in a year I deserve a discount.

2023  723.25 us so far this year

2022  just from oct 1st to end of dec I spent 2,378.04 us in WO

I pay enough no more pinching my wallet 20% goes I go.

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Can't see them giving everyone the 20% discount because there is no money in it for them. They will probably get more money from people buying some sort of token on the shop that you drop into the deed token so it applies the discount rather than just buying a trader for discount purposes.

 

You will still have to give everyone the choice of buying something to get the discount so it is fair otherwise other players will not be happy about it. This is why I never get why people are against the discount, it is fair to all, you either buy it or you don't but the option is there.

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Just hope they dont rely on the sell of silver sells for income .

If so expect the removal of silver as moi drops .

I have seen company end up in such situations before , to the point they will sell of assets .

If wurm is sold and purchased by players i can see it being no better then WU and friends getting better treatment .

Hope it does not come down to that .

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all hail the Darklords

Darklords

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So wanted to give everyone a bit of a quick update here.

 

We have decided in the end to keep traders and their discounts going forward, we will have a post this week with the new details but wanted to give everyone a heads up as I know people where very anxiously waiting for our answer about this.

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Thanks for sharing! tbh, in the end, when there was many good suggestions for alternatives, I was kind of starting to hope they would be replaced with something cool. But, probably some people who would prefer the current system over anything else. They can never win, can they.

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21 hours ago, Drogos said:

in the end, when there was many good suggestions for alternatives, I was kind of starting to hope they would be replaced with something cool.

Me too Drogos, but they still can ;) Just for now they are keeping the Traders which I think is the right solution until a better and more mediated solution has been made which favors all stakeholders of the game.
Personally I like that the larger the deed you have the more discount you get because it invites players to invest in bigger areas. I see downsides with this too because poor players don't have the same options as rich players. It's a very hard subject and I don't envy the staff for having to work through this at all. Keeping them as is for now definitely was the best solution right now I think.

 

 

22 hours ago, validate said:

We have decided in the end to keep traders and their discounts going forward, we will have a post this week with the new details but wanted to give everyone a heads up as I know people where very anxiously waiting for our answer about this

I am looking forward to hearing more about this because I am currently planning on moving my token, but I would loose my trader and trader discount.
If it will be unobtainable in the future that is just not going to happen.
Has it ever been suggested to be able to move the token of a deed? I feel like that should be a thing we could do. If it's not possible to implement I strongly think we should be able to apply the discount to newly founded deeds for people who needs to move token ^_^ 

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