Improved Trader System

[Erazor 0]

Improved Trader System

We all know the problems the current Trader system has. There nearly always out of cash, full of stuff you’d normally would never buy (because you sold them that junk), and all they really do is sell deeds & other non-craftable items.

So i gave it some thought and came up with a new system that would

a) stimulate  cash flow

reward active towns who nurture their trader

c) Create a ‘server wide’ market place

At the moment, with all the latest changes, traders pay for items based on what the supply is. If a trader has tons of jewelry, he will pay very little for it more, despite having a high getprice number. If a trader doesn’t have any studded leather items, he’ll pay often up to 2 silver for mediocre quality. I’d say it works. Problem is … sooner or later the traders will have enough of the items and no one is buying them back – why? Because mayors like to cage up their traders so only they can milk them for upkeep money, as little as it is. And why would they buyback the stuff they sold to them?

Anyway .. My suggestion for improving the ‘system’ would be to have a server wide market place where all Traders are connected.  Say we have Town A, B, and C. Town A produces leather items and drains their trader with those. Town B produces blacksmith items to drain their trader, and Town C drains their trader with jewelry. My suggestion would be that after X amount of time (say 48 hours), the items that were up to now only shown on the local trader in Town A, B, & C, now show up on every trader on the server to be bought by anyone. It would simulate that traders actually do what they do in reality – travel and trade.

Now were not finished yet – Say Someone from Town A buys a blacksmith tool from their local trader (that was supplied by Town B’s trader). Town B’s trader (the original ‘owner’ of said item) will now receive a fraction (say 25%-50% ? – lower would be better) of the sale price – which can then be drained by the people of Town B by loading up the trader with new items. The rest of the money that doesn’t get sent back to Trader B gets sent to ‘The King’ – or in other words, it gets taken out of the game world to balance the inflation due to ‘new money’ that people buy from the shop. Of course this aforementioned % could be variable, depending on what Rolf wants the Server per capita’ money level to be. This would be the best tool to control inflation or inhibit stagnation.

So along comes Town C which likes to spam jewelry (as a collective example for useless items) to get the most ouf of their traders money for the least amount of effort. Sooner or later their trader, and the server wide marketplace would be but full of these items and prices would drop. Town A or Town B might then actually buy these ‘cheap’ items for sac’ing.

In other words, If there’s a global access to all traders, every item could be valuable to someone. Say your in the market for some low ql leather items you don’t want to create but just imp to save time. You look at the trader to see if a bargain can be made. If you do find something, the town’s trader that supplied that item gets a small % cut which then again will make the citizens thereof happy.

You see… placing anything on your trader for sale can be profitable as a town will profit twice. Once when they sell something to the trader to ‘drain’, and if they sell something useful (which can be anything from raw resources to rare goods), they profit from it again if someone else buys it.

Now to address some points:

Perhaps some of you will say such a system would ruin the current town cryer market that is 100% player made. That is Not true. A NPC trader can never properly value a good. Is it high ql? Enchanted? Special?  It would usually always under value the goods from what I’ve seen – especially if there are a lot of people loading up the system with stuff. So this would mostly be a ‘junk dealers’ you find in any other MMO. Mostly I can see junk being sold and then bought by more experienced players to either save time gathering the resource or just out of pure convenience because they need something ‘right now’. Either way, the money will flow and that’s the intended purpose.

Some may say that this may be abused as a cheap mail system were you load up the trader and your ‘intended trading partner’ will pick up the item X hours later. For that reason I’d propose that the timer that it gets placed on the server wide market should be lengthy and random. If the system works as intended, then most every player will check the traders on a regular basis to find ‘bargains’. Therefore anyone using a server wide trader system as a cheap ‘mailbox’ would take extremely high risks.

The benefits are there for such a sytem. Money would flow a bit more, traders wouldn’t always be empty, and those that ‘take care’ of their trader by selling it lots of useful items as opposed to junk, will see a reward by getting even more money that can be drained. Especially noobs would benefit from such a system. Not only could they find those hard to find tools and crap weapons earlier but it would also be a way for them to contribute to the global economy without having to be forced to participate in a town (where the trader is usually locked up and you have to beg for stuff).

Now this was the ‘simple’ version. One could go into more depth, if needed, and propose more complicated formula’s and equations and a complete rule set. But that’s not really the point of this post atm. I’d me more interested if the player base would support something like this – thoughts?  If you support, lobby Rolf on IRC for it.

[wwiiol 0]

how would you deal with the huge amounts of items if every traders goods were displayed on every trader? or do they only "trade" to the traders that are low on that item?

[Erazor 0]

how would you deal with the huge amounts of items if every traders goods were displayed on every trader? or do they only "trade" to the traders that are low on that item?

Good question

There's a few ways of managing that.

a) It only displays top 10 items

or

only displays items over X value

or

c) Randomly selext X items from the complete palate every X hours that gets displayed ... more randomness = win.

There's a few ways, id' imagine - or combinations thereof.

[Ghosted 0]

+1

[Guest AAetius]

I like this suggestion.

+1

[Guest Nubcaek]

I like it but will never get done, for sole reason of slow/busy Rolf and noone else at all able to do it.

[polan 5]

how would you deal with the huge amounts of items if every traders goods were displayed on every trader? or do they only "trade" to the traders that are low on that item?

ANSWER

[Guest Redsyndicate]

how would you deal with the huge amounts of items if every traders goods were displayed on every trader? or do they only "trade" to the traders that are low on that item?

ANSWER

or just make it so when you right click trader new option: global trade--->armours

                                                                                                   weapon

                                                                                                   tools

                                                                                                   jewlry

                                                                                                   seed

                                                                                                   other

you choose and then it show you 50% of highest ql item 25% of lowest and 25% of medium from store or just random item from category

Polan = Genius

+1

[Tritus 2]

Does it deal with the real problem though?

The worst thing about traders is that lower level players cant sell their stuff because the mayors drain their traders of cash .. but do we want player on basic accounts getting that easy access to ingame cash anyway?

If we do, doesnt that remove the incentive to go premium?

That aside, I can see that some thought (quite a lot) might result in this idea being the seed idea of a more even trader system.

Remember ingame trading is not the only issue. Ensuring that people use the Wurm shop has to be a higher priority.

[Erazor 0]

Does it deal with the real problem though?

The worst thing about traders is that lower level players cant sell their stuff because the mayors drain their traders of cash .. but do we want player on basic accounts getting that easy access to ingame cash anyway?

If we do, doesnt that remove the incentive to go premium?

That aside, I can see that some thought (quite a lot) might result in this idea being the seed idea of a more even trader system.

Remember ingame trading is not the only issue. Ensuring that people use the Wurm shop has to be a higher priority.

[Guest Robert]

This + Polan's thing would be very cool. I wouldn't hold your breath in regards to seeing it any time soon though. That auction system suggestion a while back (a year maybe?) was pretty amazing, and look where it got.

[Gavin 971]

I agree with this completely and it looks good. I do however think the answer will be something along the lines of 'too much coding'

Also sorry if have missed you explaining this elsewhere, But i assume this would be added ontop of the current random trader getting random money from upkeep, Correct ?

Either way +1

[Erazor 0]

Also sorry if have missed you explaining this elsewhere, But i assume this would be added ontop of the current random trader getting random money from upkeep, Correct ?

[polan 5]

That auction system suggestion a while back (a year maybe?) was pretty amazing, and look where it got.

rolf already work on auction system as I know

[MadWallaby 1]

Bloody brilliant.

[Guest AAetius]

I have noticed that Traders do not buy War arrows and even 50, 60,70+ QL war arrows the get price is insanely low.  I know this topic is getting pretty old, but I thought it would be a nice improvement to traders if they bought (and sold) war arrows.

[Guest Pepsiman]

Does it deal with the real problem though?

The worst thing about traders is that lower level players cant sell their stuff because the mayors drain their traders of cash .. but do we want player on basic accounts getting that easy access to ingame cash anyway?

If we do, doesnt that remove the incentive to go premium?

That aside, I can see that some thought (quite a lot) might result in this idea being the seed idea of a more even trader system.

Remember ingame trading is not the only issue. Ensuring that people use the Wurm shop has to be a higher priority.

Didn't consider JK home. I suppose a rule could be incorperated that would only allow premium players to access traders. It be another incentive to go premium.

But either way, such a sytem would benefit noobs as well as vets. Noobs make crappy ql items that sell for a few coppers. Every trader will have a few coppers all the time. And if it works as well as i hope, then things will constantly be bought & sold by all players, and due to the proposed feature of giving the Trader who 'owns' the item a cut it would stimulate money flow.

All you have to say to Rolf is that it will make him more bank in his pocket. More players going prem for that and maybe hopefully some new things make boost Rolfs incentive to get Wurm done.

[flyingmonkey 1]

I have noticed that Traders do not buy War arrows and even 50, 60,70+ QL war arrows the get price is insanely low.   I know this topic is getting pretty old, but I thought it would be a nice improvement to traders if they bought (and sold) war arrows.

Sucks to be you, 1s for a 50ql pottery item  8)

[wwiiol 0]

I have noticed that Traders do not buy War arrows and even 50, 60,70+ QL war arrows the get price is insanely low.   I know this topic is getting pretty old, but I thought it would be a nice improvement to traders if they bought (and sold) war arrows.

Sucks to be you, 1s for a 50ql pottery item  8)

may be, but i bet he has an easier time finding a person to buy war arrows than you do to buy pottery.

[flyingmonkey 1]

When you have a trader, you don't need people to buy them  8)

[Tosti 1]

This would make the trading system make more sense and alot more fair and realistic.

Togetter with the auction system that was suggested a good few years ago, just superb.