About the Traders

[Corwii 3]

God I'm so tired of these boohoo they have a trader and I don't its so unfair posts.

spend 50s get a trader the current return on Indy is around 8s a cycle just stop freaking whining about them.

An opinion isn't a whine I'm afraid, so why must you attack me in such a manner. I'm just stating my opinion that traders aren't being used right. And its not that I don't want to go buy one, theres just no point for us to buy one at the moment, cause we can actually afford to play.

[Corwii 3]

If you spend 50s on a trader and only make 8s per month back, your investment is six to seven months before you even see a silver in profit.  And at 8s a month you dont even pay for premium for a char.  By the time you start making money out of the trader you have spent another 60 to 70s on premium alone.  Why moan and groan about traders?  If you want one, buy one.  If you want to open it to all players, do so.  If you don't want one, why would you worry about them having to be 64 tiles from each other?  I have no idea why people keep talking about this as it is a game mechanic that gives loyal, paying players some reward for their investment.  Leave it alone.

Oh, so its true then, that basically if you can afford 50 silver 1 time payment, you get free silver for life, doesn't seem right imo.

[Zwei 210]

Oh, so its true then, that basically if you can afford 50 silver 1 time payment, you get free silver for life, doesn't seem right imo.

Don't think you understand economics in wurm buddy, or returns and payouts, on Epic, the cycle on Serenity is pretty crap, and i live in a deed that is just enveloped in traders every possible tile.

 

+ yeah, get prem, and make items, YOU FREE SILVER FOR LIFE, UNFAIR BOOHOO.

[Suntan 83]

You buy the goose for 50s and you get a lifetime of work out of it. You mention taking an axe to them and people will push back. 

[Gavin 971]

I think one thing that needs explaining also is that the traders don't just hand over silver when you trade them; you actually need to put some effort in and craft various items to trade for the coin (generally gold/silver jewelry which requires 10x the time to mine compared to iron not to mention the Jewelry Smithing skillset is rather useless) so this is quite time consuming; also every 28 days the 'ratio' resets and you need to purchase old items from the trader to exchange for new ones (these trades always being in advantage of the trader which means you burn through a bunch of crafted items with no gain every reset) and furthermore you need to watch like a hawk for those resets because the vast majority of coin is paid out just after the resets and if you miss it you will ruin your month.

 

Basically what I'm trying to say is traders require constant attention; you need to have a constant stockpile of items to drain the traders and need to check them every few days to see if the ratio has reset (knowledge path / economic advisor kingdom title on PvP servers) and if you forget about them for a week you might miss out on 50% of your payout. On the other hand you can craft random crap at your own pace and throw it on a merchant and collect coin whenever you feel like it. Sure you probably won't get as much coin unless you are selling some seriously special stuff but there isn't anywhere near as much frustration.

Edited February 11, 2014 by Gavin

[Rathgar 959]

Poll proves OP wrong, thats all.

[Torgrim 403]

- 3

 

I have a couple of traders, they pay for upkeep and sometimes for gear. No way are they making me rich and I still pay for 3 accounts with real money. I've never spent more money on a game than Wurm. If it wasn't for traders I would be long gone because this game, after a few years of playing is not fun without having at least 2-4 accounts and multiple deeds.

 

The trader income is seriously low currently on Deli and Serenity compared to how it was a few months ago. I'm not sure what is up with that, Rolf changed something or alot more people bought traders... 

 

Traders are strange, I agree with that, if something else can replace them, sure, why not. But you then need to compensate people who have bought them. 

 

Is the current system unfair? No, not really. Anyone can buy traders, unless they are too cheap to spend the initial coin. 

[Depends 220]

Poll proves OP wrong, thats all.

Either that or it shows that a lot of the regular forum posters have traders and alts.

Edited February 11, 2014 by Depends

[Rathgar 959]

Either that or it shows that a lot of the regular forum posters have traders and alts.

 

With that state of mind, then no poll can ever be considered for anything, rendering the poll system 100% useless.

 

The OP trusted the system enough to make a poll, now the poll has some results.   If the results are going to be simply disregarded when the outcome is not favorable, then it shouldnt have been created at all.

 

Untill the in-game poll system is implemented, this is the best way to roughly get a sense of aproval or rejection for an idea/suggestion.

[Heboric 808]

Either that or it shows that a lot of the regular forum posters have traders and alts.

 

Which might also suggest that negative changes to an established system...whether the system is right or wrong...could cause dramatic consequences.

 

Traders aren't cheap....and sure.....lot's of serious players have both traders and alts.......seems pretty obvious tbh.

[Corwii 3]

Poll proves OP wrong, thats all.

But there are at least some people that have said yes, so I'm not the only one that feels this way.

[Dreago 11]

As yet another reason as to why traders should NOT be removed lets do some math comparison with other MMOs and their pricing.

So we go with World of Warcraft. Currently wow allows you to have up to 50ish characters per account. WoW cost is 14.99/month if you pay month to month. Let's say the average player has 5 characters they play somewhat frequently. So in essence they are paying 15dollars divided by 5 for 3 dollars a month per character. There are no micro transactions in game to spend extra money on.

Here in wurm we don't have "accounts" we have characters. We pay 8euro per month (roughly 11usd) per character. Not including deed upkeep which can get expensive. I have 3 chars in wurm currently for 24 euros per month plus a deed costing 5s per month. This is an insane amount of money for ANY MMO out there. So I offset with traders. I still have to pay out of pocket as well.

Now if ROLF were to give us accounts with say 5 characters allowed. At 10 euros per month for those 5 chars. We could get more in line with a normal cost structure for an MMO and maybe get some new blood to help fill his pockets at the same time. And be able to change or do away with traders.

Just my 2cents with this backwards game.

[Torgrim 403]

But there are at least some people that have said yes, so I'm not the only one that feels this way.

 

I felt a bit like you in the beginning too, until I educated myself a bit more on traders. Decided for myself that I will be staying in Wurm for a long time and went ahead and bought myself into the system. 

 

I think traders are helping wurm keep players long term. I know I don't want to leave mine to rot. Even when I get tired of Wurm for a while I come back to check on traders and deeds and before I know it I'm back and fully active again. 

[Depends 220]

With that state of mind, then no poll can ever be considered for anything, rendering the poll system 100% useless.

 

The OP trusted the system enough to make a poll, now the poll has some results.   If the results are going to be simply disregarded when the outcome is not favorable, then it shouldnt have been created at all.

 

Untill the in-game poll system is implemented, this is the best way to roughly get a sense of aproval or rejection for an idea/suggestion.

The poll system IS useless on the subjects where the majority of the voters are going to be fairly biased towards one option, yes.

A more neutral poll would have been better but what do you expect? He just found out that while he's paying a decent chunk of money for a game, others are getting a free ride.

Most people tend to agree traders are broken, it's just that no one wants them to be fixed.

lot's of serious players have both traders and alts.......seems pretty obvious tbh.

Yes, that's what I posted.

[Protunia 735]

Btw Poll doesn't prove anything at all.....only that a lot of people have vested interest in the status quo.

 

The System is not working as intended and expect some changes down the road when they figure out a balance that will work.

Edited February 11, 2014 by Protunia

[Druidnature 1,118]

As yet another reason as to why traders should NOT be removed lets do some math comparison with other MMOs and their pricing.

So we go with World of Warcraft. Currently wow allows you to have up to 50ish characters per account. WoW cost is 14.99/month if you pay month to month. Let's say the average player has 5 characters they play somewhat frequently. So in essence they are paying 15dollars divided by 5 for 3 dollars a month per character. There are no micro transactions in game to spend extra money on.

Here in wurm we don't have "accounts" we have characters. We pay 8euro per month (roughly 11usd) per character. Not including deed upkeep which can get expensive. I have 3 chars in wurm currently for 24 euros per month plus a deed costing 5s per month. This is an insane amount of money for ANY MMO out there. So I offset with traders. I still have to pay out of pocket as well.

Now if ROLF were to give us accounts with say 5 characters allowed. At 10 euros per month for those 5 chars. We could get more in line with a normal cost structure for an MMO and maybe get some new blood to help fill his pockets at the same time. And be able to change or do away with traders.

Just my 2cents with this backwards game.

Actually WoW does have micro transactions now. Fully complete with there in game store

Though I do wish alts were cheaper...

[Pragmatist 165]

Changes over the last couple of years have made the system much fairer than it used to be:

• More servers means that trader deeds take up a much smaller proportion of the available space.
  
• The Wurm shop price increases mean that the equivalent investment in RL money terms is higher.
  
• The option to sell to token means that anyone can drain the kingdom money pool without needing a trader - and returns are therefore a fraction of what they were a few years ago.
  

So basically traders are now more expensive to buy, take much longer to recoup the investment, and don't clutter the servers up like they used to.

 

Overall, my impression is that it's now pretty well-balanced.

 

The only change that might be good for the game would be making trader forms only available from the Wurm shop for RL money; that way CC receives more direct investment and it stops people daisychaining them with ingame silver.

[Protunia 735]

The only thing that bugs me about the System is that people who are not or wont be involved with the system pay Upkeep that is used towards the system.

 

I would rather see an opt in System for players with Deeds where if they place a Trader on a Deed then part of their Upkeep goes into the kings funds.

 

Those players who do not want to be involved should receive a discounted Upkeep of the amount that is taken now from their upkeep for Traders.

 

This would be a good start I think as only Deeds wanting to be involved would pay into the Traders.

 

It would also stop some the feeling of those players who pay into the system and get nothing back out of it.

 

I would also make it so Traders not on a Deed would get much less and those on larger deeds who pay more into the Upkeep fund would get more.

 

Deeds with more than 1 Trader would only get a bonus for Deed Size once.

 

Anyhow if we are looking for fixes in the future something like this might be a good thing.

 

Just recently we saw an update where Kingdom size determines payouts on a couple servers....so I know this type of thing can be done.

[rixk 830]

He just found out that while he's paying a decent chunk of money for a game, others are getting a free ride.

 

That is wrong, everyone, who is in the market, benefits from traders. Owners of traders of course get more from it, but circulation of money, which traders create, affects everyone.

 

PS. I don't own a trader and never have.

[Martynas5 435]

You're just waiting our time and bothering us by suggesting remove traders and not giving alternatives.

I have some trader deeds myself and would agree to remove trader draining if there are better options(unfortunately there is only crying).

 

Public traders won't do it, becouse there will be campers who'll hoard all coins.

 

Sell option ( as it currently is ) is ridiculious way to get money since it takes tons of time and items to make 10s/month. 5c/hour 5c=500i max 11i/item so you'll need 46 items per hour , 10h per day, 20d/month to make. Adding more coin gain each sold item and max coin gain would solve problem, everyone would have access to coin pool.Also adding max monthly sell gain so there won't be too much coins around. Personally i believe that could solve problem.

 

 

Torgrim: I can confirm that deli trader income is really low compared to other months ( ratio above 0,2)

 

And selling a trader option would be good too.

[NeeNee 855]

Changes over the last couple of years have made the system much fairer than it used to be:

• More servers means that trader deeds take up a much smaller proportion of the available space.

The Wurm shop price increases mean that the equivalent investment in RL money terms is higher.

The option to sell to token means that anyone can drain the kingdom money pool without needing a trader - and returns are therefore a fraction of what they were a few years ago.

So basically traders are now more expensive to buy, take much longer to recoup the investment, and don't clutter the servers up like they used to.

 

Overall, my impression is that it's now pretty well-balanced.

 

The only change that might be good for the game would be making trader forms only available from the Wurm shop for RL money; that way CC receives more direct investment and it stops people daisychaining them with ingame silver.

I agree with this, almost entirely. And I do not have a trader, far from it. The only things that really annoy me about traders are the need for space, the lack of change-giving and the compete uselessness of jewerly at the moment, except to sell to traders.

 

In some ways, it makes Wurm even more 'period' (as far as a game with dragons can be). Wealthy landowners held most of the money because they have money, and get 'favor' from the King. The lower classes of this period traded for what they needed, and couldn't afford things like land ownership. The way I see it is either sink RL money into this game, or get good at it. Make high QL things, make bricks, raise animals, kill mobs for hides and parts and earn your way into that middle class (and maybe upper class)

 

No hate for those who buy their way in, or are the wealthy because they are smart, mercenary or otherwise skilled. Well done, folks. You give us goals and buy our bricks.

[Depends 220]

That is wrong, everyone, who is in the market, benefits from traders. Owners of traders of course get more from it, but circulation of money, which traders create, affects everyone.

 

PS. I don't own a trader and never have.

Possibly oversimplified but not wrong, plus I was pointing out how he was seeing it and why he created the poll.

There are players who aren't "in the market". I've played for years and the only thing I've ever purchased from another player is to have some mine tiles collapsed, and I bought that with gems.

[Kegan 3,926]

so how about them dragons when are they going to fix them?  heh

[Protunia 735]

so how about them dragons when are they going to fix them?  heh

 

 

LOL! you didn't

[Druidnature 1,118]

Imo traders are in a (ok) stance. If I was able to change them, here's what I'd do.

1: make them only available through the store (as someone above said)

2: Either or: Option A make then only give deeds upkeep. No more silver. Option B: ban selling gold. (Which would effect a lot more then just traders, so that wouldn't end to good). Option C: find another way so people can stop using them to get a f ton of silver to sell. (I know 3 people already in this thread that do it) I don't care if people make this money by doing actual work, but I hate seeing people with 10+ traders selling gold monthly.

3: for the love of god, please do something about them taking so much space. Even if you remove the 1 every 64 tiles limit and people put a ton in one place, I don't care - free up the server so people can actually use the land! (Fun fact, there's a very large amount of deeds in south deli that are all traders, especially on the coast)

In short, make it so they don't take over all the servers, people can't cheat code club of silver packs, and make it so you can't use 4-5 to start getting a new one every month.

The people that actually use them for there deed upkeep, premium, or buying something from another player is all well and good, and what there original purpose most likely was with them. But now it's just a way to make RL money