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Rolf

Feedback on Trader suggestion

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Note - This thread has been closed with the following motivation:


Allright, thanks for your feedback. We've discussed it and decided not to change traders on existing servers for now since people are so accustomed to the system. We have some interesting ideas for more ways of money distribution that we may try.


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As you may know because I've written it a lot of times, traders are not supposed to be the fountains of income they are today.


 


I want them to be used as magnets for people needing to interact with them, and not to be locked away and barred from public. It's unnatural for a poor trader to be treated like that and it gives the people with the money to purchase one an unintended reserved pool of income.


 


The original reason behind them is twofold: One is to provide needed items that aren't created by players such as settlement forms and nodecay chests, and the second one is money distribution.


 


The price for a trader is 50 silver coins. I suggest that they will also only purchase stuff for 50 silver coins, then only sell.


 


I also suggest that we replace the money distribution with some other method that is open for everyone and not only those in control of traders. We already do that to some extent now with the SELL option. Suggestions for one which includes higher quality items are welcome.


 


Thoughts?

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I think they are fine as they are to be completely honest.


 


The only addition i would like to see for are name changes to be added to a trader, and as it stands traders allow for a balance between those servers that have no economy (BLH that has no people because its an inhospitable wasteland of creatures and craters due to the mapsize, and Elevation because of primary PvP) and those that do.


 


 


Plus a change like this would make a lot of people upset, it seems kind've like a shot to get more money as now we can no longer wrap pelts to prevent decay, we have to buy a merchant. We can also no longer have mines off-deed if you are on the Freedom server and would wish it not griefed, you have to deed more and with a change like this you would also make it so we have to buy all of the silver on servers that have no economy? (I mean i honestly would never purchase anything for 50s outside of a trader, neither would most people.)


 


 


You also need to consider that a large portion of your playerbase relies on traders for their prem time and most of them would more than likely not bother playing if you took away their source of income because well, they play on servers that have no economy as well as the upset customers that bought them and several of them at that based off of their current mechanics and would throw a fit on the forums, myself included.


 


(I average about 13s a month from all three of my traders BTW.)


 


 


For things to add:


Hand Mirrors


Name Changes


Starter toolkits (like 50 copper for a set of starter tools or something)


 


 


 


 


I really hope you reimburse people for all of their owned traders before you change anything for at least like 40s.


Edited by Propheteer
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If you added more items worth buying from traders then maybe there would be a good reason to interact with it.

I'd suggest hand mirrors as a start.

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The economy on freedom is poor, this is how many players pay for their premium time and settlement upkeep etc. The amount of people who would have to leave because they can't pay I expect to be quite high.#


 


I have a single trader, he gets me about 6s~ per month while I have a merchant stocked with 80+ql enchanted tools and weaponry that has been untouched for 2 months. People invested 50s per trader and it'll take them nearly a year to return any money from that...


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My trader on Chaos made 5s last month, I'm not getting a fountain of income from mine


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Should replace the money with moon metals, yeah?


 


What IF he switches it up and gives everyone a drake set instead?!


Edited by Oreo
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As you may know because I've written it a lot of times, traders are not supposed to be the fountains of income they are today.

 

I want them to be used as magnets for people needing to interact with them, and not to be locked away and barred from public. It's unnatural for a poor trader to be treated like that and it gives the people with the money to purchase one an unintended reserved pool of income.

 

The original reason behind them is twofold: One is to provide needed items that aren't created by players such as settlement forms and nodecay chests, and the second one is money distribution.

 

The price for a trader is 50 silver coins. I suggest that they will also only purchase stuff for 50 silver coins, then only sell.

 

I also suggest that we replace the money distribution with some other method that is open for everyone and not only those in control of traders. We already do that to some extent now with the SELL option. Suggestions for one which includes higher quality items are welcome.

 

Thoughts?

Nope.

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maybe add a daily limit per PERSON on what a trader can buy and then add to that , that the person who OWNs the trader is getting tax from it when people are actually using/buying stuff from the trader


 


that way some players still would have motivation to use "expensive" trader contracts but also have a motivation to open them to public, since they would gain tax from it ;)


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I have single trader which earns me 6s per month. Since I have 2 small deeds, so I have 4s left. 1-2s goes to resetting trader so I only have 1-2s to spare for my needs. I dont think its "fountain of money".


Edited by Blazer
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seems rolf dont like big deeds... witch need to be feeded out of traders since upkeeps way too high....


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I would suggest of increase the usability of sell option. Here are my list:


  • Sell option use a container or trade screen instead activate. Allow multiple items to be sold at once to make it easier to reach the cap.
  • Make the cap per day instead per hour. Having to move out from our chores to sell is sheer annoyance. Even 20c a day would be good. That is like 6s a month max.
  • IP locked? 
  • Allow trader owners to refund theirs trader.
Edited by rosedragon

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If it's not a fountain of money then you won't really mind losing it. I personally have a lot of traders that each make over 10s a month for no work. You don't need to put 1-2s into resetting it, because you just drain it straight back off anyway. 


Either way, if the big pool of money is removed from traders then it'll be available for the population as a whole which is great for people just coming to the game and older players aswell. As long as theres some sort of compensation for people who have traders.


As for a suggestion of how to get this money i'll have to give it some thought.


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I feel like if there is going to be a redesign of the traders there needs to be a way to Reimbuse the current ones and after reimbused they are removed. It will remove some of the hate towards the update so that players who recently purchased it dont feel like it was money down the drain.


 


Afterwards i have to ask a question. Why are they 50s to begin with. With this redesign we could make them alot cheaper as they dont fill the "Drain till empty" nieche anymore. It could be dropped to atleast 10s or less as they only supply additional purchasable items.


 


With the Token selling options traders could fit a role here now - Instead of selling one by one by one item you just drop bulk items into a trader, trader gives you said money and the Deed that the trader was placed ontop of gets 10% tax. Traders are now really usefull all of a sudden and bulk sales of bad goods for little money and upkeep is quite viable.


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If traders are going to be made worthless then you'd best make provision to refund the purchase cost of those traders to the owners. As someone who very recently forked out 2g for 4 traders to help cover deed expenses (My deed outgoings are over 30s a month, 25s of which is for just 1 deed) I'd be miffed at best at having lost all that money which at the current return rates would take another 8 months to recoup. 


 


I pay for my game time with euros but if this went through without compensation then that would have to stop.


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The economy on freedom is poor, this is how many players pay for their premium time and settlement upkeep etc. The amount of people who would have to leave because they can't pay I expect to be quite high.#

 

I have a single trader, he gets me about 6s~ per month while I have a merchant stocked with 80+ql enchanted tools and weaponry that has been untouched for 2 months. People invested 50s per trader and it'll take them nearly a year to return any money from that...

 

I don't know about you.. but i travel around selling my wares personally and made a 1g 50s in 1 month. Either your wares are to expensive, or people have no idea where your traders are.

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Make them auctioneers instead, I've written about that idea w while ago.


 


Paste from my original post from 4 years back.



Posted by Vean on 31 January 2010 - 01:07 AM in Town Square
I dug my very old suggestion i made long time ago...

Wurm Auction and Auctioneers

What Auctioneers are ?

Auctioneers are a NPC owned by players performing for them service, acting as a portal for server wide auction system.

Why having Auctioneers is a good idea ?

- players have better access to wider offer of items they need, especially new players can equip themselves easier with cheap medium quality items. Crafters and hunters have access to the customers.
- auctioneers will offer more fair market with more balanced prices much more close to real free market environment
- auctioneers will offer another way to invest and spend money in-game creating rich and more complete gaming experience.
- more money is taken out of the game creating a financial lever (more money for future development)

How fees are calculated ?

The main idea of auction is to be public therefore prices cannot be too high.

Auctioneer writ should cost 1-2 gold coins at the trader. Putting an item on auction should cost no more than 1c coin, making possible to sell also lower quality items/many items and preventing auction to be spammed with useless not wanted items. From this 1c half would go to auctioneer writ owner and other half to the king as tax. Person selling items on auction would also be charged with 10% tax (same as with merchants) but also this money would be shared between writ owner and the king fifty-fifty.

For example selling a 70ql sword with price of 80 copper coins will actually cost 1 copper coin plus 8 copper fee if the sword will be sold within auction time. That will bring a profit of:

- 71 copper for the seller
- 4,5 copper for the auctioneer writ owner
- 4,5 copper for the king

With the amount of items being bought and sold each day the profit should be high. Also initial money flow (writ purchases) should be high offering money boost for the time spent on implementing the auctioneer feature and by draining some in-game money off the game should stimulate silver purchases.

How auction work ?

Any item can be sold on auction.

- item for sale with minimal price and item is bided till auction end
- item for sale with minimal price and item is bided till auction end and buy now option
- item for sale only with buy now option (minimal price = buy now price)
- purchase order for people looking for certain items offering certain amount of money for them (future option for development)

What limits and mechanics ?

- interface should be made using different technology that is available currently in Wurm Online, making it possible for more interactive use. Current system is not efficient enough.
- it should be possible for auction to be viewed from the web as it is best way to promote selling and buying items this way.
- time for item to be placed on auction should be limited to 14 days (7 days seems too less with the current playerbase).
- seller should be able to monitor his auction and be able to remove the item from the auction (maybe even from the web ?)
- since there should be no limit for items put on auction there should be a code that will highlight a items with price much higher than other items (using auction as a storage or transfer medium between alts/kingdoms).
- auction should be same and available for all kingdoms offering fair free market.
- auctions should be isolated for each separate server
- bought and not sold items should be placed in bank
- sold item should receive the location tag, different time of delivery should be applied depending on the distance between auctioneers. Formula should be something like: time needed to travel between auctioneers x 4
- one auctioneer should be allowed in 150-200 tiles radius to avoid situation when larger towns roads will be crowded with them

Free connected ideas

- when the auction system will be fully implemented it can swap current trader system that currently is useless for 95% of the population, writs and special can be placed as permanent auctions.
- auctions can be a great medium to propagate gifts, special event items etc.
- because of the all servers are pay to play now bank storage space should be raised to at last 50 slots to offer better compatibility with new auction system. If players will want to prevent items decaying they will find some other way like merchant contracts or alts.
- changed interface technology will allow for further improvements like more dynamic data fetching and scalability
- decay rate on the items can be slightly (up to 10%) increased for all items when auction will be in place.


Vean

Just keep in mind that people paid some coins for there merchants as they were the coins fountains and some will expect to be reimbursed with something.


Edited by Vean
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If anything is changed with traders; will refunds be offered?


 


 


 


Personally I don't see a issue with traders as whilst the amount they pay is out is decent they do require quite alot of attention to properly work; if traders were changed as proposed above however what would be the purpose of purchasing them? Whilst existing servers would still be littered with traders; on new servers there would be one at the start deed and that's it.


 


In my opinion if Wurm was to change anything about it's economy it would be to encourage people to spend more; for example selling hand mirrors on traders would be a really good start; it's silly you can only choose your appearance once and then your stuck with it; also something that allows you to change your name for a fee as I'm sure heaps of people (myself included) would probably change their character name if they could as it was simply something they thought of years ago. Also there is one annoying feature where if you expand your deed aggressive creatures prevent expansion; this means you spend alot of time mining out old caves to kill animals - wouldn't it make more sense to allow people to expand their deeds as large as possible as easy as possible so they pay more in upkeep? What is the purpose of being disallowed to expand over aggressive creatures?


 


But one last thing I'd like to mention is in this game it's a pain in the rear to trade with people; whilst mailboxes help alot it's not viable for on-the-spot purchases and also is not efficient for purchasing bulk goods; I think it would really help get the coin flowing around if we could access some sort of ingame marketplace and instantly purchase items from people on other servers with a few clicks; for example I'd really like to buy 10k mortar and bricks right now but I can't be bothered because if I finally find someone who can do that amount of work; it will take a long time and then I need to organize transport across servers.. Why can't I just walk up to a trader; hit marketplace and purchase mortar/brick from various players across the Freedom cluster and use it right away. I know this isn't exactly realistic but it would make the game dare I say FUN and help newer players get premium and enjoy the game.


 


Make it easy for people to spend their money and they will; right now it's frustrating visiting marketplaces where 95% of the merchants don't have anything on them or organizing purchase of a item via mailbox which will take a while due to timezone differences etc. Remember if you made a ingame instant marketplace you could tax all sales 10% too ;)


Edited by Gavin
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1.- Refund them


2.- Remove them completely from the game.


3.- Make merchants sell also trader items, 90% money to the king, 10% money to merchant owner or even just (100% to the king)


4.- Make the selling on token cap daily, not hourly.


 


I would be happy with that change.


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Tbh, I am not sure why I would post my opinion here. It generally seems like when you have an idea, it doesn't matter what our feedback is, you have already made up your mind, but for what is worth:


 


Why would anyone invest 50s in a trader, that they for sure can only get 50s out of (and I assume it would take months/years to recover the money spent)? Are you asking for an interest-free loan from your players? If there is no money-incentive for buying a trader, may I at least suggest, that you just hand them out for free then, and scrap the 63 tile-radius restriction? That way you are at least accommodating one of the suggestions in the suggestion forum  where decorative NPCs are wanted.


 


I can tell you though why I decided to close of my trader within a week of purchasing it. I was annoyed by it being alt-camped (alts logging in and out several times an hour, to see if there is any money to drain), but mostly it was not that I had issues with others being able to drain it, I actually saw that as a benefit, but it was the fact that anyone else but me draining it would mess up the ratio, as others didn't buy back, and as such the trader would stop receiving income, unless I spent silvers to keep the ratio up, just so others could drain it. If you got rid of the ratio requirement, I would voluntarily open my trader up without any other forced "incentives" to do so - but I do understand that others might not feel this way, so I doubt it would make enough of a difference.


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As of right now traders are the only thing allowing a lot of people that I know (including myself) to play wurm. Why?


 


  • first because wurm allows the sale/purchase of (high skilled) accounts so that the overall level in any particular skill (including priests) overall just constantly increases in time. This drives the prices for EVERYTHING (except bulk materials) down, and it will continue to do so indefinitely
  • secondly, because one character cannot be the mayor of multiple deeds on a server so people need to prem additional alts for that
  • third, because in order to experience the full game you would need 4 prem accounts (1 builder/creator and 3 priests for the 3 religions of freedom at least - I personally with 3 traders cannot afford to keep prem for 2 + deed upkeeps - so no, my traders are definitely not fountains of wealth)
  • fourth, with the advent of people that joined with higher financial capabilities, prices are driven up (kinda of a weird counterbalance from point 1) as well, 2 years ago if I would tell someone that a 99 coc cast can be sold for 5s they would have laughed in my face - for me, 5s is enormeous, its half a deed cost... but guess what? I would bet that most people with high financial capabilities BOUGHT a high level account, they didn't start from scratch, why should they?

 


Now something else that speaks for the current system:


 


I dont know for you, but 50s is a LARGE investment. I get about 5-6s a month after some time it took me to optimize the ratios (about 5 months). This means a trader will pay itself back in about 10 months! So you need to work on the ratios every month for 10 months just to recover the investment and then you get something like 5-6s a month, which isnt even enough to buy 1 month worth of premium. And the amount you get each month drops in time...


 


I find it fair that the person that spent 10 months working on breaking even should continue to get money, because let's face it, its not easy. Also the income isn't high. Also because of the points above, traders are the only way to 'kinda' provide a constant income.


 


 


PS. something to your statement regarding open money distribution: why should a beginner that never did anything get the same money flow as someone that invested 50s..100s...200s in setting something up for himself?


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I think that reviewing and revising traders is sensible, and long overdue, as it provides a potential 0 net income model for Wurm. Given that you can pay for your subscription directly through silver, if enough players bought traders and sold goods to them, they could pay for their accounts indefinitely. As it is, these accounts are currently false income, bloating the premium player total, with accounts that have made their silver through selling to npcs.


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