Feedback on Trader suggestion

[Vean 131]

I just realised I'm playing Wurm a bit too long perhaps...

[Serpentarius 186]

Suggestions for one which includes higher quality items are welcome.

 

Thoughts?

 

At this point, if you want to redistribute the money without too much abuse, the only fair system would be a monthly lottery system with one ticket for each premium player.

 

Edited April 3, 2014 by Serpentarius

[Arkonick 557]

See this line " 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".

 

This line alone tells it in a hard shell how damaging this is to the game development of wurm online. If one relies on trader draining to pay there prem then they never pay for prem this is a customer with a pure free full access no limit's like a Trial account with a 20 cap on skills. These people are playing completely free with full access and also paying for there monthly deed's with the same system so they never sink a dime in the development pool.

 

The only ones sinking the money are the ones who don't use Traders as a source of income. It's these people that buy silver from Rolf then spend it in game buying stuff that even help the development as well as those who buy there monthly SUB's from the online store. Other wise Rolf has no income.

 

Rolf here is my Honest opinion.... Eliminate the kings funding to trader's. Give all merchants and traders unlimited funds to buy stuff from players. Then Eliminate paying for prem time with in game silver. Make prem time only available threw the online store. Still allow for players to sell silver in game as usual as a market item. Just eliminate how they get mass amount's by doing the above.

 

Rolf Remember the ones who will get mad and quit are the ones who don't pay you already so you are not loosing one dime for them quitting. The people who buy from you prem time and silver will still be here you know the people who are actually supporting your funding for the development of wurm.

 

Raise the prem sub to 14.99 us non taxed. Then lower the silver cost on the store. In the US we don't pay tax online for Virtual Products unless we have a Physical object in our hand. the tax on the silver will not win you many US players.

 

You guys are slow in development this I'm assuming is low funds do to many leaches from a system you implemented and wish the god you never done now.  You have been getting a bit faster here lately with some updates unlike the past.

If you have to refund the trader cost to any one who purchased one in the past year then do so with in game silver. If you have records on hand then sift threw the records and see who has gotten there moneys worth then offer no refund.

Yes what I propose would upset anyone using this system and cause a freaking rant and a half, but it is only going to be those who use the system to not pay at all and play for free with full benefits.

 

It's better to purge the system now than let it get more out of control as time goes by even more. You plan on purging Legal Enclosures lets just get all the purging out of the way and over with.

[silakka 2,360]

Give every trader owner 30s back

Delete traders

Make a new Npc version of trader

 

Meanwhile all people can gather around spawn areas if they need any trader items like deed forms/merchant contracts

Because if traders will be changed, it might be that 95% of them will become useless to the deed owner.. since obviously people just suck $ from them

Edited April 3, 2014 by silakka

[Fooligun 591]

This guy has more money than sense and I'm shocked..

the more traders there are the less each gets...

[rosedragon 2,282]

Raise the prem sub to 14.99 us non taxed.

 

When Rolf raises premium cost by 66% earlier, it already cause a lot of outrage and more people trying to pay with silvers instead dollars. This is bigger impact  considering you pay for a single character in a game that so tempting to have multiple characters and many deeds. This whole thing is sensitive to the very culture of wurm itself. 

 

I would say... facilitate silvers and accounts selling, and take percentage of the sales. One into another, the wurm money is lost when people buy silvers from others instead shop.

[Lithien 268]

I can't believe peope say it is hard work to maintain a trader - it is not, if you have it closed off. You only need to drain and reset the ratio of these traders once a month. That is not hard work. Now if instead of ratio (I can understand the original intent behind this) where the traders receive funds as long as the trader has sold for 10 pct of what it has bought, you used frequeny of trades with the trader - instead of or as well as the current system - there would be a lot more work involved in maintaining the ratio on these traders. That would at least make pure trader deeds held by non-prem alts, that log in once a month to drain the trader less likely, or at least a LOT more work, while open traders that are actually used by players on a regular basis would still be useful.

Edited April 3, 2014 by Lithien

[Pwent 113]

Yes, please do something about traders, although they do provide you with extra income (explanation will follow).

The problem is not if one player has one trader, although 1 year ago I did get 20s from one trader per month. Before I sold mine I got like 6s so the problem is becoming less, but:

The problem is people who have multiple traders (not going to name any names here, but I know of at least 4 people who have 10+ traders). They get tons of free money each month which they use to drive up prices on stuff like rares, drake armor, HoTA statues, fountain backpacks. Of course that gets Rolf some extra income because once in a while a poor new player will actually purchase silver from the shop to buy items at these inflated prices. I would argue that Rolf loses more income from these trader-owners using free silver to sub characters and more deeds than they would ever need, except for ego-boosting.

The whole point is, why should players of this game who pay money to play it need to exploit the trader system to actually play the game? Why not remove trader distribution and lower silver prices and upkeep prices so everyone wins something, instead of a select few people who have been taking advantage of the system for years get all the advantages for themselves??

Now we will get lots of replies from trader owners who claim they boost the economy by paying inflated prices and thus help distribute free coins to new players, whilst the trader owners who sell gold coins each month will stay hidden as usual.

I am looking forward to the trader situation finally being resolved after all these years, I hope a nerf of fountain containers will be next, and I might resubscribe to the game again.

[McGarnicle 1,463]

Sounds like with your proposed changes, Rolf, people will still be able to drain them, just only when the trader has accumulated 50s. I don't see how this will stop people from penning them. If we want traders to be out in the open then they need to give some money directly into the owners bank

[Becket 843]

Indy trader is giving about 6s a cycle no one is getting rich off of them but they do help pay for the deed. So if the 6s is getting tossed into upkeep it's just being recycled anyway. I am just concerned that if players start losing their deeds over this will the quit the game.

 

Going to be fun to watch <gets popcorn>

[Steveleeb 1,067]

This scares me.

Currently my trader pais for my upkeep, leaving me to pay for subscription costs i only have one.

He's on my perimeter not on my deed, I cannot move my deed or trader.

 

 

If you make changes that disable my ability to use him to pay for upkeep, i will have 2 subscriptions to pay.

Please do not mess with their functionality toward non greedy players simply because a few people exploit them.

Limit them to 1 trader per account or something, allowing cities with many citizens to have more than one.

I know ppl will create alts and use alternative email addresses to issue themselves with more than they deserve but there are ways to police such behaviour.

[Blasius 4]

lol

[Nomadikhan 2,196]

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

 

We have 4 on an island and it barely covers the 21 silver upkeep... we're not turning a profit by any means.  I have another one on a seperate deed and it barely pays for it as well.

 

You nerfed traders enough by adding the SELL option to tokens, nothing further is really required.  There's little point to buying a new trader these days.

Edited April 3, 2014 by Nomadikhan

[Heroic 30]

-1 this change would result noticable amount of players leaving the game and most of the market will close- unless that the selling value on traders/tokens/merchants increased and the 5c/hour limit lifted

To be optimistic, this could be work on that way to let us move the traders to public and the trader should pay the tax to the upkeep of owner regardless where they placed (and have a tax set option available not only once)

[Glomby 85]

I find quite funny the people saying traders are useless right now, but begging to not change how they work. Traders right now are like buying stock shares. You invest quite a bit and get dividends each month. More traders = less dividends per trader.

 

Keep it like that or refund and remove them completely. There's no other way.

[whykillme 1,621]

They only make ~5s a month now since the sell option, it's not much anymore.

 

Anyway, instead of giving money to traders, simply make it so that every PREMIUM player receives a part of the money that traders usually get from the king.

 

Put it in their bank.

 

Most fair for everyone... (or keep the money yourself for developement....)

[Thorakkanath 444]

From all these replies, I am getting a feeling that you are addressing a non-existing problem. Traders (apparently) everywhere are getting about 6s a month and for the amount of money and time put in completely ok I'd say.

 

For the extremists among us thinking that the game should be prem by shop only, sweden is among others a land that keeps an eye out for people in need, you cannot compare the financial capabilities of someone in [insert the name of a developed country here] to someone in [insert the name of a second and third world country here].  And saying that if they cannot afford it, they shouldn't play, that sounds highly antisemitic to me, just saying.

 

Naturally, Rolf might decide to go to a membership only game, like eve or wow - and that is his prerogative, but from my (limited) knowledge, open access games do earn more because of the much larger playerbase that can at any time become a customer.

[Vean 131]

There are countless other ways, we may just not know about them yet or be not ready for them.

[Xalorum 765]

please refund me if you take my trader away.

[Arkonick 557]

1.Remove Trader pay out's only allow them to have the sell command like merchants and tokens do. Make world traders give a 10% discount on monthly deed cost as long as a Trader is on the deed. this is why one would want a trader on there deed for the 10% discount. Lower the trader cost at this point to 15 silver and remove the radius cap or lower it to a min deed requirement a 5x5.

Anyone with a trader now you could reimburse them 15s tops.

 

If traders where cheaper I would actually buy one for 15s if it gave a 10% deed discount. This discount could also be used in buying tiles. If you have one you would get a 10% discount when you expanded your deed on the cost as well as monthly upkeep cost. This would make them worth wild.

 

2.Lower Price on Silver back to original price you had set and lower prices on all items on the World traders to increase the following. 1.Silver being bought from online store. 2. Items sold at world trader's.

If silver was cheaper and items where cheaper people would buy them more often. More money means more funds and a bigger development team and more happy new comers.

[Steveleeb 1,067]

1.Remove Trader pay out's only allow them to have the sell command like merchants and tokens do. Make world traders give a 10% discount on monthly deed cost as long as a Trader is on the deed. this is why one would want a trader on there deed for the 10% discount. Lower the trader cost at this point to 15 silver and remove the radius cap or lower it to a min deed requirement a 5x5.

Anyone with a trader now you could reimburse them 15s tops.

 

If traders where cheaper I would actually buy one for 15s if it gave a 10% deed discount. This discount could also be used in buying tiles. If you have one you would get a 10% discount when you expanded your deed on the cost as well as monthly upkeep cost. This would make them worth wild.

 

2.Lower Price on Silver back to original price you had set and lower prices on all items on the World traders to increase the following. 1.Silver being bought from online store. 2. Items sold at world trader's.

If silver was cheaper and items where cheaper people would buy them more often. More money means more funds and a bigger development team and more happy new comers.

Edited April 3, 2014 by Steveleeb

[Elen 1,013]

-1 to ANY trader change until a working solution has been developed, vetted, and tested on the test server first.

Edited April 3, 2014 by Elen

[Marshlander 188]

I think it does the game a service that people can invest in it upfront to help them get regular silvers to help fund big deed projects and shelve out silver for services. I guess many pillars of the community use traders to achieve what they have. (BTW, neither do I have a trader nor am I a pillar of the community, ofc )

 

But why mix this feature in with traders that also serve as a hub for buying settlement deeds etc?

 

Perhaps it would be best to implement a "Treasurer" NPC, with a more transparent return of investment. I find it disgusting that there is such a lack of transparency of the trader system. It seems obvious that some people are just getting the needed help from traders to keep them afloat with their multiple deeds, and others that are making a huge surplus. Why not make it a guaranteed but limited/capped return of investment? And if the king's funds become depleted, the purchase price of traders goes up to reflect this?

 

There could be a few months where it would be possible to convert existing Traders into Treasurers.

 

I also would like to see a small personal allowance of the king's funds for each account in the game - let the newbies sell useful stuff to traders for a little coin, instead of the dumbed-down current sell-to-token mechanism.

Edited April 3, 2014 by Marshlander

[Arkonick 557]

Steveleeb that's why I said to remove the radius to where it was 10 tiles by 10 tiles so more people could buy them and have them. They could code in the ability to pick them up and move them by the owner so someone like you could move him on your deed and off your perimeter.

[FreeTineen 430]

For a long time i've considered traders broken and an exploit for gathering silver through a broken system. Get rid of them its about tome, pay for your prem or lose the hundreds of alts people. I support my deed and occasionally my own prem through sales and i'm quite content with my own method.

 

Refund them or whatever Rolf but just get rid of them from the game, won't miss the items off them either to be honest, maybe delete them too from the database.