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Rolf

Feedback on Trader suggestion

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"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. "

Make the trader contract as shop item only so can make sure that newer traders cannot be placed based on trader profit, I think this would solve the problem.

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

I think the effect of any changes are unable to test on testservers due they strongly related on game economy and behavior of players. A test server has no living market or playercount to test money distribution.

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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.

 

 

If i was reimbursed 15s a piece for my traders to keep my deed going, i can assure you that not only would i disband my deed, i would stop paying prem on my main (already stopped on my alts after rolfs recent disintegrate controversy)

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

You mean there IS a TEST server to... TEST things.. like new implements?

I thought it was the Chaos server, whoa.

Thanks for the information.

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1. Refund the owners of traders

2. Remove the option to make money off traders

3. Remove the hour limit on Sell to token option, and make it daily and increase the amount you can sell within set limit (so it matches going from hourly to daily)

4. Make trader cheaper (20-30s), put more items on like mirrors. Deed gets taxes towards upkeep. Only allow mayor/deedowner to place on deed. Management like Merchants, can remove and replace as deedowner sees fit.

This should give an incentment (sp?) to keep traders public for everyone to use. 

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TBH I don´t know how to react to this, I know that trader´s deeds exist, and a lot of people see that as abusing a game mechanic, I don´t know the extend of this practice and/or the amount of damage it does to the game, and I don´t know if there is a painless way of getting ride of such a thing.


 


Speacking only for my own case/experience, I live in a deed with another 2 guys, we have  5 permanet premium accounts plus an ocassional 1-2 more wen and if, the priests owners decided they need to activate the battery accounts they have. We indeed have a trader that, for now, makes enough silver to pay for the 5,XXs (i don´t remember rigth now the exact amount but is more than 5s and less than 6s per month) deed´s monthly upkeep.


 


While the removing of the trader will somewhat hurt us, I´m willing to accept the removal of it if is for the greaters good, as long as the trader is refunded to his original planter.


Edited by KunAlt

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I see traders as basically a lifetime membership to Wurm.  A few games came up with this and I think if Wurm gave players an option to buy a lifetime membership then I think it would counter some of the negativity behind losing trader income.


 


Secondly I don't really mind the hourly cap on making income using the sell option, but that's mainly because I can log on pretty much anytime during the day due to my job allowing me to do it.  So I can make a fair amount of money via the sell option, but most people can't log on every hour so I agree 100% in the decision to change the sell option to reset per day instead of per hour.


 


I also think it's kind of amusing that this post is three pages within two hours.  Just wait for the North American crew to wake up and see this post.  I honestly believe this will be one of the biggest changes in Wurms history and really really needs to be dealt with delicately.


 


I think traders can be done away with, but only if the solution basically implements what traders do in another way.  Although if settlement tokens become the new traders, watch tokens become locked away on Freedom though.


 


Personally though every server has at least one public trader, the reason why that trader does so terribly is because of the ratio.  Personal traders do better in the hands of people who understand the ratio, just kill the ratio system and it'll make the public trader more useful.


Edited by Object
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If traders were never meant to be a source of income then why are they sold to players? Why else would anyone ever have bought them to start with?


 


If there were to be no attractive income generation, then they should be non-player owned characters. And a full refund would be in order.


 


There is no reason one player should foot the bill for a public service. Especially one that also takes cash out of the economy.


 


What you are suggesting would be a complete re-purposing of the trader concept. 

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I honestly can't think of a good suggestion to deal with this, but if you want traders to be dealt with more frequently, we would need items on them that we need or want frequently, unlike settlement forms, trader- and merchant contracts and magic chests. Sleep powders are cheaper to buy of other players, I would love to see mirrors on the traders too, but doubt they would be used frequently. Cheap good food maybe, but that renders HFC totally useless for anything but SD-grinds.


 


If you don't want traders to be able to be locked away, you have to refund the existing ones and replace them with traders that cannot be placed on deed, unless you want us to not be able to fence in our deeds, at the same time as you implement changes where even on freedom we would want multiple layers of walls just to protect livestock? But if traders cannot be placed on deed, we would just get something new that would block deed placement, at the same time as you are trying to get rid of legal enclosures? Arrgh, I just can't see a way to change this system without both screwing existing trader-owners over AND make them undesirable for new ones. And crashing the trading market. And... the only positive thing I can see is getting rid of the free-ride for those who are willing to invest big to begin with (and I am not saying I don't understand that argument), but the people with all those silvers are also those who keep the trade alive, slow as it may be at times, and would I find it fun to have no customers for anything at all because no one has spare silver?


 


I just can't come up with a single idea that wouldn't affect a large portion of the player base negatively. And none of the ideas are good enough, to make up for those consequences. 


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That is the way to go Rolf.


 


Remove traders all together and dont bother with refunds.


 


Make non-player items available at tokens and be done with it.


 


As most people seem to use the income for upkeep, just lower price on them a bit.


 


gg


 


 


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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 first issue is easy enough to solve:

Add more special items to traders that players will buy, like hand-mirrors, yellow potions, fireworks and other consumables that could be bought over and over again.

Right now, items like settlement forms and magic chests are not going to produce repeat customers, no one is going to continue buying something you only ever need to buy once.

 

The second issue is trickier.

The problem being that it is counter-intuitive to have a money distributor be owned by a player.

The trader is a resource that outputs silver coins indiscriminately, therefore it's only natural that players would wall them up and keep them secret.

But, given how entrenched this behaviour is in the game, any changes here are likely to produce a huge amount of vitriol no matter what the change actually is.

 

In light of supporting money distribution, I would make a somewhat radical suggestion.

Give each and every premium player a monthly allowance of two silver coins, which can be collected from traders. 

edit: Maybe from the token is better?

 

Let that sink in for a minute.

 

In all likely hood, if this was implemented I would imagine the majority of players would hold onto that silver initially hoping to save for their monthly prem time.

But I believe that behaviour would change over time.

 

Lets look at it like this:

  • As a simple attraction, it's extra incentive to go premium - This results in more players going prem.

Newer players will have a basic cash-flow, and will be able to take part in the Wurm economy - This results in more sales every month to traders, merchants and players, strengthening the local economy.

Making players collect the allowance from the trader, they will be more likely to purchase something from the trader, so long as their is something interesting to buy(Hand mirrors etc) - This results in more money going back to the king to be redistributed.

More players would have disposable income, creating a larger market - This results in more players creating and imping items to be sold, and not just the select few that dominate the market because they cannot meet demand.

It's not a perfect system.

There are issues such as inflation to consider (If the king doesn't make back all the money distributed ,then more silver must be created to hand out).

 

But maybe it will give you an outside-the-box idea to the issue of money distribution.

Edited by Alden
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I like how this takes developer time up as a small issue compared to massive disconnects for players trying to PVP on epic as large groups of friends.

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I don't understand why it should be given the same amount to every premium player. There are lots of different playstyles. In my opinion, the system is fine now. But, if Rolf or the rest of developers think it's not, then just remove it completely. I have said it before, I understand it like a stock share system. I pay Rolf 50silver for a share which gives me dividend. And probably it's the best explanation of the actual system. I trust enough Rolf to give a big amount of money, and I trust I will keep playing to collect the dividend.


 


In the end, that money will go back to the game anyway. Let it be, or remove it (refund, remove, and no more dividend to give to anyone). Any change in the system will do more harm than good.


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I hate to say it rolf but we the players are not going to spend 50s (~$70 USD) for the benifit of "random players"


there is no incentive to it and the amount that traders contribute to deed upkeep with taxs is almost negligable.


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Make sell option less frustrating.


For example:


 


Max item price ~1-10c.


Monthly limit ~5-8s. So we won't get free premiums, 


Protection against alt abuse.


 


So this will give additional coins into the market if player has premium and other required non craftable items.


 


New traders should sell only non craftable items and lessen deed unkeep ~10-50% (depending on citizens and other things or just nothing).


 


 


Just refund 50s so there would be no cries :D

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Things to also do to the trader on top of what I've written already.


Extra items to be sold.


Set of armor and weapons. These items would have a limited time limit maybe they last only 2 weeks. they decay over a 2 week time frame and poof regardless of time logged in or out 2 weeks max. they could be sold for like 3s a set.


Chain being the top tier that can be bought. This does not kill off the traders who make this stuff cause there stuff of course can last a very long time and be repaired etc... and don't have a constent decay timer.


You could also sell horses that are time limited with max speed but again last 2 weeks and decay regardless if you are logged in or not. Boats could be done this way too. Maybe you don't always need a boat and you don't mind paying for a time limit boat for a travel to a distant place.


 


Rentable wagons with a time limit or cart's.


These are just some things that might help funding and make the trader even more useful and sought after.


 


Examples :  You take your wagon out and are far from home but you wasn't taking care of one or 2 of the horses you had hitched and 1 or both die. Now you are hindered at a slow speed with 2 horses or you could go rent the horses from a near by trader and hitch them to your wagon and get it home or cart.  Maybe you have horses but no wagon if you can't afford one at the moment from the player base but you can afford to rent one from a trader you could rent one for the time being.


 


These are just some things that would be helpful in wurm. They are huge money makers in many mmo's out on the market and seeing they are time limited you can choose to buy a more permanent one from a player or a time limited one from the trader till such time you can afford one from a player.


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Here's my suggestions,


 


 


1. Leave traders alone.


2. Start fixing bugs.

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Actually, if the ratio is removed, traders are relocatable, and its limit is played like sell feature it might be working. Probably also reduce all pricing of items to iron and copper coins range. Because I remember when I am running one of my whimsical new-alt journey, I was so happy that there is a rope that I can buy for a few iron coins on the trader. Or as a veteran I tend to look on traders to trade their animal bits with my less desired item. Would be sad if these positive effects of traders are gone.


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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.... :P)

This^

 

Only fair thing is to distribute the money every month automatically between all the prem players without having to rely on traders.

Edited by rixk

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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.

Agreed.  While it might have been a "fountain of income" at one point in time (20+ silver per month) it's nowhere near that now.  If you pull Trader income all of a sudden or reduce the income anymore than it already has been, don't be surprised if you get some serious lashback from those who have invested 50s per Trader and have not at least recouped their initial investment back.  I think you and others need to be reminded that it took an INVESTMENT to get a Trader in the first place... it's not free money.  Perhaps it's not your original intent... but I'm sure there's a plethora of things in Wurm that weren't your original intent.  As some have said, if there were some useful items on a Trader then perhaps they would be more useful as a public NPC...maybe 2s Sleep Powders...hand mirrors, etc.  One of the main reasons I can justify having a large deed is due to the fact that my 6s per month Trader income pays the 3.5s upkeep.  2.5s is not a "fountain of income" as some have said - hardly.  I'm still paying premium with real money.  Cut back or eliminate Trader income completely without some reimbursement and expect some change in deeds.

Edited by Kruggan
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-1


 


A lot of established players use traders to pay for their large deeds and premium time.


 


The fact is that the game is way too expensive to fully play without help from traders. One premium membership gives time to one character. Without at least one priest, you have no way to provide decent items that people want (aside from bulk items) because people don't want unenchanted stuff. It's useless to have an unenchanted sword. It's even worse on PvP servers, where priests are a necessity. If you go into battle with unenchanted gear, you are almost guaranteed to lose. If traders were to be removed, multiple characters would have to be allowed to use one premium membership. Let's face it, people need priests, and with the current trader situation, this would result in a huge loss of players.


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Hell no. no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no  and no.


 


Traders don't give alot of silver nowadays, it requires some effort to drain them.


 


Are you trying to kill Wurm? You upped the price by 60% you smashed how many features with a nerf? You single handedly killed Chaos by popping a wall for a kingdom, now you're thinking of nerfing traders so much that nobody will ever buy one ever again? Please, if you don't want to be responsible for wurm anymore, sell up and move on, don't just kill the game.


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>>>>>>I am posting as a player, not as a member of staff<<<<<<


 


Traders have needed a change for a long time, my suggestion is as follows:


 


1- Lock all new trader sales right now, remove the ability to BUY the papers to create them from the game completely, today.



2- Give all existing traders a counter so that they will pay out 75 silver over the next 10 months to reimburse players for the cost they have put into them.



3- as the last coin is collected from traders that currently exist, they dismiss. after 1 year any remaining traders also dismiss regardless of if they have been completely drained or not.



4- give players the option to "visit kings market" at any settlement token, where they can then purchase all the money sink items traders currently sell (and some mirrors... and  well a few other things, different thread tho).


 



in response to the players saying "I only get 5-6 silver a month and that's not really a fountain of wealth" 



-- in 10 months the trader pays for itself completely, There are traders on indy that have been there, giving out coins for YEARS, Its not how much per month they give out, its how long they have the potential to continue to do so. a 50 silver investment that pays back 3-4 gold over a couple of years is a fountain in my opinion. Its also a poorly designed game mechanic as far as I'm concerned.


 


>>>>>>I am posting as a player, not as a member of staff<<<<<<


  • Like 6

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Pulling traders is an unnecessary solution to a problem that is slowly solving itself anyway.


Traders aren't a huge source of wealth, at most they only supplement monthly incomes after making an initial large investment.


 


That may have been different once upon a time, but not any more.


Some time in the future, perhaps in the next few months, traders will be so prevalent that draining them will be more effort than it's worth and thus the 'problem' is already solved.


 


Change for the sake of change is just wrong.


 


Removing Traders = Solves a very minor problem and causes much forum drama and headaches.


Leaving Traders as they are = Many relieved players and the minor problem disappears into obscurity because no one actually cares about it.


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