Changing trading Npc's

[Pellandria]

Something that always annoyed me in Illarion is, that many times you can't use any npc merchant, because someone goes around town and sells all his things or buys them, leaving everyone else waiting for ages untill the merchants stock is repleshed.

Well I might have a small "solution" to this. THe proposal itself is easily explained, merchants now don't have a generall stock, but a lowered char specific stock.

Let me explain it with a small example.
We got Toni baggins, who sells has 6 bags normally, these six bags can be brougth sll at once, leaving other people to wait several rl hours till the stock gets repleshed, now with the new system every char on the whole island will be able to buy 1 bag per igday.

The same will be done with the selling items, the merchant will have a small portion of his normal money, means he gets shortend from 10 silvers to maybe one or something, but now every char will be able to get this one silver per day, if they sell something.

Furthermore a "point" system might be usefull, means if you sell something to the merchant you get one point, do you buy something form him you get five points, if you reache a certaint limit the merchant will offer more items to sell and your silverlimit for selling him things will be raised aswell.

What might change:
1)People could stop hogging npcs and those crafter who depend too much on the npc's will now aswell be forced to go around and seel their items.
2.)People can now buy rare npc only items, without wasting tons of money for transporter just to find out, that the item they wanted to buy is out of stock
3) There could be a new possible "work" people who buy overproduced things and sell them to the npcs for profit

Bad things that might occure:
1) Players might use the system to gather money with different chars at the same time, thus defeating the purpose itself.
2) Rare Items like some potions might now spread further in the community

Maybe even more, but I can't think of it right now.

I know that the principals of a constant supply of a certaint item is taken more from our times than medieval times, yet I think it might improve the game overall.

~~~~~~~~
Eine kurze deutsche Zusammenfassung.

Man verändert die Npc Händler, indem man ihnen keinen generellen "offenen" Handelsraum mehr gibt, sondern einen spielerspezifischen Handel.
Was verspreche ich mir davon:
1) Nun kann jeder den Npc benutzten, nicht nur jene, die den ganzen Tag davor hocken und darauf warten ihnen malwieder das Geld/ die Items abzunehmen.
2) Nun können selbst seltene Gegenstände imemr gekauft werden, ohne dabei Zeit und geld zu verschwenden
3) Es köntne ein neuer Jobbereich frei werden, ein Vermittler, der billig waren einkauft um sie dann an Npcs verkauft

Zudem würde ich ein Punktesystem vorshclagen, je mehr man bei einem Npc verkauft bzw. kauft desto mehr Waren bietet er an bzw. desto mehr Geld macht er frei zum kaufen von Dingen. Ich bin mir kalr das dieser Vorshclag durchaus Nachteile aht und er auch nicht wirklich in die Gesellschaft passen würde, aber man kann es ja trotzdem einmal diskutieren.

[Juniper Onyx]

Hmm....I don't like this idea at all. Much too complicated, and I see 'database' and scripting problems with each NPC 'remembering' who gets a coin and who doesn't. More scripts mean more bugs. No thanks.

Besides, your wrong IMO. The problem I see is not crafters 'hogging' the NPC's, but that there are too few NPC's selling 'exclusive' items.

Let me explain using your example:
Toni Baggins who sell 6 bags normally........Hmm.....there's your problem. NO-ONE ELSE SELLS BAGS!!!!!

Now......if Mugush and Ghambi also sold bags, you could go see them when Toni doesn't have any.

Sam and Ghambi both sold many of same tools, which was good, but it was changed. Now, seems one item per NPC.

I say add more NPC's.......maybe more that offer similar 'basic' wares (competition), and then one player will be far less likely to 'hog' all the NPC's.

In any 'decent' sized city, there should be at least 4-5 merchants selling foods, 3-4 selling Dry Goods (Bags, plates, Goblets, etc.), 2-3 Blacksmiths(swords, armor), and maybe 1-2 'specialists' like Goldsmiths and alchemists.

The less complex an item, the more NPC's that should offer it, while more complex items, should be more 'exclusive'--------Just like Player Crafters!

Very many can make a Bag, Bread, Goblets, shirts, chain armor, etc.
Very few can make Dresses, Strawberry Cake, Diamond Rings, Magical Elven Armor, etc.

It makes sense and solves the problem.

[Evan Ross]

In any 'decent' sized city, there should be at least 4-5 merchants selling foods, 3-4 selling Dry Goods (Bags, plates, Goblets, etc.), 2-3 Blacksmiths(swords, armor), and maybe 1-2 'specialists' like Goldsmiths and alchemists.

Trollsbane's got about 50 of each, They're just not all NPCs.

[LifeWonder]

It's time to look around for.. you know.. real people to RP with.

[Taeryon Silverlight]

It's time to look around for.. you know.. real people to RP with.

I don't see anything but carpenters or smiths around in TB much. In fact, when I wanted to get some fine clothes for Nerestro, I was searching around ig for about 5 hours and no charakter could even tell me the name of a good tailor besides Rosendil (who I couldn't catch ig for rare activity). The NPCs that might sell clothes sell them in crappy quality which you can't wear anymore since we've got that new "look at" system (which I really love), if you want your charakter to show off richness.

What I want to point out is, that there are by far not enough player-crafters to care for all the things players might need. Also, most of the basic stuff like Tools etc. is needed to start doing anything when you've got a new charakter. And you might not want to wait for a week or so before you can finally start off with your craft/fighting or whatever. It also happens a lot to me that I meet Newbies asking me to explain certain crafts etc. Since it's only a warrior or mage they can meet me playing, I don't have those tools and sending them off to NPCs oftenly ends in the newbies coming back frustrated after half an hour telling me that the NPC didn't have any of the things they needed left.

I like Juniper's proposal of having more merchants (especially for the basic items) and it would solve quite some problems without much stress.

[LifeWonder]

Use the trades forum!

[Achae Eanstray]

There are hardly any tailors because there is nothing but bags for a tailor to sell, and now NPC's sell those. I would not like any trading changed until other professions can get re-worked as smith's/cooks ig. Posting now on the trade board can probably help some find what they need until that is achieved.


PS Achae is a Druid and a tailor making almost anything of good-excellent quality but dresses.

[JonathanSmith]

The base idea behind this proposal is good.

It is always very annoying if the npc's dont want to buy your items or does not sell those items you are in need of..

This leeds to idiotic workarounds like logging in for some minutes at times with low traffic, e.g. in the morning before going to work, school, etc.

An easy solution would be: the npc traders have always unlimited money to buy the offered items and also have unlimited wares for sale.

This would be easy to implement, in contrast to the complex proposal Pellandria made. And (most of ) the players/characters would be happy.

The perfect situation, in my optinon would be, that there are NPCs buying nearly everything that crafters can make and fighters find in drops. But dont sell anything. That would empty the overstocked depots, bring more money into that game, and give crafting more importance.

[Julius]

I like the idea of merchants and NPCs having a large supply of things, but your idea seems like it would be too large for someone to script. On the other hand, if you took out the limit to each character thing, and just had the gms raise the amount of things a npc sells/buys, it would result in somewhat of the same outcome.

[JonathanSmith]

Changed my previous posting after recognizing that I had not read Pellandrias propasoal accuretely enough ...

[Vern Kron]

The perfect situation, in my optinon would be, that there are NPCs buying nearly everything that crafters can make and fighters find in drops. But dont sell anything. That would empty the overstocked depots, bring more money into that game, and give crafting more importance.

Crafting is already important, just some crafts are not important or used 'enough.' While I think your idea is good, I also believe they were trying to change the way many people have a few gold coins just sitting in their depot.

[JonathanSmith]

The perfect situation, in my optinon would be, that there are NPCs buying nearly everything that crafters can make and fighters find in drops. But dont sell anything. That would empty the overstocked depots, bring more money into that game, and give crafting more importance.

Crafting is already important, just some crafts are not important or used 'enough.' While I think your idea is good, I also believe they were trying to change the way many people have a few gold coins just sitting in their depot.

Crafting should be important, but actually is'nt in my opinion. Most smiting goods a fighter needs can be found in sufficent quality in treasures and monster drops. Tailored goods? There is no real market for those things, although the coats are visible to the characters now. The only exception seems to be the cook - there is a huge market for rabbit meals.

Who cares if some characters hoard their silver and gold coins? That hurts nobody. Maybe some of the rich characters are planning a building project, some want to support their friends expensive (building) projects and some want to buy expensive jewels for their women. Others just want to show how rich they are ...

[Estralis Seborian]

How about removing all limitations for NPCs? So, unlimited stock, unlimited money, no dependency of prices on offer/demand?

Not that I am suggesting this, but before we think about an uber complicated system, maybe consider a much more simple solution first.

[Shara Gumblin]

Man verändert die Npc Händler, indem man ihnen keinen generellen "offenen" Handelsraum mehr gibt, sondern einen spielerspezifischen Handel.
Was verspreche ich mir davon:
1) Nun kann jeder den Npc benutzten, nicht nur jene, die den ganzen Tag davor hocken und darauf warten ihnen malwieder das Geld/ die Items abzunehmen.
2) Nun können selbst seltene Gegenstände imemr gekauft werden, ohne dabei Zeit und geld zu verschwenden
3) Es köntne ein neuer Jobbereich frei werden, ein Vermittler, der billig waren einkauft um sie dann an Npcs verkauft

Zudem würde ich ein Punktesystem vorshclagen, je mehr man bei einem Npc verkauft bzw. kauft desto mehr Waren bietet er an bzw. desto mehr Geld macht er frei zum kaufen von Dingen. Ich bin mir kalr das dieser Vorshclag durchaus Nachteile aht und er auch nicht wirklich in die Gesellschaft passen würde, aber man kann es ja trotzdem einmal diskutieren.

Mmh also ich würde das nicht machen aus folgenden Gründen:

1.) Es gehört ziemliches Vertrauen dazu einem Anderen Spieler die Waren zugeben und er verschwindet nacher mit dem Geld.

2.) Newbies wären damit gravierend im Nachteil weil sie so wieso mit wenig Geld ankommen und isch dadurch gar nichts leisten könnten.

3.) Die Gegenstände die die Händler verkaufen haben so wieso nicht die Gute Qualität wie man sie von Spielern bekommt, man sollte eher den Spielerhandel fördern anstatt den NPC Handel

4.) Den Vermittlerjob sehe ich auch nicht wirklich als Sinnvoll siehe Punkt 1

5.) Das der Händler mehr Geld gibt beim verkaufen sehe ich schon mal als sehr großes Risiko an weil die Inflationsrate immer mehr steigt.

Je mehr Geld im System ist desto höher wird der Preis den wir bezahlen müssen weil sonst das Geld nicht gemindert werden kann, ich weiß nicht ob es immer noch so ist das zuviel geld im Umlauf ist

Fördert lieber den Spielerhandel, darum verkaufen die NPC's zum einen wenig Item's und auch schlechtere Qualität zumal man eh nicht alles von NPC's bekommt.

[Pellandria]

Unlimited Wares and Sales is in my eyes not something we should go with, a certaint regulation of the moneyflow is important, we allready got rich merchants anyway and it would defeat the purpose of my proposal itself.

Giving endless supply of money just creates richer Chars over all, while having no way to "waste" it, I guess the main factor of money leaving the game is Buildings anyway, so that would just mean increasing the prices anyway, thus we would have more money but just got to pay more elsewhere and forchars, that barely or never work, this could be quiet dangerous.

If someone mistook my proposal for getting more money into the economy, than he might misunderstood something, I'm just for a more equal spread of the money, thus allowing everyone to enjoy the game with all what it has to offer and not waiting years till the Npc fills up his moneystock just to sell 2% of everything I made and just smithing/tailoring on untill I finally have something Ican sell toaplayerfor adecent price.

Adding new Npc's that might buy just about every item might be a nice addition aswell.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Mmh also ich würde das nicht machen aus folgenden Gründen:

1.) Es gehört ziemliches Vertrauen dazu einem Anderen Spieler die Waren zugeben und er verschwindet nacher mit dem Geld.

2.) Newbies wären damit gravierend im Nachteil weil sie so wieso mit wenig Geld ankommen und isch dadurch gar nichts leisten könnten.

3.) Die Gegenstände die die Händler verkaufen haben so wieso nicht die Gute Qualität wie man sie von Spielern bekommt, man sollte eher den Spielerhandel fördern anstatt den NPC Handel

4.) Den Vermittlerjob sehe ich auch nicht wirklich als Sinnvoll siehe Punkt 1

5.) Das der Händler mehr Geld gibt beim verkaufen sehe ich schon mal als sehr großes Risiko an weil die Inflationsrate immer mehr steigt.

Je mehr Geld im System ist desto höher wird der Preis den wir bezahlen müssen weil sonst das Geld nicht gemindert werden kann, ich weiß nicht ob es immer noch so ist das zuviel geld im Umlauf ist

Fördert lieber den Spielerhandel, darum verkaufen die NPC's zum einen wenig Item's und auch schlechtere Qualität zumal man eh nicht alles von NPC's bekommt.

1.)Diesen Punkt hast du bei ~jedem~ handel gegeben, wenn man shclau ist lässt man sich vorher bezahlen und der Vermittler verkauft einfach von sich allein weiter.

2.)Falsch, gerade Newbies wären durch genau so ein System im großen Vorteil, weil jene sowieso nur wenige Items haben, die sie schmieden/schneidern/was auch immer können und diese können sie nich eintmal verkaufen, weil ihre Qualität zu niedrig ist das sich jemand daran interresiert oder weil sie einfach nicht die Gegenstände produzieren können, die der Spielerhandel verlangt. Ich persönlich bezweifle das viele Newbies ihre Sachen an Npc's verkaufen können, dnen soweit ich das sehe sind die meisten sowieso shcon "leergekauft", wenn man jedoch jeden die Chance dazu gibt etwas Geld zu bekommen, anstatt nur einem sehr viel Geld zu geben, halte ich das für sinnvoller.

3.)Npc Waren, vorallen jene Waren die gebraucht werden, jedoch nicht von Spielern erschaffen werden können, sind immer ein gutes Mittel um den Geldfluss zu regulieren, es geht ja nicht darum die Spieler arbeitslos zu machen, sondern lediglich darum, das jeder Spieler, egal wo und wann er einloggt, die Chance bekommt etwas von dem Händler zu kaufen.

4)Das ist uhm....eh nur eine Wiederholung von Punkt eins?

5)Wo habe ich geschrieben das er mehr Geld bekommt, man bekommt eben nur ein "Limit", wie viel man verkaufen kann, das hat zur Folge das nun nicht mehr ein Char zehn Silber aus einem Npc rausholt, sondern nurnoch zwei oder einen Silber, die Gefahr der Inflation ist dadurchauch eher gemildert als gesteigert, wenn man das Geld fairer verteilt und somit mehrere Chars weniger Geld vebrauchen, ist das für die Wirtschaft besser, als wenn ein Char viel Geld verteilt und das meiste davon wahrscheinlich nichtmal ausgibt.

[Estralis Seborian]

Right, without proper money sinks, it is dangerous to flood the economy with coins. But this is justifying a drawback with another drawback or in other words, casting out devils through Beelzebub. In other games, people buy expensive, special items for money or can invest it in their character (training, boni,...). We need such stuff for Illarion, too.

[Mairae Auvria]

Right, without proper money sinks, it is dangerous to flood the economy with coins. But this is justifying a drawback with another drawback or in other words, casting out devils through Beelzebub. In other games, people buy expensive, special items for money or can invest it in their character (training, boni,...). We need such stuff for Illarion, too.

A lot of the money sink in other games is houses and deco for houses also. The advantage to houses being increased storage oocly, safe place to be, extended RP. (though I can see you would almost need a player lock-down system which would work just in their homes to be able to move things)

[Q-wert]

Ich persönlich kann mir nicht vorstellen, dass die Spezifizierung der Händler auf die einzelnen Figuren eine Änderung bringen würde, abgesehen davon, dass Zauberchars mächtiger würden.
Die verbreitetsten Erwerbsmöglichkeiten die NPC´s benötigen um zu Überleben sind ist nach meinem Kentisstand das Schneidertum sowie die teilweise die Anfangsphase beim Holzbearbeiten.
Für Schneider kenne ich zwei Händler, die brauchbare Preise machen und für einfache Holzprodukte einen, der aber kaum benutzt wird.
Nach ein paar Monaten virtuellen Illarion-Schneiderdaseins kann ich bezeugen, dass man sein Zeug immer irgendwo losbekommt.
Dass man wirklich wichtige Gegenstände hingegen nicht bekommt weil der NPC leergekauft wurde ist mir in drei Jahren Illarion noch nie passiert.
Meist bekommt man die trotzdem bei spielergesteuerten Figuren billiger.

[Saril]

Wieso Zauberchars mächtiger? egal.

Also das eigendliche Problem ist nicht das die NPC keine Sachen haben (was ich auch kenne) oder kein Geld mehr haben (kenn ich auch) sondern das die Spieler selten mit Spielern handeln. Fast jeder Schmied kann sich alles selber besorgen, ebenso bei allen anderen Handwerken. Der Vorschlag von Pell bringt kaum etwas. Naja alle NPC wegmachen würde auch nichts bringen. Bevor etwas an den Händlern rumgebastelt wird sollte das Handelssystem wieder funtionieren. Das braucht aber eine harte Hand von den Staffs (hab keine Peilung wie Staffs da etwas ändern können) oder ein Umdenken der Handwerker.

[JonathanSmith]

How about removing all limitations for NPCs? So, unlimited stock, unlimited money, no dependency of prices on offer/demand?

Not that I am suggesting this, but before we think about an uber complicated system, maybe consider a much more simple solution first.

Thats what I suggested.

I like that idea.

[JonathanSmith]

Right, without proper money sinks, it is dangerous to flood the economy with coins. But this is justifying a drawback with another drawback or in other words, casting out devils through Beelzebub. In other games, people buy expensive, special items for money or can invest it in their character (training, boni,...). We need such stuff for Illarion, too.

There is no economy currently.

The game is flooded with items and coins from treasures and flooded with items from monster drops.

Yes, expensive special items for money is a good idea. Maybe some magic items, like mirrors?

[Juniper Onyx]

....
Adding new Npc's that might buy just about every item might be a nice addition aswell.......

OMG. I never thought we'd agree on anything!



#me gets his ice skates and heads to Hellbriar for the day. It just froze over.

[Aldan Vian]

The Idea of unlimited money for NPC's is pointless.....people could make a fortune off of fishing and selling the fish to the halfling outside the TB South/West gate,

(What do mirrors even do?)

[Valione]

*Deleted off-topic comment

[Fianna Heneghan]

So, slightly off-topic, but as far as in game money sinks to offset the flood of coins from the NPCs having an unlimited ability to purchase all the junk laying around...

What about paying for skillpoints? The first points would be relatively inexpensive and then increase incrementally with the degree of difficulty. This would put a drain on the economy and remove the need to powergame skills leaving more time for roleplay.

[Estralis Seborian]

The Idea of unlimited money for NPC's is pointless.....people could make a fortune off of fishing and selling the fish to the halfling outside the TB South/West gate,

(What do mirrors even do?)

And...?
If you play a fisherman, you fish and sell fish. Why should the game force you (and all other players online) to stop this after ten minutes?

If you flood the economy with more coins, we'll face an inflation. This is nothing bad per se. It will be common to pay gold coins for rare items. An obvious result of this is that character that are rich by now will face a loss of "spending power" (Kaufkraft). So decrease the impact of this effect, the inflation can be reduced by money sinks. Buying skills from NPC-trainers might be an option. There are countless of ideas (e.g. attribute changes or temporary attribute boost for money), but somebody has to script them...

[Juliana D'cheyne]

I guess I am a little confused by this, how many chars actually WANT to make a fortune and what would you do with it if you had it? I don't think any of my chars are rich, some quite poor but the basic needs for food etc. are met. Yes, you can spend your entire ig fishing totally and selling the fish, who actually wants to do that, it sounds fairly boring.

Paying for skill points seems to me just a way to encourage more PGing? Am I missing something?

[Keikan Hiru]

I don't see how paying for skillpoints can be considered powergaming.

All you do is walking to a NPC with a little fortune in your pocket and ask him if he could train you in skill X.
Voilá, you gain +1 in skill X, some money is removed from the system and you saved time (that so many of you want to invest in RP) of pointless clicking or hacking for skill X.

[Misjbar]

I think it is a good idea as well, with one condition. We would have to have true skillcaps, in the sense of, not being able to be a master in every single skill by just giving money to a trainer.

[Juliana D'cheyne]

I don't see how paying for skillpoints can be considered powergaming.

All you do is walking to a NPC with a little fortune in your pocket and ask him if he could train you in skill X.
Voilá, you gain +1 in skill X, some money is removed from the system and you saved time (that so many of you want to invest in RP) of pointless clicking or hacking for skill X.

...and how do you get that fortune without PGing?