Player economy suggestion

[Wolfarus]

3 words : player vendor tables.

This was implimented at another server i used to go too.

You had to meet certain conditions to even GET a table (think it was being above a certain lvl, you had to have a table in your own faction or the neutral town. If you choose to specialze in a certain thing, such as armor, it would be easier for you to get one, as opposed to somebody who was a "general" merchant, ect)

You had an NPC vendor who would "sell" the things for you, you paid him a certain amount of gold per real-time month, otherwise if you didnt keep up the rent on the shop, he'd go on "strike" and your table would be inaccessable to anybody, yourself included, until you paid him.

There were only 8 pages of "inventory" given for each table, to keep people from using them as perm. in-game mules.

You got to name your shop what you wanted, as long as the name was appropriate for the server rules (so no dirty names, ect)

The shop area was a big building, the entrance of which was placed in the center of town.



Something like this would make it easier and funner to shop around for what you needed, as opposed to using the shout channel advertising what you have or what you wanted, and it would take care of the "trap store" suggestion, since you could find a player who sold traps or ingredients that they found. Im not sure how much scripting and such work would go into something like this, but if it can be done would be an interesting addition to the community.

[-BannyD-]

Something like this would make it easier and funner to shop around for what you needed, as opposed to using the shout channel advertising what you have or what you wanted, and it would take care of the "trap store" suggestion, since you could find a player who sold traps or ingredients that they found. Im not sure how much scripting and such work would go into something like this, but if it can be done would be an interesting addition to the community.

Neither do I...but didnt Aantioch have something like this? Player supplied Merchants? Its a cool idea and when i played there I wish I had one...but all I can remember about Aantioch was how bad the lag was....ALL the time

[Qui]

Aantioch did for awhile I believe, I dont think the merchants were causing the lag though. I would guess that it is NON-trivial to save the state ifnormation of merchants who have changing inventory. The standard nwn merchants sell thigns players sell to them but dont save whats in their inventory. The situation you are describing would require the state for the merchant to be saved everytime any player used it in any way - because we wouldnt tolerate these merchants losing our merchandise every reset. Which I'm willing to guess would cause quite a bit of lag. Actually nix my original comment, maybe some of the lag could have been due to this.

So yuh, while it is probably really easy to do.. I doubt we would like the result of all the I/O operations the server would be doing to save state information.

[Wolfarus]

Well, as far as i can logically guess (not being a nwn dev that is) the player tables would use the same save item data script / whatever that the guild chests too. Granted, there would be more tables then there are chests, but thats why not every player was immediately granted a table, so there wouldnt be hundreds of tables cluttering up the server.

If i remember correctly, in the main city (and so the main marketplace) there were around 20-28 tables. The other tables were in the satalite towns, outposts and player-friendly area's.

[Binkyuk]

If the server can handle the extra load (which if put in a special building where the scripts don't run unless someone is there should be possible) and the devs can handle the extra work, I think this is an awesome idea.

The player based economy is a very laudable goal, but you have to admit that 'connecting' of buyers and sellers is a major issue. the DCN trade forum helped but it still doesn't seem to be working too well for crafters selling in bulk, and it's a clunky medium for trade of individual items so not much is moved there either.

I suspect it'd be more difficult here than most places though. Our current 'shop' system allows the trying on of items before you complete the purchase, which helps prevent newbie mistakes. This could make scripting more difficult though, as the preservation of items becomes important when the seller is a player rather than a NPC with an inexhaustible supply.
(an alternative might be to require that the buyer pay for the item, but allow them to sell it back at cost price provided they haven't left the building yet)

I suppose the con is that there's less direct interaction, but the pro is that a lot more economy would actually happen, and it'd be easier for newbies to get goods, as it wouldn't rely on knowing people.

[Qui]

Question is a matter of frequency. Say for instance guild chest storage. These woudl be saved whenever somone itneracted with them, thats fine, 1 per guild.. 2 guilds per faction.. not to bad. But if you have 20 tables.. a eprson looking for a helmet will check everyt able.. then go back through to confirm one more time that the one he IDed as the cheapest really is the cheapest.. it would be hell on the server..

Maybe you should go for an in between step first.. Say.. all items sold to merchants appear in a special chest called "Pawn" or "Secondd hand" or something. These you cna buy for some price less than the ordinary price. This does two thigns.. encourages players to sell low end items and not leave them on the ground. and also creates a way for some items people sell, you know the ones.. imbueed mith .. that you need but can never find.. to be purchased form the second hand section.

[Wolfarus]

Well, the idea could be further modified so to filter out most of the "junk" items that players could very easily find themselves or get from a merchant.

Say that player tables are ONLY for lvl 16 or above items and crafted items. I say this because right now i have a pure fighter who has 1 extra point of skill to play with, after he fills out his usual fighter type skills (disc, conc, heal and lore. lore because i like knowing what stuff is and helping fellow players id their stuff for free ). So i put that extra point into craft traps. While i cant USE the traps i make (not unless im willing to cheapen my core skills to raise my use trap skill) i'll end up being able to make epic lvl traps eventually.

These, i could put on my table as well as any lvl 16 or above loot i have spare. A further rule could be made that only 1 table is allowed per GUILD. This would cut back on the amount of tables out there, while giving us non-guild members a bit of a perk (since guilds get their own storage chests, mules shared among members ect). It would also force the guildmates to talk to eachother and decide what goes on the guild table, and for how much.

Btw, the prices on the tables were set by + / - 100 / 300 / 500 / 1000 gp's i believe.


If we try this idea and it lags the server too much once we have a suffiecient number of tables active (say... 30-50) then we can always drop the idea and go back to the shout channel / forum economy

[Qui]

I would sitll say the primary way to go would be not to have tabels for each player.. but to have a way for pre existing merchants to sell everyones merchandise.. the amoutn you get is whatever they buy it for.. this would be a nice begining way to go towards what u r tlaking about.

[Lorkar1]

Just my two cents, but I think it would add a little more to the game as a community. I would vote for a "NeverSummer Flea Market" in a heartbeat. I would also suggest that it be located in Avendell only, as that is the city of trade. The merchant system I would think would be similar if not the same as the existing system. All in all I think this is something that deserves a serious look.

[CrazyJ]

That assumes that most people want gold for the items they're trying to sell.

If I want gold, I sell it to a merchant. Anything unusual, hard to get, etc., I will normally only TRADE away--ie get something besides gold in return.

[Qui]

Thing is Crazy, I think lots more people would sellunique items to merchants instead of hauling them around.. if everyone was doing it.. it would be a player driven market for the unique items..this is especially improtant in a game like NS which has a large player base, but people who play during opposing time zones and may never be given a chance to trade.

[MLoki]

BTW Guild chests don't store items they only save things from the cleanup script. If you happen to have a crash while transfering or leave something in there during a reset you lose the items. So it would be a completely different set of scripts to run player based merchants.

MLoki

[Qui]

ahh, Thanks Loki, I am unfamiliar with hwo it has been implemented around here.. Really then.. as I said before.. tables are going to be way to computational expensive on a server that already gets hammered.

[kingfatzo]

I think lots more people would sellunique items to merchants instead of hauling them around.. if everyone was doing it...

eh...why dont we have the 'internationale' playing as backround music in avendell....seems a bit idealist -- we have a trading forum as well as the dcn who devotes most of their efforts to gear hoarding and trading.....we also have a trade thread, as well as players who set up 'flea markets' in avendell form time to time......and besides : i like to haul stuff around

this isnt diablo II

i dont think it will be used as often as you all may invision it.....a cool idea yes, but if you have all been fortunate enough to participate in a DM-testing event, i am sure u would all agree that the new planar areas would be worth the devs ongoing effort rather than devoting it to somthing like this.....

my level 40's would sure love some +7 armor

[Qui]

I dont really understand your diabloII comment. Really all the massive power leveling that goes on (myself included) is more reminiscent of diablo 2 than some player trading mechanism would be. Thoguh I agree with you that implementing tables is wasted effort.. Like i said.. easier just to have some wayf or existing merchants to sell thign that are sold to them.