The Great NPC Merchant Debate

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by Sorgin Txakal, Mar 11, 2021.

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  1. Wilfred

    Wilfred Avatar

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    -
    Before removing all the vegetables from NPC merchants, it would be nice to have a few things in place to make buying and selling easier on player vendors:

    - Some sort of player vendor search system
    - The ability to buy and sell partial stacks on player vendors
    - The ability to change prices without removing and readding the listing

    There are other vendor UI improvements that would be nice as well, but those are the main ones.

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    More info on vendor UI improvement for partial stacks:

    Please Let Players Buy and Sell Partial Stacks on Vendors
    https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/f...uy-and-sell-partial-stacks-on-vendors.165516/

    ---

    More info on vendor UI improvement for price changes:

    - About 01:09:15, voice question, and answer by Atos:
    When you make the UI changes to vendors, will you improve the vendor UI so prices can be changed without having to remove the items and relist them?

    Atos joining the BMC guild meeting for some Q&A!
    https://www.twitch.tv/videos/940915411

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  2. Anpu

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    In the last 90 days the following was purchased by NPC's (provided the data on Sotagraphs is correct):

    3.93 Mil Coal
    2.47 Mil Black Pearl
    1.47 Mil Wax
    1.52 Mil Corpse Wax
    982K Mandrake Root
    716K Spider Silk
    678K Garlic
    530K Pecan Nuts
    450K Salt
    184K Nightshade
    122K Serpent Scales
    81.5K Carrot
    69.4K Onion
    68.5K Cinnamon Bark
    60.5K Potato
    59.9 Egg
    25.5K Tomato

    I'm honestly shocked by these numbers. But not at all surprised.

    We are going to need one HELL of a coal and wax dungeon to even remotely supply people of New Britannia ;)
     
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  3. Cora Cuz'avich

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    Well, I can't imagine they'd stop selling coal and wax.
     
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  4. Anpu

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    Yeah for now that’s probably going to be an npc gold sink.

    The black pearls probably shouldn’t be, but they are currently....

    Also Corpse Wax? That was surprising.....
     
  5. Lained

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    Here's me sitting on a nice stock of fruit and veg. Though I am responsible for a small portion of the pecans.
     
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  6. Ysold

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    Very surprising, @Anpu !
    Does the "Salt" include Curing salt? Otherwise, I would have thought that Sugar, Sacks of Wheat and Milk would score high in de lists too (pie dough, my nemesis).
     
  7. Anpu

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    The name they use in the API it completely vague. I don’t actually know what that is.
     
  8. Atticus Gryphonheart

    Atticus Gryphonheart Legend of the Hearth

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    just a side note...I havent read all the post yet...but i do see something leading to the unintended consequences. I current have my main dwelling in an NPC town since persistence that not really a popular town either, but I picked because of location to my need to mine gold. There are not many other players in this town, so I find myself using the NPC vendors from time to time rather than leave to try and wade through the various vendors in a town nearby.

    I do have a 2nd home in a PoT, and shop from those vendors when I know I plan to craft that day, but I want to craft at my main home.

    The unintended consequence is that removing some of these vendors will lead to further abandonment of underutilized towns. When all of the sudden I run out of mandrake for instant, rather than drop everything and go to nearest town...i slowly creep to the reagent npc and buy (due to convience).

    I will have to abandon my town, and probably find a PoT to move my keep, something i really dont want to do.
     
  9. Atticus Gryphonheart

    Atticus Gryphonheart Legend of the Hearth

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    Easy to solve. Let us raise bees to create wax (a different form of farming...animal husbandry...can also introduce aquaculture...maybe even raise pearls, some bait fish, worms, and crickets...all done in the real world)

    For coal...while can add mines....also could have us burn tree, bury the coals to form charcoal...and maybe combine four chunks of charcoal to produce coal.

    Produce salt, let us draw up buckets of salt water and let it evaporate (brewing??)

    The latter element...you add a time element to make difficult to produce and thus justify cost...i.e to make charcoal...gotta bury for "x" number of game days. Evaporation to create salt..in a special container in "x" days. Still can make a gold sink while allowing us to make and sell

    My 2 cents
     
    Last edited: Mar 12, 2021
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  10. Dartan Obscuro

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    It would be cool if commodity goods listed on public or private vendors show up on the related NPC in the town i.e. I list my potatoes on my vendor and they also list on the local farmer NPC vendor.
     
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  11. AzazelReborn

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    The reason for people buying from a NPC is because we do not have a global vendor search in the game. If you want to buy 100k garlic and you need it in the next 5 minutes where would you go to get it or would you need to beg on trade chat or spend 24 hours running from town to town to find such quantity?
     
  12. Lained

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    D'Laein's Farm Shop on Novia Market ;) I'd start with the top most popular trade player owned towns that are centered around Brittany, some have dedicated vendors for particular items so takes only a few minutes to find what you're after, the in game trade channel will usually find you a source if not directions to a stocked vendor. Also the discord trade channel is a good option too. I'd be surprised if anyone could make use of 100,000 garlic in such a short order but there's a number of farmers that could grow that amount for you in a day or so, myself included and you'll usually save yourself at least half your gold. Make use of the community knowledge we're happy to help.

    Avatar: D'Laein Lachlan
     
    Last edited: Mar 12, 2021
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  13. AzazelReborn

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    Your the lady to go to for farm goods. Nice to know. I will contact you soon, hope your name is the same as in-game because people are going to need you more if this change goes in.
     
  14. Anpu

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    If they intend to pull the ability to sell commodity items to NPC’s as a way to make gold and then switch to selling them to players for best gold price, we are possibly going to have to have a global commodity listing. Just for basic commodities. Nothing else.
     
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  15. majoria70

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    This is very interesting and I am so in agreement that to pull it off we need the groundwork layed out first.

    -global search for who sells

    -resource availabity thought out

    (I liked the ideas on ability of farming black pearl etc from @Atticus Gryphonheart). Great ideas.

    -also more than ever we do need our journal to give game information on questing and what this game offers. An improved journal system was always on the to-do list.

    -we'll definitely need more vendor tools. ( Remember in UO buying those bags of reagents) I really want that feature as you can tell

    Anyway if you've played games like Gorgon and Legends of Aria this is what scarcity looks like. Some won't like it and it can only done if implemented correctly covering all bases. We have to feed the masses and we also have to give them the tools and knowledge at the beginning of their experience with the game. *Hit J for journal for more information, Coming Soon* well here's hoping ;)

    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]
     
    Last edited: Mar 18, 2021
  16. Lazlo

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    I like the idea of players producing things exclusively where possible, but I don't like the idea of having to grow vegetables for something as basic as casting spells. It also just wouldn't add up as is.

    One step that might help would be to start reworking spell reagents so that there are reagents used only for spells instead of a bunch of other stuff like cooking, alchemy, etc. Then it'd be easier to make more things player produced only without wrecking magic.
     
  17. SmokerKGB

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    This is a recipe for disaster.... It WILL cause hipper inflation on anything that can't be bought from a NPC vendor...

    The NPC vendors in the game cause "competition" and keep prices low (for any new player this is key), since the player can always go to a NPC to purchase quantities of resources for Brewing... If the player can't do that, they're forced to "grow" their own or purchase from high priced player NPCs and of course the added expense gets passed to the consumer...

    I would much rather talk about ways to limit wealth in the game because continually pumping gold into the economy is Bad for the economy... So, why is there gold in the drop tables of every high end critter? My answer is: it's always been done this way, probably from player outcries... There needs to be more artifacts, more parts of artifacts, more resources, maybe put more "produce" in stack of 20+... The loot can be converted to gold if you wish, but not 1200 per...

    I hate reading threads like this because it just satisfies the wealthy...
     
  18. SmokerKGB

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    I support a "Global" marked place, this stimulates competition between players...
     
  19. Atticus Gryphonheart

    Atticus Gryphonheart Legend of the Hearth

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    I do agree to a point with what smoker says here. One of the original things I liked about NPC was that it set a limit on pricing for certain commodities.

    It became up to the producer to set a price between the npc sell and buy point to attempt to make a profit. I havent done the math...so cant say this is completely true...but if you put in actual cost to buy seeds to produce say mandrake, add your own "hourly cost" for time it takes, I believe in most instances a player can still make a profit. The argument of course is whether they feel the time and that profit margin is worth it.

    The choice for the consumer is to look for a producer or go to an NPC merchant and pay the highest cost artificially placed as price control for certain consumables. This way, while the economy is still mostly player controlled, there are stops.

    Without a NPC system, it is possible for the formation of "cartels". Certain groups could be selling Mandrake at a set price and get peeps used to buying from them..first by offering everywhere they have at by selling close to a loss and flood the market, but then later cranking up the price after peeps get used to buying from them and noone else bothers to produce said item since they cant compete against them. You kind of see that in the COTO market.

    By having NPC merchants, certain commodity markets can be controled by developer. If they start seeing certain merchandise not being produced or overly produced by players, they can adjust the NPC pricing for the object to encourage production or curtail production and stabilize prices for the more ubiquitous commodities.
     
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  20. SmokerKGB

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    WoW, I had to go back and re-read everything, what was interesting was the quantity of reagents being sold to NPC vendors being in the millions AND now the price will double, then the items won't be available from NPC vendors any longer...

    This makes no freaking sense at all: double the price so everyone can make a killing just before you eliminate it all together...

    I remember a time when supply/demand mattered, in fact you guys made an "algorithm" that would adjust the selling price as stock went down(or bought completely), the next time the item spawned the price would be higher than the last time... The problem you had was you only put it on "fuels" needed for crafting AND it didn't work when selling to an NPC, it only worked when you purchased from an NPC...

    If we are only talking "produce" then I won't panic yet, but this does seem like the game is turning...

    Can someone please explain the problem to me? I'm not really getting why this change is needed... Is it because too much gold is being pumped into the game? or are you trying to stimulate the players to sell these commodities? This will cause hyper pricing, as 1 player said earlier, when I need 100k of mandrake, where can I go?

    So, I can imagine this will be detrimental for alchemists as they are the only ones I can imagine would need 100k of any reagent...
     
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