Player Vendors

[Tribble]

How about player "Chests"?
A player could rent(day/week/month) a chest in a merchant area containing:
1. a parchment with player scribed information.
2. 4 or 5 items, maximum.
3. a stack of money.

The parchment could contain a variety of information including:
--The list and decriptions of the items offered with their prices.
--"The item 'X' is reserved for player 'Y' at the agreed on price of 'Z' gold coins."
--Offers to buy items at a set price with the stack of money in the chest.

A gazette compiled from all the parchments could be on display on the website much
like the tradeskills are displayed now.

Of course, this is an Honor-based system, so how do we protect it?
In RP-terms a "Guard" could be posted next to the chests that will remind
passers-by that the guard knows all the contents of all the chests and is
watching everybody. (He/she could also have a continous True Seeing).
Secondly, no Merchant Chests in Hlint. Maybe the closest in Port Hampshire
or Spellgard? I don't know.

The restricted number of items will still mostly force people to arrange
sales in the normal ways instead of "Windowshopping".
The number restriction will also prevent the sale and purchase of raw
materials (except for the hyper-rare/valuable stuff).
And, of course, Merchant Chests are no substitute for houses.

Finally, is all this too complicated?
Here's an easy solution:
Guilds and only guilds are allowed one Player Vendor.

Thanks for all your effort,

-Tribble (playing Snippi Yertendon)

[cappyra]

My take:

Thinks I like:

- As a crafter having a vendor would be great.  My items would be available for purchase 24/7.

- I could make money without being online.

- it would be easier for me to buy the things I need.  I could get them quicker.


Thinks I don't like:

- The role play factor for purchasing and trading items would pretty much be gone for me.  

- In order to consider trades instead of coins, which I do quite a bit, could not be accomplished with a Vendor.

- Initially only established characters would be able to get them.  So I think most people would be inclined to just go to a Vendor instead of hunting down that struggling craftsman that doesn't have the money to buy a vendor and is not on 24/7 to sell his wears.  The struggling craftsman would also have to lower his prices to compete.  The person that can afford the Vendor...  is probably not hurting for coin like the up and coming craftsman who may need to make that sale in order to have the money to continue his craft.  So in this case... the rich will get richer.

- The market could get flooded with items.  On many occasions I trash items.  For example.  I take a shot at creating an exceptional item.  I may make 10 or even 20 of a particular item and not succeed.  Instead of storing them... I trash them.  Even though the market value of the trashed items would be over 100k gold.  Having a vendor might prompt me to just put them there for sale.  Of course vendor space may be limited.. and I do not know what the rules and guidelines might be.


I like the Idea of having a Merchant Fair.  This could totally be done by players.  Simply pick a city, and a time and post it on the Calendar.  It could be monthly or weekly.  I think setting a well known time and place for players to be selling wares would be great!  Spellguard comes to mind for background reasons.  Lots of market booths.

In the Leilon Arms we made a merchant area.  There are four crates and 4 tables.  Weekly I post for vendors to sign up at a table to sell their wares.  It works great!  Merchants just drop their items into the crates for folks to browse.

So...  I would vote NO to Vendors.  YES to player organized merchant fairs and events.

[EdTheKet]

I agree with cappyra, his 'Things I don't like'  outweigh the 'Things I like' in my opinion.

[Force_of_Will_]

I played a Server about 2 years ago that had vendors.
You Purchased the Vendor and Placed him/her.
You were given a Bag(-100%weight/content)
You placed the items you were selling in the bag.
You talked to the vendor and typed a price for each item.
When the item was bought the vendor would take his fee and the rest would be waiting for you.
Since it was only 1 Bag you couldnt have to much to lag the server.

Sorry i dont remember the name of the server and I am not a scripter.
Just telling you there is a system out there like that.

[ZeroVega]

  Personally I like things how they are now. As someone who was very familiar with the Vendor system I didn't like it except for a few times. Some times it was nice to be able to buy a weapon or armor from a vendor but now adays, it's just not necessary.
    People used to use them and oxen for storage but with as many houses as there are and the ability for several people to share a house by making copies of the original key, there's no need for that either.
    I vote to keep it as is.

[steverimmer]

I think player vendors were a great idea especially for those like myself who are in a different timezone to most of the other players.  To illustrate what I mean take a look at the inventories of my characters....since the vendors were taken out of the game all of my characters have very few custom items basically because its been so hard trying to buy them.  So I'd vote for them to be returned to the game.

[Harlas Ravelkione]

Hey Steve! Seek out the two dwarven craftsmen in Fort Llast. They will be able to accommodate any of your needs.

[teefal]

cappyra - 8/22/2005  1:30 PM
I may make 10 or even 20 of a particular item and not succeed.  Instead of storing them... I trash them.  Even though the market value of the trashed items would be over 100k gold.

I vote for "player trashcans", and I want to buy one near Derrick's favorite crafting place.  

[Chrys Ellis]

As someone who was here for V1 and who used the player vendors a lot, I'd like to comment on my experience with them.
[list=1]

• The main problem, at least with my vendor, was people constantly selling crap to them, instead of the pawn shop merchant right outside.  If you remove the ability to sell to player vendors, as G-452 said (Whassup, Enzo?!?!?!), this would solve that problem. If the various merchants won't buy items, it seemsto me player vendors could be set up so they wouldn't buy items from players either.  Now, for me personally, my vendor still had a lot of stuff in his inventory, because I made many leather and hide armors, as well as woodcrafted items, but I cannot count the number of times I went to check my vendor and found a page and a half of barley or some such nonsense in his inventory.
• My experience when player vendors existed was that there was actually MORE interaction between me and other players than before the vendors were around.  Characters I had never seen or spoken to before were seeing things on my vendor, and finding me to either ask about that particular item, or to see if I could make something similar.  And, as others have pointed out, thrre was incentive to seek me out rather than buy from the vendor, because it was substantially cheaper for the buyer.  I believe I discounted items 30% if they bought directly from me. In those cases, the vendors served to point people in the right direction, in terms of who made what.
• If player vendors were only given to shop owners, or something similar, this would GREATLY reduce the lag problem, especially if the vendors would not buy things from PC's. I was originally thinking that they could be included as part of the 'package' when a shop was purchased.  Obviously, owning a shop is no small feat, and people who had made it that far wouldn't need to use the vendor as a means of storage, either.  If there is a concern about too much access to special and magic items, perhaps there could be more than one vendor in a shop, with one vendor selling the more common items, while another would sell the really good stuff, but characters would need special permission (i.e. - lvl req., guild membership or guild granted access, or even class) to buy from him.

 I liked vendors, because it freed me up to make the crafts, and to adventure with other players.  It also allowed for everyone to have access to a multitude of items.  If memory serves, though, most of the high end items I never put on my vendor, because he had the prices all wrong.  Still, if someone saw I was selling malar leather armor, it was quite common for them to approach me and ask if I made higher end items, as well.  So, for my two cents, I'd like to see a return of player vendors, but only if the old problems could be fixed.
    

[Ar7]

I completly agree with Chriss Eliss' second point.

[Diamondedge]

Well, see, when I found my mineral emerald, I realized my life was set on Layo. I don't need to do another thing and Turor can die happy. Cozy in his tax-less house smoking his favorite pipe-leaf. Of course, being the do-gooder he is, he must continue doing... Now I'm rambling.

The thing is, if there were vendors, I would have never sold that emerald. I'm sorely glad I did. It royally ticked someone off, which was almost as worth it as the gold I got for it all.

So. Me = happy without vendors. Turor doesn't craft for money, anyways, he crafts for Dorand's favor. And to help others. Which reminds me, I need to get people together so I can mine some Iron... Hmm.

[Leafgreen]

Chrys Ellis

#2  My experience when player vendors existed was that there was actually MORE interaction between me and other players than before the vendors were around.  Characters I had never seen or spoken to before were seeing things on my vendor, and finding me to either ask about that particular item, or to see if I could make something similar.  And, as others have pointed out, thrre was incentive to seek me out rather than buy from the vendor, because it was substantially cheaper for the buyer.  I believe I discounted items 30% if they bought directly from me. In those cases, the vendors served to point people in the right direction, in terms of who made what.

QFE

[Chrys Ellis]

Diamondedge - 8/23/2005 2:26 AM The thing is, if there were vendors, I would have never sold that emerald.

  Ummm, why not?  When vendors were used, PLENTY of items were still sold directly between players, ESPECIALLY things like that.  The vendors were pretty good about most prices, but completely off on others.  I recall that I never sold malar bags through the vendor, because of that, but I had people approach me to inquire if I made them, because of all the other tailored goods I made.