NPC Shopkeepers

[Polak76]

Greetings all.

I love the idea of setting up a market place where one could create a NPC as a shopkeeper and load them with items that their PC’s have crafted and wish to sell.  
I think this has been discussed before and comments such as lag and RP interface were huge points.

Well to work on the lag issue, perhaps we could set up an alternate market server that can be entered from numerous points over the continents…eg, a tent in Hlint could be set up and when you walk in you are transferred to a separate server and unique area that is one huge hall with many NPC’s representing guilds and factions.
These tents could be all over the continent, all bringing you to the same area.
To access the NPC shopkeepers, a specified PC(s) would have a token or badge that enables them to sell/buy at zero cost.  This is strictly to alter the inventory only.  Secondly the appropriate PC(s) could also draw from a pool of gold that the shopkeeper sums over time.  We could also have that every transaction a player makes is taxed by the server thus reducing the surplus of gold from the world.  We could assume that this tax is due to fees for employment, rent and advertising.

As to RP interface, well there really is no way to remedy this.  In truth is does take a little away from bartering/haggling, however, one can still discuss their wares in game – eg “Go visit my shop keeper Joe and ask for that iron shield you’re after”…etc.

I’m only keen on this idea since myself and most of my mates don’t get online much, and when we do it’s at the good ole Aussie time with hardly anyone around.  
Secondly I’ve used this system on other servers and it seemed to work well.

I do enjoy crafting and besides my uncanny ability to roll chains of 1’s I find it relaxing in some bizarre way.  I’m simply hoping for another means to sell items and in the same token purchase them.  


Cheers,
Polak76

[Weeblie]

I'm staying neutral on this matter for now, but, one thing popped up in my mind:

Servers cost money.

[Polak76]

very true.

I'm not an IT expert but would naturally opt for any non-financial fixes.  Firstly though I'm interested to see how others feel about he idea.

Cheers,
Polak76

[Guardian 452]

We had player vendors in the last version of Layonara and in the begenning of this version.

They were an EXELLENT source of income for a player who couldnt be "in game" all hours of the day to meet with players from odd time zones (compared to their own).

The problem became lag... people loading up player vendors with 345 salts, and 128 stirge feathers. When a player vendor's inventory was accessed we were getting lag pauses upwards of 5 minutes!!!! We even had a DM (that would have been me) in charge of inspecting and cleaning the vendors daily (thats how badly I wanted them to say in game)..... but it wasnt enough, like with many things the few ruined it for the whole. Thanks to people abusing the system, and the player vendors themselves having bugs (and not priority enough since they werent a key thing in the world). Player vendors were sacked about 2 years ago or so.


Since that time the topic has been brought up now and then (I did a search seems the last good discussion was too long ago to find).


In the last talk the majority decided that it wasnt in the nature of RP to have these vendors, everyone wanted face to face transastions. Even though many said the stores were like a convienence store... yes you can buy it RIGHT NOW, but it will cost you more,  and if you want a better deal send a letter to the store owner, 9 times out of 10 they would cut you a deal.


I'd still love to see player vendors brought back to Layo, but so long as they cause even a half second of lag, and are not bug free.... it will never happen.

and considering the amount of people that said no last time, their is no way L is gonna pony up more money for a whole nother server for something the majority doesnt think they want.

G-452

[Leanthar]

On the point of servers, upgrades and their costs.

I am not going to spend any more money on servers or server upgrades. I had a server upgrade drive that ended a few weeks ago. It was in place for about 4-5 months. It raised around $2,500 (a fair sum yes) but the server upgrade cost $5500 which meant I came up with $3,000 of my own money..... So yeah, I’m not going to do that again. I already sink a lot of money in to hosting the eight servers every single month and I can't sink any more money in to server upgrades. When 1,250-1,500 people in the community can only come up with $2,500 of the needed $5,500 it does wonders of putting me in to the frame of mind of “I’m not going to do that again”.

Not a complaint at all mind you...just stating how things work with donations. Donations do not work very well in the long run or bigger scope of all things considered/compared. I am also letting everybody know that there will be no more server upgrades in the foreseeable future.