AMIA ARCHIVE • View topic

Ah, my apologies for miseading.

corypx wrote:

NinjaClarinet wrote:

I bet you say the same thing about being level 30 too. Huzzah entitlement.

more like how life works..... do you apply for a job work there for 1 year then bitch about not making the same a person who has been there for 30years?

some people have been here for years, play one characters and hunt, why should a person who has been here for 3 months has 4 characters and sits in cordor all day get jack.

they allready added in the job system with EXP for all the people who dont want to hunt and i'm sorry but picking flowers and fruit would not make you a better caster but they gave it to people anyway.

you dont hunt your entitlement is to the zero amount of EXP and gold you got sitting play amia the NWN chat room.

actually if I am working the same job as someone whos been there for 30 years and am as productive as them I'd absolutely bitch if I'm getting paid less. Pay should be based on your input to the company, just as gold should be based on your willingness to grind not on how long you've been around.

This suggestion and attitude just stinks of a very pervasive thing I have experienced on this server, the old players wanting to have and keep every little advantage over new players no matter the cost. It can be seen in the 'find out IC' to questions that would be assumed general knowledge or are wanted for character bio creation and yet those same people who say that create a new char and immediately hit all the juicy levelling spots with them without finding out about them IC with their new char. But then double standards like that are unfortunately part of the human condition.

Vhalus_VoA wrote:

actually if I am working the same job as someone whos been there for 30 years and am as productive as them I'd absolutely bitch if I'm getting paid less. Pay should be based on your input to the company, just as gold should be based on your willingness to grind not on how long you've been around.

thast kind of poor logic because if you both have the same will to grind and hes been here 4 years longer then you, yes he will have more gold, its why people who are older offen have more money in thier savings account then someone who just got out of high school.

Except, Cory, they don't have a ridiculously greater amount of money than the new graduate, because they actually have to spend their money on things like food, housing, insurance, transportation, you name it. They'll have more money from what profits they do save, but in most cases, that is not an incredible amount of money.

In Amia, there are very few expenses, and what expenses there are can quite easily be mitigated by profits, for those that know how to efficiently farm. Amia's economy is broken for two reasons: farming dungeons is possible, and expenses are few. Until you are willing to make Amia's economy more realistic, you cannot fairly apply real-world common sense.

Logicality wrote:

Except, Cory, they don't have a ridiculously greater amount of money than the new graduate, because they actually have to spend their money on things like food, housing, insurance, transportation, you name it. They'll have more money from what profits they do save, but in most cases, that is not an incredible amount of money.

In Amia, there are very few expenses, and what expenses there are can quite easily be mitigated by profits, for those that know how to efficiently farm. Amia's economy is broken for two reasons: farming dungeons is possible, and expenses are few. Until you are willing to make Amia's economy more realistic, you cannot fairly apply real-world common sense.

yes on amia we all have the same expenses, heal potions and buff potions, and my point was a new person can reach the gold that older players have they just have to farm for it like how the person got it in the first place.

...so you're saying that everything's fine and fair because everybody is free to farm? That's like saying that it's fair to kill people without an IC reason because everybody has the mechanical ability to do so.

How can you play on a roleplay server and seriously think that farming is supposed to happen?

Quote:

actually if I am working the same job as someone whos been there for 30 years and am as productive as them I'd absolutely bitch if I'm getting paid less.

Do.. you know how RL tends to work? J/s.

corypx wrote:

NinjaClarinet wrote:

I bet you say the same thing about being level 30 too. Huzzah entitlement.

more like how life works..... do you apply for a job work there for 1 year then bitch about not making the same a person who has been there for 30years?

some people have been here for years, play one characters and hunt, why should a person who has been here for 3 months has 4 characters and sits in cordor all day get jack.

they allready added in the job system with EXP for all the people who dont want to hunt and i'm sorry but picking flowers and fruit would not make you a better caster but they gave it to people anyway.

you dont hunt your entitlement is to the zero amount of EXP and gold you got sitting play amia the NWN chat room.

So this is the second thread I've seen where you hate on people for joining later. Not to put too fine a point on it, but that smacks of elitism.

corypx wrote:

thast kind of poor logic because if you both have the same will to grind and hes been here 4 years longer then you, yes he will have more gold, its why people who are older offen have more money in thier savings account then someone who just got out of high school.

Do. Not. Care.
If I'm putting in the same amount of work as someone who's been here four years, I expect to have the same opportunity to profit as they do based on my work. Since it's a strict "kill X get gold" system, that much is not a problem- don't even try to blather about more opportunities or privileges to an older worker, everyone has the same access to the shops and dungeons as you and thus there are no inherent privileges to being older aside from more time to amass wealth. I know it's not a correlation with real life- but once you can draw a direct correlation between time here and some sort of inherent right to more money, I'll happily concede the point.

Long story short, if I am putting out the same effort as you in a situation where efforts pay off equally, such as in the dungeon, it's little short of asinine to claim that mere age should make a difference.

corypx wrote:

the monsters droping the gold is not the problem its the monster droping that spear that the NPC will buy off you for 40k.

quick and easy way, cap NPC buy value.

And how, pray tell, does this solve the expressed issue of players with stupidly large gold reserves? Every post I seem to read from you has an idea centered on making it harder for other players to catch up to you, not deflating the economy. Real-world economies have proven time and again that the only effective way to get the rich to give up money is to provide goods or services that they want or need- lavish hotel rooms, rhino-skin footstools, stupidly expensive crap. Almost all suggestions so far are "Take money by force" or "Don't let people GET money". The former will cause massive ragequit, the latter will affect the new players and leave the old richer than ever before and the economy even more skewed. Thus, the second option is not only bad, it's ridiculously bad. Reducing NPC buy prices with no other measures does jack squat aside from broaden the gulf between the rich and the poor.

Any measure must inherently be something the rich will spend money on and want to spend money on and that will not remove money from the poor or less rich as quickly as it will from the insanely rich. That is literally the only way this can be dealt with without ragequitting or further economy screwage. And while some might be fine with having a bunch of players leave, I'm well aware of the dearth of servers out there and the fact that Amia is one of the last bastions of the game. I would rather keep the player count high and hope to develop some of the immature potential ragequitters into good players than simply provide a reason for them to throw up their hands and go play Starcraft II instead.

All players, both young and old, should be treasured. Treating people poorly because they're newer, because they're richer, because they're poorer, whatever the reason is completely unacceptable. Do note that I said poorly, not 'differently'. I didn't say you had to like them, but they should at least get the time of day rather than a dismissal for not being here XYZ years.

Well said Ace.

corypx wrote:

Rotkreuz wrote:

To keep gold from coming in, you need to have monsters strop dropping gold. Why the hell does a swamp dog need gold? I've never seen it in the market square, and it will never go there becuase it lives in a swamp.

the monsters droping the gold is not the problem its the monster droping that spear that the NPC will buy off you for 40k.

quick and easy way, cap NPC buy value.

To increase the value of gold on this server, it needs to be harder to acquire. Instead of outright nuking peoples treasure, Capping NPC buy values and other such, make the monsters stop dropping as much gold.

Gold is absolutely WORTHLESS because you can go out, smack a kobold in the face and he'll drop a few gold doubloons. While in a SINGLE PLAYER game, where the economy is not too important, being able to amass wealth by cutting bushes, lifting rocks and slaying monsters is completely acceptable, because the PC is the only person stimulating whatever fantasy economy there is.

However, in a multiplayer, persistent world server that has a single-player oriented economy, things can go awry when smacking monsters is the only way to make money. That's the root of the problem right there.

What about increasing the Gold you get from killing each Dog/Mylock/Dragon?

You know, Each time you kill something you're getting ~60-120 GP.
Raise that bar a little, then Effort = Profit

Instead of Effort = Luck = Profit

I know people who have been playing here for years and have no gold because they dont hunt so a newer person could get more gold then them.

but if lets say you play 24 hours a day 7 days a week and make 1mil a day. and one person had played for a year so has 365mil and one person has played for half that time so has 182.5mil

now why should the older person not have more gold, they put in the same effert of work one had just been here longer its just how things work, are you going to say people should get all thier DC items and DCs removed as well because its not fair for the new people?

how about this logic if older people cant have more money then newer people newer people cant have more money then older people, so then if the older person on the server has a total of 10k gold, noone can go over 10k gold because thats not fair......

Very_Svensk wrote:

What about increasing the Gold you get from killing each Dog/Mylock/Dragon?

You know, Each time you kill something you're getting ~60-120 GP.
Raise that bar a little, then Effort = Profit

Instead of Effort = Luck = Profit

If you're trying to deflate the economy, whyever would you increase the rate at which gold is entering?

No single idea here has been the solution. You need to get gold OUT of the economy, and stifle the flow back in.

Drop the amount monsters drop by 1/4 (not ridiculous, but enough to make a little impact), put a cap on the amount NPC's will buy for, with epic appraise skills increasing this cap a little bit, perhaps.

The Black Caravan did a WONDERFUL job as a goldsink. Whenever it pulled into town, there was a HUGE line to buy their stuff, which was all pretty expensive. The only problem is that the items they provided were powerful enough (thus worth buying) that you could farm back your expenses and more before they ran out of uses.

The items were actually too cheap to do REAL damage to any goldflow, but the point was to make it so that people who weren't farming day and night could have access to the gear too.

corypx wrote:

I know people who have been playing here for years and have no gold because they dont hunt so a newer person could get more gold then them.

but if lets say you play 24 hours a day 7 days a week and make 1mil a day. and one person had played for a year so has 365mil and one person has played for half that time so has 182.5mil

now why should the older person not have more gold, they put in the same effert of work one had just been here longer its just how things work, are you going to say people should get all thier DC items and DCs removed as well because its not fair for the new people?

how about this logic if older people cant have more money then newer people newer people cant have more money then older people, so then if the older person on the server has a total of 10k gold, noone can go over 10k gold because thats not fair......

No, no, I agree with you on this point- if someone's been here longer they have every right to have more money if they've made the effort to do so. That's just simple capitalism. My beef is with reducing the input without stimulating outflow since it'll impact the rate at which everyone can get money and thus make gold more valuable, vastly increasing the relative wealth of the already-rich. It's like lowering the minimum wage; only those at the bottom are hurt because those at the top are already rich or otherwise unaffected.

Now, because I'm an idiot I'm going to go ahead and present a comprehensive plan to bring gold levels within sensible bounds. I doubt it'll be taken up as a plan since there's way too much contentious in it, but I'm a moron in professor mode at the moment.

Problem 1: Excess gold inflow.
Solution: Reduce gold inflow by setting a buy cap on merchants and eliminating GP earned when killing monsters. This is unannounced and goes into place about two months after everything else so that people won't hoard in expectation of it.

Problem 2: Excess gold stores.
Solution Part 1: Gambling system that doesn't give anything better than what is available ingame, but rather produces at the high end either (a) low to middling-quality yellow loot, (b) epic drops from current dungeons, and (c) random creations that can be legitimately made with the mythal crafting system. Does not put something 'new' into the system and create a new good for which an astronomical price will be set.

Solution Part 2: Uncap gold loss on respawn.

Solution Part 3: Allow gold transfer between characters on an account.

Solution Part 4: Allow gold to be melted down and used for several job skills (10,000 gp produces one brick of gold or something) and enforce the "if you want gold door knockers on your house you'd best have some gold handy" thing in the build rules.

Solution Part 5: Create an NPC that can recharge magical items for a cost. Higher levels and older players are much more likely to have magical charge items, so will proportionately spend more.

Problem 3: Excess item stores.

Solution Part 1: Create a store that has a variety of items but only extends store credit based on items sold to the store. Players must 'sell' their stuff to the store to buy items, and can't just come in with a heap of gold. Items below a certain level do not count towards store credit.

Solution Part 2: Create a reforging or re-enchanting method that mix-matches two items into one while keeping it below unbalancing levels. Might not be scriptable, but I'm not entirely in my right mind (as evidenced by me wasting my time on this) so I'll suggest it anyway.

Solution Part 3: Rust Monsters. This part is obvious.

Would it be easier to just go "10,000 gold on entry for everyone, end of story"? Hell yes. It's infinitely simpler. And Occam's Razor states it's the better solution. However, I don't think it will create an effective or lasting solution and in the end be so insanely invasive that a lot of people will simply ragequit. I wish we could nuke everyone's inventory and go from scratch, but I doubt we can really honestly do that without creating a total PR nightmare.

Honestly, Tormak's solutions are the simplest and in a perfect world I'd be on them like a hobo on a ham. Unfortunately, most do not see the opportunity the same way.

[/hijack]

Ace of Swords wrote:

Problem 3: Excess item stores.

Solution Part 1: Create a store that has a variety of items but only extends store credit based on items sold to the store. Players must 'sell' their stuff to the store to buy items, and can't just come in with a heap of gold.

Well, you wouldn't be able to do that with a standard merchant setup, you'd need to stow things in a container and then talk to the merchant. Items to buy would need to be added as conversation options. Effectively it's like giving a particular area its own money system, independent of GP.

Quote:

Solution Part 3: Allow gold transfer between characters on an account.

Muling, metagaming, twinking, nonsensical, I can go on and on.

Quote:

Solution Part 5: Create an NPC that can recharge magical items for a cost. Higher levels and older players are much more likely to have magical charge items, so will proportionately spend more.

Broken as hell. Magic electrifiers and charge-adders don' belong on Amia, simply due to how we create our charged items.

TormakSaber wrote:

Quote:

actually if I am working the same job as someone whos been there for 30 years and am as productive as them I'd absolutely bitch if I'm getting paid less.

Do.. you know how RL tends to work? J/s.

The sort of loyalty system where someone is paid more purely based on years worked rather than contribution is a very old style that exists only in stagnating companies that are slowly dying and is part of why they're slowly dying.

fact is if you have a smart boss you can go up to him and show him evidence of your input compared to those in your team and if it is equal or greater he has no reason not to match their pay dollar for dollar.

But personally I contract, why get paid the same amount as someone who does the same job as me when I can get paid twice as much because I'm filling short term holes and key skill shortages.

Howabout have every merchant rip you off for more of a percentage, and have heal potions cost 10 times more.

Ace of Swords wrote:

Solution: Reduce gold inflow by setting a buy cap on merchants and eliminating GP earned when killing monsters.

Solution Part 1: Gambling system

Solution Part 2: Uncap gold loss on respawn.

Solution Part 4: Allow gold to be melted down

Solution Part 5: Create an NPC that can recharge magical items for a cost.

Solution Part 1: Create a store that has a variety of items but only extends store credit based on items sold to the store.

Solution Part 2: Create a reforging or re-enchanting method

Some interesting ideas there. The gold transfer between PCs is out, as Tormak said. If he says recharging wont work, I'm inclined to believe him - aside from "it's broken", I think it would cause balance issues as some items may have been purposely made with charges rather than uses/day. The buy cap and the uncapped loss on respawn are easy to implement and affect everybody equally. The gambling and 'melting down' options would provide additional gold sinks for those who are inclined to use them.

The job system aside, preventing gold drops from monsters means that cash will come only from items found, and if there's a merchant buy cap (eg. 5K) then higher-level areas will be farmed only for xp or the chance of getting items from the higher loot bins. Most people needing quick cash will simply run through areas with lots of low-level spawns a few times because it's fast and pretty much guaranteed non-lethal. Then they'll go to the stores, sell their +1 or +2 loot and hope to buy the high end stuff that other players have sold. On the other hand, if you set the merchant buy rate at, say, 10% of the item value (and the sell rate at 200%), subject to appraise modifications, people will still run those higher areas because the items will sell for more. Oh, and people will spend more skill points on appraise if it means the difference between 10% and 20%. Merchants could also possibly be rejigged to be more affected by social skills (persuade, bluff, intimidate) too, making those skills slightly more useful in game.

I like the idea of 1) no gold drops 2) uncapped 10-20% gold loss on respawn (and autorespawn if you log in dead), and 3) 10/200% buy/sell percentages for merchants combined with my own suggestions for a tax/earnings system (naturally :wink:

).

Quote:

If he says recharging wont work, I'm inclined to believe him - aside from "it's broken", I think it would cause balance issues as some items may have been purposely made with charges rather than uses/day.

That *is* why it's broken.

TormakSaber wrote:

Quote:

If he says recharging wont work, I'm inclined to believe him - aside from "it's broken", I think it would cause balance issues as some items may have been purposely made with charges rather than uses/day.

That *is* why it's broken.

just so people know how broken it would have been, at the Nes'ek event I found a gem that had epic mummydust with 5 charges on it, now its not over powered because you could only use it 5 times but if I could recharge it that would be broken.

Remember when Disco said he was going to try out a HAK, there was a test server open so everyone could see how the new stuff looked. I think that helped to ease the apprehension of such a major change.

In my opinion, it would be helpful to fire it up again sometime and see some of the suggested ideas in action. Unless of course you've all decided unanimously on the ones you want.

If nothing else, it'll give you more facts to bring to this discussion. If nobody logs into the test server for example, you'll know that nobody can be bothered to back up their words and actually try to embrace change. If the test server is always full and people complain that they can't get in, you'll know that the opposite is true.

Obviously, it's not as simple as throwing together a module with all the cool tilesets, creatures and objects. But I do think that it may be worth a look.

Goddamnit.

All suggestions are ...Messy.
Hell, In comparison the current system seems like a god-sent gift.

I have suggested on several occasions to cap NPC merchants maximum buying price at 5-10k, like Tristana of Waukeen. I think it's cleaner, and more players might sell their items to other PCs. We could also make items in the lootbin more useful this way, without worrying that their sale-price is too lucrative.

Capping merchants' lootbuy price decreases the value of gold, not the other way around.

Most people are far too lazy to try to sell non-epic (and even some epic) loot to other PC's. This won't change that; it will just mean gold is concentrated on even fewer PC's.

762 wrote:

Capping merchants' lootbuy price decreases the value of gold, not the other way around.

Explain how that would work, please? Selling items off is probably the largest source of "Free Gold" on the server.

Leggomi Eggolas wrote:

762 wrote:

Capping merchants' lootbuy price decreases the value of gold, not the other way around.

Explain how that would work, please? Selling items off is probably the largest source of "Free Gold" on the server.

I think he's getting at the fact that capping the amount of gold you receive from merchants would make the Amian economy even more item-based than it is.

Well when Cory mentioned that things were messed up because you can sell items to an NPC for forty thousand GP each, I was thinking of a fairly relaxed cap of about 30000 GP per item to start off with. It doesn't make it so hard to get gold flowing that it's useless for transactions, yet doesn't reward the sale of expensive stuff to NPCs so much.

Alternatively if you want strict caps like 5-10K from the get-go, you might look at making certain merchants with more money to offer per item, if you complete a quest for them. That way, you can open up your gold-earning potential as your character progresses.

Quote:

I think he's getting at the fact that capping the amount of gold you receive from merchants would make the Amian economy even more item-based than it is.

I disagree. Gold is not routinely traded because it is not valuable. Gold is not valuable because it is too readily available. Gold is too readily available because a disparity exists between PC income and PC expenditures.

Currently the primary goldsink seems to be consumable items: (Potions, wands, scrolls, charged items) and the sources of income (Job System Gold, Monster Gold, Loot Sale). Loot sale is the most prominent source of income, since later-end lootbin items easily outpace the cost of adventuring far more than early-game items.

Merely wiping gold to a certain extent just means the same situation will arise again in a month. Adding new expensive consumable items to stores, making consumable items more expensive, or adding more drains and mandatory expenses to the PC is the only way to give actual significance to the GP.

The Rentable Houses were a step in the right direction. Changing the inn-rooms to rentable would be another beneficial addition.

Because I've seen it before on other servers. If you eliminate income, you eliminate the value of the currency it is based on. It's basic economics. All currency value is in perception.

It will just take Tormak's "have and have not" rant and make it a reality by removing the one means for the have-nots to compete in the economy.

And yes it will become 100% item-based at that point. Contrary to the belief of some gold still does have value. I buy and sell epic loot all the time.

You buy and sell via your OOC network of farming buddies.

what about consumable prices that go up (Exponentially) as you level up?

That has already been suggested 3 times and had it explained 3 times as to hwy it doesn't work. And that's just this topic.

MoshingChris wrote:

You buy and sell via your OOC network of farming buddies.

I don't even have one. So no, try again.

Leggomi Eggolas wrote:

Adding new expensive consumable items to stores, making consumable items more expensive.

kind of like the BlackCaravan consumable stuff but will not be a random event and have prices increased by about 100%-200%?

762 wrote:

Because I've seen it before on other servers. If you eliminate income, you eliminate the value of the currency it is based on. It's basic economics. All currency value is in perception.

Fairly useless items will still be sold off, and even 10k is still a respectable sum per item. There is still a source of income. Far from eliminating income.

Gold will -always- have value and the same value we set, to NPCs. There is no fluctuation of price for essential services.

Why not stick another drain on gold?

A new potion shop with higher level potions in (Longer duration and harder to dispel) but for an exponentially increased gold cost.

It wouldn't render the old potions obselete, wouldn't be imbalancing (Most of the important buffs could still be breached just the same by mages) and would get rid of alot of gold, on the grounds that people with aload of gold might relish the opportunity to not have to quaff a potion every other minute.

Could even have very expensive attribute buff potions, which -always- +5 the attribute, making those who quaff 10 or so, just to get the max score happy.

Again, it gives nothing 'extra' so to speak, just saves some time, at the cost of alot of gold.

That doesn't work with the superrich around, and it's a bit unbalancing for the server. More than a bit. The ideas are nice though. When you get an idea that can drain 100, 150, 200 millio quickly and without any more impact than a DM declares it has, let us know?

I'm not saying that it'd just fix the problem straight away - anything that would, would be imbalancing.

(Since someone would need to amass large quantities of gold to be on a par with those that already have it)

But, over time it'll surely have an effect, albeit a longer period of time for th super rich. More importantly though it stops the problem becoming more prevalent.

As another idea, perhaps the home citys/towns whatever, put a Robin Hood type tax on their residents. Over a certain amount of gold, and you're taxed for all gold you receive (Whether from selling things or just killing things). It could be ramped up to 100% for the super-super rich.

Remove the cap on respawn gold loss, and apply the gold penalty additionally to being raised from the dead, split between the caster/user and the person being raised. Makes it so the only real benefit to being raised is keeping one's XP.

The problem with specific gold sinks is that not everyone goes for them. I don't rent houses, I don't buy all that many potions - my personal gold sink is the dozen or so Sharessan items I can spawn and the 1 M gp I pay every 6mo or so to have Mikey shout about the Temple of Love in Cordor square. Whatever you pick as a gold sink, some people will avoid it unless it applies across the board, which is why I suggest a tax system - it gets everyone, every time, without favouritism or exception. Yes, some people could argue that "my character wouldn't spend that much on living expenses", but your character may very well spend it on other things (donations, gifts to family, etc.). It's no more unrealistic than charging 1000 gp for a slice of quiche at the Nomad and it's democratic (or totalitarian, depending on your point of view).

I'll also repeat: uncapped 10% gold loss on respawn (20% for max ECL), merchants purchase at 10% of value and sell at 200% (adjustable by Appraise)

What if a script was applied to merchants that monitored their income of gold relative to their payout? Meaning that a merchant wouldn't give you 45,000 gold if he hadn't brought in x amount already, he'd only give you 10k. This would eliminate the merchant's bottomless gold supply.

ainjyll wrote:

What if a script was applied to merchants that monitored their income of gold relative to their payout? Meaning that a merchant wouldn't give you 45,000 gold if he hadn't brought in x amount already, he'd only give you 10k. This would eliminate the merchant's bottomless gold supply.

easy to buypass by using less used NPCs like most of the ones on Boss-mia, or people rushing to sell right after a reset.

There is a provision in toolset for NPC merchants to have a limited gold supply. But most would not sell enough items to actually create a gold supply beyond their initial reserve. You can check the NPC's shop gold reserve and replenish it if it has become depleted. You could always check the initial balance when opening the shop for the first time since reset.

What you're suggesting could be done by having them reduce their markdown on incoming goods drastically until they achieve their desired gold reserve (or when their inventory is cleaned, in which case, you can replenish their reserve as if those items have actually been sold).

When they run out of gold, you can't get anything more from them. It's the complete inability of NPC merchants to balance their books that makes turning on a limited gold supply quite useless at the moment, since only those who get to the NPC fastest after reset would have a shot at selling. That's why, a few pages back, I suggested turning on limited gold supply but giving the NPCs a huge reserve that would never run out.

Without turning on a limited gold supply, you can't really track their gold usage, though in most cases they're going to be going into the red.

TormakSaber wrote:

Quote:

actually if I am working the same job as someone whos been there for 30 years and am as productive as them I'd absolutely bitch if I'm getting paid less.

Do.. you know how RL tends to work? J/s.

Commission? Bonuses? Any Tip, or Commission based job really. My job is performance based. If I'm more productive than someone that's been working longer, I'll get the larger check.

As far as the Elitism on this server. Not all stores are equally accessible to everyone. There's a store in one area, that's a little pinhole sized transition behind a fucking bookcase. There's no way anyone in their right mind would look there, unless someone showed them.

Do you just disagree with Vhalus's every statement Tormak? Seems to me you like trolling him or something. I realize he's not always right, though you seem to go off with very little provocation some days when it involves him. Well, it's not just him you do it to, just about everything you seem to post is tearing someone apart for what they think.

KhamulEnDae wrote:

As far as the Elitism on this server. Not all stores are equally accessible to everyone. There's a store in one area, that's a little pinhole sized transition behind a [removed] bookcase. There's no way anyone in their right mind would look there, unless someone showed them.

And you don't go there to sell stuff. You go there to buy stuff.

Selmak wrote:

There is a provision in toolset for NPC merchants to have a limited gold supply. But most would not sell enough items to actually create a gold supply beyond their initial reserve. You can check the NPC's shop gold reserve and replenish it if it has become depleted. You could always check the initial balance when opening the shop for the first time since reset.

What you're suggesting could be done by having them reduce their markdown on incoming goods drastically until they achieve their desired gold reserve (or when their inventory is cleaned, in which case, you can replenish their reserve as if those items have actually been sold).

When they run out of gold, you can't get anything more from them. It's the complete inability of NPC merchants to balance their books that makes turning on a limited gold supply quite useless at the moment, since only those who get to the NPC fastest after reset would have a shot at selling. That's why, a few pages back, I suggested turning on limited gold supply but giving the NPCs a huge reserve that would never run out.

Without turning on a limited gold supply, you can't really track their gold usage, though in most cases they're going to be going into the red.

So, is there no way to set it to something like:

If x is equal to or more than y

Then z

If x is less than y

Then a

Where x is the amount of gold brought in from the merchant selling items, y is the merchants reserve mark, z is the buy at normal % and a is buy at a reduced %.

Oh yeah, you can do that. But what I'm saying is that most NPC merchants (if not all) will always go into the red rather than turn a net profit. So the condition which allows NPCs to give a more generous rate will almost never be true.

So as a prerequisite, you would need one or more of the following:

Inventory cleaning adds gold to merchant reserve.
Merchant reserve is topped up every hour or so after reset.
Merchant markup (how much their stuff costs) goes up as reserve gets lower.
Randomly generated items appear in the merchant inventory after inventory cleaning.
Stalls are rentable, and the rent goes to merchants.

Basically anything that allows them to claw back some GP.

Yoss is right, in order to fix this it would take some huge changes. Most players seem to not be willing to make those changes and I'm willing to bet a lot of DM's aren't either. Considering that, this discussion really is pointless.

Reconsidering the Epic Loot System

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