world merchant: accepting books and stale eq

[Aristox]

I am going to post some numbers and ask a question. The numbers are below (pardon the column line ups, it isn't perfect) and represent the amount of coins on players with totals and averages by level (the max is thrown in for interest, it isn't that useful).

The question I ask without personal bias:  Do players have too many or too few coins, on average, for the current game economy?

Coins By Level:  Total (# of Players)     Average           Max
----------------------------------------------------------------------
      1:                   28651 ( 136)       210.67           13930
      2:                        471 (   9)        52.33               235
      3:                 111382 ( 107)      1040.95          45810
      4:                   14671 (  26)        564.27            7570
      5:                     4202 (  17)        247.18            2091
      6:                   21207 (  16)      1325.44           16115
      7:                   89634 (  93)        963.81           68818
      8:                   98180 (  96)      1022.71           39001
      9:                   99271 (  72)      1378.76           41949
     10:               153003 ( 143)       1069.95           44497
     11:                171435 (  86)       1993.43           85119
     12:                193546 (  99)       1955.01           37340
     13:                177647 (  65)       2733.03           27336
     14:                120803 (  61)       1980.38           35316
     15:                179807 (  49)       3669.53           60437
     16:                 87972 (  49)        1795.35           19550
     17:                137517 (  52)       2644.56           35273
     18:                420122 (  65)       6463.42          169310
     19:                239934 (  50)       4798.68           43008
     20:                181714 (  51)       3563.02           49749
     21:                145585 (  65)       2239.77           25511
     22:                266799 (  77)       3464.92           44683
     23:                528610 (  60)       8810.17           86961
     24:                473108 (  45)     10513.51         144665
     25:                728442 (  58)     12559.34           89928
     26:                345366 (  42)       8223.00           57241
     27:                404805 (  41)       9873.29           78741
     28:                676297 (  35)     19322.77         183805
     29:              1174438 (  37)     31741.57         180117
     30:            20142909 ( 357)    56422.71        1186820
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Overall:          27417528 (2159)    12699.18        1186820

[Zozen]

I always felt that for some things the coins were too much--if I buy something from an NPC it's always cheap. And then there was too little when you were paying for stronghold stuff or buying high end books.

The market of Arctic has always been an issue. There has never been an easy way for people to auction/sell/buy items in a secure fashion. Sure it would be nice to have a more dynamic market system (a la Eve) but because of decay timers you can never really accurately price an item ...if you sell something that decays in 1 hour it would be significantly less valuable to someone than the same item that decays in 300 hours, and so...unless you take away timers altogether, make everything unlimited, change it so its % load depending on how "elite" it is, and make things destroy more: especially if you are killed... I don't know.

What I'd like to see is:
1) a lot more unlimited good gear from the top end zones (when you kill the end mobs in Uth, Silvi, Pax, Mithas, etc you should ALWAYS load multiple (3-5) decent items (unlimited, good timers)). Which might create a market for these items that you could sell/use/etc.
2) creating some kind of market interface that you can create a contract with an npc who will hold / auction the item for a % cost of final sale (coin sink)...once you start an auction/sale on a book it cannot be canceled and will go until the book a) sells or b) decays (timer countdown on listing with +15 minutes for studying)
3) people run certain zones just for coins: I'd like to see these coins spread more evenly across all high zones...some zones don't load anything.
4) decrease costs for strongholds

No idea if this makes sense. Whatever.

Sean

[gulca]

I think it depends on what you want to do with coins.

Huge coin sinks: Legend + legend ranks + high cost ranks + stronghold + buying spells

You'll never have enough money if you decide to legend (and help your buddies with their legends) and build a stronghold for your clan. As for the people with 1million+ coins in bank, I guess they never donate their portion to clan stronghold.

The original idea of the thread is not so much in "gaining" coins through world merchant, but more to allow an easy way for eq to distribute towards other players.

I don't care if the merchant buy for way less when he's loaded with stock (econ 101). I just need the newbie book/eq to be on the market for others to use.

I'll spend like 2 min and pop ancient red dragon for rent money if coins is what I needed.

[Aristox]

So would you be happy if books were bought by the world merchant for 2 coins and sold for several thousands?

Is this truly about cycling more equipment or is it about people wanting profit from things they have popped?

Are the world merchants running out of cash frequently?  I don't track those numbers.

[Zozen]

Is this truly about cycling more equipment or is it about people wanting profit from things they have popped?

Both.

[reed23]

I think the amount of coins in the game right now is appropriate.  Recently, I have been switching between Imm_Electricity and Imm_Gas ranks.  It costs me 80k each time i switch which takes a lot of skimming from my SOB clanmates :).  I like the ability to switch my ranks, but it should come at a costly price to keep the game challenging.  If there was all of a sudden an increase in coins or decrease in purchase price of ranks, clans would have everyone buy the imm_gas rank before cyan without even blinking.

Aristox - the merchant frequently runs out of coins.  I would suggest giving the merchant an unlimited amount of coins, but he will only purchase 1x of each item.  Maybe that would still be abused, but I think more often than not, he is out of cash and won't buy your crap.  I think the book idea with the merchant is more for book distribution for mud, but coming at a semi-costly price for the buyer.  I don't think it should be a way to farm huge amounts of cash (selling books to merchant), but I think having the merchant give you 500c-2k for low books, 3-4k for mid books, and 5-10k for higher books would be appropriate.  I would also have the merchant turn around and sell those books for a similar price or a slight markup.

Finally, I think that clan items (strongholds, etc.) should have the price be dropped by 30%ish percent.  The prices seem a bit high right now in my opinion.

[Brad]

The only thing i see as a big hit is the clan strongholds.  I think the legend ranks are appropriately priced. Give the gamer something to personally work for.  I look at that as the "end game".  The strongholds are a bit steep i think.  Almost 2 million coins to put a clan inn somewhere is really hard to do.  I think that maybe when you buy a stronghold the inn should be included. that would help a little bit there.  Possibly up the price slightly for SH purchase. but still keep it less than what it would have been before.  I am in a smaller clan and for us to get together 1.75 mil coins is extremely hard. been at it for over 3 weeks and still don't have enough coins.  The stronghold should be purchasable through regular zoning... not targeting a zone over and over and running it into the dirt.  I cant stand playing through some of the "coin" zones because of that.  The merchant seems like he does run out of money often, but that seems like a good thing.  He is the "world" merchant. 

Overall: I think Clan Strongholds may need a little work with pricing, but the rest seems ok by me.

[Alecto]

I think the biggest issue with the world merchant running out of money is the first few weeks of the wipe when EVERYONE is poor and desperately needs that 100 coins for the 2d5 non-offhandable dagger they popped.  That's why I like the mark-up for coins (i would suggest the world merchant pay you less for gear and charge slightly more than it is currently, to make him more profitable).

I think coins are relatively easy to get, I don't think we need any changes to make them scarcer or more plentiful.

Clan strongholds are the biggest coin-sink in the game, but that's how it should be - the ability to have your own inn is a big prize and should be costly.  I know it makes it unattainable for the smaller clans - kind of.  Randy and I made enough coins in a 2 man clan to buy a sh 2 wipes ago, so anything is possible.  I have given 1 mil + coins to my clan this wipe between bankrolling legends and paying for sh stuff, and I still have plenty of money, but I have a few NPC sugar daddies that I extort regularly.

I think the book idea is really about access: how much money you make off it is negligible, but the opportunity for newbies/unclanned/small clanned to have access to books the big clans think are trash is pretty sweet and primarily helps those that need the most help in the game (newbies/unclanned/small-clanned).

[sart]

Maybe it is just because I am an ass.. but the world merchant would have to pay me a ton of coins to get me to cycle good books to our player base at large.

I take the wild approach to letting books I don't need rot .. but I take it further and go destroy the books. 

I have tried to sell them in the past, but people are morons and want to give me 10k for a high tier book.  WTF, I can make 10k in about 20 min on a legend thief.

Have the merchant buy everything.. at 50% of the coins he pays now.. then have him mark them up 1000%.  - and no I'm not joking.  He should buy that shinny 2d7 offie for 100c and sell it for 1000.  But don't make him wait until crash to wipe his inventory.. this should happen at least daily.

[gulca]

@sart Your greatness is measured by your competitions. So start making them great!

Anyway, people have been tossing numbers around for a book's worth. My table would be like

book level (circle): sell value : buy cost
bottom level (c1,c2) : 100 coins -> 300 coins
low level (c3, c4) : 200 coins -> 600 coins
mid level (c5) : 300 coins -> 1000 coins
mid high (c6): 500 coins -> 4000 coins
high (c7+): 1000 coins -> 10,000 coins

No one is stopping anyone from letting books rot on zone floors.

So I would expect a lot of low and bottom level books being in the shop. Mid level books and high level books will still be selling for a premium over the shout channel.

[Nasredin]

I have tried to sell them in the past, but people are morons and want to give me 10k for a high tier book.  WTF, I can make 10k in about 20 min on a legend thief.

I double that (except for the morons part). My mage isn't even legend, but my typical cash run is 7-10k and it takes me like 10 minutes to visit all my favourite npc creditors. What is even better, I can do it between the zones when the group moves and reforms or even during the zone (relo away, hit the cash spot, relo back, all within 1 tick while the healers mem). Certainly, then I have to wait 1-2 hours for the repop - but who cares. One hour for a zone, 10 minutes for the cash run; repeat.

As the result, there is absolutely no point for me to sell a book (even the lowest one) for under ~1-2k. I will either give it away for free or drop it in the nearest guild or let it rot.

On the other hand, the higher tier books are much more valuable. I'm not that desperate to get 10k coins, I would rather wait for a clannie who recently made a mage as their 5-th char to log on a study it. If they don't and the book rots away - I will be certainly sorry for the clannie not getting the spell, but not at all for the money I missed.

To conclude, the players who can load a certain quality book can also load a certain amount of cash fairly fast. Unless selling the book to the world merchant provides a suficient profit, they wouldn't bother selling it.

So would you be happy if books were bought by the world merchant for 2 coins and sold for several thousands?

Is this truly about cycling more equipment or is it about people wanting profit from things they have popped?

There is no "would" here. If the world merchant buys the books for 1 coin, the sell price is unimportant because it never actually gets a book. Similarly, this IS about cycling more equipment, but unless those who can provide that equipment have some motivation to do it, the system will not work.

Thus, imho the world merchant should buy the books at no less than:
lowest tier                   : 1-3k
mid tier                       : 5-10k
high tier                      : 20-25k
elite tier (nightmare)   : 50-100k

[Zozen]

Which is exactly why all these little "cash run" easy to do things should be more evenly spread throughout the ENTIRE zone instead of just 4k on a dragon that is made of brass that just sits there and is easy to solo.