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Suggestion: NPC Merchant and Player Economy

NPC merchants, especially those in the more exotic locales already sell a few unique/flavor items.

I'd suggest that they also sell random items (generated randomly ie Thomas' Magic Bone Necklace that has one of six random properties or from a random list Thomas' Bone Skin Amulet or Thomas' Powdered Bone Brew each of which is specific in itself).

These items wouldn't be sold in the merchant's normal store but in a special store (perhaps open to people of the right meta-faction determined either by Spawn point [which can extend to Fort Mur, Thomas Shop, the Kuo-toa town who knows!] or at player log in [did you grow up in Sanctuary? were you an escaped slave who first found upper, lower, sewer, Thomas etc? (*which could lead to more options in the OOC area of where to 'pop-in' to the server for the first time*)

The basic point is, there random items change with various resets and exist at various levels of rarity. An enterprising PC merchant could establish traffic in these items-purchasing them at a distant locale that isn't always visited and bringing them back to Sanctuary to sell at a profit (giving a new use to a pack rothe henchmen--eventually making player driven caravans through the underdark).

Scripts for random shop goods exist on the NW Vault.

As a PC who would relish being a 'middle-man' merchant, i think this has loads of potential.

None of the items should be uber, just nicely spiced to be marginally better than those easily avaible.

I think this sounds great. I envisage real mechant's guilds!

I like the idea of randomized items appearing in stores, and it should be easy to implement.

I also like the idea of special stores available only to people tagged with certain metadata (faction members, etc), and it should be easy to implement those as well.

I'm not clear on exactly why they should be stuck together, with the randomized items only appearing in the special stores.

I wouldn't think they'd have to be.

A prototype of the randomized item system should be in v798.

I think maybe make places like starting at Pyrimo and Thomas that you have to go there first. A new person liking the sound of Thomas' and spawning there would more likely get quite a bad impression of the server as they appear in a PC free area, and upon leaving are met with some skeletons that can wipe out a low lvl. And, to top it all of, they have no resting area.

Just some negative points >.>

LuckyDevil I think maybe make places like starting at Pyrimo and Thomas that you have to go there first. A new person liking the sound of Thomas' and spawning there would more likely get quite a bad impression of the server as they appear in a PC free area, and upon leaving are met with some skeletons that can wipe out a low lvl. And, to top it all of, they have no resting area.

Just some negative points >.>

I'd think you'ld have to find Thomas' shop before you could ever or should ever make it a Spawn point. Same with any location outside Sanctuary, unless there is a realistic chance you were born and raised there--you should find it in game.

I mean from your starting ideas, like you escaped slavery and found there first. If a new player chooses that and comes up in the circumstances i said, they're not gonna think too highly of EfU.

The entire introduction is set up to lead you toward Sanctuary. I think you'd have to go out of your way to find somewhere else first.

You either start in the Town Hall or Nurtle's cave. I have no idea how you could start anywhere else unless you're on a prelude or have some funky DM permission. Either way, any problems with the starting point should be easily solved since a DM should be there anyways.

merchant caravan ..awesome... a few bandit low lvl npcs on the routes..making it necessary for mercs to guard them ..also has the opportunity to get some player bandits going... just need to make the rewards worth it..

one example could be to make it at least profitable to resell the items at the sanctuary stores for a small margin...thus needin say 50 items to make about 200+ coins profit

LuckyDevil I mean from your starting ideas, like you escaped slavery and found there first. If a new player chooses that and comes up in the circumstances i said, they're not gonna think too highly of EfU.

Anonymous The entire introduction is set up to lead you toward Sanctuary. I think you'd have to go out of your way to find somewhere else first.

Pup You either start in the Town Hall or Nurtle's cave. I have no idea how you could start anywhere else unless you're on a prelude or have some funky DM permission. Either way, any problems with the starting point should be easily solved since a DM should be there anyways.

All three of you are entirely misconstruing the suggestion I think.

1) New characters will have the option of starting A. Nurtle's Cave (although I wouldn't mind a die hard scripted "escape") B. Sewertown C. Upper Sanctuary D. Lower Sanctuary

2) Established characters might *find* the Pyrimo Inn or Thomas' Shop and choose to make a spawn point there: just as they can find the Pissing Crone or Rock Bottom and make a spawn point there.

The entire possibility of starting anywhere other than A,B,C, or D is an entirely different suggestion. Although one I made elsewhere and wouldn't mind resurrecting for discussion.

Turbospew merchant caravan ..awesome... a few bandit low lvl npcs on the routes..making it necessary for mercs to guard them ..also has the opportunity to get some player bandits going... just need to make the rewards worth it..

one example could be to make it at least profitable to resell the items at the sanctuary stores for a small margin...thus needin say 50 items to make about 200+ coins profit

The point here is, you can sell unique useful items PLAYERS will want to buy that they may not necessarily want to risk the walk out to get. I think a very good bonus to this is the "merchant pass" type of item that I see out in the Kuo-toa region; it'd be utterly fantastic if the Blue Mushroom traders had a similar item to get into their "better shops" and even if a "Traensyr Blackmarket" region was opened up.

There is real potential in that, not everyone will buy a 500 gold "merchant pass" to go buy an item; but for a mercantile character who buys it--he could theoretically make a lot of money in the long run by transfering the goods.

I'd really avoid a case of just "moving goods from one NPC shop to another". The profit PC bandits make is in stealing the goods and selling them themselves; far greater profit than the merchant makes.

[edit] Nevermind. But I must say I like the idea of new starting points, perhaps with an OOC warning that you should be relatively familiar with the server before choosing one of the "alternate" start points.