Curse

thunderai · Feb 07, 2007, 09:43 PM // 21:43

Here is something that has been bothering me for some time, and i havn't been able to find a good answer for. The basic question is, how does the economy of Guild Wars work, the lengthly questions is well longer.

Say you have a merchant in a town and it appears that all merchants sell the same things. You have Material Traders, Rune Traders, Dye Traders, Weapon Traders, etc.

The game says that mechants only sell what they have purchased from other playes, which is why you have to request a quote, but what if the merchant runs out of money to buy things?

Imagien, a lazy person.

I go into an explorable area kill everything in it with all of the applicable bountys and then head back to a city. There I find the merchant and sell everything I picked up to him. Once again, i'm lazy and i dont worry about idenitication or savaging items i just sell eveything to the merchant. The merchant buys my things, but never lists the things i sold to him as items for sale. Am I to assume that the Merchant sells those items to the proper merchants and thats how he maintains a money balance, assuming such a thing even exisists.

Why is it that when I do sell him something, its not listed for sale?

What would happen if you implemented a merhcant account balance where the merchant would tell you, he has no money to buy that item from you and you should buy something from him instead?

All Merchants are inner connected, so whta if all merchants where not?

Any thoughts?

Tide to Go · Feb 07, 2007, 09:52 PM // 21:52

Its already realistic enough, plus i hate when i cant buy stuff because its not in stock, no thanks.

Dougal Kronik · Feb 07, 2007, 10:05 PM // 22:05

It would be interesting if the merchants had the items players sold them for a time. Like collectible drops from mobs.

The quantity would decay much like Faction in an Alliance decays every day. And the selling of these items could leave the merchants without any stock.

These items would also be marked up by the merchants, have a fixed buy/sell price for items that Traders do not carry. Any items that the merchants buy that Traders also carry would not appear in their inventory.

Would be good for those players that want a collectible item but don't want the hassle of having to go and farm for them.

Would also baseline the trading system between players.

This should not affect any of the standard items that the merchants currently offer, as these they have in unlimited quantity.

Aeon221 · Feb 08, 2007, 06:54 AM // 06:54

I'd like it if merchants kept collectibles for sale. However, that would really need to be localized, because I would not want to hunt through lines of collector items to find a fuggin ID kit.

Arduin · Feb 08, 2007, 09:29 AM // 09:29

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dougal Kronik

Would be good for those players that want a collectible item but don't want the hassle of having to go and farm for them.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aeon221

I'd like it if merchants kept collectibles for sale. However, that would really need to be localized, because I would not want to hunt through lines of collector items to find a fuggin ID kit.

Erm... It's called collectibles for a reason. You need to venture out of town, slay some monsters, pick up their feathers/tusks/whatsinaname and trade it for the desired weapon/armor. It's part of the fun. Now you only have to enter Droknar's (or any other town), spent 1k on collectibles at merchant, walk over to collector, change for weapon. Could as well scrap the collectibles and just give us the option for buying the 'collector' weapons.

Spidey · Feb 08, 2007, 08:42 PM // 20:42

A merchant with no money is like a government with no money, they just print more as needed.

Merchants do not require quotes to buy/sell. Traders do. You don't see what you sell to a merchant because they don't resell what they buy. I have seen traders not buy items because they have too much or not offer items because they don't have any. As far as I know they are tied globally and not per campaign. When, for example, steel is 250 in Droks I'll see it for the same price in Kamadan. That's about as much as I know about in-game economy and even that is base on my observations.

BTW, why would you want a merchant to run out of money?

Dougal Kronik · Feb 08, 2007, 10:16 PM // 22:16

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arduinna

Erm... It's called collectibles for a reason. You need to venture out of town, slay some monsters, pick up their feathers/tusks/whatsinaname and trade it for the desired weapon/armor. It's part of the fun. Now you only have to enter Droknar's (or any other town), spent 1k on collectibles at merchant, walk over to collector, change for weapon. Could as well scrap the collectibles and just give us the option for buying the 'collector' weapons.

I agree with you on that, but it seems the direction Anet takes is cater to the squeaky wheels.

Therefore if they can go buy the collectible drops, they would still have to fight to some of the collectors that are located in explorable areas.

Plus this could double as a money sink if they mark it up enough.

CDittric77 · Feb 08, 2007, 10:54 PM // 22:54

Quote:

Originally Posted by Spidey

A merchant with no money is like a government with no money, they just print more as needed.

Merchants do not require quotes to buy/sell. Traders do. You don't see what you sell to a merchant because they don't resell what they buy. I have seen traders not buy items because they have too much or not offer items because they don't have any. As far as I know they are tied globally and not per campaign. When, for example, steel is 250 in Droks I'll see it for the same price in Kamadan. That's about as much as I know about in-game economy and even that is base on my observations.

BTW, why would you want a merchant to run out of money?

I think he/she is looking at it from a 'realist' perspective in that not all traders/merchants can buy all the time, that's all.

The only thing that really bothers me about the merchant economy is that prices for selling materials don't rise or fall to reflect the change in supply or demand. It's a fabulous touch to have the cost of materials fluctuate based on supply and demand by players, but to limit the sale price takes a key component of a trading economy out of our hands.

I know I'd pay far greater attention to materials of a lesser sort if I knew I might make more money or less money depending on when I bought or sold.