Suggestion: Artisan Import Shop

[sona]

Just a suggestion I thought I'd drop. Any consideration on having the Artisan Import Shop be re-stocked on an automatic schedule? If setting it as a single time/day per week or month is an issue, a simple 1d7 to determine weekday, and 1d24 even, to determine the hour it gets restocked on, and a slightly more complicated formula for if it all gets restocked, some of it gets restocked, which bits get restocked, etc. could be implemented.

Reason: I've heard from players that it's been literal years since it's been restocked. I don't know if that's true, but a little love would be appreciated here.

Before: "But they're supposed to be rare" - I definitely get this, however, artisans I think should be able to command the access of rare materials, even if that means that prices increase, in fact, even if prices do increase, it can provide a driving force for artisans to sink their riln into.

[Noctere]

It was re-stocked not too long ago.(less than a year) I remember working on some behind the scenes code for it when it was. The problem with the import shop is once it is restocked, every artisan alt comes creeping out of the woodwork and starts to buy things up and hoard them.

We want the items within that shop to be rare and the demand is such that if we restock it on a regular basis, they soon won't be.

[glare]

Any chance players could be allowed to fix hording issues by making the usual hording places available for roberry?

[Lemuel]

Any chance players could be allowed to fix hording issues by making the usual hording places available for roberry?

That's a bad idea for everyone.

[glare]

Any chance players could be allowed to fix hording issues by making the usual hording places available for roberry?

That's a bad idea for everyone.

I'm a relatively new player. Could you elaborate as to why?

[sona]

I agree that it may become less rare. I feel like glittering caverns are more rare from when I last played, so material rarity has increased a lot. But if we look at options maybe we can find a compromise that helps balance the two?

1) glittering caverns a bit less rare?

2) If the shop sells out quickly on rare materials, next time it's restocked, double it from the original prices, see if it still sells out.
2a) If it sells out again, triple it from original costs? continue until people simply can not afford to buy the pieces - this also gives multiple people a chance, rather than "1st one to the shop gets the rarest stuff".
2b) If the rarer and more valuable materials don't move on the shop for a set period of time, we could drop the price back down a multiplier level.

3) Hide more rare materials behind a guild rank requirement? This may give guild rank more meaning and desire to pursue it.

I do agree and -really- dislike artisan-alt stuff. But enjoy their presence. It makes the demand upon singular artisan mains a bit easier to bear. Is there any way to relegate artisan-alts to a lesser artisan status? It kind of sucks for them, because they really want all the super cool rare stuff too, but I think Artisan mains should really be getting the lovely stuff over the alt-armies. Maybe if the game system was revamped slightly, to player accounts, and have accounts contain all characters of that player? You could even limit them to a reasonable number of chars for the account? I do think that there's always a way around that sort of stuff. But such ideas may help.

Just some thoughts and options. I'd like to see a little more life breathed into the Artisans, as they're my One True Love (to rule them all and in the darkness bind them).

[Zeldryn]

Much as the concept absolutely tickles me pink.. Probably not the best idea to make those places rob-able. Sets a dangerous precedent for non-active players to have to worry about. "Is my celestium longsword going to get nabbed now that i haven't logged on in two years? Or is it going to be there when I get back."

Kinda solves the problem to a certain extent, but opens up the potential for much griefiness, imo. It relies on the trustworthiness of the people doing the robbing, and, well, really. Historically not the greatest thing to trust people with. You'd have to worry about them literally taking everything that isn't nailed down, and, well. That's got it's own issues for obvious reasons.

EDIT: Now, that isn't to say we couldn't, say, have a super-special mission for people who don't exist overseen by the staff, if this were to be a glittering thought to them. I'd be willing to talk about that?

[Lemuel]

I find that the price of certain rare metals is priced right out to lunch...for example, I'm not going to spend three or four years of hard-earned savings on a bar of this metal, have a weapon made from it, and then maybe the GMs will decide that weapon's code be changed for the worse, as would have been the case for, say, a sunsteel estoc. As a result, these bars sit unsold in artisan's inventories for years, no one benefits from them, and they may as well be substituted for a lead bar in the bank for all the good they do anyone.

Perhaps a solution would be to have these rare bars function only if an actual order was placed though the purchase order shop, have some kind of bidding in place, eg a sunsteel handaxe for 300000, and the Artisan can only buy that bar of sunsteel to fulfill that order, not to store it.

[Vaelin]

The hoarding limitations had been addressed already by changing the vault system in my opinion. Gone were the days when you have 1000000 items stored in the bank, except when you're in mistral.

[Zeldryn]

The hoarding limitations had been addressed already by changing the vault system in my opinion. Gone were the days when you have 1000000 items stored in the bank, except when you're in mistral.

This is true if you don't have a player home. Those of us who are fortunate enough to have one could potentially horde some pretty significant levels of stuff. (I try not to personally for this exact reason, but the point stands.)

[sona]

I find that the price of certain rare metals is priced right out to lunch...for example, I'm not going to spend three or four years of hard-earned savings on a bar of this metal

I think such things will help with riln sinks. If artisans can achieve, and do achieve, hundreds of thousands of riln in saving, we would like to have something meaningful to do with it. Whether that be building the super stores/warehouse/shops we've always wanted, or buying more rare materials (even with linear or exponential cost growths). Older artisans I feel start to lose real cares about riln, because it's not especially valuable to them. They could buy most things in the game twice over, if not more. They could casually throw thousands of riln at newbies, and might, because who cares, it's only a few thousand riln and will make a bigger difference to them.

Perhaps a solution would be to have these rare bars function only if an actual order was placed though the purchase order shop, have some kind of bidding in place, eg a sunsteel handaxe for 300000, and the Artisan can only buy that bar of sunsteel to fulfill that order, not to store it.

re, this: I think this sort of just propogates the lots and lots of it being in game in my opinion.

[gralkik]

The hoarding limitations had been addressed already by changing the vault system in my opinion. Gone were the days when you have 1000000 items stored in the bank, except when you're in mistral.

This is true if you don't have a player home. Those of us who are fortunate enough to have one could potentially horde some pretty significant levels of stuff. (I try not to personally for this exact reason, but the point stands.)

Homes have an item max that can be in any home. I can't remember what it was off hand.

[Lemuel]

We're only talking about a few bars of Celestium, nothing that couldn't easily fit into the medium vault crate. The limits of 2000 items on a floor or vault crate limits are not relevant to the matter being addressed, ie several Artisans have had a couple of bars of this rare material on ice for years, because the price they want for it is prohibitively expensive.

[Lemuel]

re, this: I think this sort of just propogates the lots and lots of it being in game in my opinion.

I didn't say there would be more of it. I just suggested that no Artisan would be allow to buy only to stick it away somewhere, with the sole result of choking and killing the market.

[glare]

How prohibitive is prohibitive. There's an iron item for sale right now for 1 million riln which I think is reasonable for what it is. If I had devoted just 50 percent more of my playtime to making money and not hemraging it to achieve other goals like I have been for the last 4 or so months i would be nearly half way there.

In my ponderings, it occured to me that if getting the rarity balance via controlling its actual occurance in the game is difficult. It could always be done through additional roleplay risks. Perhaps have these metals a little bit more freely occuring in the shop but if say:
1. Lappas or some other cult will make life difficult for you because they think its a holy metal and you need to get their approval
or
2. Turns out that this metal is really the left over corpses of Angels and if you ever use it to harm anything that bleeds, a celestial hound will be sent after you / you will be cursed by {insert immortal name here}.

Might there be any roleplay controls that would be feasable to control its use and thus appearance, rather than its actual generation in the game?

[Lemuel]

How prohibitive is prohibitive. There's an iron item for sale right now for 1 million riln which I think is reasonable for what it is. If I had devoted just 50 percent more of my playtime to making money and not hemraging it to achieve other goals like I have been for the last 4 or so months i would be nearly half way there.

If something is put up for sale for an extended period of time, and no body buys it, that suffces as proof that it is overpriced, and not by a little.

If the owner of the same item is also unwilling to put it up for public auction, say for a week or ten days, then that owner is demonstrating that he would rather keep it on ice than to sell it for the best amount anyone will ever offer for it. He has aquired the item for the purpose of keeping anyone else from aquiring it.

[sona]

How prohibitive is prohibitive. There's an iron item for sale right now for 1 million riln which I think is reasonable for what it is. If I had devoted just 50 percent more of my playtime to making money and not hemraging it to achieve other goals like I have been for the last 4 or so months i would be nearly half way there.

If something is put up for sale for an extended period of time, and no body buys it, that suffces as proof that it is overpriced, and not by a little.

If the owner of the same item is also unwilling to put it up for publuc auction, say for a week or ten days, then that owner is demonstrating that he would rather keep it on ice than to sell it for the best price anyone will offer for it, even the best offer over an extended period of time. He has aquired the item with the intention of keeping anyone else from aquiring it.

Lies and slander, if people can drop 10's and 100's of thousands of riln on their lottery tickets, event items, they can drop it on "Your generic, not admin made" items. The fact that they don't, just means they're trying to be cheap with other PCs.

[Lemuel]

People spend money on what they believe is worth it. They spent that money on lottery tickets because, correctly or incorrectly, they believed it was worth it. They don't offer 1 mil to a certain artisan for a legendary pickaxe because they believe it is not worth it. When an entire market agrees, then the item is in fact not worth it.

[Vaelin]

Well, it was a legendary bloodglass war scythe... spending 10s of thousands of riln for a chance is cheaper.

[glare]

People spend money on what they believe is worth it. They spent that money on lottery tickets because, correctly or incorrectly, they believed it was worth it. They don't offer 1 mil to a certain artisan for a legendary pickaxe because they believe it is not worth it. When an entire market agrees, then the item is in fact not worth it.

But I'm part of the market and I think its worth it so your statement here is at least a little bit inaccurate. It simply isn't a priority for me because My character isn't primarily a miner and that item is closer to end game play than it is newbie play and sadly, I'm still fairly new.

Were I a miner primarily, you can bet I would be saving up to have purchased it. Even without being a miner I still like to sit there for many, many minutes staring at it longingly. In contrast, I've bought all of one ticket from the auctions and by the way of how the auctions have to be extended due to lack of interest well.

Most of this is besides the point though.

Another Idea that struck me about rare materials is perhaps over simple but why not move the special materials shop further back inside a new work area. When you buy an item from the special materials shop you can't actually leave the work area until you've made an item with it. The artisan guild has to ensure flow of money for such highly priced materials in the economy and won't let you use the material unless its for a specific work order. They have a vested interest in making sure such things aren't horded.

Afterall, keeping wealth on ice for prolonged periods of time and not reintroducing it into the system by using or spending it does bad things to the economy.

[preiman]

An item sitting unsold for an extended period of time is not proof that the item is not worth it, just that it’s not an item for every person. Sometimes the really good stuff takes a long time to sell, because not everyone has that kind of money or is willing to spend that kind of money on that item, it does not mean that the item isn’t worth that, just the person who understands the worth of the item and has the funds to take it vantage of it does not come along every day.

[Lemuel]

just the person who understands the worth of the item and has the funds to take it vantage of it does not come along every day.

Nor every year, apparently.

[preiman]

That can happen too. It doesn’t make the item not worth it, it just makes the item a big deal. If I’ve got a once or twice in a lifetime item, I’m not gonna price it cheaply just so I can sell it, I’m gonna hang onto it and get what I feel it’s worth. If that means I hang onto something for quite a while, that’s my problem not anyone else’s.

[Lemuel]

That can happen too. It doesn’t make the item not worth it, it just makes the item a big deal. If I’ve got a once or twice in a lifetime item, I’m not gonna price it cheaply just so I can sell it, I’m gonna hang onto it and get what I feel it’s worth. If that means I hang onto something for quite a while, that’s my problem not anyone else’s.

It becomes everyone's problem who wants to buy it.

[preiman]

You’re right, that is your problem. It still doesn’t mean we should lower our prices because you’re mad you can’t afford something. Once in a lifetime items come with once in a lifetime prices, that’s just the way it’s going to be. It’s bad enough that things have become so devalued that people think masterwork should only be sold for a few thousand. At least the really really rare stuff, gets to stay pricey.