Vaguely unhelpful merchant

[Ceir]

In Tantras, there's a components vendor named Vorfinduil. Whenever I or a friend try to buy from him, we get:

Vorfinduil says to you 'I have not been told that I could'
Vorfinduil says to you 'trade with you.'

I'm okay with the idea that we have to complete some quest or accomplish some task in order to get access to a shop, but he doesn't even say what that might be or who to ask. We tried many variations of the question.

If this is the result of a questchain, at the very least it should provide a hint. I'm not sure what the other possibilities might be? It's a player shop? A faction shop? There should be some indication of what we're missing.

Thanks.

[Gwain]

This is a leftover merchant from the days when player owned shops existed, you would have needed a token to buy from him, almost no one exists on the game that can trade with them, I think.

[Ceir]

That's a shame. His selection of components would be most convenient if it were accessible. I'll suggest instead that there either be some way to access shops like his, or that they be removed from the game. It wasted a lot of our time, trying to figure out how to shop there.

[Gwain]

The idea of those components would have been that a shop owner would go and buy them for cheap then sell them in their own shop to the public, at one point owned shops were going to be the only place to purchase those components before other more efficient systems were produced.

[Algon]

I am not sure of his entire inventory, but I am pretty sure that most everything there can be found in other places now. Just have to keep looking!

[Ceir]

Oh yeah, I found my components eventually. It's just that the merchant should be removed or edited, so he doesn't waste quite so much time, or turn up when someone casts 'locate object' (which already suffers due to the limited result set and how results are prioritized)

[Mele]

There are players who are members of a player-run organization who have access to these types of merchants, to use and sell the components via their org. Though currently less active, it might be counterproductive to remove or change these merchants so that other players were not inconvenienced by having to type list to learn they could not purchase there.

[Ceir]

Er, typing 'list' doesn't tell you that, it's only when you try to buy that you get the permission message, but that's not the point. The problem is one of clarity and wasted time. "List" provides a tantalizing selection of items that are usually inconvenient to find, and attempting to buy them provides a vague hint that maybe there is some way to do business with the merchant if you accomplish... something. If there was just an ooc echo attached to the "I have not been told I could trade with you" line, notifying the player that there's no use in looking for a way to get permission, that would be infinitely preferable. Of course, it wouldn't help with the 'locate object' issue but that's a whole other ball of wax.

Naturally, these old player-owned shops are not a problem to anyone who knows they're player-owned shops. I'm certainly never going to bother with them again. I'm just thinking of the next few hundred new players.

[Mele]

The builder staff may come in and find a good change from this suggestion(Probably to intercept list, at the very least.), this is merely my opinion.

I daresay, on a strict roleplay mud, I hardly see the inconvenience of discovery of things such as this. You located beeswax? You found the place? That's excellent. You found an entire town to find trainers, items and quests. The mob tells you he may not sell to you, you learned something new. You can ask other players IC, you can even roleplay being completely boggled by the mystery of it.

I remember finding these myself and shrugging. I assumed it was a shop that belonged to a specific guild, or faith, or organization. No minor inconvenience, no big set back. Logically, there would be tons of shops in the world unwilling to trade with you and even unwilling to tell you why at times.

Not everything placed before you is a negative experience, and in general, things usually are a roleplay opportunity even in the smallest light.