I've been thinking for a while about the possibility of trade between the various cities of the game. The system I have in mind would have several facets. First, players would report to a mob in some city where he or she could be hired to be a caravan guard. When hired, several caravan mobs appear. They move at a relatively slow pace from the hiring city to the destination city, and the guard must move along with the caravan. At random intervals along the route the caravan might create attackers in the form of orcs, Zhents, or other appropriate enemies of varying difficulty. These attackers attack the caravan mobs as well as the player defending them. Each caravan mob surviving at the end of the trade route pays the player who was the guard once they have all arrived at their destination. If no caravan mobs survive, the guard doesn't get paid.
For even more fun, perhaps it could be coded so that if a PC kills a caravan mob (like if a group of PC orcs wanted to take over some caravans), the mob is respawned to follow that PC, so that he or she becomes the new guard and they can take it back to their hometown. (EDIT: To clarify, this means that a PC could take a guard job and then when he's halfway from Waterdeep to Berdusk an orc could come along and kill a couple of the caravan mobs, allowing him to take them back to the orc camp. I'm not trying to set up some situation where someone gets hired to be a guard and then kills their own caravan along the way so that they can take it to some other town...although I suppose that could be a possibility for a Zhent or something)
Various trade routes would also be worth varying amounts of pay to the PC. A trade route from Waterdeep to Berdusk is relatively short and does not present much danger, so the PC probably wouldn't be paid much and wouldn't face many difficult enemies, making this sort of route suitable for low level characters. Higher level characters might take a route from Waterdeep to Shadowdale, where they might meet with high level mobs in the form of marauding Zhents.
The benefit to these trade routes could be several different things. Obviously there is the immediate benefit of the guard being paid. In addition, the economies of both the starting city and the destination city could be improved by a successful trade completion (relative to the number of surviving caravans). If it's possible, maybe even the stock of items in the recieving city could be temporarily increased (in other words, if Store X in Berdusk was able to sell 30 studded leather helms, now they can sell 40 for a few hours).
I think a trade system like this could generate a lot of roleplay, while still keeping the focus of the game on the individual and the group. It allows for intercity conflict and trade while also maintaining the right scale. It enhances the possible RP for orcs and Zhents, as they can be evil and menacing without resorting to nothing but pkilling. Hopefully this sort of system could be implimented, because I think it would add a lot to the game.
Intercity Trade
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Balek
- Sword Grand Master
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Intercity Trade
Last edited by Balek on Fri May 27, 2005 12:41 am, edited 1 time in total.
If I could make a proposal for a sort of city-based trade then I would say it should be more along the lines of a special store or stores in areas of the city that would constitute trade fairs, bazaars, whatever you want to call them. There is a trade goods object class which is unused as far as I know, which this would be perfect for. The way it could work is thusly...
A store buys and sells certain trade goods. High-population cities with numerous crafts and merchant guilds would produce tons of trade goods like linen, weapons, tools, armor, other sorts of manufactures goods. They would sell these at a price that would be relatively cheap. Rural cities would sell trade_good objects like raw foods, raw materials, etc. Dwarven cities would sell lots of ores and high quality manufactured goods. Elven cities would sell a lot of luxury items, high quality fabrics, furniture, etc. Some cities could specialize in one or two high-quality items, like a Maztican or Zakharan city might sell a lot of prized spices which don't exist elsewhere. A Mulhorandi city might sell papyrus for making special scrolls. Some city on the edge of a swamp might produce a special plant from which is made a high quality ink. Other such things... the D&D books explain a lot of what local areas, towns and cities produce in terms of exports, so the info is already there.
A trade good item would be like a crate, so you'd have a crate of fabric, a crate of spices, a crate of ore, etc.... A special sort of cart would be made which would accept only crates, and could hold many hundreds, perhaps thousands of pounds of trade_goods objects only, no using it to store your extra items.
Each city would have an import shop and an export shop. The export shop would sell the local goods at a relatively low price. The import shop would buy the goods that are needed locally at a price that is hopefully better than what you bought it for. So to engage in trade, you would take your cart to Waterdeep and buy for a very large price (figure around 100 platinum for 10 crates) a cargo of linen to take out to Shadowdale. You'd buy and load crates one at a time, because they're pretty heavy. You'd then take your cart all the way out to where you want to sell the stuff. Towing this cart behind you would be rough work and slow moving, so consider that when you have this cart hitched to you or your pet, it would suck up movement really fast, you'd have to rest numerous times along the path. When you get to Shadowdale, you take your crates to the import office and sell them, and hopefully make a profit, say on a trip like that between 10 and 20 platinum, depending on how fast they code it to work, I'd say a good hour's work though.
Now that you're in Shadowdale, you see that they are selling cabbage for a fairly cheap price, and you remember they were buying cabbage for a good penny at Mithril Hall, which imports all of it's food, so you load up your cart with crates of cabbage and head off. Another hour or two and you're at Mithril Hall, sell your cabbage for a profit and see that the dwarves are selling crates of steel bars. Fill up your cart with steel because Waterdeep can always use steel even though the price isn't the best, and you're off back to Waterdeep. When you get there, oh no, it turns out that someone else just unloaded a good deal of steel there and the price has gone down. You can either try to find another market for steel or you can sell it now and cut your losses. Either way, this is what trade could easily be between cities.
As you move between cities, people would have the option to of course, raid your cargo and get a free caravan full of cargo which you can sell for pure profit, at the expense of being an outlaw. Eventually perhaps, merchants could set up their own merchant guilds, gain access to trainers of haggle or even other merchant-related skills and feats, new trades could be added to the game whereby people could produce stuff like this, for instance, a farming trade could be available to people where they could farm a certain crop on land that is part of their dwelling or common land, and thereby create crates of vegetables, meat, etc for export to cities which import food. This would be a good trade for nobility for instance, whose great estates produced lots of food for export to towns even if they didn't technically farm it themselves (although lots of them did and a smart noble took a *very* keen interest in making sure his farms produced), as well as a good trade for commoners and retired adventurers
The really daring merchants would head to the very edges of the earth, to markets out near Zakhara, Maztica, Thay, Rasheman, the eastern edge of the Moonsea, to get the more rare and expensive imports. Other cities might allow only certain merchants, like you might have to be an Elf to trade at a reclusive Elven city. I think this would be very simple to set up in terms of the actual coding, because shops can already buy and sell for different amounts and they already alter the amount they buy and sell by based on how many of a certain cargo they have. Mapping out trade routes that would cross the whole game would be a new fun things for people to do to make money without having to raid the same mobs over and over. Some people might even make their way to the Underdark for the most dangerous yet profitable trade routes... opening the way for both adventure and profit in the best sense of FK.
A store buys and sells certain trade goods. High-population cities with numerous crafts and merchant guilds would produce tons of trade goods like linen, weapons, tools, armor, other sorts of manufactures goods. They would sell these at a price that would be relatively cheap. Rural cities would sell trade_good objects like raw foods, raw materials, etc. Dwarven cities would sell lots of ores and high quality manufactured goods. Elven cities would sell a lot of luxury items, high quality fabrics, furniture, etc. Some cities could specialize in one or two high-quality items, like a Maztican or Zakharan city might sell a lot of prized spices which don't exist elsewhere. A Mulhorandi city might sell papyrus for making special scrolls. Some city on the edge of a swamp might produce a special plant from which is made a high quality ink. Other such things... the D&D books explain a lot of what local areas, towns and cities produce in terms of exports, so the info is already there.
A trade good item would be like a crate, so you'd have a crate of fabric, a crate of spices, a crate of ore, etc.... A special sort of cart would be made which would accept only crates, and could hold many hundreds, perhaps thousands of pounds of trade_goods objects only, no using it to store your extra items.
Each city would have an import shop and an export shop. The export shop would sell the local goods at a relatively low price. The import shop would buy the goods that are needed locally at a price that is hopefully better than what you bought it for. So to engage in trade, you would take your cart to Waterdeep and buy for a very large price (figure around 100 platinum for 10 crates) a cargo of linen to take out to Shadowdale. You'd buy and load crates one at a time, because they're pretty heavy. You'd then take your cart all the way out to where you want to sell the stuff. Towing this cart behind you would be rough work and slow moving, so consider that when you have this cart hitched to you or your pet, it would suck up movement really fast, you'd have to rest numerous times along the path. When you get to Shadowdale, you take your crates to the import office and sell them, and hopefully make a profit, say on a trip like that between 10 and 20 platinum, depending on how fast they code it to work, I'd say a good hour's work though.
Now that you're in Shadowdale, you see that they are selling cabbage for a fairly cheap price, and you remember they were buying cabbage for a good penny at Mithril Hall, which imports all of it's food, so you load up your cart with crates of cabbage and head off. Another hour or two and you're at Mithril Hall, sell your cabbage for a profit and see that the dwarves are selling crates of steel bars. Fill up your cart with steel because Waterdeep can always use steel even though the price isn't the best, and you're off back to Waterdeep. When you get there, oh no, it turns out that someone else just unloaded a good deal of steel there and the price has gone down. You can either try to find another market for steel or you can sell it now and cut your losses. Either way, this is what trade could easily be between cities.
As you move between cities, people would have the option to of course, raid your cargo and get a free caravan full of cargo which you can sell for pure profit, at the expense of being an outlaw. Eventually perhaps, merchants could set up their own merchant guilds, gain access to trainers of haggle or even other merchant-related skills and feats, new trades could be added to the game whereby people could produce stuff like this, for instance, a farming trade could be available to people where they could farm a certain crop on land that is part of their dwelling or common land, and thereby create crates of vegetables, meat, etc for export to cities which import food. This would be a good trade for nobility for instance, whose great estates produced lots of food for export to towns even if they didn't technically farm it themselves (although lots of them did and a smart noble took a *very* keen interest in making sure his farms produced), as well as a good trade for commoners and retired adventurers
The really daring merchants would head to the very edges of the earth, to markets out near Zakhara, Maztica, Thay, Rasheman, the eastern edge of the Moonsea, to get the more rare and expensive imports. Other cities might allow only certain merchants, like you might have to be an Elf to trade at a reclusive Elven city. I think this would be very simple to set up in terms of the actual coding, because shops can already buy and sell for different amounts and they already alter the amount they buy and sell by based on how many of a certain cargo they have. Mapping out trade routes that would cross the whole game would be a new fun things for people to do to make money without having to raid the same mobs over and over. Some people might even make their way to the Underdark for the most dangerous yet profitable trade routes... opening the way for both adventure and profit in the best sense of FK.
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Kirkus
- Sword Grand Master
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No offense Isolrem but why would it be hard to code? All it would take I would think would be a merchant mob that follows the pc guard to the destination. The quests would be as simple as picking a random room for the attacks to happen in.
I am ready to meet my Maker. Whether my Maker is prepared for the great ordeal of meeting me is another matter.
it would be hard to balance the trade and the amount of gold made, create enough random occurances for realism, and have a reasonable economic system coded in, too so that money can not be made indefinitely.
otherwise people would just be running from one city to the next all day long.
otherwise people would just be running from one city to the next all day long.
Chars: Aryvael et all.
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Kirkus
- Sword Grand Master
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But thats already been solved. Have you ever noticed that if you try to sell two of the same item to a shop or merchant the price goes down? That is the affect of the drop in need for that item. You can't sell 12 elven bows to one place the price drops from 10 plat down to 1 silver pritty quick. Eventually a shop will stop buying.
What is the problem with pc merchants running from town to town that is what merchants do. They buy stuff the go to another town sell that stuff and buy more stuff and go to another town.
This is a great idea that Balek brought up. Not every city can provide themselves with everything. That leaves tradesmen to provide the things each city needs to servive.
What is the problem with pc merchants running from town to town that is what merchants do. They buy stuff the go to another town sell that stuff and buy more stuff and go to another town.
This is a great idea that Balek brought up. Not every city can provide themselves with everything. That leaves tradesmen to provide the things each city needs to servive.
I am ready to meet my Maker. Whether my Maker is prepared for the great ordeal of meeting me is another matter.
Intercity Trade
I like Balek's idea... I can even see most of the codes to do it... the caravans would "walk" from point A to point B, the PC guarding would be following the caravan mob. the mob would rand generate "bandits" or other interceptors for the PCs to fight. Arrival in the destination safely would result in a reward of exp and coin to the escort, and a deposit into the departure city's economy. Most of that, as I see, could be controlled by the caravan mobs themselves. Ideally, as mentioned, some item should end up being more available at the destination, though I think that's beyond current code?
Done right, it could not only prove a way for younger chars to gain experience and coin for an honest (or dishonest, in the case of smugglers) task, sucessful PC participation would actually be able to alter the world economy for better or worse. I suppose you could even very the difficulty of the task, with higher pay, way tougher attackers, and a level check to keep younguns from taking a suicide mission.
Sologhar's idea is a totally different animal, where the character is the caravan, not a mob, but the of export/import of items actually could work easily within the existing buy/sell codes, and truly offer a way for a non-adventuring player character to earn a good living. Some young unclassed rogue once getting his merchant guild membership could both buy and sell of his own between cities, and get merchant guild quests which involved taking a specific commodity from one place to the other, resulting in coin AND exp AND glory, for never having to pick up a sword... well... other than to protect his precious cargo
Actually, that would also make for a very interesting party RP opp... where the merchant chars would party up with able bodied adventurer chars as guards, for a share of the coin.
I think either of these ideas is a "grand proposal" (don't mind if I use your phrase, Sol? ) I am all for a new breed of quests and such that would launch the MUD into other aspects of the Realms' ecologies, besides adventuring. It would just be a matter of what could or would be adopted and developed by our friendly imm and builder staffs :)
Done right, it could not only prove a way for younger chars to gain experience and coin for an honest (or dishonest, in the case of smugglers) task, sucessful PC participation would actually be able to alter the world economy for better or worse. I suppose you could even very the difficulty of the task, with higher pay, way tougher attackers, and a level check to keep younguns from taking a suicide mission.
Sologhar's idea is a totally different animal, where the character is the caravan, not a mob, but the of export/import of items actually could work easily within the existing buy/sell codes, and truly offer a way for a non-adventuring player character to earn a good living. Some young unclassed rogue once getting his merchant guild membership could both buy and sell of his own between cities, and get merchant guild quests which involved taking a specific commodity from one place to the other, resulting in coin AND exp AND glory, for never having to pick up a sword... well... other than to protect his precious cargo
Actually, that would also make for a very interesting party RP opp... where the merchant chars would party up with able bodied adventurer chars as guards, for a share of the coin.
I think either of these ideas is a "grand proposal" (don't mind if I use your phrase, Sol?
) I am all for a new breed of quests and such that would launch the MUD into other aspects of the Realms' ecologies, besides adventuring. It would just be a matter of what could or would be adopted and developed by our friendly imm and builder staffs :)"There is no safety for honest men except by believing all possible evil of evil men."
Kregor - Ranger of Tangled Trees
Rozor - Lady Luck's Duelist
Tygen - Ranger-Bard of Mielikki
Kregor - Ranger of Tangled Trees
Rozor - Lady Luck's Duelist
Tygen - Ranger-Bard of Mielikki
Intercity Trade
But that was my point.... my thought is it doesn't have to be just one quest... it can be a repeating, random thing for those who want to develop a character as a merchant, rather than an adventurer. There could be different merchant quests in different Kingdoms all over the realms, and even the content or destination could be random each time from any given warehouse in a city.Levine wrote:This is a good idea, but the more I think about it, the more suitable it seems for a wonderful quest.
-gissy
So you have a large market warehouse in each city, there you have commodoties you can buy of your own accord, and transport at your own risk to another city, where they are in higher demand, and sell for more. In addition, each time you visit a warehouse has a small random chance of triggering a merchant quest, a rand quest, to a rand destination, with a rand cargo, which would also involve getting past a difficult rand obstacle to your shipment. If player A knows that a group of Drow may try to intercept that shipment coming from Shadowdale, he approaches player B's fighter to escort him and offers to give him a cut of the coin.
For chars who are not part of a merchant guild, there would be a random chance of stopping into these trade warehouses and getting a quest as an escort, following a caravan mob (or mobs) to a given desintation. the safe arrival of which would reward the escorting char.
That's my thought, in a nutshell
"There is no safety for honest men except by believing all possible evil of evil men."
Kregor - Ranger of Tangled Trees
Rozor - Lady Luck's Duelist
Tygen - Ranger-Bard of Mielikki
Kregor - Ranger of Tangled Trees
Rozor - Lady Luck's Duelist
Tygen - Ranger-Bard of Mielikki
Perhaps it wouldnt merely be a random thing, but someone could maybe ask for any JOBS that there might be, with jobs being the keyword. And then the quest that it gives you could be random.
Glim asks Gwain 'Can I be on the watch?!?'
Gwain raises an eyebrow.
Gwain seems to display a look of complete horror for a second...
Gwain raises an eyebrow.
Gwain seems to display a look of complete horror for a second...
I don't think we'd want people to guarantee trigger a trade quest every time though, the warehouse agent wouldn't ICly always have a critical shipment, and OOCly, a random chance would help prevent the overuse of the quests, since they would be repeatable. A random chance would make it something that, in a merchant char's daily routine of buy low, sell high, the warehouse agent basically would call out to him "Hey! You there, I gotta load of cargo that HAS to get to suchandsuch quickly, ya interested?"Glim wrote:Perhaps it wouldnt merely be a random thing, but someone could maybe ask for any JOBS that there might be, with jobs being the keyword. And then the quest that it gives you could be random.
"There is no safety for honest men except by believing all possible evil of evil men."
Kregor - Ranger of Tangled Trees
Rozor - Lady Luck's Duelist
Tygen - Ranger-Bard of Mielikki
Kregor - Ranger of Tangled Trees
Rozor - Lady Luck's Duelist
Tygen - Ranger-Bard of Mielikki
Or maybe... There will be a whole bunch of different jobs listed, and as a quest, you can only pick one. Each job(or quest, rather), when completed, offers a different reward. I have already seen quests similar to this in the game.. So maybe, it could be coded the same way.
Thoughts?
-gissy
Thoughts?
-gissy
Must I kill them
To make them lie still
To make them lie still
True, Kregor, but then there would have to be a way to stop people who would just enter and exit the room over and over again until they trigger a quest.
Perhaps it would have to be a mix? Ask for jobs, and there is say a 50% chance of getting one and not getting one, and then if they ask within the next game hour, then the mob would say something akin to "You have already asked me for a job and I have told you the answer! Come back later." And they would have to wait another hour (this is of course just an example, the time could be lengthened or shortened as needed) to ask again.
Perhaps it would have to be a mix? Ask for jobs, and there is say a 50% chance of getting one and not getting one, and then if they ask within the next game hour, then the mob would say something akin to "You have already asked me for a job and I have told you the answer! Come back later." And they would have to wait another hour (this is of course just an example, the time could be lengthened or shortened as needed) to ask again.
Glim asks Gwain 'Can I be on the watch?!?'
Gwain raises an eyebrow.
Gwain seems to display a look of complete horror for a second...
Gwain raises an eyebrow.
Gwain seems to display a look of complete horror for a second...
Intercity Trade
Very true, I am not sure if in the code there is a way to put a time delay on it... that would be preferable. I already thought of that possibility, and figured someone else would too.Glim wrote:True, Kregor, but then there would have to be a way to stop people who would just enter and exit the room over and over again until they trigger a quest.
But if not, it is true there is nothing to stop someone from going into the warehouse over and over again until they get a quest. Just like there's nothing to prevent a thief from giving and stealing the same thing from a mob 500 times to GM steal, or nothing to stop someone from camping out in hartsvale and bashing mobs 50 hours straight for a nonstop trip to lvl 50, nothing to stop someone walking someone else through a quest over IMer. If we cut out everything that someone could find an OOC way to abuse, we'd have no MUD.
Going in and out in and out until you trigger the quests would probably fall under the code abuse policy... just have to log the entries and exits, someone spamming the room would get caught quickly enough.
"There is no safety for honest men except by believing all possible evil of evil men."
Kregor - Ranger of Tangled Trees
Rozor - Lady Luck's Duelist
Tygen - Ranger-Bard of Mielikki
Kregor - Ranger of Tangled Trees
Rozor - Lady Luck's Duelist
Tygen - Ranger-Bard of Mielikki
Intercity Trade
Now that we have determined some large-scale coding would be required
So long as a player belongs to the merchants guild (should accompany some negative modifiers so that everyone is not a member) people should randomly approach with "requests" or "demands" (basically sell this, get me, or take this to quests)
The scale of the quest and reward would vary with the player's rank in the guild. Buying your own shop would help, too.
edit: I realize this might differ from some others' ideas about how intercity trade should work. Obviously this is a solution to merchanthood that doesn't involve caraven trails.
edit2: Maybe if one can RP well establishing a store, hiring workers and restocking items, there will be a steady income (either automatic or that mobs will occasionally and randomly come to the shop and actually buy the items)
So long as a player belongs to the merchants guild (should accompany some negative modifiers so that everyone is not a member) people should randomly approach with "requests" or "demands" (basically sell this, get me, or take this to quests)
The scale of the quest and reward would vary with the player's rank in the guild. Buying your own shop would help, too.
edit: I realize this might differ from some others' ideas about how intercity trade should work. Obviously this is a solution to merchanthood that doesn't involve caraven trails.
edit2: Maybe if one can RP well establishing a store, hiring workers and restocking items, there will be a steady income (either automatic or that mobs will occasionally and randomly come to the shop and actually buy the items)
Chars: Aryvael et all.
Re: Intercity Trade
I beg to differ that. I don't think a lot of hard coding would be required at all, looking through the possible progs, I think two or three builders collaborating could prolly figure out something that worked, fairly well.Isolrem wrote:Now that we have determined some large-scale coding would be required
It already is possible to establish your own store through the dwellings system. And other PCs can buy from your shop. Actually, there are alreeady working examples of player-owned shops: Lorelie's, for example, and Mystra's gifts, Tanduil's in Settlestone, and umm... I know there's others. Pretty much, any store you enter that has a lock storeroom in it, is a character-owned store.edit2: Maybe if one can RP well establishing a store, hiring workers and restocking items, there will be a steady income (either automatic or that mobs will occasionally and randomly come to the shop and actually buy the items)
This is probably the ultimate dream of many a merchant, earn, save, buy one of those prime spaces on Warrior's way and ply your wares to the other chars. This dream will set you back around a couple thousand plat, of course.
Meanwhile, with a trade system in place you'd work your way up the way most hopeful trading coster moguls did... as a poor schlep caravanner.
"There is no safety for honest men except by believing all possible evil of evil men."
Kregor - Ranger of Tangled Trees
Rozor - Lady Luck's Duelist
Tygen - Ranger-Bard of Mielikki
Kregor - Ranger of Tangled Trees
Rozor - Lady Luck's Duelist
Tygen - Ranger-Bard of Mielikki
Re: Intercity Trade
that's hard codingKregor wrote:
looking through the possible progs, I think two or three builders collaborating could prolly figure out something that worked, fairly well.
Or at least in most other MUDs I tried to make changes to.Wow, didn't know that, cool.Kregor wrote: Pretty much, any store you enter that has a lock storeroom in it, is a character-owned store.
Basically, we already have some players with a cart that travels from city to city to sell your wares, but it is unlikely that people would remember or plan to purchase things from THEM than the more readily accessible city merchants. This is why I suggested mobs to make the occasional purchases, as well as the other system where player makes requests for rarer items so the merchants know what to fetch them.
Chars: Aryvael et all.
One possible way to implement this is to have certain mobs in cities that pay well (higher than the usual purchase price) for certain items brought to them.
Eg. If Waterdeep is well known for item X (which costs say 4 gold), a merchant mob in Tantras may give the PC 6-10 gold when given item X. Coding wise, the merchant can be set to buy nothing, but a mobprog that hands out gold when given item X. The merchant mob can of course be set to sell item X, probably at 200% or even 300% of the normal price. Of course, that means the merchant mob only trades in ONE item.
Eg. If Waterdeep is well known for item X (which costs say 4 gold), a merchant mob in Tantras may give the PC 6-10 gold when given item X. Coding wise, the merchant can be set to buy nothing, but a mobprog that hands out gold when given item X. The merchant mob can of course be set to sell item X, probably at 200% or even 300% of the normal price. Of course, that means the merchant mob only trades in ONE item.
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Xenia
Wonderful
I think this a awsome idea, I think it will bring in the aspect of trade and such between cities, the caravans are what bring them from city to city, bringing goods....and such. So I mean being a merchant myself I have to travel all the way to certain towns to find something unique, then the price would go up in Waterdeep for it because it is a imported item. I think there could be some wonderful RP oppurtunites for diffrent things dealing with the merchants. Of course being a merchant outlaw wouldn't make a certain Goddess happy, but that is the fun of RP! :o