Merchant's Trading System

[Kirkus]

I was just reading up on what's been going on in here and saw something that caught my eye. Alright two quick things... First there has been a lot of discussion on the fly spell, so someone start a new post and lets discuss the workings of the fly spell, perhaps we need to change it some, perhaps not. Maybe we need to add height somehow which is why we should start a new post. This could be really interesting. It could come into play in combat and rp. You can hit something thats 10 feet off the ground but nothing higher with just a regular weapon, polearms have more reach, then there's bows... I think this would be a good discussion. The more I think about it, the more interesting it becomes...
Secondly I saw something about crossing the world in an IC evening. This for some strange reason has always rubbed me wrong. I hate that we can and do cross the world in probably a game hour or less. When I have time I personally like to stop every once in a while and 'make camp' but its hard. But my point, its not IC to travel multiple thousands of miles in an hour, or even a day. Just going from Waterdeep to Zhentil Keep would take something like a tenday or more. I sadly used to know that more exactly off the top of my head. But my problem is this, how do we fix this without making travel disparagingly slow?

[Sairaven]

While I might make the trip in what amounts to an IC evening, I role-play as my trips having taken much longer ICly. When Sairaven goes out trading, he takes nearly a month to run his route. I concur with your thoughts, Kirkus.

[Kirkus]

Out of curiosity I pulled out my map of ferûn. Some interesting facts to ponder in the 5 minutes we tap s,w,sw,sw,sw etc... in other words as we cross the world as we know it. That one north/south running room just south of Zhentil Keep (I think we call it the Throat) it actually roughly 40 miles long. From the Keep to Shadowdale is 240 miles.

As a side note to my side note... in my youth aka a decade ago when I was in highschool I could, fairly easily run a mile in a shade over 6 minutes (something like 6:02) Thats roughly 10 miles an hour if I could maintain that pace for an entire hour..... So we will use 5 miles an hour for this fun exercise (which will probably be more entertaining than track practice ever was) Walk for 10 hrs a day and you travel, you guesses it I hope, 50 miles. So it would take 6 days to walk from Zhentil Keep to Shadowdale.

But then again who wants to spend all their time stuck in traffic....

[Raona]

There's currently a bug in that trade items do not add to one's carry weight. I've been working on it, and haven't advertised it, but it's come up so I should be explicit:

Trade items *are* big and heavy, appropriate to their type. This is often factored into their value. (For example, a bundle of fine wood planks weighs 20 pounds.) Presently, the game does not add their weight to your carry limit. This is a bug, and SHOULD NOT BE TAKEN ADVANTAGE OF. Do not carry more weight in trade goods than your max carry wt. would allow. Examine them and purchase accordingly [Be thankful that carrying your limit of them doesn't weigh you down in battle - that's advantage enough!]

We'll get the trade goods encumbering up the masses again before long.

[Raona]

Trade items *are* big and heavy, appropriate to their type. This is often factored into their value. (For example, a bundle of fine wood planks weighs 20 pounds.) Presently, the game does not add their weight to your carry limit. This is a bug, and SHOULD NOT BE TAKEN ADVANTAGE OF. Do not carry more weight in trade goods than your max carry wt. would allow. Examine them and purchase accordingly [Be thankful that carrying your limit of them doesn't weigh you down in battle - that's advantage enough!]

Huzzah for Marty! This problem has now been fixed. Trade as usual...and don't forget to tip your bellhop!

(Oh...and if you ARE carrying 400 of something heavy...well, now's when you'll suffer for it, I'm afraid.)

Does this problem being fixed put the balance back into the trading system, or does the original topic of this post (which I seem to have deftly derailed) still apply? That is, should the trading system be modified somehow? Is travel to the far winds of Faerun unrealistically rapid? Is that worth the OOC trade-off of not having to sit and wait at your computer for moves? Is flight too easy, and/or too risk-free?