shortage of components?

[Glim]

Sulphur is pretty abundant in the game, I believe. You just have to know where to look for it.

[Selveem]

While a couple of items have been fixed, having played my priest a bit more lately, I've noticed there are a lot of shops that are all going out of stock with multiple items.

As player-owned shops are more and more commonly not being attended to, I was hoping that items could just be made abundant for all shopkeepers.

You can now find shining pink gems and some gem powder if you know where to look, but there are plenty of shops that are consistently out of stock. Even stuff like soot has become hard to come by. While I realize in-game RP is brought about because of this shortage, there are many races and alignments that are very limited in shopping areas.

Golden ankhs can be made in-game, but rely on someone who is able to:

1: Find a gold vein.
2: Mine.
3: Smelt.
4: Use Gondar Forge.

That's a good amount of criteria for just a single item that is required now that there are a number of mobs that drain levels.

Any chance we can get the 'everyday' components like these made more accessible?

[Brar]

I think the main problem is more the "not-looking the good way" for a lot of components.

Soot for example is abundant if you know who to ask (and that you can find out icly).

I would not like a game where everyone is able to find every components, it is more fun to have to interact for supplies.

Well, that's my point of view anyway.

[Selveem]

Which is great, but you have to think about the component themselves.

You think soot can't be found everywhere in Faerun? That only certain people would have access to gem powder? Waterdeep is the greatest hub of trade. Most of any components should be easily found within its walls, provided you shop around.

There are only a few vendors for soot. I've even 'locate object'd them. Even the ones I found ICly were out. I'm not saying you shouldn't have to work for finding the vendors, but the vendors shouldn't all be out throughout the realms; I don't think that's acceptable at all for such simple things.

For the record, I did find a place that sold gems and gem powder, but for that place I found, I found ten more that were out of stock. For soot, I only know of two places it's still available. Both are very restricted areas.

[Enig]

I'm going to have to agree with Selveem on this and say that while I find looking for one component now and again to be fun, constantly looking for the same 20-30 components as vendors stock decreases is not fun to the point where I pretty much gave up trying to keep up a long time ago.

Although shortages do create lots of interaction my experience has been that this interaction most often takes the form of apprentice wizards asking everyone they meet, "Have you seen this? Have you seen this? Have you seen this?", often later on via amulet of communication. I really think this could actually be fun but the problem I see is that when PCs have to do it for every one of a dozen basic components it quickly becomes repetitive and bland, for both parties involved I would expect. When it comes to trying to encourage interactions I think we should always keep in our minds to try and consider the quality of the interactions we're promoting and not only the quantity.

Besides that I also think that if we're going to be giving monsters more and more of their special abilities that we ought to consider giving some slack to players, too. On the d20 website it says that a component like soot would be a non-issue; literally, the player doesn't even have to keep track of cheap components like that because it's just assumed they have them. Now I'm not suggesting we go ahead and abolish basic components as necessities but I am saying that we ought not to assume that they should be only attainable by spending hours scouring the world just because that's the way it's always been in the past.

[Brar]

I agree that some components can be problematic, but my priest are very rarely on shortage of anything and he still don't know how to use that damn gondar forge, nor alchemy for that matters...

What I would like better than to add stupid npc vendors, would be to add other ways of gathering mundane components, like there is for a lot of them already.
And why not some loot tables to finding component on monster (I know it already exist but well, let's add some more).

But then, what components are really that hard to get if you look past vendors ?
I think a good way to identify the components problems would be to make a list of those that peoples finds problematics and see if they are right or only not knowledgable enough. (And I state again, Soot is very easy to obtain if you look in the good place, and I'm not speaking of vendor here).
Also, who ever used the noteboards to find components? I bet that would work too and quite easily with the magical post which let you interact with someone that is offline and/or you have not greeted.

And yes, I hate automated easy things and npc interactions, but that's not new :p

[Enig]

I think this goes back to quality of interaction, and really, trying to keep things fun for everyone. Although I do think it's really nice to have a little mini-game, so to speak, for valuable components (see: forge and alchemy board) I think it would be a mistake to make this the norm for every basic component a PC has to get because it would quickly become very tiresome. Full disclosure, though, I'm just too impatient to want to spend 3-4 hours every week or two running around the world, usually alone, interacting with mobs and scripts to replenish a stock of dwindling components, so maybe that's just on me.

For the record, Brar, the insinuation that NPCs are 'stupid' is one that I strongly disagree with. NPC merchants aren't something we have *only* for the sake of making things easier for the lowest common denominator. They're around because we're not playing in a desolate post-apocalyptic bombed out shell of a world and there *is* supposed to be commerce outside of 50-100 PCs we have. Trying to pretend that the market should rise and fall on the backs of our players just to make things more difficult seems incredibly counter-intuitive to me.

[Zorinar]

One thing I find incredible annoying is that the same vendors are chronically (and maybe pathologically) out of stock of EVERYTHING they sell. For example, there is a vendor in the silverymoon invoker's guildhall. That vendor has NEVER ever had anything to sell everytime I have checked. I remember mentioning something along those lines before and I always got the not-so-researched but stock answer of, "just wait for a reboot it will restock." Never did. I do admit to having given up on it though, so if someone fixed it within 2 months or so, my bad. However, I can guess its still the same and I do find it annoying that its not just that one vendor that never has anything to sell. I am guessing here, but perhaps the mud has a global limit to items and that is why some vendors never have anything of something to sell. I would suggest removing that limit or.... make components degrade after a time (decently long amount of time) if hording is the issue.

[Selveem]

Just for the sake of argument, Brar, that place that you're saying soot is always available: that is a racial-limited area, no? It's not a place that just anyone can go to? If not, are you sure that soot is still available there? Please check.

In the meantime, Enig said it better than I could: mobs are still the primary source of _most_ components. You want them cheap/free, sure, add them as loot to mobs, but this shouldn't be the norm. I could hardly see telling a Priest of Ilmater: oh, that component is easily attained! Just go kill <blah>!

There's a reason vendors have cost values associated with their components. There's a reason my Priest is always broke. It's the give-and-take of being a caster.

[Nysan]

Sorry Gilain cannot keep up with demand lately. I'm trying!

On the serious side...

Gond Forge means nothing when mining is producing 80% silver or iron. I believe the mining trade focus will work on this, but who knows. I know I cannot find enough gold/platinum/titanium to fill orders.

Alchemy: I keep saying we should add new recipes to this, at least lodestones and black onyx gems. Beyond that, learn it! There are players that know it and, I think, it just takes Teacher 1 to teach it (not sure). Now that boards are back on sale, make use of Alchemy. It helps! (though increasing shard numbers on formations would be nice)

Same goes for Gond Forge, don't know how to use it? Ask! I know for a fact quite a few Gond Forge users have offered demonstrations to curious folks.

General components:
What happened to that idea of XX being found through mining? Yeah, it limits gather to miners, but that would open up a new source for 10+ well used components... one that never goes out of stock.
And that idea of generating soot through grinding charcoal, what happened there? That's a great idea to boost the amount of a well used component.

New vendors and killing YYY should be a last resort option, not a bandaid fix.

[Zorinar]

For the issue of soot,
How about if soot were created whenever anyone burns charcoal?

[Dovan]

For the issue of soot,
How about if soot were created whenever anyone burns charcoal?

iirc, there was talk about having the gem grinders creating soot.

[Selveem]

For the issue of soot,
How about if soot were created whenever anyone burns charcoal?

iirc, there was talk about having the gem grinders creating soot.

Gem grinders creating soot is a horrible deal. Gem grinders are expensive. Soot should be dirt cheap; literally!

[Nysan]

You are thinking too much. Consider the method we use to turn smooth stones into pebbles: smash it with a hammer. Crushing charcoal into soot, via a hammer, makes sense and is not nearly as expensive as metal grinders.

[Selveem]

You are thinking too much. Consider the method we use to turn smooth stones into pebbles: smash it with a hammer. Crushing charcoal into soot, via a hammer, makes sense and is not nearly as expensive as metal grinders.

I'm thinking anyone who's ever used charcoal knows you don't need a hammer. I can break apart charcoal with my hands. Psh.

[Nysan]

You are thinking too much. Consider the method we use to turn smooth stones into pebbles: smash it with a hammer. Crushing charcoal into soot, via a hammer, makes sense and is not nearly as expensive as metal grinders.

I'm thinking anyone who's ever used charcoal knows you don't need a hammer. I can break apart charcoal with my hands. Psh.

I realize, but not sure if we can simple code in a 'break' command on charcoal. Hammer is just a cheap alternative to metal grinders. *shrug*

[Gwain]

Chimney Sweeper's guild, random program attached to innkeeper mobiles which allows you to sweep chimney's in inns to gain soot randomly with brooms makes the chance for soot global. I'd be more than happy to apply to build and code this. Gives me something to do. Chim Chim Chiree Chim Chiroo.

[Selveem]

That'd be really nice of you, Gwain. But it still doesn't change the fact that components are being made unavailable to shop keepers. Realistically, if we want so many more players, why are components limited in the game?

[Xryon]

I haven't started building here yet, but causing charcoal to be turned into soot should be as simple as adding a prog to the charcoal object. All it needs to do is activate on 'crush' or 'break,' purge itself, and load soot. Shouldn't take more than two minutes to write the requisite prog.