Buying and Selling from Merchants (Question Inside)

Yes, social buyback options are fine, as long as the merchant also has a static list of purchasable items.

I can't think of any negatives to this option. The merchant should have a static mark up though, if they seller sold it for 10 gold and their mark up is 20%, then it should be sold by the merchant for 12 gold - even though it's true value might be 50 gold.

I would love to see a system where Merchants start out very basic, and only through player intervention does their inventory grow.

Whats more I think this question requires us to know a bit about the loot system. If you plan to have item drops whos only value is to be sold to a merchant as in EQ2. Then No we do not need to see those as options. But all items have some other value than just to be sold, then yes having the chance to buy what others sell (at quite the markup) sounds fun.

If merchant sell what player sells to them the buy back is there (unless someone bough it before you do), I believe you should have a discount for mistakes (for 5min) that doesn't prevent other from purchasing what you just sold.

Why ?

• If i see someone going to a merchant, i'll just go to that merchant to see what's new there, i don't want to wait a grace period.

I also feel that merchant base sell and buy price should go up or down according to how much stock they have.

Why ?

• I want to be able to go buy those firebettle eyes to the merchand next to where they spawn and go sell them where it's rare for a profit.

Definitely allow npc merchants to add items bought from players to their inventory, to be sold along with their static items. It adds to the interest. There is currently almost no reason to go shopping at merchants in EQ2. It could be at the npc merchant's discretion whether to sell an item and for how much. I'd also like it if the merchants varied their merchandise a bit and added interesting items of their own from time to time. I remember shopping merchants in EQ being almost a mini-game in iteself!

I think with the extensive broker system in EQ2 and the Station Cash Megamart, merchants were made a bit useless. If something was worth anything, it was sold on the broker and interesting new fluff items are sold for cash through the SCM.. The EQ2 merchants are such a waste. It's a wonder they are still in business after years of stocking only the most boring same small selection of items years after year. I'd love to see them get an influx of new merchandise along with having such a system in EQNext.

Maybe the merchants in EQNext could function as specialized brokers in some way, selling player merchadise for a commission, as well as their own static goods. That could be interesting for both seller and shopper. I'd still like to see the occasional surprise item on the merchant.

Only negative thing to having the vendor sell items that players sold to it, is possible bugs. Like in EQ when vendors were bugged and people would exploit it and just re-buy and re-sell items over and over to make plat. Where innocent players who just happened to clear their inventory that day were rolled back also.

That's not really the point of this. It's not meant as a replacement for auction houses, or player to player trading of valuable items. It's about the one mans trash is another mans treasure sort of thing.

Example, In EQ1 Commonlands there were spiderlings. Lowbies would kill them for XP. These would drop spiderling silk, which was mostly useless for the lowbies and they would sell it to the local merchants for a few coppers. But for someone working on tailoring those silks were useful and so rather than take the time to go on a spider killing spree, or try and find someone selling them you could make a pass through the 3 or 4 vendors in EC and see if there were any there and often get 10-20 of them for relatively cheep.

Definitely siding with the original EQ1 system. There are basic items a vendor should have statically - otherwise what's the point of them beyond a glorified trading system with arbitrary markups.

However...

I could side with some vendors being 'traders' who specifically buy up playable characters items, and having some algorythm to determine the value based on statistics, and how available/common the item is. This could create a dynamic system that could reward somewhat rare drops that players don't find useful to them. That would allow another player to come back and find it later.

I'm not sure how practical that would be, but if each area had a wandering trader that could be a really cool functionality that is tailored to that particular 'zone.'

i like the second option with a no sale flag, or junk flag allowing you to go to a store and sale all, or sale junk to protect things you want to keep. I like an economy where things make sense though so either have stores sale wares they would sale or only buy things they think they could sale weapon stores may buy weapons but also may by weapon crafting items as well..

it's always struck me as odd that i'd sell an item to a merchant, and then it would just up and disappear. like he was handing out gold to be allowed to throw things in the trash. which is pretty disturbing, and definitely not a good way to stay in business. so i'm all for letting them sell the items to other players for a fair profit.

however, i'd even go a step further. i'd like to see players be able to hire NPC merchants to specifically sell their goods. especially crafted goods. say i'm a leatherworker and i make a bunch of suits of armor. i'd like to be able to add them to my merchant NPC's stock, and when one of them sold, i'd get a cut of the profits. maybe even with some sort of price slider, to set how much the NPC sells it for. that way people would always be able to buy the goods i make, regardless of whether i happen to be around at the time or not.

Ah, another great feature that Ultima Online got right 15 years ago...

Having a vendor sell items that other players sold to it, adds a great variety of goodies - sometimes real powerful - to pick up from vendors.. but of course it needs to have its basic items also!

Vendors do need to offer a fair price for better items, maybe a little less than you can get on the market or player trade.

Both player dumps and regular items. Some people really don't have the time or energy to set up an auction for 9 bajillion level 1 crafting mats. It has happened before that "level 1" mats became more expensive than "level 2" mats because people couldn't be bothered and so they were rare. This also effects low level items. Vender diving circumvents this issue. It also lets the Devs have some control over prices as they can alter the buy/sell price of the venders therefore capping the price everywhere else. Maybe this could help stem the tide of the inevitable inflation of the economy.

Why not dispense with a broker altogether. SWG had a really cool system with people having their own venders. Give people the option to add a vender to their plot, which could be set to either buy anything or buy only specific things, then let the owner decide on the percentage of mark-up. This would go even further towards stemming inflation. Add a dev or three whose job is to monitor the economy and supply/demand and alter prices once a month to reflect this.

I like this idea, but I feel it needs to come with several caveats. First off: there should always be a buyback or some other catching point for misclicked items. People keep talking about how in the real world you have to deal with the decision, but in the real world you don't lose a $1000 dollar item from a single click of the mouse. If you want to buy or sell an item in the real world you have to go through several steps where you have plenty of time to realize your mistake. So either a buyback option or a "check out" window where you can dump all the stuff you're buying/selling before you actually commit to it.

Second, things actually need to be worth buying for some reason. If we just have a bunch of junk items that no one would ever want to buy, this seems a bit pointless. Make items salvageable or able to be refined into something worthwhile. I feel if a character's going to pick it up, they should be able to use it for something.

Finally, prices should be driven by players. The more players have an impact on the economy the more interesting it is. It would be especially interesting if even the static list a merchant had would be affected by this. Say a NPC sells tools for gathering (axes, picks, sickles, etc.) and so will pay a little extra for materials that salvage into metal and wood as well as raw materials. Perhaps every game night this NPC salvages everything the players sold to him, and uses that to make more gathering tools. Based on how many he was able to make the price for his tools will go up or down.

I think this entirely depends on the quantity of loot handed out and the quantity of loot required for common tradeskill tasks. If there are going to be a million items that are never used like in EQ1, then the vendor list would clearly just be a bunch of junk. I think it would be incredibly cool to see the vendors adjust their items dynamically based on what items are sold to them very commonly. That would eliminate the large amount of un-needed items that are dumped on common vendors, and would also bring some reality into the merchant life. Like if a ton of bone chips are sold to a vendor repeadly over time, then that vendor will start selling bone chips to people. And that could also affect the price that they sell them for. Honestly, they are talking about emergent AI, I wouldnt be surprised if they treat vendors the same way. They could have vendor prices vary depending on item sales...like the real world market. They could even have the items be dependent on the current environmental and social changes. With all of the changing environment and dynamic AI, it would be disappointing to have a vendor system setup like every other game. It would be really cool to see a type of vendor loyalty as well, like your buy/sell prices go up and down depending on your interactions with the vendor (how often you deal with them).

I LOVE this question. However, it doesn't have all the options in the poll.

I picked option number 2, however, it's not exactly how I feel.

How I believe NPC buy back (and sales) should work-

1. Every NPC should have a "trade." (add in to likes dislikes)
2. NPC's only sell items that relate to that trade.
3. NPC "Static" stock should not be static. It should vary based on supply and demand.
4. NPC price should also vary based on supply and demand. If the NPC has a billion of something the price should drop. If they have been selling all their stock, price should go up.
5. NPC's should be able to purchase any item, however the price they offer, should be based on trade. If you sell a leatherworker fine gemstones, then he should offer you a trash price, because it's relatively useless to him in his trade. If you offer to sell him leather, he should pay very well.
6. NPC's should sell any item that has been sold to them. However their static list should be trade specific (and still not entirely static)

ALL NPC's should be able to buy and sell items. Kids should offer chump change for sparklies, housewives decent change for food items, and skill workers good prices on their trade goods.

In other words NPC merchand should replace the auction house. The Npc AI should prevent item price flipping. i like it.

NPCs and Players need to each have dynamic vendor systems.

NPCs merchants might have a few sundries and basic items for defense in the story they are a part of; they could plus up items from players between server resets or up a few hundred items, what ever the server can update.
Players would have a vendor system that supports high end items; and locked in the player merchant skill tree and what ever vendor upkeep cycle the game charges for player vendor services.

There should be a public vendor system in at least one place in EQN where you can use a vendor for player to player sales set on common market capacity.

REMOTE shopping should include a shipping fee and a time delay, you can pay for the item and shipping if your shopping in the merchant vendor store.

There are so many variables in the merchant system you will not be able to cover them all. The Free to Play model will effect the vendor system and it will be nothing like any game you have put live before.

This will be SOE first game that launches free to play with a vendor system?

Selling in game coin from the CASH STORE may keep credit farmers out of the game and set a base line for all other transactions in game?

When a player feels like they have more money than time SOE should support that emotion directly?
Good luck.

Absolutely not. I don't want to have to scroll through pages and pages of useless crap to finally get to the items I want to buy from the vendor.

Direct trading and trading posts / auction houses are a much better way handle business between players. Perhaps even have NPC vendors that players can hire and sell their goods in their buildings.

Yes I think vendors should be able to sell items sold to them. Would be neat if they would be there to facilitate the unloading of "junk" loot, materials, reagents, etc that people want to unload from their packs without having to deal with the hassle of an auction house / spamming the trade channel.

Would still need an auction house / trade channel for the more valuable stuff, but this would be a neat way to deal with the other stuff. Makes the world seem more alive, and the economy more realistic. (If you need bear pelts but don't want to hunt bears, go check a vendor near the forest, you might get lucky, etc...)

Blindly encouraging player to player connections for all facets of the game sounds lofty, but the truth is that npcs are there for a reason... most players want to adventure and be the "hero" while the townsfolk deal with the drudgery of keeping the world running. If a player loves playing the merchant-role and standing around the auction house all day and hawking wares in trade chat, that's great, but why not offer another solution for those that don't?

I think making npc re-vendoring a viable, but less profitable alternative to auction / trade chat is a good solution. And vendors should always have a set stock of basic items for sure. Would be silly to have to travel to the next town just to "hope" they had a torch or flask of water... Just make the list "sortable" so that stock items are on top, player stuff on bottom so that basic items are easy to find.

And of course there should be a window to buy back items mistakenly sold. People play for long hours and get spacey, or mis-click, or their cat walks across they keyboard and sells the +1000 sword of stabbiness. %$# happens and an "undo" button is always appreciated.

-Bongo

I like the idea of merchants selling things that they've purchased from players. If something is actually valuable to certain people and sells it to a vendor then other people should have the opportunity to find that great deal. Vendoring an item is a good way to quickly get rid of something but I don't think this will undermine any player to player trading, as most people will realize that there is more value in trading these items to players, even if it does take somewhat longer.

I might add that it would be interesting to see a qualified NPC improve items that are sold to him, at a specific rate. For example, if a weapon smith NPC were sold a pile of rusty swords then each day they may improve one, creating a (probably still crummy) "slightly rusty sword" or maybe a "Resharpened sword" or a "Repaired Salvage sword". In the case of these items which are still considered pieces of junk, the only way to get one may be by selling and then buying from the NPC. Just an idea.

I think it is quite simple (like EQ1). If they are indeed merchants and you are able to sell to them, then as a merchant they should be able to resell the item.