How can we revitalize trade?

[Avu]

I'm saying that everyone that wants metal can have it. Coins got nothing to do with it most trade is not vendor based and if you think it is you fail. And it doesn't get easier to get than fucking come and get it.

And how what I said contradicts itself in any way? People can get metal they choose not to it's easier to bitch about it. Trade currency is anything for what quality does not matter with the possible exception of COINS they fail hard as currency since they they have little value on their own. And yes there is a lack of villages that can establish trade has nothing to do with their inability to get metal though.

[arriel]

Minor correction on quality-to-quantity idea.

Coins should only be made from basic metals, meaning tin, copper, cast iron, silver, gold. Quality of these bars are affected only by quality of bricks of a smelter and charcoal quality. Wrought iron, steel are all subproducts with q dependant on smithing, which is hard keep track of in overall q of a bar. Alloying crucible too depends on q bricks and q charcoal (q clay too, maybe remove clay requirement from alloying crucible or make different finery crucible for coins which is bricks only).

30q smelter + 40q charcoal gives 35q bar. When splitted it produces 35 coins.
If we were then to have 30q crucible and 40q charcoal, and 100 coins in inventory, we should be able to melt together 2 bars of (30+40)/2 q, and have 30 coins left.
If we have 20q crucible and 20q charcoal, 100 coins, we`ll get 5 bars of 20q.

As I`m writing it I can see it can be abused as a multiplying tool to make loads of low-q bars out of one high-q bar for building objects which q doesn`t matter.

[Lothaudus]

1) Some people can't play enough to sustain a town

Cock fags who want it all but don't want to work for it.

2) Some people don't want to join a village to get metal

Cock fags who want it all but don't want to work for it.

3) Not everyone can actually get to/find the towns

Cock fags who want it all but don't want to work for it.

4) Some people already have towns

Smart people those.

5) Your a insulting loser with overcompensation issues.

Ok, I gotta admit you're right on this one.

I will now treat everyone who baaaaaws about lack of metal a complete retard, lazy ass, clueless dumbfuck and any other colorful description I might think of in the spot.

As for the topic trading doesn't work because distances are too great [...] because there are too few items for which quality does not matter and only those make for good trade currency

So first you're saying that metal for coins is, like, totally easy to get, then you're saying that there's a lack of a trade currency, and a lack of players/villages that can establish trade.

Metal for coins is totally easy to get. What Avu's saying is that trade sucks because hauling 2 chests of shit over long distances is teh suck. So people teleport. People don't teleport all over the place now because there is no established crossroad system and the only things people want to trade is for items other than useless bloody coins.

Before you get these things (straw, metal, silk) you are desperately in need of them, and once you have them (this may apply less to metal) you can continue to just churn more out.

Right.

For a real economy to come around, you have to have items which can be worked towards at every point of the game which are all reasonably valuable to everyone at every stage of the game.

Right.

Another issue with the trading, and the mines, and just in general is, in order to have a good location you need several random variables (clay spots, water sources, mines, proper land type) to come together all in one spot. I found a good spot with a well on grasslands near forest for trees, and I'm enjoying it, however as soon as I decide to go for a mine, chances are really low that there will be one anywhere near me, let alone a good one. They need to make it so that mines and wells can be placed anywhere. However the well water would be lower quality than the water obtainable from other places, perhaps even cause it to give 0.2 Black FEP each time you drink it so that it's not desirable but usable. Make mines placed in random locations random ore, and low chances to be found. Then you could make dowsing rods find good quality well locations, similar to how they do now, and make it so rustroot extracts can be mixed with a nugget of a metal type in order to make it track down a mine specifically of that type.

You're now slipping dangerously back into "everyone has everything, so why am I trading for it" territory. Even now, only the advanced players bother trading for high Q goods and as it is, they can actually make most of the highest Q goods in the game. Metal, wood, water, clay, crops.

Imah now copy-paste. I think the people who matter have read this but it's good for the masses:

At the moment difficulty in the game is represented by a line. There are simply people on the left side of the line - who have nothing, and those on the right side of the line - who have everything.

It all starts with getting seeds. You start off and can't find any. You're desperate for them. You'll do anything for wheat (maybe even... trade!). Eventually though you find that one seed of wheat and never look back. You've crossed the line from "have-not" into "have".

Rustroot is the same. Eventually you farm enough carrots that you start seeing it. Yet once you see it, you never run out of the stuff. Once again you've crossed that difficulty line.

It's then not hard for you to take the rustroot and scout the entire super-grid for every mine in existence within that area. Claim them all, pallisade them all, take the worthwhile ones and leave the crud. You've now taken away from everyone else, mostly people who probably haven't even started yet. In another few months, every mine in the game will have been claimed.

Of course, once you have a mine, you have an unlimited supply of metal. Once again, you've crossed that difficulty barrier from the "have-nots" and into the "haves".

At the moment the line from nothing to everything is very thin and easily crossed. And once you've crossed it, you never go back.


There are a couple of ways to resolve this:

1. Make it IMPOSSIBLE to have everything.

How? Make things region based (something loftorb / jorbtar have mentioned before).

The resources we currently have are:
- Metal: Silver, Gold, Iron, Tin, Copper.
- Crops: Carrots, Flax, Hemp, Wheat, Grapes, Pumpkins, Hops, Poppies, et al.
- Wild-life: Sheep, Cows, Chickens, Foxes, Boars, Bears, Deer.
- Soil
- Clay
- Water
- Wood

Let's say this is our map of the super-grids in the world:
1A 1B 1C 1D 1E
2A 2B 2C 2D 2E
3A 3B 3C 3D 3E
4A 4B 4C 4D 4E
5A 5B 5C 5D 5E

Metal

Now, imagine if the only place you found Iron was in the Great Eastern Mountain Range that went through grids 2D, 3D and 4D.

Gold could be found in nuggets by panning rivers in 3C, 3D, 4C and 4D (well, we do have frying pans now). Tin might be in 1A - 2B... you get the idea.

Suddenly, we now have metal trade. We even have increased conflict potential as the larger factions fight it out for access to various metal deposits.


Crops

Now take crops. Why should everything grow everywhere? What if some crops only grew in certain regions (or certain soil qualities)? What if the only place to grow Wheat was through the mid-line of rows 2, 3 and 4.

Grapes only grow in the warmer Northern regions of rows 1 and 2. Hemp only grows in the South of rows 4 and 5... Again, you get the idea.

Once again, we have a reason for trade and suddenly, even the good towns with all the good players would have a reason to trade.

Possible penalties for growing crops out of region include:
- Reduced crop yield (even at full nature, crops may only give 1 seed).
- Crops simply won't grow in some regions (they die or "cannot be planted in this soil").
- Increased growth time (Sure, you can grow Wheat here, but it's going to take you a week).

So, you want wheat? Well, you either stick to setting up in the climates that grow it or you trade for it.


Resources

Need clay? Well, clay is only found in large quantities in the great clay marshes of 4B.

Need good soil? Everyone knows all the good soil is in 1E.

Water? The finest water you can trade for is found in the fresh springs of 5A.

Wood? Trees of course grow everywhere but the thick forests of 4D, 4E and 5E give the most wood. That's because they grow thick and fast. The trees that grow in the Northern regions are thin, with little wood and take longer to grow.


Rarity

This increases rarity. Those that can grow Wheat will grow lots of it but then they'll need to trade it for supplies of wine or linen. Suddenly that cupboard full of Bread goes from "I'll harvest more when we need it" to "that had better last us the Winter 'cause I can't be fucked trading all that way for it again".

Now you can spread the wild-life around (and add more in plz ZOMG bears and boars and deers? WHERE ARE MY DRAGONS?). Bears might be found in the dangerous Mountain regions while foxes stick mostly to the plains out West, where the chickens are.

Boars are found in the thick forests down South.

Make the South too cold for Sheep to be kept and so they die from the cold. Make the North too warm for Cattle, who get sickness and die there.

Want to balance your FEP now? Well, trade.


Trade

Of course, some people can't be fucked (reference thread where someone whined they wanted a bigger wooden house because they didn't have metal for the stone mansion), so we encourage traders. These are people who only travel up and down the major river systems selling their goods from their river barges. It'll be a big day when the barge comes to town and you can get rid of your stores of Bread in exchange for some Meat or Metal.

At the moment though, with teleportation, most of the better organised towns will simply setup satellite villages and pop back and forth between them.


2. Make Metal harder to find.

At the moment, someone who can see rustroot can pretty much scout the entire super-grid they're in. Why? Reduce the range on rustroot. In fact, what you should have to do is actually dig a piece of soil out from the ground, mix that with a whole bit of rustroot and have that give you the result for about 20 tiles around you.

This increases the chance that areas may have been missed and allows new players the rare possibility they might discover a mine in their area. Perhaps make the distance or range based on skill or the Quality of the rustroot mixture.

Mines should also run out of Metal. At the moment, once you find metal, you win! Make mines come in a variety of shapes and sizes. Small, Medium and Large. Small mines might run out quickly but even the large mines will run out eventually. It'd be even funner if you could find an "iron seam" and then follow the seam, rather than simply digging out a giant "Iron ore building". That way you don't just dig around in an ever increasing circle, but have to perhaps dig a long tunnel as you exhaust the seam.

That way, if people become too complacent their mine will run out, necessitating either a move or trade. Theoretically it should last long enough to allow a player to get established with a cash crop that would allow them to exist there via trade for however long they wanted.

Spread the love around a bit too. Maybe a small mine only nets you 20 or so bars before it's exhausted. Certainly enough for that pickaxe and scythe to make life easier. Either that or add in the "panning for metal" idea that was mentioned before, for finding small amounts of metal in various terrain.


3. Add Natural Disasters.

Animals should randomly get disease and die (based on decay ticks?). Crops should get infected and die. Plagues of locusts should wipe entire crops out. Floods should change the landscape from time to time, rivers could get swollen and flood their banks. Earthquakes might tear apart a super-grid, maybe leaving giant impassable cracks in the ground and knocking over buildings.

Volcanoes might erupt creating new mountains and high quality soil deposits.

This means some towns might get struck and have to re-build or may even have to abandon their area for a safer location.

I imagine all of these would be rare events, maybe even run while the server is offline if necessary.

Keep people from becoming too complacent. EG: A city like Sodom with a well organised group of players setup a town around a mine, that works well for setup but eventually the mine dries up so now they have to trade for more metal or look for another mine and possibly consider relocating. Maybe it's hit by an earth-quake and the villagers have to re-double their efforts to rebuild the town or an outbreak of disease wipes out their animal herds and forces them to re-establish good breeding stock (For the record, I have nothing against Sodom, I'm just saying "All the experienced players who are likely to get bored in about another month when they've done everything there is to do and have everything they need to have, get bored and decide to go on killing sprees / quit").

Forcing trade or recovering from disaster adds an element of "fun" (and also QUITRAGE drama, "WTF LOFTAR WHY DID YOU SPAWN A VOLCANO IN MY TOWN") and keeps people occupied.

Like for example, right now, I'm struggling to grow enough straw to feed the appetite of my Stone Mansion BECAUSE SOMEONE DECIDED TO MAKE WHEAT TAKE TWO TIMES LONGER TO GROW. :RAGE: So from my perspective it's difficult.

... and yet, when I do manage to finally finish my Mansion I'll be over the moon because yay, I've finally done it. Wheee!!! ... and then what? I just need to throw a few stones in it every once in a while to keep it from falling apart and I'm basically out looking for something else to do.

... and this one too:

#1 Transport

1. Remove teleportation completely. Hirdporting, travel to hearth, travel to village, crossroads. ALL OF IT.
2. Add horses, wagons and river barges so that people can carry reasonable amounts of goods at a time (one of the problems with hunger right now is that even a whole cupboard of food isn't enough to last a single person very long, so you need to haul metric fuck tonnes of shit everywhere).
3. Fix key rings.
4. Allow us to build carts in caves, you god-damned anti-cave mining fags.

Problem solved.

Helms Deeps will now need Gates to get in and out. 20 layers of walls will need 20 gates (and 20 keys stored safely on a keyring or in an abstracted list as per whomever's suggestion). Thus being both aesthetically pleasing and functional. Villagers will be able to get in and out of gates without having to use teleporting because someone else dropped the key or has the key and logged off or you lost your own key or whatever.

Trade will become large quantities of goods back and forth along rivers between major towns. Some people could setup and become traders who only travel back and forth selling goods. Horses will allow lone riders to travel large distances to get goods they need and travel back quickly.

Travel should take time. The only people that upsets are people who zap back and forth everywhere hauling tonnes of shit. Again, that's because you NEED to haul tonnes of shit to actually do anything and hauling tonnes of shit can't be done in a single trip right now. Allow us to haul tonnes of shit in a single trip (wagons and barges) and weyhey, an hour spent travelling as you haul 2,000 pieces of clay back to village in the one trip is suddenly worthwhile.

That would encourage trade. In fact trade would become necessary, even for established players. And all Q's would be wanted to get the right FEP or have enough materials for construction.

It will also really, really, really piss off all the cock fags who want it all but don't want to work for it.

[Zamte]

I would be fine with that as well, it's just that currently it's not very feasible to move the long distances. It'd really help if they would unrandomize the coordinates so we could find our way around. It's a huge map. Even knowing the general way we're going isn't going to make it a cakewalk. While I don't really have anything yet worth trading for, even if I did I doubt I'd have an easy time trekking to the corners of the world to pawn it off. The only way such a region based system is going to work is if we have easier methods of travel, or more sure ways of getting from point a to point b. I admit I am still a bit new, but I've yet to even see a crossroads.

An idea I had a while ago was, if they ever do a fourth world, they need to create the super-grids with levels themselves. Start with one of the bottom corners having the lowest level, and this is where everyone begins. Make the top opposite corner grids contain better average quality levels, have mines which aren't available in the "lower half", as well as access to wider varieties of seeds and things, but also the higher level animals, harder access to direct water sources, and less scarce lower resources. This way, people begin in a lower area, no mines, no needing wells, very basic. Everyone starts here randomly placed within the bottom 3 grids that form the corner, and the goal is to spread upwards and forwards. This will create a "trailblazing" of sorts, with obvious paths chopped and possibly plowed or paved through the land, with towns and settlements as well as individual homes along the way. In the process of moving towards the higher leveled areas, people would then create obvious trading routes, and these would later be used to trade products from the higher areas down to the newer players, and to bring the lower level products which are not as available in the higher level grids, to the higher end players. By having different spectrums of the items available in opposite ends of the map, it encourages a symbiosis, where both sides are reliant on each other, and the ones in the middle can get some of both worlds, but have less of each. Now everyone has things they need, their own ability to pick what they can handle, and we have established travel through gameplay rather than teleporting.

[Moracin]

wall of text with idea's

THIS!

Some things might be bit too harsh but the core of it rings true, very true

[bgfan]

The only way to truly revitalize trade would be to either entirely eliminate, or limit self-sufficency of villages, forcing them to trade with one another. However, this would most likely require a large amount of work, and I douby we will be seeing it anytime soon, as it would require a multitude of new items, skills, resources, and additions to be added into the game.

[Potjeh]

Nah, you don't have to make it outright impossible to make stuff. Just giving different parts of the world different comparative advantages would do the trick.

[Brickbreaker]

Yeah Im sure Lothadus' ideas would work.
But it would be nice to find a solution were money can be used.

[Valnar]

The only way to truly revitalize trade would be to either entirely eliminate, or limit self-sufficency of villages, forcing them to trade with one another. However, this would most likely require a large amount of work, and I douby we will be seeing it anytime soon, as it would require a multitude of new items, skills, resources, and additions to be added into the game.

Or an easier way for people to travel from village to village, and from single homes to villages.
Travel is usually a big factor in trading.

[sabinati]

moved some posts in from the off-topic rant thread because they were off-topic for that thread