What is needed for a real trading system.

[KiT]

Oh yeah, because graphomania is awesome.

I dont know how the devs imgine the game's trading system in the future, but personally I imagined it as peddlers traveling between villages with carts loaded with trade goods, trading at each village and going on to the next one.

With object quality and multiple metals implemented, there is now no problem with lack of tradeable goods. There are so many goods that you can be sure there will always be demand for many kinds of decent quality goods at any village. But at the moment you wont see any traders going between villages, of course there are many reasons for that, so ill try to think of some ways to make the more realistic trading system more viable.

1) No teleports to RoB.
At the moment, the teleport is okay because the trading system is not ready yet, and trading by teleporting to RoB from your village and trading there is probably the only way to effectively trade at all. But once people can easily initiate trade with villages, the RoB teleport will greatly impede that kind of trading. The main reason is alt exploitation. Atm its quite common to have alts at the location of high quality soil/water/sand/clay, basically dropping their price to minimum, because you can always easily get more of it for free using your alt. Remove the RoB teleport, and that wont be possible anymore, even the most noobish traders will have goods to trade - they will be able to go to a place with high quality natural resource, collect it, and bring it so some faraway village. And people there will be happy to buy it because its much easier for them than to walk to that place themselves.
J&L have given a small hint about their plans on teleportation and stuff, and i believe if that teleportation debuff they have mentioned will be enough to eliminate the alt abuse to gather high quality resources, then its okay.

2) A bell.
Yes, a belltower with large bronze bell anyone can ring, which would work as a way to alert the villagers of your presence. This is actually VERY important, because finding people in a village is quite bothersome, especially if u have a cart behind you. Currently, the only way to do it is through metagaming, such as IRC. Being able to alert the villagers that the trader has arrived would be incredibly useful for traders, and will make sure that if someone is online in the village, the trader will be able to contact him even if that person is not on IRC. Give the ring a 30 second cooldown to avoid ringspam, and there you go.
3) Claimble cart.
Another problem with trading with villages we currently have is that you cant abandon or unload your cart inside of village's area. Do it, and you will have to leave a theft scent, assuming you have the theft skill at all. Having a claimable cart, which would be exempt from claim/village territory rules would be necessary to trade inside village's territory and allow villages to have trade depots inside their territory. Though you would probably have to make it more of a large mobile container than a regular cart which can store liftable objects.
Of course, perfectly there would also be a standard MMO trade interface where you could select which items to trade and have a confirm button, but even without these, i dont consider scamming a real problem. There's no reason for trader not to trust villagers, because if they scam him, he can easily report it somewhere (like on this forum), ruining that village's reputation, meaning that other peddlers will less likely visit the village again. And nobody wants that.

A career of a peddler, roaming from town to town, trading goods, traveling the land is something i would really love to try out in H&H, so i hope the post will help the devs make up their mind on how it should be.

[CG62]

Of course there's also the issue of currency, but we already have the tools for that. Just requires a bit of player encouragement (If I owned one of the few operating/trading mines right now, I'd be making coins for use of trade for goods my village creates, thus creating a micro-economy that could hopefully spread)

[loftar]

3) Claimble cart.
Another problem with trading with villages we currently have is that you cant abandon or unload your cart inside of village's area. Do it, and you will have to leave a theft scent, assuming you have the theft skill at all. Having a claimable cart, which would be exempt from claim/village territory rules would be necessary to trade inside village's territory and allow villages to have trade depots inside their territory.

I've semi-fixed that, though. Each cart saves who last pulled it, and allows that same character to resume pulling without leaving scents.

[loftar]

Of course there's also the issue of currency

There is, indeed, the issue of currency. I want to do this:
* Implement wax seals. Unfortunately, that is the part I'm less clear about exactly how it would work. I imagine that a sealstamp could be crafted, and it would, in one way or another, be "unique" (though copiable).
* The stamp could, with beeswax, be used on parchments to seal them. That could be used for contractual agreements, such as banknotes.
* A coinpress would, besides the metals, require a sealstamp to build. Every coin minted by that press would then, also, be identified with the stamp. This would allow people to create and regulate their own currencies, overcoming the quality issue with normal (non-noble-metal) coinage. Reasonably, people would trade with stable and well regulated coinage.

[KiT]

A coinpress would, besides the metals, require a sealstamp to build. Every coin minted by that press would then, also, be identified with the stamp.

"On this coin is an image of dwarves, the dwarves are labouring" - stamp on bottleneck's coins.

[Seizure]

I've semi-fixed that, though. Each cart saves who last pulled it, and allows that same character to resume pulling without leaving scents.

There is, indeed, the issue of currency. I want to do this:
* Implement wax seals. Unfortunately, that is the part I'm less clear about exactly how it would work. I imagine that a sealstamp could be crafted, and it would, in one way or another, be "unique" (though copiable).
* The stamp could, with beeswax, be used on parchments to seal them. That could be used for contractual agreements, such as banknotes.
* A coinpress would, besides the metals, require a sealstamp to build. Every coin minted by that press would then, also, be identified with the stamp. This would allow people to create and regulate their own currencies, overcoming the quality issue with normal (non-noble-metal) coinage. Reasonably, people would trade with stable and well regulated coinage.

First, the cart fix is okay. I kind of like trade caravans being open to theft. Right now though, it is broken without an actual trade interface. There needs to be that, and some sort of way to allow towns to trade in bulk with each other... Having people able to trade items in a cart while both parties are pulling a cart could be an easyish way. Maybe not, but something is needed.

Second. The wax seal is good. Though it really needs a few more things to shine IMO. Maybe a mail system, I don't know.

A currency system could end up being awesome. There needs to be some real way to quantify item value and this could be it.

[Voideka]

I don't see how you can have a real trade system without better travel. Moving at crawl speed across a map with a cart is beyond boring for me, and I've spent maybe a dozen hours just walking around places on foot. Boats aren't a full solution either as rivers don't seem to connect between supergrids. You really need, at a minimum, some sort of walk speed travel with a large inventory like a cart.

[roundedge]

Oh man, mail system got me thinking.

Courier Pigeons.

Someone trains courier pigeons, they can be carried in the inventory, and parchment can be attached to them. When the pigeon is released from the inventory, it flies back to wherever it was trained.

[Potjeh]

There is, indeed, the issue of currency. I want to do this:
* Implement wax seals. Unfortunately, that is the part I'm less clear about exactly how it would work. I imagine that a sealstamp could be crafted, and it would, in one way or another, be "unique" (though copiable).
* The stamp could, with beeswax, be used on parchments to seal them. That could be used for contractual agreements, such as banknotes.
* A coinpress would, besides the metals, require a sealstamp to build. Every coin minted by that press would then, also, be identified with the stamp. This would allow people to create and regulate their own currencies, overcoming the quality issue with normal (non-noble-metal) coinage. Reasonably, people would trade with stable and well regulated coinage.

Oh man, I can't wait to establish a trustworthy currency that's universally accepted, and then print us all into a recession. Of course, I'll be sure to take as many loans as I can before massive inflation occurs

[kobnach]

Oh yeah, because graphomania is awesome.

I dont know how the devs imgine the game's trading system in the future, but personally I imagined it as peddlers traveling between villages with carts loaded with trade goods, trading at each village and going on to the next one.

With object quality and multiple metals implemented, there is now no problem with lack of tradeable goods. There are so many goods that you can be sure there will always be demand for many kinds of decent quality goods at any village. But at the moment you wont see any traders going between villages, of course there are many reasons for that, so ill try to think of some ways to make the more realistic trading system more viable.

1) No teleports to RoB.
At the moment, the teleport is okay because the trading system is not ready yet, and trading by teleporting to RoB from your village and trading there is probably the only way to effectively trade at all. But once people can easily initiate trade with villages, the RoB teleport will greatly impede that kind of trading. The main reason is alt exploitation. Atm its quite common to have alts at the location of high quality soil/water/sand/clay, basically dropping their price to minimum, because you can always easily get more of it for free using your alt. Remove the RoB teleport, and that wont be possible anymore, even the most noobish traders will have goods to trade - they will be able to go to a place with high quality natural resource, collect it, and bring it so some faraway village. And people there will be happy to buy it because its much easier for them than to walk to that place themselves.
J&L have given a small hint about their plans on teleportation and stuff, and i believe if that teleportation debuff they have mentioned will be enough to eliminate the alt abuse to gather high quality resources, then its okay.

2) A bell.
Yes, a belltower with large bronze bell anyone can ring, which would work as a way to alert the villagers of your presence. This is actually VERY important, because finding people in a village is quite bothersome, especially if u have a cart behind you. Currently, the only way to do it is through metagaming, such as IRC. Being able to alert the villagers that the trader has arrived would be incredibly useful for traders, and will make sure that if someone is online in the village, the trader will be able to contact him even if that person is not on IRC. Give the ring a 30 second cooldown to avoid ringspam, and there you go.


A career of a peddler, roaming from town to town, trading goods, traveling the land is something i would really love to try out in H&H, so i hope the post will help the devs make up their mind on how it should be.

Peddlers are great for small quantities, but useless for bulk materials. That's realistic - but a massive PITA for someone who wants chest(s) of butter, soil, etc. Carts are small, even with chests, and the peddler needs to eat - taking up some of his/her carrying capacity. Reduced stamina drain on roads will help some - but there are significant disadvantages to having road(s) leading to one's village. (Overcrowding tends to follow roads, among other things.)

Large quantities of material are possible now, with teleporting, if both parties have the patience for it. But when it takes RL hours for a cart to arrive, the chances of getting more than one cartload of anything are negligible. Who would want more than one cartload, you ask? Well, if it's butter, _any_ decent sized village Water, too, except I think a cart full of barrels can hold rather more than a cart full of chests.

Also, trade between villages only helps villagers. What about isolated homesteads - and even small settlements without idols (e.g. to preserve local hunting)?

Frankly, I'd much rather see shops of some kind, then hope to be logged on at the time a peddler passes. And better than that is getting things from my network of friends, acquaintances, and alts.