Prelude: World 11

[Granger]

I agree with your view on the problems of caravan (be it on land or water) security.

Though I think areas not serviced by big merchants would give opportunities to new or smaller ones to make a living (or at least interesting gameplay), which would IMHO be a good thing.

[Burinn]

I'm afraid this will kill the trade completely.

Why would it? An underserved remote area will make it even more profitable to deliver goods there. Sure, would be a bit more of an effort - but that is what the merchants claim is they need to get paid extra for (their markup), isn't it?

That's the exact reason why I would like to see the developers getting rid of teleportation: To return relevance of locality. To impose a cost (for security) to transporting goods. To enable new professions, like security specialists that travel with convois to protect these against bandits.

My thoughts exactly. There's a reason why trading was one of most profitable and most dangerous professions in ancient time and I would love to see that reflected in haven.

Ceteris parabus, something being far away does not magically make it more profitable to sell something there. You're going to charge them more naturally. Because instead of doing all of this in a centralized location, either of you had to go out of your way to make the transaction. A centralized market hub is an economy of scale insofar as trade and transaction costs are concerned. If transaction costs (your time and the literal higher price) are high enough people simply won't trade because of the opportunity cost.

That said, people are going to trade regardless of how much more of a pain in the ass it is. All this is doing at the end of the day is increasing the cost of goods, and reducing supply if people are crowded out by transaction cost. Trade is always going to trend toward centralization if there's still an economy of scale to take advantage of. I wouldn't worry about market collapse. Markets, uh, find a way.

[Yorla]

I agree with your view on the problems of caravan (be it on land or water) security.

Though I think areas not serviced by big merchants would give opportunities to new or smaller ones to make a living (or at least interesting gameplay), which would IMHO be a good thing.

Yes! That I've mentioned in PS

[Adder1234]

Ceteris parabus, something being far away does not magically make it more profitable to sell something there. You're going to charge them more naturally. Because instead of doing all of this in a centralized location, either of you had to go out of your way to make the transaction. A centralized market hub is an economy of scale insofar as trade and transaction costs are concerned. If transaction costs (your time and the literal higher price) are high enough people simply won't trade because of the opportunity cost.

That said, people are going to trade regardless of how much more of a pain in the ass it is. All this is doing at the end of the day is increasing the cost of goods, and reducing supply if people are crowded out by transaction cost. Trade is always going to trend toward centralization if there's still an economy of scale to take advantage of. I wouldn't worry about market collapse. Markets, uh, find a way.

I never meant that it would be more profitable to trade in distant places, I just meant that having distant places would make trade more dynamic and interesting than the centralized boredom that we have now. Even if no one trades with an isolated island, they'll just form their own economy and market.

[Burinn]

I never meant that it would be more profitable to trade in distant places, I just meant that having distant places would make trade more dynamic and interesting than the centralized boredom that we have now. Even if no one trades with an isolated island, they'll just form their own economy and market.

I'm hard pressed Gorbo could make travelling so much of a pain in the ass that a central market hub isn't going to develop one way or another. We'll see.

[Adder1234]

I'm hard pressed Gorbo could make travelling so much of a pain in the ass that a central market hub isn't going to develop one way or another. We'll see.

Good point. I'm interested to see whether or not we'll see people offering transportation services for players who don't have a ship of their own, or who otherwise can't make across an ocean. Any added difficulty to travel will likely achieve some interesting results.

[Yorla]

Besides, even on a small island there are still things like precious metals and gemstones, as well as loot from dungeons that might appear. Not to mention localized resources that might spawn there. With the sheer number of quality nodes and different materials available they're sure to have something that they can trade.

What I meant by "less you can afford" is that on a poor isolated island you can't even get enough wild life (not to mention WWW seeds fields spreadsheet) for feeding your combat abilities as fast as an inhabitant of a big community on a rich continent - which makes it even harder to just get to central trading hub without help of teleportation or security escort (which again would cost something). Of course they will have at least something to trade with, but getting to the hub might be not worth it. That's why next I started to fantasize abut traveling merchants serving whose remote villages.

[iamahh]

i hate early to mid world... can't wait to have mid world settled down so i can start my grind... something tells me this will be a short world... expectations are too high, and people are getting annoyed as usual

[Hrenli]

merchants serving whose remote villages.

"We trade your gold for your life" kind of merchants?

[Yorla]

Those are unavoidable I'm afraid...