full trade routes.

[Caratacos]

I don't think this idea has been mentioned in this way, if I am wrong I apologise, and yes I used the search function. Anyway onto the idea.

I had a thought, there seems to be no way someone playing a 'merchant' can make money using IG mechanics with any amount of ease, sure you can buy things and sell them to players who are far away from these items, but that requires other peoples laziness to work, so you basically need to either hunt, or smith or something other than simple trading. So here's my thought.

Firstly, make the NPCs stocks and prices based upon players to an extent, so if someone was to take a tonne of Cider from oja for example, and ship it off to Hydlaa, they could make a nice profit, depending upon how many others have done this, which would be a nice little RP feature if nothing else, and it would give people something else to do to make money. And you could even include quests for supplies, like courier quests of some kind. 

But then you come into the issue of "easiest way to make money like this is bulk. Weight is a limit" so, you add in pack animals and caravans, these would be expensive (and most probably require winch access) but once you have one, you would have the ability to carry ALOT of items from town to town, and the roads would become allot more interesting as you got convoys appearing, and it opens up room for bandits to attack the caravans, and sell swords to protect them. This could also be kinda cool in guild warfare as people try to disrupt each others supply lines ect. anyway getting slightly off topic from the orgional idea.

The price you'd gain from each item would be controlled by some kind of barter skill, which would allow you to buy low, sell high (but isn't necessary to get good prices for things from NPCs, just gives you enough of give from merchants that it increases your profit from bulk buys) I just reckon it'd give another more interesting career path for people who don't want to be a crafter or fighter, and it might encourage more people to play merchants.

anyway thats the idea in basic... any comments, criticism, additions?

[novacadian]

It has been my observation that one can sell to most NPCs at a price that is less than what one can buy the same items for from the same NPCs. Your margin of profit fits in that range. My character, Venorel, sells a brand of wine which she calls Rogue's Red that she get by dealing with the Rogues of Oja. She supplies the Den and the Stonehead; both privately owned bars/taverns. She sells at a price which is less than what they could buy it for from the NPCs yet more than she could sell it to the NPCs. Therein is the profit.

A couple of items comes to mind that Venorel would pay a good price for due the fact she does not know where to find them. Such items could also be carried by a merchant.

What you are suggesting is more a form of capitalism. In medieval times it is my feeling that there were less middle men as we see in our present day economy. One would most often trade directly with the producer of an item rather than some middle man. The producer and the consumer were more directly connected.

To be a trader is still possible as my example illustrates. However to build in a software controlled economy to make a profit from moving an item from one NPC to another seems to me to distract from the Multiplayer aspect of PS.

- Nova
 

[Caratacos]

I'm not suggesting capitalism, I'm suggesting trading on a deeper bigger scale, or are you trying to say that there was no such thing as big trading and price shifting in medieval europe? Because I can tell you that there was, there's always been that kind of trading going on in one form or another throughout history. And yes you can do what you suggest, but I can't imagine it would be possible to make your money nearly exclusively from that sort of trading, i'm trying to suggest a way where someone would get PP through trading, as well as adding in caravans ect for more bulk trading. There is a book IG (I forget its name... i think its "trade between cities" or something) that states pretty overtly that there are caravans going between cities.

You bring up a reasonable point with the pulling away from the 'multiplayer' aspect, however I'd argue that pretty much all forms of making money and training are reasonably solitary in game, grouping up makes training take allot longer if your fighting ect. I'd argue that it could actually increase the multiplayer aspect in terms of RP, because people can work together to transport the goods around., i'm not necessarily suggesting it have a huge affect on prices, maybe a 10 or 15% range but it would be more interesting to see an economy in game, affected by player actions, it would also open up the ability to do what you describe more interestingly.