Something for merchants, thieves, assasins, animal tamers, mercenaries

[TheRedMonk]

Draklar talked about thieves being able to rob caravans and stuff on another thread and I\'ve thought pretty much about that. Most games are not very realistic when it comes to how much you can carry. If your a blacksmith you can just make 50 armors that you carry with you and then sell somewhere. Maybe this shouldn\'t be the case of PS.

What if a person would have to get a caravan or some kind of animal to be able to carry more stuff? That way people who want to have a serious commerce would have to make an investment in a caravan that they use to transport heavy stuff.

This would make the game much more fun for thieves and such who then could try to rob these caravans (who btw might have to pass through free pvp areas to get somewhere). Since these caravans would give the merchant a great advantage, maybe it should also have a great disadvantage to maintain the economical balance.

The owner (or owners) of the caravan could also be bound to the caravan in a way that when he/she gets killed, anybody can take the loot that is in caravan. The caravan would still belong to the player (or maybe an incredibly skilled thief could be able to steal the caravan as well). If the merchandise is being transported by a creature people could try to tame it after its owner has been killed. The new tamer could play against the old tamer\'s skills and which would bring some more skill into it.

I think this idea is good because it would create new job opportunities for tamers, mercenaries and merchants. It also feels like life could get pretty boring for thieves and assassins the way things are going right now. This would make the 2 classes much more interesting.

[EDIT] Came up with more. The merchant linked to the caravan could carry a key with him that goes with the lock on caravan. That way the merchant could flee if ambushed and that way prevent the thieves from looting caravan, until merchant is killed and looted...or pickpocketed

Please let me know what you think about this

[Cyberchu]

Good Idea but what if say one nebie merchant decides to go from Town A to Town B, but in order to get ther he hhas to pass through a PK zone wher he is instantly killed.

The only solution to that  you could only attack a merchant when he was with a trade caravan, and the only thing you could take would be the ke

Also there is the pick locks skill, maybe an animal tamer could take the caravan to the theives hideout and only at the hideout could youattempt to pick the lock.

[CryptoFox]

what if it cost so much to buy/rent packanimals/transport that noobs culd n afordit and anyway if i were a noob in the game id want to learn alot about the game before i sunk my money into inter city tradeing

[TheRedMonk]

I believe that if new players cannot afford it its a good thing. They should do smaller trading to begin with and maybe just sell stuff they can carry with them. When they get more money they can invest in a caravan and make more money. This adds some variation for the merchants.

[Trianas]

nice ideas guys, itll give my guild soe thing to get hired for

[Cyberchu]

What about flying caravans, they would be more expensive but harder to rob.

Also there should be ways between cities without going through PVP zones but these would be too small for caravans of any sort to fit through so all caravans have to travel though the PVP zones

[Bjorn]

Maybe depending on the thieves picpocket and sneak skill levels, it determins how much loot they steal. For example, If a theif with level 5 sneak and pickpocket skills robbed a caravan, their skill sets a dice which rolls a number between 1 and the number of the skill level(s) which would be 5. Then it chooses a number and thats how many items the theif would get.
I think this would make it much easier for merchants AND thieves. What do you think?

[Shleepy]

if you read my post in the below link, you\'ll see that I have thought of an economical system that would facilitate this kind of stuff (which, may I mention, is darn cool )

http://planeshift.oodlz.com/wbboard/thread.php?threadid=10598&boardid=11&styleid=3&sid=e30cd8ee03dbf9cb589ad194c0231a97

[TheRedMonk]

I like your ideas guys.

The flying caravans would probably be the top of the line since it is probably the safest way of doing it. Flying creatures would serve another great purpose and animal tamers would be even more valuable than before.

Bjorn your idea sounds pretty good and would definetely add some skill levels to the thief job, but there are many things that need to be worked out.
What happens if the thief fails and even more important, if he succeeds? Will he not be able to pick-pocket again and steal the stuff he didnt get? Or will there be different value levels on items. ex. a thief must be ... good at pick pocketing to get a ... good item.

You should work on the idea, its pretty nice IMO

[leuxast]

I am extremely puzzled about how, when pulled by a flying animal how a caravan would stay upright and also how one beast (no matter how large)carry a large load for a longish distance were you planning on having it held between more than one beast?
Please answer to help poor dumb me

[swift]

I like this idea.  

Merchants and gangs of theives should certainly be able to buy packmules, horses, caravans etc to transport their goods and loot.  This could make a more realistic inventory system possible - characters with a higher strength level could carry more and bulkier items.  If a road system is brought in the caravans would be safer on the roads but merchants who could afford a guard could risk travelling through free player killing areas to make a faster journey.  Guilds should be able to place logos on their caravans.  

Caravans could also be used to provide fast transport between cities, and skilled riders could use flying creatures to transport goods and people.  

Caravans should be able to be player made by craftsmen (different tradespeople could make certain parts eg a carpenter could make the bady and a leather worker the harness) and should also be lockable with keys and magic spells to gaurd against theft.

[Nonk]

Leuxast, I think they are talking about the payloads being carried on the creature, not on a wagon attached to it by a rope.

You are right about the flying creature not being able to carry heavy loads though, so perhaps a flying caravan could cost about the same as a land based one but be able to carry less?

But then there is the added cost of guards, so perhaps a land based caravan could be cheaper, so if a trader hires no guards or is protected by his guild then the end profits will be higher.

Also, about the newbie merchant problem you could have some kind of system whereby the player must become a blacksmith or something to raise a bit of capital first, then he can become a trader.

Or you could have newbs protected from pk (unless they choose to get rid of that protection) until they have say... 5000 trias. This should get rid of the problem, but something is always wrong with an idea at first. :rolleyes:

[xanrox]

as a future blacksmith im not to keen on the idea, and a flying carvan could simply be an airbaloon pulled by some sort of griffin, or other large bird

and what about diffrent classes of caravans, ie

2 wheeled cart thats pulled by the mercent

4 wheeled wagon, pulled by wolfs/oxen

8 wheeled wagon at twice the size of the the first wagon, perhaps pulled by horses, or a large team of wolfs/oxen

small air baloon

mid sized air baloon

large air baloon

massive air baloon(perhaps not owned by anyone but run by the cities)


and maybe if you have wolfs, you could unlach them and they could assist you in defending the caravan

[Armenelos]

I don\'t know if I missed it cause I just skimmed through the topic, but the thief stealing the items should only be able to carry so much stuff, can\'t go overboard. Possibly the loot could be random and you can only loot the caravan once, just to make it somewhat fair.  If the thief wanted to loot more items from the caravan he would have to either group with other thieves or he could buy//rent// animals to stick the loot on.  

I doubt stealing the players animals would ever be implemented because of the grief it would cause, hell I doubt any of this will be implemented because of the grief, but they sound like nice ideas.

If you do want to have a better chance of getting it into the game then you have to make it fair for everyone and give a good reason for the idea.  Cover as much as possible, pros, cons, so on.

Very nice idea though.

[swift]

I don\'t see the reason for randomly selecting what loot the their will get - if he is of a level high enough to break into the caravan and avoid the defensive magic, traps etc he should at least be able to take his pick of the loot.  Limiting how much he could carry off without transport would work well though.  

Olde-style balloons would add another frontier to the game - but should be really uncommon and only able to be player made (using some parts from npcs to facilitate limiting the number).  Having a monster, even a large one, \"drop\" a 1000foot long airship simply isn\'t realistic.  

While theives should be able to break into transport vehicles,  they should naturally be some of the most secure places in the game. It should take a highly skilled theif to break into a small merchant\'s caravan, and only a gang of pterosar riding high - level players armed to the teeth could even think of attemping to hijack an airship.  (this makes me think of the beginning of Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magic Obscura)