Pawnbroker

[saladasalad]

I crafted my first few weapons recently and was very disappointed with the price that Harquist offered me. I tried to auction it off but had no offers. Since I had spent all that time crafting it, it seemed like a shame to sell it out of the market for bugger all. I stopped crafting then and there and left my hand-crafted sword in the sewers for a lucky rat hunter to find. This experience lead me to the following wish:

A pawnshop near the Plaza where players could sell their items and other players could purchase the same item for a slightly higher price. IC-wise, it could be set in place by the Octarchy to encourage trade. The difference between buy/sell prices could be the fee the Octarchy charges for the service.

This feature would allow the poorer quality crafted items to actually stay in the game and be used by players. Personally, this would increase the attractiveness of crafting a great deal. It would also allow newcomers to find better weapons than the generic Harnquist-bought ones.

[Maju]

Sounds like a good idea. Or maybe some other solution... in any case it's clear that weapon economy is skewed (one reason being that repair is sooo expensive: repair kit + training, that buying standard weapons at the smith is an easier ption for any not super-advanced chars).

[Nikodemus]

You don't have to create additional NPC or whatever. Harny and other smiths/traders can do it ame as well.
Just like you describe, the item once sold, won't disappear, but will be available for others to buy at higher price you sold it.
This is a nice start to think about economy ruled prices, which change when there is more or less of given article.
On example of crafted weapons:
They will be grouped into groups, probably by their quality and the more of weapons in given group a given NPC will have, the lower will be the price at which he will buy but selling price too, only always higher than the buying price.
This will be really nice indicator telling how much the market is filled with diferent kind of junk. because if people will sell too much and buy not enough, then it won't be worth crafting the weapons and people will naturally wat till the goods leave the market.

We should also remember there is the whole NPC world around us, so the good from each group will be slowly disappearing overtime, even if players will never buy.

Of course all the good you can currently buy from NPC won't change at all, but change only when the above system will work out.

[Jeraphon]

Why would a pawnbroker offer to buy things for a higher price? The whole point of a pawnbroker is to buy things for a very low price because he knows you're desperate for the money.

You say you tried to auction it but got no offers. Well, sometimes there's nobody around who wants to buy it. Or perhaps your starting price is above market value. Try starting your auction at Harnquist's price and see how high it goes.

[Nikodemus]

We both, me and him meant, that pawnbroker buys at lower price and sells at higher. You misnderstood ;P But i agree that maybe the price pawnbroker buys at should be a lot lower than the price he sells. Not only slightly. Because then people won't try to sell the items to other players by themselves. Because noone will need it, coz they got it at pawnbroker and it takes time you could spend on something else.

Jeraphon. Currently noone is really auctioning, because it is not worth. Everyone has already their wapons, newbies get weapons from guild who massrecruit, where members have a few high-slash weapons already noone is buiyng. All older players have a set of good weapons.
If someone is looking for a weapon to buy, he is interested with the best weapons he can get in game, so all the worse won't be really bought. You must be lucky.

[saladasalad]

Why would a pawnbroker offer to buy things for a higher price? The whole point of a pawnbroker is to buy things for a very low price because he knows you're desperate for the money. You say you tried to auction it but got no offers. Well, sometimes there's nobody around who wants to buy it. Or perhaps your starting price is above market value. Try starting your auction at Harnquist's price and see how high it goes.

Well I guess that the idea I was trying to communicate is not really a pawnbroker - it was just the first term that came to mind. The real idea is to implement a way for people to sell their goods to the people who want them and to keep crafted weapons in-game rather than being sold to the nearest NPC. I could have sat at Harnquist's for hours waiting for a noob with some money to come by but I reckon it would be much nicer if the noob (I hate that word) could go to a shop and buy a weapon that someone else had sold. It's not really about the money, more about the weapon.

Another solution could be an auction room where you can leave your goods, set a reserve price and come and collect your money at a later date. I have only been around for a couple of weeks but I have yet to see anyone trying to sell low-quality crafted weapons.

[Jeraphon]

I have yet to see anyone trying to sell low-quality crafted weapons.

Because top-quality ones are very prevalent and easy to buy?

[saladasalad]

I have yet to see anyone trying to sell low-quality crafted weapons.

Because top-quality ones are very prevalent and easy to buy?

But is that what we really want? Lots of really cheap, high-quality crafted weapons?

Has the topic of removing generic weapons (ones that can be crafted) been discussed by the settings team?

[Roderyck Slywolfe]

I like the idea of Harnquist keeping the items he buys and selling them at a higher price. I recently paid 15K for an axe(Q171), and new players can hardly afford that. But a Q65-100 is considered scrap by most players. So, why not sell it to Harn and have him resell it to make it available for new players?

[bilbous]

Maybe there should be an NPC run charity that takes donations of equipment and returns faction points. It would also be a place where new players could run errands for the donated equipment. Players could trade damaged weapons for similar repaired weapons or new ones depending on their current status with the charity and other players could donate repair expertise.

[Jeraphon]

But is that what we really want? Lots of really cheap, high-quality crafted weapons?

No. In fact, we want quite the opposite. We want high-quality crafted weapons to be difficult to create and expensive, to the point that weapons of all qualities are attractive to people of various levels of income.

*edit*

Maybe there should be an NPC run charity that takes donations of equipment and returns faction points. It would also be a place where new players could run errands for the donated equipment. Players could trade damaged weapons for similar repaired weapons or new ones depending on their current status with the charity and other players could donate repair expertise.

Interesting idea, but we'd need to find a way to cap the faction increase somehow in order to avoid what's being termed "power-factioning." Apart from that, I don't see too much of a problem with it game-wise. (Coding-wise, I'm sure the engine dept would tell you exactly how much of a problem it is.)

[ Double-post merged. --Karyuu ]

[bilbous]

Well as far as faction capping goes it would seem to me that each donation would would generate x amount depending on current faction levels. I'm thinking that it would increase the good aligned factions, might be a separate organization for the others, and that each specific faction would be checked according to several factors to see if it gets a bump. Some factors that might be considered are: current specific faction level, type of donation, amount of donation, frequency of donation -- others might come to mind. In the next paragraphs I will describe these considerations.

Current faction level: Characters with low faction levels would receive larger bumps than those with higher levels.  Someone with 0 Faction points might receive 5 faction points for a first donation modified of course by the other modifier while one with 50 it might be more expected behaviour and generate only fractional points. Factions which consider the donation for reward would calculate the possibility independent of another faction considering the same possibility.

Type of donation: military factions would favor donations of military equipment and repair services, weapon armor creation; trade factions would reward donations of raw materials, tradesman services -- smelting, tanning, baking, etc. depending on their specific trade and tools; arcane factions would reward glyph donations and spell-casting services.

Amount of donation: This would likely be tailored to amount resctive to the players expertise, a new character might get a point for donating a looted non-magical sword where an experienced character would need to donate one or more magical swords. A novice weapon repair practitioner might get a reward for repairing one mundane sword while an expert might have to repair 20 mundane or fewer magical weapons.

Frequency of donation: Reward levels should taper off rapidly if they come one after another. It should be tweaked somehow that giving a bundle of swords gives no less of a bump than giving the same weapons individually one after another. There might be daily weekly and monthly limits to the number of points to be gained.

This list is not meant to be exhaustive.

NB. move this post and my previous one to a new thread if this idea merits its own discussion, I did not intend to hijack another's thread.

[Unnamed_Source]

First you got to change the selling price according to the quality and not the just the given name. A 300/300 dagger is still a simple dagger in name but does the damage comparable to a magical one of  what ever the current high magic standard is. Yet the magical dagger sells for more because it has a different name and the dev can set its price to that name. Hence all crafted weapons, no matter tne quality, cannot be sold at an NPC to even cover the matirial costs let alone a profit and there for if the NPC are given a stored stock of items sold to them by PCs, they will sell the crafted weapons at the same price as the generic ones it normaly has, so essentially you would be able to by a 300/300 dagger for 50 tria.

A fix to this is to add a sufix or prefix to what ever the ware and quality is, there for the devs can set the value to the prefix/sufix additions and that muliplied by the type of weapon, to note the distiction between weapon types.

1. A sharp quality dagger          =>  300/300
2. A dull quality short sword      =>    50/300
3. A sharp crude Battle Axe       =>   50/50
4. A dull crude Claymore           =>   10/50

A later sufix can denote the material type. In this case the Sufix catagorizes the weapons value even further. Where two 300/300 daggers of different materials will not be worth the same. (Quality - Ware%)(Type + material) = Value

1. A sharp quality dagger of tin
2. A dull quality short sword of silver   
3. A sharp crude Battle Axe of steel     
4. A dull crude Claymore of bronze
 
This is just a sample as more stages would be advisable and in this way the price can be set not only for the quality /X but also for the current ware of the weapon Y/ and the eventual addition of other material types. Where if X = Y the weapon will command most value in that quality stage, weapon type, and material. Keeping the X/Y visable is an option after this, for RP purposes numbers don't reflect well, but for practical means, the numbers help the player easily denote the weapons current stage of ware.

Whether the value is set to the current numbers or to names like those shown here, in order for NPC to distinguish between crafted weapons and reflect the price in their stock and when purchased, an NPC alternative to the Auction tab is not going to work other wise.

[Nikodemus]

A tin sharp quality dagger


Sounds better.
One thing to note in overal. These names are way too long already for practical use, especially that more of these factors may come with time.
When we see its namem, in most cases it should be just Dagger, or Tin dagger. Simple and short, nothing more. If you want more, you look into description. Also, why names should be simple and you don't add there quality and actual state factors. They change and a name can't change. Because name is what you use for commands and alike.
Though at merchant window we could see all these suffixes and prifixes, to make it more ergonomic.

[Unnamed_Source]

What ever floats your boat, if they're all prefixes or sufixes or a mixture of both. The intent was to show that the name should gives the value of the item when NPCs are concerned. Quality is not looked at when the value is given. Whether the material, quality, and ware are in the name or in the description is not in contest, the factor of worth is and currently the worth of a weapon is not measured by the those important factors, just the name it was catagorized under.

I agree, all the weapons should have simple names, and any addition should be in the description, as for the reason that the pop up window is for. All the same the magical weapons, no matter the prefix or suffix, all have destict descriptions cause they were made special by the devs. All crafted weapons are essentially the same as the generic weapons sold by the NPCs, with the exception of the enhanced quality and ware factors. The descriptions are the same whether it is a 50/50 weapon or a 300/300 weapon. So it may not be the actual name but how and where crafted weapons are catagoried under that, sets their worth.

As I stated, whether it is the name, or how you stated, the description, the worth should be based not on a base catagory, even for magical weapon, but on the higherarchy of its actual description. ie the material, type, quality, and ware(and for special weapons what ever magical enhancements they should posess). Where as the type and material are static(and magical properties), the ware and quality should change, just like the numbers change with use and repair. And that is how a weapon value should be viewed, everything else is consmetic. And whether you base the worth on the numbers themseves or make descriptive catagories based on the numbers is also trivial, just as long as either one is done.

Untill this is coded, no one in there right mind will sell, even a 55/55 weapon, let alone a 300/300 to an NPC, cause A) they will get paid the same as if they sell a 50/50 weapon and B)300/300 weapon can then be sold by the NPCs for the same price of  50/50 weapon. Making the efforts of the devs to code an inventory stock for the NPC a wasted effort.

For example, if a 300/300 short sword was catagoriezed as a shortsword of seduction at creation, that would reflect closely the what the 300/300 sword would actually be, as the stats for each sword are close to the same. Now I don't know if when you would catagorize the 300 sword, would the description and name change or would they still retain the "simple" state of current crafted weapons, but if they were to retain the "simple" status yet be now viewed by the game as a sword of seduction, this would also be an alternative to code, Simply choosing what magical weapon that best resembles the different  qualities. Ware though will not be reflected this way as a1/50 sword of seduction is worth just the same as a 50/50 of the same type. But it is a step in the right direction. In the long run, a value system based on the state of ware, quality, material(eventually), magical properties, and type will best server the game and the devs time.