Maybe Theran business isn't going all too well, but it seems shopkeepers don't have much money:
---

A wandering merchant tells you 'I'm afraid I don't have enough money to buy stuff.'

The weaponsmith tells you 'I'm afraid I don't have enough money to buy stuff.'

The master blacksmith tells you 'I'm afraid I don't have enough money to buy a thing.'

the Armorer tells you 'I'm afraid I don't have enough money to buy a thing.'

the Weaponsmith tells you 'I'm afraid I don't have enough money to buy stuff.'

A thin shopkeeper tells you 'I'm afraid I don't have enough money to buy stuff.'

The armorer tells you 'I'm afraid I don't have enough money to buy a thing.'

Tarni tells you 'I'm afraid I don't have enough money to buy a thing.'

A blacksmith tells you 'I'm afraid I don't have enough money to buy stuff.'

Borradan the Supplier tells you 'I'm afraid I don't have enough money to buy a thing.'

Fronkwin the Weaponsmith tells you 'I'm afraid I don't have enough money to buy stuff.'

Gragnon the Armorsmith tells you 'I'm afraid I don't have enough money to buy a thing.'

Flixxan tells you 'I'm afraid I don't have enough money to buy stuff.'

Doralin the Dark Merchant tells you 'I'm afraid I don't have enough money to buy stuff.'

A cloaked figure tells you 'I'm afraid I don't have enough money to buy stuff.'

Thron tells you 'I'm afraid I don't have enough money to buy stuff.'

---

Thats selling items in the 1-2K range, which isn't that much. Maybe you could help them out and give them a bit more coins?

Sure, I managed to sell what I had, but I had to take a very long walk for that. It took so long I had to wait for shops to re-open.

I would think readily available coin would make things more lively and fun, rather than something of a drag.

My 0.02

But it is a good example of supply and demand.

If you don't offer something of value forsale, people won't buy it and thus you won't have currency to circulate.

If it was an inflated market it would account for the fact that coin is essentially infinite and merchants could sell items people wanted for huge fees.

Like chicken for 100 copper each or something.

Conversly, galadonian weapons would still be dirt cheap.

Also, it's not that they don't want to buy it. They can't, because they don't have enough coin.

nt

I don't get the logic behind why they have so very, very little.

>I don't get the logic behind why they have so very, very
>little.

Because it's not a true economy. Even if they had more coin you'd run into the same problem for the same reason you are now. Other people are beating you to the shopkeepers cash.

I suppose on average, when I go on a selling spree, I gather 10+ items of around 1K and get to sell 1 per shop. I've documented and frequent 41 shops (but I know more), so I am going to be able to sell everything I want, but it may end up quite a walk.

If I do sell 10 items at a 1 item per shop, with 1000K each, rate, that means 10 shops are unavailable to others for quite a while.

Now, what if instead of about 1K, shoppies have about 10K. Then I suppose I could typically sell about 5 items to the same shopkeeper. That means I need only 2 shops to clear my 10 1K items.

That still leaves 8 of the previous shops untouched!

Ofcourse, if I bring 10 items worth 10 gold, then yes, we would have the same situation we have now. It would still be 1 item per shop, with 10 shops unavailable. So, to counter this, use a upper-value limit.

Say ... 3000, if you sell something of higher value, they may say something like 'I would have a hard time trying to resell that', or whatever. Some way off the beaten path guy may perhaps not have this limit.

Also, shoppies don't seem to gain in cash, when you buy something. They just stay at their current level.

So, to summarize:

- Up the available cash pool
- Prevent one-item-sellouts through a max value limit
- Refill their cash pool through items bought

Even if he made the starting cash on hand of merchants ten times higher. If the mud is up for 3 days then the starting cash would only affect the game for maybe the first few hours of the mud being up. People would clean out the merchants of their starter gold and then for the next few days until a reboot or the merchant is killed you would be faced with the situation that started this thread.

Now some merchants people actually buy things from and those merchants will often times be able to purchase more and that is really how it should be. if that guy way out in the swamp is not getting any business then why would he have an unlimited supply of gold to buy things, or even much of a supply in the first place.


the whole reason that having gold is valueble is because there are challenges to getting it. If everyone had infinite gold (like the old days) then gettings gold does not give you an advantage over the other guy.

Sorry, this line from your post

"If everyone had infinite gold (like the old days) then gettings gold does not give you an advantage over the other guy."

made me think of Scarface

>So, to summarize:
>
>- Up the available cash pool

No. That just makes gold infinite, and not a concern for anyone.

>- Prevent one-item-sellouts through a max value limit

This also happens. Shopkeepers never spend all their money at once, and it slowly trickles out of their "bank account" back to them over time.

>- Refill their cash pool through items bought

That does happen already

>>- Refill their cash pool through items bought
>
>That does happen already

Is the refill on a one to one basis? IE. for every coin I spend, they have the same amount of coin to spend?

xfdbsfb

Much appreciated.

>If you don't offer something of value forsale, people won't
>buy it and thus you won't have currency to circulate.

It would help if the shopkeepers sold stuff that's a good regear set, for example. Has it been checked that the items shopkeepers sell are such that you'd actually want to use them? A good basic set. In other words, no more selling completely useless junk.

>>If you don't offer something of value forsale, people won't
>>buy it and thus you won't have currency to circulate.
>
>It would help if the shopkeepers sold stuff that's a good
>regear set, for example. Has it been checked that the items
>shopkeepers sell are such that you'd actually want to use
>them? A good basic set. In other words, no more selling
>completely useless junk.

Define "good regear set". I'm pretty sure what you want is gear that is the equivalent of limited gear, which is pointless to have in a shop since it would never be there (and thus no cash coming in). There are shops that have some decent gear for low-mid levels, but when you get to hero, no. The outfit command itself does a good job of giving you what I think is decent gear, but there is no point putting that in a shop when you can get it by using outfit.

In any RPG game that I've played, there is always some equipment at the shops that is worth using (Dragon Age, Baldur's Gate, Oblivion, Diablo, etc.). In Carrion Fields, this doesn't seem to be the case.

I won't say that the shops don't have anything useful. There are plenty of potions, talismans, wands and scrolls that are worth spending gold on. There is the occasional trinket that is also worth buying (pocketwatches from Voralian City). And I can think of a very small handful of weapons/armors worth buying. The merchants north of the large crossroad off the eastern road was a step in the right direction. But even 95% that stuff loses value after level 20.

My point is, the number of useful weapons and/or armors sold at merchants is very, very limited compared to the miscellaneous items available.

While you can buy decent items at merchants in the action/RPG games, the best equipment is always reserved for killing and exploration. I don't think it'd hurt the game to make some serpent-scale type armor for sale, or snow worm, snow leopard, Velkyn Oloth armor, etc. If I get looted to the pies, I should be able to put fifty gold in the bank and be able to go purchase a suit of armor that a level 30-40 character would be proud to use.

I think the shops should be focused on 20 and down because it's the proving ground of the newbie.

Heros go on epic adventures for their stuff.

The problem with Galadon crap is that it's crap.

Don't make it supar cheap. But don't make it stupidly expensive either.
Something I can drop 50 -60 gold on, vs the 5 you drop as a lowbie at the bazaar.
That as Magus says, a lvl 30 could be proud to wear.

(I don't think level restrictions on THIS particular type of gear would be bad either)

>My point is, the number of useful weapons and/or armors sold
>at merchants is very, very limited compared to the
>miscellaneous items available.

That's because the majority of weapons especially, and armor to a point, that people find useful are limited. If I toss an unlimited average 24 sword in Galadon it breaks the system of limited gear. If I toss a limited average 24 sword in Galadon it'll be gone in no time, and people won't be able to buy it and we'll be exactly where we are today.

>While you can buy decent items at merchants in the action/RPG
>games, the best equipment is always reserved for killing and
>exploration. I don't think it'd hurt the game to make some
>serpent-scale type armor for sale, or snow worm, snow leopard,
>Velkyn Oloth armor, etc. If I get looted to the pies, I should
>be able to put fifty gold in the bank and be able to go
>purchase a suit of armor that a level 30-40 character would be
>proud to use.

See my other post...the items you guys are focusing on are gear that should be limited but isn't. Now maybe the answer is to actually limit those items and put in something similar for purchase in town.

But wouldn't it be fun with some top notch, ridiculously expensive EQ for sale somewhere? Expensive enough that getting them would actually be a big deal, even at hero... Would make gold more valuable, which feels like a good thing.

>But wouldn't it be fun with some top notch, ridiculously
>expensive EQ for sale somewhere? Expensive enough that getting
>them would actually be a big deal, even at hero... Would make
>gold more valuable, which feels like a good thing.

Why...when I can still find characters with hundreds, or even thousands of gold currently (meaning gold still isn't that hard to come by).

It just means the item would be highly limited, someone would go buy it, and you wouldn't ever see it, just like the strange bracers.

Shirt of shining silver chain, charred bracers, desert cloaks, troll commander's belt and stuff like that. Maybe even something as good as snow worm stuff at higher levels? That's the kind of stuff that I consider a good regear set, none of the items being limited.

Is it so that outfit gear no longer crumbles? Gear you can buy from shops should be equivalent with the decent unlimited stuff you can find from out there. It would improve the game if the stuff sold in shops would be actually useful and there wouldn't be fairly useless items that are bad choise for you out there (blue armor from Galadon guards and that kind of stuff).

>Shirt of shining silver chain, charred bracers, desert
>cloaks, troll commander's belt and stuff like that. Maybe even
>something as good as snow worm stuff at higher levels? That's
>the kind of stuff that I consider a good regear set, none of
>the items being limited.

>Gear you can buy
>from shops should be equivalent with the decent unlimited
>stuff you can find from out there. It would improve the game
>if the stuff sold in shops would be actually useful and there
>wouldn't be fairly useless items that are bad choise for you
>out there (blue armor from Galadon guards and that kind of
>stuff).

It's funny that most things you've brought up are things that should be limited, but we chose not to limit. Maybe the answer is make those items limited in the wild, and provide somethign purchasable in towns.

>Is it so that outfit gear no longer crumbles?

I thought I did make them not crumble, but without looking at the code I'm not sure.

I think a good start would be changing the threshold that you consider limiting items at. Midnight dragon gear for instance should be purchasable in the mid to late 20's. There are better gear options that are highly limited (all the limited hero gear like spider hide breastplates and darkened gear and etc) but the "almost always in" or unlimited stuff should be sold out of shops IMHO.

Would also go a long way to start removing items that no one would ever feasibly want to use.

And regarding thousands of gold - almost all of that can be traced to a handful of locations that you can balance - I wouldn't say its common for particularly low and mid level characters to be rolling around with 100+ gold.