Allow Traders to Carry Food

[Abstract]

Title:

Allow Traders to Carry Food

Summary:

With the use of carts (or a different paraphernalia) allow traders the ability to carry food around with them so that they can move food around the island.

Details:

Traders will be able to purchase carts, each cart having a certain limit to the amount of food it is able to carry. (Food rot still applying of course.) Then the trader will be able to move around the island and buy/sell food from/to various regions. At the moment the only thing a trader can do is broker trades which requires there to not only be a sell offer within range of a market place but also a buy offer. If those two offers are within a lord's trade range then the trader serves little to no purpose in that trade and can be bypassed. With the ability to carry food, the trader (and only a trader) will be able to move food beyond the limits of the single market place thus increasing the difference between a trader and a region lord. It should be noted that the trader could, in theory, do this by brokering a trade chain involving at least three different region lords but that is more time consuming and difficult to pull off.

Based upon my memory the ability to carry food is how it used to be and having it back would be beneficial; at least until a more robust overhaul to the trader class happens.

Benefits:

• More purpose to the trader class.
• Gives more purpose to the cart paraphernalia.

Possible Downsides/Exploits:

• Could negatively effect the economy of an island as the markets wouldn't be as isolated. This could be a potential benefit instead of a downside.

[Zakky]

They used to carry food with caravans. There is a reason why they no longer carry them around.

Hopefully traders will be reworked at some point. Kinda useless at the moment.

[De-Legro]

Indeed, I remember when D'Hara was first formed and I had to travel to Astrum to buy caravans so that I could try and feed the isles. We got rid of such things and allowed traders to "broker" trades over distance. Pointless travel is just busy work, it doesn't make the class anymore attractive. Traders and the realm Banker simply overlap too much. If we make traders more important to trade, people complain the Banker doesn't have a good overview and/or control. Giving the Bankers more power and ability makes traders less essential.

[Abstract]

They used to carry food with caravans. There is a reason why they no longer carry them around.

Hopefully traders will be reworked at some point. Kinda useless at the moment.

Yes, I was wrong, it was always just caravans. For some reason I was thinking back in 2005-06 it was carts. Checked the wiki though and no mention in the histories of that.

Indeed, I remember when D'Hara was first formed and I had to travel to Astrum to buy caravans so that I could try and feed the isles. We got rid of such things and allowed traders to "broker" trades over distance. Pointless travel is just busy work, it doesn't make the class anymore attractive. Traders and the realm Banker simply overlap too much. If we make traders more important to trade, people complain the Banker doesn't have a good overview and/or control. Giving the Bankers more power and ability makes traders less essential.

If we are going to start labeling, and dismissing, things as simply busy work then there isn't going to be anything left in the game. I can make the same argument about everything in the game.

It isn't completely about being able to travel, which is not pointless, it is about being an actual part of the trades. You buy the food at one price, it is your food, you then find a place to sell YOUR food in order to make a profit. Having the option to do both, broker and carry food, means it would be up to the player to decide if they think this is worthless. Leaving the decision in the hands of the individual player is much better than handing down a mandate from the top.

As for making the class anymore attractive, that is an opinion and thus the answer will be varied. You may not think it makes the class more attractive but what about other people? I recently changed to a trader, saw that brokering was the only thing that existed, and changed off the trader class in less than a week. Had there been more to the class, for instance the ability to actually buy/sell food, then I would have stayed on the class.

[Zakky]

I honestly think traders should be able to purchase food by traveling to different realms even if those realms put restrictions like selling food only to their realms or allies. Allow the black market again where you can buy food cheaper. Allow stewards to sell their food on the black market so they can make money behind their lords' backs.

[De-Legro]

Yes, I was wrong, it was always just caravans. For some reason I was thinking back in 2005-06 it was carts. Checked the wiki though and no mention in the histories of that.

If we are going to start labeling, and dismissing, things as simply busy work then there isn't going to be anything left in the game. I can make the same argument about everything in the game.

It isn't completely about being able to travel, which is not pointless, it is about being an actual part of the trades. You buy the food at one price, it is your food, you then find a place to sell YOUR food in order to make a profit. Having the option to do both, broker and carry food, means it would be up to the player to decide if they think this is worthless. Leaving the decision in the hands of the individual player is much better than handing down a mandate from the top.

As for making the class anymore attractive, that is an opinion and thus the answer will be varied. You may not think it makes the class more attractive but what about other people? I recently changed to a trader, saw that brokering was the only thing that existed, and changed off the trader class in less than a week. Had there been more to the class, for instance the ability to actually buy/sell food, then I would have stayed on the class.

I am not labelling, I am explaining why it was removed. Realms were suffering because very few people wanted to play traders and travel around hauling food. Thus a system was devised to make the whole thing simpler.

[Anaris]

Realms were suffering because very few people wanted to play traders and travel around hauling food.

And ultimately, this has been the problem with the trader class all along: it can't be made too powerful, because too few people are interested in playing it. But if it's made too weak, there's no point in playing it.

It's an incredibly difficult balancing act, particularly given that the food system itself has been changing to attempt to alleviate various frustrations and provide a better experience over the years.

[Medron Pryde]

It could help to get food to regions outside the banker's trading distance.

That alone seems like a good idea to allow it again.

[De-Legro]

It could help to get food to regions outside the banker's trading distance.

That alone seems like a good idea to allow it again.

They already cane? Isn't the trading radius of traders greater then the bankers (unless the banker is a trader). You can also have them position themselves inside and outside of the realm in order to access more markets. The bigger issue generally is there simply isn't a market to tap that is willing to sell your realm food. Traders carrying food in the past struggled to source enough fast enough to keep up with demand, least that was my experience when trading on Dwilight. We had friendly realms to sell us the food, we simply could not travel fast enough to keep up with food requirements.

[Medron Pryde]

Well, this may be a Dwilight only problem due to the massive distance between individual regions, but I've seen issues in Dwilight with bankers being unable to buy food from fringe farm regions because they are so far away that they simply can't access the markets out there.

If a banker could physically move to the area and take the food out and return it elsewhere, that could help.

Of course, so could increasing banker's trading range.  And that may be the simpler route.

This is simply one way to address the issues that shortened trading ranges can cause with intra-realm food trade.

[Tourmaline]

What if traders had infinite range? In what situation would that be too powerful?

[De-Legro]

Well, this may be a Dwilight only problem due to the massive distance between individual regions, but I've seen issues in Dwilight with bankers being unable to buy food from fringe farm regions because they are so far away that they simply can't access the markets out there.

If a banker could physically move to the area and take the food out and return it elsewhere, that could help.

Of course, so could increasing banker's trading range.  And that may be the simpler route.

This is simply one way to address the issues that shortened trading ranges can cause with intra-realm food trade.

Or just move the banker to be closer to the source? Or move the food in stages? Do we really want to make it so bankers can always access every region for trade? If so just get rid of their radius and give them full trade access. Then again with our realms shrinking due to density is this an issue for most?