Markets and Merchant Guilds - A Reimagining of the Current System
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@Alexian said in Markets and Merchant Guilds - A Reimagining of the Current System:
And such players could be eligible for a city charter as well.
Mayhaps eligible for one, but hardly likely to be offered one. It was talked about limiting the number of charters that a town can have. With that being the case (and it pretty much would have to be for the system to work) any town would be insane to offer charters to solo'ists over groups. Groups give them several merchants to partner with for only 1 charter slot, as opposed to a 1 for 1 exchange with a solo'ist. This, thus, incentivizes Guilds/Groups over Solo'ists again, over and above the natural advantages they already have.
Additional perks/systems that favor Guilds are not needed. What would work better is to come up with a couple perks that would favor the Solo'ist. I, however, can already hear the outcry if the Merchant Charters were only made available to Solo'ists, and not to Guilds.
[Edit]I always read every word of a post before commenting on it. You never know if there might be a kernel of worth in even the worst posts, or a phrase that invalidates some good idea, so you have to take them in, in their entirety.
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@GamerSeuss said in Markets and Merchant Guilds - A Reimagining of the Current System:
@Alexian said in Markets and Merchant Guilds - A Reimagining of the Current System:
And such players could be eligible for a city charter as well.
Mayhaps eligible for one, but hardly likely to be offered one. It was talked about limiting the number of charters that a town can have. With that being the case (and it pretty much would have to be for the system to work) any town would be insane to offer charters to solo'ists over groups. Groups give them several merchants to partner with for only 1 charter slot, as opposed to a 1 for 1 exchange with a solo'ist. This, thus, incentivizes Guilds/Groups over Solo'ists again, over and above the natural advantages they already have.
You say below you always read every post before commenting on it... and yet...
The only limits/caps that have been suggested have been for merchant guilds/companies, not cities.
Read it again. Carefully.
Additional perks/systems that favor Guilds are not needed. What would work better is to come up with a couple perks that would favor the Solo'ist. I, however, can already hear the outcry if the Merchant Charters were only made available to Solo'ists, and not to Guilds.
Governors of cities would have the discretion to award charters to whomever they please. A skilled solo merchant, a small group of merchants, a sprawling commercial empire? Charters to each? Up to the Governor.
[Edit]I always read every word of a post before commenting on it. You never know if there might be a kernel of worth in even the worst posts, or a phrase that invalidates some good idea, so you have to take them in, in their entirety.
Evidently not.
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@Alexian Just because I don't interpret what you say directly how you mean it doesn't mean I don't read it.
For any kind of charter system to work, they would need to limit the number of charters a city would have available. That's just a fact of the matter. Otherwise, every city would try to sign up everyone they could. Now, granted, in your interpretation, it is the Guild/Group that is limited on how many they can accept, and that would create some competition for charters, with the Cities trying to sign the biggest and most prolific guilds out there before anyone else fills up their quota. Again, ,Solo'ists would become an afterthought. They would get the few remaining places, maybe, but would have a hard time to compete.That is if they can even get a response in from the city Governors so focused on landing the big guilds.
The big thing is, this system still would incentivize Guilds. Big Guilds become so much more attractive for Cities to sign charters with. Solo'ists become afterthoughts. Sure, they can sign as many solo'ists as they want, but it really won't help them compete in that kind of market.
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@GamerSeuss said in Markets and Merchant Guilds - A Reimagining of the Current System:
@Alexian Just because I don't interpret what you say directly how you mean it doesn't mean I don't read it.
When your "interpretation" of my words differs wildly from the plain meaning of them, the most charitable conclusion I can offer you is that you didn't read my words in the first place.
The less-charitable but perhaps more accurate conclusion is that you're deliberately misrepresenting my words in bad faith.
For any kind of charter system to work, they would need to limit the number of charters a city would have available. That's just a fact of the matter. Otherwise, every city would try to sign up everyone they could. Now, granted, in your interpretation, it is the Guild/Group that is limited on how many they can accept, and that would create some competition for charters, with the Cities trying to sign the biggest and most prolific guilds out there before anyone else fills up their quota. Again, ,Solo'ists would become an afterthought. They would get the few remaining places, maybe, but would have a hard time to compete.That is if they can even get a response in from the city Governors so focused on landing the big guilds.
The bold, italicized text is crucial. I'm delighted after many days' worth of exchanges, you finally decided to acknowledge the plain reading of mine and @Bardikens' words. It's about damn time, frankly.
He proposed and I endorsed a cap for city charters to merchants so merchants/groups of merchants/merchant empires would be effectively unable to monopolize continental economies and foster competition. Cities themselves may indeed need to be capped as well, but merchant caps and city caps needn't be the same.
You could create a system that allows cities to offer more charters to merchants than individual merchant entities (e.g. solo merchants, small merchant groups, sprawling merchant empires) can themselves accept. A system where, hypothetically and for easy numbers, cities can offer up to 15 separate charters but each merchant entity may only accept 5 charters total.
This could indeed create a system where cities have room to offer merchant players their own charters without necessarily forgoing more lucrative relationships with other, bigger merchant groups, because they'd have plenty of charter room to share. And the fact that merchants of any size would be limited in the number of charters they can accept means that those entities would be unable to compete for every city's patronage.
The big thing is, this system still would incentivize Guilds. Big Guilds become so much more attractive for Cities to sign charters with. Solo'ists become afterthoughts. Sure, they can sign as many solo'ists as they want, but it really won't help them compete in that kind of market.
Those big guilds would be limited in the number of charters they could accept for cities. Meaning even if many cities sought charters with those big guilds, those big guilds would be limited in what they could accept and thus cities would have to look elsewhere to grant charters.
Solo players will never have the appeal of big guilds in any context in any sandbox MMO. But this system certainly won't make that lack of appeal worse..
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@GamerSeuss Totally agree that the SOLO experience is what makes or breaks an MMO.
If i want to jump online and play the game. I dont want to have to convince 45 of my friends to have to join me just to have a good experience. In fact in ultima online nearly EVERYTHING you did could be done and enjoyed as a solo experience. Even guild events you could simply join on the fly.
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@BitterLoD Exactly. I've been a Solo player 99.9% of the time since the late 90s when MMOs came out, and if anything, that's the main draw that keeps getting handicapped by MMOs as new expansions and games came out.
I was a member of a Guild in EverQuest with one of my characters. They were fun folks, and from all over the globe...shoot, we even met up in Florida for a Camp-out and picnic experience one weekend with people coming from as far away as Germany. That being said, that is more like the exception to my experience, not the be all, end all of it.
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The benefits of playing in a group need not be more than those inherent in playing in a group.
Systems to aid finding, making, or encouraging groups -like a billboard request system or mission offering- are always great and will create more valuable player interactions and allow groups to naturally coalesce through these systems of focus than simply giving more benefits and locked content only accessible by groups. There will always be those in any case due to the nature of the game where numbers are power and you need numbers to do big things, like make and sustain a city.I would encourage focus on billboard and player quest creation systems and less on mechanics that give additional special advantages to groups through mechanics and not just pure, normal, organization.
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didnt read it all but Eve Online has skills that increase the range in which you can interact with a market. While it could be limited, in Fractured, maybe a type of NPC could be hired to visit locations to see what's available. high levels of that skill could unlock more of these NPCs. Maybe two or three total so that it wont allow a person to see everything. I'd say another skill that allows you to move 1 of the NPCs but it cost time for them to travel, regardless of distance. Rank 1 of that skill (to move the NPC) could allow you to move 1 NPC while max rank could be to move them all. then another skill could decrease the speed at which they move; Rank 1 could be 24 hours but rank 5 could 6 hours (just an example).
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@GamerSeuss said in Markets and Merchant Guilds - A Reimagining of the Current System:
@BitterLoD Exactly. I've been a Solo player 99.9% of the time since the late 90s when MMOs came out, and if anything, that's the main draw that keeps getting handicapped by MMOs as new expansions and games came out.
I was a member of a Guild in EverQuest with one of my characters. They were fun folks, and from all over the globe...shoot, we even met up in Florida for a Camp-out and picnic experience one weekend with people coming from as far away as Germany. That being said, that is more like the exception to my experience, not the be all, end all of it.
To be very clear in case there's any confusion, no one in this thread is advocating for a system that requires or compels you to join a guild. That would be lazy and unimaginative.
Rather, what we're advocating is a system that compels participation in a community... even peripherally. Solo players should have to interact to some degree with local cities, local markets, and local politics in order to thrive in the game. A solo player should not be able to essentially be a One-Man-Civilization unto himself.
I do not expect nor do I want everyone to have to sign up for a guild and sit in that guild's Discord server when they'd rather explore the world by themselves and only come into town when they need to purchase or sell their wares or participate in that town's defense.
Fractured has already taken great steps in this respect by decoupling cities from guilds. A player can be a guild member or not, a city resident or not, a city citizen or not, or any combination thereof. You don't have to own, lead, or be part of a guild to claim or conquer a city. It's a nuanced system with potential for even more nuance.
It is precisely because I want to avoid the boring, stagnant dynamic of GUILDS ONLY that I endorse the mechanic @Bardikens has proposed here. It adds another layer to the socioeconomic and political onion by distinguishing the standard citizen and group from merchants. As a bonus, it would allow Fractured to actually employ the term "guild" as it is correctly defined if merchants wished to band together.
Without systems to incentivize actual merchanting, actual merchants effectively won't exist.
(And to clarify, when I say "merchant," I don't mean someone who is merely a purchaser or seller of goods (as all or most players would qualify). I refer to someone whose primary role in the game is to peddle wares and make purchases of scale to further the economy. A niche roleplay loop.)
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Brilliant idea!
