Lets Talk About Trades

[Seig]

I know these ideas have been brought up before in the idea threads, but I feel like there needs to be more discussion on the matter. As it stands, at least for me and a few others, past and present traders/crafters/merchants, we find ourselves entering the role not because we want to, but because we pretty much have to. I know for a fact once I finish fulfilling what I obligated myself to do as miner and smith, I will be leaving the profession to join a fighting guild again. I'll let others chime in on how they fill about this, as I know there are others who feel the same way, finishing what they can before they can join a fighting guild. Being a crafter full time is just not fun for me. maybe its because of the trades I picked, or what have you but I went from interacting with people to almost no interactions with anyone because I was always so busy mining. but feeling the need to mine kryllian and smith it, I kept at it, spending sometimes 10+ hours a day mining without outside interaction. I understand that a few people enjoy the profession, and kudos to them, I hope for them to chime in here as well.

Now on to what has already been suggested in a way. While the market is a temporary fix for missing tradesmen, its not meant to be long term which is what some cities are having with their tradesmen. I simply suggest that we allow for a general skill to be learned enabling everyone who wants to invest the crystals to have a trade. This could even be made fun and a bit challenging, if we installed a quest similar to finding the compass of elharo to learn to sail. each trade has its own quest line that you have to do before being able to learn the trade.

as of right now this is the idea that I have been toying with, but I would love to hear more ideas from everyone on how we could possibly work this. Or someone to tell me I'm an outright idiot and I should shut up and go back into hiding xD

anyways, discuss away my fellow players!

[Kresslack]

The biggest issue is that the economy and cities rely heavily on the presence of traders to supply fundamental items and necessities. However, there's an understandable burnout with such a profession, especially the less there are in each city. In the past I've felt the need to leave the Shadow Warriors and go Trader as, at the time there was a longstanding peace and a shortage of supplies. So I stepped down from SW and went to Traders because, well, that's what the city needed at the time.

There's a larger underlying issue, which is the need for a more active community and active playerbase. Lacking a sustained and growing playerbase, the only solution -would- be to make these available as general skills for everyone to learn. But then that begs the question of what happens to the guilds who effectively have their skills given away?

[Seig]

[...] There's a larger underlying issue, which is the need for a more active community and active playerbase. Lacking a sustained and growing playerbase, the only solution -would- be to make these available as general skills for everyone to learn. But then that begs the question of what happens to the guilds who effectively have their skills given away?

Yes, the lack of playerbase does play a large role in this issue, but Akanbar has never been huge. I've never seen more that 15 people about, visible, at a given time, but I've heard that Akanbar at times has had higher numbers. even those higher numbers are considered small. I'd love to see Akanbar reach 50+ people logged in at peak times, but I doubt that is going to happen, hence this post. I apparently left out the tradespeople with my idea, not sure why... but I don't want them to go away, if people enjoy it for whatever reason. I simply meant, having the ability to learn 1 trade skill, to unsurpassed, but this also would be available to the tradespeople, essentially allowing them to have 3 trades instead of switching to this and that to fill the needs of the city/game as a whole. The only problem I see with this is that it could overwork tradespeople who are already working hard. Me personally, if I were still a crafter, it'd be suicide, but only because I hated it(and I think people who enjoy being a tradeperson are crazy anyways(no offense my lovely tradespeople)) Anyways. I spent my time, supplied most of the people of Golgonath with the smithed goods they needed, I don't plan on ever doing that again any time soon. I could have done more kryllian stuff, but I really couldn't be bothered with mining it, and everyone was out of it/not willing to sell.

Other than this, I've been rolling around in my head the idea to give cities the ability to create specific items at extortionate prices, but... that's basically the market, but more broad than the measly selection that it offers now. I'd like to see it include ores and such... since the market only sells finished products and... mining is just terrible. But that's a whole other tangent I can get on... and not the point of this post.

Also, as far as the guilds having their skills given away? they still have merchantry, which is a good semi-unique utility skill for them. Also think about it, there's overlap everywhere. Shadow Warriors has no unique skills, Shamans have 1 unique skill. All mages share intonation, as well as demonologist. A portion of demonologist skills mirror pyromancer spirit skills. Hymns has overlap with Monk skills best I can tell but I'd have to gather more information about monks to see how much is overlapped. I'm sure there's other overlap I'm missing besides the obvious holyshit there's a lot of shadow users. But eh. I dunno. if there isn't a way to fix the issue then that's how it'll have to be. we'll just plug along with the terribly overpriced and understocked market. xD