New Acarthia Merchants Guild

[meirya]

IMO the goal of every organization in the game should be to make it a PC run organization. It requires less resources from plot, is generally more fun for the PCs, and allows the game to be brainstormed by a large number of players. One reason that the mage's guild has been such a success is the amount of input and ownership the players have over it. PCs are in game 24 hours a "game day" NPCs are inherently limited unless they are a true PNPC like Quinn.

This is indeed the goal. For a huge variety of reasons, Mages Guild has had the most success in working towards this goal. Merchants has not really had a dedicated point person so it hasn't had as much time and energy sunk into building it up, which is now being rectified. Healers Guild has suffered from a variety of challenges that are hopefully changing slowly. (However, there will always be a glass ceiling of the ducal/royal guilds.)

It's a both/and situation, mind you: staff has to empower PC guild members to take over the guild and also PC guild members have to step up and take initiative and ownership of the guild. In Mages Guild for instance we have several PCs who've stepped up from early on in the game and taken on more and more responsibilities, which I've responded to as Shani by giving them even more on top of what they're doing on their own initiative, and it's progressing quite nicely.

 

[meirya]

This was partially touched on by Paxton, but one of the major elements of any burgeoning market is the ability for individuals to place orders for things. Having a singular location where that connection could happen would be useful. Right now, I don't really know where to go for potions in-game, aside from the healer's guild. That doesn't help me if I want potions other than healer-type alchemy. There's also coatings, components, formal casting, silvering/strengthening services, etc.

Having a catalog of services and products you're capable of supplying would be useful. For those familiar with the Eve Online economy, I'm mainly referring to "Buy orders" here, but also expanding into contracting services.

The merchant's guild could effectively become the Jita 4-4 (another Eve reference) of the Denver chapter.

We in fact just discussed this very thing Monday at the plot meeting! More to come on that.

 

[Cedric]

If we just switched to the AGS, I think all the economic problems of the merchants guild would work itself out.

 

[NightEyes]

The Merchants guild won't sell items below their production costs, that would be silly and horrible business sense. 'Batch' items in Alliance are backward from reality, where in reality doing several at once of the same thing might bring your production costs down, and raise your output, in Alliance, Batch crafting brings price per unit up instead, while allowing you to create more. As mentioned, some of the pricing is broken as well, such as strengthening a sword costing as much as making 19 extra spares. At that rate, you could still sell a strengthened shortsword to merchants guild at production cost, and buy 10 more regular shortswords at their double production sale cost. Even more if you were a member and receive a discount.

The Charter for merchants guild will be available on the table during events, and hopefully a finalized electronic version comming up somewhere eventually as we make minor edits and changes. The Merchant guild has potential to become player run at some point once the guild becomes something more then a joke. As several have said, up until now, there was no point to the merchants guild at all since they never had anything to sell, and they didn't offer anything to buy. With the changes being made hopefully the guild will have a better array and assortment of items, as well as plotlines, quests, missions, and benefits to being a dedicated guild member.

 

[aegora]

"Candidate must possess ten (10) levels of a single craft or production skill or complete three additional tasks for the Merchants Guild. IN ADDITION, CANDIDATE MUST PRESENT THE GUILD MASTER OR ASSISTANT GUILD MASTER WITH A SAMPLE OF THEIR CRAFT" (emphasis mine on the issue area)

Ie, you either need a trade skill...or don't need it but must still have it to show a sample. Makes no sense.

I believe that the order of the sentences here is in error. I believe it is intended that those who are advancing in the guild purely on the basis of production skills need to provide an example of their craft, (since anything else would involve OOG looking at a character card for proof.

 

[PirateFox]

I believe that the order of the sentences here is in error. I believe it is intended that those who are advancing in the guild purely on the basis of production skills need to provide an example of their craft, (since anything else would involve OOG looking at a character card for proof.

Entirely possible. I'm just going by the document given.

 

[aegora]

Great thread! And Great response Keith!
-Someone asked my NPC about potions and scrolls and I gave an IG answer... "we have something worked out with the other guilds where we won't step on each others' toes." It allows for more travel across camp ig and we like it that way.

As for rank and things, yes, Keith is correct that there is a renewed charter in the guildhall that members have access to in order to find these things (and other info) out.

-One failure on my part was not having regular guild meetings to discuss things. This is going to change soon. Be on the lookout for updates. Most of the existing members stopped by to chat last gathering, but it was always my intent to have it be more formalized with various duties taking place.

-We had 4 different quests go out from the merchants guild this event (jobs bulletin!)... .including one that was heavy lifting of decorations and props from the old guild back to our regular spot ;-)

-Selling items:
--putting your IG tagged items for sale here: speak with one of the senior guildsmen NPCs AND be a current member of the guild with certain rank.
--selling your OOG trinkets for IG coin- (i.e.- selling costume jewelry or coin purses for IG coin) MUST be a member and pay the consignment fees. You are responsible for picking up your items on Sunday. Please keep in mind that these items are NEVER worth any amount of in-game currency. That is, these items will never appear on the evaluate item list and if you buy one and your friend who has merchant skill looks at it, they will laugh and see it as a worthless trinket IG. However, IF you ever WANT to put a real value on it, you must pay the amount to logistics and the item will get etched in between events.
--selling your OOG things for REAL CASH MONEY- Please see me so we can set something up OOG about this. Currently, my leather and larp weapons are the only things up for sale, but I am open to discussing adding your items to our "store."

Clarification on something you touched on here Jesse;

You mentioned that if you want something sold at the merchant's guild to have an IG value, we just turn in the coin to plot and the item can be engraved between events?

So, theoretically, if we wanted to bring in a cool-looking gem, and give it a value of 1Gp, I just need to give 1Gp and a Gem to plot somehow?

 

[Jesse Grabowski]

That is correct!

 

[Klandaghi]

Hi all,

We HIGHLY appreciate all the things that have been mentioned here and are working to make the Merchant's guild something that everyone will enjoy. with purposes for members and non-members alike. A group of us are presently in a meeting working to ensure that ideas we can work with are getting incorporated. We hope that you enjoy what we have come up with and will be implementing this next game. The Finalized Charter will be available in game at the merchants guild.

Thanks for your participation feel free to comment after the gather here with what you liked and what you dis-liked, if possible with things we might try to improve it.

 

[NightEyes]

Finalized charter (unless someone finds a glaring error that three of us missed) will be available in game in the Merchants guild, as well as the availability of the Merchant Guard corps, an elite cadre of cyber ninja assassins that ride heavily armed steam tanks down the trade routes while fighting pirates on the seas. Just Kidding. They exist though, and they may or may not be recruiting for others who wish to devote themselves to keeping the trade routes clear of bandits and monsters, protecting trade caravans, and escorting shipments of goods through the wild and dangerous expanses of Acarthia and beyond.