Merchants

=Merchants=

Normally when you are buying or selling from a merchant in Neverwinter nights, there is usually only one store associated with him with several tabs across the top. Each tab is a different category of items that the store has such as "Armor and Clothing", "Weapons", "Potions and Scrolls". Any item you buy from a normal merchants is under the same static buy and sell rate for all his items. This is normally about 65 percent of the value when he buys from you and 100 percent when he sells to you.

The Merchants in the World of Torr are setup differently than the standard ones that are found in Neverwinter Nights however. Different types of items are bought and sold under different buy and sell rates depending on that kingdoms economy (See Economy and Trade). This means that, for example, a merchant might be buying armor at 50 percent of its value and selling them to you at 100 percent of its value but is buying and selling his potions at 80 and 120 percent. Since having different buy/sell rates for different items in one "store" on a merchant wasn't possible via the code the merchants in The World of Torr have a different "store" for every type of item them sell. When speaking with a merchant, they will have a small list of the different types of items they sell (i.e. "Armor", "Weapons", "Potions"). Choosing a category will open the appropriate store for that category which will have its own buy/sell rates and inventory.

You will not be able to sell inappropriate item to the store you have open on a merchant even if the merchant normally buys that kind of item. For example, if you opened up a merchants Armor store and tried to sell it a potion, you will be denied, you would have to click on the merchant again and choose his Potions store (if he has one) to sell him potions. Please note that stores always open up to the appropriate "tab" which they have items in so you should never have to click around the tabs. If a store is dead empty the tab will default to "Armor and Clothing" however, even if you opened up a store for something else like Potions. Try not to let that confuse you.

Hired Merchants
There are "In-Game" merchants scattered around the marketplaces in every kingdom which are essentially owned by the kingdom itself, but there are also plenty of locations that players can place their own merchants that can buy and sell items in the exact same way as the normal ones. In the marketplaces in every kingdom, there are little signs that say "Merchant Location". These signs represent the spots where you can hire your very own merchant. You can converse with these objects if you are interested in hiring a merchant at that location. Hired merchants charge salary on a regular basis as well as charging commission on everything they sell (see below). If you set up shop and cannot make it "profitable" than you stand to lose your investment of time and money. You can only have one merchant attached to your character at a time but it is not uncommon or overly costly to fire your merchant and hire a different one somewhere else.

Once hired, you can "buy" and "sell" from your own merchant at no cost, the buy/sell rate for a merchants owner is zero. You will also see a new red option in the merchants conversation called "Merchant Admin". This option is what you use to configure your merchant to your liking as well as cashing out your profits! The features are explained below:

The Cost
Merchants charge 1000g to initially hire and then charge 10g every "payday" which is 8 hours of game time (about 15 minutes real time). They also charge a 1% commission on anything they sell per store they control. This means if your merchant is set up to have an Armor store only, he'll charge 1% on sales but if you set up your merchant to run a Armor, Weapons and Potion stores then he'll be charging 3% on everything he sells. Merchants don't take commission on things that they buy from customers but they can offer bonuses for items that they don't currently have in their inventory much the same way the normal merchants do. Please note that a merchant takes his pay from the merchant "bank" where all your profits are held. If there is not enough money in this bank to pay his salary, he will force sell a single item from every store he controls at the lowest possible sell rate to support himself (the lowest rate possible is 20%). If the merchant still cannot get paid (i.e. all inventory in all stores has been sold) he will abandon his location and disappear See "Merchant Bank" below.

Merchant Bank
The Merchant Bank is how much money the merchant has access to. When the merchant sells items, the money goes to the bank (minus his commission) and when items are bought from the public, the money from the bank is used to pay for them. The bank is also used to pay the merchants salary. Cashing out the bank will transfer everything to you save 10g but cashing out the bank when there's only 10g will empty it, this is just a precaution against cashing your bank to zero right before the merchants payday. You can also put money into the bank in 100g or 1000g increments. Its a good idea to always keep some money in the bank so the merchant will get paid and still have money to buy items. Please note: Merchants are created with their banks at zero and have no inventory in the stores you create. If not supplied with any money and have no items to sell before their first payday (15 minutes real time) they will abandon their position with no refund to you. Be prepared to supply your merchant with gold and/or items so he can get to work immediately!

Min Bank Buy
This represents the minimum amount of gold the merchant will keep in the merchant bank when considering if he should buy an item from a customer. The merchant will refuse to buy an item if the cost would bring his bank below this amount. It is important that your merchant not buy himself into bankruptcy and then not have enough money to pay his salary on his next payday or perhaps you are trying to get rid of items you supplied him and not barter for more. This value defaults to 100g but can be adjusted from 0g to 50,000g or set to "Never Buy Items" if you don't wish your merchant to buy anything. It should be noted that if your merchant cannot buy anything because the bank is empty or below the minimum and he runs out of items to sell, he cannot really do anything and will simply charge salary until your bank runs dry.

Merchant Appearance
When hiring a merchant you will get the default "General Store" merchant. You are encouraged to alter the appearance and name of your merchant using this feature. This does not dictate what kind of stores your merchant will have in any way, it only determines his title and what he looks like so customers can find the kind of merchant they are looking for easier. It would be wise to choose an "Blacksmith Merchant" for example if you intend to setup your merchant with an Armor or Weapons store, otherwise you will confuse your would be customers! You can change your merchants appearance at any time and at no cost.

Add/Remove Stores
Merchants by default have no stores associated with them. You should immediately set them up with one! Your merchant can only buy and sell items from stores he is set up to operate. Every store you setup on your merchant will raise his commission rate he'll take on items sold by 3%. If you select a store type which your merchant already has, he will remove that store and dump all the items into your inventory immediately. There is no cost to add or remove a store and a merchant can have up to 10 stores at one time.

===Adjust Buy/Sell Rates

The Buy and Sell Rates of merchants is dynamic and is affected by several factors covered under Economy and Trade. Your rates for a particular store will start off at the average rate for that type of item in that kingdom. They will automatically fluctuate using the same system as the non-player controlled merchants. You can adjust your rates and/or lock them in place if you desire by using this feature. Please note when buying or selling from your own merchant, the buy and sell rates will be zero; this is how you move inventory to and from your merchant.

Firing your Merchant
If your merchant is lazy, talks back, takes to many lunch breaks smells funny or, most commonly, isn't producing the profits you were expecting then you can simply fire him. This will destroy all the stores he controls returning any items to you and cashes out the entire merchant bank to you. The merchant will then disappear off to the welfare line and the Merchant Location sign will pop up in his place.

Economy and Trade
One of the main features of this server is the way the economy works. When certain items are bought in one city, the price of that type of item goes up while the price of that type of item everywhere else in other cities goes down slightly to compensate. The reverse happens when items are sold in a city. This makes for very interesting trade between cities and a self balancing economy.

If 50 people buy thousands of gold worth of weapons in Torr for example, the price of weapons in Torr will become astronomical while the price of weapons everywhere else will go down. A player can buy weapons from another town cheap and sell them in Torr and make a profit. As more weapons are sold to Torr, the price goes back down and the other cities where players are buying the weapons from will experience a rise in price to balance out.

Also, merchants will give big percentage bonuses for specific items that they don't currently have. This bonus is usually 15% of the items value. If you are selling a Longsword to merchant who doesn't have any long swords for 100g, the merchant will give you an additional 15g when you sell it. It is a good idea to bring different types of items when trading. Instead of bringing 10 long swords to cash in on a high demand for weapons, mix in a few different types of weapons to catch some big bonuses.

Trade skilling players can also just make what is needed, if they know how, and make good money that way also. Moving a lot of goods around is a little dangerous however, bandits attack players with large loads of goods and other players might stop you also. Stopping a merchant with a 50 ingots of gold outside a town which demands it is quite tempting.

You should also consider that the main penalty for dying is the loss of items and not XP. Several items can be destroyed upon your death (not your respawn). Players will find themselves buying several items for replacements or perhaps buying more "mundane" equipment so as not to lose a fortune upon death. The item penalty does not take an items price into account.

The different categories of items that can be found in stores are:

You should note that the extremely rare materials such as Mithril, Ithilnaur, Kregora, Galvorn, Angilian and Eog are not trade commodities. These materials are very valuable to anyone but they don't get traded between cities often enough to affect market prices.

How Merchant Rates Fluctuate and Public Trading
Warning: Economical Kung Fu skills may be required to understand the following.

When you buy items from a merchant, his sell rate goes up slightly and when you sell items back to a merchant, his buy rate goes down slightly. Essentially merchants will raise their sell prices when people are buying and lower their buy rates when people keep selling them stuff. The amount of change is approximately: 0.1 + (ItemValue/1000) per item.

Every 15 minutes or so, the stores go through a "Heartbeat" which slowly "tightens" their buy and sell rates closer together on the order of approximately 20% of their current difference. All stores will also suffer a "stale" loss of about 0.1 percent to both rates, if left alone long enough, store prices will fall. The buy and sell rate of a merchant can never close to less than a 15 percent difference under any circumstance and can never go over 200 percent.

Every Heartbeat the stores also have a chance of buying or selling an item from every store to the "public". The public represents the common people in the kingdom your store is located at who are shopping at your store. Every kingdom has a different chance of buying and selling items from your particular type of store. This depends on what type of store you have and the particular supply and demand of that Kingdom. For example, Withertop is a fishing village so you can except a good chance your meat store will see good business there but don't expect your armor store to do so well. You also have to consider that whatever chance your store has at buying and selling to the public is divided evenly by the amount of other stores of the same type in that kingdom, this represents the competition. If your merchant has a 10% chance at trading fish in a particular kingdom but there are 10 other fish stores in town, your chance is now about 1%.

Once you "win" a trade from the public at your store the system determines whether you sold something or had something bought from you. The chances of whether you have something bought or sold is influenced greatly by the amount of items in your store. If your store is almost empty, you are almost guaranteed a "buy" and if your store has more than 20 items, you can almost be sure of a "sell" to the public. A normal store over time will hover around 10 items in it's inventory. If a store rarely sees business however, you end up burning money on the merchants salary and eventually will have to go out of business.

The economy also has a "Global Shift" which means when one part of the world experiences a increasing economy, the rest of the worlds economy will fall to compensate. When the buy or sell rate at a particular store moves because of a trade, the buy or sell rates of every other store in the world will move in the opposite direction by an equal amount divided by the number of stores. That means if you change the sell rate of a store by 1 percent and there are 100 other stores in the world, they will all shift by 0.01 percent in the opposite direction. Doesn't sound like much? Look at it this way, if all the stores on one half of the world have Buy and Sell Rates approaching 200 because of good business, you can bet that the OTHER side of the world will have buy and sell rates approaching zero. Then when everyone buys stuff at the cheap stores and sells them at the pricey stores, the economies will balance themselves out again.

The system has been designed to be a self-balancing and self-correcting system. The prices of items sold at merchants cannot be "dictated" by any hard-coded values. The system allows for the prices of items to become whatever they are actually worth to the players in the game without the market being flooded with junk are constantly dry on needed items. This is another reason why the vast majority of the merchants will (hopefully) be run by the players themselves who will be able to dictate what's "hot" and what's not.