Gemp-LotR Merchant explained - Q&A

[MarcinS]

Two problems:
- it will take huge amount of money (each conversion takes 4 cards and 2 Gold)
- this way, I can get rid of extra cards if I have 8, 12, 16 and so on copies, but this doesn't work for cards that I own a number of copies that is not a multiple of 4.

I can add an option for scrapping cards above X, however I'd rather spend that time working on tournaments...

[bibfortuna25]

Just add back the option to sell crappy cards for 1S each. And add the ability to sell multiple cards at once.

[MarcinS]

Just add back the option to sell crappy cards for 1S each. And add the ability to sell multiple cards at once.

No, and no. There is no reason you should be able to sell cards to merchant over a specified treshold, I can add option to sell multiple copies of the same cards (provided merchant accepts them), but you will not be told up-front, how much you will be paid for them - the reason being, it could be exploited.

[bibfortuna25]

Yes there is a reason. And that reason has been stated over and over again on here. Please put the merchant back the way it was so we can actually get rid of our extra cards and make a little more profit.

[hsiale]

Two problems:
- it will take huge amount of money (each conversion takes 4 cards and 2 Gold)
- this way, I can get rid of extra cards if I have 8, 12, 16 and so on copies, but this doesn't work for cards that I own a number of copies that is not a multiple of 4.

I can add an option for scrapping cards above X, however I'd rather spend that time working on tournaments...

This is not something needed soon. Tournaments are definitely higher priority. But it would be nice to have such possibility one day. So if you put it on "low priority fixes" list and do some day when there are no major upgrades to work on, I'm completely fine with this. Thanks

[Nitsuj]

So, i noticed something a little quirky with the merchent this morning.  Hobbit Swords are in a weird spot where the merchent is not buying them, but doesn't have any to sell either.  Not sure how this would play out in the long run, but they could be off the market forever?  I guess TTT swords can be bought.

[hsiale]

FotR Hobbit Swords can be bought. Merchant never sells (and never sold) reprints.

[hsiale]

"Merchant now sells all the cards, but the out-of-stock cards are substantially more expensive to buy"

Well I guess this is to make people who complained happy. When I look at prices it definitely is not worth to buy those cards. How does this work - is the price more inflated with each buy when out of stock?

Now it's even more important for merchant to give information about estimated stock. Without it no rational decisions can be made, and especially a decision to buy boosters. I think the best way this can be done is what I proposed yesterday, with one change due to a possibility that the stock goes negative if people buy it when it's out of stock:

- make a daily economy report - each day, at midnight server time, a text file is generated (or, perfectly, each time a player requests it to be generated, but I don't know how heavy this will be on the server) containing market info. Such file should be easily importable into any spreadsheet software for analysis purposes. For example each line could be something like this:
#1#R#1#The One Ring, Isildur's Bane#4#18,52#availability#
Where entries mean: set number, rarity, card number, card name, number of copies you have, current sell price, estimate of copies the merchant has, for example:
- seriously out of stock (deficit of 5 or more copies)
- out of stock (0 copies or small deficit, selling at inflated price),
- very low (1 to 3 copies, i.e. less than a playset)
- low (4 to 11 copies, i.e. less than 3 playsets)
- average (12 to 50 copies)
- good (51 to 90 copies)
- very good (91 to 99 copies)
- overstocked (100 or more copies, not buying).

Also, out of stock cards should definitely be flagged withing the merchant (especially useful for people who have 0 copies of this card) and buy price should be displayed for those people.

[MarcinS]

The sell price for out-of-stock cards is doubled.

[Raelag]

Well I am not sure that some prices are equal the card.. Cause i have sold company of archer for 270G and Southron Markshmen for 120G.. Also some cards from the sets about 17 have a price about 400G cause they arent stocked (And i see it can be bought for 900G)... Its a reason or just a bug?

[Raelag]

To be honest i think that persistant Orc shouldnt have a price about 2000g (when i see now he is out of stock and he can be bought for 8000G!!!) this is what you want to full the market of expanded sets?

[bibfortuna25]

And I just made over 1100G by buying Shadows starters and selling most of the contents.

[hsiale]

The biggest problem is definitely the S rarity cards from Hunters and onwards, as there is completely no way to buy them other than as singles from merchant.

[MarcinS]

I'm willing to accept and reasonable change requests/suggestions, and no - saying "bring back the old merchant" is not a good one. The old merchant had a flaw - card prices were always going down in the long run, which turned booster packs worthless.

If you have any ideas what we can improve with the current merchant, please post them here.

One thing I'd like to definitely do, is to introduce Expanded and Wraith Collection as fixed sets.

Current crazy "buy" prizes on some cards, are a consequence of me turning merchant into aggressively trying to acquire cards, that it is "out-of-stock" on.

[Hansolo666]

The merchant is down...ppl sold cards from shadows for over 2500g each...interesting...