Gemp-LotR Merchant explained - Q&A

[Raelag]

I think you should gear up merchant with about 10 pieces of each rare.. Then your model would work.. But now you must reduce prices of these crapy rares whose are hundres or thousands gold each or you will completely destroy the block of 1-10 !!!

[Tbiesty]

The old merchant had a flaw - card prices were always going down in the long run, which turned booster packs worthless.

Just a thought... on my server I just altered the formulas so the rate the prices reverted back to normal after transactions was a lot slower and also essentially removed the dropping of prices over time.  Something to consider at least.

[Raelag]

Well now I see that the prices are about the normal when we consider that many of cards are out of stock.. With a brief look I havent seen some madness like 8000G..

[Raelag]

But Goblin Armory now has about 2000G price.. Maybe it would be OK after few days.. It will settle down...

[hsiale]

The problem is it will not settle down as long as cards are out of stock. And to get them in stock someone must buy packs, open them and sell singles to merchant. I tried today but gave up after well over 1000 RotK packs - the interface is just bad for mass operations so noone has time to heal the market.

25.12.2012 01:30 CET RotK report:
- average rare card sell price is 25,36
- 30 cards are in stock, 91 out of stock, price of the ones out rising as I write this.

[butemin]

so i also dedicated to sell good rares to obtain a lot of money. But i noted all the packs i opened just repeated like (x4 horrible cards all the time) the same #$&*@! cards? So that means even when u buy boosters u cannot obtain them? then how?

[radry]

Maybe there should be some better logic behind rares in boosters. I don't know how it is done currently, but I assume it's completely random what rare is contained.

It should be ensured that every rare gets optained equally. There could be a database on the server that tracks how often a rare has been put in a booster and then decide which rares are in the next boosters. So every rare will eventually be optained.

[sgtdraino]

The problem is it will not settle down as long as cards are out of stock. And to get them in stock someone must buy packs, open them and sell singles to merchant. I tried today but gave up after well over 1000 RotK packs - the interface is just bad for mass operations so noone has time to heal the market.

What purpose does it serve to have a fake economy which has a fake merchant that is out of stock on fake cards?

There is no reason for this. There is no reason why the virtual merchant should ever be out of stock. It's ridiculous.

Maybe there should be some better logic behind rares in boosters. I don't know how it is done currently, but I assume it's completely random what rare is contained.

I think that is part of the problem, yes.

It should be ensured that every rare gets optained equally. There could be a database on the server that tracks how often a rare has been put in a booster and then decide which rares are in the next boosters. So every rare will eventually be optained.

That is essentially how Decipher did it: The manner in which cards were printed and packed attempted to achieve an even distribution of different cards. It wasn't truly random. So, if you bought a case, you could be reasonably sure that you'd get a pretty good distribution. If you were buying boxes, ideally you'd want boxes with consecutive serial numbers.

[Raelag]

Well I would like to ask if admins think about the reset collections to the state before the new merchant or not...?

[bibfortuna25]

All I can say is that I bought 100 packs of FOTR today. No Goblin Armory, Gandalf FOTS, Savagery, Hate, Elrond LoR, Aragorn ROTN, Lurtz or Greenleaf. I did pull 1 SOTSF and 1 Boromir LOG, but those were the only notable rares.

[janjetina]

Resetting all collections an to zero and giving each player a fixed amount of funds, so that everybody starts at the same level  would be a better option than resetting the collections to the state from the past week, though I'm not convinced whether it would be the best option.

Old system put new players at a disadvantage, given that sealed league prize system had changed. This transition puts those who played the system at a huge advantage. Resetting the collections and funds to zero would rob people of their collections and I'm not sure that the people would like that.

It seems like we have a choice between three flawed political and economic systems: feudalism (reverting to the old system, establishing back the privileges of the "aristocracy"), liberal capitalism (legitimizing the primary capital accumulation that took place by keeping the current system) and commnunism (wiping out all the collections and giving everybody the same starting point).

I's personally opt for resetting all the collections, giving all the players the same fixed amount of funds (much larger than current 200 GP), sizeable enough to acquire the first constructed deck (the same amount would be given to the new players), plus giving each player weekly allowance  for each week of being registered on the site (plus the league prizes he won minus the league registration fees if he participated in leagues), so those who had been on the site longer and would have lost more would be compensated.

[Not a Zombie]

Bib: I think I got all your lurtz, gandy, and elrond

[bibfortuna25]

I bought 150 more FOTR packs and nearly have a playset of the good rares. Just need 1 more Goblin Armory and 2 more Elrond.

[hsiale]

Old system put new players at a disadvantage, given that sealed league prize system had changed.

Which change do you mean and why do you think it put new players at disadvantage?

[janjetina]

Not being able to keep our sealed cards after the tournament is the change I know of and am referring to.

I have a suggestion about foil pricing, that would make foil prices more realistic and consistent, eliminating the complaint about worthless foils as prizes, as foils will no longer be worthless.

As we all now, the merchant 'selling price' of foils (i.e. the price needed to redeem a foil) is 4x regular card + a fixed amount (currently 1 gold - this could be raised to make the foils less accessible and more valuable). I suggest similar pricing for selling the foils to a merchant. A fixed amount of 1 gold, plus a regular card merchant buying price multiplier (currently it's at 2x, but I'd suggest raising it to 3x). That would make even the common foils more valuable, reflecting their value in the physical market more faithfully (their supply was low).