Buying and Selling from Merchants

I won't waste your time going through the options here, I'm just going to jump right into my thoughts and then justify them with a drawn out explanation.

Question:  If a player sells an item to an NPC merchant, should other players be able to buy that item from the merchant?

Answer:  Maybe.

My thoughts on how it should work, and the mechanics of selling and buying from Merchants...

There will be a number of Merchants in the game:

• Crafting Merchants
• Merchants who do not have raw materials, they seek them out, bring them back to a forge, loom, etc. and create crafted products.  These crafting merchants only seek out the materials that they need to craft in their particular field.  If they are sold something they don't need they'll use it to barter for what they do need, purchase it at a discounted rate from players, and seek to get it out of their inventory.  If they can't find anyone to take it they'll seek to get rid of it by offering players incentives: "Come one, come all!  All sharpened rusty swords now come with a fire beetle eye!"
• Traveling Merchants
• These merchants do not seek out any particular item.  Their business model is to buy extremely low, sell extremely high, and offload within cities.  Generally speaking, their prices will fluctuate from high while traveling to low while preparing to leave a city/town.  These merchants offer a great service to adventures with full backpacks.  Traveling merchants are intelligent in that if they've just finished walking through the forest and have purchased many stacks of "Bear Hides" they will head to the leatherworking merchants/vendors within the next city and sell their items in bulk (or trade for highly salable leather armor!).  In larger cities, the Traveling merchants will visit the local Auction House and sell their items to the highest bidder (ie: Players).
• "Specialists"
• Specialists sell very particular items, like all vendors they will buy anything you give to them, but they will provide a below average price.  A Hermit, alone in his woodland cabin, may only sell pebbles he's found on his journey.  Likewise, he does not care to travel specifically to sell wares.  Over time, you may find that items other players have sold him have found their ways onto Traveling Merchants, which the Hermit has met through his travels.
• Inn Keepers
• Specialists in their own way, Inn Keepers tend to stick to the basics: food, water, and traveling supplies.  Traveling Merchants, adventurers, and even the odd Specialist may wonder into the Inn looking to stay the night or have a meal.  Those customers may end up selling, or purchasing, items from the Inn Keeper.  As such, Inn Keepers generally have a very broad and every changing selection of items in addition to the basics.
• Shop Keepers
• Really self explanatory.  Shop keepers own a store, stall, booth, mall, cart, or other active business.  They generally deal in particular items, such as swords, clothing, regents, food, spells, or scrolls.  They'll buy anything, and sell anything they have.  Because they deal in a particular item and live in the city they'll generally be happy to purchase something at an slightly below-average value so you can purchase some of their wares.  However, they are quick to sell those items to crafting and traveling merchants that come by for nearly no profit, simply to keep their inventory fresh.
• and more...

So there you have it!  If I'm out in the world, slaying spider-lings, and I obtain a massive quantity of Spider-ling Silk, I have two options (for selling to merchants).  I can sell to a traveling merchant when I see one pass by, or I can head to town and sell to a merchant their for a higher value.

If I sell to a traveling merchant, that merchant will then use his uber Story Bricks AI to trigger a "Go to the Tailor in this city and sell Spider-ling Silk" action.  That tailor (a crafting merchant) could then create a number of Silk Robes.  With his robes in hand, the crafting merchant may choose to visit some of the local armor shops and sell his robes to them.  A traveling merchant, about to hit the road, may also purchase one to resell to a rich adventurer.  

I believe this all to be capable under the existing AI system, and I believe it would enable these keep points:

1. All merchants would have "baseline" items that they maintained in stock.
2. All merchants would have the POTENTIAL to have ever changing and refreshing stock.
3. Would encourage a system where Players would have important interaction with a network of NPCs.
4. Items will have a history!
5. There is very little "showing out of the blue", vendors and their inventories evolve as the game does.

So yup, that's it!  Until next time!

Response to Video: Fast Travel in Everquest Next

The video starts with, "Sounds like players want exploration first."

Then into EverQuest's travel system, and how it made the world feel huge.

Then you say, "ya, but I want to group up with my friends on the other side of the world."

Then we get this awesome system with fast travel to distant nodes, not instantaneous, with plenty of travel when you arrive.

(ok, so so far it's an exploration first system, similar to EverQuest but with some sort of fast travel.  Not instantaneous, which is great, and there is lots of travel room still required after you fast travel.  Wow, that sounds very NEW, and DIFFERENT, and GREAT.

AND THEN YOU CLOSE WITH, "IF IT AIN'T BROKEN, DON'T FIX IT!"

Are we doing the new system you talked about?
Are we sticking to an EverQuest system?

Cause that new system, it doesn't sound like something which you could apply the "If it ain't broken, don't fix it" cliche to!

So just tell me straight up, what are we doing in EverQuest Next?