Encouraging trade

[Procne]

What would really happen - what you described or would people stop trading? Do people really HAVE to trade, or do they do it from covenience? If the latter, then by removing convenience of Boston you actually lower incentive of trade greatly.
I think that in case of most transactions, risk and effort required to commence them would make people rather get stuff on their own than trade.

Somehow I can't see people trading stuff like lime if they would have to haul it in containers across the map, risking being ganked on the way, risking being ganked at the trade place, or having to pay for fast travel. The only trade that would remain would be exchange of high valued / purity goods.

Which brings us to noobs - their usual forms of income are selling stuff to the NPC and selling common stuff like hay, mushrooms, herbs to the higher level players. With Boston removed do you really believe that noobs would travel anywhere to sell their 10 hay, so that they can buy 2 nails?

As for fast travel - if we are supposed to have it, as it was proposed, then why would it be any better than fast travel to and from Boston like it is now?

If you want to build community then you should promote meeting together, not remove place where meetings occur.

[_Gunnar]

What would really happen - what you described or would people stop trading? Do people really HAVE to trade, or do they do it from covenience? If the latter, then by removing convenience of Boston you actually lower incentive of trade greatly.
I think that in case of most transactions, risk and effort required to commence them would make people rather get stuff on their own than trade.

Somehow I can't see people trading stuff like lime if they would have to haul it in containers across the map, risking being ganked on the way, risking being ganked at the trade place, or having to pay for fast travel. The only trade that would remain would be exchange of high valued / purity goods.

Which brings us to noobs - their usual forms of income are selling stuff to the NPC and selling common stuff like hay, mushrooms, herbs to the higher level players. With Boston removed do you really believe that noobs would travel anywhere to sell their 10 hay, so that they can buy 2 nails?

As for fast travel - if we are supposed to have it, as it was proposed, then why would it be any better than fast travel to and from Boston like it is now?

If you want to build community then you should promote meeting together, not remove place where meetings occur.

This is kindof related to my point in the OP. people don't actually *have* to trade at the moment, making large barriers to producing everything yourself (either geographical as i suggested, or using very deep industries) is the only way to make proper trade viable. If it was worth it, I would love to roam the world on a wagon, transporting stuff of value from place to place.

As for newbies, well imo they should be selling to their local powerful village, which incidentally would remove much of the incentive to exterminate the local newbies.

Having said all that, given that boston exists & artificially makes global trade easy, my point is not really as valid. However I've been checking the stands a lot now, and there really isnt that much food for sale, for example, which does suggest to me that something is very wrong with trade currently. Most of the stuff for sale appears to be things that you only need once - seeds, rods, equipment, etc.

[Procne]

I think the main reason for empty stalls is that demand for goods from stalls is much higher than what stall owners can produce. 6 slots of a single stall would probably be enough to sell all products of a large village or at least of couple of players. I have sold most of my stuff, which I gathered in the past 2 weeks, within couple of hours. So if anything useful lands on stands it either gets bought really fast, or is overpriced and stays forever

As for the traveling salesman idea - as fun as it may sound, it's simply impossible due to griefers / raiders.

[_Gunnar]

I think the main reason for empty stalls is that demand for goods from stalls is much higher than what stall owners can produce. 6 slots of a single stall would probably be enough to sell all products of a large village or at least of couple of players. I have sold most of my stuff, which I gathered in the past 2 weeks, within couple of hours. So if anything useful lands on stands it either gets bought really fast, or is overpriced and stays forever

As for the traveling salesman idea - as fun as it may sound, it's simply impossible due to griefers / raiders.

I'll just rent some guards

just cause a player is not particularly aggressive doesn't mean he (I) can't defend themselves. I always wander widely on my main (in both h&h and here), and the only time I've ever been killed is when I made a large error of judgement. Of course the danger will drive prices up, but I think you are still thinking in the mindset of someone who knows that everything can be produced in one location, eliminating the need for global trade really. If there are valuable enough things that could only be traded by wagon/ship, it would undoubtedly happen, despite the danger.

[dageir]

Funnily enough I have gotten knocked out by another players action once. Guess where? People I have met in the wilderness has acted like normal people would when meeting a stranger. They have kept their distance and been polite. Maybe I have been lucky so far.

[Shizen]

Personally I think one solution I'd prefer is to see is more terrain biomes, with a bit more logic in their layout in the world. Then increase the differentiation of various biomes. As it stands now, one can pretty much find everything one wants in one place (to be clear, one settlement placed at the intersection/near a variety of biomes). If it required even an hour's travel to find necessary items from unrelated biomes, you'd have created a need for trade. Also more biome specific forageable inspirationals (instead of reusing the same "rare" inspirationals in a number of biomes) would increase the uniqueness of settler's outposts. Probably part of the issue at the moment, as some folks have commented on, is that there just is not enough "stuff" in the world, as yet. As the game expands, it will become easier to differentiate locations.

The idea of varying climates by server I like, but the examples seemed too extreme to me. I would create more interesting biomes first, then once that process had been better understood, expand the range of biomes to include more northern and southern reach biomes specific to the northern and southern climate servers. Weather, more animals, domesticated animals, more crops, types of metal and metal aggregation (panning/rivers, etc.) would all help with this. (Irrigation, rich soil farmland vs. Accessible mining and so on).

[Shealladh]

dayum, that would be awsome, also a suggestion ~ It should cost pretty much silver to travel to these exotic servers

Good idead, but why not have Ships (Cog or Carvels) that you hire like a stall to imoport/export the goods to another server?

[_Gunnar]

Personally I think one solution I'd prefer is to see is more terrain biomes, with a bit more logic in their layout in the world. Then increase the differentiation of various biomes. As it stands now, one can pretty much find everything one wants in one place (to be clear, one settlement placed at the intersection/near a variety of biomes). If it required even an hour's travel to find necessary items from unrelated biomes, you'd have created a need for trade. Also more biome specific forageable inspirationals (instead of reusing the same "rare" inspirationals in a number of biomes) would increase the uniqueness of settler's outposts. Probably part of the issue at the moment, as some folks have commented on, is that there just is not enough "stuff" in the world, as yet. As the game expands, it will become easier to differentiate locations.

The idea of varying climates by server I like, but the examples seemed too extreme to me. I would create more interesting biomes first, then once that process had been better understood, expand the range of biomes to include more northern and southern reach biomes specific to the northern and southern climate servers. Weather, more animals, domesticated animals, more crops, types of metal and metal aggregation (panning/rivers, etc.) would all help with this. (Irrigation, rich soil farmland vs. Accessible mining and so on).

Right. Maybe I went a bit far with my suggestions , but it seems like you pretty much agree with the sentiment, and its a very good point that having more extensive biomes would make the borders between them cover less of the total area, and thus increase the need for trade. As it is, the best place to be located is forest next to grassland.

However, already I'm seeing specific lumberjack+carpenter camps being set up, which is pretty exciting to me, although I'm holding out on whether the board market will actually make this worthwhile - imo the planed/oiled boards on sale in stalls are way too expensive right now. But with larger average biome size this sort of thing would be far more profitable, so thanks for your points.