Player Features and Ideas Discussion

I was thinking (and yes it hurt LOL), you know all those modules that you pick up during missions that are worth enough that you don't reprocess them? Normally if you want to sell them, you would save them up and most likely run them off to one of the major trading hubs when you had enough to make it worth the trip out to one. I always see these merchants coming in and out of stations, but what good are they if we are not actually USING them? What if there were merchants out there in space, that we could do "consignment" dealings with? We could give them everything we want sold and THEY go around from region to region finding the best price and selling it off FOR us, giving us the valuable time we need to continue doing what we are doing. CCP has been catering to the new players often enough, why not give the older players something they can enjoy?

What I propose is this:

With this EXAMPLE, assume that each merchant you are using would have time to travel for 1 week before returning with any unsold items at the station you utilized the merchant in.

Of course, as with everything in the game, you would need a skill to be able to use these merchants. Make it be something like "Merchant Relations" or something. This skill could also determine the number of traveling Merchants that we could use at one time. (Meaning if we already have one merchant out selling things, we could use 1 more per skill level.)

These merchants would only be available in certain types of stations. If you notice, each major faction has it's own "market type corporation". Gallente has FedMart, Caldari has CBD Sell division and Mercantile Club and so on and so forth. These would be the areas that these merchants are available for us to use.

Also, you would have to have standing with the corroborating corporations to at least an 8.2 in order to utilize this (this will help ensure that it is something that the more seasoned players can indulge in. If you have standing with more than one type of merchant corporation, then you could pick up a secondary skill book called "Merchant Diplomacy" which would determine the amount of different corporations your merchant could sell to. Meaning if you use a Gallente merchant, that merchant could sell to the Minmitar faction trading stations and the higher the level, the more stations become available to you for selling off your goods.

Then, let's say that there is a third skill you could train, let's call it "Merchant Range" . You would also need this skill to level 1 before you could utilize these merchants. The levels will give the merchant a wider area to sell off your goods.

Level 1- Merchant can travel through the entire region to sell your goods
Level 2-Merchant can travel to 2 regions
Level 3-Merchant can travel to 3 regions
Level 4-4 regions
Level 5-5 regions

Now some of you are asking, how in the world can a merchant go to 5 different regions and be back in a week? Well there could be a fourth skill for this. Let's call that one "Trading Time". This will allow you to extend that time period by 3 days for each level. This would be adequate since they can only go to certain stations to sell off your goods to begin with. (Remember, they can only sell to the market-type corporation stations.)

Now some of you are probably wondering how this works. "What is in it for the merchant? It is a 'consignment' deal after all."

Well, normally consignments are 50/50. Meaning the merchant keeps half your income for his/her time traveling, which is fair. Let's say there is a 5th skill which would allow you the ability to lower that amount. Let's call that one Merchant Accounting. Each level would grant you an additional boost to income. Level 1 would bring you up to 55%, level 2, 60% Level 3, 65% and so on and so forth, so the end result being in a 75/25 split, which can be a nice chunk of change with little effort.

Now, the idea is that the merchant would fly from region to region finding the best prices for your gear and selling it off to the highest buyers. Let's think for a moment. how many times have we gone into the market and seen that someone wants to buy your stuff for 100 Isk (which normally translates to -99% below? How would we combat those ludicrous percentages when using merchants? Well, let's say there is a 6th skill for that: "Trading Efficiency" which will allow you to set percentage limits on the lowest you will take. Without this skill, your merchant will sell everything that has a percentage lower than -50% below regional average (mind you, they will only take the highest offers). Each level of that skill, will gain you an additional 10%, meaning that, at level 1, you can set your minimum limit anywhere up to -40% below. Level 2 will give you the ability to set your lowest price to -%30 below. Keep in mind that this is something that you can set yourself when setting up the merchant dealings, so if you get to level 5 with this skill and don't mind taking less ISK than 0.0% below, you can set that and the merchant will sell the items pertaining to your guidelines.


Now what do you think? I just thought that the merchants were already in game, why not use them? Suggestions to help improve this rough idea are welcome. This all was thought about in about 5 minutes so it is pretty crude. Not well thought out, but a good thought anyways.

Have fun and Fly Safe!

I doubt this is needed in a sandbox game.

Just sell your stuff locally and let other people trade with it.

The last thing EVE needs is more types of NPCs, especially ones that play the game for you.

Courier contract + Jita alt...

Problem solved?