Retooling: Merchants Only?

[Leech]

I brought up on the OOC chat recently that I thought that the retool command should be something only merchants could do.

Pros:
+Merchants would get more business.
+Player-made items would become more unique.
+Tradeskills would increase in value.
+Our economy would shift even more to the player-side.
+With the increase in unique items, thieves would get more to steal.
+Rich folk would still be dependent on merchants, instead of being able to restring shit like crazy.

Cons:
-Sometimes merchants in a specific tradeskill are unavailable.
-People won't be able to retool items as something not currently on grid. (I honestly can't think of anything off-grid that somebody can't go through a merchant for. Our tradeskills pretty much cover it all.)

Anymore cons? Anymore pros? Like the thought? Hate it?

[Inertia]

I am strongly opposed to having retool be merchants-only. As it stands (I believe!), merchants already have the option to retool for much cheaper as a perk of guild membership but retool exists for everybody as a convenience - and you do pay for that convenience! Retool is a significantly more expensive option for players to customize their character as they wish while bypassing the (often times long) wait for an appropriate, guilded crafter.

In my experience on Legacy so far, merchants finding business isn't an issue - it's patrons finding a merchant that is the difficult thing. Accepting for the sake of argument the list of pros and cons in the previous post, I would still maintain that the cons vastly outweigh the pros of removing retool from casual use.

For my part, I don't agree that most of the listed pros are valid:

+Merchants would get more business. As I mentioned before, I don't think merchants getting business is really an issue.
+Player-made items would become more unique. I'm not sure I understand this one. If a player retools an item themselves, it can be just as unique as an item they paid a merchant for.
+Tradeskills would increase in value. I don't think the value of a tradeskill changes at all. Especially given the limitation on available items based on a rank - you still have to spend QP to raise your tradeskills above 36 or be a member of the Merchants Guild to train it up in-game, so a crafter who wanted to maximize their sales should still be interested in mastering their chosen craft(s).
+Our economy would shift even more to the player-side. I adore crafting and I don't hate getting IC money for it, but I don't think giving more money directly to merchants is going to get coin moving around.
+With the increase in unique items, thieves would get more to steal. As stated above, any retooled item can(/should) be as unique as one made from scratch by a crafter, so the pool from which Thieves can fish doesn't change.
+Rich folk would still be dependent on merchants, instead of being able to restring shit like crazy. Once you get past a certain point in your bank account, I think you have to TRY to find ways to spend it. I don't think retool is preventing rich folks from hitting up merchants for new items as we stand.

TL;DR: Let's keep retool available to everybody. BUT - if this isn't done already - make sure that the MONEY people spend on retooling (or an appropriately large percentage of it) is going directly into the Merchants Guild account. Furthermore, make sure thaty players are actually retooling the appropriate base items (that is, they're not retooling the cheapest, wool sleeves as silk ones). That way, the Guild isn't "losing" business, players won't get road rage from bottlenecks created by low crafter activity, and Merchants will remain a strongly viable character concept because their custom items will be cheaper than retooling and they can also provide roleplay with transactions.


-Edit- A P.S. I wasn't sure about including since it veers off topic: if they don't already, guilded Merchants should also earn a coded wage so there's more draw to BE a merchant, e.g. if I know I'll earn more managing a roster shop than I'll earn though being a guilded merchant (nobody buys candles :( ), I'm less inclined to go the guild route.

[Applesauce]

People ask all the time (ICly and OOCly) where guilded merchants are, and often end up either spending silver to retool, spending XP to make it themselves, or finding someone outside the guild who has spent the XP.

Inertia hit the nail on the head - you make more money as a merchant outside the guild than inside, because you get a guaranteed wage AND commissions. If retooling goes away, nobody really benefits. Even the merchants who decide to "go legit" and join the guild are penalized because that guaranteed wage goes away.

"We should have more guilded merchants" is a supply problem, and "people don't use guilded merchants" is a demand problem. Taking away retool won't make it any easier to find official merchants, it will just burn out the existing ones faster. There needs to be an actual benefit to joining the guild other than your character not being arrested or the code not being taken away from you.

If you're actually trying to solve the demand problem instead of the supply problem, then I think this would do the job, but I still think it would just add frustration to the game.

[SlyViolin]

Retool is useful for small things.

For example: know the mask Gwen made to cover her face? She broke it on Deina's face. It's not logically for her to go out and find a merchant to change the strings and make it look broken. But I can retool it myself to express the damage I've done to it.

Then we can lead on to this point to cover any little personal changes a person makes to the weapon, armour, musical instrument. Tying ribbons on it, drawing on them, making small little personal changes during the item's life that you don't need to go to a merchant to do.

Edit: Actually now that I think about it, can't only the creator of the item retool it(exception npc items)? I thought I read that somewhere when I first started playing.

[Leech]

Great points guys, keep them coming. This is actually uncovering a lot of problems with the current system.

(I think I made a mistake in saying merchants only; perhaps tradeskill specific. Woodworkers can retool wood, ect?)

@Inertia:

-I'm not sure that retool is meant to bypass approaching a crafter character, but I'll leave that to staff to nail down. The wait time for crafters, admittedly, is one of the cons of what I'm suggesting.

-The uniqueness of the item that I talked about on the list of pros I posited has to do with rarity. If only crafters can create unique items (which I believe is the way it should be), those items generally become more unique within the world - and crafters can genuinely affect the clothing that Urth wears, and the weapons they hold, by what sorts they provide and what styles they do.

-The value of tradeskills is an abstract concept - like how sneak has its own intrinsic value, and combat skills have theirs. As is, I believe I could get away with retooling a courier box as a wooden box for holding a pipe and tabac (reading over current policy). This devalues tradeskills. Take away the ability for regs to retool and you give them it back.

@Gwen brings up a pretty good point, with small things like breaks, ribbon, ect.

Generally, I don't think it should cost me 300 silver to put a ribbon on a sword - and I wouldn't pay it. I can emote it being there, too, just as easily - or emote it being broken.

Back @Inertia:

I adore crafting and I don't hate getting IC money for it, but I don't think giving more money directly to merchants is going to get coin moving around.

...make sure that the MONEY people spend on retooling (or an appropriately large percentage of it) is going directly into the Merchants Guild account

Say whaaaaat?! Moving on. xD

Your next piece was the thief thing. I'll give you that; I pulled it from my butt cheeks.

Once you get past a certain point in your bank account, I think you have to TRY to find ways to spend it. I don't think retool is preventing rich folks from hitting up merchants for new items as we stand.

Another one I'll give you, after discussion with Takta. However, you did say before...

...bypassing the (often times long) wait for an appropriate, guilded crafter.

Wouldn't rich peeps just... do this all the time?

There needs to be an actual benefit to joining the guild other than your character not being arrested or the code not being taken away from you.

I fully agree with this, but most benefits should be IC, in my mind.

[Applesauce]

There needs to be an actual benefit to joining the guild other than your character not being arrested or the code not being taken away from you.

I fully agree with this, but most benefits should be IC, in my mind.

Money is IC. Giving guilded merchants an actual salary gives them IC incentive to join up. Currently they can only get a salary without joining, and customers will be there with or without the guild. So what's another incentive for their character, if not more money?


Edit: vvv Oh, then I agree with your agreeing. The "but" confused me.

[Leech]

Wasn't saying that money was a bad incentive there, jack!

[Cellan]

I must agree with Inertia: I'm strongly against limiting the 'retool' command to the Merchant's Guild. I buy extensively from merchants on all my alternate characters, but I very often need a unique item in a hurry. Being able to run to a random store, buy an item, and quickly retool it for RP purposes is very convenient.

Also, though I do use PC merchants extensively, it can take a while (and rightly so) for some to complete an order. While I prefer handing my money over to a merchant, the frustration of waiting several weeks, or having the player disappear entirely sometimes makes it necessary for a player to use the 'retool' command themselves.

[Onyxsoulle]

Ever since it went to 'only what you made', I've found retooling a pain. I don't mind having to pay the full cost if I'm not a merchant, I understand that part. However, let's be honest, crafters (much like everyone else) come and go on a regular basis( be it death, inactivity, or whatever).

So, how about having it so that crafters can retool anything of their type for the 1 silver cost.

For example:

Bob forged a sword.

Samantha knitted a sweater.

Steve got ahold of both of these items, and for some reason both of the original crafters cannot be gotten ahold of.

Steve is a blacksmith and decides to retool the sword, it costs him 1 silver.

Steve also wants to retool the sweater, but he's not a tailor, so it would cost him the full amount(we'll say 200 silver) to retool the sweater.

Just my thoughts. :D

[Leech]

I'm against anything that allows somebody to make items for one silver. Sometimes we're more MUSH than we are MUD, admittedly, but I would still see SOME sort of code/player-represented economy going on, and something like that would kill it - which may be the reason they got rid of it in the first place?