Barterers need a purpose.

[Alice]

Ms Fixer is a barterer. She has no business.
I have seen other barterers, and have ones on other servers, but they get no business either.

Poking? Always needed. Cst/Ress? Always needed. Barter? Who needs it?

The only time a person thinks about barter use, is when they buy a bloody great big vehicle, or a clan apartment, or you get the odd constructor who wants to buy in a mass of parts for a gun construction frenzy session at his or her factory.

We are useless. No. sorry More than useless. Hackers get more love than us.

So, we need some purpose in life. Pokers get to put in implants, res/cnst are pretty self explanitory, but barterers have nothing.

So some thoughts.

Barterers have access to equipment that can't be bought by the general public.
The idea is, that certian guns, armour, vehicles etc will only be purchasable by someone who can barter, like how certian trade warehouses sell only to people with businesses, and you need a tax-thingy to be able to purchase from them. Also, these places sell things for CHEAP, so a barterer could get parts and such in bulk for cheaper prices than going to a normal vendor. However, it would only apply to barterers of 100 skill or more, because everyone would just sink a point into barter for the benefits.

Barterers get more of a reduction on items for purchasing.
They already get a good reduction, but even so, the 2-3k you save with a barterer is not worth the hassle of tracking one down, and then paying at least half the saving, to them. Now, if the product was 20k, and the barterer got it for you half price, now that's something worth shouting for one about. Then again, people don't care what they pay because money grows on trees in NC.

Barter is changed into "charisma" or such.
Someone mentioned this on the barter glove post, that it should effect NPCs in more than just price changes. Maybe barterers can get people into enemy guarded zones without them getting splattered, if they are teamed with the barterer (and the barterer takes the time to talk to the guards), get information from certian people for quests (wasn't there a quest where you have to "convince" some guy to return to Tangent? Barterer time!), and so on.

Barter is removed from the game, being a lamoid skill, and replaced with another trade skill that can be useful to players.
I dunno. Knitting? Sewing? Maybe a "science" skill, where high level "scientists" can create new guns, armour etc. They take a template for the gun, dictate the damage, ROF, aiming, clip size, ammo type etc, and then get an indication of the requirements, weapon needs and such. Actually this is working into a good idea.

Design Skill
Intelligence based

Pick a design tool (armour, weapon, vehicle?, spell) and you need points in the skill that uses it (i.e. PPU for a PPU designer, PC for a pistol designer etc), and then you make a frame based on existing weapon designs. You then alter the internals (to a limit) and then produce a name, and BP which can be built like any normal gun. This means, Designers can tailor make a gun to suit the user, or spell to suit the caster, etc.

[Alice]

(couldn't resist voting for number 5. Muhahaha)

[Jest]

Coming from some one who had a dedicated sewing character in UO I have to say that replacing barter with sewing is the ultimate win. :p

It'd be nice if barter was more effective but I think its only the level its at now because other you could buy something, sell it back for more than you bought it for, repeat. :(

[Sorontar]

I think for obvious reasons barterers are needed more on one character servers. And I think the general drop in trade ( due to low server user numbers ) makes life hard on the whole for all tradeskillers.

BUT

I ALWAYS look for a barterer before selling vehicle's at the ASG. I get a good return and they make a good commission. I cannot see the problem , you make it out as though being an integral part of BIG business is a reason for you having no purpose.

I think barterers need to advertise their services more.

As a barterer you buy things cheaper for personal use and sell loot for more. your skill is constantly in use. At least you don't have to spend hours making stuff for money it just winds up in your lap eventually.

The only thing barterers are missing is an implant which I think could be borrowed from Shadowrun and either placed in the head or spine slot. They had an implant that controlled the pherome release of your body and gave you a bonus when dealing with others. Something like that could be introduced via a run I reckon where the barter skill is incorporated into the process. Either that or add it onto the SS CPU bonuses.

Will the barter skill be used for gambling , using the bluff and body language of the barter skill, do you think ?

[Sealdude]

Maybe a "science" skill, where high level "scientists" can create new guns, armour etc. They take a template for the gun, dictate the damage, ROF, aiming, clip size, ammo type etc, and then get an indication of the requirements, weapon needs and such. Actually this is working into a good idea.



Im going to make a post of an idea very similar to this in a little while. All of these ideas seem really cool and I dont even barter.


Maybe to take a page out of SWGs book (sortta) barting should become smuggling. I really think that one thing this game needs is more ilegal activitities (besides pk) Thats where smuggling comes in. Certain powerful weapons,armor,drugs, whatever have been outlawed and copbots have orders to kill whoever they find with these items. Copbots or CA Runners with handheld scanners will randomly patrol and stop people and search them for these things. Smugglers are able to hide these things based on their skill. The higher their skill the better items they can hide. Their skill divided by 2 is the maxium TL they can smuggle. Maybe their should be a mini game or maybe it should be random but they should have the chance of failing to hide their cargo. High level smugglers have the ability to buy special cloths or crates that can be used to hide items. They alos have the ability to put special trunks on their vehicles to sneak past wasteland patrols. If they have a really high level they can use some special device to carry people short distances.

[Shadow Dancer]

They should change barter to "negotiation". It could do other things, like convince NPCs of certain things. Maybe changing factions with negative symp, if you have a high enough negotiation skill. And I mean all this stuff, along with decrease prices.


Maybe they could talk to faction guards and convince them to leave(despawn) for a certain period of time.


Stuff like that would be cool.

[Furion]

monks should get force persuade like they have in star wars



im dead serious.....















:p

[El Barto]

I like the idea of barters being able to buy things that others cannot, this would actully make the trade skill a usefull one on its own, as atm its normally just used as a 'co-trade skill' along side another one which is the primary one. o_O

I don't think they should be able to buy any thing that people will need, just maybe some low, meduim and high leel weapon that other people can't buy for leveling mainly. So every one won't HAVE to have a barter to get some thing that every one in that class needs. :)

Not sure about them getting things even cheaper and selling things even higher because I have never had a barter skill of higher than 1, so not sure about that. :confused:

[Sealdude]

Just had another flash of genious :) For my smuggler idea two new ideas/uses for them.


Underground Tunnel Guide: One idea which I really love to death is the underground tunnel idea (in case you havent noticed from my other posts) I think that a smuggler would know all about the secret ways to get from point A to point B. How about their are special doors that only smugglers can open. The higher your level the more doors you can open that will lead to shorter/less mobed tunnels or just open up new areas.


Smuggling People Above Ground: I mentioned this in my other post that their should be a way for them to smuggle people. My idea for this is to have a corespoinding (sic) device and vest (would have to have some way to work it so that that set would only work with the other piece from the same set) The person being smuggled would put on the vest in place of armor and the smuggler would put on the glove/device. They could then set it so that the person wearing the vest would look different to XXX as long as they are within a short radius (where XXX could be a runner, or a specific guard, or all guards, etc...) This would merely change the look of the character but NOT make them invisible. That way maybe if you go up close to them or somesuch you could see through the disguise and kill them.


Even if we keep the bartering skill I have another idea. MJS said that they were going to have NPC vendors in DOY that would seel your stuff. The way I think this would work would be that you will basicly get a clone of yourself that you can put any where and give it items to sell. Barters could have a tool that would spawn such vendors (maybe every 20 min or not within a few feet of eachother to prevent spaming) and have them password protected. They then give the password to the person they made it for and that person could change the pw, name, and add items. The higher the skill the better the vendor.

[athon]

I believe part of the problem is that you're on Uranus, which isn't the most active of servers at the moment =(

Athon Solo

[Crest]

Hmmm ... At present I got a tl 150 barter on saturn in proto

and here is the deal...

He goes to TH to get laser blades, all his heavy purchases, flame thrower mods and other odds and ends...

TG canyon is for INQ 4 armour and automsmelt / fusion weapons. Since it seems that DOY bots are nneutral and not enemy , it may be he can getin there and buy all their toys ... On top of that, he got lots of cash ... never below 10 million NC, and enough vehicles to sell for another 40 mill, he is my financial security

I dont mind ig he can get exclusive items, but then only need 1, with some BP's and the market saturated Like The Researchable Ultima's...In 1 week I had about 40 .... used about 10 on weapons before wipe.

[Archeus]

I just put Simon back as a barter (121). I have tons of business over it now. More so then people looking for a PPU to go caving.

I like your idea of opening items to barters. Prehaps level 2/3 imps in certain stores which also require faction rating to get it (so eg. Level 3 hacking imp in TH that requires barter and some FA FS to purchase).

[Original monk]

Alice, who the fuck is Alice ?

(sorry i couldnt resist saying that :P)

nice idea's yeah, they better take a look at em instead of lettin it die in the brainport :)

you got my support :)

i especially like the fact that you could get a science skill to make/design a new sort of weapons yourself :P

[Alice]

Yeah. Most people want the same gun all the time, so why not have a way to produce guns that are tailored to the person who needs them?

Maybe a "carbine" rifle, that uses 8mm ammo, fires in 4 round bursts, but has the benefits of a rifle. Or a single shot pistol that does massive amounts of damage, but needs a reload each time. If the science skill got in, there would be less "everyone with a CS etc" and more unique weapons, better weapon names (slasher? Terminator? bwahahaha), and much more fun in the process too.

The only thing is "rare" guns. but instead of using X tech part for Y weapon, maybe you can use just an unid'd techpart, or a techpart of anything as long as it conforms to the need (lowtech, expensive etc).

Also the original demo, you had to make a gun from lots of bits that seemed so cool. None of "weapon part *".

Maybe a constructor making a new gun could use the mods we use for modifying the guns, to help build it. I mean it's all there. bullet chambers, barrels, gyrostablising, et c.

Ok I'll shut up and go play on Uranus for a bit ;P