NukeMarine

I've always been a fan of decaying armor and weapons. It'd do the game good in my opinion if with EoC they incorporate that into all weaponry. Nothing complicated, and as suggested earlier there should be a one stop shop for repairing all your items. Best case scenario is a method players can do on their own, maybe as a smithng/crafting/fletching skill plus cost.

With regard to the first article, one can hope that these "all member weekend betas" give Jagex a list of people that are willing to play test then give those accounts full beta access. Something tells me that along with a full mad scientist outfit, players will get full beta access.

I haven't seen or heard of one person winning that 200m prize yet. Personally I always get 1k when the 200m is up :mellow: Here's a video of one guy winning it. If you can get past the annoying audio and language that is. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zaLqBgmsRMc

[qfc]299-300-958-63833577[/qfc] Looks like Jagex doesn't appreciate the time wasters either.

Yeah, I posted that prediction on post #156 (pg 8 by default). Thought they'd go further than just doubling the chance on three skill specific lamps. I assume that the skill specific lamps are evenly spread out, but I didn't track the results that in detail to be positive. Assuming it's evenly spread out, then this is not that big of a benefit with likely an extra 20 lamps every 1000 spins (12 small, 8 medium). I'd love if Jagex tried to spin that into something positive (no pun intented). I get that people hate on Jagex for the microtransactions, but this is a lot of real world cash for relatively little in game benefits. We don't know how many people are paying, and damn few people will own up to it thanks to the common insults and spam that results. On the positive side, maybe only a few players are paying which'll encourage Jagex to back off of SoF as a direct money making tool. It being used to encourage membership will likely not go away.

You can just alternate attacks between the two dragons, effectively tagging both? With a 4-tick weapon you could tag up to 4 dragons theoretically without breaking the 10 second limit. Sounds good actually. Assuming you can only tag one monster at a time this allows a person to train on multiple animals if they concentrate, but can't hog them if other players show up. Hopefully players are testing this out and making good reports on the pros and cons of the new drop system. Also, if the tag system does not apply to bosses, maybe Jagex can expand that to other monsters on a case by case basis.

So how is the XP determined in this new system? Haven't seen anything about that. Also, did I read that right about NPCs being refreshed when they're out of combat for 10 seconds meaning no more 50% monster hoarders?

The alternative is a cantankerous healing out of combat system asking to be abused. Besides, isn't there a constitution ability to heal with? Most people are suggesting (and I agree) that if you are out of combat for twenty seconds or so, they should maintain the % of life points you have. So if I am 25/50, putting on armour gives me 2500/5000, taking off puts me back at 25/50. This seems reasonable enough to me - how would someone abuse it? The only way I could see would be to get out of combat for the specified time (between boss kills, around a corner in fight caves or generally running from your enemy) then take off armor, eat a rocktail which boosts you to 990 lifepoints (100%) and put on armor giving you in your case, rocktails that heal 5000 lifepoints. Extending the timer would make it only useful at banks where it's not really a big deal. Not that I think it's a bad idea per se, I just don't think it's worth the hassle, just eat those 5 rocktails before you go bossing. Ah, that makes sense I suppose. For some reason I thought food healing was also proportional to lifepoints (healing set % of health) but looking back now I see this is not the case. An automatic healing system is needed for other places too though. Dungeoneering and Hybrid armor come to mind, since your armor in DG is equipped when you start the dungeon and Hybrid doesn't gain stats until you're actually in the minigame. It's obviously a design flaw; just saying "eat 5 rocktails" doesn't cut it. One solution can be for areas that have recharge posts (prayer, summoning, energy) can also recharge life points. Those points are common enough that it should be a fair compromise. To be honest, this can be a good time for Jagex to merge all those recharge posts into one, or at the very least merge those recharge stations that are reasonably close together. Another option (and can be in addition to the one above) is let the boosted life points slowly decay unless the player enters combat or takes damage in some way. Note: I'm not in beta, so I'm only going off what I've read or seen on vids.

Shame I only re-upped my membership when loyalty rewards was released last year. I hit my membership year mark next month. If you subbed when loyalty arrived you should have hit 12 months in May and be heading for 13 months now. Fairly sure it was late June last year, cause I re-upped soon after. I'm cool with their decision to give people with 12 months open access to beta. It'd just be nice that accounts that reach 12 months later during beta also get full access. If not, there's still the weekend so all is well. It was definitely earlier, mine (and anyone else who had members day of release) hit the 12 month mark on may 28th. Ah, I see your mistake. Your first month "started" on June 28th last year where you got 500 points. Your 12th month "started" May 28th where you got 15k points. It's still not a full year any more than Jan 1st to Dec 1st as that is only the start of 12 individual months. I also got my 12 month mark points of 15k earlier this month, but my full year mark will be next week.

Shame I only re-upped my membership when loyalty rewards was released last year. I hit my membership year mark next month. If you subbed when loyalty arrived you should have hit 12 months in May and be heading for 13 months now. Fairly sure it was late June last year, cause I re-upped soon after. I'm cool with their decision to give people with 12 months open access to beta. It'd just be nice that accounts that reach 12 months later during beta also get full access. If not, there's still the weekend so all is well.

Shame I only re-upped my membership when loyalty rewards was released last year. I hit my membership year mark next month.

Why though? I think Jagex made the mistake of pandering to complainers by removing them from the wild. Anyone that has trained thier herblore in order to be able to make those extereme pots should be able to use them in pvp to gain advantage. Dont like it?... train herblore. Overloads are game breaking in pvp, im glad they aren't allowed. So is prayer and summoning, and yet they'll be in the new PvP also.

Since every type is getting a stun, I also hope that a form of teleblock is available at a very low level to all style in addition to ways to counter teleblock. I've always hated how someone with 25 magic has a "defensive" spell that counters 99 range (opinion was before jewelry had a right click teleport option). One thing I just thought about: are there ideas that can improve team mates to assist each other? Someone above mentioned the healer class, but I like the idea of team based abilities in combat. Not sure if it's feasible or can be balanced, so it's just an idea.

Shame since I live in Japan. Does look good though. Might try an alternate means to acquire it.

[/hide]Do you have a QFC for that or did you find it somewhere else? No QFC, I just paused the video a lot.

Posted in the other thread, but here's the rollover data: Dragon Spear: Damage - 624, Bonus - 600, Style - Stabbing, Class - Melee, Speed - Fast Dragon Scimitar: Damage - 257, Bonus - 600, Stiyle - Slashing, Class - Melee, Speed - Fastest Dragon 2h: Damage - 624, Bonus - 680, Style - Slashing, Class - Melee, Speed - Average Abyssal Whip: Damage - 300, Bonus - 700, Style - Slashing, Class - Melee, Speed - Fastest Polypore Staff: Bonus - 800, Style - none, Class - Magic, Speed - Average Crystal Bow: Damage - 392, Bonus - 700, Ammo - Thrown, Class - Ranged, Speed - Fast Rune Crossbow: Bonus - 500, Ammo - Bolt, Class - Range, Speed - Fastest Enhanced Excalibur (Offhand Whip equivalent): Damage - 300, Bonus - 700, Style - Slashing, Class - Melee, Speed - Fastest Offhand Dragon Scimitar: Damage - 257, Bonus - 600, Style - Slashing, Class - Melee, Speed - Fastest Offhand Rune Crossbow: Bonus - 500, Ammo - Bolt, Class - Range, Speed - Fastest Steadfast Boots: Armor - 300, Class - Melee Chaotiac: 200% active spell damage, 250% damage against stunned, cooldown - 5 seconds Surge: Teleport upto 10 meters in straight line, Requires - 5 Magic, Cooldown - 20 seconds Overpower: Ultimate ability, deal damage 25% max lifepoints, Requires - 45 atk, Cooldown - 60 secords The idea of armor switching cooldown might not be a big deal for boss battles like Dag Kings. You lose special attacks for a brief bit but can still attack normally plus you keep the adrenaline pumping. For PvP, it's a game changer. There's a 2 tick wait between abilities so fast response is not a big deal. There's a lot of tactics in this though as there's likely three or more ultimates that could come into play altering the end fight dynamic. Guess the next 2 months will ell.

Well, let's post the rollover info again. Dragon Spear: Damage - 624, Bonus - 600, Style - Stabbing, Class - Melee, Speed - Fast Dragon Scimitar: Damage - 257, Bonus - 600, Stiyle - Slashing, Class - Melee, Speed - Fastest Dragon 2h: Damage - 624, Bonus - 680, Style - Slashing, Class - Melee, Speed - Average Abyssal Whip: Damage - 300, Bonus - 700, Style - Slashing, Class - Melee, Speed - Fastest Polypore Staff: Bonus - 800, Style - none, Class - Magic, Speed - Average Crystal Bow: Damage - 392, Bonus - 700, Ammo - Thrown, Class - Ranged, Speed - Fast Rune Crossbow: Bonus - 500, Ammo - Bolt, Class - Range, Speed - Fastest Enhanced Excalibur (Offhand Whip equivalent): Damage - 300, Bonus - 700, Style - Slashing, Class - Melee, Speed - Fastest Offhand Dragon Scimitar: Damage - 257, Bonus - 600, Style - Slashing, Class - Melee, Speed - Fastest Offhand Rune Crossbow: Bonus - 500, Ammo - Bolt, Class - Range, Speed - Fastest Steadfast Boots: Armor - 300, Class - Melee Chaotiac: 200% active spell damage, 250% damage against stunned, cooldown - 5 seconds Surge: Teleport upto 10 meters in straight line, Requires - 5 Magic, Cooldown - 20 seconds Overpower: Ultimate ability, deal damage 25% max lifepoints, Requires - 45 atk, Cooldown - 60 secords Another thing I noticed was no cooldown when switching weapons during combat. Currently we're told that switching armor causes a universal cooldown of some significant length. Personal opinion: I'm impressed with the reception of duel wielding. I wasn't impressed as I just consider it turning 1h into a 2h which means just mean sacrificing def for more off. However, def is much more important it seems in the update, so the tradeoff seems balanced (and really cool graphics). Still, I'm glad people enjoy it.

I disagree. Yes, some bots produce GP as the end goal, via high-alchemy, and selling items to shops. However, that is already a problem due to game mechanics where the gold is generated that way. The difference, is that the bots have to generate that gold in the same way as players would. Some bots will be running that, but bots that grab hides, bones, and so on (especially items that don't end as high-alch bait) are not creating new money. Jagex when they spawn gold instantly create money. This would have a far more massive impact on the economy than anything bots do to create gold. No, bots don't generate items the same way players do. A bot can run with precision 24/7 which is a big difference. One can then multiply that effect across various resources and various servers. You can dismiss this as something players can do, but players cannot do that. There's only so many players. If you're getting 10x that in bots which can work 16x more efficiently than players on resources, it's as if Jagex created that material out of thin air. I'm no fan of the alchemy spell and it's done lots of damage to the economy as you create a artificially high price for items not worth that much (battlestaffs and rune armor being big offenders). However, it does exists and it is used on products that were the result of bot labor. That cannot be dismissed as less impact that Jagex's poor odds in the SoF. [/hide] I meant that bots perform the same actions as players. Whether they can do it more efficiently than players isn't relevant. Regardless of whether there were bots, players aim for high skills and therefor generate large amounts of non-disposable items. Bots create items faster over time than players because they can do so endlessly. The only bots which actually generate money are ones which use high-alchemy or similar methods of creating NEW gp in the game. This does take real time, and a player can do this (if not as efficiently.) It is not the same as if Jagex were to spawn money, as this would take zero time at all, and wouldn't be destroying any items via high-alchemy. High-alchemy is bad, but it does stabilize item prices. Without high-alchemy the game needs a way to destroy items, otherwise they become valueless as there will always be more rune armor generated than "used". High-alchemy is bad because it causes inflation, but it does solve the inflated non-consumable finishing skill products. Without this, it becomes even less worth training smithing, crafting, and so forth.[/hide] I am not dismissing the impact of bots, I am saying you are underestimating the issue of minting new gold directly as player demand. Bots have a limit to how much gold they can produce per bot. And the number of bots is effectively limited as well (technically maxing out at 2k per world, but practically lower than this). Jagex has no such limit, (beyond artificial limits created by themselves) Bots have a larger overall impact on the game, but jagex minting gp whenever they wanted based on player demand has a much larger impact on the value of gp than bots ever have. I'm not going to dismiss the impact of Jagex putting 200m on the wheel. I assume that's 200 hours of effort in the current economy which is a lot by any standard. What we don't know is how extremely rare this award is. If we had a rate, we can calculate how much money is coming in. Assume every 1k spins generates 5 mill gp on average. If every day there's 2 mill spins then 10 bill gp is entering the economy from SoF. That sounds like a lot, and that's just using predictable common, uncommon and rare results. For the 200m award, if it's 1/100k spins then on average 20 people are going to win a day (more if non-members are allowed to win that prize). If it's 1/1mill spins then only 2 people a day win. We can only guess and I'd wager the rate is so low that no one is going to figure it out without Jagex's help. Now, how much impact 400mill to 4billl gp has on the economy? Can't be much more than what already exists. With bots, it's harder to calculate but not impossible. You can look at resources that become alchemy later (yew and magic logs, dragon leather, ore). We know which spots are heavily botted, so we can assume a perfect respawn/harvest ratio for each resource. From there, its just math to find out the gp that'll eventually be generated. I haven't done the math, but if it's less than 10 bill gp, then I'd have to concede Jagex is messing up the economy more than bots (though not hogging resources). If something is wrong with my logic, please enlighten me. I'm trying to avoid the gut feeling on this. In my gut, SoF is a bad direction despite it's impact being minimal.

I disagree. Yes, some bots produce GP as the end goal, via high-alchemy, and selling items to shops. However, that is already a problem due to game mechanics where the gold is generated that way. The difference, is that the bots have to generate that gold in the same way as players would. Some bots will be running that, but bots that grab hides, bones, and so on (especially items that don't end as high-alch bait) are not creating new money. Jagex when they spawn gold instantly create money. This would have a far more massive impact on the economy than anything bots do to create gold. No, bots don't generate items the same way players do. A bot can run with precision 24/7 which is a big difference. One can then multiply that effect across various resources and various servers. You can dismiss this as something players can do, but players cannot do that. There's only so many players. If you're getting 10x that in bots which can work 16x more efficiently than players on resources, it's as if Jagex created that material out of thin air. I'm no fan of the alchemy spell and it's done lots of damage to the economy as you create a artificially high price for items not worth that much (battlestaffs and rune armor being big offenders). However, it does exists and it is used on products that were the result of bot labor. That cannot be dismissed as less impact that Jagex's poor odds in the SoF.

Illegal RWT doesn't directly increase the money supply, unlike legal rwt. If that's hard to grasp, here's an example: A goldfarming bot kills 12k frost dragons. 12k frost dragon bones enter the game. A player trades 175m for the 12k frost dragon bones to get 95 prayers. Nothing is lost or gained, wealth is just transferred. The goldfarming company that owns the bot sells the 175m for real life money. The gp remains in the game and real life wealth is transferred. So RWT doesn't have any direct negative effects. It makes training cheaper. At worst, people have to find a new way to make money. Jagex endorsed real world trading does have negative effects though. They can simply spawn gp, which devalues the currency every time someone purchases gold. Jagex has to constantly pull money out of the economy in order to keep the money supply constant (or whatever is best for the economy at that particular moment), and they're simply not capable of that. Legal RWT is much worse than illegal RWT, at least as far as economics goes. @Nukemarine: I hope that the costumes sold the most spins, because those are so much better than Gp, lamps, and rares. Yes many bots are mining disposable items such a herbs and bones. However, MANY bots do create wealth as the end product will be gp when everything is alc'd or sold to the NPC. What do you think happens to all those dragon hides or adamant/mithril ore? Bots have a much greater impact on the economy just from their scale. It's even possible to calculate gp/hour if you can assume every resource is being hogged by bots. As for what sells spins, it'd be nice if it was the costumes. I doubt it, but it'd be the best justification for SoF. PS: Which would sell more spins - 5x gp weekend or 5x xp lamps weekend? I think the latter and I'm willing to bet we'll see something like that soon.

200 milliion gp? Assuming one is not botting, how many game hours on average would it take to raise that (barring the occasional money dupe glitch in the Crucible). Anyway, seems like a pointless update that takes away from an equally pointless milestone (as if it were possible). Five times gp, assuming the averages are correct, just means most players trying for $200 in spins will get about 20m gp although just hitting 10m slot once bumps that up to 70m gp. Personally, I think Jagex is experimenting and seeing what brings out the best purchases. I'm expecting to see more experience lamps leading up to the double xp weekend now (likely a big seller). My money is on the fish mask week since they offered a reasonable chance to get a soon to be discontinued tradeable item. The part that concerns me is they'll look at the data, think that releasing rares is the way to go, and then screw up that already screwed up market. After that they'll be flabbergasted as to why people don't buy spins for rares anymore. Kind of wish Jagex will release the data on how many spins are being sold. I assume that official financial reports might be able to reveal this later so perhaps next year we'll all know if RS players actually do have a lot of disposable income.

[qfc]296-297-574-63808127[/qfc] by Mod Rathe This is pretty important and I hope I'm reading it right. The system is looking at the skill you're leveling versus the primary skill the monster will counter it (either it's offensive or defensive stat). You don't want to train defense on a monster with its offensive stat too low and you don't train atk/mag/rng against an enemy with low defensive stat. However, this is beneficial to players with divergent range, mage and melee stats. Reason being, even if you're a high combat level thanks to 90 atk, you can still train on low level NPCs if you happen to have and use a low level range skill. Also, if I'm reading this right, monsters will have weapons and armor of a level that fits their base stat. An NPC with 40 atk and 40 def will also be using something like rune armor and weapons. If that's the case, a monster's combat level and a player's combat level (that's fully equipped) will be comparable in power. That's unlike now where a level 138 NPC would be no competition to a fairly equipped level 80 player. Now I'm wondering how XP will be handled in all this? I don't think it's going to be HP based anymore. I can see it where a monster will have a set XP and you get a portion of that XP proportional to how much you damage it.

I posted this earlier, but here's all the info I got from the hovering on the video. Strike - 100% damage w/ 10% chance of critical. Lvl 1 atk. 5 second coolddown. Charge - 3 second stun. Opponents immune to stun suffer 300% damage. Lvl 5 atk. 20 second cooldown Sever - 100% damage, 10% reduction of opponent's damage for 10 seconds. Lvl 10 atk. 30 second cooldown Smash - 100% damage, ignores prayer. Lvl 20 atk (????? required). 10 second cooldown Backhand - 3 second stun, opponents immune to stun suffer 300% max damage. Lvl 25 atk. 15 second cooldown Hemorrhage - Cause 200% damage over 10 seconds. If opponent moves, it's 300% damage. Lvl 30 atk. 30 second cooldown Whirlwind - Threshold, area attack for 200% damage to adjacent targets. Lvl 40 atk (2h melee required). 20 second cooldown Overpower - Ultimate, damage 25% opponents max lifepoints. Lvl 45 atk. 60 second cooldown Meteor strike - Ultimate, damage 40% opponents max lifepoints if they're over 50%. Lvl 55 atk (???? required). 60 second cooldown Bash - 3 second stun. Target immune to stun suffer 300% weapon damage. Lvl 25 Def (shield required). 15 second cooldown Reflect - Reflect 50% of damage back on the attacker. Lvl 30 def (shield required). 20 second cooldown. Revenge - Threshold, any attack you receive boosts your damage for 10% for 10 seconds, stacks to 100%. Lvl 40 def. 20 second cooldown. Dragon 2h: Damage 624, Bonus 600, Style Slash, Type Melee, Speed ??? Dragon Scim: Damage 257, Bonus 600, Style Slash, Type Melee, Speed Fastest Zamarok Kiteshield: Armour 1200, Class Melee

I see nothing wrong with that logic. Good call.

TL-DR: Imagine a cross between Construction, Farming and Mobilizing Armies where players stock their various "stalls" around the towns with junk items to "sell" to the town's NPCs. ~~Premise~~ Merchanting is a skill to trade goods. The adventurer in Runescape collects many items in his travels and training. Merchanting is a great method to use the fruits of his labors to trade for more useful materials. A good merchant will find a need and fulfill it. A successful adventuring merchant will look to all his travels and find a variety of needs in a variety of places to fulfill while making a nice profit along the way. Merchanting can be termed an end game skill. One can merchant without leveling other skills, accomplishing tasks and completing quests. However, the best experiences and rewards come to merchants that are skilled in many abilities, have experienced the tasks of many lands and helped others is his quests. Game theory: Like construction used gp as the primary means to level the skill, merchanting will use mass produced items as the means to level. Like dungeoneering, having more skills leveled helps access higher level training in the merchanting skill. ~~Stalls~~ The skill starts off with various stalls around the NPC populated F2P and Member areas - Lumbridge, Al Kharid, Varrock, Falador, Taverly, Catherby, etc. Each stall has it's own specialty (ores, bows, weapons, wood, runes) usually not associated with the area. The player rents the stall (gp sink) for a number of barter cycles. Each barter cycle, the player has to stock the stall (item sink) and choose what item he's willing to take in trade. At the end of each barter cycle, the player completes the trade, collects his bartered item and gets experience in the skill. Barter cycle times vary, but it can be anywhere from 1 hour to 72 hours depending on the stall and the trade being arranged. Other stalls become available through a number of means. Stalls can be improved using skills (crafting, smithing, construction, etc). More stalls get accessed by completing quests specific to a town (Feud, Fremminick Trials, Legend Quest, etc). The variety of items bartered improve as your other skills improve. Game theory: this plays like the various farm plots in farming. In addition, more stalls means the player needs to gather more low level items to stock the stalls. For higher level barters, you still need more low level items in addition to higher level items. This places a drain and therefore a demand on commonly produced low level training items. In addition, the long wait time between cycles means it's in the best interest of efficient players to gather a variety of low level items to stock as many stalls as possible. ~~Renting~~ Similar to having a butler, you can use the stall for X number of barter cycles. As you level merchanting and improve your stall, you can rent for longer cycles though it costs more. Renting is done primarily in gold pieces, though specialty stalls may have exceptions. Though there are many stalls in Gielanor, you are limited in the total number of stalls you can rent at one time. This number improves as you improve merchanting, which is important as a successful merchant divides his time among many stalls for the most profit and experience. Game theory: This just creates a GP sink. Limiting stalls also gives players incentive to find more efficient trade routes. In addition, it rewards players that play quests, do tasks and train other skills. ~~Stocking~~ You must fully stock a stall before you can complete the barter cycle. To determine what needs to be stocked, first select what you're bartering for. The higher level items require more items to be stocked. Stocking itself could be as simple of 100 runes of fire, water, earth and air for a stall at Brimhaven or 100 logs, 200 oak logs and 250 willow logs at Al Kharid. Stocking can be done in notes, and can be done in increments. As your stall improves, you can stock more items for a better barter. You always have to stock more, never less though. So once a barter requires 100 bows, any higher barter at the stall will require at least 100 bows, though additional items such as 150 bows and 50 willow bows can be required. Game Theory: This stops the problem in other skills where low level items cease to be useless. In farming, players use pototoes briefly then stop altogether. In merchanting, if a stall needs wood long bows to barter, every higher barter will at least require the same number of wood bows. This is the part that requires the most balance. In theory, you want a certain cost per xp. The more efficient xp should cost more both in gp and items. Once a skill of this nature is released, there will be an enormous drain on items that's impossible to predict. ~~Thefts~~ Stalls attract theft. Thieves will destroy your entire barter cycle by taking your entire inventory. This can be avoided by a number of means. One can constantly overlook the stalls, but this cost time. Near most stalls are town guards that can be "encouraged" to look after your stall during its barter stage. Finally, one can hirer a clerk to monitor your barter stage. Better merchanting skills means you can hire better clerks that not only prevent theft but can speed up the barter cycle. Game theory: This is like disease in farming. Theft removes items from the stock, pausing the barter cycle meaning the store needs to be restocked. Depending on the game mechanics, guards can be 50% effective while clerks and 75% or 100% effective with better types able to speed up barter cycles. In addition, players can decide to man the stall while their doing some sort of training. This is not efficient, but players should be given the option. ~~Final Sale~~ It takes time for your stall to barter for its items. When complete, you finalize the the sale and get your xp and bartered item. The final sale can be sped up with hiring better stall clerks. Game theory: This is harvesting. You get a good item and experience. The experience is related mainly to the overall cost of the trade. Since construction is 6gp/xp it's not unreasonable to expect a 10 to 20gp/xp for the merchanting skill. Again, this will ultimately be decided by game balance beyond the ability of normal players. The bartered items the various shops ultimately provide though should be something that helps encourage players to continue with the skill. ~~Secondary Benefits~~ For popular high alchemy items, perhaps allow a spot that "sells" items for high alc value which you can collect. Perhaps at higher levels, completing sales results in unique items. For example, the rune stall could generate 30 chaos runes for selling the base runes. Game theory: This is where the skill can also be sold to players. Providing useful benefits to remove tedious everyday task can be a useful reward. Just like MTK provides a means to collect items, perhaps the stores can do the same. In addition, other stores could provide "alc'ing" or "mixing" or "crushing" with amounts dependant on the barter cycle level. The idea being that higher level players don't care to perform mundane tasks that take away from training. Allow those that have good merchanting skills to have those tasks done for them in game.