4Dimensions Forum

General Category => Crafting Main Board => Misc => Topic started by: Molly on April 20, 2015, 03:52:19 pm

Title: Creating a Market for the Crafted objects
Post by: Molly on April 20, 2015, 03:52:19 pm
I think that apart from the player driven market for the more developed items, like high quality weapons and armor, there should also be a NPC market for all the simpler objects, and possibly also for some of the intermediate stages of a product. If you can sell the stuff you make for tokens and/or TP, it will add to the motivation of choosing crafting as one of the options to advance your char.

By crafting those simpler products, you'll be able to raise your crafting skills to a point that is necessary to create more advanced products (weapons and armour with stats and innates), which players will potentially be interested in buying. But also for these advanced products there should be NPCs taking the items off your hands if there are no interested players.

The price will be dependant on the quality of the item, whether the buyer is a player or a NPC. The quality will in turn be dependant on the materials and the skill of the crafter that made each part of an item. But even if the result is not perfect in any or all of the aspects, there will still be a buyer for it, so your work will not be wasted.

Setting up this NPC market should in my opinion be the first step on working with the craftskills, and it has actually already started with some of them.

Textileworker
The existing market for linen thread and cloth will be expanded to also involve wool, silk and cotton thread and cloth, and also finished garments. The customers will mainly be Clothes Shops, Millinaries and Armourers. In addition Wharfs and Ship's Chandlers will be buying hemp twine, sack cloth, ropes, rope ladders and sails.

Leatherworker:
There is an existing market for raw animal skins, prepared skins and tanned leather, where the NPC customers pay more the further developed the object is. This too can be expanded later.
Livery stables and Petshops would buy saddles, bridles and dog collars, various Clothes shops would buy shoes, boots, gloves and furcoats, but the main customers would of course be the numerous Armour shops.

Woodworker:
For instance Lumbermills already buy tree trunks, but would also buy planks, poles and staves, NPC Weaponsmiths could buy bows, arrow and wooden handles, Wharfs could buy rungs for ropeladders, but also boats and ships. Breweries could buy barrels, Furniture shops cabinets,  Artshops wood carvings, and farmers would buy timber and fence poles

Stoneworker:
Forges and Blacksmiths would buy coal, NPC Carpenters, Masoners and Contractors would buy stone blocks, bricks and mortar, armorers would buy roundstones for pommels.
And there would be a huge market for both cut gemstones and glasswork - not just jewellers, but also weaponsmiths, armorers and artshops would buy these.

Metalworker
There are already recipients for ores from the mine, and these would pay a bit better for alloys.
Livery stables, Farriers and Ranchers would buy horseshoes, Carpenters and Contractors nails, Farmers barbed wire. Tailors and seamstresses would buy needles and knitting needles, and some of the tools used for other crafts could also be produced by Metalworkers. But the main product would of course be various kinds of blade weapons, mostly sold to weapon shops
 
Title: Re: Creating a Market for the Crafted objects
Post by: Molly on May 24, 2015, 04:00:34 pm
The Trapping and Skinning feature has been expanded with the option of processing the skins yourself. This will not only fetch a better price on the market, but also produce the raw material used for the CraftSkill Leatherworking, which is currently being developed, together with the other "hard" Craftskills.
You do not need to train the Leatherworker subskill for these initial steps however, but it might improve it, once the skill is implemented.

The three processing steps are; Scraping, Rubbing and Tanning.
Below is a short explanation of each step.

1. SCRAPING
For this you need a Leather knife, which can be bought in the Hudson'ds Bay Trading Posts, but also found in the Tanners Workshop in Crafter's Alley.
You WIELD the knife, HOLD the skin and SCRAPE.
This will produce one of 5 different kinds of TRIMMED hide or skin, (depending on the properties of the original skin).

2. RUBBING
The next step is to rub the trimmed skin with some cow manure, to make it soft and supple before tanning. The cow dung shouldn't be too hard to find, since cows have the habit of leaving these little presents all over the pasture.
You WIELD the manure, HOLD the trimmed hide and RUB.
This smelly, but simple task will result in one of 5 different kinds of "SMELLY BUT SUPPLE" skin or hide, (again depending on what kind you started out with).

3. TANNING
You will find a Tanning Vat in the Tanner's Workshop in Crafter's Alley.
First you need to add a GALL NUT and a piece of OAK BARK to the water already in the vat. Both can be found in several places in the many forests of the Realms.
You wait for the elements to dissolve, before you put your skin into the vat. Then you'll have to wait for the chemicals to work, before you can take the skin out again.
(The vat only contains one hide at the time, but the tanning solution will last for about 15 minutes, so the process can be repeated several times before the fluid is spent and has to be renewed).
Again the result of the process will be one of 5 kinds of TANNED leather or pelt, depending on the original type of skin.

4. TRADING
Both the trimmed and the tanned skins can be traded to several buyers, but none of those will accept the smelly rubbed hides, for obvious reasons.
Each of the Buyers has a price list posted on a sign in their workshop.
- Fingal, the Furrier in Crafter's Alley
- Bill, the Leather worker in Olde Yorke
- Lionel, the armorer in Olde Yorke   
- Torin, the Dwarf armorer in The Mine     
- Dirty Harry, the armorer of Thandar       
- Goberone, the armoire shopkeeper in Osten Ard
- Velad, the armory keeper in the Elven Metropolis