Trading

Trading is a feature added on 23 March 2006. Every village has a trading hut, and inside each trading hut is a trader. The traders in the outsider villages of Derby, Durham, and York are named Tom, Dick, and Harry, respectively, and the native villages of Raktam, Dalpok, and Wiksik are home to the traders Tamdal Tik, Tamdal Tack, and Tamdal Toe. It appears that traders stay in business by ripping off customers who can't speak their language.

How to Trade

Trading involves using two pulldown menus to select a type of item from your inventory and a type of item from the trader's inventory. After submitting your choices, the trader will propose a trade.

Trades always consist of swapping one item of the more expensive type for a bundle of items of the cheaper type. Some items (such as bananas and bottles of beer) are equal in price, as the trader will tell you, and can be traded 1-for-1 in either direction. Otherwise, the trader usually collects a small commission by shorting you one item (plus roundoff) when giving you a bundle of cheaper items.

Once the trader makes the offer, you can either accept the proposed trade (costs 1 AP) or reject the proposed trade (costs 0 AP). Provided that both parties have the required amount of items, and provided that you have enough empty space in your inventory to temporarily carry both groups of items, the items will be successfully exchanged. After the trade, you have an opportunity to make the same trade again (costs 1 AP).

Items Available in the Trading Huts

The traders do not have an unlimited supply of items. In fact, their inventory is dependent on periodic replenishing of supplies. It is believed that native traders restock only native items and outsider traders restock only outsider items. However, traders also receive items from other players. Therefore it is often possible to find both outsider and native items in a trading hut, as well as finding other goodies and detritus brought by other explorers.

See Trading Hut Stock Reports for current information on the stock of various huts. Additional comments can be found on Talk:Trading.

Trading Hut Prices

Trader Harry is located at [-70.367,+26.313] in York. Checks of Harry's prices over several weeks (April 12 - May 7, 2006) have strongly suggested that Harry's trade prices are completely stable; these prices are listed in the table below.

A dozen price-checks have been conducted at Durham and Derby, and these have revealed an identical pricing structure to York's. Price-checks by natives in native villages have revealed identical prices as well. It can be assumed that the New York Stock Exchange prices apply to all trading huts, if you are fluent in the trader's language. If you cannot speak the language, there is an additional markup. (When you have no language skills, the foreign trader will almost always offer you one less item, or demand one more item, on each trade.)

See Talk:Trading for more details.

New York Stock Exchange
Heavy Sword	$1000
Gem	$200
Rifle / Blowpipe	$60
GPS Unit	$50
FAK / Dried Herbs	$40
Cutlass	$24
Machete	$20
Gold Coin	$20
Blunt Cutlass	$16
Knife / Dagger	$16
Blunt Machete	$14
Driftwood	$14
Crab	$10
Sharpening Stone	$10
Banana / Mango	$8
Bottle of Beer / Bottle of Rum	$8
Tasty Berries	$8
Bottle of Water / Gourd of Water	$6
Poisonous Berries	$4
Rifle Bullet	$3
Poison Dart	$2
Poison Snake	$1

Stock Exchange Notes:

• These prices reflect trading up: offering multiple lower-priced items in order to buy a higher-priced one. For example, 67 bullets buys a gem, 20 bullets buys a rifle. When trading down, you pay a commission, so you will receive 1 less of the cheaper bundle. For example, a gem buys 65 bullets, and a rifle buys 19 bullets. See Talk:Trading for the exact exchange rates.
• Be careful of round-off. For example, you'll need two GPS Units to buy one Rifle, even though 17 Bullets gets a GPS and 20 Bullets gets a Rifle. You're better off selling 1 GPS Unit into "cash" (bullets or berries), then accumulating enough cash to buy a Rifle, rather than cross-trading GPS->Rifle.
• In my experience, you're better off looting the nearby Armoury, and getting your Rifle for free, rather than wasting AP on the stock exchange.
• These items appear to reflect trades from players in addition to a magically refreshed stock. It is unknown how often the stock replenishes.
• Outsider and native items are paired in value. Rifles and blowpipes always have the same value. All the huts use the same values (although prices are higher for cross-language trades, for example).
• The trading post functions more like a general store than a dynamic stock market -- item values don't change. There are no premiums on scarce items or discounts on abundant items.
• If you can't speak the trader's language, the trader charges an additional markup on every trade.

--Tycho44 19:16, 27 April 2006 (BST); Updated 08:56, 1 May 2006 (BST); Updated 10:19, 1 May 2006 (BST); Updated 08:17, 4 May 2006 (BST); Updated 21:18, 15 May 2006 (BST).