Vials are currently 400 gold. They come with a free refill of a potion, courtesy of Bob. What people sell them for after that is up to them. For a player, you need 5 cut gems, which from what I hear is a lot more than 400 gold, and no free potion. After that, people can sell them for whatever they want.

right yes, vial making is not an option, I spent lessons in a skillset that is pretty much not of use because buying empties off the market is the only way . If the powers that be wanted a system where we were simply bought empties they wouldn't have put in the ability to make vials. Something tells me that as we can have the ability they want us to be able to use it. I'm trying to point out some ways that we can make the skills viable. The mere fact that there is a market for second hand vials tells me A. People are buying too many filled vials off bob. and B. there are no new vials around

Perhaps the soloution is to change the amounts of particular herbs required for some of the potions (especially ones bob can sell).

We are, after all, in the open beta stage. The closed beta was too small for them to sincerely evaluate things like trade with supply and demand factored in on such a scale. They are bound to have made some mistakes first time around.

Also, You don't make very large profits on things anyway, in real life, most wholesalers make around 5-10% profit on their overlays.

Crafting a vial should take one gem, period. 5 gems to craft a vial? Simply insane. I know, because I'm an alchemist as well, I rarely fill, and it is much cheaper to buy health and mana vials from Bob since you get additional vials.

*nod* If health in Achaea took 4 bellwort, it would be at least twice as expensive, if not more. Having very common potions using a lot of the rarest herbs is just insane.

On the note of Bob and his vials, I think that Estarra had said in Closed Beta that Bob was only there for a limited amount of time so at some point, I believe that argument won't be valid. As for needing a cutter to get herbs....if I walk out in a field and see a clover....do I have to cut it? No.....perhaps the ONLY item I could think of us needing is a spade and it sure as hell shouldn't decay in three months........no tool is going to decay in three months, period.

Tools do wear out the more they are used. Gardening implements such as secataurs need sharpening they also need to be kept oiled, the more use they have the more they need to be maintained. Most gardeners know that it is better for the plant health to make a clean cut with a sharp edge than roughly tear a section off. Herbalists shouldn't require tools? Many plants in the garden have toxic or at least irritant nature. How about a random chance of having an allergic reaction to the plants you are picking which can be soothed with a balm made by alchemists. Gloves to protect the hands from thorns, secataurs forged and maintained by smiths, and kept oiled by a special brew. Maybe the physical nature of your work could cause you to get hungry more quickly. All that harvesting out in the field must make a worker famished, perhaps a special food cooked by chefs and fortified by certain herbs to keep you going. Realistically the gardeners I know in real life use many different protective devices and implements in harvesting their bounty. Trowels, spades, secataurs, gloves, sunhats, sunscreen, handcreams, insect repellants, pruning pastes.. the list goes on

You think herbalists should have no overheads and costs for their trade, that you should be completely independant of the others yet have so many dependant on you. The fact that you do not need us, but we need you sets the system up for an imbalance

Allow me to put this simply Tsigany.....you are complaining about prices and quantity am I right? Alright so why do you think prices and quantity are so high? Because people overharvest the herbs...if you start factoring in things that really aren't necessary such as what has been mentioned, it is going to push up the cost of harvesting and force more people to harvest more of the herbs to help cover the cost of buying a new piece of equipment every two or three days and that is just ridiculous. It isn't going to help, we have overhead, it's called overharvesters, no one else relies on the honesty of other people but herbalists, THAT'S our overhead and we don't need anymore.

There are some herbs that even if I had the gold to pay top coin for, I still cannot get, these herbs are just not available in the numbers we need. I'm talking about the ones that everyone uses. So even supposing I was willing to pay 100 gp per and had the cash I still couldn't make many of the potions on my brewing list. So my solution is to come here and suggest an alternative that may help teh game play. This isn't bitching whining whatever, I'm trying to suggest ways to even out the interdependance thing thats going on between trades.

Now I have heard it again and again that the prices are so high because peple overharvest the herbs... um if they're harvesting more doesn't that mean there should be more herbs around and thus the prices would be lower? but anyway, I also suggested a way in which the harvesting could be regulated. If it were to cost you to harvest, in terms of wear and tear on implements, useage of potions etc, then surely herbalists would -only- harvest the stuff they knew they had a market for and not just rape the plants for the sake of having a full rift just in case they get a good sale. Think about that, if it were to cost you something to harvest maybe it will stop the people just picking everything because they can and make them think more carefully about protecting the resource.. if they have to cover costs they're going to want to make sure the plants are kept in reasonable condition.

You talk about honesty, or the lack of it being your overhead... maybe making it cost is the regulating factor you need. have you ever thought that this way there might actually be herbs for the more honest playrs to harvest. Oh and I could be wrong, but don't all the trades that use commodities rely on the honesty of others not to buy the market out and increase prices?

Or here's a thought, how about making it impossible for one person to harvest more than 5 herbs from a location per month. I don't know, but please do not just jump to the assumption that this is a bitch session about herbalists and prices, I would have gone to the hate thread for that. I'm trying to throw out some constructive ideas on how we can get more potions out there and more alchemists in work

I never claimed that you were whining or anything of that sort....nowhere in any of my posts did I claim that you were whining so don't take what I am saying the wrong way. You are right, there are many overharvesters but I think that when it comes to the point you have to have more items to harvest, people are just going to harvest in double-time to make up the lost revenue spent on tools/potions. As for 5 herbs a day. It could work but the problem that I see here is that, the people who can afford it will just make alts to go about harvesting the area too and have that character pour all of their lessons into herbs....it wouldn't be too hard to transcend it if that was your focus.

Put a skill in nature/herbs/perception that lets you see who last harvested a room, then let all the other herbalists hunt him down for overharvesting!

Though I get the feeling this left out to keep an herb monopoly organization from forming.

Their should be an easier way to do this, but how about this in the meantime. We have two groups of herbs, wild herbs and tame herbs.

Wild herbs grow in harder to reach locations, grow at an accelerated rate and carry more herb per an area than tame herbs. They are more resilent to demense and attacks, and will regrow themselves after a period of time if harvested out really, really slowly. Transplanting greatly speeds up this process.

Tame herbs grow up in personal enclosures an herbalist can set, claiming the area for the sake of himself. These herbs are protected from demense, attacks, and overharvesting with the exception of those done by their owners until the enclosure is destoried, what which time they die out on thier own or go wild, depending on how many plants survive. Tame herbs grow more slowly than wild herbs and carry less plants for the location than wilds, but are a source of almost posititve future herb growth.

Just to add in another idea. I recently saw an ad

I have 17818 herbs (this number is ever growing) in my rift and
pocketbelts. I dont want a single one. This is your chance to
get an -awesome- deal on huge amounts of bulk herbs. I'm selling
the lot of them for 160k: ...........

Ok, so I sent a tell to the vendor asking if there was horehound, calamus or sparkleberry among those, none so I wasn't really interested, I asked about flax and they had 629 of flax. Now herbs in rifts don't help the population much at all. And reading that reminded me of a situation in aetolia where we had valerian shortages, it was most frustrating because there were hundreds of pockbelts out there that contained vast quantities of valerian yet no one that needed it now, could ever use it. People like to have a stash, they like to set themselves up for life when they find a good deal. So I'm thinking maybe there should be a limit to how much of a certain item the rift will hold. Once a person has reached the limit there is no point buying more of that item since they can't keep it. This would help with the huge coms buy outs too. Instead of one person buying 2000 of a herb type, we'd have 10 people able to purchase 200 each. Maybe trans herb skill culd double what a herbalist can hold in the rift? so non herbalists hold 200, herbalists hold 400. Define pocketbelts to not be able to hold herbs. A herbalist who doesn't have a market for the herbs he's picking will only pick what he can fit in his rift, leaving herbs for others. Anyway, just another idea to further complicate things. I think it is crazy that one person can have near 18k herbs

(and yes I do still want for alchemists to be able to gather some of their ingredients themselves so I haven't gone away from that idea)

I'm one who likes to have lots of herbs in his rift/pocketbelts, even if only for security of knowing that I won't run out in a fight. For herbalists who like to make any profit at all, you really need to have the higher limits on the rift and for those who cannot use the rift, pocketbelts (which are limited enough, in my opinion, only being able to hold up to 5 different items).

The rest is up to the herbalist who sells the herbs to his clients. He can choose to sell 2000 at a reduced rate to make a quick buck or he can choose to portion them out to many people who need them. If I can only keep 200 herbs in the rift, I'll constantly be harvesting and just looking for a buyer willing to buy only a few herbs. If I sell all 200 of something, I had better find and harvest some more quickly, as I don't like to be out of something I may need for myself.

It's the same problem as overharvesting. Don't blame the system. Blame those who have no self-control.

Exactly my point....thank you. It's nuts to see these people that have hundreds of thousands of herbs and blab about it over market. It makes me want to hang dead meat on them and feed them to the sea wolves. Freaking-A get you enough herbs to get by and get some to sell but over a hundred thousand herbs? That's idiotic.

Herb market is greatly saturated. Herbalist may not depend on other trades to work, but we depend on the availability of herbs altogether. Most of the times you will see rooms entirely empty of herbs, or with 1-5 herbs, of course, sometimes there are exceptions. But you have a great multitude of people rushing around harvesting what they can, hauling herbs for themselves. The actual number of people who benefit from selling herbs is minimum, because only a faction are actually able to acquire the herbs possibly depriving other herbalists of a few plants. This will lead to a Herb market only influence and befitting a few, meaning that the few that actually have the herbs can set the price to whatever they want. The trouble with herbs was so bad, that at some point I decided to stop harvesting, seeing how herbs had been overrun by harvesters. Sure, other trades do depend on herbs for their trades to work. This is fine. Alchemists may depend on herbalist, tailors on jewelers for certain things, etc. But actually having to depend on a factor that cannot be controlled, like herb consumption, makes Herbs a very competitive and stanched trade.

The solution for Alchemy, would be if Alchemists actually formed a coalition with Herbalist in order to stablish prices. And like Tsigany said, Bob's wares were in fact just standard wares nothing compariale to wares made by adventurers. By doing this, maybe the Herbalist/Alchemy coalition could have enough power to regulate herb consumption and ensure that both herbs and elixirs become available at reasonable prices.

EDIT: Just a note, commercial interdependency within Lusternia is greatly portrayed. One of the initial problems of raw materials, and the process that involved refining these materials into goods was the availability of them. Seeing how cities depend to some extent on the commodities produced by their protectorate states. But, as Lusternia moves on, this will change. Things will be easier to acquire and cheaper. Herbs might be an exception, because thanks to the amount of people that harvest (overharvest), the amount of rooms left is low. So you can only be left trying to anticipate when will a certain herb regrow. Until there is a way to control this, herb prices will also be random, because competition is entirely between individual to individual, so a person can set the price for herbs as much as he pleases. This will keep leading on elixirs being more expensive to process, therefore not as available to all. Of course, an overharvester can connect with an alchemist to benefit each other. Meaning, cheap herbs for free refills? So some kind of organization is needed to administer herbs and anything that is related with it, seeing how herbs are sought by the wordwide community, not only a few.

So, an organization would have an increased opportunity on managing herbs, than a few single conscious harvesters. Especially when only few harvesters bother to replant empty areas... which isn't very helpful, because then along may come the spider and snatch them in the act. If an Alchemist/Herbal coalition existed, with the powers to ban overharvesters from harvesting, detect general herbs amount throughout realms, set prices of herbs sold to the public, everything would change. As for people making alts simply to overharvest... one can only hope that the divines keep a rigid control on those who multi-play.

As a herbalist I have noticed that the number of people harvesting things completely down to zero has more or less disappeared thankfully. Very handy since this was what made me give up on replanting to begin with - nothing like planting massive stretches of land only to come back and find them completely empty. Now they just harvest to one instead, but plants will still grow from that.

So in short, it's getting better.

I'd like to hear a comment from a god, but for a balanced economy where Bob does not exist, you can not have one trade that other trades are dependant on, and not have that trade dependant on another.

I think there should be a skill in lowmagic that allows you to see who picked the herb. After all, Low magic has all sorts of earthly magics and spirit affecting stuff.


If it was free for me to make forgings, there would only exist the best possible weapons for everybody to use. This would mean that I would be sitting infront of the forge for large amounts of time, thus creating a shortage of available forges. At the same time, people would not be willing to buy forgings that are not the best stats thus creating more demand for me to be at the forge longer. There would also be no steel or iron left in the mountains for anybody else.

This is what the situation currently is with Harvesting. Posions don't have this problem, because it requies risk and sacrifice to gather poisions. I think if Harvesting required something.. anything don't care if its a tool, or a potion, or a specific gem, or even if there was risk of getting eaten by a hidden venus fly trap It would solve this whole issue.

You don't have this problem in the other IRE games, because potions are just as free as herbs are. And you have more political control. As I'm sure Roark can talk about better, if there is no cost for what you do, there is no respect for what you have.

I'm actually not sure what good this would do. The main problem with overharvesting is taking it to zero, because then it needs human intervention to replant it (most of the time). If it's taken to zero, the plant dies and you can't see who harvested it anyway.

from what I've heard on the channels the problem is when it gets below 5 or 10 because plants die during their hibernation season, and if they are that low they will need to be planted by the end of the year. Before the end of the year comes, you can go smash some brains in.