Merchants

Alpha-2 Vendor NPC work-in-progress UI.^[1]

Merchant NPCs (also called Vendors) are present from the first stage of node development (Expedition).^[2]

Merchant NPCs are identified by a golden shimmer on their nameplates.^[3]
Merchant NPCs will in general be able to buy items from players.^[4]

List of items sold by merchants

This section contains potentially outdated information from Alpha-1 testing.

- None -

Tavern NPCs

The way that the tavern NPCs are going to work is you'll have patrons of either in-node taverns that will have the ability to list items as part of that NPC's merchant store and those items will mainly be around food and drink; and those types of craftable things that are relevant to these taverns; and those items will grant buffs based on proximity. And then additionally players can build taverns on their freeholds- we've discussed this in the past- they will list their craftable foods and drinks and whatnot with their NPC at that tavern as well; and players who interact with that can purchase them- have a drink at the tavern, eat some food at the tavern; and that'll give them a buff for a period of time as long as they remain proximity of that freehold.^[4] – Steven Sharif

Tavern NPCs ("bartenders") are merchants that are present in Taverns in nodes and on freeholds.^[4]^[5]

Tavern NPCs sell food, drinks, and other crafted items that have been made for that tavern. Consuming these items will grant buffs for a period of time, providing the character remains in proximity to the tavern.^[4]^[5]

You're going to probably want to sell items to other players more than necessarily tavern merchants but they'll be there as well.^[4] – Jeffrey Bard

Artisan classes timeline

Artisan classes (Gathering, Processing, Crafting) is expected to come online fully in Alpha-2 and the Betas.^[6]^[7]

Approximately 10 percent of the artisan system was online in Alpha-1.^[8]^[6]^[7]

Crafting honestly will not come online in any sense of its true form until Alpha-2. Alpha-1 has essentially what are intended to be the core gameplay loop of crafting, meaning the collection of materials, the translation of those materials into processed goods, and the use of those processed goods into item acquisition. That's the core gameplay loop that is currently present in Alpha-1. But those are mostly facilitated piggy backing the merchant systems right now and not actually using the real crafting system; and that's because crafting hasn't been completed in a form that can be implemented in Alpha-1, but will be for Alpha-2. What's present in Alpha-1 doesn't even really scratch the surface for crafting.^[7] – Steven Sharif

Player merchants

Player stalls, personal shops, and auction houses enable buying from and selling to other players.^[9]

Player merchants will not be able to be placed on ships.^[10]

	Player stalls	Personal shops	Auction houses
Cost	Rental fee.^[11]^[12]	Placement certificate purchase.^[13]^[14]^[15]	Listing fee.^[16]
Location	Can be rented at locations near the unique building in an economic node^[16] or in Marketplaces.^[17]	Certificates from non-metropolis nodes, allow placement near the node's unique building or on a freehold.^[13]^[14]^[15] Certificates from economic node metropolises allow placement anywhere in the world.^[13]^[15]	At Markets in Village economic nodes allow raw resources and crafting materials to be posted.^[18] At Exchanges in Town nodes allow all goods/items to be posted.^[18] Metropolis stage Economic nodes enable remote bidding from linked economic nodes.^[18] Auctioneer NPC emissaries present in Vassal nodes allow some access to the parent node's auction house.^[16]
Player presence	An attendant NPC is assigned to the stall. Character does not need to be online or at the stall.^[19]^[11]^[12]	Player must be online and present at the shop.^[19]^[12]	N/A
Storage	Linked to character's warehouse.^[20]	Linked to character's inventory.^[20]	Raw materials and gatherables are automatically deposited within the listing node's local warehouse.^[21]^[16] Anything other than raw materials and gatherables will be mailed to the purchaser.^[21]
Advertising	Items and services are listed on Bulletin boards in the same region.^[22] There may or may not^[13] also be listings at auction houses.^[9]	Custom billboard appears above the character.^[19] Items are not listed in the parent node or auction houses.^[9]	Items listed are visible in community boards (bulletin boards).^[13] Metropolis level economic nodes enable worldwide sale prices for auction houses across Verra.^[18]
PvP	Players are not able to be attacked or robbed while occupying their player stall inside the limits of a node.^[14] Material losses may occur if the node's warehouse is destroyed during a node siege.^[23]^[24]^[25]^[20]	Players may be killed while occupying their personal shop and are subject to material loss due to normal death penalties.^[20]	N/A