What is the point of a barter system?

[Val the Moofia Boss]

I remember when Mount & Blade 2 was announced and one of the ideas for it was that there would a be a barter system where you could barter some intangible things. Not just goods, but also prisoners and land in exchange for a peace agreement or an alliance, etc. Maybe you could have bartered stuff like marriages, or someone handing over a prisoner of interest to you, etc. But I don't think that made it into the final game. Most barter systems I have seen in games tend to just operate off of a true value of the items, so it's just regular buying and vendoring but with more steps. So what's the point of bartering over just straight up buying and selling directly what you want then?

[wndrbr]

Immersion

[Lhynn]

So what's the point of bartering over just straight up buying and selling directly what you want then?

Aproximate value or perceived value. Itd be hard to code, since trading a cow for a wife is hard to quantify, who won? Who lost? By how much?
Its less about demand and more about need, its more personal. I dont think it would have been easy to do before, but nowadays, with AI, they can make NPC personalities with ease, set time consuming parameters over their personal values in a moment.

The point is the very reason we play rpgs, they are primarily the games that give you more ways to interact with the world.

[Stack of Turtles]

trading a cow for a wife is hard to quantify, who won? Who lost?

Cow is definitely worth more than wife.

If you have a cow, you can have it make more cows. Only a few religions let you have your wife make more wives for you.

[Meaty Clackers]

to dodge taxes

[Lhynn]

Cow is definitely worth more than wife.

Maybe an old wife, a young wife can make more people to work your farm. Thats why I said it varies. Maybe you have 20 cows but you can see that in some years you alone wont be enough, and hiring people is expensive.

[Stack of Turtles]

Cow is definitely worth more than wife.

Maybe an old wife, a young wife can make more people to work your farm. Thats why I said it varies. Maybe you have 20 cows but you can see that in some years you alone wont be enough, and hiring people is expensive.

if you read the second line you will see I was making a joke

[Kolgrim]

It's so you can role play being a Jew.

[Norfleet]

Aproximate value or perceived value. Itd be hard to code, since trading a cow for a wife is hard to quantify, who won? Who lost? By how much?

If your wife was only worth one cow, you either got a very poor wife or a great steal. Should be at least 6-7 cows.

[rusty_shackleford]

I will give you three beans for that assault rifle.

[Stack of Turtles]

I will give you three beans for that assault rifle.

MAGIC beans???

[Norfleet]

I will give you three beans for that assault rifle.

How many beans for HQ Platinum, though?

[rusty_shackleford]

I like when you get a penalty to disposition when you offend NPCs with your offer

[Lhynn]

Aproximate value or perceived value. Itd be hard to code, since trading a cow for a wife is hard to quantify, who won? Who lost? By how much?

If your wife was only worth one cow, you either got a very poor wife or a great steal. Should be at least 6-7 cows.

Shes 60, fat and nags all day. Im trading for a cow.

[Tangerine]

Are there any games that have merchants treat you like a chump if you regularly offer them a huge discount on sold goods?

[Norfleet]

Are there any games that have merchants treat you like a chump if you regularly offer them a huge discount on sold goods?

I'm pretty sure if you did that, the merchants would go out of their way to NOT insult you, lest you stop.

[Tadeusz]

So what's the point of bartering over just straight up buying and selling directly what you want then?

There may be some practical considerations - different currencies may exist so not all traders accept what you have and barter is just more convenient; currency may just be scarce or absent; traders may have limited demand and may accept only certain items; traders may value items differently so there's a need to optimize trading routes. Overall, barter is just more flexible in terms of immersion and possible game mechanics.

[Norfleet]

So what's the point of bartering over just straight up buying and selling directly what you want then?

Tax purposes, mainly. If you buy a thing with money, there are taxes involved. If no money is involved and thus no value has exchanged, you get away with a lot more.