Talk:Nicholas the Traveler/Past Collections

Price Checks: What is NtT Doing to the Economy?
I thought it might be useful to see Nick the Traveler's impact on the GW economy. Please amend my observations with your own. &mdash; Tennessee Ernie Ford ( TEF ) 05:20, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

Price Checks During the Week Nick is Asking For Items

 * Player Trades: Lowest and Highest prices observed by GuildWikians in trade windows
 * Alternative Sources: notable crafting, drops, etc and approximate prices, e.g. Rare Material Trader.

Comments and Observations

 * I saw lots of people spamming that they were selling dessicated hydra claws around 500g in Augury Rock that week. Last week, I'd be surprised of Margonite masks went for even that much.  Quizzical 17:09, 15 June 2009 (UTC)


 * While Nick wanted Parchment ( week of 22 June ), the stable WTB/WTS price actually dropped below RMT prices of the week before. As early as Monday (22 June), you could easily buy it at 140-160 from players, while Buy price was 150 on the prior Sunday (21 June) at the Rare Material Trader.  &mdash; Tennessee Ernie Ford ( TEF ) 20:17, 29 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Throughout Herring week, some people were paying/offering more for 5 fins than others were paying for 1 herring. More surprisingly, the price of 5 fins exceed the typical price of gifts bought directly (4-5k). So, in the same trade window, it was possible to see: WTB 5 fins 5k, WTB 1 herring 4k, WTS gifts 4k. In other words, people were paying a premium to get gifts on their own instead of buying from someone else.
 * On Sunday, there were as many offers of WTB fins 1k (or equivalent) as WTB 500g. I've listed 500g and 1000g as the stable WTB/WTS, as no one was selling for more than 1k. In fact, on Sunday, there were few WTS at all and those only for 2-5 fins (no bulk sellers were advertising). A sellers market from Mon–Sun.  &mdash; Tennessee Ernie Ford ( TEF ) 02:36, 3 August 2009 (UTC)


 * Jade Bracelet: There were no truly stable prices: on any given day, you could find WTB > 700 and WTS < 500, depending on when you looked. The prices listed seemed more consistent than any others.  &mdash; Tennessee Ernie Ford ( TEF ) 16:31, 28 August 2009 (UTC)


 * Glass: Another anomalous market: while the NPCs are offering to sell Glass for 170, many people have offered WTS for 160. (Arguably, it's too much of a PITA to request a quote/sell more than 25, but most of these peeps are selling 2-3 dozen.)  &mdash; Tennessee Ernie Ford ( TEF ) 19:10, November 2, 2009 (UTC)
 * More on Glass: For stable prices, I've noted the final trader range; no players were offering to buy or sell on the weekend when I checked. Before Nick's request, the NPC typically offered WTB 50 – WTS 150; that increased as high as 170/270 on Monday dropping to 120/220 by Sunday (approximately halfway between the pre-Nick and Nick-rush prices).  &mdash; Tennessee Ernie Ford ( TEF ) 20:49, November 8, 2009 (UTC)

Number of Items
Well it may be a fluke, but the amount of items collected seems to go in groups of three, first three, three items were needed, second three one was needed and the last two, two were needed, so I predict two will be needed next week aswell

Patterns - combine two tables?
There are currently two tables for past collections (Chronological and Patterns) &mdash; they contain largely the same data, except for things no longer of concern, such as when Nick arrives/moves, how long he stays. If there are no objections, I will combine them next week after the Nick craziness subsides. &mdash; Tennessee Ernie Ford ( TEF ) 17:21, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

Price trends
A good six months since Nick has been convincing us to kill stuff to supplement his warehouse of supplies and some trends are available.
 * The price to buy items has been dropping, on average.
 * On average, buyers offer around 1.1k per gift-equivalent while sellers are asking for 2.4k/ge.
 * It's generally cheap to buy the items, making farming (for the typical player) an unnecessary distraction.
 * Those who pay the highest average price for items and sell gifts for the lowest possible price will still clear 1.6k/gift or 8k/week (not bad for a few minutes work).
 * Those who farm and sell at the highest possible price can clear 12k for each set.
 * Most weeks, you can make about 500-1k/gift-equivalent if you patiently buy at the lowest and sell at the highest stable price.

I've used the data stored here on the wiki.
 * The chart uses the WTB/WTS prices for the items required to trade for a single gift.
 * For items that required "conversion" (e.g. skale fins to skale fin soup), I've used the lowest WTB and the highest WTS price.
 * This leads to a few oddities (e.g. Mandragor Cake potential cost some buyers 6k/gift, even though gifts tend to sell for 5k at most).
 * I've added linear trend lines; WTB requests have stayed consistent and WTS prices have consistently dropped (Guardian Moss week was an exception to the trend).

&mdash; Tennessee Ernie Ford ( TEF ) 09:37, November 16, 2009 (UTC)

Price trend chart error
The Price Trend Chart at the bottom made by TEF is borked, starting with the 10 AUG entry of Krait Skins. The next 9 entries start with Behemoth hides for the 17th, and are offset by one week til you get to the week of "Luminous Stone", which is completely ommited. 68.96.50.102 22:34, November 18, 2009 (UTC) Clan Ta`Lis


 * Argh. The names are correct; the dates are not (alas, an Excel->chart->jpg issue which I did not catch). The trends still apply; unless there's a lot of interest in a corrected chart, I'll leave things they way they are. Thank you for pointing out the error.  &mdash; Tennessee Ernie Ford ( TEF ) 05:49, November 19, 2009 (UTC)

Automate the location checklist?
Since we store the data for Nick's location, how hard would it be to automatically populate the location list (at the bottom of the page)? Seems unnecessarily duplicative at the moment. &mdash;Tennessee Ernie Ford ( TEF ) 16:22, July 19, 2010 (UTC)
 * Since it's a regular template, it might be possible to get a bot to do that. --  Random Time  16:26, July 19, 2010 (UTC)


 * There's no easy way to do it with the extensions currently available from Wikia. Yes, a bot could do it, but it would be fairly complicated to write.  &mdash;Dr Ishmael Diablo_the_chicken.gif 16:44, July 19, 2010 (UTC)


 * Rats. (I guess GWiki's stellar wikicoders have been making look easy to build useful templates for parsing data). (I know how to do stuff like that in Excel or Access, but only a vague clue about what's involved for wiki templates.) In any case, thanks for the quick response (here and elsewhere). &mdash;Tennessee Ernie Ford ( TEF ) 16:51, July 19, 2010 (UTC)


 * Mendel usually does it with extensive use of #explode and string functions like that. While it does work, the code is very difficult to read, it requires the user to define an arbitrary data structure, and I imagine it's pretty CPU-intensive.  &mdash;Dr Ishmael Diablo_the_chicken.gif 17:11, July 19, 2010 (UTC)

(Reset indent) I've adressed TEF's suggestion in a demo here that uses the live data on this page.

I'd like to point out that Dr Ishmael's demo also employs #explode, an arbitrary%data%structure, a template you need to call before you can use his variables, a new syntax that wiki users have to learn, and I know that a single switch statement that has 137 branches that contain dialogue is not only a nightmare to maintain, but also hits the server hard. So please don't disparage my code before you've seen it; suggestions and improvements are, of course, always welcome. -- ◄mendel► 02:31, July 20, 2010 (UTC)


 * Bloody hell, I knew I was shooting myself in the foot with that comment. Whatever.  Mendel is a wikicode god, I am scum.  Good night.  &mdash;Dr Ishmael Diablo_the_chicken.gif 02:39, July 20, 2010 (UTC)

Dungeon Collectibles / Trophies?
I realise that Nick hasn't started collecting anything of a dungeon drop nature (yet)... is this to say that he won't? Stuff like Beetle Eggs, Incubus Wings, etc. I know they're EotN items, and he doesn't collect that much in EotN nature as it is; I'm being purely speculative at this point. --Valandil D 16:55, July 24, 2010 (UTC)


 * Trophy is the correct phrase for such things, too; there's nothing fundamentally different about Skelk Claws from Skelk Fangs except that one is found in dungeons and the other above ground. You'll notice that (a) Nick almost always collects things easily available at or near his current location; (b) there are only 15 possible eotn regions compared to 137 total; and (c) there are over 800 trophy types. Consequently, (1) he's going to request eotn trophies only 11-12% of the time and (2) he's only going to request a small fraction of all possible trophies (even discounting rare mats and quest items).


 * tl;dr The only thing stopping Nick from requesting dungeon-only items is that the odds are against it. &mdash;Tennessee Ernie Ford ( TEF ) 17:06, July 24, 2010 (UTC)


 * Arguably, Amphibian Tongues and Chromatic Scales are dungeon trophies, since the monsters that drop them can be found both above and below ground; the Scales more so, as the drakes are found in 4 different dungeons versus only 1 overworld area. Frogmen can be found in 2 of each type of area, so the tongue could be called either.
 * Anyway, I made a table here to classify each trophy as "overworld" or "dungeon" and then summarize the results. Out of 35 EotN-exclusive trophies (that I know of; splitting the trophy category by campaign would be useful), there are 12, or ~1/3, that are purely overworld trophies, and only 8 that are purely dungeon trophies.  This supports Ernie's hypothesis that "the odds are against" Nick collecting dungeon trophies.
 * He's collected 7 EotN trophies so far, and 2 of them have been partially dungeon trophies, so that sounds about right. I'll even predict that the next time he goes to EotN, he'll collect a pure dungeon trophy.  &mdash;Dr Ishmael Diablo_the_chicken.gif 19:23, July 24, 2010 (UTC)


 * Ooh! Let's take odds (what do we have for the winners, Ed?) If you look at each area and their connecting dungeons, most of the possible choices are land-only trophies or trophies available above and below..
 * Bjora Marches: only Dryder webs uniquely fall in dungeons. 10 other trophies available in Bjora+dungeon can be found only above or both.
 * Drakkar Lake: 8 for land/both ways, 1 for dungeons only
 * Jaga Moraine: 16-1
 * Norrhart Domains: 8-0
 * Arbor Bay: 9-1
 * Magus Stones: 8-4
 * Dalada Uplands: 4-0
 * Grothmar Wardowns: 7-1


 * That leaves a 40% chance that Nick visits all 7 areas and (if he asks only for trophies) fails to ask for a dungeon-only one. Leave out Magus Stones and that changes to 60%. So, I predict that he'll never ask for a trophy that can only be found in dungeons. I'll go one step farther: when he is in Arbor Bay, he'll ask for Krait Skins. &mdash;Tennessee Ernie Ford ( TEF ) 22:57, July 24, 2010 (UTC)


 * (I am so glad I brought up this question, even for the sheer enjoyment of watching you probability-nuts go to town over the stat's). --Valandil D 04:24, July 25, 2010 (UTC)


 * Me, too! I dunno why I find it so interesting to learn about the guy, his requests, and the related futures, commodities, and derivatives markets markets. If you like watching this, check out some of the old predictions made here, at guildwarsguru, and at the official wiki. All types of speculative fiction. :-) &mdash;Tennessee Ernie Ford ( TEF ) 05:14, July 25, 2010 (UTC)


 * For Magus Stones, if we leave out the Wind Riders (do they even drop a trophy in EotN? GWW doesn't list it) and the trophy he's already collected (Amphibian Tongues) and the trophy we know he'll be collecting in Arbor Bay (Krait Skins), we're left with 10 trophies, 6 of which are dungeon-only. I'd say the odds are good that he'll pick a dungeon-only trophy there.  Maybe Beetle Eggs or Fungal Roots for Yileng, or Golem Runestones for Zinn.  &mdash;Dr Ishmael Diablo_the_chicken.gif 15:58, July 25, 2010 (UTC)

On 23 April 2009, Nick was in post-Searing Regent Valley but requested Red Iris Flowers, which are only found in Pre-Searing Ascalon and in Ice Cliff Chasms.
Arguably, pre-Searing Ascalon is in the region (they are, after all, only separated by time; plus, the portal is nearby, even though it's one-way from Pre). &mdash;Tennessee Ernie Ford ( TEF ) 21:28, August 23, 2010 (UTC)


 * But you can't visit Nick, then immediately start farming them, without going through a portal or map-traveling. That was my intended point with that list.  &mdash;Dr Ishmael Diablo_the_chicken.gif 21:32, August 23, 2010 (UTC)


 * But who does that? Everyone looks at the wiki or asks someone else for Nick's location. Even those that discover Nicky on Mondays usually go back for another toon to farm.


 * To be clear, I'm not suggesting that we remove the entry. I'm suggesting that there's a reasonable argument that it's not exceptional. In a way, it's really the most emblematic of Nick's requests for something local &mdash; this "memory of a happier time" could only have been been better if we could bring him the apple baskets in bulk. &mdash;Tennessee Ernie Ford ( TEF ) 21:44, August 23, 2010 (UTC)


 * It's meant to be statistical, not practical or "emblematic". &mdash;Dr Ishmael Diablo_the_chicken.gif 22:42, August 23, 2010 (UTC)


 * I apologize for making two points in the same paragraph. (1) It's reasonable to suggest that Irises weren't exceptional; (2) It's the request that fits best with his storyline. &mdash;Tennessee Ernie Ford ( TEF ) 22:48, August 23, 2010 (UTC)