targosz wrote:why at traders all-over the Atys there is almost nothing to buy?
we are way offtopic, but sin won't mind
I don't pretend to be able to answer this question, but I can give my 2 cents, and some factors involved, although it's not a all-none scenario.
* some crafters like the hand to hand trade. Negotiating the price, delivery conditions, etc. It's part of their character, and can be fun. You can (in context) see who you sell to, adapt prices, negotiate, you have control about what and who you sell to, thus controlling re-selling of own items, avoid selling to opposite/enemy guilds, etc. It's part of the game.
* some crafters like to be paid in mats. Given the tremendous effort and the broken economy, getting 1 M dappers for an item or getting 400 q230+ fiber/resin/seeds/ambers is not the same at all.
* on a first approach, one could say there are basically 2 types of items: commodity and specialized gear. Commodity can typically include light armor or (before the resists and PvP) jewels. The main factor is quality and they act as bonus holders. They can be produced "en masse" with choice mats. Nevertheless, with commodity (e.g. LA) one may not be able to foresee what players need / want, given the important amount of possible combinations and colors, or even bonuses (e.g. 80 HP,60 SAP). specialized gear, where the stats are truly important like weapons, heavy armor or magic amplifiers, players want usually supreme (100/100, max parry, 97/97 etc). It is quite hard to provide and crafters cannot have an unlimited supply of them. And one a crafter gets a tell asking "can you craft amps" a lot of time the 97/97 is implied.
* to the argument "but it's not even possible to find choice/excel" items. Well, true, and this can be one aspect that can be improved, but it's tied to what players consider "good" gear and to a broken economy.
* So we are mainly back to the "via tell/PM" trade, which has also some drawbacks: uninformed buyers and reluctant sellers. Sometimes the buyers simply don't know who crafts what. Asking around may help you. Reluctant sellers who don't want to be known, or are not able to supply to everybody (tell storms) or simply, they consider that crafting some equipment may not be worth the time/risk or they don't want to step on other (usually lower) crafters. Example, a q250 light armorer, who gets an order q100, mixing several armor races and with colors with mats not in stock (or in stock, with q250) crafting that armor won't give xp, may consume mats that could be used for higher quality, may require the seller to get the mats himself and the price can be, for the seller, not worth the 1+ hour needed. -I am not going into the debate if the crafter should/could/must (not) craft it, it's a personal choice.
it's an interesting subject, I am just presenting some biased personal views, tho