Misused (Alt names crowner 25 September 2021): Vendor Trash

To-do list:

• Sort wicks. Items that are useless for anything other than selling should be moved to Shop Fodder, while items that have a use but are still usually sold by players should be moved to the YMMV subpage under Better Off Sold.

Edited by GastonRabbit on May 16th 2022 at 5:39:32 AM

Opened.

Would Shop Fodder or Shop Food work as a name? I've heard them used in some gaming circles.

A Rename seems like the best choice but I can't think of a name.

Vendor Scrap.

"Scrap" is usually something of little worth to the player that can be picked up and exchanged for something useful. Which is more closer to what the trope is supposed to be about. Plus the word "scrap" doesn't have the same negative connotation that "trash" does.

Edited by JAG01 on Jul 9th 2021 at 7:05:28 AM

To be honest I feel like the OP is spitting hairs a bit. "items that aren't worth using except for selling" feels like a downplayed version of the trope rather than full on misuse. This is particularly the case for crafting items, as a lot of these in flavor are indistinguishable from true Vendor Trash — it's often totally arbitrary whether random horns and bones you get off kills are worthwhile only to vendors or have a crafting purpose (and some games aren't even consistent about this). Plus the way in-game crafting economies often work it can be better strategy to sell crafting materials.

In practice, players item farm for low level weapons just as much as true vendor trash and treat them the same way.

I kind of agree, but I still think the name isn't great. Shop Fodder is so far the best name I've seen suggested. That might work.

Sure, but that doesn't mean those items count as this trope. This trope is a very specific class of item. What players do with other items doesn't change the facts.

Vendor Fodder is an alternate name we haven't seen suggested.

The idea of the trope is that the item exists to be sold. We'd think that items which technically have other uses could fall under Tropes Are Flexible — if we recall, there was some Final Fantasy game with gold gear that hit like crap but sold like... well, gold — as long as those other uses aren't the item's main intended purpose. Crafting materials would be right out.

Edited by wingedcatgirl on Jul 9th 2021 at 12:09:19 PM

Umm...but what if the item in question has crafting recipes, but is still presented as something that exists only to be sold?

As an example, I can list Dark Cherries from Bug Fables. They are very rare to find (and have specific predetermined spots in which they are hidden), are completely unusable in battle or overworld alike, and have a high sell price (of 50 berries; an in-game currency if you're wondering), and the game even encourages the player to sell them with an explanation that "collectors will buy them for a high price".

However, it can be used as a crafting material, with which one can make the best TP-restoring item that immediately restores it to maximum, a revival item that can revive the entire party at once, the best bomb item, and a strong HP-and-TP-restoring item.

Then again, one may list it as subverted example, but still...

EDIT: Well, maybe it can work in that case.

Edited by I--Vanya--I on Jul 9th 2021 at 8:28:01 PM

A subversion?

I guess Shop Fodder or Vendor Fodder works here.

I prefer Shop Fodder out of what's been suggested so far.

I'd personally keep the name and rewrite the description. "Vendor trash" is a very commonly used term in MMORP Gs, and it's used to refer to useless items as well as items with no purpose besides selling.

An item being considered so useless that the only purpose players could come up for it is to sell it is a YMMV reaction, isn't it? Wouldn't that also be redundant with Tier Induced Scrappy?

I agree that it does kinda sound YMMV, unless it's literally something only worth for selling. Not sure if items would count as that trope, though.

I mean, I suppose technically that's true, but I don't think you could make a serious argument that the Rusty Iron Spear every dead orc pawn drops isn't inferior in every way to the Default Spear of Newbie Buffing or the Carefully Scaled Level Appropriate Quest Reward Spear, even though technically you can equip the Rusty Iron Spear and use it.

Hmm.

If it's designed as a crappy weapon never worth using, with all appropriate stats including sell price — something like 3 gold in a game where the cheapest potion costs 50 — then sure, the only value you can get out of it is sale... but it still feels like a different trope than the gold nuggets and gems and ancient Allagan coins are trying to be.

I don't think "vendor trash" being a common term related to MMORPGs makes the name good, since this trope appears in other types of RPGs. An example that comes to mind at the moment is Pokémon, which has quite a few items that only exist to be sold for varying amounts of money.

I'm inclined to argue for modelling this as two tropes:

Specifically, I might suggest that the "Vendor Trash" trope cover "items that whose only purpose is for sale", and that a new YMMV trope cover "items that aren't worth using, but that the player might collect for later sale"—"Tier Induced Vendor Trash", perhaps.

My only qualm is that I suspect that, outside of TV Tropes, "vendor trash" likely includes both.

Thus, perhaps it's worth renaming our "Vendor Trash" trope (I like the name "Shop Fodder"), and instead mentioning the term "vendor trash" in the description.

Something like this:

"In common usage, the term "vendor trash" covers both this trope and Tier Induced Shop Fodder."

Edited by ArsThaumaturgis on Jul 11th 2021 at 10:55:22 AM

We could easily keep the Vendor Trash name around as a disambiguation page between the objective trope (i.e., items that do absolutely nothing, but sell for a large amount) and the YMMV item (i.e., items that have at least one purpose other than selling, but are usually sold anyway due to their price).

For the YMMV item, one example that comes to mind would be the gold swords in Final Fantasy III, which are pretty weak since gold is soft and malleable (in both real life and the game), but sell for a decent amount since gold is valuable.

That's not a bad idea, indeed.

(I'm still inclined towards having a description of the term on the page—although perhaps it could then go on the disambiguation page, come to think of it.)

Another thought is that in WRP Gs the loot treadmill can result in once-useful gear becoming either superfluous or outclassed, and thus falling into this. Similarly weapons that aren't useful due to being class-restricted or simply noot suitable to one's build.

Now, Examples Are Not General, but the idea might point to some concrete examples in specific works. (I've been selling an enormous amount of all-but useless-to-me weapons in Divinity: Original Sin 2, for one.)

Edited by ArsThaumaturgis on Jul 11th 2021 at 3:57:28 PM

While Examples Are Not General, the "loot treadmill" information could probably still go on an Analysis subpage.

That is a good point, I do think.

Split into two:

• A trope for intentionally sell-only items
• A YMMV reaction for items with some other nominal purpose but is normally sold by players due to being useless or better worth sold.

Edited by Albert3105 on Jul 11th 2021 at 2:44:43 PM

I agree that there should be a split.

One player's vendor trash is another's valuable equipment (albeit temporarily).