The Market

Taro Bay has a real, player-driven economy. There are two ways to turn goods into coin (mon, the game's only currency): the village trader, who buys and sells at fixed prices, and the player market, an order book where players trade with each other.

The village trader — your price floor and ceiling

The trader is always open and always simple:

• Selling to the trader pays a fixed price per item — the item's NPC buy price. It's instant, guaranteed, and tax-free. This is your reliable early income and the reason no item is ever truly worthless.
• Buying from the trader costs a fixed price too, for the items the trader stocks (some items the trader simply doesn't sell).

Because the trader always buys at that fixed price, it acts as a floor under the player market — nobody will sell to another player for less than the trader already offers. And because the trader sells staples at a fixed price, that acts as a ceiling — nobody will pay another player more than the trader charges. The player market lives in the space between those two bounds.

The player market — an order book

The market matches buy orders against sell orders, one item at a time. An order is just two numbers: how many units and the price per unit you want.

• Post a sell order to offer goods; post a buy order to request them.
• If your new order overlaps an existing one on the other side, they match and a trade happens immediately. Otherwise your order rests in the book, waiting for someone to trade against it.

Which orders match first

The book follows price-then-time priority:

1. Best price first. A buyer matches the cheapest sell order available; a seller matches the highest-paying buy order.
2. Oldest first among equal prices — the order that's been waiting longer gets filled first.

A trade always executes at the price of the older order already in the book, not the newcomer's price. So if you post a buy order for more than the cheapest sell, you pay only that seller's lower price — the difference comes straight back to your wallet.

Orders can fill partially (a big order can be satisfied by several smaller ones), and orders never expire — they rest until filled or cancelled.

Escrow: your order is always covered

When you place an order, its cost is set aside so a trade can never fail:

• A sell order locks away the items you're offering.
• A buy order locks away the mon it would cost (quantity × your price).

Cancel an order and the locked items or mon come straight back to you.

The 5% market tax

Every player-to-player trade pays a 5% market tax, taken from the seller's proceeds (rounded up). Sell 100 mon of goods and you receive 95. This tax is the game's main coin sink — it quietly keeps the economy healthy. Note that selling to the trader is tax-free; the tax only applies to the player market.

Order limits

You can have up to 5 open orders at once. Choose them well — or cancel an old one to free a slot.

Quick tips

• New to trading? Sell to the trader for guaranteed coin; graduate to the market once you know what things are worth.
• Undercut the lowest sell price by a little to sell quickly; overbid the highest buy price to buy quickly.
• Craft materials like pearls and silk cocoons are where the real player-to-player money is.

See also: Equipment & Slots (all gear is tradeable here) and Guilds & Daily Quests.