Architect Archive
Thread: Galaxy Wide Vendor Search
Tumbler2002 wrote:
If the original galaxy wide vendor search were to go through as proposed, it would create a vast economy of scale the likes of which there would no longer be a need for a player based market/economy/craft system. Eventually, extremely large guilds would hold a vast amount of the market share and be able to regulate the market as they saw fit. Not only would it squeeze out the little guy (small firms can never compete in economies of scale because they can't keep up with volume and in this game, niche markets can still be consumed by the main market leader), but it would also make the rich guys that much richer (not so much at first, but it would skyrocket exponentially as market share increased).
LOL, you make no sense! No need for a player based market/economy/craft system? What?! Are droids going to come in and provide everything for us now?! Oh man! I can't make my swoops anymore cause those darn pesky npc droids crank out swoops all day long!?! - Players will still be providing all the goods on the market smart guy.
I'm sorry that your lack of intelligence or understanding of things like business or economic theory prevent you from knowing what I'm talking about. The best thing I could suggest for you is to go to college, or even get on google. Then, you'll see I'm making sense. Oh, and droids making swoops for a low standardized price... I know, it sounds crazy that the game would ever change from something it originally was against. Crazy, I know.
Large Guilds of players working together in a MMORPG have an advantage over a single player! That is horrible!! Punish all those people for working together right now!!!! - This is a MULTI Player game and players who work together should be rewarded.
Are you upset that I, as a single player not affiliated with a guild, more than likely have more credits than you in this game because your buddies couldn't help you out? I'm sorry. I didn't mean to hurt your feelings. You should call your mom and she can probably make it feel better.
How can anyone be squeezed out of anything?! Are the banks that give loans to start player business's going to stop giving money? Are they going to foreclose on our shops!? Are you going to hire our vendors away for better prices?!!? OH MY GOD THE HUMANITY. - Reality Check, there is nothing that will force any player out of business. Resources are free, vendors are infinite, shop space is always available. Skills are trained from a 1 time fee.
Resources are free? Are you sure? Do you mean in SWG? I don't know if you're talking about the MxO beta you're in or something because in SWG, all resources excluding the veteran rewards have a cost. I mean, are you serious? Did you think before you wrote this? Wait, nevermind. That question was too easy to answer.
lemonella wrote:
I'm a hardcore crafter. It's why I stay here at SWG when there is a plethora of other MMO's out there. With that being said, I'm very much in favor of a galaxy wide vendor search. I'm going to qualify that by saying galaxy wide SEARCH only. I don't believe that having the item delivered right to the purchaser is a good idea, we all know why it's bad so I won't even go into it.
But, I am totally sick of driving all over after finding a vendor on the map, to see that the vendor has 1 flippin' item, a bag, titled something like, "ore", priced for 9999999. I just want to sit there and smack someone around when that happens.
Delivery? No. Search? Absolutely. I'm not even worried about price wars. Those kind of things are temporary at worst. The chances of me buying in the city I'm currently doing the search in are still high, because I'm inherently lazy, so I really don't see what the fuss is all about. In the end, I think what will happen is that planetary searches will be what is implemented.
The only thing that worries me about buying from the search function is, what if idiot puts a 50k entry fee for their shop, so that those who bought have to pay to get in? The only way around that is for dev's to not allow merchants to put their vendors on the galaxy wide search function if the vendor is housed in a shop with a fee.
All in all, I'm looking forward to this.
Couldn't agree more with all the things you said. I would be extremely pleased if all this debating ended up with the ability to search a planet and have to go pick it up. Mabye instead of being able to purchase something via this search you could just see what they have/quality/prices then you could try and go buy it from there. If they charged some absurd entry fee you could decide if the item was worth it at that point.
I am really excited mainly just to see what everyone is selling. I don't think anyone understands how many vendors there are on a single planet and this search will finally let players see ALL the goods that are for sale.
It would make sense to have this feature tied into the Merchant Level 4 skills. Advertising 4 would give you the option to list on the Planet Search. Make it so that each level 4 skill gave a benefit to the Planet search so that people are rewarded for having all 4 level 4 skills and an additional benefit for being master.
If the galaxy wide vendor search was greenlighted in the way that it was proposed, it would create a system in which not large, but the largest guild could operate at a point on the price curve that no other guild could. The single player couldn't, nor could the smaller or medium sized guild. The large guilds would go head to head, with them slowly knocking each other out. The end result would be one of two things. One final guild standing that is operating at a price point that no one else could compete due to the vast economy of scale. The other is much more likely (if they were able to do a Griggs-like concensus), and that is that the larger guilds will begin to consolidate and pressing an almost full market share. They would then be able to manipulate the market as they saw fit. With the economy of scale, the barriers to market entry would be too great for a single player/smaller guild/competing guild to be able to compete. That one guild conglomerate would have free reign over the market.
Tumbler2002 wrote:
I don't see any explanation how the change will do away with the need for a player based economy. Could you try explaining that part to me again? I just wasn't able to understand it...
Tumbler2002 wrote:
I could care less how much money you have. Your fear that Large Guilds will control the sales of particular items doesn't make sense as guilds already have huge shopping malls up that players can go to and know they will be able to find most of what they need in one place. This makes them extremely powerful already as they can drop shuttle ports right next to their malls as well.
Yes, but there is a vast difference. If I am on Corellia, there may be a large guild there. The same goes for Tatooine and Naboo. There may even be multiple largeguilds on a single planet. The difference is that they are all in direct competition with each other and there are still other factors which can lead to their success or downfall other than quality/price. Via nothing other than location alone, a smaller crafter can compete with them.
Tumbler2002 wrote:
When someone starts a character as an artisan he is given a set of basic tools. From these he can make a Mineral Survey Tool. (He might actually start with one I can't remember) He can use this mineral tool at no cost and survey a good place to dig. Then with the /sample command he can produce resources. FREEE!!!!! Using machines to dig for you is not free, buying minerals from other players is not free, but resources in this game are definitely infinite and free. You don't have to pay taxes to dig, share profits with the owner of the land and a person can dig on virtually every point except inside buildings. So resources are free, they are in the ground and they move occasionally but never run out.
I figured you would go to the single person sampling because the costs of resources in any other sense would have been blatantly obvious.
From a purely economic standpoint, the time it takes you to sample those resources whether it be in a small or large amount is an associated cost. In the time it took you to hand sample 50 units of a resource, you may have been able to do twodurni missionsfor 2k each. Thus, because you gave up the chance to do that (usually known as opportunity cost), you lost 4k credits to gain 50 units of a resource. That would make that stack of resources cost 80 credits per unit. If you are using those resources to sell/make other items to sell/items for yourself, your cost is actually including the lost items/resources that you could have been acquired if you used a more effecient means of harvesting. So, although your output of credits was 0, your intake was far less and the lessened intake is a cost.
(See, these things go much easier and more is learned when we're being nice, even if it is feigned.)
If the galaxy wide vendor search was greenlighted in the way that it was proposed, it would create a system in which not large, but the largest guild could operate at a point on the price curve that no other guild could. The single player couldn't, nor could the smaller or medium sized guild. The large guilds would go head to head, with them slowly knocking each other out. The end result would be one of two things. One final guild standing that is operating at a price point that no one else could compete due to the vast economy of scale. The other is much more likely (if they were able to do a Griggs-like concensus), and that is that the larger guilds will begin to consolidate and pressing an almost full market share. They would then be able to manipulate the market as they saw fit. With the economy of scale, the barriers to market entry would be too great for a single player/smaller guild/competing guild to be able to compete. That one guild conglomerate would have free reign over the market.
Due to the fact that others could not compete, it would be no better than if the devs controlled the market. That is what I meant when I said there would be no need for a player market/economy/craft system, all due to the conglomerate/dev parallel and barrier to new market influences.
If you can't beat them, Join em! This is a pretty wild theory if you ask me. People aren't going to stop making stuff because it doesn't profit them. People pay 15$ a month to "play" in this game and make things. There isn't anything large guilds can do to force the little guy out of business. He can run a few missions, get some cash charge up his harvester and get his resources.
The proposed search system would eliminate nearly all of those factors on a massive scale.
I'm a consumer and a vendor in SWG and I hate shopping. I have the ability to look through every vendor on my server but I don't want to take the time to go do it. Speeding that process up will speed sales up. Instead of listing some item for 3 days and waiting for it to sell, people will find your item within minutes and decide if they want it.
I figured you would go to the single person sampling because the costs of resources in any other sense would have been blatantly obvious.
From a purely economic standpoint, the time it takes you to sample those resources whether it be in a small or large amount is an associated cost. In the time it took you to hand sample 50 units of a resource, you may have been able to do two durni missions for 2k each. Thus, because you gave up the chance to do that (usually known as opportunity cost), you lost 4k credits to gain 50 units of a resource. That would make that stack of resources cost 80 credits per unit. If you are using those resources to sell/make other items to sell/items for yourself, your cost is actually including the lost items/resources that you could have been acquired if you used a more effecient means of harvesting. So, although your output of credits was 0, your intake was far less and the lessened intake is a cost.
Resources are free, how players choose to spend their time getting them is their choice. If the land had rental fees to place machines on or in some way players had to pay someone to get those resources it would be different. Paying maintanence to use the machine is at the choice of the player. Should this vendor search be implemented there is nothing that is going to stop some single player from just continuing to do what he does. Time is the key, just because a huge guild has a lot of factories and resources doesn't mean they will be the only ones to sell armor. At some point market demand will go past what htey can provide and the little guy gets to sell his.
I can't wait for this feature because it will simply speed the economy up. I have about 200 items on my vendors that I believe will sell really fast should a Planet wide/Galaxy wide search become available. But atm I sell mabye 5 items per day because people don't know they are here.
Imagine not have a telephone, and in order to get anythign you needed to drive to the store see if they had it and then keep looking if they don't. Enter the Telephone, from one place a person can find who has what and decide where he wants to buy it. Why does that "break" anything? It speeds things up.
well this is definetly a debatable thing to put ingame. it will hurt the current system but it could be very good if worked right, i think they should start by just being able to search for vendors who actually have the thingyour looking for and not just what they "say" they have. like if the weapons vendor actually has a good stock of weapons and not 3 avain meat for 999999999 credits.
XahntheMerchant wrote:
As a Buyer,I think the Galaxy wide vendor search would be helpful tobuy items that are hard to find by visiting shop and malls.
Currently Ikeep a notepad with waypoints and related info on vendorsI discover with good merchandise/crafters so I now where to go the next time I need those types of items.
However, I think the galaxy wide vendor search could really hurt the Merchant class depending on the details, asMerchant perks for skill trees will mean less now if you can have a single vendor connected toa galaxy widebazaar.
There would be little incentive to actually visit anyone's shops and less need to advertise when everyone can view your items for sale.
Who cares if you have Hiring 4 for Grans and protocol droid employees when no one actually needs to enter your store (or planet) to buy from you? well its more of how the merchant wants to present themselves. if i havea choice of two vendors one called weapons and one called the experimental weapon facility or something more creative i'll always go there. but there is a problem with the search that it won't really matter since you just find the item and go to that vendor without looking at the name of it or anything.
Advertising 4 becomes less meaningful as everyone can now view your items.
Avertising on the planetary map is a valuable skill for a merchant that will become less so if there is no need to seach on the datapad for vendors. make advertising 4 put your items ahead of those who don't have it and master merchant items even higher priority. i mean if someone is looking for armor there are probably 1000 different places that have it and if your in the top 100 because your also a master merchant you will get a lot more sales. cause i mean really, whos gunna go to page 20 to find the item thats on page 1?
Management 4 becomes less meaningful since you will have less of a need to have multiple vendors or store locations, minimizing your discounts to vendor and structure maintenance. over time even if the search will tell you where the item is, having them organized is better and more presentable then having everythning on one vendor. i go out of my way to go to more presentable and decorated shops as opposed to the empty one, it shows they care more for the customer and will likly have higher quality items. and once people know where things are they won't need the search as much and will just go to where they did before.
Efficiency 4 would also be less useful unless yourquantity of items for sale is very high. well i don't think having a search will lower the number of items a merchant has for sale
Maybe the answer is to give all crafters enough merchant skillsas neededand abolish the Merchant profession all together?
Ihave two characters. one is a Bounty Hunter, who would benefit from the change.
My second character is a crafter and merchant, who now might consider droppingmost of the merchant skills as theycould be less valuable after the change...
O you mean my "FORUM" username. Yes, well that has to do with "FORUMS" and nothing to do with "INGAME".
I have 2 accounts btw. This would be #2.
So, to get back to topic. If you have any comments other than you "thinking" Im some 10 day old newb, please try again.
Go read any of my many posts in that 52 page thread in the in devlopemnt forum to see WHY this as 1st posted was a VERY bad idea.
Right so you played since beta with 2 accounts and only now registerd in the forums now I don't think so somehow. I was'nt thinking your a 10 day old newb I KNEW you where from your posts.
Stop quoting the idea as it was first offered up. It's obvious from reading posts that people want a galaxy/planet vendor search. Lets hear some constructive critisizm on how this feature can be implemented, not how the "Original Post" was flawed. Who cares about the original post, the whole reason they posted it was to start a debate that players could get involved in.
So how do you think they should apply this feature?
Tumbler2002 wrote:
Go read any of my many posts in that 52 page thread in the in devlopemnt forum to see WHY this as 1st posted was a VERY bad idea.
Right so you played since beta with 2 accounts and only now registerd in the forums now I don't think so somehow. I was'nt thinking your a 10 day old newb I KNEW you where from your posts.
Stop quoting the idea as it was first offered up. It's obvious from reading posts that people want a galaxy/planet vendor search. Lets hear some constructive critisizm on how this feature can be implemented, not how the "Original Post" was flawed. Who cares about the original post, the whole reason they posted it was to start a debate that players could get involved in.
So how do you think they should apply this feature?
A search is fine but JUST a search NO price info or delivery. Includeing a price will cause price wars and destory most of the crafting professions and instant deliver will destory the merchant profession. For more info on WHY these things will happen go read the original thread. Why should I NOT quote the idea as it was 1st offered up as this is more than likely what we will get.
When I think of something that will destroy the crafting professions I think of:
Blue Frogs pop up and offer free crafting skills to everyone.
NPC merchants now offer ALL craftable items for a very low price.
Player crafted Crafting Stations are gone, all players must use stations in NPC cities.
Those changes would definitely take away any incentive to be a player crafter and would destroy the crafting profession.
Including a Search feature that includes prices will not destroy the crafting professions. I think what you meant to say was this search will increase competition between crafters. And competition is healthy and something this game needs in a big way.
When I think of something that will destroy the Merchant profession I think of:
Merchant profession costs no skill points.
Bazaar fees are gone, bazaar has no item limit, and no price limit.
Imperial NPC's now actively attack anyone with merchant skills at all times anywhere in the game. (even inside your house)
Offering instant delivery would not destroy the merchant profession. It will most likely change it... I personally have many items I purchase delivered straight into my house (in RL) and those business's have not gone under and I still shop at local stores... Offering delivery is something I personally am really excited about. As for instant delivery you could tack on a health delivery fee for instant, a resonable one for a few hours, and a dirt cheap one for 1 day or something. And if the merchant got a share of the delivery fee you think he'd still be against it?
Things change, learn to improvise, overcome, adapt. But at very least please stop saying the sky is falling, the sky is falling.
Update: I so tired of getting 1 Starred for these posts. I feel like the folks against this change are trying to protect their business from competition, protect their monopoly. I don't think anyone cares what stores look like, they only want the goods to be available. I go to several vendors on a regular basis for 2 reasons. I know they have what I want, and I don't want to waste my time finding someone else. (And it truly is a waste of my time) I really can't wait for this feature to get installed because it's long overdue. There is so much for sale in this game, so many vendors, and it's like trying to find a needle in a haystack for the buyer.
In response to the person below, calling people lazy because they don't want to shop (walk) is foolish. It's dumb to spend an hour looking for a laser carbine that suits your price when you can just buy one at 3x the price and go back to playing the game. With Delivery a buyer can get a decent price and not spend a lot of time doing it.
Bah, this has wasted enough of my time. I'm out.
Message Edited by Tumbler2002 on 03-09-2005 02:58 PM
Slim Vargo, Corbantis
Tumbler2002 wrote:
When I think of something that will destroy the crafting professions I think of:
Blue Frogs pop up and offer free crafting skills to everyone.
NPC merchants now offer ALL craftable items for a very low price.
Player crafted Crafting Stations are gone, all players must use stations in NPC cities.
Those changes would definitely take away any incentive to be a player crafter and would destroy the crafting profession.
Including a Search feature that includes prices will not destroy the crafting professions. I think what you meant to say was this search will increase competition between crafters. And competition is healthy and something this game needs in a big way.
Have to agree that there's no point to a galaxy-wide search function without including pricing information as well, and I'm all for that.However, while more competition doesn't hurt, it is inaccurate to imply that this game has no, or not enough, competition. There is currentlyplenty of competition in the game. It's just that most people are too lazy to shop around to find the good deals (of course, galaxy vendor search will help with this
).
When I think of something that will destroy the Merchant profession I think of:
Merchant profession costs no skill points.
Bazaar fees are gone, bazaar has no item limit, and no price limit.
Imperial NPC's now actively attack anyone with merchant skills at all times anywhere in the game. (even inside your house)
Offering instant delivery would not destroy the merchant profession. It will most likely change it... I personally have many items I purchase delivered straight into my house (in RL) and those business's have not gone under and I still shop at local stores... Offering delivery is something I personally am really excited about. As for instant delivery you could tack on a health delivery fee for instant, a resonable one for a few hours, and a dirt cheap one for 1 day or something. And if the merchant got a share of the delivery fee you think he'd still be against it?
Here I must disagree 100%. Instant delivery would indeed ruin the merchant/crafting game. As a crafter/merchant I am against instant delivery, even if I do get a cut of any delivery fees. Even in the real world there is more to competition than just delivering the highest quality goods for the cheapest possible price. Instant delivery combined with galaxy-wide vendor search would do just this. It would eliminate competitive advantages such as good location, making the effort to keep your vendor stocked and effective advertising. Also, a good portion of the 'fun' for many merchants is decorating a cool shop. What would be the point of that if no one ever stops by your shop anymore?
Galaxy wide vendor search, with pricing information, is fine in my view. But I don't think it's too much to ask for someone to make the trip to pick the item up. It wouldstill be immensely more convenient than the present system.
Things change, learn to improvise, overcome, adapt. But at very least please stop saying the sky is falling, the sky is falling.
This is true, but the same could be said for any change that is made, no? Throw in NPC vendors that sell every crafted good? Meh, just improvise, overcome, adapt. Remove skillpoint requirements from merchant? Meh, just improvise, overcome, adapt.
True, things change all the time, but that doesn't mean we have to like the changes, and it doesn't mean we can't try to influence the outcome of those changes.Telling everyone to just suck-it-up and'improvise, overcome, adapt' is a cop out.
Message Edited by Tumbler2002 on 03-09-2005 09:39 AM
How many times must i post what will happen if we have MASSIVE price wars. Go back and read any number of posts that show this as a BAD thing. There is/will beprotection system for all players BUT crafters if this is done with a price. Its call the MISSION terminals.comabt typescan make money ANYTIMEthey like for as LONG asthey like. Crafters have CAN ONLY make money IF they have sales NO SALES NO MONEY. Massive price wars will mean only peoplewho get FREE resourceswill have sales. the other 99% will quit. This has nothing to do with not wanting to compete. It has to do with they CAN'T compete with someone who sells items for LESS then it costs to HARVEST the resource used to make it.
Example a heavy harv takes about 28k resouces to build I will just show resouces costs since all others are equal
Resource cost tosomeone who gets all thier resources give to them by thier guild ZERO
Resource cost to someone who minesabout 1cpu depending on what and how they mine
Resource cost to someone who buys most of thier stuff 3cpu (this is being VERY kind and its most likey higher)
So the total cost to produce a harv and the profit you get if its sold at 10k like you said you do is
ForPeople who get FREE resourcescost to produce is ZEROprofit is10k
For the person you mines thier owncostto produce is 28kso thats a 18k loss
For the person who buys most of thier stuff Cost to produce 84k so thatsa loss of 74k
No one is going to craft harvs or anything esle for that matterif they loseingaa lot of moneyeach time they sell one. So all the players who buy thier stuff quit crafting. Now the player who mines his own might be able to get some money from sellng resources but since no one buys them any more as its too expenisve to do that and craft he can't survive and all his type quits too. Well done you just got 99% of the crafters to quit the game. Hope you enjoying geting 000's of tells everyday asking why your vendors are not full and asking questions. while you deaspratly try and craft all those harvs the server needs. But actually they won't cause all the people who need harvs all ready have then provied for free and there is now NO market for harvs. Congrats you just killed the arch profession. Rinse and reapeat on ALL other crafting profs.
THIS IS WHY GLOBAL PRICE WARS ARE BAD
This is false. Harvesters cost maintenance, which will cause the supplier to operate at a loss if he gives the resources to a guildmate for free.
2) Those that sell the cheapest will be able to undercut all the other sellers
This as well is false, but in an indirect way. Yes, you can undercut other sellers, but only temporarily. Demand for your product will be so high that it will be impossible to keep a continous supply on your vendor. Which means that when people can't buy your product, they will go to another seller, even if it is more expensive.