Architect Archive
Thread: Galaxy Wide Vendor Search
i think this will turn out to be a great thing for all involved.
i love the 1 star of real world info... shows that merch's don't care about anything except trying to hold onto the ability to sell their wares at inflated prices. this change serves the customer, you know, the guy that pays you.
Message Edited by GlargTheKelfn on 03-16-2005 08:23 AM
elevenbravo11b2 wrote:
Ok, the only reason I see people being against this is
a: They have a house or Pa hall thats all decorated so it looks like a store.
b: Being able to search unviersal wide products is going to make seller drop their prices.
I dont care about a, and b is great. I mean even after the solo mission nerf sellers have not dropped their prices.
At least let me do a galaxy wide search. I dont nessarly mind have to physically visit the store.
Heres my whole point. For 3 days now I have been searching for a medical droid. 3 DAYS!!!. I dont nor shouldnt have to email someone for a special order. Not only that, 80% of the vendors that advertise "Droids" have 0 stock. So right now I could care less about the seller because they dont care enough about the buyer to take their vendors off the market.
If any of you play Eq2 they have a very nice broker system. You can search all availble items on through a broker (NPC). If you buy the item from the broker the broker charges you 10%. Or you can visit the vender directly and get the price the seller has set.
Did you ever think of doing a search for a droid engineer using the player search feature and talking with them about crafting a medical droid for you?
Jagged-F3l wrote:
Did you ever think of doing a search for a droid engineer using the player search feature and talking with them about crafting a medical droid for you?
elevenbravo11b2 wrote:
Crudsnix. Not good for crafters. Now price wars will be galaxy wide. And no more players going, "Oh forget this searching every vendor I can find. I'll go over to x's place. He's high, but he is ALWAYS in stock." Now they'll just go. "Enh, blow this, I'll run over to the jukebox and see who's cheaper."
This is exactly why crafters dont want this. Now instead of them just slapping a price on it, a high price I might add, now they actually have to check other vendors to make sure their price is good.
I have read many of the post in that52 page thread. Basiclly its just crafters complaining that they might have to adjust their prices.
IMO, you crafter dont have a solid argument for this.
Again, 90% of the vendors I visit dont have what they advertise. Its SO frustrating when you have to buy something you have to go through this horrible process.
Greywulf0 wrote:
That sounds good the way it is put down. However the logistics involved in coordinating all those people, and all those harvesrter, with all the different resources required for all of the different crafting professions will negate all of this.
You say that guild will produce 2 million resources a day for the crafters. But that is based on an assumption that they find a large field of 80% concetration, for all the fruit, berries, wood, vegetables, cereal (I'm a chef), plus all the other resources for the other crafters. Like ore, steel, copper, iron, gas, radioactive, fiberplast, etc.
Then you need to take in the time it will take to find high concentrations for all of the different resources. I once spent a day surveying for high (60%+) concentrations for three particularly good spawns of chef resources. Doing nothing else but surveying. I would find some high concentrations, but I wasn't able to place harvesters there (near cities, POIs, just bad terrain, near a battlefield, etc). Don't forget. Crafters require high quality resources as well. Most of what spawns does not qualify.
So now, this guild would need several surveyers on a non-stop loop looking for spawns for all of the crafting professions.
"Another thing WHY SHOULD a crafter HAVE to take up a combat proff to earn money? A combat type does NOT have to take a crafting proff to make money. Why should a perfectly vaild playstyle (ie pure crafter) not be able to make money and have todo something they don't wish to do (ie combat/missions)"
They don't. But you should be aware that if you don't want combat skills, then you had best be in a guild awful hard to place harvesters down with a spawn of grauls nearby without a guild to call on or combat skills to eliminate them. The vendor search won't change that in the least, it is already a fact now. This is called a personal choice, the rules are laid down, and you have to chose what you want to do with them. Another point can be made this way. Why should combat types be forced to rely on crafters for armor, weapons, foods, buffs?
Finally, it seems that you are upset that guilds have an advantage over players not in guilds. Guess what, they do! They always have and they always will. That is the entire point behind a MMORPG. To interact with other players.
If you want to be a true crafter and merchant, might I suggest that you contact other players and work deals with them. You might be surprised at how successful you can be.
Newflash! This is exactly how large guilds and player cities do it. It is not that difficult to coordinate. There are actually players out there that know how to play a MMOG as a well organized team. Bravo, I take my hats off to those that can actually do this and have fun at it. However, it puts players that don't want to spend their time this way and casual players at a tremendous disadvantage. This disadvantage isn't impossible to work with, until this dumb-assed, poorly thought out galaxy-wide vendor search capability came along.
TiTanB wrote:
I read most of the first page here and although I haven't previously been involved in these descussions. I like many people hate the never ending search for goods. I had a couple thoughts to protect both sides and accomplish several but not all of the goals. Merchants don't want a price war and buyers don't want to search empty vendors.
-make bazar search global BUT don't list prices
-either allow players to type in search criteria or add a lot more subcategories to the search window
-require buyers to pick up the items
-could be an option in the bazar window to retrieve a merchants way point for a selected item
I believe this solves many problems:
-no more checking empty vendors
-will still require footwork to shop for the lowest price
-merchants won't get in a price war
problems this can create:
-merchants will put the price of goods in the names of crafted items and I haven't thought of a workaround for this as many crafters need to add stats to the name of an item so eliminating alterations to the name of an item may not be acceptable
just a few thoughts but I am sure they have been mentioned on the other huge thread in the development forum
Learn to spell--all the misspelling makes you sound more ignorant than your post already seems.
Jagged-F3l wrote:
Ackew wrote:
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 shouldI NOT quote the idea as it was 1st offered up as this is more than likely what we will get.
Ackew, I like your idea for modifying this new feature, this works for me. However, I propose the following additional changes to the feature.
First, make this feature a skill and tie it into Merchant somehow. If not Master Merchant, then make tie it into Advertising IV (after all, barking droids will become obsolete with this feature anyways).
Second, if the devsinsist on allowing players to buy items through this system, then create a secure system that forces the player to go to that vendor to pick up the item. I have read about several ways a merchant can grief players that do this, so address these issues. The most obvious solution is to remove the capabilities that allow the griefing to begin with. However, I have this idea for a secure delivery system:
- Player searches public bazaar for an item.
- Player finds an item that meets their satisfaction. At this point, they can either obtain a waypoint to the vendor or request a price quote.
- If they request a price quote, then the price of the item will be displayed after a small delay. The purpose of this is to difficult to compare prices.
- At this point, the player will be queried as to whether they want to purchase the item.
- If the player choses to purchase the item, a receipt is put in their inventory.
- The player travels to the vendor and uses it.
- One tab presents the player with a lists of items they have purchases (just like public bazaar).
- To retrieve an item, the player needs the corresponding receipt in their inventory.
- Once the item has been retrieved, the receipt will be removed from their inventory.
So, how does this prevent griefing? Simple. If the player travels out to the vendor and finds they have been banned from entry, then they can go back to a public bazaar terminal and present the receipt for a refund. The funds come directly out of the holding of the player that owns the vendor. In addition, the player that owns the vendor should be charged a processing fee by the Galactic Trade Commission.
This secure delivery system also has application to the GCW. Say I'm a pure crafter aligned with a faction. Traveling to particular vendors might be dangerous. In this case, I can hire a trader to go pick the item up for me. In this case, when the trader picks up the item, the vendor sees that the player doesn't own the receipt. In this case, rather than giving the trader the actual item, it places a locked container in the trader's inventory. The only player that can unlock the container is the player that owned the receipt.
Of course they could just remove the door fee and that would a easery solution to that problem. I would rather have no price info at all but i could live with this.- Instant delivery is gone.
- It shows if there is an access fee on the shop.
That's it. Prices ARE listed, all you need to do is select the item, then you can examine it and see the prices and stats.
I really don't understand. There was a lot of feedback given, then we were told that the new system was going to use this feedback and make a system that makes both people happy. Then they release this new system that disgards most of the input we gave.
I understand that people hate shopping for hours, I understand that only finding empty vendors sucks, I understand that people want to play not shop.
I also understand that some people play this game ONLY to craft. I understand some people play only to run a business. I understand that it is far easier to make money from missions then crafting. I understand that new crafters wont have as good a product as more experianced crafters. I understand that "profit margin" isgauged differently by different people, and price wars are bad.
I don't understand how the developers don't get it.
All that needed done was to showthe items, let people know that thesevendors have their items they are looking for. In todays world ofJTL, Swoops, and Shuttleports, if you can't go to 5 vendors that you KNOW have your item, then quite frankly you are lazy.
Yet they didn't do that, they put the items stats, as well as prices on the items. This means that only the best or the cheapest will sell.
I understand that to some people, they don't understand this, they think "price wars," and such will be good for the economy, however, that is simply not true, I will do my best to explain yet again why this is bad.
Quality Items:
These are the items where quality matters. One crafter can make things better then another crafter. This can be either from resources, skill tapes, or crafting knowledge.
Before, this is what would happen, lets say you are a Fencer using stun batons. You currently have a 131 damage stun baton. Now one day in a mall, you see a weapon vendor, this vendor is ran by a newer crafter, his stuff is nice but not top of the line. Yet he has a 135 damage stun baton for 10k, so you buy it. Two days later, you find another vendor that is a little better, this one is 137 for 8k. You buy it. A week later, you find a 142 for 12k. Then you find a top weapon vendor, 12 points of exp, best resources, he has 146 damage ones for 15k.
Under the old system, 4 actual weapons were sold, giving money to 4 different crafters, 3 of which were trying to get established. Total spent 45k. Just a couple of missions.
Now under the new system, 1 weapon will be sold. The 146 damage one for 15k. All the guys who can't make weapons as good are locked out.
Non-Quality Items:
These are the items that quality doesn't matter on, all crafters make them the same.
First you need to understand that there are different crafter mentalities.
- First is the crafter who wants to run a business and make as much money as he can. Not out of greed, but because he wants to buy things as well. He may want an AV-21, or a Firespray, or whatever, he wants to make money. This doesn't mean that he overcharges, just that he wants to turn a good profit.
- The second type is the person who doesn't want to make a profit. As long as his expenses are covered, he is happy. It makes him feel good to sell stuff and to know people are using his stuff, he has no real need for money, other then expenses. In real life, this doesn't work, people need to make a profit, it may be for a kids College fund, or their retirement, or many other reasons. Businesses that don't focus on profit in real life are called charities. In game, there are crafters who sell at charity like prices, their fun is selling, not in how much money they make. As long as the charities expenses are being covered, they can stay in business.
All it takes is one or two of the "charity" type crafters to ruin the business for an entire server.
These charity people have always been around, people just may not have known where they were. When shopping for an item, they would see a price and decide if that item was worth that price. For some people that may have been 100k, for other it may have been 10k. The final choice to buy or not was with the shopper, they could buy or keep on looking.
Under the new system, with prices easily available, why not get the cheapest?
Summary:
Many people enjoy this game because of their business, that is just as valid a playstyle as Combat or anything else. Crafting and running a business will still be possible, but this system will force many people out. Is a system that pushes 50% of a certain playstyle out of the game a good idea?
All that needs done is to remove the prices and stats. Then you have a system that makes it easier to find stuff, yet still keeps as many crafters around.
Greywulf0 wrote:
Jagged-F3l wrote:
Did you ever think of doing a search for a droid engineer using the player search feature and talking with them about crafting a medical droid for you?
I think tha what he was saying was that he doesn't want to do a special order.
However, this instance (searching for a medical droid) is less a result ofvendoradvertising andmore to do with the problems of the professions. Medical droids and the like are just like houses, factories, etc. Once you buy one, you don't need to buy it again unless you purposefully destroy/trade it. Therefore, a high quality medical droid can sit on a vendor for a long time.
Well, you'll have to excuse me, but this "attitude" is just plain stupid. I can only fathom that the real person behind the toon is a little kid or an immature fool--"OMG, if I can't have a medical droid RIGHT NOW, I don't want one at all--I may as well just give up being a doctor" (that's fine, he probably spent two days healing a tumbler or something--ever hear of going to the medical center and healing wounds of patients coming in?)
I have been a shipwright/DE since JTL went live. My goal was to have a "one-stop shop" for pilots. I would say that roughly 80% of my business comes from players doing a search for a Master Shipwright and coming up with my character's name. When players contact me, I invite them to my shop and talk with them about what kind of tactics they like to use. I'll spend time trying to understand their playing style in space and talk to them about what kind of ship would best suit this style. In the end, the customer has a package that never fails in maximizing their experience. Never has a single customer not come back and told me that they had a blast.
This is an MMOG--this is the way it is supposed to work--it's a player community. I suggest that little, immature, impatient children stick to Mario Party or something.
Drecki wrote:I haven't got the time to read each postings, as there are a lot of long postings, but I see an issue in "no instant delivery". What happens, if you want to buy something from a vendor, if you are banned from the shop? Is this taken into consideration in any way? Are those vendors filtered out automatically?Sorry if this point has already been brought up.
No. You can buy merchandise from shops you are currently banned from on TC right now.
FWIW I wrote up my ideas for a global search alternative: Global Search: An Alternative Plan