Artisan Archive

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4Bidden wrote:

I would suggest to voice your opinions now before we become limited in taking care of our customers, cause I pride myself on my well stocked vendors

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PizzaTheHutt wrote:

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4Bidden wrote:

I would suggest to voice your opinions now before we become limited in taking care of our customers, cause I pride myself on my well stocked vendors

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I see your point 4B but Im happy about the changes regarding vendors. Unlike you, the majority of vendors out there are empty right now. I spent several hours yesterday looking for a vendor that wasnt empty yesterday. With unlimited vendors, I wasted a LOT of time.

Go patch 10 go!

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Message Edited by 4Bidden on 08-08-2004 09:21 AM

Summary of the discussion so far:

1) Less variety on vendors: (est. 90% chance) When maintaining adequate stock to support sales hits the limit many merchants will cut back the number of different items stocked and concentrate on just the best selling items. Comments in the discussion so far strongly suggest this outcome.

2) More specialized vendors: (est. 50% chance) with less variety specialty vendors will be established to cover the need for items that high volume vendors will not stock. I estimate this at a 50/50 outcome because specialty shops need good advertising to be viable and that is very hard to establish in the game. Also, the reward is slower to come to the crafter so if they get fun from having folks like what they do there will be less immediate payoff.

2A) The greater the number of items and options in a crafting profession the more it will be impacted: (est. 60% chance) Crafters like weaponsmiths, tailors, architects that stock furniture, and the like will have to stock less variety. Master artisans, with less variety will be impacted, but less -- though the higher volumes and lower margins of their items will have a similar effect. Comments in the discussion so far suggest this outcome.

2B) Pressure on mechanisms to find stocked vendors and particular items will increase: (est. 60% chance) When it becomes harder to stock and maintain variety in vendors there will be more vendors a customer has to search through to find what they want -- more frustrated buyers will generate more complaints about the vendor system.

3) Crafters will have to re-stock more frequently: (est. 75% chance) With less stock the vendors can not be built up by making big runs and transferring them into the vendors. Comments in the discussion so far suggest this outcome.

4) Pressure on storage space will increase: (est. 75% chance) When vendors can not be used to warehouse items, crafters that do not want to craft many small batches will have to find other places to store the runs. Limits already in place on buildings and factories will seem more severe. Comments in the discussion so far suggest this outcome.

5) Crafters will depend more on merchants to sell their goods: (est. 50% chance) To provide well stocked locations merchants will have to consolidate several vendors in a single location -- that is, vendor skills will be needed in cases where the single vendor available to crafters will no longer suffice. But merchants will suffer many of the impacts mentioned in earlier items and currently there is no easy way for crafters to sell to merchants or merchants to find reliable crafters.

6) More pressure on market mechanisms: (est. 50% chance) Finding goods, and transferring them in any quantity, are already difficult. When customers, merchants and vendors become more interdependent the lack of a fluid player marketplace well be even more apparent.

A couple of comments and questions:

I don't know the reason developers have for limiting the number of items on vendors -- have they given one?

The limitation will put pressure on other fragile systems that many folks have mentioned: item stacking, storage in houses, commodities exchange, vendor and item location mechanisms -- or their complete lack --, and empty vendor problems.

It seems to me that many players through using vendors with no storage limits overcome the supply chain and marketing systems that are missing in the game. Putting limits on vendors breaks those players solutions but does nothing to alleviate the problems they evolved to solve.

C-Park Finner

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Broom wrote:

I just picked up something on the other profession forums that was interesting. It is hinted that this is not about any database limitations at all, but that they are once again after the 'monopolist crafters' who, according to the development team, are 'strangling' the economy.

Frankly, if this is true, these people are ready for committal. I never ever had any trouble selling products, as long as those products had the quality the customer wanted. Note that this is NOT the same as making top quality always. For the first months in game, I earned my keep mainly by running missions to Vreni Island (ugh) and selling repair tools and crafting tools on the bazaar, while I was working on harvesting the resources needed to level architect and to set up shop AS architect. And even as a 'struggling young architect' I never had a problem with 'monopolists' strangling my market.

I feel sick at the sheer incompetency of these people on every level.

Linna

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If this is true, this games economy is doomed to failure.. Why?.. Cause it will not allow for anyone to stride for something better... At its best, you can only sell twice as many products that I Business 3 artisan could.. Many will leave the crafting professionsto do combat, or just quit the game.This is starting to make me worry.. There are plenty of things to sell, and plenty of people to sell to. I do predict one thing...the admin option will be removed from the game to further reduce our ability to store in other peoples buildings... It's going to get worse...lol

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orange-arrows wrote:

hmmm.....

I think it is a good idea:

I expect to see more items in crates

I expect to see less vendors full of loot drop CDEF pistols, broken vewscreens, and other junk items

that really arent even worth my time to take to a loot vendor when I do loot them myself

I expect to see less basic/ordinary items on vendors -- they will be going to the bazaar

I expect to see more contact from people wanting custom orders from me

I expect to see less empty vendors which irritates me greatly especially if I have to pay the 1 credit entry fee to discover the guy has 3 empty vendors in his house

the downside ...

I cant use my vendors as substitute storage

I cant stockpile a vendor or two after I give up merchant/artisan for the day when I become master medic and want to use a vendor (that I dont deserve) to run a business

I cant put every piece of junkI pick up on my vendor for 100-200 credits hoping maybe someone will buy it.

really .. I dont see much downside to this.

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All I see are downsides.. I'll add a few to yours

-With availability reduced, prices may go up.

-With availability reduced, it will force people to run around more looking for stuff that would normally bein one place..

-With availability reduced, it will force others to remain small. Creating a ceiling effect to crafting professions. They wont be able to grow like most businesses can.

-With my ability to create hundreds of different items, I will be able to sell everything I can craft... So most of my crafting abilities will be hindered...

-Oh, afk advertising will go up.... You will become your own vendor.. You dont need a recursive macro to do it.

Message Edited by Sytem on 08-09-2004 01:04 PM

This major change, uncalled for by the user community, certainly interferes with the invisible hand of a free market economy. The bad effects are:
1. Increased out of stocks, especially on vendors with the lower quantity. Two or three buyers could easily wipe out stock in a day. No seller would desire to restock vendors daily---there is a practical limit to increasing turnover.
2. Because of the limit in skill points, many players such as myself, cannot AFFORD to rise higher than Level III, and still maintain other master professions. Yet many of us, I suggest, provide a real service to the community by maintaining well stocked vendors. This change will penalise players such as myself, and, from what I have noticed, players more dependent on major vendors for income as well. I certainly will not invest in a factory (at the expence of fewer harvesters) just so I can put merchandise in containers and save space on my vendor.
3. I agree with others who have argued that the change will simply increase the number of vendors, making purchasing items more time consuming and difficult for the consumer. If the goal of the development team is to reduce items on a database, I suspect the change will not help them much; the number of items will remain more or less constant, but be spread over more vendors.

I am totally opposed to this change,
Ob-eron

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orange-arrows wrote:

hmmm.....

I think it is a good idea:

I expect to see more items in crates

I expect to see less vendors full of loot drop CDEF pistols, broken vewscreens, and other junk items

that really arent even worth my time to take to a loot vendor when I do loot them myself

I expect to see less basic/ordinary items on vendors -- they will be going to the bazaar

I expect to see more contact from people wanting custom orders from me

I expect to see less empty vendors which irritates me greatly especially if I have to pay the 1 credit entry fee to discover the guy has 3 empty vendors in his house

the downside ...

I cant use my vendors as substitute storage

I cant stockpile a vendor or two after I give up merchant/artisan for the day when I become master medic and want to use a vendor (that I dont deserve) to run a business

I cant put every piece of junk I pick up on my vendor for 100-200 credits hoping maybe someone will buy it.

really .. I dont see much downside to this.

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I quite seriously hope you were being sarcastic here, or maybe you just don't know the reality of a couple of things. 'More items in crates' would be extremely nice. Problem is that there are quite a few things in for example architect that don't even crate to begin with, so that's out.

Less vendors full of crappy loot drops. What exactly is the problem with a vendor with crappy loot drops? I know at times I'd just like to get some junk items for decoration purposes, and these vendors are ideal for that.

And basic/ordinary items on the bazaar? With the 25 limit on offers? I seriously doubt it. Aside from the fact you'll have to actually *go* to a bazaar with everything in your inventory and sell it; aside from the fact that bazaar interface is seriously crappy; aside from the fact that if you actually have your whole 25 items on, you won't be able to offer any items to any vendors anymore.

The less empty vendors I wholeheartedly agree with, that would be very nice, and that's also one of the things that's coming up in publish 10, and I hope *that* at least goes through.

And people don't deserve vendors? Fine. I'm all with you on that, actually (even though I'm using the 'dropmerchantexploit(TM)'). But the only realistic way this will ever work is when they make vendors work as proxies, so the merchant isn't responsible for everything, but mostly for sorting, accepting and hiring out the vendors.

Mad.

ps. This is not intended as a flame, if it might look that way, it's probably because I feel rather strongly about this issue, and I apologize if it comes over harsh, but I'm just going for the plain truth-as-I-see-it thing here..

I think that if they put a item limit based on skill there should be some increase at Master Artisan.

In all the other basic profession, mastering the basic profession improve the elite profession based on it, not with Artisan, why?