Business And Economy Archive

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mpdivo wrote:

You know what, I tried that. For items like rare loot. It doesn't work. For rare resources, it doesn't work. I have plenty of waypoints but I still spend too much time running around.

I'm a Master Merchant and I want to be able to compete with both price and quality directly with other merchants. Bring it on DEVS.

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With galaxy-wide searches, what makes you think you'll find any rare loot or rare resources at all? It will be so easy to find that stuff, that if it isn't snatched up within minutes of being posted it's only because it's outrageously priced. You won't be saving as much time as you think, because you'll find you'll have to be glued to the bazaar to buy those rare loots/resources before someone else does.

Edit: Another thought that just occurred to me: We've already got AFK spawn-campers, how hard would it be for someone to set up a bazaar bot? You'd probably have to use a third-party program to pick out the best items (yes, they're prohibited--and yes, there are still people who use them, willing to take the risk for any advantage). A few weeks from now, we could be hearing about how afk bazaar bots are buying up the best stuff before anyone else gets a chance.

I'm in favor of some kind of galaxy-wide search system. But a lot of care and thought has to go into so that the merchant/crafter game isn't ruined. Being a merchant isn't just about a bank account, or selling the best quality stuff for the lowest price. It's about having a good location and a good selection for the convenience of your customers. It's about good customer service, answering questions or making special items on demand. It's about decorating a shop so it looks cool (granted, there are cool looking shops with empty vendors, too). It's about effective advertising and promotion.

If galaxy-wide searches are implemented poorly, all of that goes out the window. Then crafters will be nothing but faceless craft monkeys, endlessly slaving away to make the best item possible to sell for the cheapest price possible.Most of the challenge (and joy)of the merchant/crafting game will be gone.

Slim Vargo, Corbantis

Message Edited by EdOWar on 02-23-2005 09:14 AM

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EdOWar wrote:

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mpdivo wrote:

You know what, I tried that. For items like rare loot. It doesn't work. For rare resources, it doesn't work. I have plenty of waypoints but I still spend too much time running around.

I'm a Master Merchant and I want to be able to compete with both price and quality directly with other merchants. Bring it on DEVS.

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With galaxy-wide searches, what makes you think you'll find any rare loot or rare resources at all? It will be so easy to find that stuff, that if it isn't snatched up within minutes of being posted it's only because it's outrageously priced. You won't be saving as much time as you think, because you'll find you'll have to be glued to the bazaar to buy those rare loots/resources before someone else does.

Edit: Another thought that just occurred to me: We've already got AFK spawn-campers, how hard would it be for someone to set up a bazaar bot? You'd probably have to use a third-party program to pick out the best items (yes, they're prohibited--and yes, there are still people who use them, willing to take the risk for any advantage). A few weeks from now, we could be hearing about how afk bazaar bots are buying up the best stuff before anyone else gets a chance.

I'm in favor of some kind of galaxy-wide search system. But a lot of care and thought has to go into so that the merchant/crafter game isn't ruined. Being a merchant isn't just about a bank account, or selling the best quality stuff for the lowest price. It's about having a good location and a good selection for the convenience of your customers. It's about good customer service, answering questions or making special items on demand. It's about decorating a shop so it looks cool (granted, there are cool looking shops with empty vendors, too). It's about effective advertising and promotion.

If galaxy-wide searches are implemented poorly, all of that goes out the window. Then crafters will be nothing but faceless craft monkeys, endlessly slaving away to make the best item possible to sell for the cheapest price possible.Most of the challenge (and joy)of the merchant/crafting game will be gone.

Slim Vargo, Corbantis

Message Edited by EdOWar on 02-23-2005 09:14 AM

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I find your speculation of macros to find cheap copper batteries on bazaars a little far fetched although I do admit that I hate macros. If anything has ruined this game already, it's macros.

You know, if someone put a recycler on the bazaars, I would be thrilled. That is one more recycler than is currently offered on the forums or any of the vendors I have seen.

You fail to note that in this drive to snatch up items on the bazaars that SOMEONE is getting them.

These points have been hashed out again and again and each time someone says that direct competetion or global advertising will destroy merchants, it simply boggles my mind.

You talk about effective advertising and promotion but you still are against a very useful tool for Merchants to adverstise. I don't get it?

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If prices are visible as well, price wars will ensue with only the oldest, most prominent crafters emerging as victors. This will create a monopoly that will alienate newer crafters and cancel many accounts. In turn, its likely once the smaller crafters are done away with, prices will inflate again.

Message Edited by CenoKreFey on 02-23-2005 01:25 PM

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The upcoming system will be great for my shops. I have mostly high quality products and a large variety of goods, as well as resources of all types. I hate investing time in advertisement (and feel mostly annoyed by afk advertisers). I just wait for people to find my shop and spread word over it. It worked well until now. With this new option to find my vendors at the bazaar my sales will increase even more.
And even if there are cheaper shops out there, when the others are sold out they will eventually come to me.

I am not afraid, I am looking forward to it

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mpdivo wrote:

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EdOWar wrote:

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mpdivo wrote:

You know what, I tried that. For items like rare loot. It doesn't work. For rare resources, it doesn't work. I have plenty of waypoints but I still spend too much time running around.

I'm a Master Merchant and I want to be able to compete with both price and quality directly with other merchants. Bring it on DEVS.

---

With galaxy-wide searches, what makes you think you'll find any rare loot or rare resources at all? It will be so easy to find that stuff, that if it isn't snatched up within minutes of being posted it's only because it's outrageously priced. You won't be saving as much time as you think, because you'll find you'll have to be glued to the bazaar to buy those rare loots/resources before someone else does.

Edit: Another thought that just occurred to me: We've already got AFK spawn-campers, how hard would it be for someone to set up a bazaar bot? You'd probably have to use a third-party program to pick out the best items (yes, they're prohibited--and yes, there are still people who use them, willing to take the risk for any advantage). A few weeks from now, we could be hearing about how afk bazaar bots are buying up the best stuff before anyone else gets a chance.

I'm in favor of some kind of galaxy-wide search system. But a lot of care and thought has to go into so that the merchant/crafter game isn't ruined. Being a merchant isn't just about a bank account, or selling the best quality stuff for the lowest price. It's about having a good location and a good selection for the convenience of your customers. It's about good customer service, answering questions or making special items on demand. It's about decorating a shop so it looks cool (granted, there are cool looking shops with empty vendors, too). It's about effective advertising and promotion.

If galaxy-wide searches are implemented poorly, all of that goes out the window. Then crafters will be nothing but faceless craft monkeys, endlessly slaving away to make the best item possible to sell for the cheapest price possible.Most of the challenge (and joy)of the merchant/crafting game will be gone.

Slim Vargo, Corbantis

Message Edited by EdOWar on 02-23-2005 09:14 AM

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I find your speculation of macros to find cheap copper batteries on bazaars a little far fetched although I do admit that I hate macros. If anything has ruined this game already, it's macros.

You've deliberately ignored my point. You said you were in favor of galaxy-wide searches to find rare loot and resources. And I pointed out that galaxy-wide searches would make it impossible to find such loot because they would be snatched up in minutes, unless you spent the majority of your time camping the bazaar.

You and I both know no one would use afk macros to buy cheap batteries...that comment was simply idiotic. People would use afk macros to buy up the best loot as soon as it's put up on the galaxy-wide bazaar at a certain price range, thus denying non-afkers a chance to get it.

At least we can both agree that afk macros are bad for the game.

You know, if someone put a recycler on the bazaars, I would be thrilled. That is one more recycler than is currently offered on the forums or any of the vendors I have seen.

Granted completed recyclers are exceedingly rare...but if one ever made it up on the galaxy-wide search bazaar, what makes you think you'd be the one lucky enough to buy it?

You fail to note that in this drive to snatch up items on the bazaars that SOMEONE is getting them.

Yes, people who spend all their time camping the bazaar, waiting to snatch up the best deals the instant they're posted. Or, possibly an afk-bazaar bot using a third-party program to identify the best loot and an acceptable price range and purchase it immediately. WoW already has auction-house bots, and I've heard of bazaar bots in EQ (though I've never played that game, so I can't speak from experience).

These points have been hashed out again and again and each time someone says that direct competetion or global advertising will destroy merchants, it simply boggles my mind.

You act as if competition never existed before the idea of galaxy-wide vendor searches was introduced. That is completely absurd. There is already plenty of competition in SWG, and plenty of choice. The issue I have with galaxy-wide vendor searches is that they would reduce the merchant game to nothing more than highest quality for absolute lowest price (at least for crafted goods--loot would likely retain it's high value, or even increase).

You talk about effective advertising and promotion but you still are against a very useful tool for Merchants to adverstise. I don't get it?\

I've already stated that I'm in favor of some form of galaxy-wide vendor search. I also stated that I wanted a system that was thought out well enough so that it didn't ruin other aspects of the merchant/crafting game. A system that acted more as a form of advertising, like a galactic yellow-pages, would be acceptable, in my view. But a system that puts my products directly against my competitors, mixed in withdozens of pages of identical items is not an acceptable alternative, because all other aspects of the merchant game get thrown out the window.

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Slim Vargo, Corbantis

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DirthNader wrote:

There are a lot of people in SWG who currently make a virtual "living" mining, harvesting, and/or selling resources. What will the galaxy-wide searches do for them?

From the customer's point of view, buying resources can be extremely frustrating. Last week I was searching for supplies for a new craft I've taken up, and I must've spent six or more hours over the course of the week looking for resources. With galaxy-wide vendor searches that would have been reduced to as little as an hour, at least in theory. Of course, I may not have gotten my hands on some resources, like the nice little 10K stack of top-quality rare resource I happened upon in some out-of-the way vendor.

But that's really neither here nor there, since I was out looking for small amounts of rare stuff. What's going to happen to the high-volume resources, especially the in-shift stuff?

My feeling is that we're going to see some actual market forces on in-shift or recent resources. If some resource mogul is moving something at 5cpu that another seller puts on the market for 2cpu, what's to stop the mogul from buying up the 2cpu resources and marking them up to 5cpu? If someone is not moving resources at 20cpu, but sees people selling them all day long for 5cpu, maybe that person will get the idea and drop their prices.

I'm actually kind of excited about the changes as they relate to resources, since the vendor / bazaar interface and categories are actually pretty good for them, showing the type, name, quantity and price all in the same line.

Message Edited by DirthNader on 02-15-2005 07:59 AM

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The galaxy search would also let the customers know that such and such resource was available. When people know that a better resource is for sale, they'll be less inclined to settle for something not as good. The situation at the moment is that you don't know for sure that there is something better on sale, so someone's less than perfect resource might actually be bought.

The reason merchants don't like the galaxy-wide vendor search, at least the way it was originally proposed, is because it would reduce competition down to price vs. quality only. You said you'd be willing to pay 2 or 3 times more for convenience, but with galaxy-wide search convenience wouldn't be a competitive advantage any more. Having a good location would no longer matter; having a good selection would no longer matter; all that would matter is price vs. quality--and for products where quality doesn't matter, price would be the only competitive factor. I don't like spending lots of time running around looking for stuff either. That's why when I find a shop that has a good selection at a reasonable price, I set a waypoint for the shop and make a note in the waypoint name. Then, next time I'm looking for something that shop sells, I'll go there first. You must have a favorite weaponsmith, right? A favorite armorsmith? A favorite chef? You know, the place you go to first because you know they're most likely to have what you want.
Slim Vargo, Corbantis

Case in point. I needed armor repair tools the other night. So I looked in our Guilds mall, no luck there. I tried to build some, they came out basically worthless. So I hit Coronet and started looking around vendors near the city. I went into all sorts of armor dealers, no way to know if they had the items, just had to look at each vendor and find out. No, no, no, no, no, no. I was ready to give up and the last vendor I checked had 2 crates of 25 each, so I grabbed them both. Now I spent 30 minutes looking for these silly items and that only included a small area outside of coronet and my guilds shopping mall. Did I get a good price? What if I need more? There must be thousands of these armor repair tools out there and yet I have to spend 30 min finding 1?!

Players only shop in this game out of necessity and that is a shame. An even bigger issue is that so many people actually use alt characters so they can be self reliant as the market is a nightmare to depend on. I personally gave up on trying to find a stocked vendor for Space ordnance and ammo. After making my own shop I understand why nobody stocked this stuff, it takes insane amounts of resources and time to produce and customers don't want to spend time looking for this stuff. That doesn't mean customer don't want it, or that vendors don't want to provide it, there just isn't a way for buyers to find sellers. That is what a galaxy wide vendor search will do. Match buyers with sellers.


Update:
Nice, seems like each time I've posted in these threads (dealing with vendor searches) I get 1 star'd by someone who can't even take the time to respond to my examples. Granted the first post was almost whining but the examples I've given are exactly what players are struggling with. If you think my thoughts on the matter are stupid fine, but a 1 star as your response doesn't help solve anything, if you have a solution to make the markets better, lets hear it.

Message Edited by Tumbler2002 on 02-28-2005 01:43 PM

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Tumbler2002 wrote:

The reason merchants don't like the galaxy-wide vendor search, at least the way it was originally proposed, is because it would reduce competition down to price vs. quality only. You said you'd be willing to pay 2 or 3 times more for convenience, but with galaxy-wide search convenience wouldn't be a competitive advantage any more. Having a good location would no longer matter; having a good selection would no longer matter; all that would matter is price vs. quality--and for products where quality doesn't matter, price would be the only competitive factor. I don't like spending lots of time running around looking for stuff either. That's why when I find a shop that has a good selection at a reasonable price, I set a waypoint for the shop and make a note in the waypoint name. Then, next time I'm looking for something that shop sells, I'll go there first. You must have a favorite weaponsmith, right? A favorite armorsmith? A favorite chef? You know, the place you go to first because you know they're most likely to have what you want.
Slim Vargo, Corbantis

Case in point. I needed armor repair tools the other night. So I looked in our Guilds mall, no luck there. I tried to build some, they came out basically worthless. So I hit Coronet and started looking around vendors near the city. I went into all sorts of armor dealers, no way to know if they had the items, just had to look at each vendor and find out. No, no, no, no, no, no. I was ready to give up and the last vendor I checked had 2 crates of 25 each, so I grabbed them both. Now I spent 30 minutes looking for these silly items and that only included a small area outside of coronet and my guilds shopping mall. Did I get a good price? What if I need more? There must be thousands of these armor repair tools out there and yet I have to spend 30 min finding 1?!

Players only shop in this game out of necessity and that is a shame. An even bigger issue is that so many people actually use alt characters so they can be self reliant as the market is a nightmare to depend on. I personally gave up on trying to find a stocked vendor for Space ordnance and ammo. After making my own shop I understand why nobody stocked this stuff, it takes insane amounts of resources and time to produce and customers don't want to spend time looking for this stuff. That doesn't mean customer don't want it, or that vendors don't want to provide it, there just isn't a way for buyers to find sellers. That is what a galaxy wide vendor search will do. Match buyers with sellers.


Update:
Nice, seems like each time I've posted in these threads (dealing with vendor searches) I get 1 star'd by someone who can't even take the time to respond to my examples. Granted the first post was almost whining but the examples I've given are exactly what players are struggling with. If you think my thoughts on the matter are stupid fine, but a 1 star as your response doesn't help solve anything, if you have a solution to make the markets better, lets hear it.

Message Edited by Tumbler2002 on 02-28-2005 01:43 PM

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I would assert that the time used to find products is part of the opportunity cost of purchasing anything in this economy. Things shouldn't necessarily be easy to find anymore than combat or resource surveying is easy. But if convenience is what's key, we should eliminate the player economy and have npc vendors that are always stocked and always in one location or restrict all vendors to a few central locations on each planets.

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mpdivo wrote:

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If prices are visible as well, price wars will ensue with only the oldest, most prominent crafters emerging as victors. This will create a monopoly that will alienate newer crafters and cancel many accounts. In turn, its likely once the smaller crafters are done away with, prices will inflate again.

Message Edited by CenoKreFey on 02-23-2005 01:25 PM

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New crafters use the bazaars in their current fashion to sell their goods. I don't see any price wars on CDEF rifles or wookie garbs?

I still use the bazaarto sellitems like Starship Texture Kits which no reasonable merchant should ever sell for more than 6000 credits.

Your thoughts are wild speculation and nothing more.

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Get real. Bazaar goods have almost no effect on the economycompared to player vendor based goods. Bazaar is limited at 6k, vendors virtually unlimited. Starship texture kits or repair tools or clothing will not make or break the economy. I'm talking about commonly needed big ticket items like armor, weapons, chef crates, starships, etc. I'll use my profession (armor) to illustrate my point and how I could drive other AS's out of business:

The proposed merchant changes take effect, making vendors browsable, and lets say, without price listed. I will do the following as a result:
- post on the forums telling my customers to browse INSERT_SMALL_ITEM's made by "Nareese" to see my prices, or sort the listing ofsaid items alphabetically and look for items starting with "Armor by Nareese...". This will allow them to see the stats and prices of my items. They will find, say, a 20sided dice named "Armor by Nareese - 80 Elec/71 base 40k cond right bicep @ 30k". This is not the final problem, but a trend that will become normal behavior and lead to the final problem.

- I'll be able to easily check competitor's prices. If I see someone has considerable stock, comparable to mine, I will undercut them. I've been collecting resources for over a year, and I have millions of good resources that other newer AS's can only afford in stacks of 20k. I can mass produce stuff at a lower price than them and still be able to lower prices as necessary. Say my armor is 400k/set, their's is 375k/set. I'll lower mine to 350k. We battle til they lower theirs to 275k. I go 250k. The newer armorsmith who doesn't have a ton of good resources will notsell enough armor to keep their profit margins at a competitive level. They will stop competing and, since everyone can easily see quality and prices, they will only get very few sales from walk-ins who are not taking advantage of galaxy wide searching.

This system will give an advantage to the older crafters. So much so, that newer crafters will have a 5x harder time breaking into the market. This will be bad for all crafters, since profit margins will decrease due to competition. Which leaves the only true winners being those with massive amounts of credits saved up. The economy isn't in bad shape because of crafters. Its the way it is because there used to be way too much money coming into the game, and certain afk looters can dominate uber loot and set whatever prices they want. Please disprove what I'm saying without using the bazaar as an example.

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CenoKreFey wrote:

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mpdivo wrote:

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If prices are visible as well, price wars will ensue with only the oldest, most prominent crafters emerging as victors. This will create a monopoly that will alienate newer crafters and cancel many accounts. In turn, its likely once the smaller crafters are done away with, prices will inflate again.

Message Edited by CenoKreFey on 02-23-2005 01:25 PM

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New crafters use the bazaars in their current fashion to sell their goods. I don't see any price wars on CDEF rifles or wookie garbs?

I still use the bazaarto sellitems like Starship Texture Kits which no reasonable merchant should ever sell for more than 6000 credits.

Your thoughts are wild speculation and nothing more.

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Get real. Bazaar goods have almost no effect on the economycompared to player vendor based goods. Bazaar is limited at 6k, vendors virtually unlimited. Starship texture kits or repair tools or clothing will not make or break the economy. I'm talking about commonly needed big ticket items like armor, weapons, chef crates, starships, etc. I'll use my profession (armor) to illustrate my point and how I could drive other AS's out of business:

The proposed merchant changes take effect, making vendors browsable, and lets say, without price listed. I will do the following as a result:
- post on the forums telling my customers to browse INSERT_SMALL_ITEM's made by "Nareese" to see my prices, or sort the listing ofsaid items alphabetically and look for items starting with "Armor by Nareese...". This will allow them to see the stats and prices of my items. They will find, say, a 20sided dice named "Armor by Nareese - 80 Elec/71 base 40k cond right bicep @ 30k". This is not the final problem, but a trend that will become normal behavior and lead to the final problem.

- I'll be able to easily check competitor's prices. If I see someone has considerable stock, comparable to mine, I will undercut them. I've been collecting resources for over a year, and I have millions of good resources that other newer AS's can only afford in stacks of 20k. I can mass produce stuff at a lower price than them and still be able to lower prices as necessary. Say my armor is 400k/set, their's is 375k/set. I'll lower mine to 350k. We battle til they lower theirs to 275k. I go 250k. The newer armorsmith who doesn't have a ton of good resources will notsell enough armor to keep their profit margins at a competitive level. They will stop competing and, since everyone can easily see quality and prices, they will only get very few sales from walk-ins who are not taking advantage of galaxy wide searching.

This system will give an advantage to the older crafters. So much so, that newer crafters will have a 5x harder time breaking into the market. This will be bad for all crafters, since profit margins will decrease due to competition. Which leaves the only true winners being those with massive amounts of credits saved up. The economy isn't in bad shape because of crafters. Its the way it is because there used to be way too much money coming into the game, and certain afk looters can dominate uber loot and set whatever prices they want. Please disprove what I'm saying without using the bazaar as an example.

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