Business And Economy Archive
Thread: Galaxy Wide Vendor Search on TC POLL
Happymob wrote:
Scudder wrote:
1. We want this all tied in to skill points of merchants.
Why? Are you under the impression thatmerchants and crafters the only people who sale stuff?
You're kidding, right? If merchant is to remain in the game, we need unique, exclusive abilities that justify the skill point cost.
Nobody is asking to move the crafting of heavy harvestersfrom architect to artisan engineering-3. Nobody is asking to move strafe shot 2 from master rifle to marksman rifles-3. Nobody is asking to move the /curepoison command from Doc2000 to medic phatrmacology-3. Yet you are perfectly willing to move the single most useful merchant ability (the ability to advertise) to artisan business-3.
The ability to advertise has to be tied to merchant skills or you've instantly devalued merchant advertising. This change already devalues hiring (who cares what the vendors look like?) and management (why have multiple shops or vendors when people are shopping remotely?).
Scudder wrote:
1. We want this all tied in to skill points of merchants.
Why? Are you under the impression thatmerchants and crafters the only people who sale stuff?
See the many replies above for how stupid a statement this is
2. I've been playing this game since NOV 2003, and been a crafter/merchant all that time.
And your point is? I've been playing since JULY 2003 and I've had a vendor for all that time. Does that make me an expert on this topic? If so, then I must be more of one that you since I've been playing longer.
I did'nt say it made me an expert just that itgave me enough experence to know what i was talking about. But the same can't be said for you.
3. Iremember when bikes 1st came in. I saw them selling for 100k i used to sell them for 40k for a swoop made withresources i could sell for 40 to 48k on the bazzar. But very soon there where people selling them for 20k and less andI got no sales since people would say i was ripping them off chargeing 40k for something they could buy for 20k or less. Now i see swoops for 10k or even less. This is a prime example of what will happend to ALL products VERY quickly once this change takes place.
I remember that too... I also remember when Krayt weapons, combat droids, creature tanks, creature mounts, player city structures, player city gardens and decorations and a bunch of new loot first hit the servers. The first day of any new item is always going to be when prices are at their peak because the demand for new stuff is HUGE. As time passes the demand decreases and so must the prices. You will occasionally find people selling for less than cost but not very often.
I imagine that prices will plummet on a great many items but as with all of the things I have mentioned above, the prices will stabilize at a point that is both fair and profitable. I don't understand why you believe that you should you be able to expect long-term profits of 1000% or more. It's never gonna happen regardless of whether or not this new search is implemented.
No the prices will NOT stabilize at a point thats either FAIR or profitable to ANYONE that does not have guild support or a HUGE stockpile of either resources or money. I can't understand why you belive the crafters should NOT make money. You do realise that combat types make a HUGE profit on selling hides and meat to crafters. If we where to work out the percent profit they made it would be in the region of MANY THOUSHANDS of times more than a crafter does.
4. But there are many other people out there who do NOT and have the means and ways TO DO what i just told you about above. All it needs is a FEW people like that in each profession which i'm SURE there are and thats the end of the best part of SWG and why MANY MANY people play the game.
Know any on Kauri? Just because you say these people exist who are bent on selling their wares at ridiculously low prices does not mean they actually do exist. I sure haven't been able to find them. (Note my experience in such matters in the second point above.)
I'm sure i could find some on kauri. Just wait for this change to happend and I promise you, you will see them come out.
5. Whats the point? The point is this is a MMORPG NOT a MMOFPS. Your SUPPOSE to interact with OTHER people, Your SUPPOSE to have to DEPEND on other people. Thats why crafters NEED combat types to get them meat and hides, and why combat types NEED crafters to make them armour, guns and everything esle a fighter needs to do his thing.
Gameincentives for grouping and interaction between players was gone from this game ages ago and it had nothing to do withthe artisan/crafting aspects of this game. You should not try to force interaction between players who do not want to do so. I don't understand how AFK spamming at starports or any of the other supported advertising methods encourage any interaction so the point seems moot to me.
I'm not trying to force anyone to DO anything unlike YOU and the supports of this game brakeing change. Just cause YOU don't to group and interact with other players does'nt mean everyone is like that. If all you want to do is go shoot things and never group or interact with anyone esle why on EARTH are you playing an MMORPG. Just go play any of the countless FPS games that allow you to do that and leave the people who DO to thier game insread of trying to ruin it for them
Phaelyn wrote:
With the Galaxy Wide search soon to be a reality, I'm curious to see how Merchants are going to respond to it's implementation. It takes no Merchant Skill Points whatsoever to register into the system.
Personally, *I* plan on eliminating all boxes in Merchant that I no longer need - Essentially the entire Advertising Line, because being on the Planetary Map or using a Barker Droid are now essentially a waste of time.
How about the rest of us? How will you now conduct your business?
I'd like to point out to you that this is on TS, so it isn't necessarily a done deal. First, the Merchant Correspondant is working with the community to solicit input for the devs. Second, I have seen features introduced on TS never make it to live.
I would strongly suggest that anyone that has constructive input regarding this feature reply to the focus thread posted by the Merchant Correspondant in the Merchant Forum.
Thats what many merchants are saying.
The barkers are still very valuable, I mean they are still great ways to get some schmuck to walk over to the bazaar terminal and look you up.
I see the galactic listing also as a way to separate the zombie merchants from the active ones, as the zombies wont have anything to list on the bazaar, thus making a clients life sooooo much easier.
If anything this means actually PLAYING at being a merchant more, stepping up your advertising, using event perks to pull people to you. Id say it gives some meaning to being a merchant in that you need to get out and there and find your capitalistic groove, rather than just sit there hoping someone will walk by.
Frankly the same arguments being used against the galactic bazaar listings can be made against the planetary listing of merchants (thats competition too).
People still have to go to your shop to pick up their item, thus seeing what else you have going in there, and seeing the city you live in.
It also saves merchants a lot of money, making it so they dont need to place franchises all over the galaxy, and consume oodles of lots with merchant tents and houses. They can focus their efforts on their player cities rather than worry about far flung locations.
And if the merchant desires, he can add other vendor locations for common items as a convinence so clients dont have to travel so far to pickup.
Its not a bad thing at all
Jagged-F3l wrote:
Phaelyn wrote:
With the Galaxy Wide search soon to be a reality, I'm curious to see how Merchants are going to respond to it's implementation. It takes no Merchant Skill Points whatsoever to register into the system.
Personally, *I* plan on eliminating all boxes in Merchant that I no longer need - Essentially the entire Advertising Line, because being on the Planetary Map or using a Barker Droid are now essentially a waste of time.
How about the rest of us? How will you now conduct your business?
I'd like to point out to you that this is on TS, so it isn't necessarily a done deal. First, the Merchant Correspondant is working with the community to solicit input for the devs. Second, I have seen features introduced on TS never make it to live.
If this were 6 months ago Fel, i would agree with you 100%. But for the past 4 to 5 releases, ANYTHING that has made it to test center HAS come straight across to Live. Case in point: the FIRST time this method was suggested, it was announced as IN DEVELOPMENT, *not* on Test Center - This time around it bypassed In Development straight to Test Center - It WILL be released to Live as is, and I'd be wiling to bet on it coming no later than next Tuesday, based on recent Test Center releases.
I would strongly suggest that anyone that has constructive input regarding this feature reply to the focus thread posted by the Merchant Correspondant in the Merchant Forum.
That focus thread was in existence from the LAST time it was announced.
Scudder wrote:
Ackew wrote:
Scudder wrote:
1. We want this all tied in to skill points of merchants.
Why? Are you under the impression thatmerchants and crafters the only people who sale stuff?
See the many replies above for how stupid a statement this is
Because I disagree does not make it a stupid statement. Because you are a merchant and want to protect your profession doesn't make you stupid either. But calling people stupid pretty much speaks for itself.
I did'nt call YOU stupid just the abovesatement.
2. I've been playing this game since NOV 2003, and been a crafter/merchant all that time.
And your point is? I've been playing since JULY 2003 and I've had a vendor for all that time. Does that make me an expert on this topic? If so, then I must be more of one that you since I've been playing longer.
I did'nt say it made me an expert just that itgave me enough experence to know what i was talking about. But the same can't be said for you.
Yeah, I have no idea what I'm talking about. I have no opinions because I refuse to grind out useless XP on useless professions. At least merchants seem to be saying their profession is useless.
Merchant will ONLY be useless AFTER this change has come in. At the moment its IS NOT
3. Iremember when bikes 1st came in. I saw them selling for 100k i used to sell them for 40k for a swoop made withresources i could sell for 40 to 48k on the bazzar. But very soon there where people selling them for 20k and less andI got no sales since people would say i was ripping them off chargeing 40k for something they could buy for 20k or less. Now i see swoops for 10k or even less. This is a prime example of what will happend to ALL products VERY quickly once this change takes place.
I remember that too... I also remember when Krayt weapons, combat droids, creature tanks, creature mounts, player city structures, player city gardens and decorations and a bunch of new loot first hit the servers. The first day of any new item is always going to be when prices are at their peak because the demand for new stuff is HUGE. As time passes the demand decreases and so must the prices. You will occasionally find people selling for less than cost but not very often.
I imagine that prices will plummet on a great many items but as with all of the things I have mentioned above, the prices will stabilize at a point that is both fair and profitable. I don't understand why you believe that you should you be able to expect long-term profits of 1000% or more. It's never gonna happen regardless of whether or not this new search is implemented.
No the prices will NOT stabilize at a point thats either FAIR or profitable to ANYONE that does not have guild support or a HUGE stockpile of either resources or money. I can't understand why you belive the crafters should NOT make money. You do realise that combat types make a HUGE profit on selling hides and meat to crafters. If we where to work out the percent profit they made it would be in the region of MANY THOUSHANDS of times more than a crafter does.
Uh huh, ok. So we'll just have to wait and see won't we? I barely make a cent at being a combat profession so I have no idea where these ideas come from that we make more than crafters. Is your server in a twilight zone?
If as a combat character you not makeing any money I have NO idea what your doing. The basic investment for a combat character is FAR FAR less than ANY crafting profession. All you need is a weapon and armour. Not even that if your a TKA. For example I can as master rifleman get missions on yavin 4 for about 12k. I can do 2 of these in about 4 mins and thats takeing it slow. Thats 12.5*2*15 which is 375k AN HOUR. The cost to me was a Mini suit of armour 100k a weapon t-21 say 25k and Buffs/brandy 15k. So in 3 hours I can make 1.125 MILION credits minus expensives of 140k credits. That Leaves a Profit of 985k. In the Next buff session. I have all ready paid for my armour andgun so it only costs me 15k to make thesame amount. So that time your profit is 1.1 MILLION. I'm aslo an S/W just to get to master required an investment of some 13 MILLION credits ( the 6.5 million resources needed to grind to master) Thats all most TEN times the amout i needed for my rifleman. Then there are the NINTEEN different resources i must get. ALL of which must be UBER if i want to make the best i can do. which for me is FUN and WHY i craft. Sure i make a profit and have made a load of money but then WHY SHOULD'NT I.
4. But there are many other people out there who do NOT and have the means and ways TO DO what i just told you about above. All it needs is a FEW people like that in each profession which i'm SURE there are and thats the end of the best part of SWG and why MANY MANY people play the game.
Know any on Kauri? Just because you say these people exist who are bent on selling their wares at ridiculously low prices does not mean they actually do exist. I sure haven't been able to find them. (Note my experience in such matters in the second point above.)
I'm sure i could find some on kauri. Just wait for this change to happend and I promise you, you will see them come out.
Exactly what I plan to do... wait and see... seems like that was my point to begin with.
Actaully you said there where NONE.
5. Whats the point? The point is this is a MMORPG NOT a MMOFPS. Your SUPPOSE to interact with OTHER people, Your SUPPOSE to have to DEPEND on other people. Thats why crafters NEED combat types to get them meat and hides, and why combat types NEED crafters to make them armour, guns and everything esle a fighter needs to do his thing.
Gameincentives for grouping and interaction between players was gone from this game ages ago and it had nothing to do withthe artisan/crafting aspects of this game. You should not try to force interaction between players who do not want to do so. I don't understand how AFK spamming at starports or any of the other supported advertising methods encourage any interaction so the point seems moot to me.
I'm not trying to force anyone to DO anything unlike YOU and the supports of this game brakeing change. Just cause YOU don't to group and interact with other players does'nt mean everyone is like that. If all you want to do is go shoot things and never group or interact with anyone esle why on EARTH are you playing an MMORPG. Just go play any of the countless FPS games that allow you to do that and leave the people who DO to thier game insread of trying to ruin it for them
I group and do plenty of interaction with other players... not because the game encourages or forces me to but because I want to. It's not that hard to accomplish if you try just a little bit.However, nothing in this game is gonna force me to play in a way that I don't want to. If you try to force it... people will just go do something else.
My point excatly. So why SHOULD I or ANY crafter be FORCED to play in a way WE don't want to. With this change we WILL be forced to craft the BEST stuff for the LOWEST price. I for one WILL NOT and I'm sure most other crafters won't either. This will cause most crafters to leave the game.
Why not just get the blue frogs out now and make this the FPS that soe clearly wants it to be.
Message Edited by Ackew on 03-16-2005 07:03 PM
Scudder wrote:And IF that happens then more changes will be made... it's not the end of the world... give the DEVs a chance to see if this will work or not... people have been asking for this (or something like this) for as long as I can remember. I don't see the harm in giving it a try.
Why not give our proposal a try first? It gets you 90% of what you want and gives us the protections we feel necesasry. Its easier to add additional features to the game later than it is to remove them once they are in.
Drecki wrote:
Ledao wrote:
With zero cost (i.e., using resources that are already sitting in my factories -- not even using resource kits), I can produce easily a billion credits worth of product. Not instantly, for sure, but it doesn't take as long as you might think. If I keep my 40 or 45 factories humming, I can certainly produce 1,000 sets of buffs and 20,000+ stimpacks every week. Are you going to buy them all and mark them up for resale? And if you do succeed in cleaning my vendor out one day, what's to stop me from lowering the price further?
What stops you doing that today? I mean, if you want to undercut your competitors today, you can do so. And if you do that for a while, almost every player on the server will know: Your shop sells buffpacks for 50% of the cost of others and of course they will buy it from you. But you don't do it, do you? So, why would you do it, when global vendor search is active? Just because it's a bit more effective in ruining other crafters? Maybe some will do that, but I doubt for longer than 1 month, then they will become bored about producing for a permanent loss.
Actually, my prices are already lower than those of everyone else on my server producing comparable product. Not across the board, but pretty nearly so (based on the findings of one of my competitors who did a survey recently).
My buffpack prices start at 9k these days, and only that high because I don't want to drive everyone else out of business. Even so, I get regular queries from the smaller docs on the status of my going out of business sale (I haven't crafted anything for public sale since the resource kits came out -- however I'll be selling off current inventory for at least another month...).
The caveat is that I don't advertise in-game at all. Although I have a vendor in my server's most highly trafficked player structure, most of the customers of that vendor have no idea that I have vendors on other planets. So right now, there are Doctors on my server making a living selling lower quality products than mine at higher prices.
At any rate, the important point that you're missing or ignoring is that there is no "permanent loss". When the resource kits came out, the roughly 800k units of Avian meat in my storage factory dropped in value by more than 50% -- I already took that loss.
Right now, my costs are zero. Nil. Nada. Without planting a single harvester or using a resource kit, I can produce 40,000+ buffpacks. Even if I sell them for 5k a piece, I'm making more money that I would make selling the meat (if I could even sell that much meat). To go along with those 40,000 buffpacks, I can produce stims until the next ice age. Also for no cost.
The recent economic changes mean that I can no longer compare my costs on something that I bought three months ago to what I can sell it for now. The former bears no relation to the latter. Because I no longer have any needs as a crafter, every credit I make now is pure profit.
And, again, I assure you that I'm not the only person in this position.