Business And Economy Archive
Thread: Suggestion on revamping public bazzaars
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themorph
Fri Feb 04, 2005 7:17 am
#1
I would like to collect some pros and cons here what removing the 6000 credits cap might cause, as well
as bringing up some suggestions how to improve the current bazzaar system. As there have been lots of tweaks
to the ground systems (housing, vendors etc.) and more will come soon, i hope the DEVs might get in touch with
the bazaar system too.
What purpose has the bazzaar as it is
- Advertising your Vendor
- Some merchant are using the bazzaar to advertise there vendors, they offer a good item as auction
for 6000 credits. This way no one is able to place a higher bid and the item will stay on the bazaar till
its over and the owner won't sell it. IMHO its exploiting and should be forbidden.
- Some merchant are using the bazzaar to advertise there vendors, they offer a good item as auction
- Selling resources
- The bazaar still remains as a good place to sell resources. Due to the credit cap, quality resources
are only offered in stacks of 100 or less. As you can only place a limited amount of offers, buyers could
usually only buy small stacks and its a pain to purchase X small stacks instead of 1 big.
- The bazaar still remains as a good place to sell resources. Due to the credit cap, quality resources
- New players selling loot
- Lots of new players are selling there loot through the bazaar, as they have no idea what things are
worth (or not worth) the stuff is A: useless and/or overpriced or B: usefull and underpriced. A is not
big of a problem, as the items simply won't sell. But if they loot something that is really valuable, they
have no idea what its worth and no chance to check the price, as similar PHAT LEWT won't be found on the
bazzaar. So, someone who knows about it's value and is seriously not in that big money problems as the n00b
will purchase it and rip the n00b off.
- Lots of new players are selling there loot through the bazaar, as they have no idea what things are
- Loot kit items, Sith Container & Low value items
- There are also a few usefull items out there which fit into the price caps of a bazzaar. Low value
items are singles of food or stims, crates of spices, repair kits etc. Those fit perfect into the price caps
of a bazaar, but for food people would usually like crates instead of singles.
- There are also a few usefull items out there which fit into the price caps of a bazzaar. Low value
Removing 6000 credit cap
The first step on revamping the bazaars should be removing the 6000 credit cap. This should only take a little
afford to the developer team and would open the bazaar to a completly new market.
- Loot market
- For people who loot good stuff every once in a while, it would be a perfect place to auction there
stuff. They might have only a little idea what things are worth, but as everyone can check galaxy bazaars
easily they would get a fair price or could find out what a fair price is, with a little research. This
would stop a lot of AFK spamming at the starports.
This might also bring the loot economy back into game. As it is now, loot is sold through AFK-Spamming at
the starport or through the trade forums.
- For people who loot good stuff every once in a while, it would be a perfect place to auction there
- Resource market
- People would be finally able to sell large stacks on resources. It might be not that big of a problem
for people running harvesters, cause its only a little more skill point afford to be able to place a vendor.
But scouts and rangers need to spend there skillpoints in there harvesting skill, as well as combat / healing skill
what they need to gather the resource.
- People would be finally able to sell large stacks on resources. It might be not that big of a problem
- Reflecting economy
- If there is no credit limit on public bazzaars, they would perfectly reflect the galaxies economy.
With the cap a lot of items just do not appear on the bazaars. Especially for the loot market privat
vendors in public areas are usually overpriced. The only way to determine what looted stuff is worth are
the trade forums. I really don't like this fact, cause a lot of people don't know about the forum.
- If there is no credit limit on public bazzaars, they would perfectly reflect the galaxies economy.
- Decrease search costs
- Searching for the stuff you need is very time expensive in SWG. Most vendors do not appear on the
planetary map and the ones that do are usually not stocked with what you are looking for. This would
be reduced if people are also able to sell stuff through the bazaars.
- Searching for the stuff you need is very time expensive in SWG. Most vendors do not appear on the
Improving bazzaars / merchants
As removing the caps would bring a lot of benefits to the community, the skilltree of the merchant
will become much less worth. Lots of merchant skills are used to advertise your vendors, as a limited
amount of items could also be offered through the bazaar, vendors will loose some value.
- Bazzaar Fee's & item caps
- I am not sure how it is working right now, but i think thats already in the game and should just
be tweaked to give merchants a greater benefit.
- I am not sure how it is working right now, but i think thats already in the game and should just
- Advertising
- Merchants should get the ability to advertise on the bazzaar. More like starting a primary
auction. Maybe something like color coding, adding wp's to there items, or a customized email when
people buying there items.
- Merchants should get the ability to advertise on the bazzaar. More like starting a primary
- Auctions
- You could set a maximum starting price for non merchants, which can be increased for merchants,
as well as how long an auction can last.
- You could set a maximum starting price for non merchants, which can be increased for merchants,
- Reversed Auctions
- Reversed auctions can be implemented for merchants. The merchant is giving a high starting price,
a minimum price when the item is withdrawn, stepsize how much the price is decreased and steptime how
fast it decreases. The first customer who hits the purchase button, before its withdrawn will get the
item.
- Reversed auctions can be implemented for merchants. The merchant is giving a high starting price,
My ideas so far, now let me hear your opinions and ideas as well.
greetz,
bindibaji
Fri Feb 04, 2005 7:38 am
#2
Sounds good! A thing i'd like to see is a good search facility. I.e searching for a starship component is a pain having to look through all the items, a facility where you can input minimum specs to improve a search would be good - same for resources. you could enter a minimum oq and see whats available.
The advertising of vendors is another thing. Instead of having loads of dead auctions which you cant bid for, how about a bill board type thing where you pay like maintainence to advertise your vendor. You click on the billboard and it lists what the vendor type is and you can click for the waypoint.
Apologies if these points have been discussed, but just my 2 cents worth!
Tumbler2002
Fri Feb 04, 2005 7:49 am
#3
I agree the bazaar's should have a higher price cap and I really like the idea of tieing that to the merchant skill set.
6000 credits plus the 25 sales cap really makes the bazaar's extremely high maintanence. Add that to the fact that there is not way to access a supply of goods remotely and you get a lot of taxi'ng back and forth to restock your goods. For merchants who carry that stuff around it may not be a big deal but it would be much more enticing to all players if they could access their safety deposit from any planet. Not just your main one.
Mabye start low with the cap going up to 10k or something like that. There are many things I buy that are below 6k but 99% are not on the bazaar because it's not worth the sellers time to get everything together and then go list 25 items at a time and keep loggin in to check them.
6000 credits plus the 25 sales cap really makes the bazaar's extremely high maintanence. Add that to the fact that there is not way to access a supply of goods remotely and you get a lot of taxi'ng back and forth to restock your goods. For merchants who carry that stuff around it may not be a big deal but it would be much more enticing to all players if they could access their safety deposit from any planet. Not just your main one.
Mabye start low with the cap going up to 10k or something like that. There are many things I buy that are below 6k but 99% are not on the bazaar because it's not worth the sellers time to get everything together and then go list 25 items at a time and keep loggin in to check them.
Quilex
Fri Feb 04, 2005 8:10 am
#4
I agree that the 6000 cap is to low, I would raise it to 10000 but no more for now.
I know this still means you can't buy the biiger qnty's of ressorses or selling the rare loot for the right price is hard. The only problem with a higger value on the Bazzar is that it take the busness away form the Players shops. Thus taking away a big part of the shopkeepers game play. After spending all the time learing thoses skills it should give you something back like having vendors (as it is now) if every one can sell at any price on the bazzar whats the point.
I suggest this kind of thing.
Have an advertising Consol, like the bazzar, and found in the same area but it lists adverts not products, everyone can use them but with varying costs. Your every day fighter might get charged 1000 - 5000 credits for a 7 day ad. As you have more mercant skills the price comes down to the point it's free, it could also be set so if you have no skill you can only advertise localy but as you get better mercant skills you can set adverts across the galixie remotly. This will alow peole to advertise there good loot and anything else they wish. While leaving your shopers still visiting a mall to get stocked up on food's and resorses etc. I'd hope this would also cause a down turn in the number od Star port Spamers.
This would also bring some interaction between players as they would need to meet up to get the goods.
Well thats all I can think of for now, what do the rest of you think?
BidoXP
Fri Feb 04, 2005 9:35 am
#5
the pulic ones used to be alot beter during beta if i remember rightly, just turned out the way they have now so merchants are useful to people, otherwise everyone would sell on the public bazaars and not use the merchant as the middle (wom)man
if the cap stayed the same for everyone except merchants then perhaps the public bazaars would be worth a look at
or perhaps merchants could pay a little extra per auction to get there wares added to the public stations as well as there own
themorph
Fri Feb 04, 2005 9:58 am
#6
As it is merchant is the only way to sell high valueitems, expect from AFK-spamming at starports (which no one likes and creates lag) and the trade forums. I think the trade forums should be moved from here into the game.... offer the merchants advantages, but let the 'looters' sell there items ingameas well.
And there are only veryfew people, thathire merchants to sell there items... usualllypeople with merchants have multiple accounts to spend the skill points on merchant.
BTW: Please rate the threat ... even a bad rating would make more people reading it then none.
greetz,
JediMasterCarlito
Fri Feb 04, 2005 11:56 am
#7
Your ideas are good, but you must consider merchant heavily when doing a revamp of the bazaar. What you proposed seems to detract quite a bit from merchant. I posted on idea about this several days ago. Here's a link to the post, as well as what I wrote.
Merchants
The re-listing interface is horrible currently. We need the ability to "one-click" items back into stock. Whether we have to do it one at a time or can highlight several and "one-click" them back into stock.
Master Merchants should be able to have their vendor wares accessible either via the bazaar or another terminal that is next to the bazaar in NPC cities that allow player housing. This would obviously give masters the ability to sell their wares easier (something that should be an advantage to a master merchant) to the public at large. Customers may purchase the items via these terminals but must visit the vendor to pick them up. Obviously turning on this option results in an increased vendor maintenance fee. This is the same as me going to BestBuy.com, searching for an item, checking it's availability at my nearest location, purchasing it, and then heading to the store to pick it up. The key is I didn't have to go to every store to find the item I was looking for, and I was even able to purchase it from the comfort of my chair all before leaving my house (or in this case, terminal).
Allow merchants (when they reach a certain "level") to place items on their vendor for pick up. The merchant would simply type in the player's name along with the amount the item needs to sell for to that player and he/she is done. This listing expires in 30 days, just as vendor offers do. This would be a separate tab when a player uses the vendor (currently they see items for sale and items offered to the vendor). They would only see items that have been "held" for them to purchase.
Tweak the "offer to vendor" system a little bit. I know I've read in the past that people have wanted to allow permissions to a vendor so other players can place their wares on the vendor. While I don't think that is a good system (you could probably get away with just one or twopeople being a master merchant for an entire guild), we could probably tweak the current "offer to vendor" system to allow a little more functionality. The way it would work is simple. A player offers an item (or items, up to their 25 limit) to a vendor. The merchant can decide to either purchase the item outright, or list the item for sale with a dialog box asking for the markup amount (should just be a credit amount to keep it simple). If the merchant decides to list it, the item gets listed for 30 days as normal, but it is is purchased, the player who offered the item gets his/her share of credits in their bank, and so does the merchant. If the item fails to sell in the 30 days, then the item is sent back to the "offer" tab where it will await pickup by the original player who offered it for 30 days (the merchant is out of the loop at this point). The player is sent an email notifiying him/her that the item was not purchased and awaits retrieval.
Bazaar
Paging
The same items list on every page at times. This badly needs an overhaul (the "paging" system). The number of items per page seems okay though.
Search
We should have a keyword search box in there somewhere.
We should be able to select from current planet, specific planet (a drop down list of planets), and entire galaxy.
Items are still not in the right categories. I like the selection of the current categories, we just need the items to sort properly.
Credit Cap
I know some other player merchants may not agree with this, but the credit cap for selling items on the bazaar should be removed, however we should have a fee that scales up the more expensive the item is. These aren't necessarily my suggested numbers, but I'm just trying to provide an example:
- Up to 10k credits: 1%
- Up to 100k credits: 5%
- Up to 1000k credits: 10%
- Over 1000k credits: 15%
This will allow players to sell the wares they have instantly in-game, however with a penalty. I think it could be a nice money sink for the game.
Auctions
This needs to be redone. If we threw out the credit cap and went with something similar to the proposed above, we'd only have to change/add two things to the auction listings: minimum bid and buyout bid. The current 1 to 7 day limit for auction length is fine I think. The only other addition should be a minimum bid increment that is automatically calculated by the system, but something the user can control. I think 5% is a fair number. If a player wants to bid, they obviously must have the credits available at that moment. The system would either need to "freeze" those credits in their bank account or take them outright, only "refundable" if the player withdraws their bid or loses the auction. When the auction is won, the player and seller are notified of the auction results, with the player receiving a waypoint to the bazaar terminal that has their item available for pickup.
Talmor1
Fri Feb 04, 2005 4:38 pm
#8
Cons to removal of price cap:
Look at how many vendors there are that sell a wide range of items that would be placed under one specific category. Say for instance, inorganic mineral. In Coronet (on the Sunrunner Galaxy) alone I noticed about 300 or so individual sales. Now granted, this will be reduced if these caps are removed. However, I can garauntee you that any Johnny or Jane will be placing their Mineral wares on this bazaar and there will be very minimal amount of player vendors. I could easily see about this escalating into the 1000s (maybe 10000s for a well used category). This will take a long time to shift through the current format.
If you subdivide the categories more, I will definately say that the bazaar would get even more confusing than it already is (trying to find out which category applies). This will be especially true for new players entering the SWG world (which is the lifeblood of the game.
Which comes to an even greater point. For noobie crafters, the bazaar is the best way to find small stacks of resources. Hands down. When people are grinding at the early levels, without a guild to back you, the small stacks are great.
Pro to removing # of items sold on the bazaar cap. By itself, this could be a good thing. Would allow people with those low end crafting items to be sold by more players. With the 7 day selling period, it would naturally prevent people from overstocking with one particular item. Unless of course that item is in such hot demand (which is a good reason for it to be on the bazaar)
Con to removing # of items sold on the bazaar cap ANDremoving maximum price:
This would be even worse... would result in the Merchant class being all but useless/Nerfed. Would hurt crafters as they would be in a bidding war for the lowest bid/highest quality. The person that can reduce their overhead (find the cheapest materials for the highest quality) would win in the end. This is a great free-economic model in the real world, but it would reduce crafter/non-crafter relations. Why talk to them when you can find it on the bazaar? I am really against this because it would result in no players going to other people's vendors. Plus I like to show off some of my loot/items. Nobody would come see my beautiful house. And I am being serious. I have seen some gorgeous houses while i have been hunting for resources on vendors and I liked it. It was a good experience.
Message Edited by Talmor1 on 02-04-2005 03:44 PM
pircio
Fri Feb 04, 2005 5:01 pm
#9
well i can see your point, what we need is an overall better system, something that searches "cleaner"
like i want "organic minerals" and i can see that "john" has 20 kinds of organic minerals, or something like that
i'm gonna throw a thread up and u can see if u like it
pircio
Sat Feb 05, 2005 1:18 am
#10
i'm about sick of merchant's complaining that we're taking away from them, and i know i'm going to get flamed but i dont care.
you can only have 25 items offered to vendors and on the bazaar at all times... right there merchants destroy everyone else. a master merchant gets like 2000+ items, can customize vendors clothing, put down merchant tents, register them on the planetary map, choose their race, and more. god forbid that we wish to sell some things on the bazaar for more than 6k per. idk about you but 6k is chump change, sure selling a lot of things at 6k adds up, i sell stim's at 3k per, and i sell like 10a day, but i'm sick of going to the bazaar, clicking "All" and "Enitre Galaxy" and having like 3 pages of stuff to look at TOTAL.
blargh "merchants"... stop whining please
CenoKreFey
Sat Feb 05, 2005 1:37 am
#11
I'm writing up a solution that will somewhat appease merchants (I'm one and I have no major qualms with how things are now) and offer similar and new ideas on the bazaar. I'm not aiming to usurp this post, but I like my ideas better 
Should be up in a few min...
![Iron City, Corellia [Gorath]](http://www.jedisanctum.com/swgpics/IronCity1300x1300.png){kind=link}
jimmpop169
Mon Feb 07, 2005 3:30 pm
#12
You all have great points i was reading an artical earlier about proffesions and the cost of getting buisness3. If you wanted the cap to be removed you would have to decrease the amount of listed items people could post. Give Merchants the ability to have more bazaar lots to use. I also like the idea of the trade forums being moved in game. It would create alot more traffic for public auctions and give players more of a general sense of what things are worth. On regards to the 6k cap. I think it is silly. The reason people charge 6k for items is that 6k is the cap. If there wasnt any capI bet you 100 dollars that similar items that are 6k now would go for 5k.
Straker_Atrella
Mon Feb 07, 2005 4:12 pm
#13
Ialso think that the Bazaar UI needs a revamp, make it easier for people to find stuff. It's not the bazaar though, many people miss pages and don't know how to sort properly.
As far as prices and such though. I would probably agree to a 10k limit, but never any highr then that. 10k may be even a little to high. The Bazaar, is just that a Bazaar, which is a place that people can get cheap goods. Hence cheap, meaning low quality.
Even at 6k or 10k, the Bazaar can cut into some things like cheap weapons, or tailor items.
It is not hard at all to get at least a little artisan merchant into your template if you want to sell better items. The Bazaar is a starting place for new players to buy and lower level crafters to sell. It should not be a place for top quality items. By doing so, you infrings on the merchant profession.
If you don't want to have your own vendor, then work out a deal with a merchant. We should be working on a system to enhance merhcnat and allow them to actually have an interface for selling other peoples stuff. The last thing we need to do is undermine the Merchant profession by making the Bazaar better.
Merchants sell stuff, it is a whole profession based around sellnig stuff, nothing else. You can call Merchants whiners or whatever you want. Yet the point still stands, selling stuff is a merchants job. The Bazaar is simply a stepping stone.
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