Business And Economy Archive

This could also go in the Merchant forum, but I thought it may be more appropriate here since it also deals with the bazaar. Below are some suggested changes to each that I think will make buying and selling in SWG a little bit better. I'm sure some if not all have been mentioned before, but I'm bored at the moment inbetween tasks so here goes.

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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.

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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.

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.

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:

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.

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.

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Vamir Daba Hermit of Naboo Eclipse
Sarynn Daba Jedi Knight Eclipse

Star Wars Galaxies Developers: "Much work remains to be done before we can announce our total failure to make any progress."

I like the fee based on % for auctions only but not for regular sales. Maybe upgrade those to 10k with the 20cr list under 5k and a 50cr list over 5k or something of that nature. The auctions I think should go for as high as you can utilizing your % based system. It would make things interesting perhaps...

Bloodfin - Shiver
Tempest - Wrangler
Valcyn - Teby

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Vamir Daba Hermit of Naboo Eclipse
Sarynn Daba Jedi Knight Eclipse

Star Wars Galaxies Developers: "Much work remains to be done before we can announce our total failure to make any progress."