Business And Economy Archive

Wouldn't it be simpler to allow any item to be delivered for a charge? That would increase the money going out of the game and probably help smaller shops to sell more. Obviously you'd have to be able to search all vendors, but there is a UI team now

Well I was thinking up ideas for architect structures. Plus this is an additional feature you can have with a player city which is good if you think we should be trying to shift from using NPC cities. Just like shuttleports connect player cities, I thought this could be another way to link cities.

I posted this a while back in the Architect forums, but decided to repost it. Let me know what you think of the idea.

Courier Service Building
You know how in the bazaar, if you buy something far away, you have to travel to that location to retrieve it. How about a city structure that sets up a time limited bazaar. So you set up a "to address" and a "from address" for the buyer and seller and the product can be picked up at courier structure "to address". The item in the courier system only lasts say a few hours. This will keep the system from being used as extra storage. As long as a player city or an NPC city has one of these structures, you can send your package for some fee. It would cost more than travelling to that planet if you bought it on the bazaar. But you wouldn't be capped at 6000 credits. Just like you bring up the terminal map at a shuttleport or starport, it would bring up a similar map for courier service buildings. A negative of this would that you could neatly foil the contraband checks in the NPC cities which the devs may not like. We could limit the courier service users to smugglers and merchants or some sort of system like that.

This is an idea for more ways to implement trust mechanisms. Now, it's less likely to be able to buy backpacks meant for other players. It weakens the bazaar mechanism, but I don't find the bazaar that useful. There's way too much stuff on there. Btw, I made this post prior to JTL. It's basically a long distance vendor just with much shorter auction times.

Didn't know this thread was here so thought I'd just post something I posted elsewhere as it seems relevant.

Remote Delivery?
I have seen some people propose that a delivery fee be imposed for those that want instant deliery. I would rather see a proper delivery system in place to enhance rolelay.

Upon purchasing an item, the buyer would select a delivery option from:
- Collection from the vendor
- 1 day delivery
- 3 day delivery
- 5 day delivery
Delivery companies would need to register in the appropriate categories depending on what they can realistically service with their staff.

1. Interface (similar to existing delivery terminals) for Delivery Companies to register and receive delivery requests.
2. The delivery request would appear on the companies delivery terminal
3. Someone takes the delivery mission
4. The delivery person travels to the vendor to 'collect' the item, though this would just be a flag trigger or datapad entry - NOT the physical item.
5. The delivery person travels to the buyer to deliver the item and trades the datapad entry which turns into the actual item once in the buyer's inventory.
6. This would then deliver x amount to the delivery person. Fee based on set fee of say 5k or 10% of the item cost, whichever is higher.

There would need to be an addition to this system that says if the item has not been delivered within say 3 days, that the item is auto-delivered to the buyer at a reduced fee.

Message Edited by JTGAlpha on 02-16-2005 07:22 PM

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JTGAlpha wrote:

We had a delivery service on Intrepid. UPS. Impeccable reputation.

I'd rather have them than bazaars that deliver to me. I don't want to play this game without ever leaving my building.

Message Edited by JTGAlpha on 02-16-2005 07:22 PM

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Well not ever server developed a player driven courier system with enough reputation and playerbase trust. Or it could have been lack of interest.

I proposed this idea as a means to avoid having the wrong people buying orders off of vendors and to enhance the purposes of having a player cities. I tried to add the restraints that would keep the system from being used as storage and to limit how many items you could put into the system per seller.

This in retrospect is a little related to the galaxy search idea, but I tailored the idea specifically for player cities.