Development Cycle Archive
Thread: ID#2: Two Changes to Bazaars and Vendors
What most of the people who are advocating the bazaar cap raise don't seem to understand is that the bazaar cap was put in place in the first place to drive traffic to merchants. Back in beta, the bazaar cap was set at 10k. This was lowered to 3k, and the explaination was that the bazaar was intended to be a place that players could sell used items and also place for noob equipment. Everything else was meant to be done through private shops, and a low bazaar cap was the way to make merchant a viable class for more than just the folks that sold high-ticket items.
So to many merchants (especially those of us whose market is mostly mid-priced items), this change is seen as the devs backing down from their commitment to both the player economy and to our profession.
It's also backing away from their commitment to player cities, because if static cities have bazaars where you can find anything except the highest priced items, then that removes the need to visit player cities to find the best shops. With no bazaars located in player cities, there's no way player cities can compete.
To many of us, these changes just seem like yet another example of the devs sacrificing the gameplay of more social crafter-type players to the desires of the combat characters, who just want to be able to get what they want as quickly as possible and go back to killing things.
Unfortunately, this will only serve to hurt the combat characters as well in the end, as they will find it harder and harder to find items as vendors won't have enough stock to last until many of the crafters next log in, and many crafters will become so frustrated that they'll probably just close up shop or leave entirely.
donnah42 wrote:
What most of the people who are advocating the bazaar cap raise don't seem to understand is that the bazaar cap was put in place in the first place to drive traffic to merchants. Back in beta, the bazaar cap was set at 10k. This was lowered to 3k, and the explaination was that the bazaar was intended to be a place that players could sell used items and also place for noob equipment. Everything else was meant to be done through private shops, and a low bazaar cap was the way to make merchant a viable class for more than just the folks that sold high-ticket items.
So to many merchants (especially those of us whose market is mostly mid-priced items), this change is seen as the devs backing down from their commitment to both the player economy and to our profession.
It's also backing away from their commitment to player cities, because if static cities have bazaars where you can find anything except the highest priced items, then that removes the need to visit player cities to find the best shops. With no bazaars located in player cities, there's no way player cities can compete.
To many of us, these changes just seem like yet another example of the devs sacrificing the gameplay of more social crafter-type players to the desires of the combat characters, who just want to be able to get what they want as quickly as possible and go back to killing things.
Ryku_Sios wrote:
I'm all for the Bazaar cap raised. Even up to 10k would be nice. As for the vendor cap, I would like to see may 2X what the propossed cap is (150). Being a weaponsmith as others have noted, we have several different weapons and need to keep atleast 10 of each item stocked. 300 items /vendor would be more sufficient in my opinion.
If you want crafters to be able to keep at least 10 of each item stocked, then 300 items per vendor is far, far less than sufficient. I'm a tailor. I have over 200 schematics. I have over 200 colors. I wouldn't even be able to offer 1.5 of each item stocked with a cap of 300, let alone 10 color combinations (which is really low, IMO, as I like to have anywhere from 5 to 50, depending on the schematic). And what about the color/schematic combinations that people really like and can sell within minutes of placing them for sale? I only get to put up one of them? Makes my vendor look pretty crappy to not have any of the popular items, doesn't it?
2. The vendor item limit is a VERY stupid idea. With it I can't even place 1 of each item I can make into it. At least make it something bearable like 600 or 800.
What will happen is that those who need the space will train Merchant, place the vendors and then drop it again. The effect would only be the items won't be in 1 vendor, but in 6. You nerfed enough of the crafting profession, go nerf the combat classes.
Ok, heres my 2 credits
PROPOSED 150 ITEM CAP ON VENDORS IS A BAD IDEA!
'nuff said 
don't nerf the vendor item limit.
Raise the cap to 6k on the bazaar, but also raise the cost of placing items to 50 credits. Insignificant, really, but it could add up asa money sink. Do it at the same time and fewer people will complain.
biwan:Almost everything I sell is in the 4k-6k range. If you raise the baazar limit to 6k I will be dropping master merchant faster than you can apply the next nerf to the combat classes. Actually I think this will push me to quitting altogether. So go ahead and do it. It will save me $15 a month.
/sigh
I see the "comodities" market in its current state as a joke. You can put ANYTHING on the bazaar and personally i see THAT as a killer for player run shops. I can currently buy Composite armor on the bazaar for 3k a piece. Why go pay 12 - 15k a peice at a PlayerRun Shop if i can get it for 3k on the bazaar? Sure its ony 60% resist but with the nerf put in on armor thats pretty good armor. And aside from RIS armor Composite is supposed to be the end all of armor albiet the most worn cause its only 3k on the bazaar.
so you raise the price cap to 6k what that'll do is take that 3k piece of armor and up the cost to 6k but you'll end up getting more armor put on there.
Now dont get me wrong im not saying that 6k cap is all bad BUT the commodities market system as a whole is bad. Face it: Composite Armor is NOT a comodity, so why can it be sold as one?
I say that the change to the bazaar that needs to be implemented is that the type of items that can be placed on the bazaar be SHARPLY reduced. do whatever to the price cap you want but make it so that only commodities can be sold on the market.
Things that should be on the Comodities Market:
- Resources - These items are quantitative and can be sold at a price/unit basis. Usually the people that do survey either do it to use the resource or sell it on the bazaar. i have only run into a vender once that had resources on it. But the basic prencipal of this is that the resources (what ever they are) are not a finished product, they are raw material to be used in making a finished product.
- Stim Packs - Sure its a finished product but in general Stims are low cost items when sold outside of factory crates, Besides on planets like dantooine people use the things like candy, place em on the bazaar and they go fast. but at the right price.
- Batteries - The most stupid/needed item in the game for people that own a droid. Low level artisans can make these things and they are cheep as heck. In real life batteries are usualy in the check out isle next to the magazines. Not to mention you can get them from any conveniance store...
- Food - As it is unless you run a Cantina there is little use in a Chef having a vendor. I am an aspiring chef and i plan on selling my food in the pawn shop of my city as munchies and on the bazaar. From what ive seen the highest average price for food is 250cper charge, a food item would have to have 12 charges to be worth the current 3k cap and 24 charges for the proposed 6k cap.
- Beginner level Weapons - There should be a re-catagorizing of certain weapoins, armor, clothing, Generaly any player crafted item. Any and ALL cdef weapons should be recatigorized to "Novice Ranged Weapon" Any Novice certified weapon for that matter should be re-catigorized as "Novice" whatever the item is. A flamethrower however DOES NOT belong on the bazaar...
- Light Level Armors -Bone armor and Mambari Armor should be catagorized as "Light Armor" and allowed on the bazaar. these are Newbie items and only worn by vetrans for look if at all. Padded Armor should be a "Medium Armor" Composite and RIS armor should be "Heavy Armor" neither of which should be on the bazaar.
What Should NOT on the Comodities Market:
- Factory Crates - By Deffinition Factory Crates are mass produced finished items for Spliting for use or induvidual sale. (IE. Guns) Sure doctors sell stims in bulk but why on the bazaar? In general WHOLESALE items should not be on the bazaar. If i want to buy meat in bulk i have to go to Sam's (price club... Bulk buy store.) i cant buy 250 rolls of Toilet paper at Quick trip or Texico i have to go to a place that specializes in selling 250 rolls of TP in one package. Same should go for Factory crates. Want 25 e-11's go to a weaponsmith's shop and buy wholesale.
- Clothing - For the most part if you are buying clothing you want a matching outfit. Tailors tend to sell their stuff in shops anyway. I never look on the bazaar saying "OOOH I hope theres a Blue and teal flex form shirt and matching pants and shoes!!!" No i call up tianami and look on her bazaar. cause she carries multiples of that kinda thing.
- Reward Loot and Junk- Things like force crystal clusters and paintings, These where rewards and even if you dont want it it shouldnt be something just put up on the bazaar. Player run Pawn Shops would be the way to go. i have a friend that runs one and buys rare and crazy items. besides if you really want to get rid of broken and Junk items theres a junk dealer for that! But a Player Pawn Shop might give you more for the same item than you could even get for it on the bazaar. Selling the loot items and GOOD rewards on the bazaar is what has depreciated its value. not that its crap but that its on the bazaar!
- Medium to Heavy Weapons, Armor - These items should be concidered Specialty. they are the higher level items that should be expensive and Should be sold in player run shops. thats the purpose of plaer run shops in the first place. sale of higher level items. if they can get placed on the bazaar that opens the door for items to have less value as the game goes in and if you arent adding heavier weapons on a consistant basis then eventually what you see is an excelentflame thrower being sold for 3k. same goes for armor, same argument. If you end up having damaged items of this type you should sell them to a player run Pawn Shop Reguardless of the condition these items are still some of the better items in the game and should be paid a certain level of respect.
- Mission Disks - I argue that they should be sellable but not on the comodities market. With the game out for several months now, player run shops have poped up and they should be encouraged. Player Run Pawn Shops is an awsome idea but if Pawn Shop type items can be placed on the commodities market then theres no real use.
- Deeds - This includes Pets, Homes, City Buildings,Instalations, and Droids. With pets i dont go to Texaco and get a doggie i go to the pound. Not to mention only CH's really use them aside from people that still use mounts. Buildings and installations are ment to be semi permenant structures and as such should be worth more than 3-6k. as it is you can buy some instalations for less then 3k but when you think about it this is way under priced. Concidering that this structure is going to be used to MAKE money for the purchaser it should hold more value then 3c per unit of resource used to make it. It should be That and then an overhead for the fact that its gonna be a money maker for the buyer.
- Furniature, Home Decor, City Improvement(Statues, Street lamps, fountains, ect)- Again the Texaco Factor... These are specific and specialized items Not to be concidered Comodities.
- SPICE!!! - These are CONTRABAND why the heck can i get them off the commodities market? its the equivilant of me going into a texaco and picking up a bag of weed or amphetamines. Its suposed to be illegal and should be treated as such.
Theres A LOT more on both sides but this is just what i care to put in my argument. In short If i cant get it at a conveniance store, at the super market, orfrom running a harvestor. and if its for anyone other than a novice then it doesn't belong on the comodities market. I say go ahead and raise the price cap. Heck remove it alltogether, but what you really need to do is make the comodities market just that. a market for Raw materials and low level items. AND FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS HOLY! ADD A SEARCH FUNCTION!
As for the vendor item cap...
To be honest i see it from several sides: The Merchant that would Suddenly get the shaft not being able to keep up a good stock. The dev that wants to put an end to Players using them as storage. and the buyer that does not like the massive load time for stock lists.
My thoughts on Vendor Changes:
MAJOR QUESTION - What happens to vendors with more than 150 items in em? how do you explain to a merchant that all but 150 of their stock items where deleated because you changed the number of items a vendor could have? or do you relax the restriction till those items are gone?
Item Cap - This should not be so low as to gate legitimate merchants But not so high that it maintains a preasence as a storage exploit. I agree that 150 is unacceptable as a limit especially to master merchants and the like. I Wholely agree with the idea of a graduated Item Cap based on a merchants level. I would proposethat non merchant vendors only be able to hold 200 items. and that as a person goes through the merchant tree there be an increase in maximum item storage spread out among All the skill boxes. and the same for persons that go through the Artisan Hybrid professions like armorsmith, weaponsmith, tailor ect. The increase in number of items be less rewarding for the artisan hybrids and more for merchant. So for example
- an artisan that can have a vendor but has no hybrid artisan skill or merchant can only have 1 vendor with 200 items.
- a master tailor with no merchant can only have 1 vendor but can have 500 items on it.
- a master merchant with no hybrid profession can have the max number of vendors with a max of 700 items on each
- and a master merchant/ master artisan hybrid can have max vendors and 1000 items on each. 1000 items being the maximum cap on items in a vendor.
Vendor Use Validity -It should be made so that if you do not have the ability to maintain a vendor that any vendor owned by you be removed acording to your skills. you shouldnt have a master merchant droping merchant and still having the vendors he isnt qualified to have anymore thats an exploit 
.
This way you encourage people to actualy care about mastering merchant AND stop the vendor storage Exploit without punishing merchants that are using their vendors for valid purposes while at the same time lowering the Database Bloat.
Search Function - This IS the most requested and needed feature for both the bazaar and vendors. This would make using the vendors and bazaar so much faster and efficiant. If i KNOW i want a certain item i should be able to type in a name and hit serch and have just that item show instead of wading through vid screens and droid bateries. in and out in a flash then back to my killin and grillin. Thats what we want and need. Not to mention it might cut DB access and bandwidth usage, like thats an issue though right?
In Summary:
Commodities Price Cap - Dont care about the price cap cause thats not the issue. What can be sold on the bazaar needs to be re-evaluaed.
Vendor Item Limit - Totaly against 150 being the cap as its a penalty to valid merchants and Completely discourages players from having shops. Opt for graduated item cap that rewards merchants and artisan hybrids, and removing vendors if the owner is'nt qualified to own it.
Raising of price cap on bazaars is good.
The proposed limit on item caps for player vendors is too low. There are people who run popular malls who can sell150 itemsin under an hour. So thats going to create its own set of problems there, since there are very few crafters you can be on 24/7 to keep their vendors stocked.
The thing is I can see what the devs are doing. They are trying to come up with solutions to some of the vendor lag some servers are experiencing now. But will it solve the problem? I think not, because then people will start placing more vendors in one location to make up for normal stock. Which will bring about the same problem again. So instead of the database keeping track of 500 items on one vendor, it would then have to keep track of3 to 4times more vendors to make up for what one vendor used to be able to hold.
I dont think rasing the credit limit on the bazzars to 6000 is a big issue one way or another.
On the other hand,lowering the number of items offered on a vendor to 150 is a severe restriction. As a Tailor who's customers look for quality as well as variety I find it imparative to offer a wide selection of colors and styles to meet that demand. A full outfit can take from 5-7 individual items matched together. If I hear a persuasive arguement as to how setting a vendor item limit can improve gameplay I would support the concept. However,a limit of 150 is entirely too low to support my business. If a limit is set it needs to be in the 400-500 item range.
Increased Bazzar Cap - NO
Increased bazzar caps for all will drastically cut the number of customers willing to travel to your vendor to look at what items you have. I would be willing to entertain the idea of increased Bazzar Caps for Merchants only.. and have a progression tied into one of the skill trees. Perhaps a master merchant might be able to sell bazzar items at up to 10k as an absolute max.
Vendor Item Cap -NO
As somone who currently runs a number of vendors i can understand that there might be a need for a limit but at 150 items i will be unable to stock single items and still keep up with customer requests for crates of items.(I sell medical supplies) There would be no reason whatsoever for me to stock singles and take up valuable vendor item spaces when i could be making 10-50 times the money using those slots to sell crates. If youmust implement a cap please consider something in the 300-500 range as most people i believe can find a way to make this work for them.
Axxus (Flurry)
Master Doctor / Master Merchant
Bazaar
- Remove auction. Everything should be instant sales.
- Raise price limit to 10000cr max per items
- Charge 5% of price value for placing an item "for sale" on the bazaar (min 5cr, max 500cr)
- Allow shipping or pick up option (Shipping costs buyer 5% of price and will take 1 hour (real time) to arrive at buyers bazaar terminal)
- Only allow 10 "for sale" slots, but allow Merchant skills from Artisan tree to increase number of slots. (Business IV might have 50 slots available for example)
- Disallow "contraband" from being sold on the Bazaar. (This should mesh with the coming Imperial Crackdown that is being tested)
Vendors
- Set limit per vendor (150 sounds OK as the base), but add modifiers that are dependant upon owner's Merchant skill.