Development Cycle Archive

Bazaar up to 6k -bad idea.

Merchant limit at 150 items. Terrible idea!!! Since when has having a selection been considered a monopoly? As a merchant/Architect/artisian not only do I sell my own goods: Furniture, houses, harvestors, city buildings/decorations, vehicles, powerups, Resources, etc but I also buy offered goods and turn around and sell them!

If this idea even remotely goes into affect you will see a downward spiral resulting in a collapse of the player economy! Why? There will no longer be any merchants! maybe one or two per server and there vendors will always be empty!

It's amazing that this idea even made it as far as the boards.

i dont use the bazar and that has an easy cause .. i spend most of my time in our playercity and do all my business there .. the nearest bazaar is in the mining outpost on dantooine and thats not one of the tradehubs of the galaxy. so when i want to sell stuff i need to travel to coronet and thats 2600cr for transport. and that to place 25 items? so i dont care about that cap raise.

the vendor thing has to be a joke or not? my food vendor has samples of ervery food that i can make in it plus crates. and my cloth vendor has 800-900 items to offer a great range of different cloth.

all my 6 vendors are in use und all are stocked over the limit of 150. when you want to make the merchant more useless than it is at the moment go on with that. but you should consider to take the vendors out of the game from merchants that placed them and then surrendered their skill in management. that would free the database and we real merchants (the stupid ones that keept their skills) can use the vendors like we did before.

Bazaar Price - Yes, why not - 6k is a little high though.

Vendor Cap - No .. sort of:
What??? Surely you mean a bazaar cap? Why would the number of items on a vendor affect what you see on another? (the only way there can be a monopoly as far as I can see) Or .. have I missed something??

Vendors are fine as far as I can see - there is a problem with the amount of data but 150 items is way to low - if there are limitations in the database then cap it at 1000 or 800 and see what happens, or alter the way it loads the items from the DB. don't remove functionality.

Personally I think the bazaar system is too limited in general, having one TYPE of bazaar terminal causes the monopoly problem, not the number of items on there.

IMHO It would be better to name a "market square" in a town (like in the middle of the guild halls or where the parks are) where different types of bazaar like vendors live - weapons, foods etc - and we sell the different items via those vendors - keep the price under 4000cr and have 4 or 5 different "stalls" - it could be the same code as the bazaar but only allow certain types to be sold. These should be actual stalls with dudes who you use like a bazaar - not &%€#! terminals.

Also - to stop people filling up the bazaars with adverts for vendors a "bulletin board" outside the starports would be super cool. To keep items trimmed down they would have to be viewed regularly and could be assigned a rating perhaps.

my 2 pennys worth....

Doh ... missed a bit

Having types of bazaars then means you could do a top level filter on something else other than type of item, ie Price for generic stuff, pistol,rifle,carbine,TKA,1h,2h for weapons, level for meds, etc etc etc.

Geez!!There is a lot of interest in this subject, and I can certainly see why.

Master Merchant here, and this is my 2 credits worth.

#1 Bazaar cap raise- It looks like the majority of players see this as a good thing. As a Master merchant, I see this as another begining of the end for the merchant class. If players can sell their own things on the bazaar, then what need is there for a merchant. You argue that 6K is nothing, and that most items that are player made sell for much more than 6k. Believe me...you will see player made things come to the bazaar very quickly. Tailors already sell much of their clothing items for less than 6k, Architects sell much of their furniture, a few harvesters, and small houses for under 6k. I see weapons, (not the best, but pretty darn good weapons) on the bazaar already for 3K, and if the limit goes to 6k, you will see more. You think that this won't happen? I can assure you that if an armorsmith, or weaponsmith sells something now for 10K, 75% of them will lower their price to 6K to put the item on the bazaar. It is simple econimics. If the player can make 5 sales a week from a vendor that is not listed on the map, then if he can cut his price by 50%, and sell 15 items a week, he will make the same amount of money, or more, with the expanded visibility of the bazaar, he can actually expect to make MORE than that. If a player vendor is only visited by 100 people in a week, (which is a dream to most artisan vendors) then he can get his products in front of 3000 people every DAY... which way would you go?!? A bazaar is exactly that, a place for you to find cheap items, used equipment, and small amounts of tradeable goods. It is not called E-Bay, or Walmart! I don't go to a flea market and expect to be able to buy top quality merchandise for next to nothing, so why do so many people think that the Star Wars Bazaar should be any different? It is called the bazaar and I think that it should stay that way.

I know that everyone is thinking...just being a whiner merchant! Well that may be true, but all I'm trying to do is save the merchant class from another setback. We did without planetary advertising for a VERY LONG TIME. We have nothing in the way of business tools to use, in connection with our vendors. There are people out there that are using the abilities granted to merchants, and have given up all of their merchant skills. (the retention of mulitple vendors, without having even 1 point of merchant skill) It is sad. I had a RL friend who opened his holocron, and it said Master merchant. I was laughing hysterically, and he wondered why. He has played merchant for 2 weeks, and he understands now. He keeps telling me that the merchant class sucks. Well, I don't agree with that. I have a great time playing Merchant. He complains about the amount of time it takes to manage 3 vendors. Well, I laugh, and ask him why he doesn't have more vendors, to gain experience faster. He tells me he can't keep up with the ones he has got!!!The point is that it takes a dedicated person to be a good merchant. You can see the people that do a good job, (lots of items on their vendors,with honest advertising) and you can tell the people that are just trying to get to management 4 so they can place their vendors, and then give up the skill. (vendors with 100 low level stimpaks on them) The worst of them are the Holo-vendors. People that are trying to get master merchant, for their Holocron promised Jedi slot.(vendors with few, or no items at all on them)

The fact is, if you make the Bazaar more accessible to everyone, then you are taking away opportunities from the player vendors. It is as simple as that. Noone wants to see their goals put farther away from them, and this change will do just that for would be merchants.

#2 Thankfully, I agree with most players on this point...BAD IDEA. I think that this goes hand in hand with what I said above. You will be taking away opportunities from player vendors. I regularly carry over 200 items on all of my vendors. (or try to) If I will be limited, then I will lose business. I try to be one of the good merchants, and have whatever you might want available on my vendor. That means that I carry a LOT of inventory on my vendor. By limiting this, you will squeeze the merchants down to nothing. I have vendors on several planets, and they all carry a wide range of goods. I do NOT specialize in any one thing. All it will do is make my vendors that much less appealing to shop at. I have developed a good customer base, and frequently see the same people back, or have been referred to me by others. If you want to change anything about vendors, then make the pages longer. Make it so that you can see 300 items on the first page. Then players won't have to go searching for the "next page" button. I know for a fact that at least 50% of the people that come to my vendor, don't even know that there IS a second page. They click on the vendor, and expect to see all that the vendor has to offer. That is how it is supposed to work!!

Fix this, and many other vendor problems, before you try to take something away. Sony is making so much money from this and other games, they can spend a little more money to fix their database, rather than fixing the player base. It can't be that hard to do. The bazaar has been a problem since its inception. That tells me that the problem is not with too many players, it is with not enough flexibility, and stability in the bazaar system as a whole. Start there, and fix that, and your other problems will start to fade like a cheap pair of jeans in the wash.

raising the bazaar limit to 6000 is not a bad idea. it would make resource transferring go a lot faster. of course the fool that sells 1 unit of carbonite ore for 3000 credits can now double his price...

150 item cap per vendor is an atrociously stupid idea. I have 6 vendors that are not even close to that limit, so I myself will not be overly effected by this. But there are some merchants that are the sole retail outlet for their entire PA or even town. There are also people that can actually move large quantities of sales through their vendors that will now have to live on top of the vendors to keep them stocked. These merchants have obviously toiled their ways into a good solid reputation of being able to provide good product at good prices. Do the devs feel that they are performing poorly if they don't swing that heavy 47 lb. Nerfbat around just for the sake of swinging?

And what about housing item limits? 75 items per lot allocated to a maximum of 250... Haven't you people figured out how to put more items into a house yet? I mean a character can legally carry 125 items on their person alone! (just did the quick math, so if I am short on that number, forgive me)

Imagine, you walk into walmart, and there are only 900 items total on the shelf....

"What the combat classes and kids don't understand (seems any who have agreed to the vendor cap in this thread haven't given any reason why, while the list is running for reasons not to) is they are not all important, without a commerce/crafting items market THIS GAME CAN'T CONTINUE... Would anyone in their right mind want to stock a vendor every 12 hours, as to not lose their reputatoin due to having empty vendors?"

Combats classes and kids - support the crafters now in this stupid idea of vendor cap, post in this thread to say no.

If you dont, you try finding a good crafter and somewhere to buy your weapons, clothes, houses and everything else YOU TAKE FOR GRANTED ! - most of us will not be able to offer a decent range, I would rather not offer anything if I cant offer what my customers EXPECT.

Help us to continue our service to you - say NO.

Urzy

Master Tailor

Valcyn, Coronet, 170 -5760

I think the vendor cap idea in general is not a bad idea, BUT:

1) 150 items is definetly too less for most serious crafters, altough I don't reach the 150 in my vendor normally. In my opinion 300 items would be a nice "starting"-cap.

2) please do not move the ability to have vendors into the merchant tree. I am a quite successful Master Tailor, but I don't wanna be ONLY Master Tailor. I need a vendor to sell my items and I don't wanna put6 or more skill points into merchant only to be able to have one. I wanna do other things like exploring the galaxy, have fun with my freinds in raids and hunts. If you force me to become an almost Master Merchant how should I do this?

3) If you move the vendors to the merchant profession...what will be thebusiness skills be good for? only as a way to get to Merchant?

Bazaar Cap is a bad idea.

People think about this for a minute... if you sell resources then yes the 6k cap would help somewhat. But what about those of us (apparently in the minority), who sell items for around 6k, that would effectively put some of us out of buisness or force us to sell on the bazaar. I haven't sold items on the bazaar since I was a newbie. The bazaar is supposed to be for newbie players not advanced players and professions.

Plus, with the increased cap alot more activity will be back in the major cities causing even MORE LAG. Coronet is already a lag nightmare for anyone who tries to escape from the starport. Think about the impact of more players selling more items on the bazaar in those popular/overcrowded cities?

Another thing I wouldn't be able to keep the 25 item limit in stock at all times. For a tailor who sells most of their items at about 6000 credits or under, our class would be screwed and forced into the bazaar nightmare or forced outta buisness.

I think the bazaar should be removed completely or branched out to player cities. Let Master Merchants place a bazaar terminal in their city and then increase the cap to 6000 in player cities but keep the bazaar in non-pc cities at 3000 and keep those soley for newbie players and players who don't care about the economy. That would give player cities a boost in buisness and traffic to their cities while hopefully reducing lag in the majorly overcrowded cities like Coronet.

Think about the bazaar cap before agreeing to it. I think its going to hurt instead of help. The other option is to increase the cap on certain items like resources while maintaining the cap of 3000 for other goods (like clothes).

One of TH's justifications for the vendor cap: "actually hurts sales in many instances because most players don't "drill down" through all of the vendor pages to find items. "

DOESN'T THE BAZAAR HAVE MULTIPLE PAGES, TOO????

I like the idea of raising the cap on the bazaars...

But as for putting a cap on the vendors... no way...

Can we put a cap on how many armor an armorsmith can make...

What about a weaponsmith...

All these proffessions cost the same skill points...

Cap... no way...

I shouldn't have to comment on such a ridiculous notion of raising the bazaar to 6000.

At first glance 6000 for the bazaar does seem better right? I even had to rethink this 6k increase. It would hurtmanyof the players that sell items in this range. So,NO on this increase.

Next, the item lowering for vendors to 150.

This is even worse to the have to give my input on this topic (dont i do enough with my money, paying forthis game and now your taking my time for this,Im responding to such an idea because youTH believe it is necessary so I shall.).

I hardly believe this second idea was considered by the development TEAM. A ....TEAM right? As such wouldn't you discuss proposed plans (such as this one) to get each others(real) input before bringing it to thepublic?

But now I am on this screen typing so. NO, I DO NOT SUPPORT THIS VENDOR ITEM DECREASE TO 150 ITEMS.

It will cause peoplewhopay their current money a month to leave this game.

It will cause players to drop there Merchants,

It will halt (the little) interaction with one another that we have now even more.

It will damage this game reputation to future paying customers(from word of mouth and chat rooms and in stores that carry it).

It will cause every player in the game to become more discontent at how there game play becomes more like work and not a game.

It will drop your games rating from reviews in online and news stand magazines

And if you require anymore comment feel free to reach me by email forI feel strongly on this subject.

NowI would like to try to make up the moneyI just lost by typing here instead of being in the game. By going backinto whatI pay for.

TheGame.

Thank You.

Elorraso.MA,Merchant 4/4/1/4