Development Cycle Archive

I agree with both in essence.

1. Should be done by server since all the economies are different. You've got to know how much cash is changing hands so you should be able to calculate it from there.

2. This would make the merchant class useful (which is presumably what its there for). What I disagree with is doing it in one patch you need to give people time to migrate thier skills to match what they need or auto migrate them for them (although I guess this would annoy the merchants who spent the time getting the class the normal way).

I do like the pricing cap being raised on the bazaar, however, I do believe placing an item limit on Vendors... a very bad idea. My main character is a jack of all trades in the artisan prof. She keeps a variety of items from all areas on her vendors at all times. I cannot fully stock items with a cap of 150. There would be no way! I keep up to 500 items on one vendor at a time, and have at least 3 vendors. My factory crates are my biggest sellers with all the holosmith's out there... I have to keep at least 200 crates of synthetic cloth up at all times or I start getting complaints from my regulars. Bad Idea this vendor item cap is.

Savai

Alistria Lolen--Tempest, Dantooine

I opened my new vendor yesterday.
I opened it with 242 items of stock - I'm rapidly building all the different schematics to maintain a good array of medic needs.

I've sold 47 items in under 24hrs.


This is a new vendor. I have no repeat customers. I have told my friends not to use it (I'm aware they'll most likely buy half of whats there and I'd rather not run the stock down that fast). I havent advertised that a small discount is available to guild members - making the prices pretty **edit** amazing for them.


I expect to shift 250 - 500 items per day.
I can't do that if I sleep and work, but play 6hrs per evening.
500 items out of 1000 is half my planned stock.

A 150 item limit is restrictively absurd.

The benefit of the merchant tree is advertising, number of vendors, vendor fees and bazaar fees. They also get those nifty merchant tents.

Don't detract from the non-artisan player investing 24 points to get a single vendor.

how about this for an idea?

tie in ALL vendors to the bazaar.... after all. it is a market. make it so we can see whats on that vendor 12km from town instead of driving alllllll the way out there to find out its empty. then if there is what we are looking for on it we could buy it from the normal bazaar terminal and go out there to retrive it.

but first i suggest you add some sort of warning about factiond cities, then FIX SOME OF THE BUGS IN THE GAME THAT HAVE BEEN HERE SINCE BETA !!!

oh sorry dont want ya thinking tooo hard.

*Re-post for those that missed it (My Service to the community)*

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.

Are you NUTS ?

Seriously!!

Raising the cap will just let exploiters who are selling junk 1 units of ORE for 3000!

Raising the cap will just let exploiters who are selling containers that mucked up on slice for 3000!

Raising the cap will just let exploiters.... The list can go on and on.

DON'T RAISE THE CAP AND PUT THE GAME FUTHER INTO THE TOILET THAT IT IS CURRENTLY IN!

Fix the **edit** bugs within the game rather than mucking around with this working area!

I voteNO on the Bazaar price limit increase.

I voteNO as well on vendor limit, I sell 30-50 items a day with my Tailor/Merchant character...and he is my secondary character. I play my main character on another server. If he was my main character I would probably sell over 100 items a day.

Ihave 4 vendors in my shop w/ 50- 250 on each vendor based on category of goods: Human clothes ,Wookie Clothes, Vehicles, etc.

This is a way bad idea. The reason I have factories is to produce large numbers of items. I have at anyone time like 200 vehicles for sale, plus lots of artisan and architech things like lights and furniture. You cap me on my vendor and you will be shutting down my business. Dont do this stupid thing please. If you must cap, then make the number much higher. Hey I know how about raising the item cap for houses.

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DND_Cas wrote:

I agree with both in essence.

2. This would make the merchant class useful (which is presumably what its there for). What I disagree with is doing it in one patch you need to give people time to migrate thier skills to match what they need or auto migrate them for them (although I guess this would annoy the merchants who spent the time getting the class the normal way).

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'Nerfing the ability of merchants to overstock because they're going to be away from the game for RL reasons, and making it so they have to restock everyday just to reduce the amount of time their vendor will be out of certain items will make the merchant class useful.'

Please explain this to me, like I was a two year old. I stock 900+ items on my 4 vendors, and I need to add another 100-200 items tonights (pistols & grenades). Thischange will handicap my reliability as a weaponsmith that always stocks everything he can (except Rocket Launchers). It will be worse for Tailors, Armorsmiths, and Chefs/Smugglers/Doctors, other crafts with larger varieties of products and/or that experience large bulk sales of various lot sizes.

I would vote "NO" on both items:

As a merchant, lifting the 3k limit on the bazaar would kill my business. If others want to earn big credits in commerce, they should sweat the merchant exp like I did. Perhaps a better idea would be to give higher level merchants the ability to sell items on behalf of players, like a broker. Players could go to their favorite shop and use a broker vendor to post items for sale up to 10k and the listing fee would go to the merchant. Call me greedy, but then again, most merchants are

As a merchant, I don't like the way the bazaar lets people see what's for sale in other cities or on other planets--merchants don't have the same visibility. Maybe bazaar browsers should only display up to the planet level.

The 150 limit on vendors doesn't make sense either--I can understand why there should be a limit, but 150 is way too low. Again, maybe the approach should be based on merit: the higher you are along the merchant skill line, the more items you can put for sale on your vendors.

As a noob, I like both those ideas. I think that with the way some of these folks throw around credits caps should be increased.Remember that just because caps increase, the price of individual items may not. The increase of cap means that I can sell 2k of resources instead of 1k. this lets me sell twice as much, and because there is a limit to how many items you can have on a bazaar at a time, this will increase my pre-vendor-skill income.

I also like the idea of limiting the quantity of vendors items. I have been to a few vendors where the title of the vendor says something like "weapons" and while there will be weapons on the vendor, they also have furniture or armor on it too. To the vendors who are having trouble keeping items in stock, basic economics should tell you to rasie prices. create a spreadsheet that gives you profit and sales data andtracks quantity at particular price level. this way you can optimize your production to match market demandand increase profitibility. flame me if you want, im a noob and i know that already.

I agree that the changes to the bazaar would be a good thing. It will open up the market to more items that players normally wouldn't sell with the 3k credit cap, but its still not too high that it will re-route traffic away from vendors.

Now on the vendor item cap... I think this is a big step in the wrong direction. I understand the reasoning behind it, but this will make the merchant profession far less appealing than it already is. With merchants in my city, we hold roughly 300 items at a time which need to be restocked every 1-2 days. With a cap of 150 items, our merchants would literally have to work a 4 hour shift DAILY just to keep them stocked. And as far as the high limit contributing to monopolies... this just doesn't make any sense for several reasons: In amerchant profession, those with the best wares at the lowest prices deserve to be the most popular and second, having a seperate vendor for each item class makes shopping a lot more complicated. One stop shopping is the best way to go, especially since you can browse each vendor by category already!

SUGGESTION:

If some sort of limit must be put in place to ensure the servers don't get overwhelmed with "technical issues" then put a cap on each category. Say75 items per category... or 15 per sub-category. This wouldeliminate the "monopolies" while still giving each merchant a level playing field.

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famousbarry wrote:

As a noob, I like both those ideas. I think that with the way some of these folks

(snip)

I also like the idea of limiting the quantity of vendors items. I have been to a few vendors where the title of the vendor says something like "weapons" and while there will be weapons on the vendor, they also have furniture or armor on it too. To the vendors who are having trouble keeping items in stock, basic economics should tell you to rasie prices. create a spreadsheet that gives you profit and sales data andtracks quantity at particular price level. this way you can optimize your production to match market demandand increase profitibility. flame me if you want, im a noob and i know that already.

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Please do not assume that because some merchants put a mix of items on mislabelled vendors, that all do so, because assumptions have a nasty way of reflecting poorly on you.

As far as prices go? There are reasonable prices, high prices, and keep them in stock prices. You're assuming that price is really a decision point on sales. In most cases by the time someone is buying heavily from private vendors, price has generally become the third decision point behind quality and availability. Even 'keep them in stock' prices don't generally turn off the person who HAS to have an LLC and can't find one anywhere.

Could I raise my prices? Certainly. But to get people to stop buying weapons from me, I would have to raise prices to a point that I would no longer consider 'fair value'. The solution to keeping a stocked vendor shouldn't be 'rook the customer'.