Development Cycle Archive
Thread: ID#2: Two Changes to Bazaars and Vendors
150 items on a vendor is perfectly reasonable. A Master Merchant has 7 vendors so 7*150, 1050 items can be stocked
Master Merchants should get an advantage relative to Business 3 or Novice Merchant - at the moment it's barely worth the skill points
Another advantage is that players might be more discerning. Many merchants sell junk for 1000 credits - broken datapads and stuff. Some quality control, with players having to delete items enhances the game, imo
It also balances the mega merchants with everyone else. Someone who has been a Master Weaponsmith 6 months, rents 200 harvesters and has skills tapes can easily stock every weapon in the game and cut new Weaponsmiths out of the loop. This will provide market opportunities for newer crafters
Lastly it seems to bring storage for people with vendors into a much fairer line with people who don't have vendors. Many players have been abusing the vendor system forunlimited storage
It's still a lot of storage: 150 in a house, 100 in bank, 50 in backpack, up to 50 in droids and 60 in inventory is a lot of stuff
On the bazaar issue I don't think increasing the price cap to 6000 matters. Most players have been turned off and won't come back to buying on the bazaar.
If there is anything that needs to be addressed regarding thebazaarsystemit is this:make itso that when an auction hits the price cap the sale is complete. Too many people put things onto the bazaar as auctions with no intent of ever letting the item go for the price cap. I've ran into this on several occasions, I don't think it was the dev's intent for the bazaar to be used as a fishing pool.
On the item cap, it is a bad idea. There are vendors that people can depend on because the merchant is keeping the stock up. You will only make it more of a headache not more of a challenge to both the merchant and the customerby implementing this kind of cap. Please reconsider your actions with respect to the vendoritem cap.
VENDORS CHANGE
I think a good way to do with vendors is allow vendors to load large crates into a vendor. Then there would be two method of sales:
(1) single item: pulls one item from a crate
(2) bulk purchases: allow the owner of the vendor to determin price break points, and the vendor would "split" a smaller crate from a larger crate
Here's a thought. Allow 150 UNIQUE items per vendor.
If a player puts a crate for sale, have a pop-up ask if the sale is per item or for the whole crate.
Something else, the option to sell resources per unit, instead of in lots. If this were available on the bazaar, some miners might be willing to dump their whole loads on the bazaar, with fixed and reasonable per-unit prices, and crafters could buy what they wanted.
As it is, sellers have to sell several lots of 1k apiece to get 3cpu.
Perhaps make auctions a merchant only ability, such like the premium auctions.
Even better make premium auctions a skill gained at Advertising IV or Master Merchant even (since at current Master Merchant gains nothing execpt 1 extra vendor option) and REMOVE all limits on the premium sales and auctions
no to raising bazaar prices
Why: effectively making merchant an even more less desirable class.
no to lowering vendors to 150.
Why: Make it to hard to sell things in quantity, gee tanks. I sell many items. Even with 6 vendors, the stock i put in numbers over 150 to give the buyer a real selection to choose from. Hopefulley they are impressed enough to shop there again. Having 150 means they get less choice! Boo!
Why nerf merchant....? Makes no sense...Horrible class to begin with, but neccessary to actually sell things for over 3k.
well .. lets see where to start .. so many different opinions 
ok so first .. i think the raise in the bazaar cap is a good idea although again 6k might still be a bit low .. bazaar is useful if you dont want to have to jump on your speeder and head 7000 meters in one direction just to get to a vendor who it turns out is empty
Bazaars are useful since they are in the normal towns .. the only thing i have against them is the long loading times usually associated with them .. sometimes it can take upwards of 10 mins to access them if you are able to at all. Not too sure what can be done about this but oh well
the second question of the vendors .. i really dont see how 150 can not be enough for some people .. and the idea that some people want somewhere between 500 and 1000 items PER vendor ??!!?? .. thats absurd ..
You want more items ? .. work your way up the merchant tree like everyone else, ive very rarely come across a vendor with over 100 items on .. i really couldnt be bothered looking. I think 150 is an ok figure and if you want more .. get more vendors.
Well .. feel free to flame this post since its just my opinion and no one says you have to agree hehe
Later
Krista/Elyssa (Bria)
A couple of more things you could do.