Development Cycle Archive
Thread: ID#2: Two Changes to Bazaars and Vendors
Thunderheart wrote:
The first change has to do with the Bazaar cap. The Bazaar cap is the dividing line between a convenient one stop shopping point for commodities items (commodities are things like food, medicine and other "pedestrian" items) and specialty items sold by crafters and merchants (specialty items are expensive items that are found in crafter shops and merchant tents).
Currently, the credit cap is 3000 and the development team is considering raising the cap to 6000 credits. Are you for or against this change? Why?
If I remember correctly, the bazaar cap was put in place to encourage players to take the Merchant profession, not as a dividing line between products sold. If this is still true, then the cap on the bazaar should still reflect this position. Personally, I don't see a problem raising it to 6k. But why 6k? Why not 10k or 20k?
Thunderheart wrote: The second item has to do with Vendors. Currently, there is no limit to how many items can be placed on a vendor. This causes technical issues, encourages monopolies and actually hurts sales in many instances because most players don't "drill down" through all of the vendor pages to find items. We want to solve the technical issues, discourage monopolies and make vendors easier to use. An item limit is going to be placed on vendors and that limit is intended to be placed on 150.
I understand the technical issues with unlimited vendor items (bloated database and looking for ways to lower the number of items in the game), but I don't understand your other points.
I have *never* seen a monopoly of items caused by vendors and I can't even fathom how this would occur.
Also, it has been my personal experience that players are quite comfortable with "drilling down." In fact, they are so pleased to finally come across a vendor that has more than 100 items (more selection) that they take the time to compliment me for it. As a Tailor, I have had well over 600 items on one vendor. I try to provide a selection of all items that a master Tailor can make in the most popular colors. A limit of 150 items will severely hurt my business and take away one of the things that make me stand out from other Tailors--good selection.
Now, having said all that, the question becomes how do you limit items while not hurting crafters like me? I think the answer lies is limiting certain *types* of items. How many times have you heard people complaining about the number of CDEF pistols? I can see no reason why the CDEF pistol, survival knife andfood (which no longer have stats anymore) each character starts with should be allowed to be put up for sale on the bazaar. Also, items that are bought by Junk Dealers should also not be allowed on the bazaar. If you must limit merchant vendors, I think 500 is a much more workable number.
I hope you will consider these suggestions.
I think that raising the cap on the bazaar is a good idea. I would even take it further and implement a sliding scale where you track the price of aset of goods that arecommodities and set the cap on a weekly basis based on the percentage increase or decrease on the price of that set. That way the bazaar price would be directly tied into the current "Value" of the credit.
Don't know much about Vendors. I'd say that if you want people to drill down into the different pages on a vendor that a better idea would be to implement a good search function for that vendor. Search by price range, item type (melee weapon, resource, etc), etc.
I would not expect to see large monopolies in the game because there are no barriers to entry for any crafter. The only thing I would expect to see is a large PA or city undercutting a small time crafters prices because they have the man power to harvest vast quantities of resources and thus sell at a loss until the little guy goes out. There are no suppliers that can be bargained with for lower prices ala Wallmart.
I don't think an item cap on a Vendor is going to do much against the large PA types that are probably the ones with the monopolies now. I would think that there are some things that can be done to limit monopolies.
1) Empire enforced price floors to prevent a PA from loss leading their items until the competition is out of business.
2) A limit on the type of goods a PA can offer. One PA may only publicly place one or two types of goods on their vendors. I think this would also have the effect of turning some PA's into guilds which might be fun.
3) Empire imposed Tarrifs for items above a certain amount on a vendor.
4) Empire enforced sliding taxation scale based on sales on a vendor.
etc.
Raising the cap isn't a terrible thing, I guess, but I would rather see some real changes for dealing with commodity items.. IE...
1. Factory Crates should sort to their proper folder, not all ago into MISC.
2. Allow the 3000c cap to remain, but make an exception for crates allowing a total charge of 3000c * total items in the crates. Providing a similar pricing model for resource stacks would be great as well.
The second item has to do with Vendors. Currently, there is no limit to how many items can be placed on a vendor. This causes technical issues, encourages monopolies and actually hurts sales in many instances because most players don't "drill down" through all of the vendor pages to find items. We want to solve the technical issues, discourage monopolies and make vendors easier to use. An item limit is going to be placed on vendors and that limit is intended to be placed on 150.
BAD BAD BAD BAD BAD.
First, I don't see where the hotbutton phrase "encourages monopolies" stuff comes from, but that is a bogus way to put it.
Again, going back to something I have said for ages and ages is I should be able to load a crate into a vendor and sell items out of it at a 1 at a time price, with the vendor popping them off as needed. This would help address DB problems in my store in a HUGE way, as stocking 50 or 60 of the same factory batch would drop the real item count signifigantly.
Secondly, even if the above was implemented, a cap of 150 is still way too low given the product mix I can sell.
1. Neither for nor against the bazaar change as I don't feel it will effect me.
2. I am against the 150ct cap. The reasons give didn't make much sense to me. I cannot fathom how it creats "monopolies" when anyone can craft items in this game. In addition, if an individual doesn't want to "drill down" isn't that their own choice? I do know know what the "technical issues" are, but if they are related to the number of items on vendors I would appreciate more of an explanation to help me better understand a need for a 150 item cap. I am a new MDE and I also sell resources, so my vendor personally ranges from 80 to about 200 items at a time.As I have no desire to be a merchant, or go up that tree, I can only have one vendor, one of the bulky types. I would rather see the initialization bug worked on, instead of time wasted on capping.
Thanks,
Epas, Shadowfire
Your proposed changes once again penalize the merchant (and artisan business path) profession, while making it easier for everyone else to sell things.
Merchant is already an incredibly poor excuse for a profession. The 150 item limit would render it yet more so. Vendors who do stock well, will sell out quickly resulting in even more empty vendors and just drive people away. Don't hurt the merchants with this change. It will drive many out of business.
I'm opposed to raising the cap on the bazaar in general. Merchants only benefit is a vendor and you are making the bazaar closer to that. I do understand that it would be nice for a higher limit for players to sell off a small house or something.. and i'm ok with that.
BUT IF YOU RAISE THE BAZAAR PRICE CAP, DECREASE THE ITEMS THEY CAN PLACE TO 5.
DO not even let the bazaar begin to resemble a merchant vendor. If you raise the cap you come closer to circumventing real merchants... so if you do it, DECREASE THE ITEMS one can place on the bazaar.
Posting 25 items for sale at higher cap might as well let these people have merchant and vendors, but just not spend any skill points.
Don't make my master merchant worthless which it almost already is.
Fine let somebody sell a house for 10k on the bazaar, but only give them 2 slots to do it instead of the 25.
MAKE MERCHANT VALUABLE TO HAVE SPENT SKILL POINTS ON.
i think the vendor cap is an absolutely atrocious idea, and IMHO, it seems a 'quickfix' (our devolpers at work do these all the time) to a problem that needs more detailed attention. IE the database is giving people horrible lag in some places on many servers.
That being said, 150 items will mean that vendors are constantly out of stock, the crafters that make the items will be flooded by a NEW batch of /tell hell asking them why thier vendors are not stocked.
so basically the limit is not the problem, but the idea of 150 is insane.
it needs to be multiplied by ayt least 10
ok this idea is bad the bazaar thing is ok but man vender with a limit of 150 are really really really really really really bad...
ok i a armor smith soooo do some math for me i have 6 venders = 900 items ok now lets say i stock 20 sets of armor in deffent colors so 40 sets = thats 360 ok thats fine but thats only 1 type of armor now lets do 20 sets of padded in how many posible colors'''?
i will admint to using venders as storage but my storage vender only has lets see like 100 items so wont bother me much but malls will not have room for 30 venders in it...
as for people like stryker i really dont care if they get all the sales in the world but they also buy all the supplys they can get there hands on driving the price crazei for the small guy.. so a limit is nessarary but i would say 250-400 is more inline as for sliced armor it will go away for room on my other venders and so will my psg vender... i will be forced to just stock composit armor and only composit armor..
Bazaar limit should be at least 10k. Any higher limit would be welcomed by me.
Man I wish every time I came to a vendor they were full with 150 items! I been hitting a lot of vendor that are on the world map that are empty or have very few items on the vendor. The 150 limtit is find by me, but I'm not a merchant. One thing I would like to see is a way to remotely view a vendor that's listed on the world map. I just hate going on a whild goose chase. Even on a swoop bike it's a pain in the ass.
Limiting the vendor items will only make it HARDER to find items on vendors.
2 ways to have a merchant vendor
1) (the way it SHOULD be done) Someone is a Merchant, they make an arrangement with a crafter and sell THEIR items.
2) That single vendor then stocks many different items. Although some do it that way (good for them) the way many do it is to be a crafter and have a vendor themselves only stocking their own items.
If you lower the vendor cap you will be almost forcing the the second way. How can a single merchant go about creating a "Walmart" store with a lot of different items for a lot of different crafters with such a low limit?
Please do not put in a vendor cap. Have you ever tried selling furniture? When i didi had over 4 pages of it on my vendor, and it sold FAST.
I, for one, like to put TONS of stuff on my vendor so I dont have to worry about restocking for a few days. I know a lot of crafters that do this also.
Imagine lets say an armorsmith, i fairly well known one. He has vendors on naboo, correlia, and in a player city on Dantooine. This person takes pride in quality merchandise and therefore sells out very quickly. So what he likes to do, is make a factory runs of all the pieces of armor to stock up all the vendors. And he does, and he puts maintenence in his vendors and now he is set for a week. He can go out and enjoy the game more.
BUT, now with this vendor cap, what can he do? Put a limited amount of armor on his vendors so he has to check his vendors every day to restock them. Not fun. I must say I enjoy crafting, I like running a business, but once in a while i need a break. This cap justs makes me have to sit at home and constantly refill vendors.
Bad idea, please dont do it.
As for raising the bazaar price limit, i think its fine the way it is, but many people seem to want it raised. Im go for whatever happens there.
I would love to see the Bazaar cap raised to 6,000 and I agree with the vendor item limit of 150.
I totally love having this kind of feedback & participation in my favorite game. Thanks!