Development Cycle Archive
Thread: ID#2: Two Changes to Bazaars and Vendors
I think though, that the merchant limits should be based on some tree of merchant skill, rather than a hard 150. And give them at least 2 pages (200 items). Maybe 1 page per level of merchant in whatever tree? I dunno.
I'm a master weaponsmith on Starsider, and I produce weapons primarily to people that are either guildmates, residents of our player city Mos Nevah or regulars that like to visit our town (we are right next to the Squill Caverns and Tusken bunker). I probably do a million in weapon sales per week. I hardly ever advertise on the trade boards, I get more than enough business as it is.
In order to help people find what they want quickly, I have place six vendors and named them:
Heavy Weapons - Grenades - Mines
Pistols - Rifles - Carbines
Melee Weapons
Sliced and Specialty Weapons - Resources
Powerups - Tools - Parts
Factory Crates - Pet Supplies - Misc
In order to keep up with sales, I have to have between 200-1200 items per vendor stocked. Or about 25-75 of each type of idividual item. If I wanted more business and advertised more aggressively, I could easily double that number. But that would mean I would spend the majority of my time in the game tending to restocking the vendors and that isn't acceptable.
I don't have the time to micro-manage my vendors to try and keep them in stock, which is what will happen with a 150 item limit. I would be forced to only stock 5-15 of each item so that they would all fit. Then I would have to micro-manage my sales to be sure I restock as soon as the inventory level drops to below 3 items.
Instead of driving your players away, why don't you try to fix the vendors? A vendor user should be able to sort the inventory by name/category and then select letter R and see the first 100 items that start with R. But it doesn't surprise me that the un-developers have yet to be able to implement this feature. The ability to programmatically build a database query based upon the users selection of parameters seems to be beyond them.
If the un-developers lower the vendor limit to 150 items max, it will be the end of my weapon crafting profession. The day they patch it in will be the last day I continue to be a crafter, with a strong possibility that I will cancel my account. A large amount of account churn will happen in the crafting community on that day.
to quote Doc Savag,. regarding the 150 item limit on vendors:
This is not desigend to help anyone. This change is to limit the number of items in the vendor database. That is it. All of it.
I for one am partially against the bazaar raise as people are already filling the bazaar with low quality crap at the top prices. This is just going to encourage them which will also destroy any economy that has started their should be an item price cap like a CDEF Rifle should be no more than 500 to be realistic no 3000 as some are trying to pedal them
Dag_Benhameen said it so well. I'm a tailor too, and I would find the item limit of 150 on vendors crippling to my selection as well, and I specialize in only women's clothing. I currently run five vendors: two for clothing, one for furniture and two for weapons. The weapons vendors I run on consignment, playing out my MERCHANT role. Given the proposed change, I would have to consider giving up my second crafting profession (so I could have two more vendors) or no longer playing as a middleman merchant, so that I could carry a decent selection of clothing on the five vendors I'm currently allowed. As Dag said, for tailors it's all about selection.
Dag_Benhameen wrote:
Vendor caps need to be AT LEAST 300 (though if this HAS to happen I'd vote 400). I'm a tailor. Besides hundreds of different possible items I can offer there is a multitude of color options for each. I run 6 vendors (each selling a different catagory of clothes) and as it is it's easy to keep afew hundred items on each and not even come close to offering even a fraction of what's available or possible.
Maybe other professions don't need the space as much (yeah, we probably don't need 50 of the same mass produced Modern End Table in that architect's vendor) but 150 items would seriously cripple my selection. It's hard enough competing as a tailor (even with clothes decay) but limiting me that much would just be painful.
I make every item in my vendors by hand (well, virtual hands) andI never know what a customer is going to want so selection is my best weapon in the market. Please, don't make my life a living"/tell" hell by making every customer have to make a custom order because they couldn't find what they were looking for on myvendor.
Feisen
The vendor thing I feel is a bad idea. If its a database issue, than there has to be a bettter way to fix it. The monoply issue is *way* to big to fix by nerfing this way. Simply put, there are much, much easier and better ways to curb things like that than limiting vendor items.
I dont personally see the logic in this. I personally, have went through hell to get my vendor/house being a non-grinder (thus not making the uber-money yet) and if I got dropped down to 150 items, Id be screwed.
All this is going to do is hurt the lower skilled Artisans of all stripes. The big players have multiple accounts, guilds, and other ways to still offer up their high priced goods. It'll be nothing more than an annoyance for a few weeks. People that are running small outfits with decent sized customer bases or ones that need to carry a mix of stuff (like people that specialse in powerups...wow they would be screwed) are going to suffer.
My .02
aaron
But the vendor cap?? I have a vendor in each of my retail locations, all of them well-stocked (way more than 150 items). I learned from an excellent master merchant early on that a well-stocked vendor was the key to customer retention. Repeat customers are everything, and repeat customers are well aware that there's a "next" button.
The endemic issue with vendors is that most of the ones I go to are empty, but your solution would punish every merchant who pours a ton of effort into keeping a good inventory available for customers.
A well stocked weapons vendor with guns, melee items, powerups, and munitions should have about 300-500 items on it.
Please find another way to fix your exploit problem that isn't so overtly unfriendly to merchants.
I like the bazaar change, however as a master weaponsmith I think the proposed vendor cap is TOO LOW! I run a moderate to small sized buisness (IMHO) and have been doing so for several months. There is no way I could offer a good selection of weapons with such a low item cap. The cap would force me to remove much of my stock from the vendor (where do I put it? you haven't fixed the housing item issue yet!) reducing the quality of my vendors and service while making by buisness more of a chore and much less fun to run.
I only stock 10-15 of each type of weapon I have and I currently have around 600 items on my vendor.
CorenLanra wrote:
That idea would work for many but not me, I stock 400+ sliced weapons every few days, can't pt those in crates
.
And when I do stock things, I ususually have 1 crate sliced somtimes 2. You are talking just 6 sets of weapons that are possible to be on the vendor at any given time. Rediculous.
As for this "monopoly" stuff.. All i have to say about that is if you got the best stuff people will buy it. Limiting a weaponsmit that has enough resources to put out 400 weapons every 3-4 days to just selling 150 a day (yes somtimes i sell 2-300 weapons in 24 hrs) is just not fair. We work hard to get to the point we can mass produce and crushing it with a 150 limit is enough to make _me_ not want to bother keeping my vendor stocked. So if crushing a monopoly is waht you want, you'd get it by setting it at 150 items, why not just set it at 100 items so nobody _ever_ has to open a 2nd page?
Stettin,
You make a good point on the whole sliced thing. I totally understand that; it's a point well taken. I certainly wasn't advocating a 150 limit, I was just saying that this would help. As far as selling a lot, I sold 200+ weapons on Sunday (you're vacation sure helped 
). One day, 200 weapons, and I'm not even considered an "elite" crafter on our server. But I definitely wouldn't call Stettin a monopoly or Coltt. They both sell a ton, but I can still do well, even with them just 1000m away.
Just takes finding the right resources, and putting up stuff at decent prices. Again, I'm totally against the 150 limit, 500 to 1000 seems more reasonable. I just thought SOE could help themselves with this idea from a DB perspective.
no idea if anyone official is even going to read this carefully
raise price cap on bazaar: YES. inflation means I haven't put any merchandise there for quite some time now. the increase will at least allow more items on the bazaar.
limit on vendor items: NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. Such a BAD idea. As it has already been said before, this will mean a lot more empty vendors and more stress on the crafters to monitor their vendors everyday! As if we didn't have enough things to do... what with tending harvestors, actually crafting, and dealing with custom orders... to have to worry about restocking (an always dreaded exercise as it is) everyday would mean I'm picking up a sword and everyone can kiss this crafter good bye!
So PLEASE rethink this.
