Development Cycle Archive
Thread: ID#2: Two Changes to Bazaars and Vendors
Ok,
This will probably be rated as unconstructive and a rant, but please consider this:
PLEASE FIX ALL KNOWN BUGS BEFORE EVEN THINKING ABOUT CHANGING GOOD WORKING GAME MECHANICS DAMMIT!
There, said it...
raise it even higher.
also take out auctions. they are silly. people only use them as adverts.
also make stuff searchable. example. i want a laser rifle.... I type in laser or rfile etc. instead of going to weapons rifles etc.
fix the search whole planet / whole galxaxy stuff does not show up properly
Bazaar Change: I like it. Some people aresaying that if the cap is increased people will just sell the same quantity at double price... Well, maybe at the beginning of the change. But you are not stupid, right? Just dont buy to those guys!! I think that raising the cap limit will open the bazaar market to new products aswell... good idea for me 
Vendor Change: I'd like this one if the limit would be a bit higher... 300-500 maybe. You want more items? Place another vendor. From my point of view this change will add meaning to the Hiring tree of the Merchant profession.
Ellesa - Droid Engineer - Merchant - Visit my store in Mos Nox, Ahazi
Thunderheart wrote:
Draznar wrote:
I want to expand on my idea to tie vendor item limits to Merchant Skill. I think that the limit should be as followed:
- Bus 3 = 50
- Bus 4 = 100
- Novice = 150
- Man 1 = 200
- Man 2 = 300
- Man 3 = 400
- Man 4 = 500
- Master = 1,000
This is an idea I like too. I shared the idea with theLead Designer and he likes this idea too.
The thing here is to implement it right away means that as a merchant goes up in level, it wouldnt automatically upgrade in numbers. If you gained a new merchant skill box which unlocked more slots, you would have to create a new vendor. We'd be able to add an automatic check and upgrade in the future, but it wouldnt be for a long time.
Even still, I think its a great idea to add this ability in. I dont know what the max numbers would be yet though Ill ask.
Which would really stink for long-term players.
Why? Because the planetary map lists vendors in the order they were created, not the order in which they were registered or have anything to do with merchant skill. So there goes any seniority your vendor may have had.
While the idea is okay, forcing people to move vendors while they are gaining skill is a pain in the behind - and every person who uses a vendor knows it.
Since this is the second time you have attempted to design around the problems inherent in vendors, perhaps it's time to rewrite thedesign andcode from scratch - charging comission on items didn't work, and a system that makes being a merchantMORE tedius is just going to make the profession even less attractive than it is now.
Finally, in order to make merchants valuable, you are going to have to broaden there abilities in terms of consignment/etc. If you are going to start penalizing crafters who don't have merchant, you need to provide a convenient way for them to sell on other merchants vendors without simply trading your wares away and hoping for the best.
So I guess you can take this as a "no" vote for this idea - especially if you can't get around the technical hurdle of needing to switch vendors every time your skill goes up - which in the numbers above would be impossible past a certain point (since you cannot carry more than 160 items, and that includes droid storage).
It sounds like you want to complicate up the waters to cover up for design flaws (people storing items in vendors, etc.) - instead of punishing us because you didn't do it right in the first place fix the underlying system so we can move on to more important things.
Audio
Robins wrote:I too think the 150 item limit to vendors is a bad idea. If theres a problem with the database now, what will happen with expansions and items that get added to the game? Fix the database if it cant handle it. Dont take things away thats not a fix.
My suspicion is that the true problem is a political one, not a technical or even financial one. If, as seems to be the case, the underlying problem is that the database *design* can't handle the game design, that's a major screwup on somebody's part. Primarily whoever SOE's Oracle consultants are, but also whoever hired them and signed off on their DB design. Fixing a database that's fundamentally flawed at the *design* level is a really major task, and when it's necessary to do something like that, it leaves a strong implication that the person responsible isn't doing the job.
Lots of little desperate "quick fix" attempts won't solve the underlying problem, but might save some peoples' jobs for a little while, and I think that's the reason we're seeing what we're seeing.
Thunderheart,
These both sound like positive changes to me. As a merchant, I'dLOVE to be able to place more expensive goods on the Bazaar. And I really don't see a need to have more than 100 items on a Vendor.
My concern is more with the current and future stability of the Bazaar/Vendor system.. or rather the lack thereof. Both have been down for extended periods on Bloodfin over the last few weeks. Is the limitation on vendor items intended in part to reduce the stresson the system and render it more stable?
The fundamental probelm is that everyone thinks that having 6 vendors from one merchant in a shop is a good thing. That this is the purpose of mutliple vendors. I personally think this a waste of materials. What if you have vendors placed across worlds with one vendor in each. That one vendor serves the purpose of selling your products whatever they are to that public. Traveling expenses aside, the shear task of visitng multiple worlds on a daily or twice dailybases makes your limits untenable. Not only that, but by imposing these size restrictions you havemost likely removed interplanetary commerce from the game.Because no one is going to spend all of their game time restocking vendors. You might as well remove the merchant professtion and with it all of the crafters that are also limited merchents from the game.
Most crafters take some limited merchant abilities in order to sell what they make. Some crafters find themselves being merchants more than craftersjust to continue crafting. Crafting is not cheap. It takes credits to make credits. Sometimes crafters are resource sellers and sometimes they are the buyers. So lets make it more difficult and limit the crafters abilities to sell their end products while making it easier to sell high ticket items like resources that require no more effort then finding them and laying a extracator down.
If you want to revamp the vendor system becuase of the difficulties in navigation then why not remove the 8 categories that have no items ever becuase they are elements of the game that you have either removed or restricted in such a a manner that the items can never be sold. The probelm is not ,nor has ever been that people complain about having to go through too many items. The problem is that with six vendors all specialized to serve a particular purpose it is nearly impossible to keep them all stocked simaltaneously. If you want to place a limit on the number of items in a vendor then build a tool that will auto stock from the warehouse.The limit should be something reasonable. 150 items is unreallistic. I sell over 50 crafting tools a day. Not to mention powerups, weapons, furniture, buildings and installation. I am not selling 150 items a day. I wish I were but I sell enough that I would never be able to do anything but tend the vendor.
If you are going to limit vendors then I also suggest that you increase everyones carrying capacity becuase everyone is either going to be carrying all of there stuff on their backs for sale or they are going to be hauling it from thier houses to their vendors. Either way it is going to take at least three backpacks worth or stuff to refill a vendor. Or haven't you thoguht about that. How is a merchent to populate a vendor. Now that you have precluded his ability to gradually build up a stock how are you going to assist him in stocking inthe first place.
You have come up with an excellent game. It is time you started thinking about how to imporve it programatically not via policy. Increasing the bazaar limit is a big mistake. While everyone will want to have the bazaar increased the problems with the bazaar cannot be addressed with this as a bandaid. The probelms are in the fundamental interface and simply adding a higher cap will only make the prices higher not change the problem. If you think that it is accidental that the current average rate for resources is 3cpu then you are blind. I can promise that within a week of your proposed change the new average cpu for resources will be 6.
Overall the whole problem is with the interface of the bazaar and vendors not with the system. You built a system that allows vendors to supplement a limited baazar. Now you want to limit the vendors too. So are you going to remove the cap25 on the bazaar. Is the next step going to be limiting the stockroom or are you simply going to say that the limit is 150 items including the stockroom.
Does the problem exsist or is it one of your choosing. I have not heard a single complaint in the last 6 months of playing that had anything to do with too many items on that vendor I am never going back there again. Quite on the contrary, it is the vendors that are constitantly stocked grouped with other vendors to offer one stop shops that get the best praise and the most respect and business from thier peers. Please do not make the mistake of moving blindly forward. Both of these items will hurt the economics of the game not help them. While I agree that there are economic elements that need work I would ask you think carefully before tipping over this cart. You may not like what roles out.
Elgen Celantra
Master Architect / Master Weaponsmith / Master Artisan Merchant 3412
An additional concern...
With these guy's track record of "asking the populace for thier opinion then implementing what everyone said NOT to"...
What happens to the items that folks with 500+ items on their vendors when you DO (and we know you WILL anyway) implement this? Are they just sh!t out of luck? Those of us with items vanishing from vendors know quite well your track record of replacing said items (as in, you DONT do it) - so the bazillions of dollars worth of "overstock" are just going into the bit bucket?
Way to encourage and support the vision of a player-based economy. To he|| with Costco, go go gadget 7-11?
Agree and Agree
I think though with Change 2, it will push some existing crafters out of combat and into merchant, or will make the merchants a more powerful class able to monopolise marketplaces a lot more (which is probably their role in the game anyway 
)
I agree with some others that the Bazaar cap should become 10k.
As to the vendors list I think 150 might be a bit too low (especially if you take into account color variations) But I'm not a merchant so I can't really debate about this but to me it seems you should atleast have 256 
They are pulling the same stunt they did with house caps. Sorry TH, I am really furious about this, else I wouldn't post twice within the same thread. I still haven't really calmed down.
Givingus a ridiculously small number to go crazy about just to lift it then to let's say 250 and appear as the knight in the shining armor. Andyou can even sell it well, sayingyou listened toyour customers.
Anything below 500 is an insult to people who, despitehaving been living with crafting associated bugs for 6 months (increase of harvester consumption in the early days when it *really* hurt, lost harvesters, missed items, etc.), were willing to contribute to the player-run economy.
Don't do it.