Development Cycle Archive
Thread: ID#2: Two Changes to Bazaars and Vendors
Ok ..
so it appears you are having problems with the database again.
You dont have a good design or did not plan on how many items you would force people to create in order to craft.
So now you want to limit those items again.
The idea that it is to stop "monopolies" is a joke. Being able to sell more then 150 items on a vendor does not create a monopoly. Being able to sell those items cheaper or better then others does. You basically want to force people to go by crap from poor crafters then from the best on the servers.
If you cap the vendor limits then you need to increase the storage capacity of the houses. It's ridiculous as it is. My medium house can only hold 3 times more then my backpack can. What the hell is that.
You will also get rid of allofthe ambiance that people have in their shops as they scramble for storage space.
Itis a bad bad idea that will surely make even more players leave this game. When my last two rl friends in this game leave I will be leaving also along with my wife and sons accounts. Your capping of theirvendors will pretty much insure their quitting.
XanEldarie wrote:
Just an example of "other avenues"..
http://fun.to/torr/
you all know Torr, he's that great master DE in Corellia. Like I said, this is an EXAMPLE (some of you are going to say, "I can't write HTML!).
Disclaimer: I am in no way associated with Torr and/or his business. If you happen to buy something, I will in no way recieve credit for the sale or commission of any kind. Torr and http://fun.to/torr/ his and his alone. This is for the sole purpose of example.
I'm sorry is typing in caps supposed to make you appear more sensible or your comments more valid? If so, I'm missing it.
Anyhow, I have a website where people can see every item I make, every image design I can do.. now tell me what is the difference between people ordering online on Torr's website and people looking at mine and sending mail orders in game?
Did I miss something? Because I can't see what that website has to do with anything.. this is not about how to help people send orders, believe me nobody has any problemdoing that, just have a look at my mailbox!
The issue here is VENDORS. Get it?!
Here is a problem I see with implementing both of these ideas.
Merchants will have less space on their personal vendors. At the moment, most Master Crafter/Merchants don't bother with the Bazaar because it is not only inconvenient, but not very profitable as well. Making the Bazaar profitable will steer most of these people who no longer deal with the Bazaar straight to it to make up for their lost space. If you thought the Bazaar was hard to load before... hold onto your socks on this one.
As much as I like both ideas, I am thinking this is going to cause more problems in the long run. Perhaps make a total cap of items you can sell instead of capping individual vendors... I know some people use all their vendors, but I would be willing to guess that the majority of Master Merchants only use a portion of the vendors they are allowed. This would give Merchants with only 1 or 2 vendors the ability to have the inventory spacethey want on a single vendor, and would still cap the overall system.
Anyways, those are my thoughts. Hopefully you will take them into consideration.
Very Respectfully,
Kung-Fu, Master DE/Master Artisan/Master Merchant, Chilastra Server
NJ_Ragman wrote:
Bazaar change = Excellent
Vendor change = Acceptable to me, but many are voicing strong dislike. It does sound like a database problem from what you're doing. Would this be due to the fact that people are storing thousands of items in the vendors stockroom?
Its not a single issue. When devs come to me and ask me what you folks are thinking, its usually because its a multi-faceted issue.
First off.. limit the stock room to 3 days time. If the items are not claimed within 3 days, then just make the vendor auto delete them.
For instance, if we auto-deleted items, there would be a hornets nest. Lets say you put some items on your vendor, intending to play SWG all weekend, then suddenly you get a phone call. Something really good or really bad has happened in your RL and you have to leave for the weekend. You either forget to pull things off your vendors or simply just dont have time because you have to rush out the door.
You return and valuable items are gone. *poof* You assume its a db problem or some other player guess and assume its a mistake when its not - - no good can come from that.
Even if you add in player messages and other sorts of safeguards, you'll still have mistakenly deleted items..
Vendor change = Acceptable to me, but many are voicing strong dislike. It does sound like a database problem from what you're doing.
I agree. It's still early to commit and we're still accepting community ideas, by Ithink we're going to make it so that as merchants gain skill boxes, they gain the ability to put more items on their vendors. The lower and upper caps havent been established yet.
DocSavag is a strong voice for the Merchants and based on the correspondent issues, this change may include the fact that only merchants can have vendors.
I am against both of these changes for the following reasons.
1. The Bazaar - By increasing the price limit on the bazaar you would in effect be DISCOURAGING interaction between players. Right now if you want to get a quantity of high quality resources, you have to find a miner, if you want a good gun you have to search out a weaponsmith. Nice clothes, find a tailor. If you increase the max price you increase the number of goods on the BAZ and reduce those player interactions required to find your goods. You also would be drawing people out of the player cities where vendors are migrating too, and this creates a whole slew of other undesirable effects. If you want to decrease player interaction, go ahead and increase the bazaar cap. But I suggest that you've already done MORE THAN ENOUGH HARM DONE TO PLAYER INTERACTION BY HOLOGRINDING. IF you want to make the BAZ more useful, then fix the Auction function. That would be more useful than incresing the price cap.
Isn't this game supposed to be about PLAYER interaction.
2. Vendor Caps - I personally have worked very hard to be one of the best stocked Architects on my server. I try to keep at least 5 to 10 of each type of harvester on my vendor, two to four of each type of house, and an assortment of furniture. A cap would make this impossible. On another Vendor, I keep crates of powerups, usually about 10 crates of each type, and given the number of possibilities on powerups, again, the cap would make this impossible to have a good selection. On another Vendor I keep Meds, Stims, WoundPaks, Disease Kits and the like, these items sell fast. And I keep singles and crates. This cap would make this impossible also. On another Vendor I keep Components, Vechicles, Resouces, Armor and all the other stuff a Merchant comes across.
IF YOU CAP the vendors what you'll be doing is forcing the crafters to sit there and refill them 2, 3, 4 or more times a day. When will we have time to play the other aspects of the game. How will we become a reliable source if people hit our Vendor and it's empty even though I filled it that AM. Are you trying to deal out another blow to the economy??? You've already flooded the market with low quality goods with Hologrinding, you've already increased the prices of materials because a bounty hunter gets a holo to master architect so he uses the practice mode to just vanish a bunch of material into points. Don't you want good crafters out there that are working to build a good economic model. Don't you want centers of commerce where playersm meet and buy and trade? Don't you want us to be able to explore and craft and participate in the GCW.
These proposed changes make me think that you as the devs want us to sit in the same place in the galaxy, pull out our four holocrons, and grind away. It seems like you are telling us not to go out and meet the other players, stay at home and fill our vendor because one person can swing by and buy 25 items at a time to stock up because he found what he needed. It seems like you want the market flooded with low quality goods. It seems like you'd rather have us navigate the bazaar terminals rather than search for what we want. It seems like you are trying to stifle the economy. Kill off those of use that want to build a reputation as a good crafter and just force us all to follow those STUPID HOLOCRONS to go be JEDI.
You're going against all the things this game was advertised as by introducing those changes. I'll never be able to run my business if you change the vendors. Because I do want to trek to the other planets to explore the content that is out there. But if it takes me an hour or more to get out there, I play there for another, I'll probably log there in a camp. Then explore there some more the next day. Then on the third head home to an empty vendor, and have a bunch of customers that will never come back because it was Empty for two days while I went off to another planet to explore.
IF YOU WANT TO FIX THE NEXTPAGE problem, make the Button Bigger, with bolder Text and make it a different Color than the rest of the page. Simply looking at the interface designs willsolve this problem.
Oh yeah, you don't seem to have a problem with the bazaar being multiple pages. That's Very Curious.
Well, I'll be looking at this issue, I beg you not to make these changes.
And I'm sorry to flame you a bit here, but anyone who has brought up the suggestions that there's any sort of monopoly in this game with regard to crafters must have failed Economics. I suggest that someone read up on what a Monopoly actually is before you offhandedly throw out a term like that. Crafters have no way to deny others access to materials in this game, they can't control the means of distribution, they can't force anyone out of the market, control labor costs or any other aspect leading to the evils of a Monopoly. Give a copy ofthe game to whatever person is in charge of accounting for the project. Let them play as a correspondent on TEST for a week. They'll confirm that in this game the creation of a Monopoly is IMPOSSIBLE. It really worries me that you threw this out there as a reason for these changes, it indicates that some serious groupthink is present in your organization. I suggest you look really hard at the team that made up these suggestions. It's obviously feeding upon itself and working up to a circular argument that can only mean future bad suggestions.
Thank you much for letting us input on this issue,
Jaye Mancoruf - Master Architect/Artisan/Carbiner/Politician
Trajen Mancoruf - Master Artisan/Master Medic/Master Doctor
XanEldarie wrote:
There are also other avenues of selling your products. Alot of merchants I know are starting to use the Trade forums more often, because it reaches more people alot faster and efficiently. Right? Even with tailors... I have this outfit, and the colors availible is this. Send me an email, and I'll make it for you ASAP. Boom! Quick sales. Outside that, you can only sell to those people who know where your vendor is. Another way of reducing the items on your vendor is through THE BAZAAR! Yippie!! Repetative items that sell for >6k can be placed on the global bazaar.
Giving us 25 extra sale slots. That certainly makes up for losing the ability to stock hundreds of items on a vendor. In all ways that are not anyway.
There are a million and one ways of reducing the number of items on a given vendor. It seems to me that some of you people are either totally blind to these avenues, or simply ignoring them for whatever reasons.
Or perhaps we simply know something about our particular businesses that you don't. It is remotely possible that I am more acquainted with the business model of a successful Weaponshop than you, as a Droid Engineer, are. Justpossibly.
Just because I know how an artificial limitation on my stock will affect my business and I disagree with how you think it will affect it, doesn't make one of us blind. And if it did, it certainly wouldn't be me.
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.
I would suggest spreading the increased cap limits across the different skill trees. Much like what you are doing with creature handlers and their skills. Otherwise, everyone will just go up the management tree and not do anything else. That way it will reward those that go up the various trees. Maybe increase the amount for each level or something.
Each level 1 = +25
Each level 2 = +30
Each level 3 = +35
Each level 4 = +40
Plus some bonus for master.
Yes but Thunderheart what about the fact that different crafts have different amounts available?
What is good for some is not good for others.. surely you must see that?
The gaining the amount you can put on vendors by gaining merchant skill thing is fine but for some it may not be.. for example a crafter who sells only a few expensive items such as houses and harvesters etc will not have to gain as much merchant skills as a we tailors will to be able to accomodate the amount of items we have to sell.. you're going to be forcing some professions to go more deeply into merchant skills (hence using more points) while others don't have to.
Don't get me wrong I have 3 full lines in merchant but some people may want to have a craft and still be able to do something OTHER than that craft as well.. all are not like me and happy to just sit back and sew all day 
Breigh wrote:
XanEldarie wrote:
Just an example of "other avenues"..
http://fun.to/torr/
you all know Torr, he's that great master DE in Corellia. Like I said, this is an EXAMPLE (some of you are going to say, "I can't write HTML!).
Disclaimer: I am in no way associated with Torr and/or his business. If you happen to buy something, I will in no way recieve credit for the sale or commission of any kind. Torr and http://fun.to/torr/ his and his alone. This is for the sole purpose of example.
I'm sorry is typing in caps supposed to make you appear more sensible or your comments more valid? If so, I'm missing it.
Anyhow, I have a website where people can see every item I make, every image design I can do.. now tell me what is the difference between people ordering online on Torr's website and people looking at mine and sending mail orders in game?
Did I miss something? Because I can't see what that website has to do with anything.. this is not about how to help people send orders, believe me nobody has any problemdoing that, just have a look at my mailbox!
The issue here is VENDORS. Get it?!
Yeaaahhh... You're dense. There were nocaps, and the large font was intended to draw attention; not to appear more important. Obviously, there are people that just skim through the thread. But I can see you like to use caps, you might want to apply that reason to yourself. Get it?! lmao
And, you are obvously missing alot of things. Your sense, for one. Self-awareness, another. Did you miss what I just said? Read again, you might just make it through kindergarden after all 
Oh, and if you have to point out your website like that, perhaps that's your problem. Kinda like having to point out the punchline of a joke; its not funny because its obscured in stupidity.
The Cap change for bazaar sounds like a good idea. But the vendor change is not. We have little enough room to store things. If I have to start storing factory runs of crates because my vendor is full not only will I lose money I will run out of room VERY quickly. I say NO on changing Cap for vendors.
Eola wrote:
XanEldarie wrote:
There are also other avenues of selling your products. Alot of merchants I know are starting to use the Trade forums more often, because it reaches more people alot faster and efficiently. Right? Even with tailors... I have this outfit, and the colors availible is this. Send me an email, and I'll make it for you ASAP. Boom! Quick sales. Outside that, you can only sell to those people who know where your vendor is. Another way of reducing the items on your vendor is through THE BAZAAR! Yippie!! Repetative items that sell for >6k can be placed on the global bazaar.
Giving us 25 extra sale slots. That certainly makes up for losing the ability to stock hundreds of items on a vendor. In all ways that are not anyway.
There are a million and one ways of reducing the number of items on a given vendor. It seems to me that some of you people are either totally blind to these avenues, or simply ignoring them for whatever reasons.
Or perhaps we simply know something about our particular businesses that you don't. It is remotely possible that I am more acquainted with the business model of a successful Weaponshop than you, as a Droid Engineer, are. Justpossibly.
Just because I know how an artificial limitation on my stock will affect my business and I disagree with how you think it will affect it, doesn't make one of us blind. And if it did, it certainly wouldn't be me.
People in all professions with enough wisdom to use all given avenues are doing well enough to not have vendors at all.
Reasons the AhaziTrade Boards are better than a vendor:
1.) It's free.
2.) It reaches alot more people alot faster.
3.) There's no cap, nor will there ever be one.
4.) People can discuss a given item prior to purchasing it.
5.) Other servers can "peek in". This is good (and bad) in many ways. But I won't go into that.
6.) No skill is required, outside intellectual prowess.
Need I go on?
The changes haven't been made. And this is for everyone, please stop complaining, because you all know the change is going to happen. A few people have already pointed out that the devs may not take into account who likes it and who doesn't. Why not be PROactive, instead of REactive, and come up with ideas that would help the overall situation at hand?
Bazaar: neutral.
Vendor cap: This is purely a technical issue - the vendors/bazaars have been crashing off and on since the game started. And if I am correct, this is not the first time a limit has been proposed only to be opposed by the professions that sell a variety of items, or items that customers buy often.
I understand the need to keep things stable from a technical standpoint, but a too-harsh limit will not only affect merchants, but affect the customers as well.
Customers will see a decreased variety of selections offered.
They will most likely only see the most expensive items offered on the vendors as well, because vendors will have no choice but to discontinue selling the low priced items so that they have enough room for everything else.
And customers will find more and more empty vendors, because two people came in earlier and wiped out the inventory.
And because of the storage limit in cantinas and houses, there will be no good place for vendors to store allthe stuff they can't fit on the vendor, in order to easily and quickly restock it.
I think most folks would be happy, or at least less fubar'd with a 300 or 500 limit.
XanEldarie wrote:
Breigh wrote:
XanEldarie wrote:
Just an example of "other avenues"..
http://fun.to/torr/
you all know Torr, he's that great master
DE in Corellia. Like I said, this is an EXAMPLE (some of you are going to say, "I can't write HTML!).
Disclaimer: I am in no way associated with Torr and/or his business. If you happen to buy something, I will in no way recieve credit for the sale or commission of any kind. Torr and http://fun.to/torr/ his and his alone. This is for the sole purpose of example.
I'm sorry is typing in caps supposed to make you appear more sensible or your comments more valid? If so, I'm missing it.
Anyhow, I have a website where people can see every item I make, every image design I can do.. now tell me what is the difference between people ordering online on Torr's website and people looking at mine and sending mail orders in game?
Did I miss something? Because I can't see what that website has to do with anything.. this is not about how to help people send orders, believe me nobody has any problemdoing that, just have a look at my mailbox!
The issue here is VENDORS. Get it?!
Yeaaahhh... You're dense. There were nocaps, and the large font was intended to draw attention; not to appear more important. Obviously, there are people that just skim through the thread. But I can see you like to use caps, you might want to apply that reason to yourself. Get it?! lmao
And, you are obvously missing alot of things. Your sense, for one. Self-awareness, another. Did you miss what I just said? Read again, you might just make it through kindergarden after all
Oh, and if you have to point out your website like that, perhaps that's your problem. Kinda like having to point out the punchline of a joke; its not funny because its obscured in stupidity.
*rolls eyes* Caps .. bold.. either way if what you says has any merit people will pay attention to it. Blinding us with it won't do you any good.
You are quite good at the whole flaming thing, I've noticed you head straight for that when you run out of any valid points to make.. or wait, to run out you would have had to actually have some to start with.
If I have to point out my website my problem is what exactly? Who said I HAD to? I was stating that I have a website and it makes no difference either way in this issue with the vendors.
As for self awareness, not sure what I'm missing there. I'm a woman who plays a tailor in a game.. the devs are making a change, or proposing to, that would greatly affect my game play. I'm not happy with it so I'm stating the difficulty this will cause for my profession. I am tired, and I have cramps.. I'm impatient and annoyed with the way devs seem to be making things worse for crafters overall, rather than better. Ican be dense and often not realize when I am fighting a losing battle or wasting my time, such as I have been in this back and forth with you. That's pretty self aware, at least in my opinion.
I think you are someone who is obviously intelligent but that is blurred by immaturity.. who may very well have a valid point but is too busy poking and prodding at people looking for a fight to actually make it. Are you self aware enough to recognize that I wonder?