Development Cycle Archive
Thread: ID#2: Two Changes to Bazaars and Vendors
Eep...wow. Lots of posts. I don't have time to read them all, but I just thought I'd add my two cents in. I agree with the cap being raised on the bazaar...but I'm not sure how much it will affect it really. Most things you see on the bazaar are generally under 3K in value, and I don't expect people to raise prices on things they put there just because they can. Not sure of how many items will be put on there now that it's raised to 6K. I think the biggest change would be a larger stack of hides/bone/resoureces, etc. Not a huge issue, but also a nice thing to be able to double what you purchase rather than having to trek out somewhere else just for a bit more of something.
The cap on the vendors is a curious thing. For those who only have one vendor and put all of their wares on it, I can see how this would be frustrating. It would be quite the blow to have a vendor full of your hard work, only to realize that soon you won't be able to sell it. With that said, I also think it's a good thing because it makes the Merchant profession a bit more useful. I never saw much use in mastering Merchant, but now I think it's a good venture for those who want to become a serious business person in this game. If you want to really flourish and offer the most to your customers, then you had better get the skills necessary to do that.
Secondly, I like the cap idea because it *does* make it easier for customers. I don't enjoy clicking 'next items' 10 times to see everything a vendor has to offer...especially when I'm looking for just one single thing that the seller has promised me will be there. This is especiallya problem during server lag and what not. Having to click and then wait a minute or so can really discourage a customer from shopping there on that vendor again. I think this goes hand in hand with the addition of merchant to your current character's template. You could set up one vendor for resources, one for weapons, etc. It makes sense for the seller and for the customer.
In short, I agree with the moves...however, I can also understand some of the frustration many players will experience. If this type of path is something you still want to pursue, you need to make the proper changes to ensure your character can thrive. It's just another small progression in the game, and you have to accept it and move on. We can at least thank the Devs for taking the time to come up with potential solutions to problems that exist in *all* professions and then taking the time to discuss it as a community. I think that's a good showing on their part.
--Obas Moondi
Raising the bazaar price limit sounds good, esp for those of us who prefer not to buy resources in little chunks.
But Vendors? Please don't make an item limit. I have management 4 and share my vendors with guildmates, keeping 2 for clothing shop. A limit would force me to take vendors away from my friends. I keep a vendor stocked with about 600 items. That means I would have to have 4 vendors just for product and my other for orders. There aren't enough ppl who can train up merchant to have their own vendor.
I say if a limit is needed base it on management skill and mastery, but still 150 is too low for many artisans to sell their goods, especially for tailors.
Mor-Dan wrote:
AS for the Vendor item cap, i like round numbers. 300 is too much, 100 is too little. 200 (two full pages) is perfect. those of you upset becuase you need space for 300? pick up extra merchant skill and get a second vendor ya freekin leech. weaponsmith? (which i am), divide your wares to a ranged vendor and a melee vendor. guns arent selling? QUIT MAKING THEM!!! THEY ARE JUST CLUTTER!!! see? these are easily handled issues. quit crying NERF! just because it is going to make you adjust the way you do things. LIfe is not unlikely to use the Nerf Bat on you once and a while too you know...
so, quick recap for those who don't want to read it all... raise cap to 8k-10k. limit vendors to 200 items. there are my .02
You are forgetting a) armorsmiths and b) tailors. For the uneducated:
Armorsmiths have 6 types of armor, not including RIS, and most armors, save ubese, have 9 components. Thus offering a full suit of armor, an armorsmith at most could put say 22 sets on a vendor. This excludes the introduction of items such as PSG and padded belts. Lets say you offer only one color combination of each: 10 composite, 5 ubese, 5 padded, etc. Not a lot if you move some serious quantity. And that does not include say 3-4 duplicate sets of popular colors. That selection could be gone in but a few hours. Then you have another useless empty vendor.
Tailors have it even worse. I have never bothered to count, but we have in the neighborhood of 150 schematics. At least half of those accept the full color palette. Even if you provide two of each, one black, one white, that is 300 items. Now, lets add reds. Now you are up to 375. Lets add some other primary colors (purple, blue, orange, etc). Now you are up closer to 600. Now add color combinations (red and black, white and green, purple and lavender, cream and gold, etc) and you can easily be up to a whopping 800 or 1000 items, and we haven't even included duplicates for popular color combinations.
And that is just your clothing vendor. Now lets say you have another vendor for bio-enhanced clothing, and another for complete sets of clothing, and another for tailoring components, and another for armor, and, and, and...
Well, you get the point. You can't judge all the professions alike. Some simply have massive demands on vendor space. It is the nature of our profession.
Some people have offered some really good alternatives. For example, loading up vendors with factory crates and letting the vendor pull additional items out of the crates as needed. That would work.
Factory vendors--vendors that create items on demand using the resources available to them--is an even better idea. Load a schematic. Load the resources. The vendor does the rest.Takes one lot per factory vendor. Think of this as Dell Computers. Computers are nothing but components. You pick the components. Dell assembles it on demand. Maybe this could be a Master Merchant ability.
Any of the above two would eliminate duplicates, and it is duplicates of popular items that really starts to add up.
That is the direction SOE needs to go. Start figuring on quantities. Vendors move quantity. If WalMart could only stock 1 of each shirt, gun, bicycle, video game, or whatever they would go out of business. They keep a lot of stuff in stock. So when someone buys an item, there are others items left to buy. Each customer has an equal chance to buy an item, unless it is Christmas or a sale, then first come first serve.
Does this mean WalMart has a monopoly? No. People I work with prefer to go to Targets for clothes, I go to Best Buy for video games, etc. True. WalMart does do a ton of business. They are just good merchants. All there is to it. The good merchants, who keep a varied and filled stock, stay in business longer and do more business than the dabblers who offer a limited selection that stays depleted.
The only thing the 150-200 item cap will do is pretty much invalidate the profession, for no better reason than a poorly designed/implemented database is at fault. If they are going to do that, then they need to put some means of providing a quantity of items. So when one item is purchased it is replaced by an identical or similar item.
If they do use crates, however, they will need to fix factories to accept an input hopper of schematics, and when one schematic finishes (not stops for lack of resources), it simply moves on to the next one, and the next, until no more schematics are in the schematic hopper. Otherwise, Tailors are simply going to be screwed big time.
Man, bazaar cap bumped up would be good, but 150 items on our vendors? That is WAY too low! If you want to make a profit selling stuff, I for one, have to make a large factory run. What would I do with all my overstock? If you lower the cap on the vendors, at least raise the cap on our houses. The market is already poor on Starsider, this will make it worse, I think. Not everyone can log every day to stock their vendors.
ORAME LIGHTNINGDUST
Guild Tsunami <Tsu>
Master Artisan, Sniper, Propogandist, Novice Entertainer, Novice CH, Novice Tailor
-2107 2891 on Naboo, Starsider
Rasising Bazaar limit is good.
Lower number of items on merchant is probably good also, but 150 is kind of low. When this game was released it was touted as being casual gamer friendly. However, the longer its been out the less and less casual gamer freindly it has become. Seems like every patch thereare changes that consume more and more time to do the same things. A 150 limit is just another of these. A 150 limit requires more restocking (as noted many times above) and allows less time to do other things. Some cap per vendor is probably appropriate but 150 is just to low.
Thunderheart wrote:
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.
If that is the case, will more perks be added to the business line?
One of the big issues I see with limiting the number of items on vendors is the disposable items. I keep my vendors stocked with BH droids (seekers and probe droids), Droid Batteries and Droid Storage Compartments. After a restock of them, I have close to 400 crates of items just between them. Why not implement something along the lines of if there are X items of the same type (ie: crates of batteries, storage compartments, etc) then the vendor lists only one of the item, but shows that there is a certain quantity. ie: "40 crates of 25 Droid Batteries". That should decrease the load on the database immensly (because instead of 40 different items that need to be tracked, 1 item now needs to be tracked, but with two variables).
first of all TH why even ask, we know you don't care what the players want anyway.
second of all, go ahead, raise the limit. prices will go thru the roof, and 50% or more of the merchants will stop selling. no one will be able to keep anythign in stock. 150 is way to low. I run 2 vendors, both always have 300+ items in stock. granted most people don't know what "next page" is.... but just throw that in the swg for noobs 101 tutorial. quit recentering the game for new players. what about those of us who are experienced with the game? with every new patch you add, the game is cerntered more and more toward new players and becomes moreof a joke for experieneced players.
in the TOS it says that we can't take part in anythign that is game breaking.... well a vendor cap of 150 is game breaking. I guess that means that if this horrible idea goes thru, that all the merchants can be banned for exploiting.
better idea... before you guys keep running around trying to improve stuff.. why not fix the known bugs and get everythign more stable? this game as more bugs than windows, and they are documented..... but rather than fix them, they develop new content with more bugs.
as for the bazaar changes.. do whatever yu want... i can't buy anythig there anyway... its to freiekn slow.
Oh, and another thing....a lot of vendors I visit has junk in there that is never going to get sold. People that grind through professions and just throw it all on there. It does take up space....and it's not needed. Disallowing things like this from happening is in actuality restoring some validity to the usefulness of those crafting professions. I don't like going to a vendor and seeing 5 pages of pistol barrels or gungan heads...and I'm sure that's not how the professions want to be known.
--Obas Moondi
Thunderheart wrote:
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.
Hmmm. So let me understand this properly. After over a 1000 posts in record time saying what a horrendously bad idea this is and that it will hurt players and the economy, the current thought is to take away the ability forpeople to have vendors entirely for 99% of players.
People complain about a limit of 150 items, so the response is now the limit will be0.
Fascinating.
JediMasterKai wrote:
Oh, and another thing....a lot of vendors I visit has junk in there that is never going to get sold. People that grind through professions and just throw it all on there. It does take up space....and it's not needed. Disallowing things like this from happening is in actuality restoring some validity to the usefulness of those crafting professions. I don't like going to a vendor and seeing 5 pages of pistol barrels or gungan heads...and I'm sure that's not how the professions want to be known.
--Obas Moondi
while this maybe true of soem... i keep my vendors stocked with 100+ crates of muon... and stuff liek that. cause its cheap and it sells fast. i don't want to have to restock everyday....
my resource vendor has 300+ things on it, why? b/c i have to split it up itno 1k, 5k, 10k, 25k, 50k and 100k stacks so that everyone can get soem, all budgets. in case you didn't know.... not too many people buy a 50k stack of stomethign that sells for 20cpu or more.
I couldn't find a more on-topic place to mention this, but it's kind of important.
Yesterday I came on the boards, and saw a poll waiting for my vote. The poll was identical to one of the earlier polls, however. Then today I came onto the boards, and saw a new poll question which I had apparently already registered a vote for.
So I kinda suspect that when I saw the old poll and revoted for it, that vote was actually getting stuck into the new poll.
I dunno if this was a temporary glitch as the poll was updatedor something like that, but I just thought I'd mention it in case this was skewing the vote results.