Droid Engineer Archive
Thread: Vendor Search: Will you turn it on for your vendors?
TheRealTK421 wrote:
Just curious how many people see themselves enabling this...
I'm still unsure if I want to do this or not. Perhaps I'll give it a go for a few weeks, just to see what happens.
Note: My personal feeling on this feature is that it's going to have a negative impact on the economy and may well drive a lot of great crafters/merchants from their profession (or the game altogether).
/bow
Respectfully,
Not having read enough about it, obviously, I have a couple noob questions:
One person answered that they disabled "remote" buying... so IOW, all Combat Player Rambo can do is "locate" where items are, and not be able to buy them from his favorite bazaar terminal?
I agree that we'll have to be listed "in the phone book" in order to continue to make sales, and find it ridiculous that this will mean giving up Advertising Tree (and therefore Master Merchant, and the extra vendors???).
psikobunny wrote:
One talk I was having with someone had an interesting turn in it.
He began to harp on merchants, calling them whiners for "not wanting us" to have this. I told him until he devoted a chunk of his skill points to being a Master Shopper, I was far more willing to listen to the Merchant's POV about how it would effect their game. That quieted him down some.
See...it's this kind of player that needs to seek out a player that he/she can 'contract' to make the items they want.
That solves all of this.
I guess it's too much to ask for some players to actually...*gasp*...interact with a crafter/merchant to track down something they need for them.
/shrug
/bow
Respectfully,
TheRealTK421 wrote:
psikobunny wrote:
One talk I was having with someone had an interesting turn in it.
He began to harp on merchants, calling them whiners for "not wanting us" to have this. I told him until he devoted a chunk of his skill points to being a Master Shopper, I was far more willing to listen to the Merchant's POV about how it would effect their game. That quieted him down some.
See...it's this kind of player that needs to seek out a player that he/she can 'contract' to make the items they want.
That solves all of this.
I guess it's too much to ask for some players to actually...*gasp*...interact with a crafter/merchant to track down something they need for them.
/shrug
/bow
Respectfully,
Nice attitude, psikobunny. Alienation of the non-crafters will surely get your point across.
And TK, tell me, just how do I go about tracking down a specific crafter and interacting? I got behind this change even as a Merchant/DE since the first couple of months after launch to now, simply because I am tired of wasting my play time going from planet to planet, vendor to vendor, and being unable to find what I need.
I got tired of sending tells to the crafter whose name came up on search only to get an AFK message with a vendor waypoint, or a "I don't do custom orders" or just being completely ignored. Unanswered emails also get old.
Even if I have to sift through page after page looking for things, at least I won't have to waste 5 minutes travelling out to a vendor listed on the planetary map as selling resources only to find one stack of 1000 units of some garbage resource on the vendor.
The biggest problem I see with Merchants right now is that, while you claim no one is looking at things from your point of view, you aren't looking at things from theirs either. As both a buyer and a seller, I am glad of this change. As a buyer, I can now find what I'm looking for without wasted time or cost, and as a seller my goods will get out to a broader market.
If someone undercuts, I will do my best to buy them out and resell their goods. If I can't do that, I will stop competing with them on those goods until they either run out or raise their prices. I don't have to make BH droids and refuse to sell them for less than 25k a crate when I do, since the number of bounties one crate is good for brings the cost to the BH down to around 500 cr per...
So, will you listen to THIS merchants POV? Probably not, because I'm not jumping on the "sky is falling" bandwagon for this one.
TheRealTK421 wrote:
See...it's this kind of player that needs to seek out a player that he/she can 'contract' to make the items they want.
That solves all of this.
I guess it's too much to ask for some players to actually...*gasp*...interact with a crafter/merchant to track down something they need for them.
GraySeven wrote:
TheRealTK421 wrote:
psikobunny wrote:One talk I was having with someone had an interesting turn in it.He began to harp on merchants, calling them whiners for "not wanting us" to have this. I told him until he devoted a chunk of his skill points to being a Master Shopper, I was far more willing to listen to the Merchant's POV about how it would effect their game. That quieted him down some.See...it's this kind of player that needs to seek out a player that he/she can 'contract' to make the items they want.
That solves all of this.I guess it's too much to ask for some players to actually...*gasp*...interact with a crafter/merchant to track down something they need for them.
/shrug
/bow
Respectfully,Nice attitude, psikobunny. Alienation of the non-crafters will surely get your point across.
And TK, tell me, just how do I go about tracking down a specific crafter and interacting? I got behind this change even as a Merchant/DE since the first couple of months after launch to now, simply because I am tired of wasting my play time going from planet to planet, vendor to vendor, and being unable to find what I need.
I got tired of sending tells to the crafter whose name came up on search only to get an AFK message with a vendor waypoint, or a "I don't do custom orders" or just being completely ignored. Unanswered emails also get old.
Even if I have to sift through page after page looking for things, at least I won't have to waste 5 minutes travelling out to a vendor listed on the planetary map as selling resources only to find one stack of 1000 units of some garbage resource on the vendor.
The biggest problem I see with Merchants right now is that, while you claim no one is looking at things from your point of view, you aren't looking at things from theirs either. As both a buyer and a seller, I am glad of this change. As a buyer, I can now find what I'm looking for without wasted time or cost, and as a seller my goods will get out to a broader market.
If someone undercuts, I will do my best to buy them out and resell their goods. If I can't do that, I will stop competing with them on those goods until they either run out or raise their prices. I don't have to make BH droids and refuse to sell them for less than 25k a crate when I do, since the number of bounties one crate is good for brings the cost to the BH down to around 500 cr per...
So, will you listen to THIS merchants POV? Probably not, because I'm not jumping on the "sky is falling" bandwagon for this one.
I've said before many, many times. This POV can be easily rectified if they just remove the prices. Then you know exactly where the good are, it just makes you go to the actual location. If you don't like the price or want to shop around, you have a plentiful supply of locations to check. This way protects the crafters and shows EXACTLY where the goods are for the buyers. Tada. End of story. Next case.
Let me preface this post by saying that I'm on very good terms with many of the Droid Engineers on my server, I am not an idiot, nor am I a charity, but if it helps you to think of me that way then please go right ahead. I have outlined my reasons for my prices before and don't feel the need to do so again. I have debated them many times and been presented with just about every conceivable counter-argument you can come up with. I stick with my prices and I have good reason for doing so. I am not hurting anybody with them (at least not while we don't have a vendor search which shows prices). Furthermore, Droid Engineering seems to be in a very healthy state on my server at the moment. There's Atan who can beat me on quality by a few points, Baebar can too on a couple of items. Opekli has the widest net, with vendors on about five different planets. Kesa is one of the cheapest, apart from me. Then there's Ralarin, CTC, and a couple of other smaller droid outfits, plus Nebar who's just starting to get into the profession.
So you think a vendor search with prices is a good thing? You think that it will increase exposure for your business and while prices may drop a little the "undercutters" will wear themselves out in short order and you can always buy them out and resell.
Think again.
In the last two months I've sold over 200 crates of Arakyd Probe Droids at 1550 credits per crate. Yes, that not a typo. One thousand five hundred and fifty credits per crate. I have another forty crates on my vendor.
I have 108 rated creature harvest droids on my vendors at four thousand two hundred and seventy credits per droid. I have combat R3 droids with a combat rating of 600 and 99% experimented HAMs for three thousand nine hundred and ten credits per droid. I have combat probots with combat rating of 529 and 99% experimented HAMs for two thousand seven hundred and fifty credits per droid. I have droids with item storage, with crafting stations, with medical modules, with auto-repair. You name it, I have it. I have over 500 droids on my vendors and that number goes up every day.
Think I'm a temporary blip and will wear myself out? Hasn't happened in the last six months. What makes you think it'll happen in the next six?
Think you can buy me out? Go ahead and try it. I've dealt with resellers before. And it doesn't matter, because I'll restock. Can you buy up 20 droids every day as soon as I put them up for sale? And that's a low output because I'm using droids to get FS crafting xp. If I ran more of the components in a factory my daily output could go up to about 50 droids.
Do you want to compete with that?
Do you think I'm the only Droid Engineer in the game who works like this?
Do you think there isn't one on your server?
Want to find out?
I care about the state of Droid Engineering on my server. I have no desire to wipe out the businesses of other Droid Engineers. But I can guarantee that there will be somebody somewhere who doesn't care.
Global vendor search with sortable comparable price is a bad idea™.
EnigmaBSc
EnigmaBSc wrote:
OK, so we've had the "The Sky Is Not Falling" point of view. Now here's the "The Sky Could Very Well Fall" point of view from the guy who could get all the business.
Let me preface this post by saying that I'm on very good terms with many of the Droid Engineers on my server, I am not an idiot, nor am I a charity, but if it helps you to think of me that way then please go right ahead. I have outlined my reasons for my prices before and don't feel the need to do so again. I have debated them many times and been presented with just about every conceivable counter-argument you can come up with. I stick with my prices and I have good reason for doing so. I am not hurting anybody with them (at least not while we don't have a vendor search which shows prices). Furthermore, Droid Engineering seems to be in a very healthy state on my server at the moment. There's Atan who can beat me on quality by a few points, Baebar can too on a couple of items. Opekli has the widest net, with vendors on about five different planets. Kesa is one of the cheapest, apart from me. Then there's Ralarin, CTC, and a couple of other smaller droid outfits, plus Nebar who's just starting to get into the profession.
So you think a vendor search with prices is a good thing? You think that it will increase exposure for your business and while prices may drop a little the "undercutters" will wear themselves out in short order and you can always buy them out and resell.
Think again.
In the last two months I've sold over 200 crates of Arakyd Probe Droids at 1550 credits per crate. Yes, that not a typo. One thousand five hundred and fifty credits per crate. I have another forty crates on my vendor.
I have 108 rated creature harvest droids on my vendors at four thousand two hundred and seventy credits per droid. I have combat R3 droids with a combat rating of 600 and 99% experimented HAMs for three thousand nine hundred and ten credits per droid. I have combat probots with combat rating of 529 and 99% experimented HAMs for two thousand seven hundred and fifty credits per droid. I have droids with item storage, with crafting stations, with medical modules, with auto-repair. You name it, I have it. I have over 500 droids on my vendors and that number goes up every day.
Think I'm a temporary blip and will wear myself out? Hasn't happened in the last six months. What makes you think it'll happen in the next six?
Think you can buy me out? Go ahead and try it. I've dealt with resellers before. And it doesn't matter, because I'll restock. Can you buy up 20 droids every day as soon as I put them up for sale? And that's a low output because I'm using droids to get FS crafting xp. If I ran more of the components in a factory my daily output could go up to about 50 droids.
Do you want to compete with that?
Do you think I'm the only Droid Engineer in the game who works like this?
Do you think there isn't one on your server?
Want to find out?
I care about the state of Droid Engineering on my server. I have no desire to wipe out the businesses of other Droid Engineers. But I can guarantee that there will be somebody somewhere who doesn't care.
Global vendor search with sortable comparable price is a bad idea™.
EnigmaBSc
I just wanted to take this moment to say: Thank you for putting the Fear of God into us all.
/bow
GraySeven wrote:
TheRealTK421 wrote:
See...it's this kind of player that needs to seek out a player that he/she can 'contract' to make the items they want.
That solves all of this.
I guess it's too much to ask for some players to actually...*gasp*...interact with a crafter/merchant to track down something they need for them.
/shrug
/bow
Respectfully,
Nice attitude, psikobunny. Alienation of the non-crafters will surely get your point across.
Well, I am not sure the non-crafters realize how they are about to hurt themselves by pushing for this so hard. /shrug
And TK, tell me, just how do I go about tracking down a specific crafter and interacting? I got behind this change even as a Merchant/DE since the first couple of months after launch to now, simply because I am tired of wasting my play time going from planet to planet, vendor to vendor, and being unable to find what I need.
When searching in this fashion doesn't work, you have to go to the options below. If you can't find what you need on a vendor, you pretty much have to find someone to make it for you.
If you know of another choice, let me know.
I got tired of sending tells to the crafter whose name came up on search only to get an AFK message with a vendor waypoint, or a "I don't do custom orders" or just being completely ignored. Unanswered emails also get old.
This is about all you can do, if you can't find what you're after on any vendors. /shrug
Even if I have to sift through page after page looking for things, at least I won't have to waste 5 minutes travelling out to a vendor listed on the planetary map as selling resources only to find one stack of 1000 units of some garbage resource on the vendor.
No...you might just have to spend 20 min. sifting through page after page to find what you want.
Resources, in this regard, are going to be different than actual crafted items.
The biggest problem I see with Merchants right now is that, while you claim no one is looking at things from your point of view, you aren't looking at things from theirs either.
You don't think Merchants/Crafters have to buy stuff too?
As both a buyer and a seller, I am glad of this change. As a buyer, I can now find what I'm looking for without wasted time or cost, and as a seller my goods will get out to a broader market.
I guess we'll see. I can foresee situations where you'll waste just as much time (if not more) using the new search option.
If someone undercuts, I will do my best to buy them out and resell their goods.
Is that really how you wantto spend your play-time though? I know having to do that all the time will makeme just.............../cancel.
If I can't do that, I will stop competing with them on those goods until they either run out or raise their prices. I don't have to make BH droids and refuse to sell them for less than 25k a crate when I do, since the number of bounties one crate is good for brings the cost to the BH down to around 500 cr per...
So, will you listen to THIS merchants POV? Probably not, because I'm not jumping on the "sky is falling" bandwagon for this one.
Everyone's got their own opinion. I have to go by what I see/hear from most crafters/merchants.
Respectfully,
- You are making no profit from those crates, and are making it up in another way. Whether you are selling something else or running missions, your operating income does not come from DE... I also fail to see how you are on good terms with other DE's for this. I price my droids based on not only my time and expenses, but the earning potential of BH's. At my prices, BH's must spend 1000cr a mark on droids. That you charge that low a price only hurts you.
- I'm charging too much. I have too high a value on my time and ability. I feel the effort of 3 factory runs for components to run 999 BH droids is much, much more than you do. I feel the hours spent searching out and harvesting resources, the factory time, the storage spaces I need for finished components....I must be out of my mind.
And like I said, if I can't buy you out. I'll stop competing. You would become the only supplier of BH droids. All BH's would come to you for their droids. You're work load will greatly increase. How long will it remain fun for you I wonder? I've never earned my "living" as a DE...its always been my other crafting profession that has allowed me to support my DE habit...
You can't possibly care for other DE's as you say you do while charging a price so low that it IS charity...
Message Edited by GraySeven on 03-20-2005 01:25 PM