Droid Engineer Archive
Thread: New TC patch notes up! (3-14-05)
EnigmaBSc wrote:
Tyrant isn't just MIA, he's no longer associated with Galaxies, at least according to this interview at IGN.
Aye.
That is what I was refering to. No 'offical' word has been made on why he is no longer with SWG, which is why I listed him as MIA. Even SOE not mentioning that he is gone does not bode well. It speaks to me as if he left on terms that were not all together for everyones liking.
Tyrant made a big point of trying to make sure that less bugs would make it out with each Publish and that old bugs would be squashed. Shortly after this announcement was made, another announcement was made that would increase the Publish rate. Tyrant quit posting around this time. It was also followed by the IGN information release on the Rage of the Wookiees expansion, which has a LucasArts media stamp all over it.
Put all of this together and here is what I get out of it.
Tyrant didn't care for the direction of things that LucasArts was pushing for and instead of allowing his name, one which is known throughout the gaming industry, to be tarnished by LucasArts business decisions, he decided to move on to some other project.
Of course this is just me playing the jump to conclusions game, but it does have a rather nasty ring of possiblity to it.
diepa wrote:
They have to list the price if they make this change, talk about the potential to grief people if they didnt. For example I put 10 bags on my vendor named set of 5 buffpacks with stats..no prices. The consumer runs over pays my 10credit entrance fee and finds that the bags are 99999999 credits..you would just have to keep moving your vendor. Even if they remove the prices, you can add your price to the description to get around it. So if they add this feature they have to add prices.
People would do that for one or to days, but soon nobody will visit their vendor because the owner name is listet. You would shoot yourself in the Foot by losing the Customer reputation.
Drashk wrote:
EnigmaBSc wrote:
Tyrant isn't just MIA, he's no longer associated with Galaxies, at least according to this interview at IGN.Aye.
That is what I was refering to. No 'offical' word has been made on why he is no longer with SWG, which is why I listed him as MIA. Even SOE not mentioning that he is gone does not bode well. It speaks to me as if he left on terms that were not all together for everyones liking.
Tyrant made a big point of trying to make sure that less bugs would make it out with each Publish and that old bugs would be squashed. Shortly after this announcement was made, another announcement was made that would increase the Publish rate. Tyrant quit posting around this time. It was also followed by the IGN information release on the Rage of the Wookiees expansion, which has a LucasArts media stamp all over it.
Put all of this together and here is what I get out of it.
Tyrant didn't care for the direction of things that LucasArts was pushing for and instead of allowing his name, one which is known throughout the gaming industry, to be tarnished by LucasArts business decisions, he decided to move on to some other project.
Of course this is just me playing the jump to conclusions game, but it does have a rather nasty ring of possiblity to it.
LucasArts has been calling the shots in SWG from Day One, so no difference there. All LucasArts cares about is making sure the Star Warsy-feel is not compromised. Why would they care about how vendors are dealt with?
My feeling on this is SOE is the one responsible for all this for some unknown reason. And that's what's frustrating! This is so simple to resolve! I have no plans on quitting, but if my business gets up-ended because of this...I'll have no reason to run my business.
RasalTheWise wrote:
Drashk wrote:
EnigmaBSc wrote:
Tyrant isn't just MIA, he's no longer associated with Galaxies, at least according to this interview at IGN.
Aye.
That is what I was refering to. No 'offical' word has been made on why he is no longer with SWG, which is why I listed him as MIA. Even SOE not mentioning that he is gone does not bode well. It speaks to me as if he left on terms that were not all together for everyones liking.
Tyrant made a big point of trying to make sure that less bugs would make it out with each Publish and that old bugs would be squashed. Shortly after this announcement was made, another announcement was made that would increase the Publish rate. Tyrant quit posting around this time. It was also followed by the IGN information release on the Rage of the Wookiees expansion, which has a LucasArts media stamp all over it.
Put all of this together and here is what I get out of it.
Tyrant didn't care for the direction of things that LucasArts was pushing for and instead of allowing his name, one which is known throughout the gaming industry, to be tarnished by LucasArts business decisions, he decided to move on to some other project.
Of course this is just me playing the jump to conclusions game, but it does have a rather nasty ring of possiblity to it.
LucasArts has been calling the shots in SWG from Day One, so no difference there. All LucasArts cares about is making sure the Star Warsy-feel is not compromised. Why would they care about how vendors are dealt with?
My feeling on this is SOE is the one responsible for all this for some unknown reason. And that's what's frustrating! This is so simple to resolve! I have no plans on quitting, but if my business gets up-ended because of this...I'll have no reason to run my business.
Nope, can't agree. LA has been takeing a much larger role since JTL as I imagine they have with all other SW projects. You really think SOE thought up Rage of the Wookies? LOL. EP III is makeing all SW properties very high profile. Once that dies down I think you'll see LA slip back into the backround.
Drashk wrote:
Talmor1 wrote:All I have to say is this:Not having prices listed means absolutely nothing to me. I can just add it to the name of the item I am making if I have half of a mind.Thats the way I was looking at it as well.
You could take it one step further and list the price in the beginning of the name or use a special character as the first character, so that when someone ranges the list in Alphabetical order, which is one of the first things that I know a lot of people do, it will be on the top of the list.
There is just too many ways around working around any system that they would put into place. What it all comes down to is that a no matter how a global search feature is added to the Bazaar, there isn't any way of getting around not listing the stats and the price of the item.
In many ways, the global search system will help out all merchants in the long run, by making their goods a lot more accessable and by creating a lot more foot traffic to their shop then ever before. The major draw back in this system is that it will allow some merchants the ability to undercut pricing in the overall market.
Funny thing is, I don't see much change happening to the market as a whole. The only difference between what we have seen for the last 2 years and what we will see after this goes Live is that the great deals that have been mostly word of mouth will now be getting a little more free advertising.
In the week that I have had my vendors listed on the Galaxy wide market, I have seen a sharp increase in sales of my products, not a decline. And this is with my prices being higher then many of the other prices on the server. Of course, Test Center also has a lot lower population and has a 'healthier' economy then many of the Live Servers, which is reflected in my pricing and what I have to offer.
There is a world of difference between prices listed in an ad-hoc manner in titles and prices listed in a sortable list. Yes, a sortable list is much more convenient for combat characters, but convenience is not always best. It would be much more convenient for me as a pure crafter if creatures only spawned in POIs and dungeons, but I'm not about to ask for that to happen. It would be much more convenient for combat characters if they could instantly get ten missions from a mission terminal in the same direction and similar distances, but they're not going to get that either.
I think that this search could go either way. Either it could be really good or it could be really bad. I've been pushing the "doom and gloom" view because it will be a lot harder to remove prices from the listing if they prove disastrous than it would be to add them if a global listing without prices is not up to scratch. Sadly the only reason I think this version of global search might turn out to be really good is because searching for items will be absolutely horrendous. Well stocked vendors will be more likely to have products on the earlier pages and so customers who can't be bothered to search through twenty pages of items (And I think that's a low estimate for most categories) will eventually give up on the global vendor search and just stick to a couple of good merchants who they found through the first page of vendor listings one day.
I'd also be wary of applying lessons learned from Test Center to a Live Server for this. My own brief analysis of Droid sales on Test Center, TC-5 and my own server a couple of days ago lead me to believe that there will be many many times more items listed on Live Servers and unless the Devs have stress tested properly we have no way of knowing how this will affect the speed of the global vendor search. Also it tends to be a different breed of players who plays long term on Test Center. While Test Center is a good model for the Live Servers in many ways I'm not sure it will be so representative for the global vendor search.
EnigmaBSc
- V1 Flight Computer
- Lowest Price: 10 credits
- Lowest Price with Reasonable Stock: 150 credits
- Highest Price: 1000 credits
- V2 Flight Computer
- Lowest Price: 200 credits
- Lowest Price with Reasonable Stock: 200 credits
- Highest Price: 2000 credits
- V3 Flight Computer
- Lowest Price: 250 credits
- Lowest Price with Reasonable Stock: 250 credits
- Highest Price: 3000 credits
- V4 Flight Computer
- Lowest Price: 300 credits
- Lowest Price with Reasonable Stock: 300 credits
- Highest Price: 4000 credits
- V5 Flight Computer
- Lowest Price: 350 credits
- Lowest Price with Reasonable Stock: 350 credits
- Highest Price: 5000 credits
- V6 Flight Computer
- Lowest Price: 400 credits
- Lowest Price with Reasonable Stock: 400 credits
- Highest Price: 8000 credits
And some statistics. Take these with a grain of salt since the search system will list the same item on multiple pages, so the statistics are not 100% accurate.
price (credits) | number of items
---------------------------------
1-499 | 369
500-999 | 34
1000-1999 | 53
2000-2999 | 8
3000-3999 | 13
4000-4999 | 6
5000-9999 | 79
10000-19999 | 8
20000-29999 | 24
30000-39999 | 54
EDIT: Forgot to mention that a lot of the items, if not all the items, in the 1-499 credit category are flight computers or MSE droids, so it's not as bad as it might look at first.
I would do the same for TC-Eclipse, but since there's only one droid engineer who has his products listed I don't think there's much point.
EnigmaBSc
Message Edited by EnigmaBSc on 03-22-2005 09:26 AM