Droid Engineer Archive
Thread: Thoughts on the new vendor changes?
Jenden wrote:
How would removing pricing information be as a fix? (and obviously the ability to actually buy items). This would allow people to sort out which vendors just aren't stocked, but still make people shop around if they want the best deal (and still makes location, facility quality, "one-stop shopping", and all the other issues important).
See, something like that is much more palatable.
I disagree that this change will make the game more "fun" in the long run. It will simply drive the experienced crafters out of the game or into combat, the existing crafters will fight out who can whore themselves for the least amount, and we will be no better than an NPC economy.
If a Dev put up a post saying, "No weapons will decay any more - period!" most people would /cheer. Only a small percentage of players - the WS and other crafters in support - would disagree with the change. Would that make the change right?
AO
AudioOrgana wrote:
Jenden wrote:
How would removing pricing information be as a fix? (and obviously the ability to actually buy items). This would allow people to sort out which vendors just aren't stocked, but still make people shop around if they want the best deal (and still makes location, facility quality, "one-stop shopping", and all the other issues important).See, something like that is much more palatable.
I disagree that this change will make the game more "fun" in the long run. It will simply drive the experienced crafters out of the game or into combat, the existing crafters will fight out who can whore themselves for the least amount, and we will be no better than an NPC economy.
If a Dev put up a post saying, "No weapons will decay any more - period!" most people would /cheer. Only a small percentage of players - the WS and other crafters in support - would disagree with the change. Would that make the change right?
AO
thats pretty much exactly the way this is breaking down... Some crafters are taking this ok (weaponsmiths and armorsmiths that have huge differentiation in product quality) but merchants and most other crafting professions are pretty well against it.
Jenden wrote:
jefmes wrote:
I was pushing hard in the main thread to get rid of the auto-purchase, and it looks like it's gone!Good for us, for sure.
not quite. Items are still purchased remotely, you just have to go to the store to pick them up. Really not better, might bump up impulse sales a tiny bit but still doesn't solve the fundamental problem that it kills all the work people have put into making their shops look good.
Totally disagree with that Jenden, sorry. I think most players will be MUCH more inclined to travel to other locations in the Galaxy to pick up items, since I know the item is there, and while I'm there I'll be looking at the other vendors and I'll get to see far more shops than I otherwise would have. There's a lot of players like me who don't like wandering forever to find empty vendors or poorly stocked vendors - the ones who put the work into nice shops also tend to be the ones who maintain their inventories and are active. This will make the player base more aware of the shops that are out there and encourage more movement in my opinion.
There will be some dramatic shifts too I'm sure in being able to see products from many different people at once, but if you you're on Talus and I'm offering an equal qualitydroid for the same price as another guy who's shop is on Dantooine, the local market will win. This way we're able to still maintain some of the flavor we have now, while still making it more convenient to find items you're interested in.
I'm not saying it's going to be perfect. I liked a lot of ideas about allowing the delivery but tieing it to faction control, smuggling, etc, but if we can look at it from a fictional point of view as well, a technological society would likely have easy ways to offer their good via the Holonet. As long as they still need to come to my city, into my tent, and pick up the item themselves, I'm a happy camper.
AudioOrgana wrote:
Jenden wrote:
thats pretty much exactly the way this is breaking down... Some crafters are taking this ok (weaponsmiths and armorsmiths that have huge differentiation in product quality) but merchants and most other crafting professions are pretty well against it.
It's not even just product quality, it's also decay. WS and AS will always be the crafting golden-children because their products are ABSOULTELY necessary for the professions the majority of players play (combat). Well, WS is absolutely, and AS is highly reccomended (and essentially sells 9 products as 1 most of the time). Even so, I imagine only the really high-end WS/AS like this - people that make a T21 with 411 dmg when 412 is available will likely never make sales anymore. People really do only want the very, very best. /boggle (as the difference in 1pt is negligible).
I'm not threatened by the change - I'm confident in my product and I've already made my fortune. However, I can see it absoultely destroying professions like tailor and architect, and a good portion of DE's. I simply will stop selling non-experimented droids. I'll be damned if I sell a med 6/food-chem craft surgical droid that some doctor is going to make millions using for 5K. Newer DE's will be making those, and never have the opportunity to rise up the food chain.
Another aspect that hasn't been addressed yet is that of market control. It's going to be so easy to create a monopoly now, if you have the credits to back it up. There are so many reprecussions to this it's not even funny.
AO
There's a lot of reprecussions everytime you do something with a game this complex, you know that People who have the time and money will always have an advantage, but I think people will still be fine. I have one shop, on Talus. You can't get more backwater than Talus and Rori, and our city is across the Yi'Tsarin Canyon. Unless you like long rides, you'd better take the shuttle to get to us. But still, I've been a DE long enough on Chilastra that I have several people who say they come just to me when they want droids because they know how much I love it (and how much I / we have endured to keep it the whole time! ) and that I'm dedicated to give them a good droid. But I'm not a power gamer...sometimes I don't have the resources I need, sometimes I don't have the time. But I still try my best and galaxy-wide market or not, if you give some extra personal touches and help people out, they'll remember and come back to you.
For the rest of it, all I can see is change. There's good and bad to it, and I don't pretend to know how it will ultimately affect the game.
Honestly I don't know how this will effect the DE profession either. Face it, we don't create a high-demand product. We may well have to deal with lowballers, for who knows how long, but I'm not convinced DE is a profession attractive to lowballers. Making droids is non-trivial, and there's not a lot of profit in it.
/shrug
Dunno. I'm not going to lower my prices when this lands. If I sell less, then I sell less. I build droids because I like to, there are other things I can do to make money.
Jenden wrote:
How would removing pricing information be as a fix? (and obviously the ability to actually buy items). This would allow people to sort out which vendors just aren't stocked, but still make people shop around if they want the best deal (and still makes location, facility quality, "one-stop shopping", and all the other issues important).
^^^ That has always been my thought of what a galactic listing should be. No prices, No buying remotely. Just a list of all available items, and wp's to the shops.
I do wonder, will we in future see a more refined display? "factory crate" is so generic, it's going to be difficult looking thru thousands of pages....
Will this need higher level merchant? I really think it should, otherwise what's the trade off for having the ability to list remotely? absolutely nothing? that's not fair.
Z
Gron_DM wrote:I hate to play devils advocate, espcially when people one star me for stating what the popular opinion is but here it is.This change will make shop owning less fun, shop setup less fun, and initially make some people quit/or change selling styles.In the long run this change will enhance the way people shop increasing the business on the server by bringing buyers and sellers together faster. Im not looking forward to undercutting but im thinking about the big picture here. These changes are designed to speed up game play, enhance them so people dont have to spend hours finding a partially uncommon item. The devs made this choice because the shop owning experience was too much of a time sink for buyers. Look at all the changes coming down the pipe, they are ones the ultimatly speed up gameplay more then anything. More storage, means less time organizing. One min shuttle times. CU making it so someone can just login and fight some and not do 30 mins of prep via buffs to fight/hunt. These Changes are designed to facilitate gameplay. Sorry if its not a popular point of view but that is how this is shaping up.
I think the problem is that there are better alternatives to speed up the process. There's the idea of no prices/buying, there's also our idea from way back when about a vendor listing droid (something you can dump outside a starport and people can get your vendor listing off of). Either of these would speed up the process without destroying part of the game.
The short version is that this change will likely cause a lot (and I mean a LOT) of long-time, veteran crafter/businesspeople out of the game entirely or just to close shop.
That will reduce 'quality' goods and leave many markets prey to crafters that don't have the resources to make 'uber' products...only mediocre stuff. Then, we'll see those mediocre products sold in bulk via the new vendor listings for...1k each? 500cr each?
Oh.....and, count on the 50k entrance fee on any business you visit, most likely.
I can tell you that it's very possible that this one change, without some serious changes, will cause me to liquidiate my current inventory, close shop and just go 100% combat. However, if I see the marketplace going the way I suspect it will go, I'll likely just /cancel.
/shrug
So many good 'home runs' have been released to SWG lately. I think this idea should be counted as a 'foul ball' and taken back to the drawing board. The fact that soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo many crafter/businesspeople are rightly upset over it tells me that it needs some serious rethinking.
/bow
Respectfully,
Jenden wrote:
DarthRoe wrote:
I'm pitching... and so are a number of other people...
Thank the maker! If this goes through I will probably drop this second account and go back to my main combat account.......
Jenden wrote:
I think the problem is that there are better alternatives to speed up the process. There's the idea of no prices/buying, there's also our idea from way back when about a vendor listing droid (something you can dump outside a starport and people can get your vendor listing off of). Either of these would speed up the process without destroying part of the game.
Drashk wrote:
Two words for you..... Resale Profit.