Merchant Archive
Thread: Bunker House as a Mall: Your Thoughts
While it looks really cool and could be nicely decorated, it's got a very small point of entry and my store relies partially on its dominance of the landscape for visibility.
The other problems I see are convenience issues. I imagine it will have multiple rooms that customers won't wander into so any vendors not in the main room will go mostly unused (but I'll withhold judgment until I see the floorplan). Then there's the elevator. I'm not sure how annoyed people will be that they have to use an elevator just to get into the store.
dieing to get to it ingame
already have plans of moving into it myself *gasp* there goes my top planetary listing for vendors
thoughI will admit it depends on the layout, the actual floor plan.
If it is not akin to my styles..it may very well end up in the bank {the bunker deed}
I like the screenies but its all abbout layout for me.
as for the elevator, I dont think much on this at all..
about the same as I do running up ramps and waiting for houses to load
Dimear wrote:
It took me 3 months to figure out how to use elevators in-game. I kept getting lost and not being able to figure out which floor I was on. Given the percentage of veteran players who still don't know that there's a 'next items' button on the bazaar and vendors, I'm willing to bet that there is a fair number of players who won't be able to find their way to your vendor. And they'll surely blame you for it - "Cloaked vendor sploiter!". Now you may not want them shopping with you - survival of the least dumb, but it's something you may want to consider.
Most guild hall malls are pretty much wasted and wasteful due to most customers will not or don't know to look anywhere else but the main room for vendors. But isn't that partly the blame of most mall owners only putting vendors into that one room? It's a Catch 22.
If merchants would decorate and put vendors in other rooms of a mall, customers would eventually find them. They do find them in large houses now. Large Naboos, Corellians and Generics? They must navigate to the room the vendors are in, it's not conveniently just at the front door like in a Tat large or in guild halls. I always get turned around and lost in the large Naboo or Generics even after 2 years. *shrugs* No big deal.
I think it's a misconception that customers can't find vendors that aren't in the first room and are easy to get to. Especially now with Galaxy search. Most already know you have what they want on your vendor. They will spend a few moments discovering which room or level you hid your vendors on. 
The Bunker House will be new. A new shiny. Most customers are going to be snooping the whole building out of curiosity, if nothing else. Put your vendors all over it. Train them young! 
As for customers that or so oblivious and can't figure out there is more than one page on the vendor, or more than one room in the shop or floor in the building... I don't need them as an extrahassle anyway. They tend to go on my customers to throw in the Sarlaac pit list. 
INTREPID
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Master Tailor
Paradise Mall ( 620, 3000 )
666 m from Mos Entha starport
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Social Butterfly
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Personally I doubt I would move into one if I had the choice, but then I do love my guildhall store *shrug*
I would be interested to know if business increased or decreased for anyone who does make the move into one though
Let me try to describe the layout:
Top Level:
You enter into a small, square room that's probably about half the size of one of the rooms in a small generic house.
Opposite the door is the elevator.
Middle Level:
The elevator opens onto a raised platform (2 steps)that's part of the main room.
There are two columns on the corners of the platform that break up the open area.
The room is surrounded by a platform on 3 sides that's half the height (1 step) of the first platform.
This gives the effect of a sunken living room.
On either side of the elevator (against the same wall) are two doors that lead to identical rooms.
At the end of this corridor are dorways to the left and the right.
The room to the left looks identical to one of the side rooms on the middle level except you enter in the 'sunken' part.
However, since you can't walk through the bar, that leaves half your vendor obscured.
Also, the path to it from the front door is:
However, if you put your vendors in the entry area and used the two lower levels as 'living' area, it might work out nicely.
Message Edited by Elyssa on 10-11-2005 07:53 PM
Message Edited by Elyssa on 10-11-2005 07:55 PM
Overall, it's the multiple elevator thing that bothers me, beacuse no matter how many signs I could put as to what story the vendors are on, I'd get tells about my vendors disappearing or not loading... *stab*.
Well I plan to switch.. but the elevator thing is my biggest concern.. I'm having huge flashbacks of being stuck in my PA basement.. lol I'll just have to figure out how to drop it and run around it a bit before I actually decide to swap.
The simplicity of a PA hall is hard to get rid of, but as someone said you can't really do much with it. I have so many items in my PA that the basement isn't even used, let alone the side rooms and upper level rooms. The idea of having a house, and not a big box is part of what's tempting for me. I can spread out and let my vendors have their own area maybe.. I dunno.. like I said, we'll see when it comes out.
The other part I like about the bunker is that it's really going to clean up a lot of areas if people switch. A little bunker compared toa PA is really gonna clear up the landscape making it no so dang crowded looking and kind of make it more like it was before every free piece of land had a house on it
I have mixed feelings about the Bunker house. I love the exterior and the feeling of the interiors but in some ways its too big. Its going to be really tough decorating that place with 400 items and making it look fully lived in. I had worried that the first floor vestibule would be too small but it is a nice sized room that will look very good decorated properly.
We are considering moving our guild hall into one of them.