Merchant Archive
Thread: Merchant Item Limits Focus Thread: Please try to be constructive and rational (Pt 2)
debbie1260
Wed Aug 11, 2004 4:14 am
#131
Handsnake wrote:
Doc,
Dumping has already started on every server I've been on. Furthermore, every trade forum has vendors advertising dump sales due to this upcoming nerf. The uncertainty and the time needed to clear out excess stock in anticipation has started the economic avalanche already.
They've managed to start the depression (deflation and sell off of inventory below cost) early just with the public comments on this vendor item nerf.
Tell them that they've messed up.
Also tell them that a significant number of merchants say that any vendor item limit is unacceptable in any way, especially now after they've completely fouled this up.
I've cancelled one of my accounts and will becancelling mymain crafter account - no matter what is decided as to the final item number will be in live. I'm not alone.
I for one, am not "dumping" merchandise. If a vendor cap goes live all 11 of my accounts, characters, resources, and stock will go poof as I delete my characters and cancel my accounts. End of discussion. *waves bye bye to swg*
I'm sure I can find another company to give my money to that will be less malicious and ignorant than SOE (not saying much there).
Aimen
Wed Aug 11, 2004 4:27 am
#132
Buy another server for the database and stop this thread........
This is not hard or complicated.
Delete vendors for people who dont have the skills to keep them - delete the empty vendors no problem with these ideas.
But forcing crafters to sell in bulk so that new players/poor players can no longer afford to buy anyhing anymore is not only a bad idea but its shooting yourself in the foot for SOE.
E.G. New player starts - they get some skills and talk to people about getting new stuff for pvp/gcw (core of the game?) and then find that because they cant afford 25crate of brandy 25 crate of t21 rifles (or whatever) they cant make the cash needed to buy the stuff in bulk. Will they remain in the game?
This is just one example of the problems this nerf (not patch) will cause. There are lots of other conotations on this theme though.
Complete no brainer and great way to annoy the entire player base in one move though. Well done SOE! All non crafters are also worried by this not just the merchants.
phreack
Wed Aug 11, 2004 4:45 am
#133
I dunno if this will be helpful or not, as I'm a non-crafter, but I just wanna add my $0.02.
As someone who spends millions of credits at vendors, I'm absolutely outraged by the vendor change. I rather enjoy knowing that if I go to certain shops, there WILL be merchandise on the vendors. With this item limit, that will come to an abrupt end. I don't expect anyone to go through the headache of re-stocking their vendors daily (or even hourly as some will have to...Billy's meds is one of the big stim/buff vendors on my server...I've seen him put up thousands of stims and they are gone in a day...I may have to find a new stim vendor now). This is completely uncalled for, and should be immediately rolled back.
As to the rest of the vendor change, I'm extremely pleased. There's nothing I hate more than driving 2km to a vendor only to find it empty. Once again, however, the item limit will now make it more likely that I waste my time going to visit empty vendors, since nobody will be able to keep a reasonable amount of stock.
Anyway, I guess I'm done. I just wanted to let you guys know that I'm behind you 100% on this. Please, DocSavag, let the devs know that merchants and even crafters in general are not the only ones negatively affected by this change. Nobody wants a vendor item limit, and it was simply a bad idea that they should have asked someone about before blindly implementing it. Focus groups and player surveys could go a long way to help them better understand what their customers want. Making a class worthless is definately not the best way to make people happy...especially when the class you make worthless controls the entire economy of the game.
lisasdarren
Wed Aug 11, 2004 4:47 am
#134
Here are some good reasons why these limits are too low, from two different perspectives.
Firstly mastery of a single crafting profession means you have a stock of about 1000 items to sell, some crafts have small numbers of a large range of goods (Architect, Tailor) as different people will want different things, other crafts need to stock larger numbers of a smaller range of goods (Armorsmith, Weaponsmith) as their customers will want the same things (there is a limited number of weapons).
Now two different senarios:
A crafter / merchant small business
You have one or two master crafting professions and some merchant, though probably not master merchant, i am at the extreme of this with three masteries of crafting and the rest of my points in merchant.
- With only one mastery of crafting andone mastery of combat that means something like 3/4/0/1 merchant needs to give them 1000 limit on their vendors.
- With two crafting masteries and some basic combat skills (three boxes of one novice line) you can then have 3/4/0/2 merchant and need about a stock level of 2000 items
- With three crafting masteries and no combat skills you can get 4/4/0/3 merchant and you need to be able to stock 3000 items to hold your complete range of goods at a reasonable level.
A pure merchant
A master merchant, but not a crafter,who wants to buy and sell goods from multiple crafters.
Should be able to deal with at least 5 product lines, and should really be able to stock items from multiple crafters of the same type, to achieve this master merchant would need 5000 plus items stockable.
As the current limits stand you need 2 master merchants per master crafter, and that is just not right, nor is it practical.
I propose a nice simple solution, based on the figures used above:
- Business 3 - 250
- Novice merchant - 500
- Management 1 - 1000
- Management 2 - 2000
- Management 3 - 3000
- Management 4 - 4000
- Master Merchant - 6000
Even if you adjusted my estimates for stock levels down you would still need limits at 5 or more times the current levels to be realistic. The best case senario with the current levels is that a master merchant could sell the goods of one craft mastery.
thydbault
Wed Aug 11, 2004 5:10 am
#135
Very good point. along with the empty vensors and extra strain on people trying to keep them stocked the variety of items will deminish.
Just for the sake of making this point lets say a limit of 100 items. Which would be themore profitable way to stock a vendor. 100 couches at 1000 credit per, or 100 candles at 100 credits per.I seariuosly doubt that most players would take up valuable chunks of vendor space to place low priced items. that greatly add to the color and flavor of the game.
Factory crates are a good thing for some items but I for one will not buy factory crates of many items because i simply don't need that many.
I am presently a crafter working at architect with buisness III.I had to give up buisness 4 to keep survival skills. Since the NPCs can clean my clock any time i venture into the plaines. i sell a wide variety of items with a wide range of prices. If this nerf happens i will be forced at the very least to remove all the items that have a price of less than 2000 credits. good bye candles good bye food etc. etc. I am limited to one vendor thats an acceptable limitation. If they limit the number of Items it would devestate my buisness.
I enjoy a little combat and scouting exploring. I survey and harvest my own resources. Over all the game seems well ballanced to me and the crafting and sales is the largest part of the game for me. if these limitations are put in place i will keep trying to play but my fear is the game will become unballanced forcing me into cambat more, craft less, and tend the vender all the time. If that happens would i keep playing? NO
The 30 day cycle on the vendors. It's a good thing. i have seen a vendor with 30 or more locked containers priced at 5000 each. Get real. If they are selling great i'm happy for you. If they expire after 30 days maybe you should rethink your price. If something expires for the second tome after 60 days maybe no one wants it. Think about destroying it. If everyone with a vendor did a little self moderating say take the 10 least saleable items and destroy them or store them in your spacious house maybe the devs would find the data base a little less bloated.
Oh on the monopalies. This system is allready very addept at destroying the monopalies. but the ones who do the battle should be the competators. Price your items under theirs and addvertise well. you will not make as much per item but if you sell a greater number of items you will improve your buisness and theirs will suffer.
There may still be time to stave off the vendor caps work together as a community. check your own vendor for the items tkat have molded. If it's overpriced lower the price. If it's not wort anything destroy it.
Jittaba
Wed Aug 11, 2004 5:25 am
#136
I see this on a quit different way.
SOE like to screw the game, we know, but well. Until now, eveything was like "we can live with it".
SOE know there's way toooooooo much money in the game.
SOE know if they won't do nothing, credits will lost the meaning (it already did maybe)!
SOE know they HAVE to do something about it!
So SOE is looking for a solution, and as always, they hit the problem on the wrong root.
SOE is going nerf the merchant, to make prices higher, so money will be vauable again.
But as always, they hit the problem on the wrong root.
SOE has forgotten, that there already are way tooo much vendors to do a nerf like that.
SOE can read, and will feel the affect, when 2nd, and 3rd accounts are gona be canceled.
If they argue with "space on the server and databank"...well, I don't know exactly how SWG works, but I work in a company, and I can tell ya, limiting the items, won't change and improve the performance of the game and severs in a way, we can imagine.
SOE like to screw the game, we know, but well. Until now, eveything was like "we can live with it".
SOE know there's way toooooooo much money in the game.
SOE know if they won't do nothing, credits will lost the meaning (it already did maybe)!
SOE know they HAVE to do something about it!
So SOE is looking for a solution, and as always, they hit the problem on the wrong root.
SOE is going nerf the merchant, to make prices higher, so money will be vauable again.
But as always, they hit the problem on the wrong root.
SOE has forgotten, that there already are way tooo much vendors to do a nerf like that.
SOE can read, and will feel the affect, when 2nd, and 3rd accounts are gona be canceled.
If they argue with "space on the server and databank"...well, I don't know exactly how SWG works, but I work in a company, and I can tell ya, limiting the items, won't change and improve the performance of the game and severs in a way, we can imagine.
Scatty-brain
Wed Aug 11, 2004 5:28 am
#137
Whilst i agree that removing empty vendors and vendors that players no longer have the skills for is a good thing, the limited number of items on those vendors is a bad idea. One of my characters is a Master Chef /Master tailor / Almost master politician. Whilst i can see it would be possible to master merchant with my 2 crafting proffesions, how am i meant to do that and stay mayor? And how do you run a city without a mayor? My business actually helps to support the city enabling us to live tax free. Restrict the number of items on a vendor and that will result in a huge loss of income for many crafters. There are not enough skillpoints at the moment as it is, and to start saying you must master this proffesion to make it feasable to earn any money is just plain ridiculous.
The devs should just remove the empty/illegal vendors for now and see if that improves things.
I for will not be looking forward to the new patch, and may even be cancelling my 5 accounts if this maximum amounts is not increased to something more workable.
Scatty + Mist'er Brain
blyadchik
Wed Aug 11, 2004 6:13 am
#138
Ok, now granted, I am not a master merchant. I am 3/0/0/0, because I wanted to be able to advertise my vendors. It seems as though the Devs are trying to squash a mosquito with a .44 Magnum. Only problem is, the mosquito is on their foot. I am not an economic theorist, but I do understand basic economics. If all vendors are limited to 110 items, I, and probably all other crafters, are going to jack prices up. and, because everyone does it, people are going to pay it, for a little while. I am going to get tired of stocking vendors 3 times a day, and people are gonna get tired of running missions all the time so they can buy marked-up merchandise. I am going to get very tired of stocking my vendors 3 times a day. The mission grinders will also get tired. I will not have much fun any more, and probably quit the game. Others will probably do the same. If I quit this, I can GUARANTEE that I won't even give a moments thought to buying the precious JTL expansion. It won't happen, since it'll still be the same horrible economy.
The proposed limits are going to crush the remaining patience of the players, the same players that have waited patiently for combat balance, bugs being fixed, etc etc etc.
Delete the empty vendors, make people have the skills required to keep vendors. Those are great things, that should have been done some time ago. If part of this rationale is to break up uber crafters, why? Look at the American economy. Wal MArt is a behemoth. Are there only Wal-Marts in the US? no, there are thousands, nay, millions of little stores that do just fine. There aren't monopolies in this game, not really, just check the vendors on the map, how many Armor vendors on Corellia? Lots. I don't concern myself with the big boys, I am not trying to compete with the guy making 200 suits of comp a day, I make low to mid level armor, because the market is out there. I sell 10k units of resource, because the market is out there. and I have mail messages every day about purchases. Am I making 10 mill a day? Nope. But to make that much would involve a dedication that I am not willing to give. These changes will slam the little guy as much as the big guy.
Please don't do this, you will kill a game that I truly enjoy playing.
The proposed limits are going to crush the remaining patience of the players, the same players that have waited patiently for combat balance, bugs being fixed, etc etc etc.
Delete the empty vendors, make people have the skills required to keep vendors. Those are great things, that should have been done some time ago. If part of this rationale is to break up uber crafters, why? Look at the American economy. Wal MArt is a behemoth. Are there only Wal-Marts in the US? no, there are thousands, nay, millions of little stores that do just fine. There aren't monopolies in this game, not really, just check the vendors on the map, how many Armor vendors on Corellia? Lots. I don't concern myself with the big boys, I am not trying to compete with the guy making 200 suits of comp a day, I make low to mid level armor, because the market is out there. I sell 10k units of resource, because the market is out there. and I have mail messages every day about purchases. Am I making 10 mill a day? Nope. But to make that much would involve a dedication that I am not willing to give. These changes will slam the little guy as much as the big guy.
Please don't do this, you will kill a game that I truly enjoy playing.
Soury
Wed Aug 11, 2004 7:01 am
#139
Well, to tell you the truth, even if SOE wanted to, they really could not create the economy us players want. Why? Because it will eventually lead to powerful business systems (not necessarily monopolies) competing against other powerful business systems, which eventually snuffs out the little guy (like myself). But I do agree, with the previous poster that said "well there's wal-mart in the U.S., does that mean millions of little stores are not making it? Of course not; nonsense!" I agree. I guess SOE is afraid of the statement in this paragraph from happening so they are taking preventative measures.
On top of that, because there are not too many credit sinks, inflation will run amok. I'm not sure if the Devs in SOE in general have read Rich Dad, Poor Dad but I can tell you this from my years of trying to create wealth (real life and in game) that:
there is no creativity promoted in video games like these. If there was, we would have extremely fast rates of enormous gaps between haveand have nots. We also will have far too much money in thehands of a few. Not because of conspiracy but because of lack of credit/money sinks, lack interdependence, and lack of incentive for peopleto cater to various races and socioeconomic groups, and therefore, lack of financial intelligence to create money/credits out of thin air or out of very few credits for everyone. The reverse also works as well.
Most people will not be able to take advantage opportunities simply because most casual players just simply don't want to invest so much effort into something that probably will not turn a profit or huge amounts of wealth for a long time, if ever. So, that leaves "powercrafters, uber crafters, etc" the ambitious folks to fill in the shoes. And they are DAMN GOOD at it too. Yet, whenever someone succeeds to the top, many cry "foul!" and "unfair" and "make it fair!" Yet, the more fair we try to make such things (like SOE is doing now with the nerf) the less freedom we have.
In real life, it is the exact same principle. The only difference is,the United States, like most other countries in the world (Europe, some Middle Eastern countries, etc)understand this exact same principle, even if its people do not, and do everything they can to maintain this principle. They understand that stuff like this happens all the time and opportunity is accessible to all, simply because these capitalistic countries understand that freedom breeds security and everything else, not the other way around. It is up to us to use our freedom to CHOOSE to be fair and secure, not the other way around. So the more we force things to be fairer, the less freedom we have, but we do have more "security" as a lot of casual/average people seem concerned about this. The lure of gaurantees at much lower reward far outweigh the risks of trying to succeed at something that has no gaurantees but have enormous payoffs, like our powergamers/uber crafters well know.
Thus, the nerf. It has bigger impact simply because this game does not have all the important factors that affect real life, but it's a very good simulation, as is in any game.
I look at it this way, the gap between have and have nots will remain about the same, regardless of what the SOE Dev crowd comes up with. Why? Because there will always be people like the powergamers, uber crafters, etc, and myself, who are ambitious and desirous of the good life. I'll work my ass off like any other ambitious person. That alone will make me want more material goods and money because while 200,000 credits can satisfy the average person, it sure as hell won't satisfy me. I want 10 MILLION credits, then I'll have it and even then it may not be enough to satisfy me...
Yet, people will look at this and go "wow, soury has 10 million credits compared to average man's 200,000; UNFAIR. There 20 people that have 200k each yet Soury has 10 million! UNFAIR UNFAIR, nerf, we want our 200k to mean more than his 10 million but we don't want to take responsibility for it! DO SOMETHING SOE!!! *wah wah wah*" Yet they fail to realize it was simply because I could not be happy with 200k while average people were. C'mon, who's being unfair?
This war will always continue. SOE has to juggle the needs of the average people versus the needs of the ambitious or "rich" or whatever. The world will always will have to juggle this. I for one learn so much from these games and one day I will become very rich both in game and in real life (although I guess I am "rich" in game, it really doesn't mean that much but it's a start).
Countries with depressed/poor economies are the ones who have too high taxes, do not cater to the rich, believe money is evil, and are too hung up on security at the expense of freedom, which in turn stifles free enterprise and encouragement of businesses to do business there. If people are not rich, how are they going to pay the salaries for jobs? What is their incentive to be the "big boss" who creates jobs and pays out fat paychecks? Canthey even pay out fat paychecks?And so be it in the real world, and so be it in the galaxy far far away.
Laasin
Wed Aug 11, 2004 7:17 am
#140
As I hear, there is currently a new idea in test center which proposes
to limit vendors to 110 items. I feel obligated to speak out agains this idea
for the hardship it will nodoubt impose upon the players. By limiting the
numer of items a merchant (anyone who sells via a vendor) can place on his vendor
you complicate his efforts to provide his goods to the buyers. This will mean that
a merchant must place more vendors to accomadate the same amount of items he currently
has. More vendors means more hastle and possibly more costs for the merchant.
As it stands most good merchants offer more than one vendor anyway, but this
is done for shopping ease; placing specific vendors for certain types of items.
to limit vendors to 110 items. I feel obligated to speak out agains this idea
for the hardship it will nodoubt impose upon the players. By limiting the
numer of items a merchant (anyone who sells via a vendor) can place on his vendor
you complicate his efforts to provide his goods to the buyers. This will mean that
a merchant must place more vendors to accomadate the same amount of items he currently
has. More vendors means more hastle and possibly more costs for the merchant.
As it stands most good merchants offer more than one vendor anyway, but this
is done for shopping ease; placing specific vendors for certain types of items.
All and all, this inconvenience will certainly filter down to those who actually pay
for the vendors in the first place: THE BUYERS. If a merchant is more tied to his
vendors by time and cost he will surely pass this cost to the customers. In addition,
with the buyers having to search through a sea of vendors the merchants business will
most likely be effected. This could drive some of those offering goods to doing things
in person and with that will definitely come more problems and more costs. Higher prices
and less convenience is not exactly what I'm looking for when I shop for items in game
or out.
for the vendors in the first place: THE BUYERS. If a merchant is more tied to his
vendors by time and cost he will surely pass this cost to the customers. In addition,
with the buyers having to search through a sea of vendors the merchants business will
most likely be effected. This could drive some of those offering goods to doing things
in person and with that will definitely come more problems and more costs. Higher prices
and less convenience is not exactly what I'm looking for when I shop for items in game
or out.
If the developers are looking for ways to better the merchant profession they should
think about adding options, such as; better division of catagories or possibly even user
defined catagories that would allow a merchant to subdivide his products as he sees would
make shopping a bit easier. I'm not sure what the intended purpose of this proposal was,
but I feel that it will only have a negative affect on the in-game experience.
think about adding options, such as; better division of catagories or possibly even user
defined catagories that would allow a merchant to subdivide his products as he sees would
make shopping a bit easier. I'm not sure what the intended purpose of this proposal was,
but I feel that it will only have a negative affect on the in-game experience.
thanks for your time
l'Aasin
l'Aasin
Tanooshman
Wed Aug 11, 2004 7:35 am
#141
Thanks for the reply Reaperess,
The DB being talked about isn't the same as the DB on your Client but rather the Index to your Client's DB. The index stored on the Server is a collection of pointers to the objects on your Client. So when you see a list of Furniture on a Vendor, the data served up from SOE to your ClientincludesPointers to the pictures (icons). The Pictures, which DO take up gobs and gobs of disk, are local to your machine. The relative size of the pointers DB (a set on the server) to the objects (DB sets on the clients) should be quite small.
You are absolutely correct that without actually knowing the DB requirements involved we are speculating. However, I am an active Developer dealing with DB requirements Magnitudes beyond anything SWG could require until every man woman and child on the planet played the game. Which I don't recommend.
While clearly a function of cost/benefit, and making some assumptions about the Equipment behind the game (Medium Commercial at least), I can see no Operating system or DB application system limits that should mandate anything like the kind of limits being discussed, unless the number of players rose to the tens of millions and the supporting server population stayed constant.
So..... It ain't the hardware or DB software limits triggering this proposed item ceiling. The point of my post, was that if reasonable limits were imposed on every class BUT Master Merchant, they could be quite high. And I was trying to support the concept that infinity is neither realistic nor desireable at Artisan Business 3. The limits per lot, per factory, per Vendor, per person - are being driven by something else - and we can't respond knowledgeably until we're informed what it is.
Forgot to include your post!
Tanooshman wrote:
If every one suffers the same limits, I can live with it. So there, it's said.
But.
I can't imagine what is triggering this change. Last I heard there were 1 million SWG players - spread over 25 or so Galaxies. Even assuming 100k players per server, with 10k items EACH - that's only 1gig items in the database. I'm unaware of any modern Commercial grade Db for which that is a daunting number. If you had to allocate 10k of storage FOR EACH ITEM, that's still only 10 terabytes. I'd be impressed if we were talking about my brother's home setup - but for a SONY game of this stature I fail to see any major challenges before 100 times the number of players.
If it's a gameplay issue, there's some room for argument. An artisan with Level 3 business skillprobably doesn't need, and maybe shouldn't have unlimited vendor storage capacity. But a Master Merchant? I can't fathom the reason for a limit on Master Mechants - therefore I can't elucidate an alternative.
But it's clear if all BUT Master Merchant had limits, the DB issue would evaporate, regardless of the limits.
I have to comment that SOE has not demonstrated an award-winning capacity for seeing the consequences of its changes (to date). Just as the Holocrons had an unintended consequence.
The simple FACT: The players WILL HAVE THEIR STUFF!!!! If you take away this avenue - there will be a backlash. It may very well be less convenient!
We have no where near 1 million players. If you don't know how much space each item takes p, how do you know the size of the DB. The client side of the game is about 2 gigs. No way the DB is 1 gig.
Message Edited by Tanooshman on 08-11-2004 10:38 AM
JutMan
Wed Aug 11, 2004 7:41 am
#142
JudoKnight wrote:My proposal is thisBus III - 100 ItemsBus IV - +50 itemsNovice - +100 ItemsFor each skill box completed in Merchant Class +50 itemsMaster Merchant +100This would total about 1050 items per Vendor.This would allow us that cannot master Merchant to still have a reasonable amount per vendor.
Excellent idea! make them stack instead of a hard number!
Vandaemus
Wed Aug 11, 2004 7:41 am
#143
The limit on professions is the skill points available, i am currently master chef/tailor and merchant. this should be a playable combination.
As others have stated, tailors probably require the greatest number of items on a vendor to be considered reasonably well stocked and also have the slowest turn over of those items. i myself keep around 4000 items on one vendor which is 2 or three of each colour, 12 - 15 colour variations of about 100 items. this is by no means comprehensive, i could easily stock a wider variety of items, colours etc.
my second vendor is for foods, this has over 400 items.
i keep a third vendor for components, resources etc. with about 400 items on it.
i dont need 6 vendors, the item or value limit (whichever) should ba an aggregate based on your merchant level and the limit should be 10x what the currently suggested limits are