Merchant Archive
Thread: Focus Thread: Galaxy-Wide Vendor Search
Elyssa wrote:
Tiggs posted some information about a new vendor searching system over in this thread.
Please use this thread to post your feedback on it and I will point the devs toward it.
Message Edited by Novock on 02-12-2005 11:38 AM
Dvnce wrote:
OH I HAVE AN IDEA!!!! I really Really Think that this is a great Compromise....
Ok.. there are two reason why I dont like this vendor change ...
Price Wars and the fact that crafters now tend to migrate to successful malls which tend to be in Player cities.. and this change will make it not necessary to migrate to a player city., ( BAd BaD bAD)
What if?? Player Cities were given Commerce Terminals that they can Place In their City From this Terminal You can Search Any Vendor within that Cities Limits. Price Detail what ever. You still have to travel ( but 1 minute travel timers help that ) but it still Leaves it in the Hands of the Merchants to Advertise and market their Location...
I think this is a great Compromise that will impact MerchantCrafters and Player Cities the Least and Still Help Buyers have an easier time looking for goods..
Dvnce wrote:
OH I HAVE AN IDEA!!!! I really Really Think that this is a great Compromise....
Ok.. there are two reason why I dont like this vendor change ...
Price Wars and the fact that crafters now tend to migrate to successful malls which tend to be in Player cities.. and this change will make it not necessary to migrate to a player city., ( BAd BaD bAD)
What if?? Player Cities were given Commerce Terminals that they can Place In their City From this Terminal You can Search Any Vendor within that Cities Limits. Price Detail what ever. You still have to travel ( but 1 minute travel timers help that ) but it still Leaves it in the Hands of the Merchants to Advertise and market their Location...
I think this is a great Compromise that will impact MerchantCrafters and Player Cities the Least and Still Help Buyers have an easier time looking for goods..
EXACTLY!!!!!
BTW This is not a compromise, this is one of the things Politicians have been begging for since PC's started.
Fivo Asia
- Increase the Price cap on the Bazaar for instant purchases. Make the bazaar the "Basic" buyer/seller interface, so starting Artisans will have a system that doesn't directly compete with existing Vendors. Will help new Combat and Crafting professions alike by being a central meeting place for lower level goods.
- Implement Searching of Vendors through the vendor interface. That's right, just searching. Player will save time by finding where to travel to get the item they want. They must then travel to purchase the item. This will keep cities and vendor system viable.
- Create a new "Auction" style vendor for the Merchant profession. Basically a vendor where players can directly offer their looted wares for sale, either through direct pricing or buyout. Eliminates the need for an out of game Trade Forum, and keeps people in game, increasing immersion. Merchant would receive a portion of final sale price - Initial idea was 5% - With 1-2% to Merchant, 1-2% to city it's hosted in, and remainder going to "taxes" - Creates a new credit sink type.
These types of ideas are ones that can keep Merchant a viable, thriving profession. What we have been presented with make Merchant far less than a "basic" profession -As opposed to the "elite" form of Artisan.
Many people have skipped reading a lot of posts, and missed several excellent posts by others. One of the big things I notice most people missing is that this change isn't limited to the Bazaar. Our vendors will in essence become an Internet Sales terminal. The easiest example of what this does is this:
You run a succesful Pizza Delivery business. As a perk to your consumers, you offer free internet access. As they search the Internet, they find a pizza that's half the price of yours, and buys it. Is it fair to allow someone to come into your shop and buy another Pizza somewhere else, and you receive NO benefit from it?
At the very least, there should be some benefit to us from these changes. Possibly a 5% fee on Remote purchases. If from Bazaar, the 5% goes to a credit sink. If from a player vendor, it goes to the vendor owner.
There needs to be some reason for players to visit our vendors. There needs to be some benefit to offset lost sales due to the new system. The name of the game in any MMO is Risk vs Reward. In the new layout, our risk is that we have to compete face to face - What is our reward for doing so?
Phaelyn wrote:
Over in the business and Economy Forum, we have been having discussions since it was implemented concerning ways to improve Merchant, and overhaul the entire Playeer Purchase interface. Interesting enough, several of the ideas that were bandied around did in fact include the very changes as they stand to go to TC now.
Not surprisingly, most people hated them there, and the same response types are here in this thread. To make it easier, and eliminate the need for clickys, I will bullet several of the key ideas we've had here:
- Increase the Price cap on the Bazaar for instant purchases. Make the bazaar the "Basic" buyer/seller interface, so starting Artisans will have a system that doesn't directly compete with existing Vendors. Will help new Combat and Crafting professions alike by being a central meeting place for lower level goods.
- Implement Searching of Vendors through the vendor interface. That's right, just searching. Player will save time by finding where to travel to get the item they want. They must then travel to purchase the item. This will keep cities and vendor system viable.
- Create a new "Auction" style vendor for the Merchant profession. Basically a vendor where players can directly offer their looted wares for sale, either through direct pricing or buyout. Eliminates the need for an out of game Trade Forum, and keeps people in game, increasing immersion. Merchant would receive a portion of final sale price - Initial idea was 5% - With 1-2% to Merchant, 1-2% to city it's hosted in, and remainder going to "taxes" - Creates a new credit sink type.
These types of ideas are ones that can keep Merchant a viable, thriving profession. What we have been presented with make Merchant far less than a "basic" profession -As opposed to the "elite" form of Artisan.
Many people have skipped reading a lot of posts, and missed several excellent posts by others. One of the big things I notice most people missing is that this change isn't limited to the Bazaar. Our vendors will in essence become an Internet Sales terminal. The easiest example of what this does is this:
You run a succesful Pizza Delivery business. As a perk to your consumers, you offer free internet access. As they search the Internet, they find a pizza that's half the price of yours, and buys it. Is it fair to allow someone to come into your shop and buy another Pizza somewhere else, and you receive NO benefit from it?
At the very least, there should be some benefit to us from these changes. Possibly a 5% fee on Remote purchases. If from Bazaar, the 5% goes to a credit sink. If from a player vendor, it goes to the vendor owner.
There needs to be some reason for players to visit our vendors. There needs to be some benefit to offset lost sales due to the new system. The name of the game in any MMO is Risk vs Reward. In the new layout, our risk is that we have to compete face to face - What is our reward for doing so?
- People who make their money by fighting, this means mission money or selling loot.
- Crafters who are ONLY crafters, they only have their crafting to support, they don't care about anything else.
- Crafters who support their crafting, yet also support a combat role. By this, I mean they use their money from crafting to buy Armor, Weapons, and everything that Combatents buy, but they use crafting money not mission money.
All 3 are perfectly valid playstyles, each person should be 100% able to sustain their playstyle.
In a "perfect" economy, Combatents spend 50% of their money on supplies. This may seem a lot, but if you want to fully support all 3 types above this is what is needed. This supply money is spread out equally over all professions, right now some like Armorsmith get the largest amount, and Tailors get the least. Currently, combatents spend far less then 50% of their money on supplies, they already bank a large chunk of their income.
Ok, now lets talk about loot, and "wanted" items. Things like tapes, attachments, weapons and other loot stuff. These can vary in price from low to multi-millions. Both the first and 3rd types of people above are interested in Combatent items. So will be either bidding against each other or affected by the market value of each. Already, with a few exceptions, many combatents have deeper pockets then most crafters. Allowing them to buy more.
Now your wondering what the relevancy of this is to the current vendor issue. It all ties together. Many crafters love crafting, not for the act of crafting themselves, but for the sake of running a business. They take their stock, quality, customer service and advertising. NO OTHER MMRPG ALLOWS YOU TO RUN A BUSINESS LIKE SWG DOES. Sorry for the caps, but that point needs stressed.
Now you may think that people will still be able to run a business just as well after this change. You are wrong. Now it wont matter if I have 300 items on my vendor. If one person has a cheaper version of equal quality, then that version will be bought. You may think this is good, giving the new guy a chance, yet it isn't. Once the undercutting starts, it will never stop. One person selling at 2 cpu profit will leave only to be replaced by another.
New crafters should be able to compete as well, yet they should have to work for it, just like the rest of us did. I'm sorry, butXX hours a week for a year, should give somebody an edge over somebody just starting. This will destroy that. All a new crafter has to do, especially with items that quality doesn't matter on is toss a bunch of stuff together, and they will be on 100% equal footing. This is wrong. Part of whats good about running a succesful business is the work involved and the achievement as you suceed. New crafters should work just like others, it's part of the fun. You are destroying the whole "Business" side of SWG, the one truly unique thing it had.
Now again, you may feel that price competition is good, it's not it's bad. The more prices drop, the more money that combatents will keep to themselves and not spend. This will lock crafters out of competing with them. You are stopping a whole group of people from playing the game they want. We want to run a business, the better we run our business, the better we do. We want the profits from this business to put us on equal footing with those who choose to earn money other ways. Now I'm sure a lot of combatents will read this and one star me, that's fine. I don't hate combatents, I am one. Yet I choose to make my money from crafting, not missions. Both should be equally viable.
Now, I understand that the point of this idea was to actually make it easier for people to find items. People are lazy, they want tings to be as easy as possible. I'm not saying this as an insult, I get it, this is a game, it should be fun and not work. The problem is that in an effort to make it easier, you are making it harder for others. Are shoppers really more importantthen crafters? That is what you are saying.
It is 100% possible to make both sides happy. First, scrap the current idea, I know this is brutal, you worked on it, yet let it go. Sure revamp the bazaar, but leave Vendors off it. The answer is the Global Map. Make it so when you select a vendor on the global map, you can see how many items are on the vendor. If the vendor is named "Joes Weapons," and has 200 things on it, you may want to check it out. If it has 10 items, you may or may no want to make the trip. Heck simply make the vendors on the global map a different color based upon how many items are on it.
This would make the Global Map and Merchant MORE valuable, not less. Yet at the sametime, save shoppers the work oflooking for empty vendors.
My biggest question is honestly, why wasn't thecrafting correspondants consulted before this was even started? Isn't that what they are there for? This was a huge surprise to them as well. Any idea likethis should be bounced off of them before work is started.
Mystyrys wrote:
Yes. One battle at a time, wins the war.
As Tiggs said, it's not even on TC yet. Try it out and see how it works, or doesn't. And give them lots of feedback on it.
I don't like the idea of being a remote advertisment for all my competition. But if I choose to opt out of the galaxy search, I cut myself out of the chain, don't I? I'd become a missing link?
I don't wantthe reasons forvisitingmy remote location to be cut completely out of the loop because someone may see they can get it somewhere else cheaper. I am hoping they can see they can geta wide varietyat my mall and not have to city hop to complete a shopping list.
