Merchant Archive
Thread: FanFest Update: Empty vendorsu
Songe
Tue Jun 08, 2004 11:17 am
#14
I wouldn't like to see the price except when at the vendor, or everyone will just go to the cheapest vendor and it will just lead to a devaluation of items. I don't think we will see the number of items in stock, it would just make people stock their vendors more and I don't think the devs will really appreciate it hehe.
DingoBoi
Tue Jun 08, 2004 8:38 pm
#16
i don't agree here, specifically because this would affect me negatively. I think item count is a much better method than last time stocked. I can load 30 million resource units on a vendor and walk away for a month. I don't think I want to be judged by not having added stock in the last 23 days or so when it is already well stocked. Slight exaggeration but you get the point.
p4Samwise wrote:
I agree about hiding the price. The "last time stocked" seems to me like the best way of knowing whether a vendor is worth going to - the more frequently a merchant puts stuff in a vendor, the better odds you have of finding what you want there, as a general rule.
p4Samwise
Wed Jun 09, 2004 3:01 pm
#17
DingoBoi wrote:
i don't agree here, specifically because this would affect me negatively. I think item count is a much better method than last time stocked. I can load 30 million resource units on a vendor and walk away for a month. I don't think I want to be judged by not having added stock in the last 23 days or so when it is already well stocked. Slight exaggeration but you get the point.
p4Samwise wrote:
I agree about hiding the price. The "last time stocked" seems to me like the best way of knowing whether a vendor is worth going to - the more frequently a merchant puts stuff in a vendor, the better odds you have of finding what you want there, as a general rule.
Depends what you're looking to buy. If it's a vendor called "Dingo's power", and there are 30 items in stock, you can assume that they're all power, and that you should go there if you want to buy power.
If, on the other hand, it's a vendor called "Evinin's Fashions" and there are 100 items in stock, but they were all placed there a month ago, odds are decent that either all the most popular types of clothing have sold out, or that the selection ispoor sonobody shops there. Merchants that sell a variety of items off a single vendor generally need to stock more frequently in order to keep up with shifting demand.
Here's another idea: a "consumer rating system". After shopping at a vendor you have the option to put a rating on it, and these ratings show up on the planetary map. Empty or overpriced vendors would quickly get one-starred out of business.
DragonScout
Wed Jun 09, 2004 3:28 pm
#18
I really like the idea of customer ratings on the planetary map.
DocSavag
Wed Jun 09, 2004 3:30 pm
#19
DragonScout wrote:
I really like the idea of customer ratings on the planetary map.
Grief City
DragonScout
Wed Jun 09, 2004 4:09 pm
#20
yeah. it could be grief city, but if you limited it to one vote per person... grr. I guess not. they have a tendency to do things on timers in SWG. and if you did it on a timer.. it could be abused. If the vendor stored each name though, that wouldn't be too bad, but then you might start drawing on too much database resources. who knows. I still like the idea of it. hehe.
Songe
Wed Jun 09, 2004 4:20 pm
#21
I don't like it either, just see how many people 1 star posts on these forums lol.
p4Samwise
Wed Jun 09, 2004 4:26 pm
#22
As long as it's one vote per person (like the ratings on the forum), it'd work out, just like it does for eBay.
On the forums, don't all the really good posts get 5-starred? And all the really bad posts get 1-starred? The system works, because griefers comprise a relatively small percentage of the population. It might SEEM like there are more of them, but that's only because of the times when one griefer is able to harm the game experience for lots of people. In a voting system where each player gets one vote, a griefer can't make enough of a difference to grief effectively.
I'd also suggest that the voting system not be anonymous. That way if someone one-stars you, ban him from your shop - clearly he didn't like shopping there anyway, so no loss to anyone concerned, right? 
And if he DID like your shop but felt like being an assmunch anyway, he's now learned a valuable lesson.
And if he DID like your shop but felt like being an assmunch anyway, he's now learned a valuable lesson.
Songe
Wed Jun 09, 2004 4:32 pm
#23
Yes and no on the 5 star comment, as a lot of people just don't bother voting. I don't know, maybe making people vote after checking a vendor would work in this case, but is it worth the hastle?
p4Samwise
Wed Jun 09, 2004 4:56 pm
#24
Even without forcing the issue, there are enough decent people who vote that it'd probably tend to work out (again, I think the forums are a pretty good example).
However, the system could potentially include an incentive for voting. In real life, companies give small amounts of money and/or freebies to customers who participate in market surveys. Allow a merchant to load a vendor with special "freebies", or a stash of credits reserved for that purpose, and specify what "gift" voting customers get. Customers who haven't yet voted can see up front what the reward is for voting - they get the reward regardless of what their vote is (with the caveat that an unjust vote might get them banned from the shop).
Of course we're adding more and more complexity now, but it could potentially lend a new interesting dynamic to the merchant playstyle - you could figure out how much a good customer rating is worth to you, and then "bribe" your customers with appropriately nice freebies that you increase the likelihood of good ratings. This'd be a good thing to put in Advertising 4, which is currently bereft of any really nifty abilities (I don't consider the spambots or the piddling discount worth mentioning) - make ALL vendors ratable, but only skilled propagandists get the ability to bribe their way to better ratings. This'd also be a good mechanism for dispensing "free samples" for marketing purposes (e.g. a sample of killer chef food, a single weapon powerup, a single stack of grenades, any of which might lure your customer to come back and buy that same item in crate quantities).
DocSavag
Wed Jun 09, 2004 8:32 pm
#25
Its a lot of work and a lot of code for very little gain. What makes a good vendor. If I don't find the item I'm looking for do I rate it badly? What does that mean to you? Rating systems like the forum and this one are so subjective as to be useless.
ZallusNuranxis
Thu Jun 10, 2004 4:22 pm
#26
One person's bad vendor could be someone else's treasure trove
DocSavag wrote:
Its a lot of work and a lot of code for very little gain. What makes a good vendor. If I don't find the item I'm looking for do I rate it badly? What does that mean to you? Rating systems like the forum and this one are so subjective as to be useless.