Merchant Archive
Thread: Focus Thread: Galaxy-Wide Vendor Search
Ojes
Mon Feb 14, 2005 9:45 am
#287
...forgot to quote the alternative that I liked...
See full reply below...
Message Edited by Ojes on 02-14-2005 08:47 AM
Ojes
Mon Feb 14, 2005 9:46 am
#288
Strongbow wrote:
I'm going to keep coming back to my idea of expanding the Planetary Map. The ability to post there comes from our Advertising skill.
Take the categories and subcategories that already exist on our Vendors, expand them by 2 levels to further break down by Item Type (Sword, Bracer, Backpack, etc using the 'Variation of' designator, not the sellers name for the item) and then Vendor name; put that tree on a new tab of the Planetary Map. The Vendor Name would also have numeric indicator showing how many of that item are currently in-stock and available (notsittingin the stock room). The Customer can then see the waypoint(s) on the map just like he does now.
This would have the added benefit of not limiting vendors to only listing in one category. If you have a loot item and a sword on the vendor, then your vendor would be listed under both of the appropriate categories (if you have the relevant skill in Advertising).
This solution can be leveraged with the systems that are already in the game, albiet there are some User Interface issues that would have to be addressed.
Not a perfect solution, no. But I think it is a place to start. Main thing is KISS, "Keep it Simple Stupid". Look at the tools that we already have and how they can be extended to meet the needs of everyone affected.
My main irritation is that the Dev's seem to like re-vamping entire systems just for the sake of re-vamping them. As a Systems Analyst, I know there are times you have to scratch a system completely and start over, but more times than not youtweak your existing systems and get the results you are looking for. Any time you decide to make fundamental change (like the original proposal) to a system, you had better understand the consequences of that change, forwards, backwards and upside-down.
Now if we could convince the Dev's to give us a simple Re-stock command at the same time, I would be a very happy camper.
I really like this concept. It may turn out to be technically quite difficult since it would mean a dynamic search of planet-wide vendor inventory, but it gives the information that the customer "really" needs. Typically, all the customer wants to know is what vendors have product 'A' on them. By product 'A', they do not mean something as general as 'meds'. They are either looking for buffpacks, stimpacks, woundpacks, statepacks, rezkits, etc. All of the other planetary ad categories have similar implied structures underneath them.
I also believe it gets another important question correct. That is whether to display item stats and price on this planetary/galactic directory. I believe it is a bad idea to list either stats or price on the listing unless you are ready to list both. Price is meaningless unless you can see the stats that justify that price. Stats without price would simply cause people to visit shops based on stats (when the most cost-effective solution for their need might be a slightly-less uber product at a reasonable cost).
The listing of crated and packaged products in their proper category and subcategories is another major hurdle for the developers, but that's what they get paid for...
Jaer_Allanon
Mon Feb 14, 2005 10:15 am
#289
DocSavag wrote:
GraySeven wrote:
Again, undercutting won't really happen. Too many people will buy up the cheap stuff and resell it, especially if its easy to do.
There is nothing wrong with this change.
Undercutting already happens and it already affects the market. The shipwright market has drastically changed over the past few months because people are willing to sell it at lower costs. Putting all the prices on the galactic bazaar will affect pricing. How much and what the result of that will be is open to speculation.
I know a crafter on another galaxy who could afford to dump 4k harvesters on the market below cost. You could TRY to buy them up faster than he can post them to the bazaar but good luck. The logistics of going and getting them all would keep you pretty busy for a while. Meanwhile the price will get lower in the process. Others will drop their prices to try to compete..you'll have to buy them out too..there is a limit to your time and resources. You cannot buy out every single harvester in the galaxy to artifically inflate the price. That doesn't mean the price would be 0 or that the price would be below cost for everyone. The most likely scenario is that the people who mine their own resources would set the price. You would either have to mine your own to compete or find a way to get resources sellers to drastically lower their prices.
/Agree. Undercutting is already happening, but they are only willing to sell items at 6k because no one goes to their stores to buy anything. Shipwright is broken for many reasons, but thats not the focus here. Most gamers are unwilling to take the time to build a business. Sadly, building a business is the single longterm/longlived enjoyment of SWG. Even if you are able to Master a crafting profession, you have to learn how to craft inorder to make your goods worthwhile. Once you make them worth buying, then you have to establish a business to sell them or a relationship with someone else, who has an established business,to sell them for you.
The Combat Upgrade is going to effect the marketplace. Plain and simple. HAM is going to have a factor. Buffs will be reduced. Armor is overhauled and weapons will completely change. SOE will have to greatly rely on the Crafting community and Businesses to pull off this change quickly. Or, they could do what they did with Shipwright. Make loot more valuable than crafted items. The CU could make or break the game. SOE, I am sure, wants to get a major boost when the CU goes live. But the player economy is based just on that. Economics. Wether it is artificial or not.
Since the Devs can't talk about the CU, there's a Catch 22. However, there is a need to get the "player" economy involved in the discussion of how to inject these changes into the economy. They are obviously ready to pull the rug out from underneath the business community. Mainly, because they are afraid that the crafters will be unable to successfully meet the new demand for gear that never existed in game. Crafters will have to have time to "relearn" their profession. Possibly, have to gather new and rarely good resources. Basically, the game wont immediately gain from the CU. People are already impatient. The changes to crafting will hurt the success, as SOE sees it, early on. Because it takes time to build a business, learn your craft, and gather resources. The long term game enjoyment is under the gun right now. SOE better take this much more seriously. Otherwise the CU will end the game as we know it, and SOE better inject an enormous amount of content to the game.
Right now, it is the business community, player cities, and crafting professions that are the content of this game. The combat oriented players have to interact with Doctors/crafters to get buffs, Dancers to get buffs, Weaponsmiths to get their ultimate weapon made, Armorsmiths, chefs, and smugglers to learn how they can best protect themselves and successfully get what they want.... the list goes on.
Yeah, I see where they are listening that this is causing an outrage. However, do they understand what they are doing? Are they benefitiing from complete secrecy. I would say.. No and No.
Message Edited by Jaer_Allanon on 02-14-2005 12:18 PM
Me and my Typos 
Message Edited by Jaer_Allanon on 02-14-2005 01:00 PM
Sirion1
Mon Feb 14, 2005 11:22 am
#290
This is a step back for the SWG! Why in the world would anyone think this is a good idea? What's the point o f being a merchant? What's the point of decorating a shop?
Not the smartest idea I have seen the Devs come up with.
GraySeven
Mon Feb 14, 2005 11:32 am
#291
I did see one very good point buried in the middle of all this...
Some manner of preventing people from selling things cheap and then having an unreasonable entry fee to get into the house or tent with the vendor will need to be in place. Such as listing any access fee's in the browser...
The only way to prevent Merchant from getting tanked by this is to make it a high level Merchant skill to list items for browsing and requiring you to pick up the items. Ideally, this skill would be one step up from Planetary Advertisment.
I still have yet to see any valid reasons for why undercutting would be such a problem. Undercutters will not be able to afford to for long, and resellers buying should keep undercutting to a minimum. I'm reminded of when Speeders came out. Speeders came out and you had an almost equal amount of people selling for what prices are now, 10 times that much, and half as much (give or take). You don't see alot of undercutting on Speeders any more, do you? Some got as much as they could while they could, some tried to make money through volumn and some looked forward to "after the boom" to when customers would remember who did them wrong and who didn't.
MA's felt they could gouge just as the CH's did when mounts first came out, but what they failed to realize was A)Basic vs Advanced profession, B)More MA's than CH's and C)Buyers weretired of getting gouged!
As an alternative, turn the Galactic Bazaar into the Galactic Holonet. Allow people to see only the items that are for sell, other items for sale at the same location, and get waypoints to these locations. Have other Holonet things, such as Event listings or Quests or POI's (not already listed) given as Holo-News stories...
Rumors of a Rebel Strike on Bestine, or an Imperial Crackdown at Moenia could precursor events and breathe life back into NPC cities. Stories of an extensive kreetle den (Oh my!) somewhere in the Tatooine SW could lead to the new Kreetle Cave...something along those lines.
Oh, and still have the ability for people to sell on the "Holonet" through the Classifieds, just make vendor browsing an Advertisment section...
Ahnch_Ryhou
Mon Feb 14, 2005 11:37 am
#292
I like the idea of a galaxy-wide vendor search with a purchase option, but I am opposed to the instant delivery feature. I think buyers should only be allowed to pickup their remote purchase. This will encourage travel to other planets and will give merchants any XP they need. On the other hand, if a delivery fee is imposed and if merchants are still awarded XP, I think instant delivery would be ok.
Happymob
Mon Feb 14, 2005 12:16 pm
#293
I'm less concerned about this for the sole reason that they included all professions in the CU alpha testing. Plus there are several combat representatives that are also serious crafter-merchants. I may be on the combat medic team, but that's hardly all I do on live.
Jaer_Allanon wrote:
Since the Devs can't talk about the CU, there's a Catch 22. However, there is a need to get the "player" economy involved in the discussion of how to inject these changes into the economy. They are obviously ready to pull the rug out from underneath the business community. Mainly, because they are afraid that the crafters will be unable to successfully meet the new demand for gear that never existed in game. Crafters will have to have time to "relearn" their profession. Possibly, have to gather new and rarely good resources. Basically, the game wont immediately gain from the CU.
DarkJedi49
Mon Feb 14, 2005 12:46 pm
#294
I know someone will rip me a new one for this statement, but I just wanted to say that we already have this in real life, it's called the internet, and I don't think many complain about that. I know a lot of people would rather sit at home in their scivvies searching the internet for the best deal, then having it shipped to them, rather than running around town wasting time and gas.
Fidgiter
Mon Feb 14, 2005 12:50 pm
#295
This change is really poorly considered and a major blow to those players who have taken pride in their professions through consistantly well stocked vendors in well appointed shops in good locations with an established and loyal customer base.
There are a few major dangers I see here
- Query throughput could cause performance problems for the global transactions at the least and could impact overall game performance. There are enough performance related problems already and the game can not afford to make it worse.
- Remote sale would reduce vendor interaction thus reduce experience earnings for newer merchants and autodelivery would reduce player interaction as well as "Vendor Pride" for merchants who have well appointed vendors and/or shops.
- Remote purchase without autdelivery could result in grief problems where a person buys an item at location A to get an item in location B but finds an exorbinant entry fee or being banned from the shop where they made the purchase.
While I understand the frustration of shoppers finding empty vendors and malls and can definately see the appeal from a consumer perspective I do not see the reward to be great enough to compensate for the risk to system performance, immersive settings and customer service problems (CSR).
The reward for coordinated businessfolk creating a shopping enviroment where consumers can consistantly go to and find what they need is satisfaction of the service, increased traffic resulting in greater volumes of sales and potentially being able to charge more for the service. Time is money and the less time someone has to shop the more time they have to earn.
The reward for being a frugal consumer is that through time and effort you will find the best deal. Rather than shopping at the Mall you go to competing retailers, find the best deal for the quality product you desire and get the best price. The time spent is rewarded by savings.
This change will reward everyone therefore remove the economic challenges both as a vendor and as a consumer. It is well known that a game that doesn't present challenges gets stale and boring ultimately ruining the player satisfaction with the game.
This is all I'm going to say on this monster of a thread =) I have an alternative which I'll post on a different thread.
GreenLeaders
Mon Feb 14, 2005 3:20 pm
#296
Check out Oortog's post "Solution to Galaxy wide search" I think he has some excellent ideas.
Jutewr
Mon Feb 14, 2005 6:11 pm
#297
DarkJedi49 wrote:
I know someone will rip me a new one for this statement, but I just wanted to say that we already have this in real life, it's called the internet, and I don't think many complain about that. I know a lot of people would rather sit at home in their scivvies searching the internet for the best deal, then having it shipped to them, rather than running around town wasting time and gas.
Very true, but SWG isn't real life, is it? That's what makes it fun for me. Playing in a fantasy world where I don't have any of my real life concerns.
DarkJedi49
Tue Feb 15, 2005 1:01 am
#298
I remember when the merchant item nerf first came out everyone was blowing a fuse over the item limits allowed. A big ruckus was started just like this and they re-evaluated it to accomadate it a little better, so nothing is final yet. Keep your hopes up. This would still be a very time consuming effort for the consumer if they wanted to sit at a terminal or vendor and search each vendor one by one and keep track of stats and prices on items. I don't think many players will sit and do that unless they have nothing else to do.
cinnamon_tsunami
Tue Feb 15, 2005 1:19 am
#299
I read the first three pages. Pretty much seems like 99+% of people agree that the proposed changes are bad. I agree completely - naughty devs! Fix this ASAP! What we have now is far superior to what you have proposed.
My shop suceeds because of location and selection. With these changes, those two factors will be of no consequence. Most of our business is due to repeat customers who know weprobably have what they want in stock, and word of mouth when they bring their friends. Our quality is as good as any we can find, and we feel that our prices are fair, but they are not even going to be the cheapest in the galaxy. We do not even want to be the cheapest.
We will never win a price war, simply because it is not worth it. And with no foot traffic required, I feel confident that our shop will fail rather quickly due to price undercutting and easy delivery to the location of your choice from anywhere at all.
Do Not Do This.
cin