Merchant Archive
Thread: I don't like vendor search from bazaars
Flatfingers wrote:
Jhess wrote:
The vendor search was the BEST that that ever happened to this game, from a non crafters standpoint. No longerr would i spend hours and hours running from planet to planet, from strip mall to strip mall to find that great weapon for a great price, only to see it for half the price i paid on another mechant later.
This needs to be stressed.
More customers who are happier because they're finding the stuff they want means more customers. Ultimately that translates into more profit for all merchants.
Givingconsumers more and better productinformation (which is what we got when vendor items became visible on Bazaar terminals) is the honest merchant's best marketing tool.
--Flatfingers
Exactly, ive probably spent millions just on food/spice/pup's/be clothes/vehicles now because its not sucha freaking CHORE to find a merchant
4Bidden wrote:
I thought the vendor search feature was a good idea at first. But now, I think it does more harm than good. For a customer its great, but for a vendor who has to sell items a bit more expensive cause of overhead, its not so great. I think my main issue with it is that you can search galaxy wide from any bazaar. That hurts the local market where that bazaar is located if the item you are looking for is cheaper on another planet.My suggestion would be for themto remove all prices from the search feature.. Let the customers know where its available, but if they want to know the price they would need to travel to that vendor or contact the owner. I personally dont have a problem with pricing cause i harvest all of my own resources.
Lol, remove the price feature? So, now my customer has to fly around until he finds the best price? It seems like you people love price gouging your customers.. if you cant compete at the lowest price for the highest quality then get out of the market. You think the Chinese care about the US micro markets? No.. they are providing high quality manufactured products at low costs prices.. The Retailers are then using the most advanced and effective sales methods and the most efficent delivery means (The internet vs Brick and Mortar and UPS/Fedex delivery). Its a new and useful feature thatgives the consumer more value for their money.
guessit wrote:
"2. The vendor search has reduced profit margins. It is now harder for merchants with prime vendor locations and or well stocked vendors to charge a premium for convienience. "
I knew when i read this subject line someone would prove they were a greedy assshat, and thus it has come to pass.
If in fact your vendors are in such a prime location, then people would GLADLY go there regardless; your location hasnt become less prime because of the bazaar listing; it is just as convenient to walk there... your fleecing of the player population however, has.
The consumer now is more educated about price listings; and this is more than likely the reason you dont like it. You cant overprice your goods and expect to compete, unless your goods are "the best available at themost competitiveprice"
Of the various benefits that the vendors provide there are three primary and very important ones;
1. It ensures younever come across an unstocked vendor, which has always been a problem.
2. It ensures that merchants who overcharge, will not sell their items first.
3. It gives a very good chance to those merchants who are NOT in prime locations.
In the end, if I want to pay 30k more per item I may still go to a vendor in a good location, but usually I will take the one with the lower price if the products are equal.
Also there is another thing to consider; the GCW effectively cuts off Correllia for imperials, therefore we are subject to naboo, or other planets. The strong imperial presence on tatooine and nabooeffectively cuts many rebels off from what would otherwise be open markets.
Since going on leave can be an extra pain in the ass since recruiters are only incertain cities, it shouldnt be necessary to do so every time you need to buy an item.
1. Unstocked vendors continue to be a problem because people have little initiative to sell anything to a playerbase that has no USE for an item. When 90% of what I make is either immune to decay or last forever what incentive do I have to make more? Not much.
2. The only thing that assures people don't "overcharge" is players not buying their products. I haven't made Architect products for a month and the only person on server selling the high end ones are friends of mine I informed as such. They immediately raised their city structures a minimum of 70% above previously prices that I stood fast to control. They are selling them because no one else does who want to keep prices down. So essentially your GWVS did nothing to control prices.
3. Merchants used to need to develop community ties to support their products. I spent almost a year developing the community within my guild, while competing with all those other "prime location" vendors. Now, my player city has a reputation for vendors that satisfy the consumer. GWVS is a copout for lazy players that don't wish to develop squat.
As for the GCW - Imperials control all the planets in Tempest because we work together as a community. If you've a problem with rebel insurgents I suggest you rally the troops and not blame that problem on Merchants.
JeCy wrote:Sorry guys.. but i LOVE IT1, People come to my store because i have the best stock and great service. Sure they can find some stuff cheaper but they come to me..2, Ever try finding hard to find stuff like ohhh i dont know Multisacride diatamate(how ever thats spelled) Or say i dunno.. Alderan floral?? Or even that last 2 points you need to make your +25 suit?? or what about that rare resource you need. I dunno about you but spending 2 days going to every vendor in the galaxie totally sucks.3, I have been to tons of malls looking for stuff that i found on the vendor search and ya know.. besides the one thing i was there for Many of these places are completely useless as a "mall"4, Whats the matter your prim spot just outside of C-net isnt as good anymore cause people now know they can find what they want.. maybe better and lower priced.. Sorry dont feel sorry for vendor jockeys that are now losing bussiness to others.5, I have found some wonderfull stores that i never would have if not for the search6. Half my vendors are not even on the search. and i still sell tons of stuff from them.. Heck they are not even on global. Acaullly none of my vendors are.7. Ive been a merchant since launch and to tell ya the truth this is the best thing that has happened to the prof.. Wow a vender serch system that i can acually find something instead of hitting the 20th resource vendor to find the same crap 1cpu stationary miner metal...Global was always totally useless.. Should have been.. labled Well there is a vendor here. good luck finding anything on it but over priced loot
This post is the epitome of what we face. The choice isn't between searches and no searches. We wanted a search. We asked for a search. It was in our top issues list. We talked about ways to do it that wouldn't have negative impact on the merchant profession.
Why does anyone who likes the concept for a search try to make it sound like those of us who oppose the current implementation are against searching? We aren't. We want searching tied to merchant skills. You should have to invest time and effort at being a merchant in order to reach the most customers. That is the whole point of the advertising and efficiency trees in merchant. In this implementation those trees are rendered worthless as a n00b with 30 minutes of game time can put up something on a vendor that will have the exact same advertising tools that I do with 2 years of being a master merchant. That is wrong. Its not necessary to make the market searchable and there were ways discussed to prevent it from happening. Those requests were ignored.
This change is NOT good for merchants over all, it is good for SOME merchants but for the profession as a whole it nerfs our skills and makes us less than we were and the crime of it is that we gave the designers the information they needed to do it right. We told them exactly how to make this skill work for merchants and consumers and they ignored us and implemented their half thought out plan. (After they removed the really ugly parts that they put in because they didn't understand how people could be griefed by their initial offering)
(I probably shouldn't go here, but it's been a slow day....)
1. My impression is that the GWVS as implemented actually didat least twousefulthings:
a. It devolved some sales froma fewhigh-volume sales crafters tomany smaller operators.
b. It increased price competition due to pricing visibility.
These results are good for the game as a whole.Morecraftersget to participate in the game economy, and consumers get more opportunities to buy things (in many cases-- if they're willing to travel --at a lower cost). If a few big-time players lose a few sales, that's an acceptable price for improving SWG for many other players. (And frankly it's not that big a price as they're still the highest-volume dealers.)
2. Merchants weren't all that damaged by the GWVS as implemented becauseour skills weren't all that useful to begin with.
Again: Nearly every Merchant skillis passive. You turn it on, and then you go do something that generates actual real-time feedback. El yawno.
I totally supportturning Merchants into active players by giving themmore active skills, andI've made constructive suggestions to try to help accomplishthat... butnew skills thatonly work by crippling other players' abilitieswon't accomplish that goal.
I'm all for new abilities that make Merchants more fun to play, but not at the expense of other players. There are other new Merchant abilities that don't cost other players anything -- let's try those first.
3. Tying the consumer's searching capabilitiesto the skill level of theMerchantoffering the saleis exactly backwards -- the people who need information aren't Merchants, they're consumers.
If you limit the information available to consumers, you get the bad situation we had pre-GWVS: a few big players get most of the sales because you can't trustsmaller sellersto consistently carry the item(s) you want at a price you can afford.
Now our potential customers don't have to worry -- they see it, they like the price, they go there and buy it. More people get to participate in the player economy.
This is a Bad Thing? I don't think so. For all themany SOEdecisions I've criticized, this is one they got right.
Let the outraged retorts begin. 
--Flatfingers
Message Edited by Flatfingers on 06-15-2005 05:30 PM
Reggi wrote:
Now I can compete with the people who were smart enough or lucky enough to drop a house on the edge of the C-net build zone.
Or, you could have set up vendors with me. I've been there since the begining and I've always accepted other merchants, competition included, at no cost. No one was at a disadvantage (on Starsider) that they didn't put themselves at.
Also, for some of the others, I'd like to state that I've made more credits as a result of the GWVS but that's not the point. It's about game depth, or the lack of it now. Oh well, some people like simple.
Reggi wrote:
Edit: I was being more of a D**k then usual
Don't worry, it happens. For me, it's mostly in GWVS and CU posts.
Flatfingers wrote:
3. Tying the consumer's searching capabilitiesto the skill level of theMerchantoffering the saleis exactly backwards -- the people who need information aren't Merchants, they're consumers.
DocSavag wrote:
We want searching tied to merchant skills. You should have to invest time and effort at being a merchant in order to reach the most customers. That is the whole point of the advertising and efficiency trees in merchant. In this implementation those trees are rendered worthless as a n00b with 30 minutes of game time can put up something on a vendor that will have the exact same advertising tools that I do with 2 years of being a master merchant. That is wrong.
If the trend continues as it is crafting and merchanting will fall to levels too low to sustain the player economy and when that happens it will be jetisoned and we will have an economy like WoW or EQ2 or other games where there is no real player economy at all its just something combat players do while they are in between quests. Every change for the sake of convienience of the consumer that doesn't balance it with the playstyle of the players who are providing services in the economy damages that economy.
I hold out no hope that this will change. The devs simply don't have the patience to support and grow the player economy. The current regime at SOE has, for nearly a year now, made decision after decision that damages the player based economy and reduces the rewards and challenges of it for both crafters and merchants. Unless there is a change of direction the game will one day have no real player economy at all.
In large part I feel what has happened to the doctor and entertainer professions as far as economical viability is in danger of happening to merchant/crafters eventually.
DocSavag,I agree with you on nearly allthe trends you describe. (I wishI could disagree! But you're right.)Heck, I'm probably already on SOE's /ignore list from the suggestions I've made that call for more attention to be paid to non-combat players.
I think we will have to disagree on onespecific approach, that being the control of product information. But that still leaves us with plenty of room for agreement on alternative ideas to promote more enjoyable content for Merchants, crafters, and non-combat players of all kinds... especially if those ideas make life better for one group without making it worse for another group.
Can I interest anyone in a system to allow Player Contracts? 
--Flatfingers
Message Edited by Flatfingers on 06-16-2005 04:16 PM