Merchant Archive
Thread: I don't like vendor search from bazaars
Flatfingers wrote: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
I would love player contracts, shipping, [insert active skill here]..nearly all of these are really separate from the main role of merchants which is to connect prodcuts with consumers. I am not saying we shouldn't have them I am saying they don't make up for the loss of out abilities to shine as distributors of merchandise.
I guess the reall disconnect for me is that you define the discussion based on the total information availability we have now vs the 0 informatio we had before. If you roll back this discussion 6 months then you have no searching. Tying merchant ability to searching at that point harms no one..it increases the searchability by enhancing merchants..its a win win. Its only after you give away the information for free that restricting it to skill is a nerf. It won't happen now of course. That opportunity was given away by the devs the second Tiggs posted that original piece. The arguement that was made by me at the time in private to the devs was that their failure to discuss that topic with Correspondents up front led to an unecessary public war between consumers and merchants. If we had hammered out a compromise ahead of time we could have avoided the controversy and had a plan that would have made both sides happy.
DocSavag wrote:
You're wrong of course.
The point of the merchant skills is to allow me to compete with other players for business.
I would say that's half-right.
(Actually, the first thingI should say is "thank you" -- your response helped clarify for me why I hold the opinion on this subject that I do, so I appreciate your taking the time to reply.)
I want to start by agreeing with you:we'd all like for Merchant skills to be more meaningful (i.e., more fun). We have that in common, at least!
Where wehave a disconnectis that I don't believe that"more fun for Merchants"isthe only criterion for effectiveness.The point of the Merchant skills -- or any other skills related to the player economy --is actually two points:
- maintain a functional player economyby incentivizing economic play
- allow players to have fun competing and cooperatingeconomically
Youseem to befocusing on only the second reason for SOE to provideMerchant skills. That's not a wrong reason... but it's not a complete reason, nor is it even the most important reason (from the game designers' point of view) to change Merchant skills or any other economic skills.
Proposed changes to Merchant skills mustsupportmore participation by players in the game economy, not less, orthey're simply not going to be implemented. Cutting off consumers from information as you suggest doing, whether to give Merchants more control over advertising or for some otherreason, could onlydecrease economic activity. That would make SWG worse off as a whole, no matter how much more fun it might be for Merchants.
So the kind of change you're advocating is justnot likely to happen --no matter how well it satisfies the goal of "more fun for theeconomically competitive"-- because it runs afoul of the more important goal of enabling more players to participate in the player economy.
And I might add that, as the number of players of SWG falls, finding ways toincrease economic participation by the remaining players becomes absolutely crucial to preserving a player economy. Keeping Merchants happy ought to be a part of that strategy, but keeping consumers happy matters, too... and, givenour relative numbers,probably matters more.
A compromise which allowed merchants to build their power to get products into the search system would have rewarded merchant skill point investment while providing far more searching capability than we had BEFORE the searching was implemented.
Again: Is there really no way whatsoever to give more meaning/value to Merchant advertising skillswithout limiting the ability of consumers to make informed purchasing decisions?
Shouldn't advertising be about addingto consumer information, rather than taking away consumer information?
There has to be another way.
The consumer is not OWED knowledge about every item in the game for sale.
Who said anything about rights, or what players are "owed?"
This is purely a question of economic effectiveness:Better information makes better consumers; and better consumers make for a stronger economy, which benefits Merchants as well as everyone else.
Let's find ideasformaking Merchant play more funthat don't damage the player economy -- because without that, there's no need for Merchants at all.
--Flatfingers
Cafa wrote:I think anyone advocating a skill point free use of the GWVS only hurts the profession more. Advertising 4 or even Master Merchant was the perfect choice for these venues.
Talk about fairness all you want, when Advertising 4 lets me use a silly robot to SPAM like a CL1 player, I don't consider that value for investment. Fairness in operation needs to be reciprocal. They gave away an ability that easily compares to level 4 or Master boxes in other professions to the equivalent of a character with a total of 24 skill points. From my point of view, they've basically abandoned Merchant and just made it a way to make crafters spend a few more points in Artisan.
Fivo Asia
Thats the thing, if I had any inclination that they had done it purposefully to push merchants out I could be outraged by that but understand where they were coming from but I know from the discussions about it that they didn't have any grand plan. They didn't have any real plan. They had a problem: " its too hard to find merchandise" This problem is a real issue. It was damned hard to find things pre GWVS. Their solution was " just let people buy from the bazaar" easy..simple , one location. They even had them buying the items right there with instant delivery. Never have to visit a shop again.
It was only after we pointed out that merchants wouldn't get xp for those sales that they changed to making them go pick it up. Then we had to point out that griefing would result because you can ban someone from your store after they have paid, or raise the cost of the entry fee, or delete the vendor, etc etc. The sad part about this is that the reasons we stated were the reasons they stopped listing items on the global bazaar 2 years ago! They had forgotten their own rationale for changing the features of the game in beta.
So they dropped the idea of remote purchases. Leaving in the fact that any n00b off the boat with half an hour to invest could now achieve the same advertising power as a master merchant who has put in weeks of time to their profession. To this they say nothing. Not a single response as far as I am aware. They sacrificed our abilities without even a comment.
For those of you who complain constantly about nerfs this was the biggest nerf in the history of the game and largely the playerbase just shrugged and lives comfortably with the opinion that "it makes my life easier".
Vendor search is a godsend if you really play like a merchant, rather than as a crafter who sells stuff.
What I mean is this: I have alts who are a master smuggler, master artisan, and master shipwright, respectively. They craft things and sell them at the low end of the retail price range on my server. I know this because I can verify it instantly by doing a search for the item I want to sell, and set my price accordingly. I neither overprice nor underprice very much, because I know what the competition is charging. I also never mistakenly sell for too low a price and get bought out. I keep a nice level of stock and make millions daily.
Also, it works wonders with undercutters. Every server has a maniac or two who sells for half or less of the price that EVERYONE else uses. They would be better off just selling the metal or other resources. Well, with the vendor search this is not a problem. I just check once a day for competing products, and if anyone has a crazy low price I go buy them all and sell them at a profit. Sometimes the profit is even better than if I had crafted it myself.
I scored two YT-1300s early this morning doing that very thing. They were barely selling for 1 cpu. I bought them and one had sold by the time I went to work this morning. That one sale more than covered what I paid for both of them. The money for the other one is pure profit.
Don't fight the changes, adapt and conquer.
I haven't gained any sales from GVS as far as I can tell. There are just not enough people who use it to find weapons and for most popular weapons there are over 9 pages to wade through. My vendor sales are mostly due to word of mouth and my prime locations. Having a merchant tent in the right spot STILL generates lots of sales.
As a consumer though... I LOVE IT AND I CAN'T LIVE WITHOUT IT!!!
Prior to GVS trying to find anything in this game was incredibly tedious. I spent long hours traveling hundreds of km looking for the stuff I wanted and not finding it (and yes i do mean KM... my swoop repair bills were huge). The game was just an incredible pain in the ass to play. I could not find the things I needed to hunt or craft or anything. I hated the vendor system with a passion and I am merchant myself.
Now I find myself to be a shopping addict. I cruise through the GVS looking for resources, crafting foods, combat foods,looted ship parts, etc etc etc. I can guarantee you that many merchants and much richer just from my patronage alone. Vendors out on the forgotten planets now have a chance to get my business. I like to see what the little guy has for sale too, not just the mega-malls.
I do realize that the whole planetary map thing is pretty much nerfed for merchants. I haven't used the map vendor search since GVS came out. It is a shame that the profession is less than it was, but no one other than merchants wants GVS to change.
SOE had three goals for GVS:
1. Make things easier to find.
2. Lower prices through competition.
3. Give the "little guy" a chance to compete.
GVS did accomplish all three of it's goals quite well. You may not agree with these goals, but GVS works and I would not change it for the world.
double post
Message Edited by PaladinX333 on 06-24-2005 12:08 AM