Merchant Archive
Thread: Focus Thread: Galaxy-Wide Vendor Search
EdOWar wrote:
Feisen wrote:
You know, I went shopping today. I spent the whole day at it. Let me say now, a well stocked vendor is still a rare thing. Most vendors have the same few items. If you are a merchant with a lot of variety, then you are going to make a killing. Yours may be the ONLY yellow snow boots for sale in the galaxy, because the other tailors couldn't be bothered to make 'em. Laziness doesn't change; you still have an advantage.Once I find a good shop with reasonable prices and a good selection, I save the waypoint. The next time I need what that shop is selling, I go there first. That is the reward for the crafter who puts in the effort of maintaining a well stocked store (and perhaps an interesting looking shop as well). With a global search feature, any lazy-ass wanna-be crafter can throw something up and it would have just as much chance of selling as something made by a dedicated hard working crafter. Price will be the ONLY consideration.
If this change goes live, we all might as well be playing World of Warcraft.
Slim Vargo, Corbantis
You are right. I totally admit the lazy-ass crafter has as much chance of selling as the dedicated crafter. The thing about the lazy-ass crafters is they get bored and move on after a while. We are already competing against them now, just not so directly. I'm not sure that this change is some wonderful big answer to what is ailing the merchant profession, but I know that it has customers excited. Customers who want to buy stuff that they can't find, maybe even our stuff.
As I said, I spent the whole day shopping. I went to a lot of my old shop waypoints and easily half of them were out of business. One of my favorite shops, certainly the best decorated shop I've ever seen, was one of them. People talk about this killing merchant; I'm not sure that merchant (and crafting?) isn't dying a slow death already.
Personally I really dislike the starport spam. I really dislike that most merchants have shops in a ring around the major hubs, leaving the rest of the planets mostly abandoned except for a few player towns. If this change can affect either of those two things...if it can redistribute shops around the planets, move more shops back into player towns, then I think that is a positive change.
Change is only change. It's not all good, but it's not all bad either...in my opinion at least.
webboy wrote:
My first response to this proposal is it has potential but like alot of the merchants who have already voiced their concerns I agree that it will make doing merchant as a profession "useless" (aside from the increased inventory limit), will have a negative effect on the concept of vendor "malls" and the like.
However a good read of this board brings forth some great suggestions that would have a positive impact on improving the value of this proposal. I've taken the liberty to summarize and add my own comments as well here.
1. Have all vendors searchable from a bazaar vendor but don't list the prices. A major problem with the existing market is players have to travel long distances to find items they want but are frustrated when they get to a vendor and find that it's empty. This modification would bring the convenience of finding an item that's available but prevent price "undercutting". If players wanted to they could still go to all the locations where the item is listed as being at and find the cheapest price or they could simply go to the closest location to that bazaar terminal. I see this as a win-win for both the customer and the merchant.
2. Allow only Master Merchants the ability to list their prices on the galaxy search. Along with this ability would be that the customer could purchase the item at any bazaar. All merchants below master would only be able to list their item on a bazaar without the prices and customers would actually have to travel to where the item is located to purchase it.
3. No instant delivery. Customers should have to travel to the vendor location to pick up their item plain and simple. I know I wouldn't have a problem traveling to a location to pick up an item - the only problem I have is when I travel to a vendor location and find out that it's empty. So if I know the place I am going to is stocked there's no problem.
My first response to this proposal is it has potential but like alot of the merchants who have already voiced their concerns I agree that it will make doing merchant as a profession "useless" (aside from the increased inventory limit), will have a negative effect on the concept of vendor "malls" and the like.
However a good read of this board brings forth some great suggestions that would have a positive impact on improving the value of this proposal. I've taken the liberty to summarize and add my own comments as well here.
1. Have all vendors searchable from a bazaar vendor but don't list the prices. A major problem with the existing market is players have to travel long distances to find items they want but are frustrated when they get to a vendor and find that it's empty. This modification would bring the convenience of finding an item that's available but prevent price "undercutting". If players wanted to they could still go to all the locations where the item is listed as being at and find the cheapest price or they could simply go to the closest location to that bazaar terminal. I see this as a win-win for both the customer and the merchant.
2. Allow only Master Merchants the ability to list their prices on the galaxy search. Along with this ability would be that the customer could purchase the item at any bazaar. All merchants below master would only be able to list their item on a bazaar without the prices and customers would actually have to travel to where the item is located to purchase it.
3. No instant delivery. Customers should have to travel to the vendor location to pick up their item plain and simple. I know I wouldn't have a problem traveling to a location to pick up an item - the only problem I have is when I travel to a vendor location and find out that it's empty. So if I know the place I am going to is stocked there's no problem.
Feisen wrote:
You are right. I totally admit the lazy-ass crafter has as much chance of selling as the dedicated crafter. The thing about the lazy-ass crafters is they get bored and move on after a while. We are already competing against them now, just not so directly. I'm not sure that this change is some wonderful big answer to what is ailing the merchant profession, but I know that it has customers excited. Customers who want to buy stuff that they can't find, maybe even our stuff.
As I said, I spent the whole day shopping. I went to a lot of my old shop waypoints and easily half of them were out of business. One of my favorite shops, certainly the best decorated shop I've ever seen, was one of them. People talk about this killing merchant; I'm not sure that merchant (and crafting?) isn't dying a slow death already.
Personally I really dislike the starport spam. I really dislike that most merchants have shops in a ring around the major hubs, leaving the rest of the planets mostly abandoned except for a few player towns. If this change can affect either of those two things...if it can redistribute shops around the planets, move more shops back into player towns, then I think that is a positive change.
Change is only change. It's not all good, but it's not all bad either...in my opinion at least.
The problem with "lazy-ass" crafters is that as soon as one leaves, another comes to take their place. With the current system this is not as much of a problem because it takes time for people to find their shop etc. Under the new proposal there will be a constant supply of "lazy-ass" crafters selling wares via the bazaar.
Most of us do not object to browsing vendor listings from the bazaar, which would make the shopping experience so much easier. Personally I'm not even against people buying things from the bazaar as long as they have to travel to my shop to collect (although this has difficult issues with ban lists, ability to destroy a vendor before an item is collected, etc.), but I can certainly understand those who are.
Finally, what makes you think that the other planets will become less abandoned? On sure, they'll be shops there, but nobody will ever visit them, except for the merchants occasionally restocking. Rather than browsing a ring around Coronet people will just camp the Coronet bazaar.
EnigmaBSc
I think it is safe to say that all Merchant would MUCH rather the Dev team put all this great, new energy they have demonstrated recently into...
...IMPROVING THE SKILL SET AND ABILITIES OF THE CURRENT MERCHANT PROFESSION !!
This change will kill 90% of the businesses in the game, driving the cost of good s down to a level where only the Guild-run conglomerates and those who have 8 or more accounts and 400+ piece lot swapped harvester farms can stay in business.
The only thing I would like to see drop in price is all the stupid new loot the Devs are shoveling in the game to occupy us.
This idea is absolute cr*p to the crafting world. This idea needs to be torpedoed before it hits the water!!!
It's always hard to predict the excact ramifications of a change like this one change will do but I can with 100% certainty garuantee that this dev team has not covered all the bases as they should have and this will brake something.
Message Edited by bizondele on 02-11-2005 05:57 PM
Message Edited by bizondele on 02-11-2005 05:58 PM
Message Edited by Seilyn_Nox on 02-11-2005 06:15 PM