Merchant Archive
Thread: Focus Thread: Vendor Search System on TC
pykescylla
Thu Mar 17, 2005 1:55 am
#105
Well, I've read through all of these posts and there are a LOT of good points made. In my opinion, if you're going to implement a system like this, prices have to be available to the customer doing the search. Imagine your disappointment after travelling out to a shop only to find you can't afford the item you wanted.
That said I don't think many folks are going to use this feature once they've tried it. Say I want a suit of 80% kinetic composite armor. How do I find that? What is it called? If they were my customers, they'd know to buy Brawler Composite. Some folks might call their kinetic composite or something like Comp Chest 80K80E68B. People will have the pleasure of browsing thousands of pieces of armor to find what they want. Once they do find a piece they liked, how do they find matching pieces? They can't search for other pieces by the same maker. Do they piece together a suit from all over the galaxy or just go pick up their chest plate and assume the merchant has the rest of the armor in stock? Did they remember to look under Misc=>Wearable Containers to check for prepackaged suits? If they did, what a pain. Can you imagine all the other stuff that is listed in pack? Heaven help the poor soul who actually wants a backpack!
Frankly, this is nat a system I'd want to use.
That said I don't think many folks are going to use this feature once they've tried it. Say I want a suit of 80% kinetic composite armor. How do I find that? What is it called? If they were my customers, they'd know to buy Brawler Composite. Some folks might call their kinetic composite or something like Comp Chest 80K80E68B. People will have the pleasure of browsing thousands of pieces of armor to find what they want. Once they do find a piece they liked, how do they find matching pieces? They can't search for other pieces by the same maker. Do they piece together a suit from all over the galaxy or just go pick up their chest plate and assume the merchant has the rest of the armor in stock? Did they remember to look under Misc=>Wearable Containers to check for prepackaged suits? If they did, what a pain. Can you imagine all the other stuff that is listed in pack? Heaven help the poor soul who actually wants a backpack!
Frankly, this is nat a system I'd want to use.
Isrem
Thu Mar 17, 2005 7:21 am
#106
Jagged-F3l wrote:
Elyssa wrote:The new Galaxy Wide Vendor Search System is currently up on Test Center.Check out the patch notes in this thread.Please post your feedback over there, but I've created this thread specifically for merchants to have discussions that won't be lost amongst the static of the general population.I would ask that you provide feedback specifically from using the system on TC and not just your opinions based on what you've heard about the system.Please try to keep your feedback constructive. The system can still be tweaked before going live. Ranting about it accomplishes nothing.Message Edited by Elyssa on 03-14-2005 10:24 PM
In addition, I believe that the ability to turn this feature on should be a skill that needs to be tied to Advertising IV (since this feature pretty much makes barking droids useless junk). Also, I believe that this should work no different than putting your vendor on the planetary map in that it should increase the cost of vendor maintenance when enabled.
I would even await being master for enabling it, since it enables galaxy wide search for your goods and not only planetary. And yes, vendor cost should increase.
Liamo
Thu Mar 17, 2005 7:42 am
#107
I understand wanting to make the the SP spent on the merchant tree more "worth it" by tying this to skill, I STRONGLY disagree for this reason-if someone is not registered, there is no use to even have a vendor, for the most part. You'll get a few sales here and there, but forget about making any real money.
If this had been in since the start-so be it. People would've considered that in their template, but it's not.
So someone like me, that has limited merchant skills-mainly to have enough vendors for master profession, I would be killed, where before, I had a fighting chance even though I'm not listed on the Planetary map.
Rhadida
Thu Mar 17, 2005 7:49 am
#108
Hehe I alone have 1.000 Ph's listed good luck going through them all in 1 list. (I have them on different Types of vendors, 2.5k/6k/high sliced etc.) Good luck going through the 1000 pages of 2-handed weapons. Page by page, you can't goto page 47 at once you will have to click next page, wait for the loading, click again, etc., etc., etc.. --- Well good luck to you all
Gyopi wrote:
Coreena wrote:
True, but you still have to go manually through 100 items per page, memorizing the lowest price, comparing it, checking if its actually the item you want etc.
Its nothing compared to "Sort by price - check upper line of the page for lowest price - hit Next Items"
I think it really depends on the number of items in a category. I would have to go through crates of brandy, but something like sunguards is a different story.
Liamo
Thu Mar 17, 2005 7:55 am
#109
To the people that say "what use is having multiple vendors and investing the skills in the Merchant tree with the Global search?'
Here's my answer; You'll still need higher Merchant skills to stock a lot of items and as to multiple vendors, one outside Coronet, Theed, mos Eisley-as an example. If a lot of prices are similar and quality is near the same, but one is 300m from the terminal and another is 7k, which do you think will win out-generally speaking?
Message Edited by Liamo on 03-17-2005 10:09 AM
LaurieNabierre
Thu Mar 17, 2005 8:32 am
#110
Test Center's economy is different from other Galaxies' economies. I don't think we'll be able to judge what kind of impact it will have on our respective servers until this change hits live. And then, if its truly as bad as many of us fear, will it be too late?
I certainly think this change will have a negative impact on my businesses. I am also quite worried about how it will impact the economy of the player city I live in. I don't feel that the objections and concerns of this system were properly addressed in its re-tuning.
I also don't know if the customers will really be happy with this system. I can see them spending great lengths of time searching for their items - will this make the average buyer abandon the task and resort to browsing vendors?
When this does hit live, and if it does occur in the worst case scenario, I can see myself giving up merchant skills and doing mostly custom order work. Its certainly not how I WANT to run my business, but it may be the only way to survive.
Baccarat
Thu Mar 17, 2005 11:23 am
#111
Rhadida wrote:
1.000 Ph's listed good luck going through them all in 1 list. (I have them on different Types of vendors, 2.5k/6k/high sliced etc.) Good luck going through the 1000 pages of 2-handed weapons. Page by page, you can't goto page 47 at once you will have to click next page, wait for the loading, click again, etc., etc., etc.. --- Well good luck to you all
Wow hadn't occurred to me how hard it will be if you want to sell sliced items now.. since on the vendor search they look identical until you examine.
Fhtagn
Thu Mar 17, 2005 12:26 pm
#112
regretfully, I haven't had a chance to take a good look at this system as I've been unable to log in to Test Center lately.
however, that being said, I'd like to echo the comments of others about what a morass this will be -- without a serious revamping of the display categories, I'd guess that people will flock to try the system with bright eyes and big hopes, only to find that it's even less useful than using the overlay map to find vendors as your driving around the outskirts of C-net.
if you examine any item which has a custom name, you'll see it has an entry "variation of" -- since this information is already in the DB entry for all crafted items, it seems to me that this would be the ideal way to set up search trees. remove the redundant entries from the existing bazaar tree, and add an additional level or two to break things down to a more manageable piece of data. for example, scout blasters would be on the Weapons-Pistols-Scout Blaster branch.
with any luck, this would extend to resources as well so that we'd be able to search not just Inorganic Minerals, but pin it directly to a specific class and type of mineral -- rather than having to wade through page after page after page of "minerals", how about being able to expand the Inorganic Minerals tree through Metals, Ferrous, Steel, Duralloy or expand the flora tree through Cereal, Wheat, Wild Wheat, Lok
it appears this information is built into the database, either as actual information or as a pointer to a list -- why not take advantage of that?
Jutewr
Thu Mar 17, 2005 4:35 pm
#113
Liamo wrote:
To the people that say "what use is having multiple vendors and investing the skills in the Merchant tree with the Global search?'
Here's my answer; You'll still need higher Merchant skills to stock a lot of items and as to multiple vendors....
[snip]
Yes, but then what are the hiring and advertising branches for?
Schardour
Thu Mar 17, 2005 7:09 pm
#114
Just to sort of throw the economics argument in there, if it hasn't been brought up yet...
I posted the following in the Dancer and In Testing forums as a reply to the notion that "Since we can go online and compare prices, purchase items, and have them delivered in reality, we should be able to do so ingame."
If it's simply for item location, why does the price need to be included? Why should they be able to purchase remotely? "The Internet" is a way for small businesses to "go global," I understand this. But Internet shopping is not a viable option for many people because of real-world dangers such as scams, frauds, identity thefts or other insecurities, concerns over the quality of the product or service, as well as physical location and even a natural resistance to change. This leaves room for smaller businesses to fill in certain niches and still remain prosperous.
This, however, is a game in which goods can be examined on the bazaar. The goods are there for direct comparison. You could buy the same motherboard online from two different companies, but make a decision based on brand name and quality assurance rather than price. Ingame, everything's the same. A composite armor helmet with x stats can be duplicated by another player, and many times for far less money, far less fixed costs, and in much larger quantities. Instead of an "economy of scope," in which vendors are encouraged to diversify their product offerings, players will begin to turn to lean manufacturing and "economies of scale." Those with large amounts of capital at their fingertips could quickly corner several markets at once, leaving small-time crafters selling only to their closest friends who feel sorry for them.
Again, look at the comparison to buffbots. A small number of players can suddenly service an entire server. True, a small crafter could conceivably work his arse off and pull in a decent market share, but it would be much harder and take much more time than it currently does. You'll be forcing those who can't spend large amounts of resources (capital for crafters, time for entertainers) on a long-term out of the business, leaving the "power players" at the top of the food chain. (Mass producers and Buffbots)
Come on guys, anybody with an eye for business can see this happening very quickly. If this goes down, I could quickly take control of an entire sector by investing alot of time and money in a single product line. Once you have control of the bazaar and a steady production cycle, there's really no way to depose you. (Unless you can enter the market at a higher capacity. Barriers to entry into an "economy of scale" will be much more difficult to bypass.)
V1G0
Thu Mar 17, 2005 10:35 pm
#115
Elyssa,
I know you can't say what is told to you on the correspondant forums without their approval but can you tell me if the powers that be are discussing this with you at all there?
Elyssa
Thu Mar 17, 2005 10:42 pm
#116
I'm not completely sure what can and can't be said publicly so to be on the safe sideI'll just say that I have brought this issue up in the appropriate place. I included a link to this thread and a summary of the major issues.
I'm afraid any official announcements will have to come from the developers unless they give me specific permission to say something.
In the meantime, be sure to log onto the copied TC server (Eclipse, I think). Try it out and provide feedback.
You're more likely to get a feel for howit functions in a live environment than you will on TC Prime.
V1G0
Thu Mar 17, 2005 11:08 pm
#117
I understand and i'll give TC-Eclipse a shot.
Now if only they would copy Tarq.