CUEmu - Thread Posts

YDI-Inc

Tue Aug 24, 2004 12:45 am

Advertising III - Planetary Ad Campaign
Advertising IV - Word of Mouth

Possible Changes I'd like to see.

Reverse the Order of these two skills.

Advertising III - Word of Mouth

This allows for a Merchant to purchase and use a Merchant Droid with Ad Barking Capability and stored Waypoints. Up to 1 waypoint for each planet could be stored and the prospective client could receive all waypoints in their datapad with the click of a button.

Advertising IV - Planetary Ad Campaign

Here's the big change. Remove the "Register Vendor on Planetary Map" function and instead have the vendors goods linked to the Bazaar terminal for search capability.

Each Startport and Non-PC Shuttleport in the game has a bazaar terminal placed near it. With Ad IV, the Bazaar should be linked to the Vendor Database and allow for searching of goods available on the planet. When the customer finds something they want, instead of purchasing the item directly from the Bazaar terminal, a waypoint is created leading them to the vendor with the item they wish to purchase.

This removes the empty vendor scenario, or the vendor with a Message Backpack placed on it, still showing on the map. It makes searching for the items you need easier, saving the customer time, and the code to do this is already in the game in the form of mission terminals.

Now to encourage actual browsing of vendors, the bazaar shouldn't list details of the items or prices. The Bazaar listing should be based around the base object schematic.

Example;

Let's say I am a tailor (I'm not) and I make 5 muscle shirts.
I name the shirts
"Body Sculpting Muscle Shirt (White) - YDI Fashions"
"Body Sculpting Muscle Shirt (Green) - YDI Fashions"
"Body Sculpting Muscle Shirt (Blue) - YDI Fashions"
"Body Sculpting Muscle Shirt (Black) - YDI Fashions"
"Body Sculpting Muscle Shirt (Grey) - YDI Fashions"

On my vendor each of those items would show up as listed above with full details available and of course the price so the customer could make an informed choice.

On the Bazaar Terminal however they would show up as

Clothing -> Shirts -> Muscle Shirts (5) Vendor Name

Clicking on this item in the Bazaar would download the waypoint into the potential Client's datapad so they could then make the trip to the vendor.

Mal'Kai Volturr - Guildleader NRA
Master of THIS and THAT, Proficient in THAT OTHER THING

Yahto Dasan - Mayor New Alderra, Dantooine
Master Architect ~ Master Merchant

"We confide in our strength without boasting of it, we respect that of others without fearing it"
Thomas Jefferson

YDI-Inc

Wed Aug 25, 2004 11:42 am

#2

/bump

I'm bumping this because I don't post much and my stuff is very easily overlooked. We have a lot of great players in this community that help out and I'd really like to get some feedback on this idea because I really think it's a good one.

Will it ever be implemented? Probably not. However, since the merchant profession will be getting revamped in the future; after JTL, after Combat, after GCW, after Smuggler, after Squadleader, ... well you get the idea, I think it would be a good idea to get ideas about changes other than "increase resource stack size" and "increase house storage".

So...anyone?

Anyone?

Bueller?

Mal'Kai Volturr - Guildleader NRA
Master of THIS and THAT, Proficient in THAT OTHER THING

Yahto Dasan - Mayor New Alderra, Dantooine
Master Architect ~ Master Merchant

"We confide in our strength without boasting of it, we respect that of others without fearing it"
Thomas Jefferson

Strongbow

Thu Aug 26, 2004 10:20 am

#3

As long as I have the choice of whether or not my vendor is linked to the Bazaar then I could go for it. On occasion we have setup guild-only vendors (hidden in the basement of our Hall) that have items at huge discounts for our guild. I would not want that stuff advertised on the bazaar.

I still wish we could make houses that have vendors private,for this purpose,so we would not have to "hide" the vendors behind cabinets and such and hope no one stumbles across them and cleans us out.

---------------------------------------------------

[MEC] Strongbow Hulen - RIP 8/30/05

MBH/Master Rifleman

[MEC] Strongbow-alt Hulen - RIP 8/22/05

Master ShipWright/Master Artisan/Master Pistoleer

Wire3k

Thu Aug 26, 2004 10:32 am

#4

Best way to do this would be to move premium listing functionality from the bazaar to private vendors. If you WANT it on the bazaar - and it would make very good advertisements, you list it as premium on your vendor and it shows up.

Private vendors DID show up back in beta - it CAN be done, or could be at one time. I suspect the sheer volumn stopped that practice, but at that time - it was automatic, not an optional thing.

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YDI-Inc

Thu Aug 26, 2004 2:40 pm

#5

As a word of warning, Vendors Show up on the overhead map so "hiding" them doesn't really work. Placing items for sale on a vendor for this purpose is a gamble. Best thing to do to avoid this is...

Put a 50k entry fee on your house

Discount the items by 50k, so even if someone comes in and buys it, the vendor owner/fee administrator gets the credits

Offer a weekly (or daily if you wish) money back transfer to guild members.

As for the option of placing items on the Bazaar...

I would have to agree that the Premium feature would be a great way to do this. Have a small surcharge for placing the items onto the Bazaar from your private vendor. Items you choose would then show up when searched.

Thanks for the feedback on this.

Mal'Kai Volturr - Guildleader NRA
Master of THIS and THAT, Proficient in THAT OTHER THING

Yahto Dasan - Mayor New Alderra, Dantooine
Master Architect ~ Master Merchant

"We confide in our strength without boasting of it, we respect that of others without fearing it"
Thomas Jefferson

Moepple

Thu Aug 26, 2004 4:30 pm

#6

Hi,

I dont like the idea to mix up vendors and bazaar in any way.

Vendors are supposed to get people out of the cities and to spread them all over the planets. That way, Theed and Coronet will be even more the center of everything where people are looking for the items they need, and you will run crazy when you want to find something.

Beside the fact, I dont like to compete with others on that list.

We need better sales tools to manage our vendors, and this will not help me on this.

If you want better merchandise, then remove those town criers first, they give bad reputation to us merchants. Then we should be able to buy ad-space in cities. While waiting for the shuttle, you can watch the signs in the SP and every merchant can rent it for a week and then have to wait in the queue or whatever. But dont mix up vendors and bazaar, thats the first step of removing merchants completely.

Shubashi/Gorath

YDI-Inc

Thu Aug 26, 2004 7:12 pm

#7

Let me address some of your concerns Moepple/Shubashi,

Vendors are supposed to get people out of the cities and to spread them all over the planets. That way, Theed and Coronet will be even more the center of everything where people are looking for the items they need, and you will run crazy when you want to find something.

Beside the fact, I dont like to compete with others on that list.

My idea is to have the Bazaar terminal act as a source to find Merchants selling what you want. You wouldn't be able to BUY the item from the Bazaar terminal. It would only point the player in the direction of your vendor and only on the Planet you are on. No Galaxy wide searches of Player Owned Vendors. Also, prices wouldn't show up until they were at YOUR vendor. The only details the Bazaar terminal shows them is whether or not the item is available on your vendor and in what Quantity.

So I think this would serve to get people AWAY from Coronet and Theed. It would allow Merchants with Vendors on other planets to advertise there wares on a planetary database for a relatively cheap cost. Bazaar terminals would only list items available ON THAT PLANET so there would still be a need for travelling, but only to the closest Bazaar terminal for each planet.

I think this addresses your concerns above.

Mal'Kai Volturr - Guildleader NRA
Master of THIS and THAT, Proficient in THAT OTHER THING

Yahto Dasan - Mayor New Alderra, Dantooine
Master Architect ~ Master Merchant

"We confide in our strength without boasting of it, we respect that of others without fearing it"
Thomas Jefferson

Moepple

Fri Aug 27, 2004 4:13 am

#8

Hi,

if you make such proposals you always should try to be in line with already implemented stuff and dont generate something that requires a total rewrite of existing code.

Thats why I believe, IF something like that will be implemented, it will simply add the vendors to bazaar. Everything else would mean to rewrite the bazaar almost completely to hide specific item-prices from specific type of vendors.

Since this proposal does not take care of the fact if this can be made easily or not, it will end up with the mentioned problems, thats my opinion.

Mixing up Bazaar and Vendors is a No-Go for me. In fact, everything that enables player to remotely look into your vendors will end up in something you dont want, cause then they will start to request things you dont want from the Devs.

Read ya.

Merchant Archive

Thread: Change to Advertising