Merchant Archive
Thread: An idea to help advertisement and/or clear out some AFK barkers
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imn4life
Wed Aug 18, 2004 2:05 pm
#1
Back in the first few months after launch the "planet" and "galaxy" options on the bazzar showed player vender items as well as bazzar items. (Awsome) Of course this would be a problem in today with the hundreds of thousands of items being sold in game now a days.
Similar to the old bazzar system and today's Artisen and Explorer mission terminals, place terminals for specific categories (ie Resources, Weapons, etc..) that only show Player Vendor items. These terminals would not show bazzar items and could be limited to Region or Planet. (Galaxy would be far too big.) If a Merchant has an advertisement in a city I think there would be less of a reason for AFK barking.
I was thinking that it would work like selling something in the classified adds in the paper. Merchants would get a new ability and be able to "advertise" their vendor's items on the "Player Vendor Terminal", possibly adding to the vendor's maintenance cost.
You can view the items available for purchase but to buy it you would need to travel to the actual Player Vendor that has the item. The terminal would allow you to place a "Hold" on an item (for a fee) so that you could ensure it is still there when you get to the vendor. Once at the vendor you would purchase it normally.
This "Hold" feature would have a time limit and fee on it to eliminate competition greifing. The fee would be a % of the item cost (say 10%-25%) andheld until purchase. If the "Hold" expiresthat money is lost. If you do purchase the item then you get half of the "Hold Fee" returned to you.
The other half of the fee could be :
1) lost to the system
2) a portion of that is added to the purchace price for a small bonus to the seller
The person selling the item gets the price they listed on their vendor (and a bonus with option 2), and increased advertisement of their wares and hopefully more customers.
Using the example of 10% fee, an item is being sold for 20,000cr. I request a "Hold" on the item and am charged 2,000cr. I am told i have 15 minutes (just an example) totravel to the vendor and purchace the item. Ido so and purchase the itemfor 20,000cr. Once the puchace has completed I receive half of my "Hold Fee" back, 1,000cr. (in option 2 maybe the seller gets a bonus of 750cr)
Just a thought. Likes? Dislikes? Please keep it civil. I was wondering what others think about an ideal like this.
Grudsy
Thu Aug 19, 2004 4:58 am
#2
I've had an idea on how to deal with spam and the lag causing crowds for a while now. It's rather drastic but it would work. Sony needs to give player cities starports and close them in the game cities. This gives control of the game back to the players. Few cities would tolerate spammers at their starport, and I'm sure they would politely ask doctors to ply their trade in a nearby park (like they should have the common sense and courtesy to do in the city now!) so as to not attract a crowd where a crowd already gathers to travel. These big clusters of people in one small area is what causes most of the lag in the big cities.
LadyGrace
Thu Aug 19, 2004 10:50 am
#3
Good idea, this is the kind of lateral thinking SOE needs to employ when coming up with solutions to perceived problems with the game.
Basic premise: AFK spamming is bad as it causes lag in major cities and detracts from game immersion (last part debatable but not in this topic)
SOE solution: disable recursive macros, hurting in the process numerous other people who use them for other purposes.
Instead, they should deal with the problem directly, looking at the cause.
Q: Why do people AFK macro advertising their shops?
A. Because supportedadvertising in this game is ineffective. It provides little information about what the customer might find on the vendor and does not indicate whether there will even be stock on the vendor. Merchants advertise using AFK spam because it works, because even though some customers are lost due to their dislike of spam (or the fact their system can't handle it), more customers are brought to the shop by the sheer fact that they know more about what it has than the shops they just see as names on the map, and that if a person is in-game advertising their shop its far more likely that they would have stocked it first.
Then looking at that information, they could find an alternative solution to the merchants' problem than the unwanted AFK macroing.
Like this idea of yours about a bazaar-style outlet in the major cities. I would like it to be a planet-based listing rather than region, as there is usually only one main NPC city per planet. I'd also like it to be tied to a certain level of merchant skill, Ad 4 maybe.
I would actually settle for a machine that allowed you to list your vendors, under pre-designated categories, with additional room to describe what you have in stock and your pricelists if you want. I would also make it so that it reflects how much stock the vendor has, and how recently it was restocked. Maybe just a figure next to the listing to show the amount of stock, and a last stocked column containing the date/time that the last item was added.
I am sure that if something like this was implemented you would see alot less spam at starports.
imn4life
Thu Aug 19, 2004 11:08 am
#4
This is the reason I thought of this. IRL i drive by stores everyday that I dont know what they sell. So I dont go there. If you had only seen the name of a store, "Store X", why would you go look at what they have for sale? But if you see "Store X is now selling (insert object you are looking to buy). There are N in stock. Buy one today." you would be more inclined to ..... heaven forbid ..... go there and buy it.
LadyGrace wrote:
Q: Why do people AFK macro advertising their shops?
A. Because supportedadvertising in this game is ineffective. It provides little information about what the customer might find on the vendor and does not indicate whether there will even be stock on the vendor. Merchants advertise using AFK spam because it works, because even though some customers are lost due to their dislike of spam (or the fact their system can't handle it), more customers are brought to the shop by the sheer fact that they know more about what it has than the shops they just see as names on the map, and that if a person is in-game advertising their shop its far more likely that they would have stocked it first.
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