Merchant Archive
Thread: Alternatives
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Wire3k
Thu Aug 12, 2004 8:40 am
#1
Some of this is not new - many have suggested them, the point of this post is not a one-fix fix, with the variety and depth of crafting in SWG - there is no magic bullet (which I think the item count is an attempt at). One size does NOT fit all.
I am going to address my own professions as I've never done many of the others - but if there are similarities with the problems, there are probably also similarities with the solutions.
MasterBio/Master Tailor
Tailors have a particularly hard time with the idea of item limits - why? Color choice and in many cases - bio mods.
While I am not particularly overfond of this idea - it does have some advantages and really doesn't take functionality from a tailor - it just expands it, and perhaps provides additional goldsinks from the game (in a FUN - not necessary to have manner).
Tailors (and other trades) not only have a plethora of items to make, but also colors which much be stocked - unless you only want to make black (which always sells yes, but hardly makes tailoring fullfilling). If colors are taken out of the equation - the normal tailor could then stock by crates (see further down).
I'd propose a NPC that can recolor clothing by the CUSTOMER for a fee. That wouldn't really stop tailors from crafting in colors - but would decrease mandatory duplicates of an item for color alone. This may not sound like a big deal, but it is for a tailor. There are several drawbacks from this from a tailor's perspective - not least of which is that part of the differences between tailoring skill are colors available. The other drawback is - unless and until decay actually WORKS on clothing, many tailors are afraid of lessened sales. If the decay issue if ever finally resolved - this isn't such a problem. Color is an intangible - highly desired by players but has zero effect on 'power' - perfect candidate for a goldsink.
Bio mods - these should be allowed to be added to items postproduction, very much like skilltapes. This would allow far fewer necessary items created at once sitting on the vendor. This has indeed been asked for in the tailoring forums.
These two changes would actually permit a tailor to survive and have reasonable stock of variety on hand to service their customers and still decrease items that exist in the world. Any craft that involves colors (architect, smith) should have these aspects addressed in the same fashion. I'm not suggesting taking colors away from anyone, just allowing customization postcreation by the customer - perhaps even with a NPC that is playerowned and part of the profits going to them, as well as out of the world.
While 110 limit is still too low, I suspect that's not what the final proposal will be.
Master Merchant/Master Artisan
I have other vendors where I sell components used in other trades. This is my vendor that absolutely cannot exist with item limits. I sell both crates - and bagged run lots and it promotes interaction of trades. MANY of my customers CAN do these themselves, they choose to buy from me for convience.
This idea has been suggested many times, and it's necessary. Crates need to be dispensable on vendors. Crates need far higher item counts, full runs are NOT too much - at least on components. Why struggle with 40 crates when one will do? Why have 40 items in the world when they are intended to be identical and used together? I currently often use bags to block lots together for customer ease of purchase and handling in electronic subcomponents and cloth.
If crates are dispensable - components could be sold with a single mouseclick - items like clothing - fine, keep the max at 25 (or whatever current is), that's reasonable for a finished product, however I should be able to load the crate on the vendor and sell from one at a time. This would be invaluable to many trades - take up far less space and also be very convienient to the merchant and well as the customer.
Stacking of identical items should be allowed. There are TONS of items that exist in the world - or are world generated that it makes no good sense for them NOT to stack. There is no difference in them and they do NOT need unique serial numbers. At the exact same patch that lowered housing storage limits so severely - we got nifty little bug crates from lairs - and they DIDN'T stack! Why not? A box of bugs, is a box of bugs - they don't have quality just type. Foraged foods at one time generated with different stats, but I'm pretty sure now all types are identical - why shouldn't those stack? Anything that's not unique should stack with a like item. Resources also need to stack beyond 100k.
Misc.
Some trades require very HQ resources - and specific resources. This system has been overtinked - and demands players store large quantities of resources over a long time to insure they CAN create decent quality goods. If there is any gate to new players entering the crafting game - this is it. I personally chose products and trades where this is not as large an issue because I didn't want to deal with it. Micromanaging resources does NOTHING to enhance my gameplay, it's irritating to me personally. While I wouldn't neccessarily recommend tossing that system completely, scaling it back somewhat is probably in order. You won't get dedicated crafters that scale back what they make because of it - you get dedicated crafters that find ways to make sure they have enough storage to handle the problem - further increasing bloat. I'd also love to see some kind of system whereby like types could be recombined - smelted together if you will - to average out stats into a new (and lesser quantity) of raw material. This would be an artform to itself - decrease stacks sitting around of old resources - give newer crafters some hope of getting their hands on better resources and should help considerably with DB problems. I'd also recommend upping stack sizes on resources, if not for us - for the DB. This is similar to bioengineers that sample, create, resample - the theory already exists and could be well applied across all other resources. If there was a mechanism to tradeoff end quantity with quality (experimentation) it's a win/win all around.
There have been 3 main theories advanced as to why SOE wants to limit item counts.
DB
The above I suspect would solve the majority - if not all these problems to a reasonable level. While I have no doubt the DB is an issue, it can be addressed in other ways without penalizing players. WE didn't create a system with this amount of depth, the amount and type of resources needed - the system has to handle it as created - or the systems have to be streamlined/changed.
Monopolies
Hog wash, a monopoly cannot exist under the current system. If some players have the lion's share of market it's because they worked for it - and no other player feels there is a need to challenge the status quo.
Storage
Well - there is a very real NEED for storage, some players went this direction to address that problem. The problem isn't the storage - it's the NEED for storage. In any case - item limits won't do squat to the player that does this.
Without changing the underlying systems you cannot put in limits and expect shops to survive. The problems have arisen from the mechanics of need of the underlying systems. Change those - the problems might not disappear, but I strongly suspect they'll shrink to levels they just aren't that much of problem any longer.
I'm a hardcore - dyed in the wool crafter, it's what I do - it's what I've always done, it's the only thing I care to do. I love my shop - it's the one I've dreamed of having since my original tiny 4x4 store in UO. I cannot survive with the current proposal, nor with anything remotely similar along the same lines, not as long as the underlying systems remain as is. Harder, ayup it sure is but the very survival of SWG depends on doing it right, because the universe is totally dependent on the crafters as it's foundation. If that's not worth the effort, well - it's been a glorious run, I wish you all the best.
VarnaxDespin
Thu Aug 12, 2004 9:08 am
#2
Aell thought out post, cudo's
I have yet to hear any offical word WHY this limit must be inacted...everything I have seen thus far is speculation. Untilwe aretold WHY, I dont think we should start negotiating on what limited # is acceptable or why how we shold work around them.
Message Edited by VarnaxDespin on 08-12-2004 09:09 AM
Wire3k
Thu Aug 12, 2004 11:28 pm
#3
VarnaxDespin wrote:
Aell thought out post, cudo's
I have yet to hear any offical word WHY this limit must be inacted...everything I have seen thus far is speculation. Untilwe aretold WHY, I dont think we should start negotiating on what limited # is acceptable or why how we shold work around them.
Message Edited by VarnaxDespin on 08-12-2004 09:09 AM
Thanks Varnax
As to reasons - make no mistake - this has ZERO to do with player needs, and everything to do with trying to shoehorn the design into the DB systems, instead of adjusting the DB systems to the design.
As a paying customer, while I can sympathize with their plight, it's not MY problem they made design decisions and didn't follow thru with infrastructure that your average trained chimp could have foreseen would eventually implode. I don't need to be a DBA to remember my momma's words about trying to shove 10 lbs of ummm, stuff, into a 5 lb sack. Course I was a teen at the time and she was referring to my bluejeans - but the principle is the same.
Just the way resources spawn, everspawning - ever unique is probably where the biggest nightmare resides. Why not just have a nice (large) set of resources and have those spawn on a random basis. How much longer after they put the screws to player items will it be before this crops up again? What will they take away then? I can't believe I'm the only one that remembers low house totals were 'temporary' - uh huh.
Why not take some of the very concrete and constructive recommendations that WOULD be in the players best interests - and oh, BTW - help with the bloat?
Win/win scenarios are the only acceptable and responsible decisions. As long as the core mechanics of the game remain and the needs those mechanics produceremain - the problem is going to remain, it will just shift to other areas.
LadyGrace
Fri Aug 13, 2004 2:45 am
#4
Wire3k wrote:
Some of this is not new - many have suggested them, the point of this post is not a one-fix fix, with the variety and depth of crafting in SWG - there is no magic bullet (which I think the item count is an attempt at). One size does NOT fit all.
I am going to address my own professions as I've never done many of the others - but if there are similarities with the problems, there are probably also similarities with the solutions.
MasterBio/Master Tailor
Tailors have a particularly hard time with the idea of item limits - why? Color choice and in many cases - bio mods.
While I am not particularly overfond of this idea - it does have some advantages and really doesn't take functionality from a tailor - it just expands it, and perhaps provides additional goldsinks from the game (in a FUN - not necessary to have manner).
Tailors (and other trades) not only have a plethora of items to make, but also colors which much be stocked - unless you only want to make black (which always sells yes, but hardly makes tailoring fullfilling). If colors are taken out of the equation - the normal tailor could then stock by crates (see further down).
I'd propose a NPC that can recolor clothing by the CUSTOMER for a fee. That wouldn't really stop tailors from crafting in colors - but would decrease mandatory duplicates of an item for color alone. This may not sound like a big deal, but it is for a tailor. There are several drawbacks from this from a tailor's perspective - not least of which is that part of the differences between tailoring skill are colors available. The other drawback is - unless and until decay actually WORKS on clothing, many tailors are afraid of lessened sales. If the decay issue if ever finally resolved - this isn't such a problem. Color is an intangible - highly desired by players but has zero effect on 'power' - perfect candidate for a goldsink.
Bio mods - these should be allowed to be added to items postproduction, very much like skilltapes. This would allow far fewer necessary items created at once sitting on the vendor. This has indeed been asked for in the tailoring forums.
These two changes would actually permit a tailor to survive and have reasonable stock of variety on hand to service their customers and still decrease items that exist in the world. Any craft that involves colors (architect, smith) should have these aspects addressed in the same fashion. I'm not suggesting taking colors away from anyone, just allowing customization postcreation by the customer - perhaps even with a NPC that is playerowned and part of the profits going to them, as well as out of the world.
While 110 limit is still too low, I suspect that's not what the final proposal will be.
Master Merchant/Master Artisan
I have other vendors where I sell components used in other trades. This is my vendor that absolutely cannot exist with item limits. I sell both crates - and bagged run lots and it promotes interaction of trades. MANY of my customers CAN do these themselves, they choose to buy from me for convience.
This idea has been suggested many times, and it's necessary. Crates need to be dispensable on vendors. Crates need far higher item counts, full runs are NOT too much - at least on components. Why struggle with 40 crates when one will do? Why have 40 items in the world when they are intended to be identical and used together? I currently often use bags to block lots together for customer ease of purchase and handling in electronic subcomponents and cloth.
If crates are dispensable - components could be sold with a single mouseclick - items like clothing - fine, keep the max at 25 (or whatever current is), that's reasonable for a finished product, however I should be able to load the crate on the vendor and sell from one at a time. This would be invaluable to many trades - take up far less space and also be very convienient to the merchant and well as the customer.
Stacking of identical items should be allowed. There are TONS of items that exist in the world - or are world generated that it makes no good sense for them NOT to stack. There is no difference in them and they do NOT need unique serial numbers. At the exact same patch that lowered housing storage limits so severely - we got nifty little bug crates from lairs - and they DIDN'T stack! Why not? A box of bugs, is a box of bugs - they don't have quality just type. Foraged foods at one time generated with different stats, but I'm pretty sure now all types are identical - why shouldn't those stack? Anything that's not unique should stack with a like item. Resources also need to stack beyond 100k.
Misc.
Some trades require very HQ resources - and specific resources. This system has been overtinked - and demands players store large quantities of resources over a long time to insure they CAN create decent quality goods. If there is any gate to new players entering the crafting game - this is it. I personally chose products and trades where this is not as large an issue because I didn't want to deal with it. Micromanaging resources does NOTHING to enhance my gameplay, it's irritating to me personally. While I wouldn't neccessarily recommend tossing that system completely, scaling it back somewhat is probably in order. You won't get dedicated crafters that scale back what they make because of it - you get dedicated crafters that find ways to make sure they have enough storage to handle the problem - further increasing bloat. I'd also love to see some kind of system whereby like types could be recombined - smelted together if you will - to average out stats into a new (and lesser quantity) of raw material. This would be an artform to itself - decrease stacks sitting around of old resources - give newer crafters some hope of getting their hands on better resources and should help considerably with DB problems. I'd also recommend upping stack sizes on resources, if not for us - for the DB. This is similar to bioengineers that sample, create, resample - the theory already exists and could be well applied across all other resources. If there was a mechanism to tradeoff end quantity with quality (experimentation) it's a win/win all around.
There have been 3 main theories advanced as to why SOE wants to limit item counts.
DB
The above I suspect would solve the majority - if not all these problems to a reasonable level. While I have no doubt the DB is an issue, it can be addressed in other ways without penalizing players. WE didn't create a system with this amount of depth, the amount and type of resources needed - the system has to handle it as created - or the systems have to be streamlined/changed.
Monopolies
Hog wash, a monopoly cannot exist under the current system. If some players have the lion's share of market it's because they worked for it - and no other player feels there is a need to challenge the status quo.
Storage
Well - there is a very real NEED for storage, some players went this direction to address that problem. The problem isn't the storage - it's the NEED for storage. In any case - item limits won't do squat to the player that does this.
Without changing the underlying systems you cannot put in limits and expect shops to survive. The problems have arisen from the mechanics of need of the underlying systems. Change those - the problems might not disappear, but I strongly suspect they'll shrink to levels they just aren't that much of problem any longer.
I'm a hardcore - dyed in the wool crafter, it's what I do - it's what I've always done, it's the only thing I care to do. I love my shop - it's the one I've dreamed of having since my original tiny 4x4 store in UO. I cannot survive with the current proposal, nor with anything remotely similar along the same lines, not as long as the underlying systems remain as is. Harder, ayup it sure is but the very survival of SWG depends on doing it right, because the universe is totally dependent on the crafters as it's foundation. If that's not worth the effort, well - it's been a glorious run, I wish you all the best.
Allowing clothing to be re-colored post-creation is something that customers have wanted for a long time, and tailors have on the most part vehemently rejected as "the death of their profession".
I personally would rather see the tailor continue to be a part of the coloring process, through the crafting of dye kits. The dye kits could be expensive enough that tailors don't lose any income, and the amount of colors available in a kit could be skill-based, much as it is now.
Though, this probably belongs in the tailor forum 
I would really love to be able to stock from crates, and to buy from crates.I'd actually be able to stock the furniture vendor in a satisfactory manner with the 110 item limit! One crate per item, and if a customer purchases more than one item from the crate they get a mini-crate delivered to them, not seperate items. Though if they added re-crating at the same time, that wouldn't even be an issue.
LadyGrace
Fri Aug 13, 2004 3:01 am
#5
Oh and speaking of UO .... remember when they brought in item limits through the Clean Up Britannia program?
Not only did they give us gifts in exchange for our excess items, they also devised methods of reducing item counts, like potion kegs and runebooks. If SOE would implement some of the many great ideas that have been posted in response to this issue then perhaps customers would be a little less unhappy.
Gyopi
Fri Aug 13, 2004 5:35 am
#6
Wire3k wrote:
I'd propose a NPC that can recolor clothing by the CUSTOMER for a fee. That wouldn't really stop tailors from crafting in colors - but would decrease mandatory duplicates of an item for color alone. This may not sound like a big deal, but it is for a tailor. There are several drawbacks from this from a tailor's perspective - not least of which is that part of the differences between tailoring skill are colors available. The other drawback is - unless and until decay actually WORKS on clothing, many tailors are afraid of lessened sales. If the decay issue if ever finally resolved - this isn't such a problem. Color is an intangible - highly desired by players but has zero effect on 'power' - perfect candidate for a goldsink.
Gee, if that happened I could then just make as many of my most popular items as I could store in black and drop tailoring forever! There really wouldn't be much point in tailoring from then on since pretty much everything that I like about it would be gone. I am not sure of what the fun in tailoring would be if this happened. I can see it from your perspective since you are mostly a BE and your art is gathering the best materials and making the best BE mods that you can. For the average tailor this would make their profession slightly less interesting than master artisan (at least they have experimentation!).
Wire3k
Fri Aug 13, 2004 10:32 am
#7
I don't necessarily disagree with either of you - but that is at the heart of the problem with tailors and item limits.
Gyopi
Fri Aug 13, 2004 11:02 am
#8
Wire3k wrote:I don't necessarily disagree with either of you - but that is at the heart of the problem with tailors and item limits.
I know it isn't the best solution to the problem, but I don't see why they can't just allow us to add more clothes to the vendor (have a large or no limit for clothing and only for clothing). I am pretty sure that vendors with thousands of items of clothing are not part of the monopoly problem (if it exists) and it isn't just people storing their personal wardrobes. It might have an effect on the database, but I am guessing that clothing doesn't take up a large portion of the database and it will take up even less once clothing decay starts working correctly.
Wire3k
Sun Aug 15, 2004 11:22 am
#9
Gyopi wrote:
I know it isn't the best solution to the problem, but I don't see why they can't just allow us to add more clothes to the vendor (have a large or no limit for clothing and only for clothing). I am pretty sure that vendors with thousands of items of clothing are not part of the monopoly problem (if it exists) and it isn't just people storing their personal wardrobes. It might have an effect on the database, but I am guessing that clothing doesn't take up a large portion of the database and it will take up even less once clothing decay starts working correctly.
Well - tailors aren't the only ones suffering from this same problem. Nearly all crafts have more to offer than any proposed limit is likely to be - and we aren't the only ones with color problems. Each one may have slightly different issues, but after this all shakes out - look forward to seeing clothing only in black and only the very most popular items for sale - say goodbye to the variety that was one of the better points of SWG. That's presuming you can find anything to buy at all, if crafters quit - or even if they don't and crafting becomes more trouble than it's worth and they simply give up crafting - good luck finding ANYTHING for sale.
In a game that's built on the premise of a PC economy (something I applaud btw) that's not a nail in the coffin - that's slamming down the lid and shoving it into the hole.
For their sake - I hope I'm wrong, but I'm not usually wrong. Changes this massive have to be done carefully - incrementally - and if you change distribution methods - something has to be done with the underlying systems to adjust them so those methods are sufficient to the needs of the players in the system that you built.
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