Merchant Archive
Thread: Vendor Search V2
Message Edited by ealide on 03-24-2005 09:50 PM
Message Edited by ealide on 03-26-2005 04:38 PM
ealide wrote:
Vendor Search seems to work surprizingly well, but maybe the next time it is changed, it should filter items that have the same name, amount, price and waypoint, so that they are only displayed once. Agree?Message Edited by ealide on 03-24-2005 09:50 PM
It doesn't work well at all. Its a big mess of 1000's of items without a proper search tool and no way to really find things you want other than hitting the next page over and over again. A real search engine would be nice. This is crap.
DocSavag wrote:
ealide wrote:
Vendor Search seems to work surprizingly well, but maybe the next time it is changed, it should filter items that have the same name, amount, price and waypoint, so that they are only displayed once. Agree?
Message Edited by ealide on 03-24-2005 09:50 PM
It doesn't work well at all. Its a big mess of 1000's of items without a proper search tool and no way to really find things you want other than hitting the next page over and over again. A real search engine would be nice. This is crap.
Yeah. What makes it worse is that even hitting the "Next Page" doesn't really load more items for sale. It just drops a few and adds a few, but most of the list is what you saw the previous 15 to 100 pages before.
The Current Bazaar is only good for finding the high priced Uber items and High quality starship parts.
The page count is screwy too its starts at 1-252 and then goes to 101-352 then 201-450 etc..thats messed up.
This feature is a joke.
DocSavag wrote:
Hell I TRIED to used it tonight as a consumer but after paging through 4k items I realized that most of the items were repeated over and over again (I refuse to belive that there are 100 Kuat Engineering Schematic 2/8's for 20million available on one vendor on Tatooine)
The page count is screwy too its starts at 1-252 and then goes to 101-352 then 201-450 etc..thats messed up.
That would explain (some of) why items are being repeated: it's only advancing 100 items per page instead of 250. I know the old vendor page size was 100; was there ever a larger page size on the Bazaar or is that completely new this publish?
Message Edited by Parody on 03-27-2005 01:46 AM
Elyssa wrote:
That's why I'm encouraging everyone to:
1) List all of your vendors on the global search so that you don't operate a competitive disadvantage and
2) Wait a week or two for the newness to wear off and people to stop using it.
Working well for me as a buyer and a seller.
Yeah there's problems but it's still easier to use the search feature with its problems than hunting planets wading through empty or low stocked vendors. The planet advertising feature should be scrapped, it's the most pathetic waste of time for buyers.
I find it quite disparaging to read the Merchant Correspondant not wanting to work to make the system better but to rubbish it and encourage it's failure.
Quite sad really.
There are definitely problems with this in execution, but it seems potentialy the search system may present an interesting commerical environment, where the consumer has the opportunity to have a near perfect price comparison and is thereby in the best possible position to make those rational buying decisions that economists always falsely ascribe. I'm just interested to see the results when it is operating correctly. I suppose I take a limited view on this only having seen Farstar's listings, which has a signifiantly lower population than many servers. Our chest plate listing for instance only run to 6 or 7 pages.
The solution for the factory crate issue is that vendors will simply have to split one crate and have one sample item listed under food/component etc. Backpacks are another issue entirely which there may well be no way around as they are generally containers for looted components.
Message Edited by ealide on 03-27-2005 11:01 AM
I noticed that the waypoint this system puts in your datapad is named ... "Waypoint". It would be nice if I could give a specific name (with color) so they'd know exactly where they were going.
O.
BruSwillis wrote:
I find it quite disparaging to read the Merchant Correspondant not wanting to work to make the system better but to rubbish it and encourage it's failure.
It is my opinion and I am entitled to have it.
I pay the same money to play this game that you do.
It is also an opinion that seems to be shared by a majority of the merchant community so I feel justified in advancing it.
The problem is not that there IS a search, the problem is that it was so poorly done.
So poorly done in fact that the developers pulled the original design and sent it back for more work.
Then, despite much discussion from all interested parties, they put it right back in essentially unchanged.
A system could have and should have been put in place that provided a win-win scenario for merchants AND customers. After all, we DO want you to find our stores and buy things from us.
Instead, we get a system that's a jumbled mess and is ultimately only of marginal benefit to anyone.
As for working to make the thing better, I am not a developer nor am I on SOE's payroll.
My job is to collect and relay merchant's concerns to the developers.
I can truthfully say that everything that could have been done was done.
Some encouraging talk came from the developers and it looked like we were on course toward something that would have been closer to what we wanted then suddenly it stopped and the original system went into the game anyway.
I think we deserve better so you'll forgive me if I don't share your opinion of the system.