Merchant Archive
Thread: Empty vendor's evil cousin
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Cephalo
Thu Jun 24, 2004 7:27 am
#1
I was shopping for a small naboo house yesterday, and I didn't actually see alot of empty vendors. I did see alot of architect vendors that had like 50 of the same kind of lamp, another 50 of the same type of couch, and nothing else... After a 15 minute ride, it's frustrating. It would be great to see on the world map and indication of how many different items are on a vendor, so you have some idea who might have what you're looking for. Turning off only the empties might not be enough. A 'diversity score' would also help people avoid empties as well as 'functionally empties'.
Curxcha
Thu Jun 24, 2004 7:58 am
#2
Yeah. Merchant needs a real work around. and calling it the "empty vendors evil cousin" is very true.
Seems like something might happen to merchant prof. And this is a very god idea imo to bring to the devs a long with the empty vendor problem.
SystemJinx
Thu Jun 24, 2004 8:21 pm
#3
As I recall in Beta it was possible to buy items from people's vendors through the bazaar. Once you bought it, the confirmation email would list the location and you had to run to their shop to pick it up.
This was a good idea, but poorly implemented. Withoutthe ability to separatebazaar items from vendor items, people would buy something, not realize it was a vendor item, and have to run 2000 meters away to pick it up. (keep in mind there were no vehicles) The devs"fixed" this by removing merchant's vendors from being listed in the bazaar.
I think with some planning it could easily be reinstated. Remember the buttons in the top left corner on the bazaar screen? You could search foritemsLocally, Planetary or the Entire Galaxy. They should just make another option for Bazaar Only, or All Vendors.
Well that's my thoughts and I hope it makes sense. 
HalloranElder
Thu Jun 24, 2004 8:58 pm
#4
That why I try to have as varied a range of things on my vendors as possible.
Continually restocking every day so that I do have as good a range as possible is annoying, but them's the breaks.
If your in a shopping mood, you could visit my shop *nudge* *nudge* *wink* *wink*! 
Dremvek
Fri Jun 25, 2004 2:06 am
#5
An even better solution would be to have a quantity column on your vendor. If you've got 20 identical lamps for sale, instead of listing it 20 times, list it once with a quantity of 20. Then, the customer could just adjust the quantity for the number they want. If they want 20 lamps, they can do it all in one purchase.That way people who load up their vendors don't scare off customers by having an ugly vendor, and people can always find what they want. If people loaded up the vendor once a week, it would hopefully drive down the number of empties as well.
This would also save on Database space as well, I would think, as you could have 1 row with a quantity of 20 rather than 20 rows.
DaQuilla
Sat Jun 26, 2004 9:38 am
#7
SystemJinx wrote:
As I recall in Beta it was possible to buy items from people's vendors through the bazaar. Once you bought it, the confirmation email would list the location and you had to run to their shop to pick it up.
This was a good idea, but poorly implemented. Withoutthe ability to separatebazaar items from vendor items, people would buy something, not realize it was a vendor item, and have to run 2000 meters away to pick it up. (keep in mind there were no vehicles) The devs"fixed" this by removing merchant's vendors from being listed in the bazaar.
But Bazaars do show where the item you're buying is ... it's in the right most collumn ... if you go to "planetwide" you see the different cities. I could imagin it's more of a database problem to list all vendors on a planet with all items in them- remeber AstroStats - 20k vendors ingame!
Personally as a politician, I'd like to give player cities a better standing - give them a bazaar that would indeed look into all the vendors in that player city - and list these items when doing a "planetary search" in NPC Bazaars (reason to not allow items being placed in player city bazaars is because these could easily be deleted by mayor or disapear because the city doesn't qualify for a bazaar anymore - don't know if tieing offered items to an NPC bazaar would be possible).
Looking into Vendors themselves can be used as a very powerful tool for resellers ... since merchants can/shouldalso be resellers, maybe the feature of looking into a vendor from far away (over the holonet) would be a high level merchant skill - being able to see the whole vendor menu with stock and prices, and being able to buy from far away (you'd still have to go and get the item - don't know if buying something from afar is a feasable idea, since I've heard that vendors where once used for duping). Maybe simply seeing what's in stock (without prizes and ability to buy from afar) could be a low level Merchant or Business skill
Songe
Sat Jun 26, 2004 11:02 am
#8
I still hate this idea. Selling things mostly comes from impulsive purchases, where price doesn't always matter much, but if everything was listed on the bazaar people would still go buy the cheapest thing first (provided it's not too far). Then people would just stock the same thing 20 times for cheap, what we need is encourage well stocked, even if more expensive, vendors.
SystemJinx wrote:
As I recall in Beta it was possible to buy items from people's vendors through the bazaar. Once you bought it, the confirmation email would list the location and you had to run to their shop to pick it up.
This was a good idea, but poorly implemented. Withoutthe ability to separatebazaar items from vendor items, people would buy something, not realize it was a vendor item, and have to run 2000 meters away to pick it up. (keep in mind there were no vehicles) The devs"fixed" this by removing merchant's vendors from being listed in the bazaar.
I think with some planning it could easily be reinstated. Remember the buttons in the top left corner on the bazaar screen? You could search foritemsLocally, Planetary or the Entire Galaxy. They should just make another option for Bazaar Only, or All Vendors.
Well that's my thoughts and I hope it makes sense.
SystemJinx
Sat Jun 26, 2004 7:31 pm
#9
Songe wrote:
I still hate this idea. Selling things mostly comes from impulsive purchases, where price doesn't always matter much, but if everything was listed on the bazaar people would still go buy the cheapest thing first (provided it's not too far). Then people would just stock the same thing 20 times for cheap, what we need is encourage well stocked, even if more expensive, vendors.
SystemJinx wrote:
As I recall in Beta it was possible to buy items from people's vendors through the bazaar. Once you bought it, the confirmation email would list the location and you had to run to their shop to pick it up.
This was a good idea, but poorly implemented. Withoutthe ability to separatebazaar items from vendor items, people would buy something, not realize it was a vendor item, and have to run 2000 meters away to pick it up. (keep in mind there were no vehicles) The devs"fixed" this by removing merchant's vendors from being listed in the bazaar.
I think with some planning it could easily be reinstated. Remember the buttons in the top left corner on the bazaar screen? You could search foritemsLocally, Planetary or the Entire Galaxy. They should just make another option for Bazaar Only, or All Vendors.
Well that's my thoughts and I hope it makes sense.
Good point Songe. I didn't thinkabout the effect on the economy.
Balkstar
Mon Jun 28, 2004 11:30 am
#10
Dremvek wrote:
An even better solution would be to have a quantity column on your vendor. If you've got 20 identical lamps for sale, instead of listing it 20 times, list it once with a quantity of 20. Then, the customer could just adjust the quantity for the number they want. If they want 20 lamps, they can do it all in one purchase.That way people who load up their vendors don't scare off customers by having an ugly vendor, and people can always find what they want. If people loaded up the vendor once a week, it would hopefully drive down the number of empties as well.
This would also save on Database space as well, I would think, as you could have 1 row with a quantity of 20 rather than 20 rows.
This may be a problem, in that it may help perpetuate spoofing.
Every item has a unique identifying code attached to it, so that spoofing itmes is made very difficult. With the ability to group like items together, it may reduce the security that SOE has in place. The last thing that crafters should want is spoofed items.
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