Merchant Archive
Thread: Arthur's Theory on Monopolies
Page 1 of 1
ArthurDentOnBria
Tue Aug 10, 2004 10:38 am
#1
Ok, first off, let me say that I personally don't believe that monopolies are a problem. What I've seen is that it's not long after a crafter achieves a huge amount of popularity (generally well deserved) they burn out and want to do something else and then there is a void left for others to fill, and the cycle continues. BUT, if the devs insist that there is a problem here, and that is has to be dealt with, I feel that attacking the problem at the "vendor level" is really really misguided, and here's why.
First off, why is it that a newcomer to say the weaponsmith or armorsmith profession has trouble competing with the very best in that profession on his/her server? It's not about popularity, it's not because their names are on everybody's lips (although that certainly helps) it's all about resources. The fact is, there is just no way that a newcomer can make a weapon as good as someone who has been accumulating the very best spawns over the last 12 months. It's an impossible task. And the amount of time it will take to get competitive is very long road indeed. And given that this situation exists, there is an absolute need to hoard gigantic amounts of materials cause you never know when the next spawn will come. It may well come months or years later. SOooo, understanding that this is actually the barrier, and not some silly vendor-thingy, why not attack the problem at the source?
Solution: very simple, increase the spawn rate of the better materials used in some of the more quality-centric professions. This lowers the barrier to newcomers entering the profession, and takes away a lot of the incentive to hoard quite as much materials. If you suspect that you'll be able to harvest an equal of better material in a month or so, there is little incentive to hoard it. Boom, done, problem solved. Next?
VarnaxDespin
Tue Aug 10, 2004 10:48 am
#2
hehe so simple...
The dev's seem to have a vision of how the crafting/economy is suppossed to work.. and we dont seem to be playing along with that idea... I think they are frustrated 
They want resources to spawn and the quality to hamper the end product.. so that there isnt a consistant "uber" quality goods being produced... but they also dont want us to stockpile/hoard the good spawns that come about, because that isnt fair to the new guy.
Now the dev's see "joeblow" crafter has saved enough of excellent x, y, and z resources and can mass produce uber items for the next 2 years if they so choose. Well in order to try and limit "joeblow" they cap how many items he can sell without sitting by his vendor restocking... effectivily stopping him from selling his better items in bulk and thus making his large stock of high end resources pointless.
But "joeblow" is smart and now he only sells hisitems by the crate.... no instead of buying 1 just one uber item, consumers are going to be forced to spend even more and buy crates of them, rahter then buying the inferior product from the new guy...
Its just the way things work.. we all want the best and wont settle for the rest.
joined42904
Tue Aug 10, 2004 10:51 am
#3
Varnax,
Now you are talking sense. This shows that the new limits CAN be dealt with even by elite crafters.
What the devs need to do about resources is implement some form of resource decay for resources that aren't stored in a special building. You think you have enough for 2 years? Well...not if it decays. Allow only one special building per crafter...limited storage....you get the picture. No more resource hoarding. Quality of goods begins to vary with current spawns.
Dsabre
Tue Aug 10, 2004 1:00 pm
#4
it can be dealt with...but not by all crafters...
for example:
tailors...who's going to buy a crate of the same colored cloak...especially when its not the color they really wanted.
architects...ummmm can they even make crates of more than a handful on most of their items?
DE's...people can only have sooo many droids in their datapad...and with the exception of BH droids, and the bomb droids...I doubt anyone will ever be wanting more than 5 storage droids.
BE's...quite simply put...can't make crates of pets.
chefs...already sell mostly by the crate
medics...same with chefs...sell most of their stuff by the crate
basically WS, and AS are the only ones that can "adjust" to this by selling by the crate instead of singles.
most "monopolies" will only be strengthened by this nerf...not weakened. simply put their already capable of making this change now. many have 2 characters, and mastering merchant in a busy location isn't very difficult...so they can have 2 or even 4 characters with master merchant giving them a considerable edge over everyone else.
the small crafters well they're even more screwed. if they haven't mastered merchant...they won't be able to without "cheating" the system (getting buddies to look at your vendor/pay access fees). with only a limited number of items that they can list...there won't be any variety...they can only list the top sellers. and since the monopolies can make those top items in far greater quantities with much better quality...even those won't be selling very well.
and if they're doing this to stop "infinate storage"....well item number caps won't do a thing...everyone will just throw 50 items into a backpack...and list it for 9999999999. the only way to stop that is to dramatically lower the price cap (maybe make it skill based too), and implement the view contents of bag on vendor change.
for example:
tailors...who's going to buy a crate of the same colored cloak...especially when its not the color they really wanted.
architects...ummmm can they even make crates of more than a handful on most of their items?
DE's...people can only have sooo many droids in their datapad...and with the exception of BH droids, and the bomb droids...I doubt anyone will ever be wanting more than 5 storage droids.
BE's...quite simply put...can't make crates of pets.
chefs...already sell mostly by the crate
medics...same with chefs...sell most of their stuff by the crate
basically WS, and AS are the only ones that can "adjust" to this by selling by the crate instead of singles.
most "monopolies" will only be strengthened by this nerf...not weakened. simply put their already capable of making this change now. many have 2 characters, and mastering merchant in a busy location isn't very difficult...so they can have 2 or even 4 characters with master merchant giving them a considerable edge over everyone else.
the small crafters well they're even more screwed. if they haven't mastered merchant...they won't be able to without "cheating" the system (getting buddies to look at your vendor/pay access fees). with only a limited number of items that they can list...there won't be any variety...they can only list the top sellers. and since the monopolies can make those top items in far greater quantities with much better quality...even those won't be selling very well.
and if they're doing this to stop "infinate storage"....well item number caps won't do a thing...everyone will just throw 50 items into a backpack...and list it for 9999999999. the only way to stop that is to dramatically lower the price cap (maybe make it skill based too), and implement the view contents of bag on vendor change.
Page 1 of 1