Merchant Archive
Thread: Another angle on the caps how the devs COULD use them to improve the game
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tomrk
Mon Aug 09, 2004 12:04 pm
#2
As has been stated in other posts - totally apart from controlling DB size another MAJOR reason for the vendor caps is to reduce the dominance in the crafting market by a small number of players. In concept that is a noble goal. The problem is that in the current incarnation it is a TOTAL pain in the rear to find crafted goods. I have had days when I literally ran from vendor to vendor for 7 hours looking for just a couple parts that I needed. In the absence of some way to more efficiently locate goods for sale, the only practical approach is the concentration of goods in a single location. So, for instance, I don't have to run all over the place looking for a good gun because I know that it's almost a certainty that Troll, Dy-nod, or Ykkorr will have what I'm looking for sitting on their vendors. But the ONLY reason that is true is that these crafters have the ability to load their vendors up with a large quantity of items for customers to choose from.
In other words, the concentration of goods in a small number of crafters, while an unfortunate barrier to new crafters, is a product of the practical realities of the game.
Enter the vendor caps.
All of the sudden, a crafter like Dy-Nod cannot load up his vendor with a large selection of every needed weapon so he's got to either concentrate on a large number of a few types of weapons OR a small number of a variety of weapons. Either way, the odds of me finding what I'm looking for (either because it was never on the vendor or because the only 3 that were there have sold already) are GREATLY reduced.
Let's face it - that is EXACTLY the mechanism that opens up the market for new crafters and as such is the obvious effect of this change.
So basically what's happening here is that the devs are trading reducing the barrier of entry for new crafters for inconveniencing the crap out of the ENTIRE game population. Peachy.
MAYBE THERE IS A WAY TO DO THIS AND NOT MAKE LIFE MISERABLE FOR EVERYBODY IN THE PROCESS?
What if to offset this change the devs create a type of craftable terminal (or even just retrofit the functionality into on or more of the existing craftable terminals) that would let you search the contents of player vendors so that I could sit down in my house and shop for what I needed, buy it, and then just run out to the wp of the vendor and pick it up? With a tool like that, these vendor caps MIGHT actually be a positive change. Especially if they enhanced the search interface so that you query the properties of items to find what you were after ("I want a T21 with min damage > 250" etc - but I know that's REALLY pushing it). I mean heck, I can do that NOW in real life with 20th century technology - not very realistic to suggest that at SW tech level you have to run from building to building to find something for sale.
Heck, they could even turn this into a BIG positive for merchants by making the ability to have your vendor contents show up in the global system be something you get at a high level in the merchant tree. Or even have a limit on the number of items you could list in the global system that increases as you gain merchant skills. That might actually make merchant a valuable profession to master even????
In other words, the concentration of goods in a small number of crafters, while an unfortunate barrier to new crafters, is a product of the practical realities of the game.
Enter the vendor caps.
All of the sudden, a crafter like Dy-Nod cannot load up his vendor with a large selection of every needed weapon so he's got to either concentrate on a large number of a few types of weapons OR a small number of a variety of weapons. Either way, the odds of me finding what I'm looking for (either because it was never on the vendor or because the only 3 that were there have sold already) are GREATLY reduced.
Let's face it - that is EXACTLY the mechanism that opens up the market for new crafters and as such is the obvious effect of this change.
So basically what's happening here is that the devs are trading reducing the barrier of entry for new crafters for inconveniencing the crap out of the ENTIRE game population. Peachy.
MAYBE THERE IS A WAY TO DO THIS AND NOT MAKE LIFE MISERABLE FOR EVERYBODY IN THE PROCESS?
What if to offset this change the devs create a type of craftable terminal (or even just retrofit the functionality into on or more of the existing craftable terminals) that would let you search the contents of player vendors so that I could sit down in my house and shop for what I needed, buy it, and then just run out to the wp of the vendor and pick it up? With a tool like that, these vendor caps MIGHT actually be a positive change. Especially if they enhanced the search interface so that you query the properties of items to find what you were after ("I want a T21 with min damage > 250" etc - but I know that's REALLY pushing it). I mean heck, I can do that NOW in real life with 20th century technology - not very realistic to suggest that at SW tech level you have to run from building to building to find something for sale.
Heck, they could even turn this into a BIG positive for merchants by making the ability to have your vendor contents show up in the global system be something you get at a high level in the merchant tree. Or even have a limit on the number of items you could list in the global system that increases as you gain merchant skills. That might actually make merchant a valuable profession to master even????
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