Merchant Archive
Thread: What is a reasonable number? As Doc said we are gonna have to live with some number.
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Mkappus
Mon Aug 09, 2004 11:13 am
#1
What is a reasonable item limit. I think we need to start discussing a number to push for. We can scream and yell for no limit, but if one is pushed on us I think we should look at a reasonable number and be able to justify it.
I don't have the time to do this now, but a position I think we could take is look at each of the finished goods a profession can make:
Architect, I think someone said 55 items of furniture, plus all the harvs....
Weaponsmith X weapons
Armorsmith X pieces of armor
Chef X types of food
and so on
Figure out the average number of finished goods each profession has. Then come up with a reasonable amount of each item to stock, 10, 20, 50. Do the quick multiplication and there is our number. It is probably going to be a hell of a lot bigger than 660. I would imagine that the average number of finished goods is around 75-100 and say we wanted 20 of each, we are looking at 1500 minimum.
EvilHomerSimpson
Mon Aug 09, 2004 11:15 am
#2
If one is pushed on us we should all justquit SWG or if you prefer stop crafting. Where would the game be without crafters?
VarnaxDespin
Mon Aug 09, 2004 11:20 am
#3
Mkappus wrote:
What is a reasonable item limit. I think we need to start discussing a number to push for. We can scream and yell for no limit, but if one is pushed on us I think we should look at a reasonable number and be able to justify it.
I am going to keep posting this becasue there is no reasonable item limit....100 items per vendor...200 items... 500 items the number is irrelevent.... You cannot go from an infinite number to a finite one and maintain any rational perspective.
Heres a real life example from another post of mine to point out how absurd a vendor limit is:
2 assumtions:
Humans need to breath air inorder to survive
Merchants need vendors is SWG to survive as a proffesion
Lets say you live in a large industrial city (SWG) and the goverment (Sony) comes to the citizens and says, "Hey guys, we have a carbon dioxide problem (database) and inorder to to solve it we are going to have to limit the amount of times each person breaths per day. Now in order to make this fair, we cant base the number of breaths on the size of the person (the amount a crafter produces/sells) because larger people and athletesbreath more then small people and that isnt fair. So next month (publish) each family is going to be alloted a number of breaths per day....If you a single Adult you'll get 50 breaths, a couple each get 70 breaths, couple w/ 1 kid each get 80 breaths, couple w/ 2 kids each get 90, couple w/ 3 kidseach get100 and a couple w/ 4 kids each get 110 breaths per day, Have a nice day."
Well of course the community (forum) gets all up in an uproar and yells, screams and kicks thier feet because they cannot survive only breathing so few times a day. People start throwing out ideas on how many breaths "they" could actually live with, how they could get around the breathing limit and how they could change the way they breath. The problem with this is they have by doing this already accepted the insane idea that they should have to limit thier breathing to solve the cities air problem rather then the city working on solving the amount of carbon dioxide being emited by the city's Industries.
So after a week the city government comes back and says, "We hear your plee's/concerns, and thanks for the feed back and ideas, we understand your points of view and feel your pain, so we have decided to double the amount of breaths we previously proposed. We have given, now you must."
Well I am sorry I cannot live on 50 breaths (items), 100 breaths, or 1000 breaths a day....This leaves me very few options, try to live with the absurd demand to limit my breaths and die, or leave the city (swg)I have loved up until now, for another town (MOG) that will allow me to breath.
Vendors are a merchants main tool, much like a rilfe is a riflemans main tool,Limiting items per vendoris akin to telling a rifleman they can only shoot a rilfe so many time per day....It is absurd.
Yours,
Mkappus
Mon Aug 09, 2004 11:26 am
#4
Varnax,
I respect your opinion, but everything has limits and I don't think it is unreasonable to have limits. A game needs to be fair and balanced, to achieve balance they put limits on things. Im an architect I need lots of resources, but I am limited to 10 lots. My need for resources is almost endless, I need endless lots..... Im a creature handler I need to have as many pets out as I want, I need tons of pets out......
We have all been living with storage limits on our houses, limits on the skill points we can have, limits on the number of lots we have.... We can live with vendor item limits. It will require more skill and planning but it can be done. Right now there is no penalty for flooding vendors with items. No change in the maintenance rate. We come across any random crap we try and sell it, why not, doesn't hurt. Now we will have to be more selective, and actually see what is in demand and cater to those demands instead of trying to stock everything always.
I think there will be a limit most of us can live with. I think armorsmith and tailors have the biggest complaint on the limit. But using bags, hopefully they can learn to cope as well.
CharPrime
Mon Aug 09, 2004 11:30 am
#5
Mkappus wrote:
But using bags, hopefully they can learn to cope as well.
are you going to want to buy a full suit of armor everytime you need a new chestplate?
EvilHomerSimpson
Mon Aug 09, 2004 11:31 am
#6
They shouln't have to use bags. That's just poor game design.
VarnaxDespin
Mon Aug 09, 2004 11:39 am
#7
Mkappus wrote:
Varnax,
I respect your opinion, but everything has limits and I don't think it is unreasonable to have limits. A game needs to be fair and balanced, to achieve balance they put limits on things. Im an architect I need lots of resources, but I am limited to 10 lots. My need for resources is almost endless, I need endless lots..... Im a creature handler I need to have as many pets out as I want, I need tons of pets out......
We have all been living with storage limits on our houses, limits on the skill points we can have, limits on the number of lots we have.... We can live with vendor item limits. It will require more skill and planning but it can be done. Right now there is no penalty for flooding vendors with items. No change in the maintenance rate. We come across any random crap we try and sell it, why not, doesn't hurt. Now we will have to be more selective, and actually see what is in demand and cater to those demands instead of trying to stock everything always.
I think there will be a limit most of us can live with. I think armorsmith and tailors have the biggest complaint on the limit. But using bags, hopefully they can learn to cope as well.
I understand you view, and thank for the civil discussion. Sry I am rushed to go to work but I will try to respond as bestI can.
IMO there are already limits on vendors....how many vendors have you seen w/ 10k items...or 20k.. I have never seen one since I started playing July 2003.
The 30 day timer acts as our current limit enforcer.... If I stock 20k items then I know that I might very well have to re-stock 10k+those very itemsin 30 days....and as I hate the re-stocking process, I will not put myself through that agony. So instead I maintain a few thousand items... some sell fast others do not.. I currently have aprox 700 100k unit blocks of resources on my Resource vendor... I could double that amount and put all my back stock up as well, but I dont want to have to deal with the re-stocking... nor do i need to have 5mil units of one specific resource up... as I sell certain things Ireplenishthem.
Limits on lots and housing are different then limits on vendors...I stand by the idea Vendorsare merchants main tool. The main tool for crafters, are not your number of lots, resources, etc... but the ability to click on your crafting tool and create as many times a day as is possible for you. While you could theoretically click 24-7, I doubt you do... just like most merhcants have never bothered putting everything they could onto thier vendors.
Message Edited by VarnaxDespin on 08-09-2004 11:42 AM
Iannyen
Mon Aug 09, 2004 11:41 am
#8
I'm a master architect. We have over 80 furniture items, not including streetlamp variations. People almost never buy one of any item, or if they do, its a bed, or a couch, and they buy a pair of plants, or lamps, or chairs, or tables.
On my mall furniture vendor, I like to keep at LEAST1-2 full crate of goods as singles (read from 10-19 items open) of each type, and 2-4 partial crates (5 unit crates) and 1-2 full crates (1 unbroken 10 unit crate) of each item available. So thats 26 of each item possible at any point on my furniture vendor. Assume 80 items, with the above distribution to one vendor, is over 1600 items on one vendor.
I also like to keep a bulk furniture vendor that has crates listed at 10 unit prices. Not really storage, since people can buy from it at will. I'd estimate 600 crates on that vendor. I'd dump this vendor if I could get some useable storage.
So not counting deeds and subcomponents, I'd say that I need at least 2200 items to be searchable on a vendor. I'd settle for half that, and not be too pissed.
THIS DOES NOT ADDRESS THE COMPLETE LACK OF USEABLE STORAGE SPACE FOR MAKING ECONOMICAL FACTORY RUNS OF ITEMS.
Chek
Mon Aug 09, 2004 11:45 am
#9
Mkappus wrote:
What is a reasonable item limit. I think we need to start discussing a number to push for. We can scream and yell for no limit, but if one is pushed on us I think we should look at a reasonable number and be able to justify it.
I don't have the time to do this now, but a position I think we could take is look at each of the finished goods a profession can make:
Architect, I think someone said 55 items of furniture, plus all the harvs....
Weaponsmith X weapons
Armorsmith X pieces of armor
Chef X types of food
and so on
Figure out the average number of finished goods each profession has. Then come up with a reasonable amount of each item to stock, 10, 20, 50. Do the quick multiplication and there is our number. It is probably going to be a hell of a lot bigger than 660. I would imagine that the average number of finished goods is around 75-100 and say we wanted 20 of each, we are looking at 1500 minimum.
In order to accomodate the proposed caps, I think the vendor cap (business 3) should start with 150 items.
An additional 100 items per vendor thru Business 4.
An additional 150 items per vendor at Novice Merchant, and Management 1 and 2.
An additional 200 items per vendor at Management 3 and 4.
An additional 100 items per vendor at master merchant plus one additional vendor able to be placed.
Valuthorax
Mon Aug 09, 2004 11:48 am
#10
I will no longer be a merchant if limits are placed and will be looking for the next mmporg that supports merchants the way i like them.
Vaygirl
Mon Aug 09, 2004 11:52 am
#11
Tailors make approx 200+ clothing items. Now, I'd love to stock 3 of each color of each thing. Right now I don't. As it is, I make about 6-10 different popular colors. Even if I only stock ONE of each color that people seem to like, that's about....1600 items, if I only do eight colors each. From a Tailor perspective this kind of ruins the one nice thingthey gave us... lots of pretty colors. I'd say these numbers are HORRIBLY low for my profession. I'm not sure whata good number would be, but over 1500 for say... management 1, based on my profession, that would be for 3 vendors. /shrug. I'd even go higher, as would others I'm sure
SeaRaptor
Tue Aug 10, 2004 12:01 am
#12
I think that two or three thousand items spread across as many vendors as we want (the aggregate caps that Doc keeps mentioning) should be enough to keep most players happy. It seems rare to find people with more than that in stock.
Tirgwystraff
Tue Aug 10, 2004 12:10 am
#13
234 schematics for master tailor. Under the current limits, my master merchant could stock 1 of every item ( in black of course) and it would take all of 2 vendors, plus part of a third. Just before my vendors were deleted, I had over 6k pieces of clothing in stock ( and still hadn't got around to stocking master level items). These schematics of course DONT include all the rare loot schematics.....
Nor can you ask several tailors to work together to provide just a particular type. SOMEONE is bound to get screwed into being the shoe saleswoman. Yeah, I sell alot of those
And who wins the popularity contest to get the bioclothing business??
And who wins the popularity contest to get the bioclothing business??
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