Merchant Archive
Thread: Mall Owners need to be able to fire vendors
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WorriedViper
Mon Aug 02, 2004 2:53 pm
#1
Running a mall can be a fun and rewarding experience. Gaining recognition throughout the community as a "the place" to shop takes time and dedication. However all of your hard work can be destroyed by just a few bad seeds.
Currently, mall owners have no control of vendors once they are placed. The only person that can remove a vendor is the merchant who placed it. Unfortunately, not all merchants are cut out for the daily regiment of maintaining their vendors with stocked goods for sale. But instead of removing the vendors they let it sit there and rot, taking up vauable floorspace which could be better allocated to active merchants.
Mall owners need to have the authorityto "evict" vendors who are not performing.
SpottyGekko
Tue Aug 03, 2004 5:08 am
#2
/agree
If half the tenants in your mall end up with empty vendors, your mall will be a dud, and no customerwill ever bother to come back after the first 2 or 3 visits (if they even come back at all after the first visit).
Seems like the only eviction tool available is to send masses of spam email to the vendor owner, but if they have stopped playing, that is useless too, and their vendor will remain in place untill their character is purged after 6 months of account inactivity (new rule coming into effect in October).
Sepen
Tue Aug 03, 2004 9:18 am
#3
WorriedViper wrote:
Mall owners need to have the authorityto "evict" vendors who are not performing.
Yes, as long as a malcontent "mall owner" can't just arbitrarily "evict" on a whim, thus destroying a legit vendor and probably everything on it (as a form of griefing).
Cheers,
Martek
Wire3k
Tue Aug 03, 2004 1:06 pm
#4
I've run into this twice in my shop. CSRs CAN delete these - if the player owner in question has an account that has been inactive long enough.
Send in a ticket with the loc and vendor name, may take awhile but I had one successfully removed via this method.
WorriedViper
Thu Aug 05, 2004 1:45 am
#5
The owner should have the right to "evict" a vendor for any reason. After all, it is the owner's property.
But i agree, some protection must be given to the vendor to protect his merchandise from "evil" owners. Vendors should be given a time period of 7-14 days to remove vendors and its merchandiseonce an eviction notice is given.
Raijen_ArDesh
Thu Aug 05, 2004 7:29 am
#6
WorriedViper wrote:
The owner should have the right to "evict" a vendor for any reason. After all, it is the owner's property.
But i agree, some protection must be given to the vendor to protect his merchandise from "evil" owners. Vendors should be given a time period of 7-14 days to remove vendors and its merchandiseonce an eviction notice is given.
Or rather, perhaps only allow empty vendors to be evicted... That way the worst that could hapenis someone loses a poached vendor
(unless they were good monkeys and kept merchant)
Elyssa
Thu Aug 05, 2004 7:45 am
#7
But this would also cause the owner to lose the maintenance that was in the vendor.
There needs to be some provision for an 'eviction notice' that sends an email to the owner saying something to the effect that your vendor will be destroyed in x number of days.
Once it has been put on notice, the owner shouldn't be able to refill it.
This would keep them from putting one item in it just to keep the vendor active.
There needs to be some provision for an 'eviction notice' that sends an email to the owner saying something to the effect that your vendor will be destroyed in x number of days.
Once it has been put on notice, the owner shouldn't be able to refill it.
This would keep them from putting one item in it just to keep the vendor active.
Raijen_ArDesh
Thu Aug 05, 2004 7:58 am
#8
Elyssa wrote:
But this would also cause the owner to lose the maintenance that was in the vendor.
Never even thought of that -- good point 
EDIT: Typo corrected
Message Edited by Raijen_ArDesh on 08-05-2004 10:58 AM
Mkappus
Thu Aug 05, 2004 1:49 pm
#9
Sorry yall but there is no such thing as a mall in this game. I would kill for the devs to give us a mall. Right now there are admin rights on houses and PA halls.
They can't give us the ability to "fire a vendor". There is no fair way to implement it. What if you fire a vendor with 500 items on it? Where do the items go?
Mayors of cities can't evict citizens, we can't even have city warn anymore.
If you want to evict someone from the mall, remove them from admin, put them on the structure ban list, and when the maintenance runs out bye bye vendor. However, I would imagine they will put in CSR tickets that you are griefing them by not giving them access to their vendor.
So, you have to be more careful upfront.
Sevardos
Thu Aug 05, 2004 2:10 pm
#10
Mkappus wrote:
Sorry yall but there is no such thing as a mall in this game. I would kill for the devs to give us a mall. Right now there are admin rights on houses and PA halls.
They can't give us the ability to "fire a vendor". There is no fair way to implement it. What if you fire a vendor with 500 items on it? Where do the items go?
Mayors of cities can't evict citizens, we can't even have city warn anymore.
If you want to evict someone from the mall, remove them from admin, put them on the structure ban list, and when the maintenance runs out bye bye vendor. However, I would imagine they will put in CSR tickets that you are griefing them by not giving them access to their vendor.
So, you have to be more careful upfront.
Yup. Was just going to say something similar.
I'd like to have a Mall first - then worry about if I can fire a vendor. A suggestion for a Mall that can be built by Architects has been submitted with a few other new structure ideas, but we haven't heard any more from it. The structure required Master to be able to place and run it (at least that was the concept).
Sepen
Thu Aug 05, 2004 3:33 pm
#11
I like a combination of folks ideas here.
* Only empty vendors (nothing for sale or in the stockroom) can be evicted. 1) Prevents loss of stock (excepting that which the vendor would lose by the current 37-day max item duration if they didn't anyway attend to the vendor). 2) Ensures a "fair" amount of time for the vendor owner to "appear" and handle the situation. (Fair, againbecause of the built-in 37-day rule: If they didn't show up within max 37 days anyways, they would lose their stock automatically.)
* Vendors subject to eviction are served with an "eviction notice" from the building owner (not admins, see below). Once served, that vendor is "locked" and no further items can be placed on it (neither for sale, offers, nor stockroom). This does several things: 1) Allows the vendor owner the same amount of time they already have to retrieve or lose the items currently on the vendor. 2) Prevents vendor owner from "parking" a "nothing for sale vendor" for perpetuity. 3) Allows vendor owner to retrieve maintenance funds (though this isn't necessary; see below).
** Only owners, not admins, can serve eviction notices. 1) Locks down evictions to single, always known, party. 2) Prevents future unintended griefing by admins unanticipated or not known to be griefers at the time the deal is made. The admin list is changable; the owner is not. This restriction avoids the vendor owner having to be concerned about the "trust level" of persons unknown.
* Locked vendors cannot receive "Offers". "Offerors" may withdraw their offers.
* Locked vendors operate normally in terms of customer sales. It can to continue selling items as it normally would if no evection had been served.
* Locked vendors allow the vendor owner to retrieve items, maintenanceand offersat any time. But they cannot add any new items or additional maintenance.
* Eviction notices can be removed by the building owner. 1) Once an eviction notice is removed, then any future eviction notices "start the clock" over.
* Eviction notices provide either a minimum of 37 days notice, or 7 days notice, prior to actual eviction. 1) Allows the full "fair" time a vendor owner could possibly have if they otherwise ignored their vendor.
** If a vendor has any items for sale, it receives a 37-day (or longer) eviction notice.
** If a vendor has nothing for sale, and is either empty or only has items in the stockroom,it receives a 7-day (or longer) eviction notice.
* Once the full lockdown period expires (at the end of either 37 days or 7 days), when the clock "hits zero", then the vendor is auto-deleted by the "system". This deletion may be postponed until the next daily server maintenance period. 1) Prevents "neglectful" building owners from leaving the "evicted" vendor in place, but locked indefinately, possibly preventing the vendor owner from placing another vendor elsewhere. In essence, this prevents the building owner from holding the evicted vendor owner's maximum vendor count "hostage".
[Edit]: Whoops, left out the bit about maintenance:
* When the vendor is deleted (by the "system" routines), any maintenance funds on it are transferred to the bank of the vendor owner. That prevents financial loss of maintenance. Thus long inactive players are not disadvantaged as compared to evicted vendors of active players (in terms of being aware of and available to handle the eviction consequences). This feature should be retrofitted into the current vendor deletion process - all deleted vendors should have their maintenance funds automatically transferred to the vendor owner's bank.
Seems a system like that might work and be fair.
The problem with waiting until there is a "real mall" capability, is that these issues exist today, while the "real mall" does not. And, the current type of "malls" would likely still exist even if "real malls" were implemented. Thus this should be handled separately, and not be tied to waiting for some other suggested feature. (IMO )
)Hey, I'm no "mall owner" and run just a tiny vendor. But I'd still like a system in place to deal with this.
Cheers,
Martek
Message Edited by Sepen on 08-05-2004 05:41 PM
Gah, typos
Message Edited by Sepen on 08-05-2004 05:43 PM
Elyssa
Thu Aug 05, 2004 4:16 pm
#12
Sepen wrote:
The admin list is changable; the owner is not. This restriction avoids the vendor owner having to be concerned about the "trust level" of persons unknown.
You can use /transferstructure to give the building to a new owner.
Regardless, you can still only have one "owner" at a time.
Sepen
Thu Aug 05, 2004 4:40 pm
#13
Elyssa wrote:
Sepen wrote:
The admin list is changable; the owner is not. This restriction avoids the vendor owner having to be concerned about the "trust level" of persons unknown.
You can use /transferstructure to give the building to a new owner.
Regardless, you can still only have one "owner" at a time.
Yeah, that's true. Gotchas I didn't anticipate, like that one, are one of the reasons I wrote it such that the evicted vendor would not really loose anything because they get their maintenance back, and their stock would be timed out and gone anyway. The only "thing" they would actually lose is the vendor itself, and the clothing on it. Items they cannot retrieve anyways (though possibly of value).
Good catch though.
Cheers,
Martek
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