Merchant Archive
Thread: Limited Duration Listings: WHY????
Page 1 of 2
JodanLoo
Thu Aug 05, 2004 8:55 am
#1
Can someone explain to me why the devs have made it so that private vendors can't list items with an unlimited sale time?
Who would it hurt if private vendors were allowed to list items and have them STAY listed for as long as the vendor has maintenance?
I can't think of a single good reason to limit the amount of time an item can be listed on a private vendor.. all it does is add to the problem of empty vendors all over the place! People who run a store can't expect their entire inventories to sell within one month.
To deal with the realities of the vendor system some people try resorting to either stocking very small amounts of stuff on their vendors or stocking NOTHING on purpose so they can do all sales on an e-mail per order basis. There's no crafter in the world that can keep on going with the drugery of it all day in and day out indefinitely.. we need breaks.. we can't be logged in every single day to respond to orders! Not to mention the dreaded 'once a month' of re-listing hundreds of hundreds of items.. this is completely 100% unacceptable!!
Devs, I don't care if you have to rewrite the entire auction system (it's obvious there's only one system and it's the same for both private and the bazaar) to allow infinite time listings on private vendors.. just get it DONE!
Who would it hurt if private vendors were allowed to list items and have them STAY listed for as long as the vendor has maintenance?
I can't think of a single good reason to limit the amount of time an item can be listed on a private vendor.. all it does is add to the problem of empty vendors all over the place! People who run a store can't expect their entire inventories to sell within one month.
To deal with the realities of the vendor system some people try resorting to either stocking very small amounts of stuff on their vendors or stocking NOTHING on purpose so they can do all sales on an e-mail per order basis. There's no crafter in the world that can keep on going with the drugery of it all day in and day out indefinitely.. we need breaks.. we can't be logged in every single day to respond to orders! Not to mention the dreaded 'once a month' of re-listing hundreds of hundreds of items.. this is completely 100% unacceptable!!
Devs, I don't care if you have to rewrite the entire auction system (it's obvious there's only one system and it's the same for both private and the bazaar) to allow infinite time listings on private vendors.. just get it DONE!
Dimear
Thu Aug 05, 2004 9:18 am
#4
I think they did it as a halfhearted attempt to keep people from using the droids for storage. That's what houses are for. But I don't think it was really effective. It really hurts the high volume merchants, while providing a minor inconvenience for those using the droids as storage.
JodanLoo
Thu Aug 05, 2004 10:46 am
#5
It wouldn't burden the database if someone quit the game with a bunch of vendors chock full of unlimited duration listings: the maintenance on the vendors is going to run out eventually.. at that time the items can be destroyed.
If someone quits the game with their vendors paid up in maintenance for years and years and full of unlimited duration listings it still doesn't burden the database because the admins are going to start running regular character purges.
I would really like this problem to be added to the list of merchant issues (and really.. it should be very high on the list.. if not number 1!).
If someone quits the game with their vendors paid up in maintenance for years and years and full of unlimited duration listings it still doesn't burden the database because the admins are going to start running regular character purges.
I would really like this problem to be added to the list of merchant issues (and really.. it should be very high on the list.. if not number 1!).
captenjonny
Thu Aug 05, 2004 11:08 am
#6
JodanLoo wrote:
It wouldn't burden the database if someone quit the game with a bunch of vendors chock full of unlimited duration listings: the maintenance on the vendors is going to run out eventually.. at that time the items can be destroyed.
If someone quits the game with their vendors paid up in maintenance for years and years and full of unlimited duration listings it still doesn't burden the database because the admins are going to start running regular character purges.
I would really like this problem to be added to the list of merchant issues (and really.. it should be very high on the list.. if not number 1!).
/second the motion
JodanLoo
Thu Aug 05, 2004 11:08 am
#7
As for the whole 'using vendors for unlimited storage by listing packs of items for 99999999 credits' thing:
I really don't want to hear it.. serious crafters require tons of storage space as well as free lots to be able to go mine good resource spawns. I think there should be a way to get more storage than normal from a structure for crafters/merchants because they really need the space. I'm just lucky to have a friend to partner with me in my business and let me use up many of his lots to get me the storage I need. I haven't gotten into the whole lot trading thing because I'm paranoid. :-)
As for creating excessive load on the database servers.. I don't wanna hear that either. The database servers exist soley to service the players. If they're seeing loads that are too high then the hardware should be upgraded and/or the software should be optimized further. I can understand the desire to be able to quantify the maximum storage burden a vendor can place on the database.. easy solution: limit the max number of items that can be listed on a vendor including the contents of any listed containers (in the same way the players personal inventory functions).
I really don't want to hear it.. serious crafters require tons of storage space as well as free lots to be able to go mine good resource spawns. I think there should be a way to get more storage than normal from a structure for crafters/merchants because they really need the space. I'm just lucky to have a friend to partner with me in my business and let me use up many of his lots to get me the storage I need. I haven't gotten into the whole lot trading thing because I'm paranoid. :-)
As for creating excessive load on the database servers.. I don't wanna hear that either. The database servers exist soley to service the players. If they're seeing loads that are too high then the hardware should be upgraded and/or the software should be optimized further. I can understand the desire to be able to quantify the maximum storage burden a vendor can place on the database.. easy solution: limit the max number of items that can be listed on a vendor including the contents of any listed containers (in the same way the players personal inventory functions).
Mkappus
Thu Aug 05, 2004 1:45 pm
#9
If sales were unlimited time, what do merchants do? Running a vendor is the only thing merchants do in game. Changing the barking, changing clothing, and re-selling items that expire.
You want merchant to be that easy, that you can put things up for sale and forget about them? There has to be some gameplay required, some required time spent....
LadyGrey
Thu Aug 05, 2004 2:18 pm
#10
Mkappus wrote:
If sales were unlimited time, what do merchants do? Running a vendor is the only thing merchants do in game. Changing the barking, changing clothing, and re-selling items that expire.
You want merchant to be that easy, that you can put things up for sale and forget about them? There has to be some gameplay required, some required time spent....
Running a vendor is the only thing a merchant does? You are kidding, right?
My merchant goes out and puts 1 credit on all of the harvesters, houses and factoriesthat my group puts out, to bring down the maintenance fee. My merchant puts out a barker droid at the spaceport in Theed, to advertise in turn what my group produces. My merchant is the one that figures out a good selling price for the goods that are put up for sale, which involves intensive searches on the bazaar and other vendors, in order to keep up with the economic trends.
And don't get me started about that dysfunctional system that we are required to use, for relisting an item on a vendor. It isn't enough that items keep being thrown back into the storeroom (which, in Japanese, means "the room where things go to be destroyed"), but when we go to relist them, the original selling price must be re-entered.
I'll be so happy when this game finally gets out of beta testing.
Mkappus
Thu Aug 05, 2004 2:50 pm
#11
I concur that relisting items suck, and there should be a button to relist at existing price.
I have also lost about 1 million resources to the mysterious, since you didn't retrieve this has expired item.
The vendor interface is in need of serious overhaul. However, I think that item sale times do need to be for a finite period of time.
I commend you on all the activities you take part in, however, I think you probably make up 1/10 of 1 percent of merchants out there.
Songe
Thu Aug 05, 2004 3:26 pm
#12
JodanLoo wrote:
It wouldn't burden the database if someone quit the game with a bunch of vendors chock full of unlimited duration listings: the maintenance on the vendors is going to run out eventually.. at that time the items can be destroyed.
As far as I know vendors don't get destroyed when they run out of maintenance.
Wire3k
Fri Aug 06, 2004 12:03 am
#13
JodanLoo wrote:
I can understand the desire to be able to quantify the maximum storage burden a vendor can place on the database.. easy solution: limit the max number of items that can be listed on a vendor including the contents of any listed containers (in the same way the players personal inventory functions).
Everyone's situation is different - but I can well imagine this going in - and my shop going out of business. I've taken the summer off, but when I'm in game everyday the min average on my vendors is at min 500 pieces, and some can hit 1,000 or better (mainly my components vendor).
Every trade is different. A one size-fits-all item limit won't solve much. Crafters are also different, some specialize - some like a well rounded inventory representative of what they can make.
A serious look at item counts can't be made with one broad stroke, not and truly address the problem. You have to consider how the game is actually structured and what functionality is required.
The entire structure of the game was designed with mass production as a foundation. With mass production comes large amounts of raw material needs. Vastly upping the amount of resources in one stack would be somewhat helpful, but not make THAT big a dent. Small dents in the problem combined is where the solution is going to be. They did this once already back in beta - and I'm sure it was for this very reason. The other more obvious solution might be to decrease yields AND materials required in construction, but this is problematic for many reasons.
Allowing factory runs in one crate in my case WOULD vastly decrease my item counts both on vendors - and in storage - as well as having the side benefit of being far easier to load and start factories. The other option (not necessarily exclusive) would be to remove same ID necessity on components that don't matter in quality - like cloth, some electronic parts, etc. I'd personally recommend doing both. At the moment, a full matched run of components under your proposition is 41 items - instead of just one if I could pop the crate on there.
Allowing dispensing from containers I'm sure is a tricky proposition, but I'm also sure it would be beneficial in vendor counts. Taking tailoring as an example, most items need to be stocked in certain basic colors - constantly. One crate on the vendor beats having 10 entries of basically the same identical item. The rest of the specific unique items, well - no way around those really, but reducing things elsewhere has to help. I'm positive in many instances not only would item counts on vendors be reduced - but vendor clutter and ease of customer use would also be vastly improved.
There are also many items in the world that COULD be stackable but currently aren't. If there is no quality involved - no special specifications and no wear on the item, there is really no reason NOT to stack them if they are identical.
Players didn't create the system, I totally agree with you that the database needs to be able to maintain the system that was implemented. You can't just change the parameters without changing the basics of how the system works. I can fully appreciate that it may be out of control and some changes need to be made, but you can't do one without changing the other and expect players to be able to function.
I've even occassionally seen proposals of a manufacturing type vendor. I holds schematics and materials and basically creates items on demand from the available lists based on the owners skills. Although this should vastly reduce item counts, there is quite a bit of resistance from crafters that like the hands on feel and some as concerned this might become the next 'merchant giving up skill' issue if they continued to function - a check would indeed have to be done at the time for skills, although truthfully - anyone can do this now and always could with schematics.
Page 1 of 2