Merchant Archive
Thread: In Concept...
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kebernet
Fri Jan 09, 2004 8:35 am
#1
Well, since the whole little process we got outlined for us got short circuited a bit by sticking the 5th season of Night Court lame ideas for changing the merchant/bazaar operations into In Dev, I thought I would start an "In Concept" thread.
I have never been a fan of the way these systems worked. Even aside from the systemic design flaws, they still have so many left overs of previous ideas that make no sense (like "Retrieving Items" from a vendor purchase to name the most obvious), that I think it's time to think about what these systems should be (have been).
First off, lets look at the problems with database size. This is a real issue, and one that MU*s for ages have addressed. We have the basic representation of this in the form of factory crates. The problem is, factory crates have never been exploited by the devs in the ways that the should be. Secondly, there is the Bazaar. The shift of the bazaar from the Commodities Market idea, really pre-desitined it to be 99% bunk.
1. Vendors need to be smarter about dealing with product.
I should be able to put 5 crates of Swoops, or Blasters into my vendor, set a unit price, and have him pop the stacks as people buy things. This would save me unrolling the crates of newbie weapons, vehicles, etc that I have on my vendor at any time, AND save the database all kinds of problems.
Let vendors also manage resources as stacks. Let someone put 4 full stacks of resource in a vendor, set a unit price, and let people come and purchase 5k or 300k of resource as they desire. This is better all the way around: the merchant doesn't have to monkey with product breaking, the customer gets just what they want, and the database has 4 items to track, rather than 400 10k stacks.
Do this, THEN limit the item count to 150, or even better 300.
2. Let the bazaar become a commodities market. Raising the price is really a trivial affair. How about instead we leave the item-pricing system in place and let people sell crates our stacks at unlimited prices? Let crates of weapons wholesale through the bazaar. Let resources clear there. Let it be a B2B system, not a C2C system filled with 90% garbage.
Now, I know some of you, particularly weaponsmiths are going to tell me about all the sliced weapons you sell. Well, the fact that slicing weapons is pretty much a flawed concept anyway, look at it this way, you have increased the service price for those items. Maybe you can't stock 1000 sliced rocketlaunchers, but the ones you have you can raise the price on, while providing 5000 unsliced ones. I know this is rather weak, but slicing has been shifted from a healer/entertainer service and encounter centric skill to just another step in crafting, which you have to admit, was a pretty bogus design anyway.
3. LET US USE THE SYSTEMS YOU HAVE ALREADY BUILT. Give merchants the ability to run price-unlimited, globally searchable auctions out of vendors and charge a percentage to buyers and sellers from their terminals. The trade boards are almost ludicrous, given the fact the devs went to all the trouble to build an in-game auction system, then lost sight of it when they were hacking in their "we're not really sure what we're thinking" changes to the bazaar/vendor systems. Sotherby's baby.
4. Eliminate item retrieval on vendors, and let people shift-click purchase multiple items. Why these weren't done months ago is still beyond me.
5. Fix the problems with the current systems. Put crates of items in the proper folder. Add more folders. Let people do free-text searches at least of the names of items.
6. Bring back merchant owned, or at least player-municipal Bazaar terminals.
---
The only reason Merchants and the Bazaar can coexist, is because the nature of the bazaar that has been created naturally leads of to a cess pool. Thats all well and good, but if you move the price point up -- and indulge me momentarily in a slippery-slope arguement -- you are eventually going to destroy that division. Both should have their purposes, and both should have a *unique* purpose.
-k-
I have never been a fan of the way these systems worked. Even aside from the systemic design flaws, they still have so many left overs of previous ideas that make no sense (like "Retrieving Items" from a vendor purchase to name the most obvious), that I think it's time to think about what these systems should be (have been).
First off, lets look at the problems with database size. This is a real issue, and one that MU*s for ages have addressed. We have the basic representation of this in the form of factory crates. The problem is, factory crates have never been exploited by the devs in the ways that the should be. Secondly, there is the Bazaar. The shift of the bazaar from the Commodities Market idea, really pre-desitined it to be 99% bunk.
1. Vendors need to be smarter about dealing with product.
I should be able to put 5 crates of Swoops, or Blasters into my vendor, set a unit price, and have him pop the stacks as people buy things. This would save me unrolling the crates of newbie weapons, vehicles, etc that I have on my vendor at any time, AND save the database all kinds of problems.
Let vendors also manage resources as stacks. Let someone put 4 full stacks of resource in a vendor, set a unit price, and let people come and purchase 5k or 300k of resource as they desire. This is better all the way around: the merchant doesn't have to monkey with product breaking, the customer gets just what they want, and the database has 4 items to track, rather than 400 10k stacks.
Do this, THEN limit the item count to 150, or even better 300.
2. Let the bazaar become a commodities market. Raising the price is really a trivial affair. How about instead we leave the item-pricing system in place and let people sell crates our stacks at unlimited prices? Let crates of weapons wholesale through the bazaar. Let resources clear there. Let it be a B2B system, not a C2C system filled with 90% garbage.
Now, I know some of you, particularly weaponsmiths are going to tell me about all the sliced weapons you sell. Well, the fact that slicing weapons is pretty much a flawed concept anyway, look at it this way, you have increased the service price for those items. Maybe you can't stock 1000 sliced rocketlaunchers, but the ones you have you can raise the price on, while providing 5000 unsliced ones. I know this is rather weak, but slicing has been shifted from a healer/entertainer service and encounter centric skill to just another step in crafting, which you have to admit, was a pretty bogus design anyway.
3. LET US USE THE SYSTEMS YOU HAVE ALREADY BUILT. Give merchants the ability to run price-unlimited, globally searchable auctions out of vendors and charge a percentage to buyers and sellers from their terminals. The trade boards are almost ludicrous, given the fact the devs went to all the trouble to build an in-game auction system, then lost sight of it when they were hacking in their "we're not really sure what we're thinking" changes to the bazaar/vendor systems. Sotherby's baby.
4. Eliminate item retrieval on vendors, and let people shift-click purchase multiple items. Why these weren't done months ago is still beyond me.
5. Fix the problems with the current systems. Put crates of items in the proper folder. Add more folders. Let people do free-text searches at least of the names of items.
6. Bring back merchant owned, or at least player-municipal Bazaar terminals.
---
The only reason Merchants and the Bazaar can coexist, is because the nature of the bazaar that has been created naturally leads of to a cess pool. Thats all well and good, but if you move the price point up -- and indulge me momentarily in a slippery-slope arguement -- you are eventually going to destroy that division. Both should have their purposes, and both should have a *unique* purpose.
-k-
DragonFire7
Fri Jan 09, 2004 3:14 pm
#2
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Let vendors also manage resources as stacks. Let someone put 4 full stacks of resource in a vendor, set a unit price, and let people come and purchase 5k or 300k of resource as they desire. This is better all the way around: the merchant doesn't have to monkey with product breaking, the customer gets just what they want, and the database has 4 items to track, rather than 400 10k stacks.
----------------------------
Well put Keb. Can not agree with you more
Romsuiag
Sun Jan 11, 2004 6:59 pm
#4
Very good suggestions here that would make my life as a Merchant much easier/funner as well as helping with the DB problem.
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