Politician Archive
Thread: Are Player City Bazaar terminals possible?
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Khristen
Mon Mar 14, 2005 9:11 pm
#1
I know that Player City Bazaar terminals have been asked for in the past, but with the galaxy-wide vendor search going into Test Center now I thought this might be a good time to bring it up again. Depending on how these vendor search changes pan out, this could have a significant effect on many Player Cities.
I realize that there are a few technical difficulties in setting up a terminal like this for a Player City, mainly what happens to items on a PC Bazaar if the PC goes under. It's not an impossible situation, though. A fail-safe that defaults items from a Player City Bazaar to the nearest NPC city if the Player City terminal is removed could theoretically solve that potential issue. Honestly, even if Player City Bazaar terminals only allowed for the search function it could be a great help.
I'm sure this is something that we would all like, but is it something that's really possible?
Pappi
Mon Mar 14, 2005 10:20 pm
#2
I would *love* a PC bazaar, but consider how well things went the last time I asked for that and how well it went when I asked for player city starship terminals (which seems simplier than a bazaar)... don't hold your breath 
I logged onto TC to check it out, and had to redeed my shuttleport to make it work again... not in a good mood I'm also kinda worried about sales tax and if it'll be harder to fix after this patch. in the mean time feel free to come onto TC and check out the new system.
I logged onto TC to check it out, and had to redeed my shuttleport to make it work again... not in a good mood
I'm also kinda worried about sales tax and if it'll be harder to fix after this patch. in the mean time feel free to come onto TC and check out the new system.
DesktopSaki
Mon Mar 14, 2005 11:00 pm
#3
I'd love PC bazaar terminals. I don't care if they only search vendors or if you can use them just like a regular bazaar terminal, I think they'd be great.
sweatyclimber
Mon Mar 14, 2005 11:01 pm
#4
Pappi wrote:
I would *love* a PC bazaar, but consider how well things went the last time I asked for that and how well it went when I asked for player city starship terminals (which seems simplier than a bazaar)... don't hold your breath
I logged onto TC to check it out, and had to redeed my shuttleport to make it work again... not in a good mood
i was worried about that too... i fear this will make it an epic bug :S
Jaspor
Tue Mar 15, 2005 8:39 am
#5
Oo oo, the Sales Tax thing is a good point!
We need to make sure we hit them over the head with it a few more times and see if they can somehow fix it during the implementation of this new system.
As far as Bazaaar terminals in towns go... What about if we get a version that only allows for the searching? ie, they can do their "galaxy-wide shop browsing" from these terminals, but the terminals themselves wouldn't be able to hold items. Players would still need to use vendors for that.
CommanderFarley
Tue Mar 15, 2005 2:25 pm
#6
Anything we can do to throw some support behind this, Pappi?
I know this feature's going to require a ton of code, which makes it an uphill battle... But we can always try!
Jaspor
Tue Mar 15, 2005 2:43 pm
#7
Well, it's already on Test Center from what I understand, so most of the code is written already.
Let me play code monkey for a minute and guess at where they need to look to fix this....
Two main places where taxes need to get processed.. One will likely need to be touched and messed with for this new system... The second one... well, probably not...
1) Pricing of items on Player Vendors - Now, obviously, this is going to be very important to the new system, as the galaxy-wide listing of items will also need to list the price. When the price is listed... Which price does it use? Does it use the base price set by the vendor owner? Does it include the tax of whatever City the vendor might live in? Does it use the current tax rate, or the most recent tax rate since server reset? (Without going into extreme detail right now, suffice to say that some experiments with sales tax have shown that the tax amount on already placed items does not instantly update when the tax rate is changed by the Mayor, but seems to update after a server reset.)
This will likely complicate things slightly for their galaxy-wideprice listings. No clue how the database stuff is setup and whatnot, or if it will change with this publish, but hopefully the taxes will be displayed in the new listings. Which leads us to part 2....
2) Actual collection of the Taxes - Ah, yes, those billions upon billions of credits that have vanishing into limbo for months now, with millions of tears of Mayors and Citizens following them into oblivion...
The thing that's killer here is that, I mean, where the heck are the credits vanishing to? It's all just simple math when it comes down to it, and there has to at least be some code already in place that deals with the breakdown of the sales transaction into three parts: Subtract X credits from the Buyer.Add Y Credits to the Merchant. Add Z Credits to the City Treasury. Make sure that Y + Z = X. Now, we know (or believe at least) that credits can successfully be deposited into the City Treasury through other taxes (by most reports the shuttle, property, and income taxes seem to work).
So, please, please, please... Ask GreenMarine or someone to spend like 10 minutes peeking into the exact code where the math gets done during a Vendor purchase. Hell, send me the code, and I'll look at it for free. 
Oh, and as long as I'm playing code monkey....
As far as the Bazaar terminals in Player Cities go... We really don't need new art or functionality... Just make them the same terminals, and turn off all the tabs and buttons except for the Category tree. All they can do is expand, sort, and page through the items. That's it. Easy, right? 
Okay, I'm done now.
GTomlinson
Tue Mar 15, 2005 4:19 pm
#8
How about making the tax on the listing of the item instead of the sale of the item. This would really simplify things from a programming perspective. In summary:
1. Drop the "sales tax %" item from the available taxes in a player city.
2. Add "vendor listing fee" charge (which is currently 20 for non-premium sales on public city bazaars) to the available taxes in a player city. Such a fee would be assessed when an item was listed on a vendor for sale and should be in the range of 0 to 100.
You're using my shuttleport to bring your customers here safely, I might as well get paid for it.
Khristen
Tue Mar 15, 2005 4:30 pm
#9
I agree that they're making the sales tax bug even more compounded with the bazaar search function. The travel system can't register the ticket fee to come into a city, only tickets bought at the shuttle in the Player City. Sales tax doesn't even work IN the city....how are they going to make it work outside the city as well?
If possible, it would be a good idea to see how the bazaar system handles the sales tax on the global search. I couldn't find any vendors that had enabled the search function yet when I was on TC the other night, so I'm not familiar with the new system at all. Maybe turn the sales tax on at 10% (since we know it works at that rate) and have someone check a bazaar terminal in one of the NPCs for an item for sale in the Player City. Have someone watch the treasury at the time of the sale and see if it goes where it should.
I have several concerns about the new galaxy-wide search as it is. And if it's going to screw up our chances of getting sales tax fixed even more..... I'd rather try to get those issues looked at now, rather than later when things are already set.
I'm not in a position to test this on TC. I have enough to do on my primary character, so I spend 99.9% of my time on my live server anyway; I'm only Novice anything on TC (The blue frogs may screw things up for regular TC players, but it's the only way I ever have the opportunity to really try things out. LOL). Is this something you could try out, Pappi, and let us know?
Khristen
Tue Mar 15, 2005 4:36 pm
#10
GTomlinson wrote:
2. Add "vendor listing fee" charge (which is currently 20 for non-premium sales on public city bazaars) to the available taxes in a player city. Such a fee would be assessed when an item was listed on a vendor for sale and should be in the range of 0 to 100.
There is absolutely nothing in it for the merchant in this situation. They'd probably do just as well setting up shop outside of an NPC city with this scenario.
The way sales tax is *supposed* to work, it puts the cost on the customer rather than the merchant. It doesn't hurt the merchant in the slightest (provided the tax rate isn't *too* high), the customer doesn't really know the difference, and the city gets money. The problem is not in the system itself--which would make my Player City for one completely self-sufficient if it worked--rather in the fact that the system is bugged. It's not a flaw in the system, it's a flaw in the coding.
Pappi
Tue Mar 15, 2005 5:18 pm
#11
CommanderFarley wrote:Anything we can do to throw some support behind this, Pappi?I know this feature's going to require a ton of code, which makes it an uphill battle... But we can always try!
you guys could bring it up on the merchant forum and see if it would be a popular idea. the most people behind it (with rational reasoning) the better
as for testing, what am I testing again? I have a take home final due Friday, can it wait until after then
btw: if you guys want to give feedback on the current system implemented on TC, please post in the merchant forum focus thread and/or the TC forum thread.
Message Edited by Pappi on 03-15-2005 05:44 PM
Khristen
Tue Mar 15, 2005 9:46 pm
#12
Pappi wrote:
as for testing, what am I testing again? I have a take home final due Friday, can it wait until after then
Whether sales tax (at the working 10% rate) works with the new system....? We're having a hard enough time getting the devs to get it working in the current system. Do we really want to have another system introduced on top of it that *also* doesn't work?
Pappi
Wed Mar 16, 2005 1:44 am
#13
Jaspor wrote:Oo oo, the Sales Tax thing is a good point!We need to make sure we hit them over the head with it a few more times and see if they can somehow fix it during the implementation of this new system.
think I haven't tried?
I've even been sneaking it into other people's topics 
As far as Bazaaar terminals in towns go... What about if we get a version that only allows for the searching? ie, they can do their "galaxy-wide shop browsing" from these terminals, but the terminals themselves wouldn't be able to hold items. Players would still need to use vendors for that.
that's what I want too, but I doubt it will happen. I did ask though so we'll see.
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