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The Grand Bazaar (Universal Vendor Search)

Discussion in 'Wishlist Requests' started by Kabalyero Kidd, Feb 22, 2020.

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  1. FrostII

    FrostII Bug Hunter

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    I have no beef with you, @Vladamir Begemot ..... It's OUR game and I want it to succeed as much as you do - we all have that in common.

    Universal Vendor Search would be a massive step in the right direction,
    and when it get's implemented I am completely confident that you will benefit as much (probably more) than most.

    Don't waste any more time here, go and construct your arguments for UI changes.

    I'm sure I'll be happy to agree with your complaints regarding it's current state, and your and @Elrond's suggestions for change.

    Just do it in your own thread, please...... ;)
     
  2. Elrond

    Elrond Avatar

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    If universal search finds my 100 stacks of silver /50 stacks/20 stacks/10 stacks ...and i got best offer im gonna spend alot of time on my vendor just relisting stuff ...atm i prolly have about 20k ingots on sale with different stack sizes .... would help alot if you can list 1 stack of something...universal search brings alot of exposure to everyones listings....saying it has nothing to do with the ability to list items for sale fast .....

    Because i dont want Cici to list everything at 1 gold below market ;)

    Are you serious ..your gonna sell gazilion crafted gear to 2000 players ?
     
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  3. CICI

    CICI Avatar

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  4. ErikRulez

    ErikRulez Avatar

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    I like this but I'd never see 99.9% of them... I gave up on attempting to find what I want to buy from players in this game years ago, takes way too long to find anything. Now if you added these guys to a global search that at least told me if something I wanted as listed on one of them, then I might start visiting. I need a reason to go to a town because right now almost all of them are superfluous to me. It may also be a way to cut out some "dead" vendors from the search.

    Unless everyone wants to offer me 10k gold to come visit like CICI does. :D
     
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  5. Elrond

    Elrond Avatar

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    Not against it.... not for it either ... mostly reluctant ...because , besides the implications i can see, im sure there will be others i dont, so id rather we have a safety net before we go all in....its why i posted my 3 points of how i could '' swallow '' this easier . Also as owner of one of the dozens market towns out there ....this feature has the potential to pretty much wipe us out . Dont know about other owners but i put alot of work in designing mine ..precisely to help players find stuff faster ..and it has been a success so far... I tend to like Shawn idea more , a pot vendor that players can run searches for all goods in a town ..... so maybe we should start with that see how it goes and if all is well expand from there .

    Im already competing with 150 plus POTS

    Personally i think theres nothing functional about our economy ...its on life support , sustained by the current vendor system ... adding universal search would just bring alot of exposure to how damaged it actually is and crash it . Again ..why i said lets fix the stuff thats broken first , and when we solve the overabundance issues ( we should start with the gazilion crafted gear , that shouldnt be on vendors , but its there cause no other way for it to go ) we can take another look at uni search.
     
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  6. Numa

    Numa Avatar

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    Hi all, let's get back please to the topic so the rest can weigh in.

    paging @Elgarion
     
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  7. kaeshiva

    kaeshiva Avatar

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    I always kinda assumed that the vendor UI would be fixed as part of an overall greater market/trade revamp including a search implementation.
    Precisely because all the little crappy stacks of this and that would be a lot harder to index than a single stack of item ID whatever and a quantity.
    It would mean that the Searchinatorâ„¢ that has to go through all the crap you list would have a lot harder time and get a lot more bogged down having to add up 50 individual stacks of 5 teleport scrolls all set at the same price.

    I'd even go so far as to say that the vendor UI fixes would be a pre-requesitive for a market search that is actually updated when a player lists something that doesn't rely on some sort of crawler or etc. Basically link all player vendors into 1 database. And to do that, simplifying and streamlining the UI so they aren't all separate entities, would be key.

    Honestly, vendors/market/trade (and related issues, like uneconomical/trash recipes, useless/pointless items, useless/pointless scenes that yield very little for time spent) ...all these things kinda lump into 1 big fulfillment problem; an obstacle to satisfying gameplay if you cannot earn satisfactory return for your efforts that simply bumping loot drops will NOT fixed. The whole system needs fixing. And that fix includes a global search but also a sensible, functional vendor UI, as well as consistency and analysis of all gold faucets. Its a huge undertaking that absolutely requires knowledge of the game beyond high level spreadsheets. And it will likely never happen - but if we can get the vendor-listing/searching elements band-aided it will at least improve quality of life, even if the economy never makes sense.
     
  8. Numa

    Numa Avatar

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    I'm all for fixing things one critical step at a time. And since the vendor UI and the global search have to work together well for the whole thing to work decently from both sides (vendor/buyer) it does look like these two facets do have to be prioritised.

    Global search first though since we need many more on the buyer side of the equation for the whole thing to start rolling.
     
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  9. Elgarion

    Elgarion Dev Emeritus Dev Emeritus

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    Did some house cleaning in here and tried to remove comments that were getting argumentative and accusatory. Please remember to keep your comments kind, constructive and in tune with the intent of the original post.
     
  10. AoiBlue

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    For merchants price search would be a great tool.

    Especially if it could be exported to LUA for analysis to provide an overview of the price curve, and hence determine what price will sell the item next time the item isn't in surplus state.

    CICI is the shrewdest vendor in SoTA that is still honest, and if she can see this advantage, anybody can.
     
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  11. Alleine Dragonfyre

    Alleine Dragonfyre Avatar

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    OH HELL NO. That's quittin time for me.

    Listing prices in an Auction House type database will cause extreme damage to this game's economy.

    Some people may not understand the caliber of Vendors we're talking about here. There are players here that have spent 6 years amassing huge collections of stuff. There is at least one guild that has spent as much time amassing so much gold they will corner and monopolize much of the market.

    Here's what an Auction House Player will do:

    "I WILL BUY GOLD to bury someone first to monopolize the market. I'll do it repeatedly, multiple times a day, if I have to until that person decides to give up. 9/10 they get frustrated seeing their own stuff being sold, especially if I sell at a loss at first. I'll keep coming, even will create new mule chars just to do so if you think banning me will work. It won't. Eventually, anyone left is just basically wholesaling for me because I'll be controlling the price and there won't be a damn thing you can do about it.

    It'll pay off in the end, even if it's just to "win" the market for whatever I've chosen to monopolize. I don't have to buy up every last whatever I choose to monopolize. Just enough to make it so my customers know there is a constant supply that cannot be found anywhere else easily."​

    Players will try to compete. They'll list their items and have their price undercut. So they'll try to undercut the undercutters. That will keep up until they're selling at a loss. The choice is then wholesale for the wealthier sellers but most will give up at that point. Why? It's just not very fun.

    If you enact price-listing you are HANDING the economy to auction players. Very few of us will be able to compete with that.

    If you get global "auction houses" or whatever with price listings I guarantee you're going to hate it. I strongly, very strongly, urge @Chris to keep price data hidden.

    Mod? To only give the data to people willing to install mods will create a sector of players that have a real advantage over other players that do not wish to install mods or do not know how. This is a MAJOR fairness issue as well.

    Please consider my original suggestion, in some other ridiculous thread about this, to enact regional Vendor Search capabilities to ALL players with no pricing.

    I am so tired of having this discussion. This entire post is just copy/pastes from past arguments I've already had here about this. I'm sure it shows but my patience runs thin while my passion for this NEVER HAPPENING remains thicc.
     
    Last edited: Mar 3, 2020
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  12. ShurTugal

    ShurTugal Avatar

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    Maybe, but here's the thing none of you want to acknowledge. The current system is absolute crap and is driving players away. I very rarely shop the vendors cause it's so painful. Only for food, scrolls, and the occasional gold and silver but that's it for me. If it was not so painful I would shop more and people would get my gold but they dont. We can either live in fear of what "could" happen and never change and things will die anyway cause they are or we can be fearless and take a chance for something better. My biggest fear is that those who make the decisions @Chris are paralyzed with fear of making the wrong choice and refuse to act on the important things and as a consequence things die anyway. What say you @Elgarion ?? Dont worry. It's a rhetorical question. I dont expect you to weigh in because of your position. :) :) cheers all. :) here's to being fearless. :) :)
     
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  13. ShurTugal

    ShurTugal Avatar

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    Also, your just one person. Do you really think it's fair that you and the small group that hold your view hold the rest of use hostage on this concept?? I really wish we could do a poll on this @Chris to see what the "majority" wants. I'm willing to bet good money that the "majority" want this. While I value everything that @Alleine Dragonfyre brings to the game, it's not right that right her and the small group that holds her views deny the rest of use what we desire.. my two cents. Thanks. :) :)
     
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  14. Numa

    Numa Avatar

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    My recommendation is to just take the first step - regional listings of goods for sale with locations and quantities but no prices.

    We can fight about the next step afterwards :)

    [​IMG]
     
  15. kaeshiva

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    I understand the concerns about 'race to the bottom' - the issue is, this is already happening. Look at garlic prices post-reagent change. They've been steadily dropping to the point where what is it now, 1.3, 1.4 each? If it gets much lower, you're at the breakeven point of not bothering to grow it. Between forums, trade chat, discord, word of mouth, etc. we're already pushing out competition and undercutting and the rest of it, it just happens a bit more slowly since there isn't a global listing.

    However by not having the global listing, we're missing a huge opportunity of potential buyers who are willing to spend money but simply can't find what they want or aren't willing to deal with the house-to-house loadscreen tedium- if I need 100 silver ore, its faster to go mine it myself than it is to earn the money it would cost AND find someone selling it via the current onerous methods available.

    If I want a particular piece of furniture (or whatever), there's probably lots of players selling it. There's no way to locate them. Its faster again, to simply go make it myself. I have a lot of gold to spend and I don't participate in the market because I am sick to death of loadscreen after loadscreen, waiting for vendor after vendor, and never finding anything worth buying, or when I do, its priced absolutely unreasonably. This is one buyer who has given up almost completely on shopping unless something changes. And its not just me.

    People complain that one of the problems with our current market is 'everyone can make everything' but the problem is really that everyone is encouraged to do so, and to be self sufficient because the market system is not fit for purpose. "Leaving things as they are" is clearly not going to fix it. Adding a search with no prices is not going to fix it, its a half-measure at best, and I don't really fancy wasting my time visiting vendor after vendor who have listed a stack of everything for a million gold each - bloated prices just to get their name to come up on the list.

    Perhaps a compromise exists, requiring a gold sink/cost for listing, that would prevent rampant over-use and relisting/undercutting if you had to pay each time.
     
  16. ShurTugal

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    Also, one final note. (Yes, this is a topic I am passionate about) :) the internet didn't kill brick and mortar stores, at least not those that embraced the benefits of it. I hear a fear that a global search would ruin vendor towns and the bazaars feel of some of these vendor squares. I disagree. Dont let people make purchases via the global search. Make them actually travel to the vendor to buy. Let me tell you how I shop in real life. I need some things so I do a google search of what I need in my area. Prices, who has them, how much they have, all of it. Once I've identified where I plan to go to buy what I need at the most reasonable prices, I head to the store. Now just because I walk into wal-mart for three items doesn't means I can't browse the aisles to see if anything else catches my eye and the same can happen In game. Leave your nice vendor squares intact, make people travel to the vendors to actually buy the item and while they are there they may well browse the aisles ie vendors to see if anything else catches their eye. ;)
     
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  17. Vladamir Begemot

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    Just fix the broken part first, the listing of items. THEN take the next steps IF THEY ARE NEEDED.
     
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  18. Spungwa

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    This is not asking for a auction house as per most MMOs, there is a few VERY important differences.

    1) Buyer has to travel to each vendor to actually buy the items, this takes player time, a reseller better be making a decent profit from doing this to cover, either the scrolls or travel time compared to just going out adventuring for more gold.

    2) We have buy orders, presumably these would be global searchable too, so no one is going to list anything below the highest buy order that is buying a decent amount of quantity. You just run there and sell.

    3) Sell and buy orders don't expire, so you need to buy all the supply in the whole market, not just the last 72 hours worth (that most auction expire after) to make flipping for price manipulation work. If you are flipping a low sell order, that player set the price low for their own reasons as they can see what everyone else is selling it for and what people are buying it for.


    Regards
    Spung
     
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  19. ShurTugal

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    It is needed. the problems we are discussing go well beyond merely listing products.
     
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  20. Spungwa

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    This is not a first step, it is not a step at all. Gives people no real information. Still POT/load screen hopping.

    IF there is a first step, the first step I would introduce would be a Global Work Order Search.
    Make all buy orders and prices globally available.


    At least then, with some planning, as a consumer I can list that I want something and someone can sell it to me if they are happy with my price.

    If global sell search is a "race to the bottom" then a global buy search should be a "race to the top".


    Regards
    Spung
     
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