Public Vendor, Item Search

Discussion in 'Archived Topics' started by Vallin Tregres, Aug 25, 2017.

Thread Status:
Not open for further replies.
  1. Vallin Tregres

    Vallin Tregres Avatar

    Messages:
    943
    Likes Received:
    1,357
    Trophy Points:
    93
    "When you're looking for something ask someone who knows." The Public Vendor is the single most person in town that knows whats coming in and whats shipping out. You want the latest gossip on where to buy that bauble you've been looking for? Just ask the Public Vendor!

    The Public Vendor would be changed to have a popup window similar to the Lot window on the Town Crier. The window would offer several options, such as Armor, Weapons, Decorations, Potions, Deeds, Misc. After selecting a category the vendor will search and list all the items being sold on other vendors in the zone and sort them by name/price. Alternatively, if you're after a specific item there would be a 'Search' option in the top to fill out. When you select an item you will get a waypoint option similar to the Lot waypoint on the Town Crier that will show you which Lot the vendor with the item you want is on.

    The category and search options, dividing up all the items listed in a zone before the search begins is intended to lessen the lag of a full item listing. The popup window, similar to the Town Crier, will not alter any of the current dialog options of the Public Vendor and they could still be used to sell items as they always have.
     
    Astirian, twofoldsilence and Gorthyn like this.
  2. Peabo

    Peabo Avatar

    Messages:
    329
    Likes Received:
    797
    Trophy Points:
    43
    I like it and have suggested simular :)
     
  3. Dreadnought

    Dreadnought Avatar

    Messages:
    131
    Likes Received:
    254
    Trophy Points:
    18
    Gender:
    Male
    Location:
    Earth, for now.
    I mean i get what your getting at, its basically making a auction house search feature to find items. This would be nice in ways... but something to consider.

    In Ultima Online, the fun and somewhat annoying at times (which enhanced the game in it's own way) added a huge feature that games nowdays completely miss. Walking around and exploring and finding a random vendor with items that you want on it, i would spend hours just looking around at random points of the game. I think everyone that played UO knows exactly what i'm talking about. I really don't want to this game to be WoW in any way or form, that game has completely.... ill just say it kindly "changed" MMO's mentality to a much more "casual" way of playing, I personally think MMO's need way less of, in return making items/vendors/players professions of crafting much more valuable.

    My suggestion instead of having a search, maybe have a spot(bulletin board) that you can rent/pay for/buy or free at the zone in where you can post notes/auctions/vendor info/events (maybe even have it as a option it auto pops up as you zone in/get near it, if you wish). This still creates player interaction by knowing who posted that, send them a friend request, etc. The whole point of player ran economy is a player interaction, putting a search for everything just reduces that all together.
     
    Last edited: Aug 25, 2017
  4. Katu

    Katu Avatar

    Messages:
    454
    Likes Received:
    777
    Trophy Points:
    55
    Gender:
    Male
    Location:
    Finland
    UO has vendor search option now. Its really amazing. You can search items from every vendor in the world and filter items, then create a map and navigate there. The bigger the world, the harder it is to reach buyers ( or sellers, depending on view ofc ), that something like this would be perfect, to start the player driven economy.
    Even before this, there were bots, that scanned vendors and reported to website, that listen those items to help players find what they need.

    Its silly now, that there are vendors in the darkest corner of the world and those have prices that are not even realistic and none have time to go everyday through them all to find if my gear could be updated with something, that I actually could afford.

    +1 for anything that helps me find gear easier.

    EDIT: As a side note, I also liked in UO to just run around, finding deals.
     
    Astirian likes this.
  5. Dreadnought

    Dreadnought Avatar

    Messages:
    131
    Likes Received:
    254
    Trophy Points:
    18
    Gender:
    Male
    Location:
    Earth, for now.
    I understand that I'm not gonna have the popular view in this at all, most people want the path of least resistance due to human nature and current games. I just feel someone needs to show the value behind wandering around finding vendors or even setting up a way to advertise.

    Sorry I guess I needed to specify when UO was, let's just say "better" in my opinion. Which was before t2a times, after that kinda went downhill in my opinion, giving options like the vendor search making everything more user friendly(i won't get into the features that ruined the game IMO, there's a reason that there are so many on pre t2a emulators). When things are harder to obtain those items are more valuable. It makes rare finds a real gem in the rough..

    What people would do to counter this even in those days of playing was to set up gate port bots and shout advertisements at the banks or drop runes marked with description. Which I also think would be a cool feature to add, runes/mark etc. Which is why I presented the bulletin board options, although a gate feature would be amazing.
     
  6. Katu

    Katu Avatar

    Messages:
    454
    Likes Received:
    777
    Trophy Points:
    55
    Gender:
    Male
    Location:
    Finland
    Yeah, I understand that, IF I could visit even a fraction of vendors, without using 8 hours game time, this current system would be ok. But now we have too huge of a world, for it to be feasible to run around finding something ( UO world was big also, but at least there were certain spots, that had those big malls and known vendor spots and as you said, gatebots and marked runes made it work. We don't have those, in this "Player run economy". Maybe its literally players running around to make economy..

    There has to be someway to advertise vendors and their content in game. Now it happens on the forums and that is not good.

    IMHO, this games economy starts when this problem is fixed ( Problem being, hard to connect buyer to seller ).
     
    Peabo likes this.
  7. Peabo

    Peabo Avatar

    Messages:
    329
    Likes Received:
    797
    Trophy Points:
    43
    @Dreadnought I also loved searching around vendors in ultima, the problem in SotA is all the loading screens.. really takes away the fun
     
    Dreadnought and Katu like this.
  8. Dreadnought

    Dreadnought Avatar

    Messages:
    131
    Likes Received:
    254
    Trophy Points:
    18
    Gender:
    Male
    Location:
    Earth, for now.
    I agree the loading times are a big issue, I just think there has to be a better way of a auction house basically. Takes all the "finding" something awesome, to no reward :(. It also drives the economy down to Walmart pricing. I think the value of hard to find/make items should be held at greater value.

    As far as the player ran economy problem, the entire issue with that is everyone is able to do everything, as there is no decay on crafting at all. There needs to be specialized roles, forcing player interaction. So first step is limiting this jack if all trades business IMO.

    Let me ponder a better solution and maybe get some more options as ideas? I truly think having a auction house in combo with everyone able craft everything will ruin any kind of rares or specialization, driving economy to pennies.

    Really not trying to devils advocate here, just trying to make more value on items even as of current.
     
    Last edited: Aug 25, 2017
  9. Solazur

    Solazur Avatar

    Messages:
    1,429
    Likes Received:
    3,477
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Gender:
    Male
    Location:
    Pacific NW
    ONe thing kind of sets me off. The "everybody can do everything" bit. While it's true that you have the option... most people are not going to put in the effort. It takes an incredible amount of time and money to get good at crafting.
    Hell it costs north of 1,000g just to make a single attempt at an enchant or masterwork. No offense but I really think people making that argument are doing it as observers to the crafting system as opposed to participants. As to the overall economy; in my opinion we won't really get the economy going until crafting is worked out. Crafting hasn't seen any love in a long long time. They *have* started to make it harder with the recipes. That seems to still be in the half baked stage. Perhaps they should implement quests for recipes. By the by.It's an overly boring overly tedious system currently. We have material requirements that make no sense. We have refining "skills" that mean nothing. And of course we have the randomness of it all. So ya... crafting had to work first. Ag isn't even IN (as in something you can learn and progress in) the skill tree yet! As for the whole auction house thing... idk they keep saying they are going for regional economies so the notion that we could somehow have a global auction house is probably not gonna happen. Personally, I think with the ability to advertise for free via the forums and or discord those that want to make people aware of what they have to sell have enough tools to do so.
     
  10. Dreadnought

    Dreadnought Avatar

    Messages:
    131
    Likes Received:
    254
    Trophy Points:
    18
    Gender:
    Male
    Location:
    Earth, for now.
    ok I understand this and the cost of doing it manually but take a step back and look at what can and cannot be done. The mere fact it's all based on resources/gold with no limitations is just a simple matters of numbers. so the facts are you can do everything, the question is time and funding, I'm looking in a long term view. Long term in game people will have every crafting skill they want as high as they want (hell, they can do it fast once they get xp pooled). Now here's the real issue, you can simply RMT all the resources you need once you have the xp or gather them slowly, it's very clear people don't mind spending money here. 12 million in funding. So I see this being a problem in long term of the game.

    Limiting people's professions just give crafting that much more value, which isn't a bad thing. Giving everyone the ability to do everything lowers value of items in economy pricing.

    Not trying to derail the topic, just had to explain. Not trying to argue.
     
  11. Arcadeguy

    Arcadeguy Avatar

    Messages:
    84
    Likes Received:
    151
    Trophy Points:
    8
    Gender:
    Male
    Location:
    Florida
    There's a flip side to consider, by making it easier for us small fish to find stuff they'd be devaluing the prime location plots owned by the whales in the game, both early investors and those that joined later.
     
  12. Dreadnought

    Dreadnought Avatar

    Messages:
    131
    Likes Received:
    254
    Trophy Points:
    18
    Gender:
    Male
    Location:
    Earth, for now.
    True, but I'm really trying to view 5 yrs etc down the road, it's easy to drop value for everything, making every item common, it's hard to hold a higher price for duration is my concern
     
  13. Vallin Tregres

    Vallin Tregres Avatar

    Messages:
    943
    Likes Received:
    1,357
    Trophy Points:
    93
    I keep reading a con against this is that it lessens the "exploration". The Public Vendors wouldn't tell you anything beyond their current zone. You aren't gonna be able to search for a vendor in Owls Head from Brittany Docks. Another silent opposition I feel isn't being addressed is that there may be nay-sayers who currently own or rent with prime vending locations that would ultimately have to contend with others in the "nose bleed section".

    In order to search a zone you still have to go to that zone and it puts all vendors in a zone on even footing. It is easier for buyers to find what they need and the waypoint to the vendor lot may show them more of a zone they normally wouldn't see. You still have to walk to the vendor after all. Lastly, I thought about a possible fee, but decided against it as the vendors who would need this feature shouldn't pay more for 'gossip'. Chances are the "good spot" vendors would need to pay for the Public Vendor as well because people may stop bothering with their vendors after finding what they need on the Public Vendor.


    Edit: Underlined everything that actually promotes exploration rather than limiting it with this method. As a reminder, this is NOT a global auction house.

    If this idea sounds familiar it's similar to what Star Wars Galaxies featured, only limiting the search to in-zone vendors rather than a global search.
     
    Last edited: Aug 25, 2017
    Peabo likes this.
  14. Solazur

    Solazur Avatar

    Messages:
    1,429
    Likes Received:
    3,477
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Gender:
    Male
    Location:
    Pacific NW
    I will have to agree that we disagree. This line of thinking is just a flip side of the con from those who think we should hard cap what can be done with other skills. Ya know.. in real life there is nothing to stop you from getting 10 PhD's but I've not run into many of that ilk. If somebody wants to make the investment of time and $ to become an upper tier crafter I say more power to them. Enough already with they "they'll be able to be better than me" argument. You are aware perhaps that many of us have numerous accounts... some of which will have more than one char slot right?
    The fact is, I know people who have no interest whatsoever at crafting. That isn't going to change.

    Edit. I also must underscore my assertion that you likely have done little if any crafting.
     
  15. Daxxe Diggler

    Daxxe Diggler Avatar

    Messages:
    2,692
    Likes Received:
    5,711
    Trophy Points:
    153
    Gender:
    Male
    Location:
    Virtue Oasis - Hidden Vale
    This is a good idea. The only problem is, POT's don't have a Public Vendor... so they wouldn't be able to have this feature.
     
  16. Vallin Tregres

    Vallin Tregres Avatar

    Messages:
    943
    Likes Received:
    1,357
    Trophy Points:
    93
    Add Public Vendors to the list of available NPCs. Same as obtaining extra bankers or any of the other vendors.
     
  17. Daxxe Diggler

    Daxxe Diggler Avatar

    Messages:
    2,692
    Likes Received:
    5,711
    Trophy Points:
    153
    Gender:
    Male
    Location:
    Virtue Oasis - Hidden Vale
    They already said they don't want to do that. It's one of the few things left (besides maybe trainers and a few NPC merchants) that give people a reason to visit an NPC town.
     
    Tiina Onir likes this.
  18. Vallin Tregres

    Vallin Tregres Avatar

    Messages:
    943
    Likes Received:
    1,357
    Trophy Points:
    93
    With the change in functionality NPC and POT would be equally viable. "Not wanting to do it with the current system." is an excuse you could use to never add anything new to the game.

    Who said this anyway and how long ago was this? Seems half baked or you're not quoting the extent of "their" post.
     
  19. Peabo

    Peabo Avatar

    Messages:
    329
    Likes Received:
    797
    Trophy Points:
    43
    POT's have a town crier
    I see three main problems with the current system of searching towns and vendors.

    1. A lot of the time the server is so lagged that when you talk to a vendor it displays nothing for a long time giving the impression that its empty.

    2. The time spent actually loading into another scene.

    3. Finding vendors that couldn't be placed in a spot that can be found due to deed restrictions.

    My suggestion was giving the town crier the ability to list everything for sale in the town it belongs to, you could then use his ability to point you in the direction of a listed item via the compass.

    It seems logical to me that the town crier would know whats coming and going in his town.
     
    Last edited: Aug 25, 2017
    Tiina Onir likes this.
  20. Vallin Tregres

    Vallin Tregres Avatar

    Messages:
    943
    Likes Received:
    1,357
    Trophy Points:
    93
    It could work this way and simply have "Lots" on the list to check for available lots as he functions now, but the Public Vendor made more sense seeing as how it's only function is quite limited and easily overlooked.
     
Thread Status:
Not open for further replies.