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Universal vendor with price

Discussion in 'Wishlist Requests' started by simon1974, Dec 28, 2020.

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  1. Wilfred

    Wilfred Avatar

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    GVSwP would not be the end of the world, but I think other options would lead to a healthier game.

    People who play merchants and traders add a lot of interesting interactions that help to make the game more fun.
    So a Vendor Search system that attracts merchants and traders is good for the game, and a Vendor Search system that discourages merchants and traders is bad for the game.
    So in my opinion, finding a middle ground that is more interesting and fun for merchants and traders would be better for SotA in the long run.
     
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  2. necronut

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    GVSwP doesn't discourage merchants and traders...

    It's discouraging to TWO merchants who don't chop down trees, don't mine ore, etc., etc.,

    So when they say selling Zone Scrolls at 68gp is below cost... what they mean is

    Selling Zone Scrolls at 68gp is below THEIR cost.


    I'm against the middle ground solution here.


    If I have 10 kids and 9 of them want pizza and 1 of them keeps demanding ravioli....


    We're having pizza.
     
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  3. Vero

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    good example!

    *whispers try it tho https://www.tasteofhome.com/recipes/pizza-ravioli/ *
     
  4. FrostII

    FrostII Bug Hunter

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    What would that "middle ground" look like, @Wilfred ?
     
  5. Wilfred

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    The more difficult it is for players to monitor the market, the more room there is for a wider range of merchants and traders.
    The easier it is for players to monitor the market, the less room there is for small merchants and traders to make a profit.
    So any of these options, depending on what level of market accessibility the devs want to target:

    - Town-Based Vendor Search without Prices (TBVSw/oP)
    - Regional Vendor Search without Prices (RVSw/oP)
    - Global / Universal Vendor Search without Prices (GVSw/oP)
    - Town-Based Vendor Search with Prices (TBVSwP)
    - Regional Vendor Search with Prices (RVSwP)

    Ultimately, it is up to the devs to review all the player feedback and decide which option(s) they think will be best for SotA.

    In the end, the devs have to make the decision. And when deciding between multiple different viewpoints, the best decision is usually a compromise where no one gets everything they want. So if all sides are unhappy and the devs are taking heat, the devs are probably right. :)
     
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  6. Violet Ronso

    Violet Ronso Avatar

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    I would like to add a bit of my previous games experience to the table to this discussion!

    Runescape. Runescape is a classless MMORPG, where you can train all skills, trade with players, do hundreds of quests, there is a Full PVP region with tons of mobs, bosses and scary but very rewarding things, which went through lots of changes throughout the years.

    Back in Febuary 2013, they decided to add a second version of their game, which simply reverted all the changes that happened after August 2007. One of those changes included their Grand Exchange, their own version of a global vendor/auction house. Month after month, players complained about the trading system in place, which was to go in "World 1" and try to find a vendor selling your stuff, or hope that someone would buy your advertised stuff. In December 2014, they added the Trading Post, which would allow you to advertise your sellables through a vendor search system which only allowed searches in the world you were in. This system included the price! Yet, it wasn't enough, in Febuary 2015, the grand exchange made its full reappearance, being a global trade system, across every world, and passed with a whopping 76% of the population voting yes for its full reappearance.

    Runescape's wealthiest population are called "merchs", players who game the Grand exchange as much as they can, buying low, selling higher, and spend most of their time doing just that. I don't think adding a global vendor search with price system will hurt shrouds merchant population, on the contrary, it will make it easier for them to find the lower prices, and buy them out to sell at the current rate/their rate, I don't think this will hurt the gatherers, because it will be easier for them to list items and sell them at a higher price than the buy orders they probably fill out sometimes, and I don't think it will hurt the crafters, because prices will stabilize and help them obtain a fair price and fair pricing of their resulting gear. All in all, I don't think we need to compromise, because if you look at other games experiments, the majority will want the easiest option, the one that will allow them to spend more time PLAYING THE GAME instead of PLAYING THE MARKET.

    Voila, that was my contribution!
     
  7. FrostII

    FrostII Bug Hunter

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    Well stated, @Violet Ronso , way more time playing the game - and not the "market".
     
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  8. Sentinel2

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    I'd be happy if we had something like an ingame version of "Shroud Marketplace". Where I could search hundreds of vendors for a product I'm interested in purchasing ;-)

    I don't even need the prices listed. JUST tell me who is selling that special widget I'm looking for.

    Or I can go back to farming then again and selling them below market value some more ::grinz::
     
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  9. Tahru

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    Was this discussed at all during the live event? I missed a bit of it.
     
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  10. Wilfred

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    No, I don't think so. I listened to the Friday stream and didn't notice any talk about Vendor Search.
     
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  11. CICI

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    yep playing a merchant is gameplay within a mmo =D
    Town-Based Vendor Search with Prices (TBVSwP)
     
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  12. Sentinel2

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    I'd be happy if we just had a town based vendor search without prices. At least I would know where to go to purchase something. Spending hours upon hours looking at hundreds of vendors is unsustainable for anyone. We need a solution. Anything vs the nothing currently in game.

    This is not me being negative. It's frustration talking. And one of the reasons I so rarely purchase anything from vendors.

    It takes far less time for me to go out and farm it. Let that sink in a bit :)
     
  13. necronut

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    I just want what Raph Koster wanted when he implemented being able to look up any item and find the price for it.

    Not having to sit through a hundred thousand loading screens to find a desirable price.
     
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  14. Time Lord

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    This is not for or against either...

    But I'd like to point out that within our forums here, is one extremely under used section:
    https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/forum/index.php?forums/player-marketplace.73/


    I would also like to point out that we that post here within our forums or even read our forums are only a small amount of our actual players.

    For these reasons, I would say that we do not have "as yet" a very robust competitive market within our game". We'd like there to be, yet the status quo is hindering it's evolution into something that could be considered to be more robust of a competitive economy to play.

    Making things more easy for more to play is the best we could do for our economic game appeal, which competitive pricing would encourage.
    Just look in today's real world, where online shopping has surpassed retail. Location based stores have had to resort to becoming someplace a shopper could enjoy some entertainment, spectacle or lottery give away for coming which we've already been seeing popup in our game, due to the Amazons we have in the form of towns dedicated to trade placing all others out of the main marketing within our game. Our Amazons help us find a price for what we want to sell, yet also place the average player out of enjoying the same market play.

    We want more players, so I can't see any other means than to open ease of market play to everyone, without Amazon Cartel sucking that fun out of reach for the new player or new marketing player.

    We "the people, the players and players of the future" are faced off with "the cartel" and the cartel is frightened of free trade, which vendor search with prices, "is".

    No more monopolies, no more cartels,
    more game for everyone please!

    [​IMG]

    Free trade with nothing hidden,
    Free trade with everything known,
    Free trade with everyone equally invited,
    Free trade with everyone instantly included :cool:
    ~TL~
     
  15. Sentinel2

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    Fair enough. I suspect it's underused because people expect that kind of functionality to be in the game :)
     
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  16. majoria70

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    Well in my opinion if going to a vender was more interesting some players would sometimes enjoy the experience. Right now every vender can only have the same old same old.

    If bags of goods were implemented it would in my opinion be a big change up. I remember in UO going to venders and enjoying seeing all the bags of goods people came up with. We could see what was in the bags of course which is needed here. @devilcult2 for tech request to implement bags of viewable goods to go on venders please, please.

    I am still for global item search also. We definitely need it for when we just want to know where a particular item is being sold. Prices being shown is sticky or touchy because if you don't run around and track what's fairly priced you don't always know. You just know your approximate cost and time to make it.

    As for those buying low and selling high players we can't stop that from happening but listed prices might give those players access to it more easily. Not telling them would make them work for it at least but that's why we can't have nice things. Someone will abuse it.

    *****Having global item search is necessary to ALL vendors in the game to get a chance to sell their goods wherever they are.******

    Edited
     
    Last edited: Jul 4, 2021
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  17. FrostII

    FrostII Bug Hunter

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    If there's any one thing that has an excellent chance of halting/reversing our dwindling population, it would be the ability of any player anywhere to be able to find what they need to progress in our game - and that would be Universal Vendor Search with prices.

    Anything short of that, IE town search would be next to useless, as we have over 300 towns - each with their own loading screens.

    I don't shop any more, even tho' I know the few towns dedicated to having lots of vendors. And that's because whenever I used to shop, I'd look at the prices for good items and they were way to often just outrageous .

    New players just give up and leave, and we've had enough of that with our current JOKE of an "economy" .
     
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  18. CICI

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  19. Cathy Earnshaw

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    I played UO for years with vendor search. I personally liked having it...I could type in what I was looking for and go there. I still think vendor search will help buyers and sellers. Especially as I’ve said before...vendors in different boundaries of a town.

    I think it will be good for people who have a limited amount of game time. I personally only go to one or two vendors now. If they don’t have what I’m looking for I do without it because I’m not going to run to every town with vendors looking for it. I log in to play not look for one item.

    Also remember this would be an option for people to use if they want...it’s not mandatory that you have to use it.
     
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  20. Sorgin Txakal

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    I think a good solution might be in creating a new types of public NPC, maybe a coto upgrade to the town crier since they no longer serves a purpose.

    Then a toggle option could be allowed to link your vendor in the same town to that public NPC. The Merchant Crier then draws a view of all items available within the city and allows you to sort/select & create a waypoint to the property marker.

    This could then be further supplemented by an additional NPC that functions as a public merchant for the town, but with a limited scope, like the NPC merchants. The governor could then upgrade the merchants in their town, or buy new ones, and then all player merchants that carry items that match the list of what the merchant type is looking for. A "general goods" merchant could then have like 10+ open "order" slots that a governor can chose to allocate that will allow the visibility and direct purchase of items that match that limited list (so long as the player who owns the property where the merchant is on has clicked a toggle to allow for it).

    The end effect of this is that governors can create a centralized market area in their town that can allow all residents to sell their goods at that centralized location, and any specialty items they carry that don't fit the common themes of the central market can be found via the town crier which only creates waypoints, but does not show prices.

    Some flexibility should exist for what the NPC merchants would draw from, as like an armor merchant should be able to draw from any player crafted armor that exists within a vendor of the town (again, if the player who owns the lot the vendor is on has toggled the feature on).


    If some governors then want to make strict rules about your vendor settings while in their town, that would be their prerogative.


    I believe this recommendation would fit in with the current concept of competitive merchant cities/guilds, while potentially expanding the audience of some merchants and creating the convenient "one-stop search and grab" solution some players want, while allowing a city's governance to determine the central market's aesthetics and not being tied to the same clump of row houses - and I believe cities could be made to feel more alive by this change instead of just more "automated".


    This concept could then further be applied to NPC cities, which could make living in NPC cities a lot more desirable, even if all the "front-row" locations are already taken as well as let you feel like your avatar has relationships with the people of the city they live in.
     
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