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Universal vendor with price

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

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  1. Time Lord

    Time Lord Avatar

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    We did however hear Chris speak of area search for items and that Public Vendors would be listed in that same search. :) We do love our Chris! :)

    :eek:~What About Chris~:D
    [​IMG]
    ~Time Lord~:p *Lick*
     
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  2. necronut

    necronut Avatar

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    Consider my plate of crow eaten.

    Shamelessly.
     
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  3. FBohler

    FBohler Avatar

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    Common sense doesn't exist.
    Here's proof: have you ever met anyone that said "I don't have common sense"?
    Yeah, (almost) everybody believe they got common sense, so it's just fancy words to try and sound reasonable.
     
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  4. Time Lord

    Time Lord Avatar

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    Overwhelming Data...
    [​IMG]

    Some of our large vender towns have upwards of or closing in on 300 vendors all packed full of goods. If an area the size of the surrounding Britany area is shown in such an area search, then upwards beyond 800-1000 vendors are then included, thus even such area search as Chris has indicated he's looking into providing us (without prices), we could easily be looking at a dropdown that reaches well beyond our computer screen's abilities even with allot of scrolling on our part involved, which could possibly be reduced by category, but still require allot of scrolling.

    So how would something like this look visually to any bystander, to be seeing a bunch of players all standing around like zombies all scrolling through such a massive data search.

    I think this still requires allot of thought as to just how best to "present" such huge amounts of data to make it best useful, or we have doomed our development to just another tool which will require even further development once or if we ever have it.

    Taking what we do know Chris is looking into with area search, we may be pushing all other development issues further into our future due to our area vendor wishes.
    ~Time Lord~
     
    Last edited: Jul 14, 2021
  5. necronut

    necronut Avatar

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    I still argue providing a search without prices helps no one and puts us back at square one... all we're doing is hopping around zones, living through a loading screen simulator that makes it worth no one's time to go shopping at all. The only reason I craft at all is because it's a massive pain to find a good deal.

    So with the new implemented search system, my end result stays the same. I craft because shopping blows.
     
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  6. Barugon

    Barugon Avatar

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    This is all about how you search. Let's say that I'm looking for pine wood. I type in "pine wood" and I get back a bunch of results. I need a lot of pine wood, so I click on the quantity column title to sort by quantity and then I start checking those vendors for the best price.

    BTW, if it's just an area search then that's nearly worthless because it limits the primary objectives of having a search:
    • Find what I'm looking for.
    • Participate in the player economy myself (others can find my items).
     
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  7. Time Lord

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    Maybe we should limit this search to only listing commodities?
    Do we really need food, armor and weapons in our search tool in order to better stimulate our economy or better serve the player?

    Eliminating what we don't need or need less could make for a better search tool, which then could then provide pricing due to more simplified data demands.

    This is a fascinating issue as it is easier seeing it's benefits when commodity shopping, as oppose to armor or weapons, which can have vast amounts of differing qualities in each piece.
    For me, @Barugon has touched on what I believe to be our finest use for search being commodities, amounts of commodities. If search was limited, "a developer developed search", then that could bring down the amount of data which could then possible include pricing included in it, because it's so simple, if eliminating armor and weapons from the search area tool.

    When I was wondering around inspecting vender towns all across our game, I would check the amount of vendors a POT/Town had before entering it (*on a side note island POTs don't seem to have this feature). If I were however to make an "area search", then I could see any commodities listed, which would go a long way to understanding if there were an active vender to visit there, due to the availability of commodities. If commodities were the only things we could search for. Active players are creating commodities more than those empty or inactive vendors.

    Shrinking the data through elimination I think can get us where we want to go.
    ~TL~
     
    Last edited: Jul 14, 2021
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  8. necronut

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    Since we're taking time to implement a non-fix, I'd request they just don't fix it and instead spend the time the non-fix would be spent on polish for other systems. The other highest voted item on players wishlists.
     
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  9. Duke Gréagóir

    Duke Gréagóir Legend of the Hearth

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    I agree!
     
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  10. Time Lord

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    That's what I was seeing in this too, it's a non-fix which is peddling backward if everything is included. I just don't see the usefulness of listing availability without prices. In the mean time, our forums market is still as silent as a funeral, devoid of any great demand of any player to shout out they need business at their place and what they have to sell. I shouted out there in the earlier test that I needed some armor and was met with silence.

    But who's the crowd that's going to tell Chris it's not an issue, "now that he's looking into addressing the desire?
    ~TL~
     
  11. FBohler

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    I can live with a search system that only locates the goods I'm looking for, without prices and not global.
    The ability to find out in matter of seconds what would take 15-ish minutes per scene will be greatly appreciated.

    On commodities, I'm all in for global vendor with fully disclosed prices: you put a price trigger for your goods and the buyers will purchase the commodities from lowest to highest price, so the cheaper will sell faster. And to prevent people using the market as endless storage space, reclaiming any good before being sold to players should take a 10% tax. Be wise with your pricing!
     
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  12. necronut

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    You know what? You've made me see a little bit of silver lining.
     
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  13. Time Lord

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    The above sounds wise.

    We all have seen our new... umm... what's that recycling project called, the one where you place stuff like hides in collection boxes? Dose any of this complement that new recycling program?




    Yet still further into this search system subject...

    In the early days there was one suggestion that was about an area local market, where commodities could be auctioned off through bidding. I mention that because it's from bygone days when this same issue was being looked at with player ideas being thrown at it.

    Also though, regarding the local items search;

    • Do we really need armor, weapons, "wearables" all listed in our area search? What good is this? Should we get to compare our own armor, weapon or whatever from the drop down menu?
    • Is this a search where a player doesn't have to travel to go search there in that "zone"? Is this Amazon Shop from Home?
    • Shouldn't something like this require some special orb or crafted item to do all this magical searching with?
    ~TL~
     
  14. Superbitsandbob

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    It feels like this very popular feature is being over complicated by the few who don't want it.

    Other games have a simple menu allowing a search, the EQ bazaar for example. You can search by slot like hands, chest, legs etc. You can also type in the name if you know what it is. You can search by a stat. You can search by class or in this case it could be by tree.

    Weapons, armour etc should absolutely be included in any search function. It is the area where the few mogul's take the most smeg.
     
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  15. Time Lord

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    I do understand what you're saying here, but take Crafter Town for instance with close to 300 vendors, with armor/weapons that have many different stats applied to each individual crated piece. Each vender in Crafter's Town has a multitude of items listed in them, all with differing stats. So that area listing will have Elrond Size vender contents XTimes 280+ other vendors, and that's just from a single city within "that zone" which maybe has 3 other similar size cities with their 100s of vendors, all with Elrond Size inventories...

    Time Lord's Prediction:
    Chris knows what he's going to do or not going to do when or if he ever does something like this. There's no fooling him, he's got a mind like a steel trap when it comes to development programing. He stated with just cause that the masses of data involved are too much for pricing to be involved, and he's also not committed to saying anything more deep than he has about all this, not because he wants us kept in the dark, but because until he programs it in his mind of how and what he can do, he's not going to mislead anyone about it.
    So it's not that the issue is "being" over complicated by the few or anyone.

    Chris will do what Chris decides to do because he's far from being a robot to the mass's will.

    The players have very rarely gotten "exactly" what they wanted in any player suggested idea. There's allot of reasons for that, only one of which is that you can't "copy anyone else's game exactly". Many times it's what can be done, given the tools or assets available which shapes what any outcome can be.

    Considering all this mentioned above, I predict that most those desiring the idea to be developed (which includes myself) will be disappointed with it's outcome, and that outcome's disappointments will be a very long disconnected list of broken desires because the idea was so generalized in it's conception, among a great many other reasons.

    Things here have always been so.
    ~TL~
     
    Last edited: Jul 15, 2021
  16. Superbitsandbob

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    Well look I disagree with most of what you are saying here but it will all come out in the wash as my old mum used to say. :)

    What I would pick up on though is the implication that Chris doing anything for the masses is some bad thing or somehow means Chris is giving in to something. Maybe, just maybe, part of the issue is that the masses, who are no longer here, could have been listened to a bit more.

    A vendor search ability seems like a pretty popular idea, maybe sometimes doing the popular is a good thing. Is it worth the time investment? Other games have managed it. A lot of the work should be front loaded and fairly automated once it is up and running. It doesn't have to be all encompassing. Even the ability to search by a body slot, a stat, a skill tree as a basic start would help some of the pain of running around those hundreds of vendors you mention.
     
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  17. Time Lord

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    Here again, I hear what you are saying, yet I don't think you are fully hearing what my intent is in pursuing this issue to more depth.

    While or when any programing is done on this, "that's the best time to make any further work to be done on it". Almost all options ever programed into our game always have further programing to be done on them after the fact, due to not being the better it could have been thought through from the start.

    So, this isn't about Chris or the team being somehow lacking, this is about investigating and searching for what those issues which will need reprograming or later modification, which could have been more deeply thought through before it's inception. When our team is about to begin work on things, that's the best time to have things done.

    You and I have been around here for quite a while, I just two years more than you, yet you have been here 5 years, so I do think you have experienced allot of our game's development history...

    An Historical Example in Outcome:

    • *Currently island POTs do not have the ability to check how many vendors they have in them because that "quick shopping search option" does not come up through their overland map boat dock access.
    If that feature was left out when our last "quick shopping search option" was programed, then any further area search may either clear that issue up, or the island's be left out of the "quick shopping search option" of the proposed feature at hand.

    *below you can see that feature is available, just not in the same way mainland towns are accessed.

    It's very possible we are not going to get any such in depth options due to the mass data and development time available for it. The one thing that our particular "crowd funded development" has shown to us, is that EA-Games amounts of money and developer staffing are not available to us and thus will not be addressing this needed programing with the same high goals being able to be reached.

    There's a good likelihood that any search will provide vendor data as simple as, "do they have armor chest pieces for sale? Yes or not being shown and possibly how many made of what category,: available in white iron ext ... with the search providing no stats, slots or attributes provided...".

    Our development history has proven that we cannot assume anything. If past practice is followed, then just as with our current quick reference options to see how many venders are in a town, we may get an item count available for individual wearables, and only an indicator showing whether vendors there have any certain commodity, yet not how much of the commodity they have stocked. The search could only show how many venders carry that commodity.

    I asked Chris about how this will effect Public Vendors, to which he said they will be included just as any other vendor. That's a good example of insuring nothing is left to chance through applying deeper forethought in design/desires.

    This is why I now search for what the priorities should be, because when development addresses this mass data search, they may be forced to make some of those more detailed decisions on the expedient fly, not having the time to stop and meditate what to cut out of that search when all mass data (which Chris has very well indicated) can't all be fit into it.

    • I think commodities should have priority over things. And, of those commodities I think the most important are Pine and Maple Wood, with all the mined ores being included. I don't think that many of the less demanded commodities such as cotton, should take up space within that limited mass data search (which Chris indicated that the search would be limited, because of the mass data in everything is too much).
    I'm saying it's time to prioritize because it's coming and the best time to include or exclude anything is when this issue is being addressed and worked on, because it will be a very very very long time before any second thought developer pass to better it will be made due to other priorities knocking it back down the list, even deeper into the future.
    • I want commodities prioritized
    • I want islands included
    ...and that's just off the top of my head because they cannot be assumed, or our islands would show how many vendors they have at their docks, and the variable stats of any wearables & weapons are as vast as to be described as Macy's Endless Variety Fashion Parade.


    Chris has made clear that we will not be drown in mass data.
    [​IMG]
    This is not EA Games and doesn't have Star Citizen's budget.
    Prioritize everything now or accept it being generalized later.
    ~Time Lord~
     
    Last edited: Jul 15, 2021
  18. FBohler

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    In my opinion, vendor search is more important to the game than adding new skill tree.
    Also, I believe the former is less labor intensive to implement than the latter.
     
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  19. FrostII

    FrostII Bug Hunter

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    I spent over an hour last night in 3 of our "merchant" towns looking for gold ore/ingots for sale, something that is commonly sought - and found zip.
    Walking/running from vendor to vendor - for me (and I believe it fair to say for the vast majority) - was time that was not only exceedingly frustrating and boring, but it was time that I would much rather have spent doing the things that I DO enjoy doing.

    In addition to that, I looked at WTS "ads" in the Player Marketplace here on our forum - which is yet another joke and waste of time.
    Have a look for yourself - here - and see the pitiful lack of utilization.

    I also called out several times in both Universal and Trader chat . Not even one response.

    Does this ring a bell @Time Lord ?

    I can understand why gold ore/ingots are in high demand at this time because of the very nice Enchantment options that we now have.
    However, not everyone has a character with high skills in Enchantment and I'm sure that there are many players who have gold ore/ingots in storage simply because they are VALUABLE, but without a Universal Vendor Search with Prices they have no way other than utilizing a Public Vendor - which sit mostly empty across our lands because the traffic to them just isn't there any more.
    They could, of course, place their own vendor in front of their home in podunk - but, with over 300 towns, how much traffic do you suppose they'll have ? I'll tell you - Z I P .
    I know this and you know this !

    Let's face it......... The FEW peeps who don't wish for actual COMPETITION occupy a loud voice in Chris's ear, and have apparently convinced him that their "investments" in attempting to "corner the market" by being close to Brittany should override the needs/wants of the vast majority of players.

    So here we are, with a dwindling population - and one of the PRIMARY reasons is the lack of the ability to find what they need without spending hours of UNFUN watching loading screens and running around blindly searching.

    Our "economy" is a bad joke played out daily.

    Sad and pitiful, and so very unnecessary - especially when the solution is so readily available.

    SotA has - and always has had - great potential.
    Unfortunately, "some" simply cannot see the forest because of all those trees in the way.
     
    Last edited: Jul 15, 2021
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  20. Barugon

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    I feel your pain. I just recently spent hours searching for imbued gem/jewel socket recipes. That reminded me why I have no interest in participating in our current "economy". It would've been much more fun to just grind-up the recipes myself.
     
    Last edited: Jul 15, 2021
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