If it's a player driven economy, why NPC vendors?

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by Poor game design, Aug 26, 2016.

Thread Status:
Not open for further replies.
  1. Drocis the Devious

    Drocis the Devious Avatar

    Messages:
    18,188
    Likes Received:
    35,440
    Trophy Points:
    153
    Gender:
    Male
    You were not following what I was saying. When I said "games" I meant that most games have a winner and loser. Most MMO's on the other hand have neither.
     
    Leelu likes this.
  2. Unseen [ONBE]

    Unseen [ONBE] Avatar

    Messages:
    22
    Likes Received:
    26
    Trophy Points:
    3
    Well, first I thought part of this game was to not have traditional winners and losers, but ignoring that, that still doesn't answer the question. Efficient systems can result in very few participants. You could (easily) end up with markets completely cornered, lots of players locked out of the system, and so forth. This is why no country has even let a system like that exist.
     
    Fauxpas likes this.
  3. Drocis the Devious

    Drocis the Devious Avatar

    Messages:
    18,188
    Likes Received:
    35,440
    Trophy Points:
    153
    Gender:
    Male
    Wow, ok. So there must be some giant library of data backing up the use of NPC's then. Please point me to the link and I'll go educate myself.
     
    Leelu likes this.
  4. Drocis the Devious

    Drocis the Devious Avatar

    Messages:
    18,188
    Likes Received:
    35,440
    Trophy Points:
    153
    Gender:
    Male
    That's a fair point, but a game is not a country. They work very differently. For one (out of a million differences) people don't actually die in games, so comparing the two is very limited wouldn't you say?
     
    Leelu likes this.
  5. Drocis the Devious

    Drocis the Devious Avatar

    Messages:
    18,188
    Likes Received:
    35,440
    Trophy Points:
    153
    Gender:
    Male
    Also, I'm very interested to know what you mean by this.

    For me, when I say games usually have winners and losers I'm talking about when you play checkers someone wins and someone loses. However, I'm also talking about economic winners and losers (for which I'm not sure there's an exact definition, and it's more of a concept). But both thought tracks mean that we're not trying to make a WOW type MMO where everyone wins! but at the same time no one really wins because as long as you put in the time you'll eventually get to some stupid level and have shiny armor just like everyone else. This game is already shaping up to be a lot more than that, thankfully. And I'd like to see us turn over the keys for the car to the players so we can explore more of that.
     
    Leelu likes this.
  6. Fauxpas

    Fauxpas Avatar

    Messages:
    193
    Likes Received:
    288
    Trophy Points:
    18
    luckily when you mean to say WE you just say "them, with me as a big backer bugging them to have things go my way".

    [edit] to reiterate... moneybags got global trade, stocktrade and whatever kind of crooked systems there are working to their benefit IRL.

    i want to play a game, not a simulator which just happens to be an extension of RL, where fatasspockets dictate the rules.[/quote]
     
    Last edited: Aug 27, 2016
  7. Drocis the Devious

    Drocis the Devious Avatar

    Messages:
    18,188
    Likes Received:
    35,440
    Trophy Points:
    153
    Gender:
    Male
    That's a personal attack. It's against forum rules.

    I wish it were true though. I suggest things all the time that Portalarium doesn't like. They take my suggestions the same as yours or anyone elses. If it's good and they like it, they use it. If it's bad or they don't like how it fits into the game they're making, they don't use it. I've found Portalarium to be completely agnostic when it comes to good ideas. They're just trying to make the best game they can.
     
    Melissa likes this.
  8. Fauxpas

    Fauxpas Avatar

    Messages:
    193
    Likes Received:
    288
    Trophy Points:
    18
    is it? or is it just me stating my impression of what youre trying to pull off with your forum commitment in those threads?
     
  9. Drocis the Devious

    Drocis the Devious Avatar

    Messages:
    18,188
    Likes Received:
    35,440
    Trophy Points:
    153
    Gender:
    Male
    Yes, it's a personal attack regardless of what your interpretation is. So cut it out.
     
    Melissa likes this.
  10. Fauxpas

    Fauxpas Avatar

    Messages:
    193
    Likes Received:
    288
    Trophy Points:
    18
    prism confronted you with some very smart (imo) reasoning and all you did is twist and turn. how does checkers even closely relate to SotA? or any other situation than a 1vs1 in a very restrictive enviroment.

    from what i read by you i thought you were for less restrictions, yet you ask for a winner/loser setting? everyone who invests his time in any game should have the feeling of accomplishment and not loss. you invested a lot? you got a lot. now youre just ment to be a player like anyone else, yet i hardly see anyone @dev-ing as much as you do.
     
  11. LiquidSky

    LiquidSky Avatar

    Messages:
    263
    Likes Received:
    509
    Trophy Points:
    28
    Don't worry..they wont remove NPC vendors. They provide a very important basic service for most of the player base. The few who don't need them can ignore them rather then remove them for their own reasons.
     
    Melissa likes this.
  12. disastorm

    disastorm Avatar

    Messages:
    79
    Likes Received:
    107
    Trophy Points:
    8
    I completely disagree about removing npc Vendors, However, I do agree that perhaps they should be more connected with players supply and demand. If a player sells alot of a certain item to them, perhaps that item should become cheaper on the vendor, and also, similar to how UO did it, items should actually get sold out if enough people buy them, and then vendors can restock on some schedule.

    I would also love there to be somewhat specialized towns, such as a town that has more reagent vendors for mages, or a mining type of town, etc.

    This could also help solve the issue of player sold items being too expensive ( if that is indeed an issue ), that I guess they may have been trying to solve with the recent gold nerf.

    I think there are some people that don't feel like going through the hassel of selling their items on public vendors, so instead if they have extra ore, or other resources, they might just sell it to an npc vendor to make quick cash, but in the end, they are not competing with the player-sold items.

    If npc vendors were to turn around and sell that ore, or those resources they obtained from players at a slightly higher price than it was sold to them, these low prices would force players to lower the price of their public vendor items in order to compete. Technically, this would still be player-driven as the items these npcs would be selling would have been originally obtained by players.
     
  13. Unseen [ONBE]

    Unseen [ONBE] Avatar

    Messages:
    22
    Likes Received:
    26
    Trophy Points:
    3
    That is precisely my points. So stop trying to apply traditional economics models and expecting them to react that way. The simplistic supply-and-demand model doesn't work the same way.
     
  14. Drocis the Devious

    Drocis the Devious Avatar

    Messages:
    18,188
    Likes Received:
    35,440
    Trophy Points:
    153
    Gender:
    Male
    Supply and demand is not an "economic model". It's an economic fact.

    Regardless of me applying it or not it's happening. It's not be applied exactly like it would in our world because our world is different, but that doesn't mean what you're saying it means. Supply and demand is not like "gravity" where if you go to another planet the force of the orbital pull is stronger or weaker, supply and demand works exactly the same way in every environment, however the factors that impact supply and demand are different. I.E. people can't really die on Novia. People can't really "lose their jobs" in Novia.
     
  15. agra

    agra Avatar

    Messages:
    1,501
    Likes Received:
    3,489
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Having played PFO, which has no NPC vendors, I hate it. At best, players attempting to fill the role of NPC's are, comparatively, unreliable & deceptive. At the very least, some NPC's are available most of the time.

    But by all means, anyone that wants no NPC vendors? Go and play PFO. Then you can see how good or bad it is and form your own opinion, first hand. :)
     
  16. Beaumaris

    Beaumaris Avatar

    Messages:
    4,289
    Likes Received:
    7,415
    Trophy Points:
    165
    Gender:
    Male
    Location:
    Caladruin
    No thanks.

    I like NPC vendors that are reliable in a pinch. Player vendors are fine for economic diversity, but not always reliable for the very basics. Why should I lose two hours of game time hunting down a new player vendor for a basic that is no longer available on your vendor because you took a two week vacation?
     
    zyxe likes this.
  17. Duffy

    Duffy Avatar

    Messages:
    41
    Likes Received:
    98
    Trophy Points:
    8
    Gender:
    Female
    I really don't feel like visiting a dozen towns running from player vendor to player vendor to find the one guy who gives the most for my money - at least not for everyday items. I'd that for an extremely good and crazy expensive thing I plan to spend LOTS of golds on. Since we don't have something like a broker board to compare vendor prices of ALL player vendors in every town at once we have to travel in person to compare said prices (and I am not advocating a broker board, just saying we don't have something like it). Removing NPC vendors in a non-open world game and loading screens around every second corner, how can someone even think that'd be a good idea and people would say, oh my, now I see the error of my ways? Away with you NPC filth?

    So, in no way, shape or form I would deal with loading screen after loading screen, running to vendors, comparing them, dang, they don't even stock loo paper, so camp to world map - loading screen - run around - loading screen - ok next town, so camp to world map - running running running loading loading loading.

    Sorry, but no sorry. I want to play a game, not a walking simulator.
     
    zyxe, GraveDncer and manufacturedsoul like this.
  18. dopedwizard

    dopedwizard Avatar

    Messages:
    43
    Likes Received:
    59
    Trophy Points:
    8
    I think that vendors are necessary purely to give people that start the game a starting point. Human run vendors in the current phase can be confusing especially because they do not buy anything.
     
  19. manufacturedsoul

    manufacturedsoul Avatar

    Messages:
    185
    Likes Received:
    310
    Trophy Points:
    30
    Gender:
    Male
    Location:
    Virginia, USA
    Removing NPC Vendors will NEVER happen...
     
Thread Status:
Not open for further replies.