You know what would be super cool?

A web interface where you could search for a specific item and it would list the player vendors, locations and prices where it could be found.

 

Would certainly help the economy and encourage people to visit places they normally don't. Would also help to standardize pricing a bit. +1 from me.

 

(Sarcasm) But then we wouldn't have regionally based economies anymore! (/End Sarcasm)

I would LOVE convenience when trying to find something. As it stands taking the 10+ hours to look through shitty vendor after shittier vendor in hopes that what I'm looking for MIGHT be there, and better yet, might actually be priced as to what it's worth is truly not a fun experience.

If you can't have a global index, the town crier should at least have this function to be able to search through the wares of that zone.

 

It would be great, but I also assume there will be a decent sized group that doesn't want the API to give tools to developers to make this happen. I have played around with their API they have available, and it definitely seems like it is more for 'fun' stats, and not really what I call 'community building' stats or applications. At least not yet. It somewhat goes against the games core 'explore' premise, as having the global vendor search removes localized pricing. If they give me access to make a global vendor check, then the economy becomes global.

I would love to have the access to that info tho.

 

Personally, I have a lot of fun running through towns, looking at various vendors for a steal. Having a database without having to do literally any work would level prices, but isn't that kind of the point, to hunt and find the deals? I put in the work to find those 100 gold ingots at the Owl's Head vendor being sold for under 6k, and the 80 beetle carapace for under 10k! That was my reward for taking the time to explore and check myself.

I'm certain most players want it easier, and I get it, but I find it kind of cool to explore each town and looking at the vendors gets me around. I think of public vendors as the one-stop shop where you can look up more goods, so that's one benefit to the vendor outside of not having a vendor yourself, too, and an all-vendor search would limit the vendor's benefits outside of that.

Edit: another point is that a lot of housing lots were chosen based off of their proximity to the town entries in order to maximize sales, and a vendor search would limit that effectiveness. Just another thought.

 

Even if it didn't have the prices but listed the vendors that had the item would be fine.

 

I like that idea. For me it would be even better if that list were at the town crier at each town. It would give incentive to travel the world map to various locations.

 

I could live with this and it being localized to the zone you're searching for the item in. ANY sort of goddamn intelligent search is better than what we've got now.