Aggregating Vendor requests

Crazy Idea .. How about the Town Vendors also show and sell through the inventory of the player owned vendors in the same town with a markup. EQ2 used something like this to encourage visiting houses to make purchases you looked up at the globally accessible broker. Maybe even do this on a regional basis. Bam, regional economy from thin air.

 

From the post by @Mikayl

Added in Manage Orders

• Partial Buy Order fulfillment
  
• Edit orders
• Delete multiple orders
• Enter in Price field signs for transaction

Added in Multi-User vendors

• Optional restrict user to either Buy Orders or Sales
• Added "Optional" to "Item number limit per user"

Added to Data

• Weekly and monthly accounting reports (and you thought I was demanding )

Added to Stocking

• Save in Magic Mover (it prevents us from restocking, so close enough category)
  
• Enter in Price field signs for transaction

Added to For Customers

• Wish list functionality
  
• Checkbox: Keep search term between vendors
• Advanced search symbols such as |, -, etc

 

Hmmmm or maybe the little "i" that is on the crown vendors now. Clicking it shows the bag contents.

Double clicking would normally add it to the transaction, so it doesn't work well for bags in vendors suddenly.

Right clicking could work too, but now that they have already put these buttons in the Crown Vendors it will probably be easier to stick with that.

 

I assume you mean Public Vendors? So if you list on your vendor at home, it also shows up on the PV?

If that's the case, we're talking about 10,000+ entries on that single vendor. Imagine how long a fully stocked vendor takes to load, then multiply that x 200 in a town like New Britannia Market. It would render the PV useless because no one would want to wait for it to load.

 

More requests from the post by @Mikayl

Added in Data:

• Combine receipts into in game ledger

Added in Communication/Aesthetics

• Owner sets default sorting method

 

From post by @Bryweyh

Added in For Customers:

• Ask town crier for item, vendors who carry it are pinged similar to how vacant lots can be pinged by holding "P"
  
• Show vendor name next to lot owner name on town crier. Ctrl mouse over to see multiple vendor names on one lot, or owner sets a single name for the lot.

 

Lined out

• Data export as .csv or similar

Left .csv or similar as the data is not usable at the moment unless someone makes an external tool. But still a great step in the right direction!

If I was tracking Mail interface here, which perhaps I should, I would have lined out "Multi-select and Delete All". A giant Huzzah on that one, thanks Devs!

Added "vendors specifically" for clarity:

• Save Vendors specifically in Magic Mover

Added to Rent/Commission functionality from @Sir Stile Teckel 's thread

• Owner specified
• Voluntary user commission sent to Avatar of their choosing

Changed "Reclaim Selection by multi-dragging back to inventory" wording and added due to same thread

• Multi-Drag Item removal
• Remove all of my items (Right click option on vendor?)

 

Cleaning up the readability. Moved most lined out items into a Spoiler that can be used to see what is completed.

I left a few that are partially done and don't make sense without the context of the lined out part of the sentence.

Moved "Charge commission after sale" to Finished Items. Surprised I hadn't done that before!

 

Couldnt find in your post so ill add my suggestion here

Auctions tab for vendors

Allows players to create auctions for items - duration -1d-3d or 1 week .

Ability to place a discount on all items on vendor or just some - reduces all prices by 10-50 % .
Ability to discount items placed on vendor just for guild members.

 

Good idea on the auctions.

I think the other two are in already, see if this matches what you're thinking:

And I just realized this might not be in the best spot since it's in the "Multi-user vendors" location:

Maybe I should put that somewhere else?

Added:

• Create Auctions, set Length and Starting Price

 

@wizardsmoke I hear there may be some vendor improvements coming, so tagging you. Everything's on the first page.

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Updates:

Moved to Finished:

• Save Vendors specifically in Magic Mover
  • No need, just put it in your inventory now, they stay loaded

Added:

• Ability to remove peoples listings without banning them from the lot

The Data area needs some reformatting due to changes in the mail system. I'll get to that soon, I'm not sure which parts to pull out yet.

 

@wizardsmoke Refinements for a better tomorrow.

Changing the Save state of a vendor to reduce mouse clicks. Any items you have in inventory that are part of the saved should get listed with a single button click.

So:

• "Save" state for vendor, with visual cue (such as the name being in red) of missing item.
  • Double click check inventory and if item is there launches transaction window with previous price pre-loaded

Became:

• Sold out or partially sold out stacks (when that comes) are still visible to seller, but in red
  • "Refill All" button checks your inventory and refills everything it can find at the previous price
  • Small "Refill" icon only visible to Merchant next to each item, same functionality but per item
    • Both: Consider pulling inventory from bank as well

And I can't believe we didn't have edit prices in already. The thought was right click, but that is dumb, it should be editable in the UI without the extra clicks. Like any accounting software ever.

• Price can be edited by clicking in the price field, typing, pushing Enter
  • Once partial stacks becomes available, stack size editing needs to be as well.
    • This will check inventory and add to stack size if you're increasing, or push items back to inventory if you're removing

And basically the same for buy orders:

• Save buy order tab (save us hours of time)
  • "Save" button saves items, stack sizes, and prices
  • Fulfilled or partially fulfilled stacks (when that comes) are still visible to merchant, but in red
    • Small "Refill" icon next to each item, visible to merchant only
      
    • "Refill All" button at bottom of window
      • Both check your gold and if you have enough performs refill
        • If you don't, throw an "insufficient funds" message

• Price and quantity can be edited by clicking in the appropriate field, typing, pushing Enter
  • Price should be Price per item, which will facilitate moving to partial buy orders

And then I put in an example of accounting software, and how there isn't a confirmation window for every damn action. Imagine how much hate that would generate? No, fields are editable and automatic calculations, things computers are great at, happen, automatically.




I'm about a week away from quitting buy order completely, sorry noobs. At least one, maybe more major merchants just quit doing their buy orders. Long ago @Spoon told me how bad they are, I hung in as long as I could, apologies to all those in Soltown who I chewed out for not doing them. I don't blame you for quitting.

Here's hoping some of these advancements come this year so I can provide that service again some day.

 

@Vladamir Begemot

A programming shortcut that I tried to sell in to the devs long ago was to use the “item sold” and “order fulfilled” paper receipts to restock with.
Where if you drag receipts to the respective manage tab it searches inventory and if found pop up the list item with that quantity and amount.
It wouldn’t require any new UI elements or objects but would still give huge utility. Thus hoping it could happen in a shorter timeframe.

I could redo that topic if we want and give it some attention.

Not that I don’t like the suggestions above but rather that it seems unlikely given the timeframe of how long we have suggested stuff and the amount actually implemented.

 

Do you collect paper receipts? I just trash them. I suppose if they had some utility I might not.

Potential issues or questions I see with that:

• Clicking to retain receipt
• Inventory management of receipts
• Do you multi-drag them into the sale window? One buy one would be shoot me now.
• Do they cross check which ones are already listed and only relist the ones that aren't filled?
  • In this case, once a person finally built up a receipt list of exactly what they want to buy, then that receipt list could be kept in a box and used repeatedly, and I could see how this would work
    • That's going to make us all have to go list everything we need, then sell it all to our-self with an alt, to make sure that every listing is saved
      • Or you'll wind up with duplicates of popular items and missing of ones that aren't, because you buy wood a bunch of times and six months later someone finally sells a suet. Do you remember to keep throwing away the new wood receipts but save the suet one?
        • Or do you have to keep trashing every old one and keeping only the new?
• If it doesn't cross check then you're going to have to be careful not to get double listing
• There's no way to see what is inside without opening the receipt, that's a lot of clicking if you have to look
  
• Does this work for inventory as well as buy orders?

It might be easier to just save the state of the vendor rather than doing a complex work around.

 

@Vladamir Begemot

From a coding implementation point of view then it would be really simple, while a save state with checks and all have a bunch of bug vectors and edge cases.
This was more of a KISS thing, it is not meant to solve all of the use cases, just a Minimum-Viable-Product making some things simpler, so looking at your reservations I'd say that the intention is something Chris could code in some hours including preliminary testing. So one would want something that the user can't ruin through mistakes.

Clicking to retain receipt
Inventory management of receipts
Do you multi-drag them into the sale window? One buy one would be shoot me now.​

You have to collect your mail to get your money anyway.
So you just have a mailbox and an inventory container next to your vendor.
You stand close, take the container to inventory, open the mail, make the selection of the ones you want, Take All button.
Now you have both the container and the receipts, you then click the Vendor, click the manage tab, drag the receipts there and if found the quantity and amount pops up as written in the receipt.

Do they cross check which ones are already listed and only relist the ones that aren't filled?​

No. That would be extra code.
Instead the presumption is that you only want to refill stock or orders that you receipts for.

In this case, once a person finally built up a receipt list of exactly what they want to buy, then that receipt list could be kept in a box and used repeatedly, and I could see how this would work
That's going to make us all have to go list everything we need, then sell it all to our-self with an alt, to make sure that every listing is saved
Or you'll wind up with duplicates of popular items and missing of ones that aren't, because you buy wood a bunch of times and six months later someone finally sells a suet. Do you remember to keep throwing away the new wood receipts but save the suet one?​

Not really the use case for that. You could do such things but that isn't effective.

Or do you have to keep trashing every old one and keeping only the new?​

You trash the receipts after the refill, then you see the ones remaining are the ones you didn't have in stock anyway so might need to make more of. Where the remaining reciepts would be the reminder to make more - and once you have you can simply drag those and refill in one go.

If it doesn't cross check then you're going to have to be careful not to get double listing​

No extra code, no cross checks.
Up to the user how they do it and how they solve it.

There's no way to see what is inside without opening the receipt, that's a lot of clicking if you have to look​

Yes, but that "if you have to" is key. You don't.
Instead normal use case is for the basic user, they only have one vendor per location, so they could take all the mail for that location and just restock that vendor.
For traders who have multiple vendors per location they'd have to be a little smarter - say one bag with the name of each vendor - then in the mail UI you hover on the coins to see which ware and drag to the right bag. I already do that today for mine.

Does this work for inventory as well as buy orders?​

Yes, any receipt. The buy orders are just much much simpler since the only comparison is gold.

If it is a buy order, you drag your receipt to the manage order tab, it checks if you have the gold and if so it prompts the object, quantity and price for confirm.
If it is a sale, then you drag your receipt to the manage sales tab, it checks if you have the object in that quantity and if so prompts for confirm.

 

Ok, so let me try to get the method readable for myself:

Sorting mail:

• Make sure no receipts are in inventory
  • Open mail near Vendor #3 (or carry a bag for each vendor in your inventory)
    • Filter by town name
      • Use brain to filter specifics (lights, kitchen, and trophy's for example) for vendor #3
        • Find appropriate item in mail, open, Take All.
        • Repeat until all of kitchen and lighting and trophy items have been taken
      • Put receipts in container #3, specific to that vendor
• Repeat for next vendor

Restocking:

• Open container and vendor #3
  • Drag (all at once I hope?) receipts to buy tab
    • Loop manually or automatically depending on if this is single or multi-drag functionality (which is it?):
      • IF item(s) is in inventory?
        • Open transaction window, automatically fill in price (and quantity for buy orders)
        • User pushes enter? Or its automatic?
        • User deletes receipt? Or it's automatic?
        • Continue loop
      • Item is not in inventory, skip and leave the receipt in the container
        • Take container to crafting location and craft with it as guide

Here's how I currently do it:

• Sorting Mail
  • Don't. Just take the money as it comes in and ignore until standing in front of a vendor or crafting table

• Show up at vendor #3.
  • Open mail, bank, and inventory if I've got items in it (I usually stock from the bank now)
    • Filter mail by town name
      • Use brain to filter specifics (lights, kitchen, and trophy's for example) for vendor #3
        
        • Find appropriate item in mail
          • If item(s) is in inventory or bank, drag it to Manage Inventory
            • Mouse over the gold icon in the mail, fill in price from that
            • Sign for transaction
            • Delete All (including the never picked up receipt)
            • Continue Loop
          • Item is not in inventory or bank, skip and leave the mail in mailbox
            • Go to crafting area, open mail, craft everything that's left over

I'm still unclear on if your method is multi-drag batch restocking or single, please clarify.

If it's batched then I could see some considerable time saved . That part is less efficient than leaving the mail in (multiple containers, sorting receipts, having to move receipts) but if it will batch list 50 items then that would be a win.

If the user is dragging one by one then the only time saving I am seeing is removing the need to mouse over the gold quantity in mail and type that in the price field. To me it appears that would actually be slower due to the time cost of managing bags of receipts.

Opinion:

I don't see a point for single item restocking in this way. If batched restocking could be achieved, I see a point to that, it could be a real time saver.

It also is offloading too much rigamarole to the player. We've got the ability to save entire houses. Lets save vendor state. Lets have editable fields within it. Lets have a great experience. Lets not do any more bandaids half methods like the NPC UI, just because the release cycles are 30 days.

----

This is separate from a save function anyway. How does:

• Batch relist items and orders from receipts

sound?

 

@Vladamir Begemot
Just the note that I’d prefer something like a save state, but that given that the time we have seen them dedicate to vendors since buy orders is kinda minimum. IIRC We got the patterns for looks, the doubling of the number of listings, the if unattended sit down and the listings remain when moving the vendor. Don’t think there has been much more behavioral changes than that.

Hence why I had proposed that easy implementation instead of a better one. Since that could be done in an afternoon and slip into a release without much planning.

I will make some manipulated pics instead, I think that will make it more clear what I’m proposing.

You batch drag drop but you still have to press confirm multiple times as you go through the receipts.

 

@Spoon

Added in Socking and Buy Orders:

• Less desirable alternative to Save:

• Batch relist items and orders from receipts (see page 3 of comments)

• Drag receipts to window, successful relist deletes receipt

​

 

Just a reminder that this exists, should the devs want to work on vendors some day.

 

Noted, and keep'em coming. Publishing Community guidelines today, working on the "Nerf Feedback Report" for Chris today, then on to helping people advertise their town and guilds via new directory threads. Well, after I catch up on CS. Feedback and Wishlist work coming soon, and keep in mind, Ravalox has plans for it too.