Buyers finding customers and customers finding value [In game selling and buying]

The last few weeks I have been working slowly on generating gold in game.

I have decided to try and skip the RNG of finding beetle carapace and exceptional procs for equipment.

So, for half of Release 33 I have been looking in game for suitable leather armor and weapons, along with any other items of interest.

Currently the private vendors scattered throughout the zones are causing a pretty basic issue where information on the economy is not readily available.

Sellers don’t know what buyer’s want, buyers don’t know how much things are worth and both have difficulty finding each other where there is an item for sale that has demand and is at a competitive price.


Last night I travelled to Aerie, Owl’s Head, Kingsport, Brittany Wharfs, West End and Estgard to see if there were any items to buy with my gold. For reference my gold amount of 34k, I was surprised to learn, puts me at the top 10% of players which I found to be rather surprising.


Here is what I noticed, along with potential forms of in game feedback to help the situation:-


Sellers listing basic material items like plain leather and iron for several thousands of gold. There’s very little demand for items so easily crafted by anyone, but since commission free vendors don’t return items to the bank if they don’t sell, I have a feeling that these are from the first week or two when people were trying to cash in early (Like when I was selling chests for 1k each in Owl’s head for a tidy profit). I think providing feedback by having a vendor return failed sales after 1 week to the bank would help sellers properly identify when items have no market or are priced too high and keep relevant items for sale instead of the vast amount of useless items that no one would want.


Advertising services and shops is very limited, but is the lifeblood of a business. Please note; I do not consider the use of resources external to the game like forums, to be a suitable replacement for in game methods of communication. I believe in game mechanics need to support economic fluidity to help gold flow among more of the populations. To that end, having Town Criers or Town noticeboards with a mechanic to place ads for seven days for a fee and track the housing lot will help buyers and sellers find each other.


Adding a delivery system where a buyer can deliver gold to a seller and the seller can deliver an item to the home lot or bank would also help these players make transaction between time zones. Not to mention a mail system is likely something that would see value across all players.


If I were to compact this all to one point, some services to make buyer and seller more likely to meet, while preserving the special element to housing placement and world size would go a long way I think in also helping money to flow more freely between the top 10% and the rest of the players.


Not the auction house system , but ‘something’ to direct buyers to sellers instead of me repeating my grand tour of cities whenever I feel like spending money.


Oh, I didn’t buy anything last night because I couldn’t find anyone selling anything for the right price. I was ‘tempted’ by unopened artisan tools at 19k gold.

 

Just spitballing here - as I have no idea of relative values and do have some I'd be interested in movng - would you be "tempted" by artisan tools, unopened, at 5K gold?

 

I agree, which is why I started the Yellow Pages. It would be better if Portalarium provided an in-game vendor search function, but it is a start. Issue 2 will be coming out in R34.

BTW, if anyone wants to add a free entry to the Yellow Pages, just PM Womby using this format:

Name: Name of establishment
Location: Name of City/Town/Village/POT, and location therein
Property Owner: This will enable people to set a compass bearing at the Town Crier
Sells: One line description of items sold

Example:

Name: Vyrin and Womby's Bookstore.
Location: Aerie. Turn right when you reach the well. First building on your right.
Property Owner: Vyrin
Sells: Books (including rare limited editions); copies of the Yellow Pages.

EDIT: BTW the Yellow Pages is non-profit. It sells for 2g, which is the cost of the blank book used in production.

 

The Yellow pages is something I found in game and was really happy to see. Only reason i haven't added an Entry for our Weapon and Armor smith business is we lack resources while still gearing/skilling up. Our Blacksmith just got GM last night though.

 

I would buy them Asclepius, PM me if you are still interested in selling.

 

It sounds like you are trying to strike a balance between those that want a modern trading sim and those that want a swords and sorcery world. I have a feeling that while what you are proposing would work, it is likely to be too invasive for those that don't want "Cheapest Coins allowed by LAW" to be on a billboard in a medieval village and not enough for those that miss EVE.

 

They are selling for 15-20 000 on the public vendors...

 

IMO this falls right in line with the traveling issue.

One of the things I thought UO did very well was travel (many many years ago) which not only helped new and vet players, but really helped vendors. I know I for one would go around and once I found a vendor I favored I would take one of their runes to revisit when I needed.

I remember seeing vendors giving out their runes at all the major cities. Much better way for players to visit their preferred vendors.

Having one vendor for reagents, one for katanas, one for armor and so on - was a great time saver and helped those crafters have returning customers.

Yeah, yeah I know you all don't want speedy travel. But what you do want IMO us unattainable using the current world design.

You can't have a world that requires travelers to walk every where (teleport if they're lucky enough to have a friend in the area they want to go) to find and visit vendors - this is an insane design flaw for the economy.

If it were not a flaw, why would there now be a post on helping to "jump start" the economy (labeled Balance) and even the playing field by @DarkStarr ?

The vendors are all over the place, practically everyone has one (except for me of course LOL) and finding them and revisiting them is ridiculous.

For gosh sakes, it's the 21st century - have we learned nothing about what game players want in 30+ years?

I for one do not want to exit the game to find in game stats (I mean really, WTF did they take the stats out of game?)/vendors/maps etc. - I mean really, no maps of areas? Every game today has maps of areas in game - except this one of course.

I do appreciate the effort of players (such as the Yellow pages, the HUD for stats and more) trying to fill the gaps of poor design considerations, but filling gaps like that is an exercise in futility and a never ending battle.

 

I was watching a preview of a new SimCity IN SPACE game yesterday, the player was given "missions" for virtually every building they placed, the game was effectively playing itself with the player merely pushing the buttons it requested. The last 30 years have made it clear as to what type of game people want to play.