Player Vendor 'roles' and other wish list functionality

A thread to discuss different types of vendor functionality that might benefit the community...

Here are a few ideas that were discussed earlier in Discord/IRC @Golem Dragon

- Vendor Roles/Jobs: - right click the vendor and change it's profession or function?

Auctioneer - @Golem Dragon mentioned having an auctioneer instead of a standard vendor. This would allow Avatars to have public vendor functionality, but we would be able to specify the duration of the auction and accept bids on the items, and accompanying auctioneer chat dialogue. It would be nice if this type of NPC could totally automate the public auction process, but also be configurable to assist avatars who want to actively display the items - such as avatars who want to model a suit of armor on a 'runway' for example.

It would also be nice if there was a way to 'drag and drop' items that are in the auctioneer's inventory, onto a display case such as this:

Perhaps the auctions could be handled through 'Lots' similar to the way real auctions work. The Lot is a container that supports multiple items. Optionally, these items can be dragged onto the display case for public display, but they're essentially read-only for all users. Once the auction has ended the items are deleted from the display case automatically. Avatars can bring up the Lot listing through the Auctioneer NPC interface, and through the highlighted Lot # in chat, or they can double click on the items on the display case and bid on them directly. This is all long term wish list functionality.

example:
Lot 1 - Starting Bid: 100 gold crowns
Duration: 10 minutes
item 1: exceptional meteoric iron epic plate helm
item 2: exceptional meteoric iron epic plate gauntlets
item 3: exceptional meteoric iron epic plate chest armor
item 4: exceptional meteoric iron epic plate leggings
item 5: exceptional meteoric iron epic plate boots
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Junk/Salvage vendor: This vendor specializes in the secondary market of broken items and scrap material. The players interested in this vendor will be looking for items for salvage value, or purchase for crown repair value. This would mainly be useful if a high salvage skill could yield more valuable resources than just scrap material, creating a contentious situation between Avatars who want to try recovering valuable resources from crafted gear, or Avatars who want to repair the the gear with crowns. Perhaps the vendor could give the crafted gear a salvage ranking to determine it's value.

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- Bidding on listed public vendor items: another idea I had was being able to bid on items that have been listed on the public vendors... if your item isn't selling at 2500g, perhaps avatars could put bids on the items...and maybe the seller would accept 2200 instead of 2500?

- Vendor messaging: It might be useful to have a mailbox system associated with the vendors so customers and sellers can communicate?

- Vendor analytics: It would be nice if I could see who my frequent buyers are, either by talking to my vendor directly or through a right click menu option.

- Customer discounts: It would be nice if I could give % discounts or other incentives to individual players or entire guilds.


Any other ideas for player or public vendor functionality?

 

How would auctioneering work practically?

Silent auctioning in auction house style I assume? I guess I see that more as an expansion of how vendors sell now than changing their role.

Else I'm imagining 10 vendors lined up on row lots in Ardoris, all barking out endless auction deals in a now swamped chat interface.

 

In UO (yes this is not UO), we had in the Auction House , a defined area that had a predefined space allotment, so as items could be displayed, but no one could reach said item and disrupt the event. This worked out extremely well, and we seldom had any problems. Occasionally we had the lone wolf trying to call out individual sales, but that person was quickly evicted from said Auction House for the duration of said event. I do not know if this could be implemented here, but it could be an option.

 

Some great ideas from the OP. Hopefully some or all will be implemented when the opportunity arises.

 

yes more of a silent auction method. have a minimum that must be met but then let us players go to town trying to get items at great prices.... I love it.. I really think when @Ancev first mentioned wanting to not have to pay a set price that an personal auctioneer, like the personal vendor, would be a great route to go. It could piggy back on tech and systems we already have, but provide some amazing player freedom in regards to many things we could all use them for. I am curious what @Chris, @RichardGarriott, and other dev team members think. Far worth it to discuss and come up with UI ideas and so forth to help as this would obviously not be an immediate thing, but definitely could be an enhancement down the road. @Ancev caused a spark of an idea that I think could be cool...

 

I really like the idea of bring able to create a store with a display case (table) and you can actually purchase the items on display cause they are linked to the vendor. This would also be cool to see in NPC towns not just player towns.