Suggestion: Vendors

So I know from experience that reagents are selling locally for 20 gold each. But some of the people at the vendor are trying to sell them way above price. What's a good deal and what's a horrible deal?

The Garlic is a little under the customary max sold by local NPC's. But the Corpse Wax is being sold for far more. What's worse is that about 25 feet away is a magic shop selling all of these reagents for 20 gold each.


What I propose is that the local NPC vendor price be shown in another column. I say this because it will make our economy stronger when more people (both buyers and sellers) are educated. My concern is that if we keep it as is and people always have to figure out if they're being completely scammed then they will lose faith in the system and it will have a negative impact on trade and game retention.

I think adding an extra column on this screen that shows local vendor pricing would be an easy way to avoid that.

 

I could see that in towns with a government that tries to protect the citizens. It is customary to have some type of trade commission overseeing local businesses for fair trade practices. Perhaps even offering regional and local price averages.

However, not every place should offer that.

 

Not every town would have shops and vendors so it wouldn't be needed there.

But for large markets, it seems like it only helps trade - which is a good thing.

 

A little off topic, but does anyone else find the vendor screen really off putting? It feels very sterile and not very well laid out. I guess this is all part of the UI in general...

 

It took me some time to get used to it. But it's functional and does the job.

I'd also like to see a "Cost Per Item" column, doing the quick math of what the average cost per item you're buying would be.

So something like this:

Item Name-----Ask Price------Local Price-----Avg. Cost


This would give me a quick way to know what the heck I'm buying.

 

Mixed feelings about the proposal.

On one hand, if I have a short time to play in an area that I am less familiar with, I'm may resent being scammed as in the example above.

On the other hand, if I am in the flow of the game in a zone and highly familiar with what is going on, why not be rewarded by the knowledge of what vendors have the best prices?

Ultimately, this may be less about convenience though and more about what is most important for a good economy. Economic costs should be driven by supply and demand. I think your question about should it or should it not have an other dimension of education and visibility.

The difficulty is that the SOTA system today is more like those from history - we have to go look for ourselves We don't get to Google prices to see who has the best. In some way that seems fitting for the game setting. For that reason, I'm ok if this is unlike futuristic games like SWTOR with a galactic market tracker.

 

My comment about not being offered everywhere is with regard to black markets and free trade without oversight, as in thieves dens.

There should be different types of markets, and town owners should get to pick if they want to participate in either or none.

 

Yes, I agree. But I'm only talking about legal goods. Illegal goods would not be sold by players via an NPC vendor in the middle of the street unless the local government allowed it. In this case, people are either ignorant of the amount they're trying to sell for, or hoping that new people don't know there's NPC's selling it much cheaper within walking distance.

 

You know what I realized recently?

That random players mistake the Player Vendor for a normal one, selling them bulks of junk as if they'd sell that to regular vendors, accepting default values.

That may be one of the reasons why there are always rusty swords and kobold warhammers listed.

 

That's a good observation. I hadn't thought about it like that before.

 

The current DLMB plan is the reverse.

NPC prices will fluctuate with supply and demand.

So if players pay overprice then the NPC prices will go up.

Just saying...


Edit
Saw a funny side effect of that in r14 where for a while
Village lot deeds
was 20-30k above
Town lot deeds
which was when this effect was beeing tried by the devs.

 

Good point. I think that's great as a reactive mechanism. I was focused more on trust and retention from the players using non-NPC shops. Like when I look at the screen shot in the OP, I'm a veteran player and even my first reaction is What the heck?! It really takes me a while to figure out what's a good price and what is completely silly.

 

That's what happens in a "free" market...

Sellers have the "freedom" to try and sell at any price they like, they are praying on the uninformed consumer. A new player that hasn't seen what an NPCs would sell the same item for... Price fluctuation is already in the game for NPCs, I have bought repair kits @100 ea for 20, and then try to buy another 20, and the price jumped to 180 ea... and that's the way it should work... I've seen it as high as 250 ea, and as low as 100 ea. I've also traveled to another town to buy at 100 ea because I would,'t pay 250 ea...

Buyers have the "freedom" to buy or laugh in their face...

I would like to see the vendors work just like the Banks, showing all sales in every region, but not allowing a purchase unless you're in that region already... You could check NPC pricing, Player Vendor pricing or Public vendor pricing... That's the only way that I see stimulating "competition", which in a "free" market, controls pricing through scarcity... The price "gougers" are weeded out by the true merchants... In the case of NPCs and Player vendors, you would need to travel to the location to purchase... The info displayed should be enough to find the Town/Street/Address of the vendor (now that we know those are planned)... Maybe with a mouse over...

 

Also, vendors already have preferred items - or at least items related to their job they'd want to pay more.

Sell bread to the innkeeper and swords to the armorer, not vice versa!

 

No one is suggesting that prices be fixed. I'm suggesting that we inform consumers in an effort to help proactively keep inflation unnecessarily high. It may seem like it's just helping stupid people, but this has a huge benefit to the total economy which will help the game for the long run.

 

I never suggested "price fixing", how did you come up with that one? If anything it's called "advertisement" or "competition"... What you're suggesting is posting the NPCs current price next to the offering by a player, and that's price fixing... Showing the buyer a cheaper price, steering them away from a players offering... Basically that's "socialism", where the "state" (NPCs), sets the price of everything... I'm talking about "capitalism", "free enterprise"...

Inflation is controlled by competition between sellers, not organized auctions to the highest bidder (that's what causes inflation, and only the filthy rich can afford that, it basically shuts out all other buyers) or players "monopolizing" the market...

Another factor is "scarcity", when there are just a few sellers listing the same item, then prices tend to be high, but if "competition" from another region adding their listings at a lower price, wouldn't you go the extra mile to buy your supplies? You can only get that kind of market through "advertising"... If the buyer doesn't know you're selling, you won't make a sale...

It's happening right now, go look at the price for iron ore, it's like 50 for 15,000, that's 300 gold ea, that's outrageous... The seller can only get away with it because there is NO competition, and the other sellers are just following suit (monopolizing the market)... I dought they've made very many sales... Don't they know a player can mine 50 ore in like 30 minutes... They're just limiting their own sales by being unreasonable...

 

No, it's nothing like socialism.

Look, NPC's are not supposed to undercut players by design. However, players are not supposed to take advantage of people that don't know that a Chunk of Salt doesn't cost 20k. That's all I'm trying to do here.

 

Don't get all madd, it's just "alpha testing", it's not going to stay this way...

 

I'm not mad. (bro)

I'm just replying to your argument with a logical defense. The purpose of the OP was so it would change. If it doesn't change, so be it, it will have little impact on me personally. But come launch when we have 100 times the people playing this game it will be something everyone feels indirectly. We want people to trust the trading system. We don't want it to be so confusing that they just quit.

 

I don't know what you're saying.