Universal vendor with price

I totally agree with the above two posts.

Trying to remember what I came for...
"Me after hours of shopping"


And what did that other guy have on his vender?
Exhaustive!

and possibly easier...

If it's limited in data, then we sure need to figure out what we can fit into whatever "limited" is. Too much data he says (and I don't doubt him), but what does that really mean in terms of what we can expect?

In my recent shopping travels...

• 
  
  • When I was looking for armor it was very difficult, and I don't know if any vender search will put much of a dent in that (I could be wrong). But that shopping I will not need doing again for a very long time.
  • When it came to commodity shopping, quantity seemed most important over price, yet a search including prices on commodities would be a plus... but quantity was king.

The biggest difference I see between armor & weapons shopping and commodities shopping, is that...

• with armor & weapons, those are more long term things which take allot more consideration and time spent comparing what each vender has to offer.
• with commodities, it's quantity and cost, "And it's needed on a more often basis".
• Recipes is a great one, only needed once, yet if they have the one we want it goes a long way to cutting shopping time for them.

My armor & weapons will last a very long time, but my commodities supplies require the most shopping, much more often.

I think we can come up with something more suited to our needs if we concentrate on what we shop for most often. "Then maybe we can get prices on those included in such a search".

I really would like to hear more from everyone on how we could include and better serve things we more often need/shop for, by limiting those things that need more long and well considered shopping. which would be better served shopping and considering at the vendor.

I don't think this subject is dead when it comes to better ideas which could better serve it so we can get closer to something that would be of great use to cut down our shopping time.
This Universal shopping with prices is a GREAT IDEA, and I'd hate for it to not be as helpful as it could be, if we just don't want everything listed in great detail, other than those things we more often shop for.

The armor and weapon I did buy, will last me a year or more, so I don't see armor & weapons needing convenience shopping.

Do you agree? "yes or no?"
Am I way off base here?
~TL~

 

It all comes down to commodities! Quantity with Prices!

• Armor & Weapons should be eliminated from search! (Where there are commodities, there is likely armor as well, and we don't need new armor and weapons that often)
• Rare Items & deco should be eliminated from search! (Where that are active players, there are commodities and thus rare items, and we don't shop for those very often)

By eliminating Armor, Weapons and Rare Items, we cut that data mass down by as much as 90%

Commodities, the door busting items... Quantity & Prices!
If there's no price listings on commodities, then a vendor may stock over priced commodities, just to get the shopping foot traffic. Yet if we have commodities with quantity & prices, then commodities make a great competitive way to draw traffic to you vendor.


Recipes, do they have the one we want...
That's a no brainer, "yes or no" and the price doesn't really matter.

Food, do they have what food we want...
Again, a no brainer "yes or no" and the price doesn't really matter.

That's my simplified list, maybe you have other ideas or maybe you can see where commodities with quantity and price are what we need in detail and much more often.
~Time Lord~

 

It's not just commodities. There have been many times that I looked for specific items like, for instance, founder heraldry tabard cloth armor. The short answer is that I want to find whatever it is that I'm currently looking for.

 

How often do you shop for those? Do you think that you will often be shopping for those? Sure, we could include everything, but in including everything we lose convenience in information for those things we shop for most often.

Convenience = 7-11
Walmart take a while,
and Neiman Marcus or Macy's will take an even longer while, all due to those items needing study and not being just taken off the shelf every day.

Too much mass data is what Chris said, which means everything will be included without quantity or pricing which are most important to daily shopped commodities.

BTW Those are easily found. If you can't find any, let me know and I have some sure fire suggestions to get them to you.
~TL~

 

Nice try to bait me but it's just one example from many. And yes, global search implies everything.

 

Bait you? The answer is simple, the things you mention are all things that are shopped for once or twice in a sota person's lifetime.

Now if those are the types of items you are seeking to engage marketing in (buy and trade), then of course you are a rare items trader, seeking to ease your shopping, which isn't normal players usual everyday shopping. That's nothing to be ashamed of, I have many sets of rare things I've collected, I just don't trade in them, I collect them not for resale.

~TL~

 

The answer is that I spent more than two hours searching before I found those items. It doesn't matter how you try to dumb it down, that's just not acceptable.

 

I don't know how that fits into Chris's mass data refusal or how he may shrink what you're wishing for into his final cut in that mass data. But whatever his cut in mass data is, we will have no choice but to accept it.
~TL~

 

Honestly, I don't think it will ever happen anyway.

 

That's a very good possibility, or maybe placed in priority so low it never reaches the top.

Teleports & Fast Travel Signposts Matter...
I began using teleporters recently on a mass scale. Using so many is much like running through a rat maze. As routs become more traveled, they get inset into memory as to which teleport to jump through to what destination. It's then just the recal scroll for the return trip. Some places dropped off my teleport shopping trail due to either zombie empty vendors or vendors with no centralized or quick travel sign post near them. I found 2 vendors that were great, well stocked and inexpensive, but they each took a 5 minute horse ride to get to even after arriving at the towns they were each in.
I aim for each teleport to arrive at the closest fast travel signpost to the vendors.
~TL~

 

Based on the time spent to load bank contents for example, I think Chris is trying to tell us that the tech behind the database for items isn't ready to be used in a global search context.
If my bank alone takes 10-20 seconds to load, how long will it take to search vendor in a scene like Crafter's Town for example.
It's not a matter of narrowing the types of items that could be searched for, it's probably reworking the game's entire item database for this to happen.

That being said, I believe the workload will eventually pay off with better new player stickiness.
How?
Well, they'll be teased early on with good gear for 5k gold or so, and some of them will stick to the game with this personal goal in mind. When they get the 5k gear, they'll feel stronger and look up all gear slots to fill. And then look for more powerful gear. And so on and so forth.

The new player experience right now feels like lottery. The luck to find that good piece of gear for a good price. That or go to CT and find out you're really really poor to get even the most basic items.

 

Thx for the link. Btw. Vendor question start at 58 min.
What Chris said confirmed my guess.
The system wasnt setup in mind of af global search/marketplace. There is no big database that you can easily query. All vendor data are tied to your character. What we want is still possible, but I am sure, it would have an impact on the server performance. The loading time for opening a fully stocked vendor is annoying, but I fear, the search time for one item in one of the major trade pots is even worse. I also think, Chris has to implement a delay time between search requests or some players will have some fun with slowing down the server.

 

My bank 6142 items of 8.000 loaded in 31 seconds.

 

Tldr, time lord didn't read?

 

Mass data overload...

OMG, Read? What new skill is this you speak of?
If it doesn't have a music video, then I know nothing more deeply about it ~TL~

 

If the database is a flat file then it will be difficult. Think csv file.

If the database is a modern sql database then is it is all about creating a view of the data and indexing it for quick rapid access. There are larger databases used by larger companies that returns million of rows in seconds. Like MySQL

 

A very large step!!! https://twitter.com/catnipgames/status/1425580023197708294?s=19

 

Good start

 

I think it's a great thing and that shouldn't adversly effect the mega-shopping towns, but go a long way to not having them need to expand any further than they already are.

Bigger is not better, it's just bigger.
Thanks for sharing, I'm not in the twitter'verse.
~TL~

 

Hooray! Excellent news!