Vendor System

Maybe instead of anything resembling the old vendor system or bazaar, we could have something resembling the old EC Tunnel. Could there be a sort of pocket zone as a meeting place? Maybe with a quested item (like the main quest, doable at level 1) for an item to port to a meeting place where PCs can trade with each other? No NPC merchants would be featured, because that would take away from the platinum donator reward, but a bank would probably have to be there. Also, since putting a translocator in the zone would just make it an easier way to travel, is it possible to have an NPC that sends you back exactly where you were before entering to zone? I think the only problem removing vendors could cause would be difficulty meeting up with others when its convinient for both, but if this quest or something like it was implemented, it could solve that problem.
 
If i may propose a vendor type system that i encountered in another game (MU Online)

Basically, after a certain level (6 in MU's case) you can access a menu that allows you to drop items into a container for sale, you set a price and a name for your store and the store remains active as long as your online - people select a the buy command and right click you to open your store inventory, at which point they can just click to buy.

I dont think the EQ Engine will currently allow something of a similar fashion, cept maybe thru some modification of the Inspect system. While i know that you want to increase interaction, perhaps modifying the inspect system to allow other players to browse another players 'items for sale' possibly with an asking price - and from there interested buyers can then /tell the user in question and set up a deal.
 
elbas said:
I think the SoD playerbase is too small to make interactive auction zones (like the EC tunnel on live) workable. There's just not enough people to make it worthwhile.

If we take the old EC tunnel on live as an example, it might have had 100 people in it. That would be both buyers and sellers. That's like 3% of the server population. If the same ratio followed on SOD, that'd be like 10 people at peak times. That's just not enough people to have a viable marketplace.

Even if there were auction events, I don't know that would work either. I recall some events like that on live and there were lots of people--maybe 300 or 400? So what is that, 10% of the population. That might equate to 30 people on SoD. Again, not enough people to make it work.

Yeah, if the whole server showed up for the event it'd be great, but I just don't see that happening.

The problem with the vendors is that the current implementation has no incentive for the pricing to be reasonable. I've seen Wvyern earrings that go for 5pp in /auction listed for 75 pp on vendors. And why shouldn't they? If someone pays 75, great! If not, they'll vendor it.

I think we still need to have /auction spam. It's how I learned about lots of equipment. And we need a way of offline selling. The playerbase is not large enough to support online-only trading. So here's how I think both systems can be improved:

How to fix /auction
-------------------

Create an auction satchel. Items in the satchel are designated as being auctionable. Create the following commands:

  • /announceauction -- Broadcasts in the /auction channel all items which are in your auction satchel(s) both on your character and in the bank. Perhaps have a reuse timer so people can't abuse this. Everyone would see:
    • Soandso is selling: A rusty dagger, 5 bone chips, earring of godesshood.[/list:u]
      [/list:u]
      • /whatsforsale -- Displays a list of all items in auction satchels for players which are currently logged in (not the offline players). The list should only list the unique items. So if 5 daggers were for sale, you would only see 1 listed. Perhaps the quantity would also be listed. The output might look like this:
        • Items for sale:
          Rusty Dagger [5]
          Cold Beer [22]
          [/list:u]

          [/list:u]
          • /whosselling -- Takes as a parameter the name of an item. Would then display a list of the characters currently selling that item in their auction satchel. For example:
            • /whosselling Cold Beer
              Cold Beer is sold by: Crow [10], Wendat [8], and Appver [4]
              [/list:u]

              [/list:u]

              These commands would enable a vibrant auction market. It would allow a large number of players to buy and sell all kinds of items without endless /auction spam.



              How to fix vendors
              ------------------
              To get the vendors to price their items more appropriately, the rent to the vendor should be based on the items for sale. For example, charge 10% per week of the average cost of the items for sale. That would discourage people pricing 5pp loot for 1000pp or from having their vendor on forever with nothing good for sale. It would also enable people to sell lowbie stuff and still make a profit.

              To get better vendor turnover, allow people to have vendors for only a limited amount of time (like 1 week), and then they have to wait a few days before they can get another one.

              Is it possible to add more vendors? If so, add a vendor zone off of the city zones (perhaps the Bazaar) where all the vendors go. This wouldn't be all the vendors in the whole world. Each city would have it's own vendor zone. Perhaps you would ask the Banker to transport you there. Having more vendors would enable more people to sell stuff and prices would be more appropriate.
Click to expand...


            • Upon reading that post - i think that is also a great idea - and is more...plausable/managable then my idea :p
 
Just for starters I haven't read the entire thread but prob going to watch a movie in a few minutes, and just wanted to get the idea down. From reading so far major problems with the vendor system are the automation and the unfairness, at least thats what I've picked up from the discussion so far. Other problems I've seen would be the restriction of time contraints etc. So what I was thinking was maybe a wanelo type system set up as a seperate page would be helpful perhaps. Instead of viewing a character one could list items that they have for sale. Putting them in a special kind of banker (as not to have massive amounts of items on their character at once, which would kinda kill the whole thing for a few classes as far as my limited knowledge of EQ & SOD suggests), and some kind of a WTB on a particular item listing or notification type thing, where it would let the seller know when you are on or vice versa. It would keep the automation from being full and may solve the hunting around for vendors problem. At the moment it's a pretty amorphous idea, perhaps it's already even been suggested in some way shape or form, so my apologies if it has. Will read the rest of this thread probably in a few hours. Just wanted to throw this in the mix and see what people think.
 
- - -How about using elbas' idea (I'm asuming that the list generated by the "auction satchel" is saved in the server when the player camps) along with a new option for the postmasters, so people can ask for items they want to buy from people that aren't in the game at that time, it would work like this:

- - -You see XXXX selling YYYY at ZZZZpp, so you go to your closest postmaster and use the new option, writing exactly the name of the item you want to buy and giving the money to the postmaster. When he/she checks a postmaster for new mail, gets a message with your name and the item you're interested in, and can accept or decline it. To accept it, he/she sends you the item using the postmaster and gets the money in that moment. In case it's declined, you get a message saying so and your money back.

- - -Sorry if this is a bit chaotic, but it's hard to explain while having to hide what I'm doing from my teacher :p
 
I like the auction satchel idea quite a bit, just read it. Though it still would be nice to have some kind of I'm looking for this function available. An ingame function like this may be kinda odd s'why I thought the wanelo system might be better for it. I think it may create alot more trade and make for a more competitive market, as if you're looking for a particular item you would be able to see vendor A,B,& C's listing on it. Say A is selling for 20pp, B for 10, and C for 15. Well either they all get sold if there is enough demand, or the vendors try and match each others prices to stay competitive. A would probably wait for a bit, see the item isn't sold, type it in and see that other ppl are undercutting the price and could change it. This may have it's own problems if implemented though..
 
I was trying to think of some ways to reduce the server performance of the /whatsforsale and /whosselling commands. Even if the auction satchel is lore and only has 6 slots, if 300 people are logged in that's 1800 auction satchel slots to examine. Then if there were keyword or stat queries, that would slow it down even more.

So I was wondering if we could make use of the bazaar window somehow? This would not be like the bazaar zone on live. It wouldn't have anything to do with offline selling. Rather, it would just list the items in the auction satchels for the people that are currently logged in. That would get rid of the /whatsforsale and /whosselling commands. I could do /bazaar and get the bazaar window populated with the items from everyone's auction satchel. Then any queries would be done on the client.

I would think in this case it would be okay to list the price in the bazaar window. If the seller had a price in mind they could specify that, or they could have a price of 0 if they wanted to entertain offers. But one issue for listing a price would be how would the seller tell the server what the price should be?

Could we use the /trader command for uploading prices? The way /trader worked on live was that there was a data file on your system which contained the prices you setup for your items. When you went into trader mode, that data file would go to the server. Or how does setting up vendors work in SoD? Maybe that same system can be used (I've never setup a vendor, so I don't know how that works).
 
Another idea to consider.

How about setting every item in the game with a buy/sell price that NPC merchants will use and set up a place with lots of NPC merchants and let players sell to the merchants or buy from them, then there will be no need for players to monitor the auction channels constantly for a needed item to come up for sale, they can just check the inventories of the NPC merchants for it. When I say setting a price, I mean a fair price for both the buyer and seller based primarily on how rare or hard to acquire the item is. The NPC merchant pricing system on live is so out of whack with buy prices of pennies for items worth thousands of PP and items worth nearly nothing selling for thousands. This does mean that prices will become more or less 'fixed', but anyone wishing to sell their items for more or less than the merchant NPCs is still free to do so through auction. A lot of people just want to get some money for their excess gear quickly without being ripped off by a NPC merchant that pays nothing and many want to upgrade their gear without paying thousands for a 20PP item and I think this would work.
 
Different things are sold different ways.

Some things are rare and powerful items that command high prices. There is a huge amount of variance in the price of these items, and some person to person haggling is well worth while. The game could help by some type of advertising/search so that a buyer could locate a seller, and by some type of remote trading (as in the post master suggestion) to ease the burden of travel.

Some things are traded enough that they become commodities, with more stable but generally lower prices. I think a different solution is needed for these type items because the sales price flat out does not warrent the effort to sell them individually. It would be neat if common trade skill components and perhaps some of the more common lowbie gear could be sold though an automated broker... eg, it would buy a stack of dire leaf at 18 plat, and sell them to a player at 20 plat. It would be complex, but having the price vary by player demand... or having some ability of buyers to make requests (ie: here is 105 plat, I will buy 5 dire leaf stacks at 20 plat per stack and the game charges a 5% broker commision).

The commodity solution resolves an issue that exists today where small quantities are not worth the effort to sell. I do a lot of hunting in zones that drop wyverynfang quest pieces. There have been times when I had a stack of materials, one or more of every pattern and someone spends over an hour begging for a specific piece on the auction channel... It isn't worth 2-5 plat (or even 10 plat) for me to stop hunting, head over to SNP to make the trade and then travel back.

Just some thoughts...

Craig
 
Actually, one thing you could do to fix the vendors would be to enable the /bazaar window to show everything the vendors are selling.

I don't check out the vendors anymore because of two reasons. First, it took too long to visit them. Second, even when I found one selling something I wanted, it was priced very high. This is from the perspective of a newbie, but even the newbie stuff was really expensive. This quickly discouraged me from checking the vendors.

But if the /bazaar window was enabled, I could see what's for sale among all the vendors. I could find the item I want and go get it without endlessly searching each vendor individually.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom