One stop shopping: General issues

[Aeght]

I thought this should perhaps have its own thread rather than be part of the 'what is only sold where' thread.

To quote Ngreth:

I mean really, when you go buy ore do you really get water in the same place?

The only reason you do not in RL is that drinkable/usable water is generally readily available. If it was not available on tap though, why wouldn't an ore vendor carry it in stock? Or if the ore vendor did not, why wouldn't a water merchant set up near the forges?

Why would merchants not set up where they have a guaranteed market?

Merchants in EQ are too often placed/stocked according to whim rather than any sane business sense.

Most EQ smithies sell finished products such as armour and/or weapons in the smithy or nearby... do those NPC smiths run sometimes half way across the city for water too? Why wouldn't they simply carry extra?

It cannot be fear of competition from outsiders (PC's) coming into the shop to make products. If that was the case, why would they let outsiders use the forges in the first place? Or why would they sell ore at all?

Specialty shops may specialize, but they tend to carry at least all the common goods related to their specialties, most of the uncommon, and as much of the rare goods as they feel they can. This is the real difference between a specialty shop, and a general shop, and why the specialty shop wins out in their field, assuming of course there is a sufficient market for their specialty. Being deliberately convenient increases sales. Right now, they are being deliberately inconvenient... why?

Aeght

[Eggborn]

Usually I see with each expansion zones look like the designers made an attempt to make it easier, but it also gets more difficult as the market gets more complex.

I noticed with Neriak, that is was a wonderful place to smith plate armor. Everything is so close to the forge.

When Kunark came out, East Cabilis (minus water, which is one zone away) was a tradeskill mecca city. I still go there as much as possible because its so easy.

Shadowhaven kind of annoys me but it is also quite a nice zone for its stock.
PoK is also pretty nice, except for the Taanan only containers that dont work anywhere else, (like guild hall).

Abysmal Sea and Shal Vahl were also attempts at making everying available in one zone. There are alot of tradeskills that require water, so sometimes, yes one would have to run a little. This is why I think we have so many options for bags.

I just want rennet and corks in East Cabilis lol.

[Chakua]

I always hated that water issue. My easiest solution was to completely fill every available backpack slot with stacks of water and then sell them to the nearest vendor that had plenty of space. It saved me a little bit of time and a LOT of frustration.

[Bara]

Face it. There has to be some reason to pry us obsessive compulsive tradeskillers away from the forge, kiln, etcetera.

[Aeght]

Face it. There has to be some reason to pry us obsessive compulsive tradeskillers away from the forge, kiln, etcetera.

Oh give me a break.... we still have to spend endless hours farming parts and/or plat to supply/finance our work.

It is not as if centralizing common, already purchasable components suddenly grants anyone a free ride.

Aeght

[Tiroon]

I loved the old bazaar where you could bet some enterprising toon had water for a plat each next to the forge.

[Ngreth Thergn]

I respectfully disagree.

I have no plans to ad water to smithing vendors.

I am happy to be sure water is in the same zone though as a smithing vendor. So if there are zones where smithing is doable with vendors in that zone, I will add water (Note City of Mist does not apply) Let me know what zoens are missing water

[Bara]

Oh give me a break.... we still have to spend endless hours farming parts and/or plat to supply/finance our work.

It is not as if centralizing common, already purchasable components suddenly grants anyone a free ride.

Aeght

Sure... which leg?

Untill they make a collapsable forge or collapsable kiln for me to carry round in my bags the Dev's need to do as they have in the past and make sure certain common items are a small distance away from certain tradeskill containers. I guess you have been lucky enough to never have had the experience of being blocked from using a tradeskill container for 15 or 20 minutes by someone who decided to go afk and look up the combine, answer the phone, wash their hair, watch tv or whatever. I suspect the GM's also hate having to deal with these situations also because we all know that they don't have enough to do.

[Xulan]

I respectfully disagree.

I have no plans to ad water to smithing vendors.

I am happy to be sure water is in the same zone though as a smithing vendor. So if there are zones where smithing is doable with vendors in that zone, I will add water (Note City of Mist does not apply) Let me know what zoens are missing water

Neriak 3rd gate please. Cultural smithing is done there, and there is not a drop of water (in a flask anyway) to be found =)

[Verdandi]

This is getting out of hand.

Am I the only one who remembers trekking from Halas to Highhold for ore? Not high quality ore or even medium quality ore - plain old ore. It wasn't even in Qeynos or Surefall; we had to hike to Highhold. Uphill. Barefoot (well, on foot). In the snow (ok, part of the way). It's true that we've come a long time since then in terms of supplies availability, but you can't say that's how it's always been done, not remotely.

Furthermore, the devs don't "need" to do anything. You are one of thousands of customers asking for one of zillions of possible changes. Some can't be accomodated because the devs (including higher management) don't think they're not good for the game. They may seem harmless on the surface but set a potentially troublesom precedent. Others may be truly beneficial from every angle but too time consuming to be worth it when more important changes are also waiting. We don't know what all those other issues are that the devs are juggling. All we can do is ask for things.

You asked. Ngreth answered. If you want to pursue it further, take it to /feedback or SOE's message boards, which they pay to maintain. This message board is for discussion of the tradeskill community amongst ourselves. Ngreth joins in as he sees fit, but I will not allow anyone to badger him any more than I'll allow anyone to badger anyone else here. Not only is it impolite, but it's a really good way to drive him away from the board entirely.

If you want to talk to Ngreth, or any other SOE dev, do it on SOE's bandwidth. If our enforcement on this seems erratic it's because we're trying to balance fostering productive discussion with avoiding becoming the Ask The Dev board. We're volunteers doing our best to keep the board alive and healthy.

Thank you!