Bazaar overhaul

[Itek]

before zoning into bazaar do these things...

alt + o

display

clip plane 0%

filters

shout off
ooc off
auction off

alt + o

/shownames 1

Gosh, the lag in bazaar gets 90% eliminated just by changing MY settings. (Hint: the server doesn't display the video info to ITSELF it merely stores positional and movement data and forwards them to you. 560 people all moving at once would be ... painful. But it's my experience that 470+ of the 500+ people in the bazaar are not so much MOVING.)

See the above hint for why moving the trader limit to 800 wouldn't be so bad.

We don't need "multiple bazaars" as that defeats the whole bloody PURPOSE of HAVING a BAZAAR in the first place. (One stop shopping in a non-adventure zone.)

We really need TWO things.

1) A que. A line of people WAITING to become traders. 500 limit reached, you are number 48 in line to become a trader, please wait. (Wow, we don't need to up the limit after all, and que forming has been a MUD staple code library since the beginning of time.)

2) SET TRADER LOCATIONS. There is plenty of room in the bazaar for 500-600 traders and people waiting. The vast majority fill the lower half of the zone and crowd together and cause "please don't sit on me" debates. Each of the "trader limit" number should have a set position. This would make it easier to both buy and sell. And eliminate "griefers" putting their Ogre with one bone chip for a million plat right on top of your Gnome selling Tinkering stuff.

Weightless money. Well, that's somewhat less likely than horses, and we all know there will never be horses in.. ... ... Well let's not hold our breath none-the-less.

"let's not allow pricewars" ...

Free .... market .... economy ....

Guy in our local bazaar has 84 Morning Dew for sale at ... 50 pp each. Everyone else selling Morning Dew has 1 to 4 for sale at prices between 20 and 50 pp.

Gee, do you think he's speculating in the market? Buying all the cheap Dew and marking it up trying to corner the market?

So break him. Get 100 Dew and price it at 40 - 49 pp. He's NEVER going to sell his unless you sell yours first. So he's got to "protect his investment" and buy yours. So he can sell his. You just crushed his profits.

Someone's undercutting you on something. Let them. They will either make so little money they get tired or go broke. There's a huge difference between "cut-throat business" and "cut-your-own-throat business" practices.

If your prices are fair you have nothing to worry about.

[GraemeFaelban]

What would be even better is to make the trading an offline thing. It is a tremendous waste of SoE bandwidth, and a big burden on many people to leave a computer connected 24/7 devoted to a bazaar mule.

[Qualtar Shylok]

You are also wanting to get rid of encumberance caused by money. It just isn't logical to do so.

The justification is based on the exact same reason they were eliminated in the bazaar. It is simply not possible to carry 300,000pp to a vendor in a encumberance restricted zone. It really serves no purpose in game anymore, since the extreme influx of money over time.

Eleena - Lets look at your example from another perspective.

Joe_Buyer wants to buy some Brellium Ore to work on raising his smithing skill or to just make a few pieces of Racial armor. Brellium is only sold in Kaladim, but Joe_Buyer also needs leather padding to work on this same smithing skill. Does he A) go to bazaar to look at 250 vendors (reduced because vendors are now all spread out over the world) or B) stay in Kaladim (Knowing faction is ok, because he wouldnt be buying brellium if it werent) to look at the new 30 vendors that are in the building just near him (these vendor were smart and knew that smiths need tailored items so they set up near where a smith would be required to buy them, rather than all the way back in the bazaar)? I know where *I* would go.

Convenience becomes even greater as tradeskillers learn to stock items that gear specifically towards there customers.. rather than becoming a dumping ground for their ingame loot. Sure, if your trader has mutliple random items for sale.. by all means.. set him up in the bazaar... Want to cater to folks who may be KOS? go set up in another town where you can (shadowhaven anyone?)

Hrm.. dont look like wasted programming after all if you look at it the right way. The only real wasted programming is all those zones that never get used anymore.... This idea, takes the population into account and tries to use an idea to spread it out a little more evenly throughout towns and zones in the world that are no longer used.

I price my wares at just above break even in order to discourage anybody else from entering the market.

This is specifically what I am talking about... If you chose to do so is fine,... however, under the suggested system, you would only be effective to those within your area of sales. Some folks will never know that you sell for discounted prices.. or you maybe come renounced over time as being the "cheapest" on the server and customers will flock to you no matter where you are. Either way.. Bazaar or Kaladim.. you will still get sells.

The Bazaar is the primary selling point for the Luclin expansion

And Sony is no longer pushing selling an expansion that came out 3 expansion ago... especially since they just announced their all in one package that includes all expansions for new buyers. Regardless. they are not removing the bazaar and is still a selling point. Being able to tint your armor was possible prior to LoY, but that became a selling point of that expansion as well.

So are your going to buy PoP for anyone who doesn't have PoP but does have SoL to access the bazaar. The Nexus isn't really viable considering the up to 15 minute wait each time you want to zone. Lets say you just do this in 4 major citys freeport, qeynos, felwith and neriak. Lets look at how many clicks this would be.

All of your examples start out in PoK which is a PoP zone... LOL, but to entertain that thought.. lets continue...

You are in PoK.. You need items that are only sold on vendors, (i.e racial ore, soda water, vials, patterns, molds, etc) you have to zone there anyhow. Now a smart vendor will set up near where he/she knows folks "have" to come to make their wares... and there is no requirement to zone back all over the world.

For freeport I'd have to assume it would have to be in North freeport since thats where the bank is.

Why make false assumptions? The suggestion eliminates coin encoumberances so you don't have to camp the bank with your vendor. You could set up your vendor in the same zone as the port stone if you wanted. Its part of the city. But you have the freedom to chose.. and these choices will distinguish one vendor from another.

The current system caters to laziness really, and don't encourage real tradeskillers to form guilds, alliances, etc... the game has not expanded to that point yet, but with a few changes it could.

Doesn't really have anything to do with the bazaar.

Actually, it has alot to do with the bazaar and the /bazaar function. Removal of the price list makes competition more friendly and makes competitors actually EARN their wealth, rather than "search" for the lowest prices with one click and set their price 50p lower. Talk about unrealistic too.. can you do that in RL? Know everyone of your competitors prices without researching them?

Not to mention you have to run all over the place as a consumer looking for the components you need for tradeskilling

Well sure, if you dont have competent traders on your server... yes, you would, but I know where I would be setting up and what items I would be providing for sale. Do you?

Anything that tries to decentralize the bazaar or makes it a large hastle to use is ultimately going to fail.

Again, another false assumption. There are many games already published that dont use centralized market areas and there merchant systems are quite successful as well. Also take a look at many of the new upcoming releases.. where players will be required to go to different towns to barter wares.

The suggestion to have a looking to buy feature is also nice.

Its funny.. I thought this was a "tradeskiller" forum.. seems like I hit the "consumer" forum instead.

[Qualtar Shylok]

I think it would be fun to set up a vendor that made you unkillable in a popular grouping area, like for example the Maiden's Eye zone line in Dawnshroud Peaks

Idea is nice for convience, but I am sure they would hedge on implementing that.. for this one obvious reason......

You are in a fight, and you see you are losing... you run to the trader stall type /trader to prevent from being killed and train all the mobs there probably killing an innocent customer Not a good thing.

[Taushar]

I do agree with the first poster on one thing, we need to do something about coins. I propose they implement either reduced coin weight or even better is to introduce another denomination, titanium pieces (tp). The value of tp should be 10x of pp to keep up with the tradition. This would make carrying cash around, even if not in bazaar, a lot simpler solution. Maybe they should do both, reduce coin weight by 1/10 and introduce tp.

Here is one example of why you may need this. This is a pure fatasy so bear with me. Let's say I have elemental planes access. A group just killed some mob that dropped the elemental mold for armor. Now, everyone in the group has better and want to sell it for cash for the guild and from what I understand the molds are no drop. (this is the fantasy part ) They send me a tell to see if I was interested in coming and looting it for let's say 150kpp.

It would be impossible for me to carry 150kpp and make a run to the planes to get the mold. If they reduced the weight and introduced the new tp, I can probably manage to make the run with the coins.

Just a thought.

Taushar

[Eleena Transient]

Joe_Buyer wants to buy some Brellium Ore to work on raising his smithing skill or to just make a few pieces of Racial armor. Brellium is only sold in Kaladim, but Joe_Buyer also needs leather padding to work on this same smithing skill. Does he A) go to bazaar to look at 250 vendors (reduced because vendors are now all spread out over the world) or B) stay in Kaladim (Knowing faction is ok, because he wouldnt be buying brellium if it werent) to look at the new 30 vendors that are in the building just near him (these vendor were smart and knew that smiths need tailored items so they set up near where a smith would be required to buy them, rather than all the way back in the bazaar)? I know where *I* would go.

Lets look at the other side. I'm a seller with padding. I want the most exposure, and largest customer base. In Kaladm, you'd sell to dwarf smiths when they are working on cultural plate. VERY tiny market. In bazaar you sell to Elves, Dwarves, Ogres, Human, Dark Elves... when they are working on skilling up, filling odd orders (bp fo the emerald bp quest), or doing cultural.

Where is the ideal place to sell? Where you only target 1 race that is doing a combine run at the time? Or in a central location that caters to All races. I know i wouldn't bother going to felwithe to do combines unless I was ready, which means having padding in hand.

[Qualtar Shylok]

We did look at the other side... if you are selling racial armor in kaladim or the bazaar its still the same customer base. But to me it would be a no brainer to search in the city of the class that you are looking for racial specific stuff first.

As stated before... if you are a dumping ground for your in game items, or sub component items that can be used by a larger customer base then hiding away in a remote town may not be the best place for you... Maybe the bazaar would be better.. But there is no choice at this time.. making additional bazaar stall in each city would provide that choice. Do I want to trek to Neriak to see if someone is selling a "Windblade".. Nope... If I were a vendor I would keep that in mind.. set up in neutral areas that expose your specific items to the widest possible clientel.

Ever get to your combine point and realize that "****, I need some celestial essence!" only to have to trek back to the bazaar if thats where you buy them, or to the zones that sells the components? In this case do you think you would open the /bazaar function to see if its sold in that town, or would you just arbitrarily hoof it back to the bazaar?

There are pros and cons to both sides... the point being two things.... The bazaar by itself does not hold enough vendors, its laggy and there is no choice for traders to be creative and more successful.... Success as a trader today is based on how many time you check the wares you are selling compared to others and via one simple click lower the price by 50 p...thats not skilll

This option does not shut down the bazaar.. you act as if there will no longer be one central place for people to barter their goods... there is no change to the bazaar.. just an expansion of it which only has positive benefits. If you as a buyer only want to buy from the bazaar, then I imagine a vendor tucked away in Ogguk will not receive much of your business. A choice made by that vendor, but guess what.. he wasn't in the bazaar lagg'n the zone, and has made a choice on where he believes will most benefit him.

I really like the suggestion of adding another coin type titanium... i would make it x100 rather than x10. 300,000p would = 30,000 titanium.. still not an amount you can carry around... but 3,000 titanium is possible.

[Verdandi]

Originally posted by Qualtar Shylok
Its funny.. I thought this was a "tradeskiller" forum.. seems like I hit the "consumer" forum instead.

Tradeskillers are also consumers. We buy components, other tradeskill goods, and items unrelated to tradeskills. Furthermore, we need to consider the preferences of the customers. If they are unlikely to come to me, I am unlikely to sell to them.

In RL, when I want to buy something, I consider where I can buy it that is cheapest, closest, and most likely to have it, in roughly that order. As you've stated, the Bazaar is almost always going to be cheapest because of the competition. If this were introduced only in cities, as you suggest, the Bazaar would still almost always be closest for nearly everyone because very few people spend time in home cities anymore, particularly not higher levels who have the most cash to burn. As for where it's most likely to be available, if there are only a handful of people in each of the home cities, your chances of finding what you want there are simply numerically much less than your chances of finding it among the 400-500 sellers in the Bazaar. There may be rare exceptions like your example of brellium, but how many Traders would want to sell only brellium? I'd expect most of them carry at least a few other things, and that those things are very unlikely to sell as well in Kaladim as they would in the Bazaar. I don't see this getting remotely enough use to justify the massive effort of coding that the developers would have to undertake in order to implement this system.

I don't think people are failing to appreciate your intent to help out tradeskillers. Thoughtful ideas are always welcome. Increasing the value and availability of tradeskilled goods would be wonderful. I'd be even happier to see home cities revitalized. It's awfully depressing to wander the length and breadth of Qeynos without seeing a single other player. But I don't think this solution would work. It's just not practical, on many different levels.

[Marteeny]

Actually, it has alot to do with the bazaar and the /bazaar function. Removal of the price list makes competition more friendly and makes competitors actually EARN their wealth, rather than "search" for the lowest prices with one click and set their price 50p lower. Talk about unrealistic too.. can you do that in RL? Know everyone of your competitors prices without researching them?

Actually, there are many websites that compare prices from different stores.

[Qualtar Shylok]

Hehe.. I knew that would get a comment or two... Its good to think from a consumer perspective, but you also have to think from a business perspective... if all businesses did as consumers wanted, everything would be free and delivered to your doorstep prior to even ordering it.

Consumers want to buy the most for the least price.. which is why I made that comment... a business person wants to sell the least (items, not quantity) at the most price (as a general rule)... there has to be a middle ground somewhere, but the comments I am seeing on here are definitely from a consumer perspective.

In RL, when I want to buy something, I consider where I can buy it that is cheapest, closest, and most likely to have it, in roughly that order

And how do you find out what is cheapest? Through various media sources, word of mouth, or just going to "window shop", are the most common methods. Not by clicking drop down menu and then selecting the cheapest on the list.

Actually, there are many websites that compare prices from different stores.

Yep there are... they are called web bots... and the trade off is they generally have to be mail delivered to your home... time vs convenience. I doubt you will find online the cost off all the milk sold in your neighborhood on one web page on the internet.

Only thing I am seeing is its too time consuming/difficult to implement (which hasn't been proven) and its not convenient.

Why should anyone not be allowed to set up a vendor in Qeynos if they chose to?

There will eventually come a time when the bazaar is overhauled, expanding it maybe an option, but trying to utilize other unused zones seems like a better idea to me. Getting rid of the price column equates to protecting traders, and builds better businesses.

[Taraddar]

Originally posted by Qualtar Shylok
All of your examples start out in PoK which is a PoP zone... LOL, but to entertain that thought.. lets continue...

You are in PoK.. You need items that are only sold on vendors, (i.e racial ore, soda water, vials, patterns, molds, etc) you have to zone there anyhow. Now a smart vendor will set up near where he/she knows folks "have" to come to make their wares... and there is no requirement to zone back all over the world.

Not really. It's rediculous to assume that vendors will
a) only have components useful to one particular tradeskillers cultural armor.'
b) that there are an infinite amount of vendors and supplies to always have what you want on hand in unlimited quantities near where you want to work with it.

As a barb smith going to make cultural armor what am I going to do? Am I going to zone down to halas an hope that one of the few vendors down there has what I need to make my order and in sufficient quantities or am I going to go the bazaar and pick up everything I need or as much of it as possible from the hundreds of vendors in the bazaar? I'm gonna go to the bazaar and I'd bet most people will also.

Why make false assumptions? The suggestion eliminates coin encoumberances so you don't have to camp the bank with your vendor. You could set up your vendor in the same zone as the port stone if you wanted. Its part of the city. But you have the freedom to chose.. and these choices will distinguish one vendor from another.

Unless you made all coin compleately weightless then you'd probably still end up having to visit a bank to get your money so you'd still end up going to N Fp or where ever for the bank.

The current system caters to laziness really, and don't encourage real tradeskillers to form guilds, alliances, etc... the game has not expanded to that point yet, but with a few changes it could.



Actually, it has alot to do with the bazaar and the /bazaar function. Removal of the price list makes competition more friendly and makes competitors actually EARN their wealth, rather than "search" for the lowest prices with one click and set their price 50p lower. Talk about unrealistic too.. can you do that in RL? Know everyone of your competitors prices without researching them?



Well sure, if you dont have competent traders on your server... yes, you would, but I know where I would be setting up and what items I would be providing for sale. Do you?



Again, another false assumption. There are many games already published that dont use centralized market areas and there merchant systems are quite successful as well. Also take a look at many of the new upcoming releases.. where players will be required to go to different towns to barter wares.

We're talking about eq here where there's already a central zone to sell in setup and it's fairly easily accessable from anywhere in the game currently. With that already in place any attempts to decentralize it will ultimately fail.

The suggestion to have a looking to buy feature is also nice.

Its funny.. I thought this was a "tradeskiller" forum.. seems like I hit the "consumer" forum instead. [/B]

Well gee if 1950 in tradeskills doesn't qualify me as a tradeskiller I'm not sure what will.

Either way i'm done with this thread since your obviously right and anyone who disagrees with you is wrong and there's no point in wasting my breath.

[Hethral]

No way, I like all my customers being able to find my goods in one place. Then again I also like selling my armor cheaply so that as many people as possible can actually aford to wear it rather than gouging every last copper I can.

[Inyidd]

Getting a little heated here, folks. Deep breaths are the key!

--Inyidd

[Rendael Brigh]

A simple thing which I have done /feedback is make another bazaar zone.

It doesn't even have to be on Luclin. I think the story could go that merchants travelling far and wide have brought to Norrath the things they learned from Luclin, and have set up an organized Norrathian Bazaar.

Another option is to make another one on Luclin.

[Aamen]

I disagree, spreading the bazaar over several distant zones won't help. Folks have already suggested several good alternatives.

Now, what I think would really help tradeskillers is better inventory control.

Say, for example, a search feature not unlike the /bazaar command, but for your own personal inventory and bank space. It would allow you to 'see' everthing you own, and perhaps add some columns showing which bag and slot it resides in.

I know this would help me in locating items instead of digging through 16+ bags. Perhaps later on they could expand it to show the inventory of every mule you own as well.