Vendor Malls 2.0

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darkred
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Re: Vendor Malls 2.0

Post by darkred »

3) I think 10,000 gold * number of vendors is a good / fair number to use for pricing. We can also limit the availability of it by
minimum weekly sales, to prevent 100s of small shops springing up and filling the cheap teleporter spots available.
Wait, you're worried about MORE people getting vendors? because that is what it would signify. OR. some nefarious people making multiple toons, to abuse that option. 1 vendor per account, resolved ;)

Per world porter slots. set a minimum number of vendors to be able to acquire such. Start with 10 and see how it works out. Perhaps set up a guild vendor option where rates are slightly reduced for a guild member placing a vendor in a guild controlled setting

Personally I prefer the old days of having a box with 50 runes, that you would visit based on need :) Granted rune books make that much easier, but I do miss going to people's houses ( I guess tents are gone) and buying because they were actively encouraging people to visit...ahh the days of those xroads and cove vendors ;)
Deorum
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Re: Vendor Malls 2.0

Post by Deorum »

Personally I’ve hated the concept of TC and MZ vendors since the first couple of weeks when I joined the shard 6 years ago. It’s likely the single thing I don’t like about it. Both areas seem to take forever to load, take forever to find stuff I’m looking for, and I generally avoid them at all costs. I’d nuke the whole system and go back to individual vendor placements at player homes and the occasional player-run mall that gets established. Then again, I don’t game and macro the heck out of everything possible in UO, so I’ve never had a problem with having so much gold that I need to sink it or deliberately take advantage of game functions like has been described here. I don’t expect anyone to agree with me, just saying that there’s at least one person that says get rid of the whole system and go back to the game default.
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Yoda
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Re: Vendor Malls 2.0

Post by Yoda »

see this is the thing right now we are 3 pages deep. into a very simple problem

all that has to happen is the no fee becomes universal and we start to let the players decide more where stuff like vendors go, centralized vendors imo is a terrible concept generally but here is the simple truth.

we got here because too many things happened at once.. picture if you will a clown car.. and you put your changes in this car.. your "clowns".

its not a competition to see how many clowns can get in the car, its a race.. you are trying to get the car down the road. so.. lets reflect a bit

when the vendors were changed

the fee was removed AND they were made searchable AND they had multicurrency AND ....

thats alot of clowns in that car, tonnes of weight to the axle and before too long.. its losing the race..

so now that we have reflected why is the way forward more clown car changes?

like animol said, convert to a sales tax and WAIT do nothing else and see IF a problem arises before making a tremendously pedantic solution

as for the vendor malls and perks I don't need them any of them I am fine paying for the world teleporter as it stands now it doesn't need adjusting. the fact that 1 place on the shard was a no consequence low cost area with options options options

and the player run stuff or mz was a whole bunch of poking of our wallets.. thats the problem, none of this other stuff, not supply and demand, who gives a care if someone pulls and resells.. this is so over the top..

once again it functioned for the first 5 years of the shard fine, then it started to be treated like a gold sink the players slapped you.. and you over reacted causing them to slap you again..

like animol said.. make 1 change and wait.. if the fee structure reverted at tc back then, that is ALL it would have taken to refill it, but I am sure the shard was happy to get the features, now apply them fairly.

no need to make it a launch the space shuttle reams of code solution, too much control for no reason
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+Requiem
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Re: Vendor Malls 2.0

Post by +Requiem »

darkred wrote:
3) I think 10,000 gold * number of vendors is a good / fair number to use for pricing. We can also limit the availability of it by
minimum weekly sales, to prevent 100s of small shops springing up and filling the cheap teleporter spots available.
Wait, you're worried about MORE people getting vendors? because that is what it would signify. OR. some nefarious people making multiple toons, to abuse that option. 1 vendor per account, resolved ;)

Per world porter slots. set a minimum number of vendors to be able to acquire such. Start with 10 and see how it works out. Perhaps set up a guild vendor option where rates are slightly reduced for a guild member placing a vendor in a guild controlled setting

Personally I prefer the old days of having a box with 50 runes, that you would visit based on need :) Granted rune books make that much easier, but I do miss going to people's houses ( I guess tents are gone) and buying because they were actively encouraging people to visit...ahh the days of those xroads and cove vendors ;)
There's a limited number of shops spots available, and we aren't planning on increasing that number. Legitimate malls might not be able to get a teleporter spot because of individual people with 1 vendor buying all the spots. I'm not worried about more vendors, just about the lack of space/competition on the number of slots available. Unless we restrict it somehow, or auction off the spots to the highest bidder, etc.
and the player run stuff or mz was a whole bunch of poking of our wallets.. thats the problem, none of this other stuff, not supply and demand, who gives a care if someone pulls and resells.. this is so over the top..
I think this is perfectly fine. If someone is buying you out to re-sell, it means you're priced too low. Free market at it's finest.
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Yoda
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Re: Vendor Malls 2.0

Post by Yoda »

definitely I think tho in macro we on both sides worry about silly things as players or even staff

the resell pull tax avoidance there is alot of manual leg work on the part of the player that goes into it.. in my estimation its more trouble than its worth.

as for pricing to each their own I can handle it, I never quite understood the mentality of putting 1 or 2 of something on a vendor, and then griping when someone cleans you out, I quite agree that is free market at work.

I think the real problems stem every time on every shard I have ever played on when someone gets the idea to centralize it to a town, rather than again letting the free market dictate the where.

concentrated competition in 1 geographical spot leads to follower behavior be that undercutting, or insane pricing or otherwise which Id have no issue at all with an insanely priced set of stuff at an individual player home, putting them all in one spot kinda leads to trendy behavior more then when exploration is a bit required.

all I was saying earlier is a balanced fee structure means people wouldn't bother with all the niggling silly stuff as much in the first place (a fella can dream)
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darkred
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Re: Vendor Malls 2.0

Post by darkred »

I still think 1 vendor per account is viable. as opposed to people have TWO in TC. I mean...piggish IMO :)
AllenHonors
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Re: Vendor Malls 2.0

Post by AllenHonors »

Many good ideas above. Thoroughly tried to read the bulk of it.
The way things are currently setup, it's a seller's market and a buyer's headache.
I'll try not to draw comparisons to SWG's old bazaar market system. (but, it was seemed to be an even match on buying vs. selling).

I've heard that the price was once included in vendors.uoex.net listing before, but was removed??? This doesn't encourage competitive pricing by removing the fee being asked for said item(s). This just makes the buyer have to prowl through the listings one by one to do their own price comparisons. Slight advantages in one regard for sellers, bigger disadvantages to the buyers.

I feel as though anything being sold over a set amount of $5 million gold (just a random #) shouldn't be allowed to sell on vendors in a public mall such as TC/MZ. As those items could be sold from within player malls to encourage foot traffic to their malls. I've enjoyed TC being a one stop shop, but it's turned into a seller's paradise of selling $5k gold items for $50k and just sitting and praying some fool comes along that doesn't have the time to compare prices on the same item through multiple vendors. Taking out the ability to sort for the cheapest price on the market via a "bazaar"/vendors.uoex.net market really stings the buyers that are just trying to buy something with a quickness and get back to their grind. Spending 30 minutes trudging through vendors all selling a particular item eats away at the shopper's time. The way things are has gravitated heavily in favor of the seller, especially at TC if they don't have sales taxes comparable to the items they are selling.

I commend all of you for the input and trying to address many of the above mentioned ideas. Not an easy task or a quick fix at all to solve the market woes.

But, in summary my 2 cents... anything considered "big ticket" above 5 million gold, should be sold at player vendor malls to encourage ppl to venture somewhere other than JUST TC to gander at the fancy high priced items. Perhaps there could be a fee to advertise 3-5 or 10-20 at max, high ticket items via vendors.uoex.net with the coordinates to those player malls or shops. I miss the days of having runes to my favorite shops. But, also love the vendors.uoex.net system cuz it gives me the feels of SWG's bazaar terminal. Traveling to player malls and shops should be encouraged imo as opposed to a shop selling ridiculously high priced items just due to the love it gets from the world moongate.

I'll end on those notes before dragging it out any further. Glad to see people are aware some things need fixed. Looking forward to future changes. Would also be keen to know why the ability to sort by prices isn't a part of the vendors.uoex.net system anymore (if it was at all to begin with). I feel like that's one of the ways to help with competitive pricing. Amazon is a buyer's market... with the ability to sort by pricing. Yet, plenty of businesses sell through Amazon fairly comfortably.
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Yoda
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Re: Vendor Malls 2.0

Post by Yoda »

no no no.. no prices on vendors.uoex.net we are STILL recovering from that period of time.

it sounds like logic but it is madness, we did it that way everything became valueless very quickly but people could shop quickly..

no deal for me on that one.
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+Requiem
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Re: Vendor Malls 2.0

Post by +Requiem »

Would also be keen to know why the ability to sort by prices isn't a part of the vendors.uoex.net system anymore (if it was at all to begin with). I feel like that's one of the ways to help with competitive pricing. Amazon is a buyer's market... with the ability to sort by pricing. Yet, plenty of businesses sell through Amazon fairly comfortably.
Pricing was once a part of vendors.uoex.net, and it pretty much crashed the whole economy. Everyone undercut everyone else, and there was ZERO stability on pricing at all. Wild price swings depending on who had what listed when. It's not something I would ever want to bring back.

Given the choice, I'd remove vendors.uoex.net all together, in favor of exactly what you described before. Finding a "good" vendor, and marking a rune to it, as well as taking the time to search for a good deal. Vendors.uoex.net already makes it pretty simple to do comparison shopping, and is much less time consuming that finding the "right" advertisement/rune outside brit bank ;)

Amazon works because in the real world, we have finite resources. In (most) video games, there's unlimited resources, and people tend to not value their time, at least in the same way they would in real life.
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Re: Vendor Malls 2.0

Post by AllenHonors »

+Requiem wrote:
Amazon works because in the real world, we have finite resources. In (most) video games, there's unlimited resources, and people tend to not value their time, at least in the same way they would in real life.
I agree to an extent. Appreciate the prompt reply.
[exex is our resource trading platform and imo it works quite quite well. The pricing is already front-loaded to the best pricing available for resources in our current format. Pricing is automatically determined by the highest buy offer/lowest sell offers. I feel perhaps something is being overlooked if using the "resources are finite" as the reasoning. Due to [exex still existing and it seems to have a stable market. I would be upset to lose [exex market.

The "undercutting" problem I see could be an issue, but adding in complex taxing algorithms as opposed to dialing back to the basics seems a bit more tedious. The "undercuts" I presume are on the high ticket items? Someone wants to sell bat wings for $3m... next person says I'll sell mine for $2.5?

This could be mitigated to some degree as in my suggestion of offering only so many listings via vendors.uoex.net listings. Say a player might only be allowed to purchase 3-5 listings of their prized items they would like to sell via the bazaar/vendors.uoex.net market at one time. As a guy, when I know I'm after something in particular, I'd rather not have to sift through 20 different listings to find the best deal, as [exex clearly helps me in this regard by front-loading me the lowest available pricing automatically when it comes to resourcing.
Last edited by AllenHonors on Wed Aug 29, 2018 9:26 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Vendor Malls 2.0

Post by AllenHonors »

Also, to add to this. Drawing comparison to SWG once again. They only sell high ticket items via their housing vendors on that game due to it costing too much to put up the advertisement via the bazaar/"vendors.uoex.net" system. If I want to sell an item with a "market" listing, I may have to suffer a 10% - 20% sales tax fee. Where as selling it via personal vendors at a player run mall would be 2-3% or along those lines.
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Re: Vendor Malls 2.0

Post by +Requiem »

In my humble opinion, exex is broken because it offers the best price with 0 work on anyone's part. You just look at the number, and price yours higher or lower depending on if you're buying or selling.

Undercutting is a huge issue, that not many truly understand. There are still people who will argue with me over "lower prices helps the newbies", which in fact it does not.

Let's look at a classic example. Archery 120. Arguably one of the most valuable scrolls on the server.

If it's going value is 3 million gold, you need to sell 9 of them to purchase a relayer, at 25,000,000 gold. If people keep undercutting it, and the value drops to 1 million gold, now you need to sell 25 of them to get that same relayer. You've just forced the new player to work 3 times harder, to get the same "value" out of their work. They need to do 3x the champions, because the scrolls have been devalued.

In your example, a difference of 500k - 9 to buy a relayer vs 10. Not a huge difference, but a difference none-the-less, with that person having to work harder to get the same end goal.

It's a quick fix, and instant gratification that rules the day, but in the end, it takes them more to catch up than the guy who waited and sold the item at the actual value set by the market.
As a guy, when I know I'm after something in particular, I'd rather not have to sift through 20 different listings to find the best deal
That's why you pay more - for the convenience of not bargain hunting.

SWG isn't really comparable to UO, because the crafting was so different. Two of the "same" item could have vastly different values depending on the materials used to make them, and/or how the stats rolled. Here, batwings are the same if you loot them, or buy them for the 47th time from a player. They also don't degrade, and have a limited lifespan as on SWG.

Another example is "I mined it, so it's free". While technically true, what most people fail to consider is what those ingots are worth. If you go mine 1000 ingots, and you can get 8000 gold for them, that's what you're losing out on, regardless that you spent the time to mine them youself. You could have 8000 gold (by just selling them), or whatever you make with those ingots. There's an opportunity cost involved.

Lets say the going rate of iron ingots is 11 gold. You decide to undercut the next guy, and put yours on market for 10 gold. 1st guy needs to sell 2,272,728 to have 25 mil, you need to sell 2,500,000. Not sure how long it takes you to mine up an additional 227,272 ingots, but you're working that much harder by undercutting.
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Re: Vendor Malls 2.0

Post by Alamiester »

+Requiem wrote: Undercutting is a huge issue, that not many truly understand. There are still people who will argue with me over "lower prices helps the newbies", which in fact it does not.

It's a quick fix, and instant gratification that rules the day, but in the end, it takes them more to catch up than the guy who waited and sold the item at the actual value set by the market.

Another example is "I mined it, so it's free". While technically true, what most people fail to consider is what those ingots are worth. If you go mine 1000 ingots, and you can get 8000 gold for them, that's what you're losing out on, regardless that you spent the time to mine them youself. You could have 8000 gold (by just selling them), or whatever you make with those ingots. There's an opportunity cost involved.

Lets say the going rate of iron ingots is 11 gold. You decide to undercut the next guy, and put yours on market for 10 gold. 1st guy needs to sell 2,272,728 to have 25 mil, you need to sell 2,500,000. Not sure how long it takes you to mine up an additional 227,272 ingots, but you're working that much harder by undercutting.
i just snipped a few parts, hopefully i didnt take out any context. whereas i see your point in the undercuting on exex, i dont believe its a big issue. because 1, a person can only mine so much. and 2, after so much is bought the price goes back to what it was listed at before. thats why theres so much fluctuation in the pricing on exex. sometimes i see the prices on leather really high. so i wait a bit, and keep checking. eventually someone will throw a better price on there. thats when i buy the leather. and also alot of the items on exex dont even get sold on player vendors. so it kinda is making a market for most of the items.

ill drop another example of how i price some items on exex. green thorns are usually around 650-700. i harvested a batch of about 2500 about 6 months ago. i started playin around with exex pricing. when i needed some gold i sold some for less then that price. the rest i priced at 850+. granted they have been sitting on there awhile i wanted to make some gold on the majority of them. as of now i have 326 priced at 850. so if you use exex right, you can make money based on demand, all it takes is time.
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Re: Vendor Malls 2.0

Post by mattwaldram »

whereas i see your point in the undercuting on exex, i dont believe its a big issue. because 1, a person can only mine so much. and 2, after so much is bought the price goes back to what it was listed at before.
Just as one example, off the top of my head, to counter this. I remember about 18months - 2 years ago, a really great source of my income as a then mid-level player, was ointments. If I was levelling, hunting, or doing quests, I'd build up a good supply of ointments and I could see them (direct sell) for anything between 1,000 and 1,200gp each. That's just the plain ointments.

Then someone came along and dumped a LOT on at 800gp, and I remember determining that I wouldn't undercut because I wanted them to return to their normal price. They didn't. Then someone undercut the 800gp. Now it's 2 years later and they're worth about 550gp. Oints are still great loot, but they're worth 50% of what they were - and that's been the case for a long time.
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Alamiester
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Re: Vendor Malls 2.0

Post by Alamiester »

i wouldnt so much say thats an undercut, but thats just how the market works. ive seen oints go up and down, just as green thorns have. when someone decides to oint their pets, the price tends to go up for awhile.

someone else saw an oportunity to collect and sell them also when you did. the more people that sell them the less demand theres gonna be, so the price will stay lower.
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