Vendor Update 2018

[+Requiem]

We will be looking into updating vendor rules/regulations/taxes/fees, etc in the coming month(s). We would like to solicit your input for ideas on how to do this. I am including an internal document I crafted, with things we need to think about, and include/exclude in our evaluation of vendors going forward.

Keep the thread civil, and on track.

Vendor upgrade

I personally think this is going to be more than a quick fix. There is a lot to think about.


* Vendors should be profitable. Taxing everything, and/or charging (too much) for vendors is I think counter-productive in many (not all) cases. Low end item's don't make a lot of profit, since the market is newbies who don't have a lot to spend anyways.
* Vendors should be able to sell low end, and high end items, without extraordinary fees either way.
* If we enforce a fee that is considered “too high”, people will go back to using display tables.
* If we don't force a fee, people exploit the system to avoid paying, or overprice items with “PM offer”
* We could collect a fee up-front, but then it requires people to have money, which goes against why you're selling in the first place. Also hurts competition. (favors vets)
* Collecting a fee at the end makes more sense, but restricting players from exploiting by just removing that item, and selling it themselves... (could also lead to more people going back to table selling). (This can also hurt competition)
* Do we allow re-pricing at no-cost? Only within a certain amount? +- 5% free reprice, more than 5% some repricing fee? People could still just mark down 5%, then another 5% to get around it also....
* Non TC vendors need to be able to compete with TC vendors. No daily fee on one negates competition, and is unfair.
* TC should have unique qualities to keep people interested in it (ED/Elven Notes/Tokens as valid currency)
* If a player removes a vendor in TC/MZ, they should not be able to replace it for a certain time limit. (20 hours?)
* If a vendor is dropped for lack of payment, they should not be able to place a new vendor for a certain time limit.
* Clarification for where the money comes from upon renewals. (bank? exex? vendor itself?)
* Vendors should not be commodities to sell to one another.
* Maybe an auction system for TC vendor spots. Players bid on a vendor spot, then get it for X days, then a new auction.



Do we want TC to be the central trading hub going forward? Some players said it was a bit overwhelming starting there.
Should we keep TC, even if we move where player's start?

Enforcing a fee seems to be the biggest issue. There should be a gold-sink involved I think, but how do we

1. make it fair to all players (for low and high end items)
2. allow items to be repriced to stay competitive, or not be repriced?
3. prevent players from circumventing the fees?


+Rs suggestions
After a lot thought on this matter, I think we should consider the following:

1. removing daily fee from all vendors (so we can still sell high priced items on vendors) or re-implementing a daily fee, and coming up with a way for players to sell high-priced items without extraordinary fees. (Using 10% (I know its 6%) - It's one thing to pay 200 gold a day on a spell book, another to pay 5 mil a day on a relayer).
2. keeping ED/Elven Notes/Tokens/Other Currency as a TC only thing
3. removing the free vendor listing from TC vendors, or giving it to all vendors (promotes competitive trading) (fees for one vendor should not be free on another)
4. price matching (or adjusting to be more fair to all vendors) world teleporter and TC/Zento vendor stool pricing (promotes fair competition)
5. Saving vendors upgrades when vendor is dismissed (deeded?)
6. Shindaril suggested, and I really like a time-based fee idea, +C had a similar idea.



Time based fee idea - I like this, without the option of returning the fee to the player. I think there does need to be a gold sink involved, and there should be some risk.

That being said, I really do like the idea of paying for a time limit. It could be something like

3 days could be: (1,000,000 * 6% * 3) / 7.5 = 24,000 = 2.4% of the total - no discount
15 days could be (1,000,000 * 4% * 15) / 7.5 = 80,000 = 8% of the total - an overall discount of 4% from previous tier
30 days could be (1,000,000 * 3% * 30) / 7.5 120,000 = 12% of the total - an overall discount of 4% from previous tier

(numbers subject to approval - theory only - only shown for visualization) At the end of the time limit, items would be sent back to the players bank.


Another option is to remember to initial listing price

* allow player to re-price the item, but charge a 1 time fee when it sells for X% of the new price
* allow player to remove item for 5 minutes, with a confirmation gump, to pay no removal fee.
* if a player removes the item, without selling it, they are charged %X fee based on the initial listing price.




* TOWN CENTER VENDORS would need special consideration, since they decay after 10 days.

New 8/8/2018



1) Store the value of the item when it was listed. If player removes item from vendor, or it sells, they are charged X% of this amount.

2) Store the total value of all sales for 7 days. Players are again charged X% of this amount.




These would replace the daily fee currently on vendors. - In this way, it also allows people to only pay for what they sold/listed.


Idea for shops vendors: Lower world teleporter fee, but add in fee for # vendors in house(s). Too many “free” vendor spots. There should be a gold sink involved, even in running a vendor mall.

[+Requiem]

reserved

[Sethra Lavode]

Hello!

I think starting new players off in an area where there are so many vendors with such high priced items is a bad idea. Maybe make TC Vendor area for new players only: only new players can place vendor there.
Make the 'mega' vendors area in a portal they can go through, as MZ is now. I like the idea of the time limits/lack of payment removal. I like the idea of the % increase when a player ups the price on an item(s). I like the idea of the 7 day "storage" idea to help stop any work-arounds people will try to figure out.
Why not make all the currency options across the board? That said, I have a "vendor" at my pub that I do not stock with anything...he is only there as 'deco', so to speak. Maybe I am the only person that does this, heh

[Wil]

I think the TC style vendors are needed. We need a place where expensive, slow-moving items can sit until someone wants them. Otherwise they just end up buried in a house somewhere, unsellable and unbuyable. I think putting a timer penalty on it would be destructive.

I don't think TC style vendors belong in TC where new players start. The fee structure at TC should encourage noob-accessible pricing for rapid sale. Cheap or even free for stuff that sells fast enough. Emphasis on enhancing the newbie experience over sinking gold.

I think the whole removing from the vendor to sell by hand penalty is a solution in search of a problem. Who exactly is hurt by offers and negotiation? Exploitive? Seriously? That's nuts! Penalizing folks in this way would be needlessly destructive and SHOULD NOT be implemented.

I hate the idea of limiting how long someone can hold a vendor. Continuity feeds reputation. People learn to find certain goods in certain places.

I like the idea of posting all vendors' items on vendors.uoex.net without a fee. If limited, limit it to vendors whose inventory has been updated in the last 10 days so that only folks actively maintaining their vendors are listed.

Regards,
Wil

[Onoquoy]

Some immediate thoughts


I love the idea of removing daily fees from all vendors.

I think adding all vendors to EX shops for free is a great idea, i also think removing the free listing from all would be ok, but charging say an extra 2% of sales commission for those who tick the box for listing on vendor site.

I think the 8% fee on all sales would be a acceptable commission and provide a bit of a gold sink. I would have no problems even at 10% if the listing on website was free.

You could circumvent the removal to accept offers by implementing a timer where cannot remove items from a vendor for 30 days after listing unless they are sold? This would make the point of massively overpricing items to attract offers pointless and go someway to make people price items sensibly to sell.

Maybe add the 30 day timer to items worn or listed as display items to prevent circumvention of vendor fees?

I agree with Wil on the timing limit on vendor spots is not such a good idea.

To prevent the selling of vendor spots , implement the raffle / auction idea so that if somebody dismisses a vendor then it automatically starts a 24 hr blind auction for the space, thus removing the ability to sell a vendor.

I also would agree with a timed block on placing vendors for somebody whom dismisses a vendor.

I am sure i will think of more but that's what sprung to mind straight away.

As a vendor mall operator for low end needs and new player stuff this interests me a lot

[Sir Blood]

Here is a great option for vendors.

Should the vendor be dismissed. it does NOT go away right away. They stay there like normal and a random timer starts ticking down that is invisible. The timer might take 10 minutes, might take 3 hours. Once dismiss process is started, it can not be aborted!

I know some people probably do this...
- Need to refresh TC vendor, remove 1 item, place it back on...

That is kind of an exploit IMHO. A work around is tracking the current price and require a minimum 10% cost reduction for immediate relisting, otherwise there is a 24 hour cool-down for relisting at the same price.

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A lot of vendors are setup for noobie assistance. There should be a list of items that can be listed with NO vendor charge to list per day. Items like - repair deeds, pet supplies like dyes, Resurrection potions etc.

Alternatively any item with a cost of less than 1000 gold does not incur a vendor charge.

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In answer to players competing heavily for town center vendors...

You could offer special vendors for players to have in their house. These vendors are fixed on how many items they can hold, but the vendors are similar to town center as they don't charge extra based on wares. They should only have gold payment option and a strict limit of 1 per account. If you want to make additional ones available that would make for a great raffle or grand auction item...

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Town center did kill vendor malls. Is there a way to setup player malls that function somewhat like town center but require to be an official vendor mall in order to function making space somewhat limited depending on how much space they have allotted for vendors... On the off chance this is considered, vendors should only accept gold and if no extra charge per day then there should be a fixed amount of items they can carry *exceptional heavy items like kegs should count as less weight on vendor...*

[Animol]

One thing you could do is simply set a reasonable upper limit on the daily fee. That way players could list expensive stuff outside TC (which would still be the best vendor area) and not go broke while waiting for it to sell.

[Octavius Thorn]

The Malls and the few scattered good vendors spots that you would have to go explore for have been completely killed with this TC/Tokuno vendor system. Although for a player like me its great, I don't have to go anywhere to see if any new rare deco or item has become available. But for the overall shard benefit I think at least the Tokuno ones need to go. Its over kill. I can think of a lot better uses for that area on Makato Zento. I remember as a new player going through and thinking Lava Shop was coolest vendor spot I had ever seen.. Now its a ghost town. There is no real way to keep these vendor spots viable when you have 100 spots between TC and Tokuno.

[Stephen]

The Malls and the few scattered good vendors spots that you would have to go explore for have been completely killed with this TC/Tokuno vendor system. Although for a player like me its great, I don't have to go anywhere to see if any new rare deco or item has become available. But for the overall shard benefit I think at least the Tokuno ones need to go. Its over kill. I can think of a lot better uses for that area on Makato Zento. I remember as a new player going through and thinking Lava Shop was coolest vendor spot I had ever seen.. Now its a ghost town. There is no real way to keep these vendor spots viable when you have 100 spots between TC and Tokuno.

I think the biggest killer is the search system. so many use it and less and less people window shop when they buy stuff anymore. Most probably think that is ok or good since people able to find things faster means others can undercut them faster. But still a sad thing that UO always had and is now modernized into amazon.com.

[Yoda]

others said it best so summary

1. daily fee structure everywhere 100% yes
2. vendor time limit lame

I have to say this..

I think the whole removing from the vendor to sell by hand penalty is a solution in search of a problem. Who exactly is hurt by offers and negotiation? Exploitive? Seriously? That's nuts! Penalizing folks in this way would be needlessly destructive and SHOULD NOT be implemented.

wait for it.....

I 100% agree. this sort of "ruler looking for rules" logic is rubbish and needs to be backpedaled to 2011ish here .. the hyperactive rules stuff got out of hand here for a while, it was like playing house with a really really bossy kid figuratively speaking. While I can respect certain player behaviors have to be contained when destructive there is a big leap between the foul here, and many many more important things.

[Sir Blood]

I have an idea everyone will love and +C will hate for all time... probably...

Implement a FULL auction-hall and do away with vendors

Kind of like the [exex but allows for any and everything

as this would be large and complex i know sorting would be needed, but search options would assist players in finding goods faster ^_^

[+Requiem]

I don't think TC style vendors belong in TC where new players start. The fee structure at TC should encourage noob-accessible pricing for rapid sale. Cheap or even free for stuff that sells fast enough. Emphasis on enhancing the newbie experience over sinking gold.

I think the whole removing from the vendor to sell by hand penalty is a solution in search of a problem. Who exactly is hurt by offers and negotiation? Exploitive? Seriously? That's nuts! Penalizing folks in this way would be needlessly destructive and SHOULD NOT be implemented.

My reasoning behind a forced fee is two-fold.
1) There have been a LOT of complaints, about TC being overpriced, which is in my opinion completely true.
2) Vendors should have a gold sink ie: you're paying someone else to sell your stuff for you.

I saw one item for 999,999,999ED, and several others for 50k or more ED. Sure, these are the exceptions, but it's not how the system was intended to be used. It was intended to allow players to sell their SOTs and other multi-million gold items without paying ridiculous fees. 6% a day on a 50,000,000 relayer adds up quick. (3 mil a day). So, we never saw high end items on vendors, which I think is silly. So, we altered the functionality, and now it's become (for some anyways) -> Let me list this item higher than normal, since I'm not paying for it, and take offers til I get something I like.

The purpose of a vendor (in my opinion) is to sell things for you in your absence. There has always been a gold sink involved, and there always should be. There is nothing wrong with "negotiation", but that's not the purpose of using a vendor to get a sale. That's where world chat ADs and forum ADs come in. I believe, if you put an item on a vendor, it should be priced to sell, and you should be happy with the price you set for it.

I personally never enjoyed players trying to enforce vendor limits - ie: I put these on here super cheap, so only buy 2 or i'm going to ban you from my house! The way I see it, is you put it on the vendor for the price you wanted to get. If someone else wants to buy it, and re-sell it - they should be allowed to. It just mean's your price is too low, and should be adjusted accordingly.

I would love to make the experience more newbie friendly, but how to do that fairly, and equally across the board? Put up a stone with spell books at a fixed price on there, and remove that potential player interaction? I think this approach would hurt more than help. I want to leave it mostly up to you, the players, with some guidelines to keep things reasonable.

Also, I feel that it is exploiting the system, to price an item high on your vendor, then "negotiate" a lower price, pull it off, and hand it to that person, because you're avoiding the lower tax. I purposely suggested removing that high tax to give you guys a break, to make it easier to sell high-end stuff, and the response was - how can I avoid the tax all together? You have no idea how upset this made me, when I saw it being done. Like the old saying goes... give someone an inch, they'll take a mile.

So now, we have to correct it, because it was an unintended consequence that allows people to avoid the (smaller) gold sink on the items all together.

[Opopanax]

It’s a shame that the system has been abused really. When I had a vendor it was very convenient and helped me de-clutter stuff from my house too. It’s much like the situation with [exex and buying EDs etc. As I’m not online frequently, paying the small amount of commission definitely makes it worth the easy of buying through that system.

I had a vendor when it was part of a player run mall, but I didn’t sell all that much, but it did help me declutter my house and make a little bit of extra gold. When the mall kind of collapsed I thought about MZ, but looking at the amount I was making on average, it would mean that I would probably run at a loss given the daily fee. I think that charging on sale rather than having a daily fee would help more casual players be able to sell stuff on vendors, and this would also increase competition as it would mean more vendors overall.

To try and combat those removing stuff from vendors and re-pricing or using to advertise, is it possible to have an item locked onto a vendor for a cool down period, if you want to reduce the cooldown you need to pay a fee. This would mean they would need to keep it on for a set time before removing it, or it would incur a penalty. Also, you could make it so that the first time it’s placed on a vendor it’s free, but if you add it back again with a set time frame (or maybe ever) you will incur a fee to relist, which increases as you do it more times. If the cool down to remove an item also increases as it is relisted more times, and there is a limit on how much the price can be changed by on each relisting, it might reduce this behaviour, or act as a gold sink? At the very least it would make people think more carefully about what price they are listing at first time.

[Animol]

1) There have been a LOT of complaints, about TC being overpriced, which is in my opinion completely true.

TC is overpriced because realistically only TC can be overpriced. Make other vendors more affordable and prices will go down.

[Yoda]

I think the idea of only it having the no fee was the mistake.

you saw it immediately with mz emptying instantly

and the overpriced is that situation + time

no matter what happens the fee structure of town center has to be everywhere with some very very minor advantages otherwise you get a item dump right at the new player login spot.

conjecture say a new player logs in, is there a percentage that don't go anyfurther because of the acute lag they experienced RIGHT AWAY