Vendor Malls 2.0

[Yoda]

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.

that moment when someone else gets it in exactly the same way you get it.

[mattwaldram]

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.

Yeah, prices fluctuate and are driven by normal rules of supply and demand - that's all fine. I was just addressing a couple of comments - +Req said that Exex can be problematic and that some items completely lose their value, and I was offering up an example where that has absolutely happened. While oints value does go up and down somewhat, I haven't seen it get close to 1k in a long, long time.

[Yoda]

so after 4 pages here is what I have concluded.

1. currently the vendors are unbalanced in the sense that TC is affordable and everywhere else is not by comparison.

2. we got into this situation by changing too many things at once in the first place and creating an imbalance.

3. the obvious and most logical solution is to just reduce the imbalance in cost to every other area and that is all.

4. why are staff so concerned with how long something takes to sell on a vendor etc etc etc ..

so 4. is where I am going to focus.. and ask again

why?

because its fun? it makes the game more interesting for players? it performs an necessary economic function? etc etc

if it doesn't answer a question like that, the idea no matter the topic is a foolish errand. The shard is a game, call it a community a this or a that, nope its a videogame.. and videogames are supposed to be fun.

so when it comes to gold sinks, I suggest you look elsewhere to suggest that a vendor is an appropriate place to extort and correct inflation is a silly notion, and we have to ask why are we going down that road?

because it is fun? it makes the game more interesting for players? ... you get my drift

gold sinks should be 100% voluntary if not OMG I gotta spend to my last dime kind of cool stuff, trying to do it via the vendor system is a crusty method that flies in the face of logic.

As for most of the ideas on this thread I am seeing, new systems, tweaked systems, code for exploits we aren't even sure will be widespread etc etc etc. so an open invitation for bugs bugs bugs etc reverts restarts etc etc

all to solve a problem that is simple

1. make the vendor fees everywhere fair... thats all that has to happen, the pull and reprice is a SYMPTOM the stool selling is a SYMPTOM of the imbalance, those behaviors should receed in time, and honestly

if staff wants to get that into what each player does how they sell etc (remove reprice) you guys are gonna have a bad time, its like wack a mole, waste your time plugging this hole so they can open that one..

[+Requiem]

so after 4 pages here is what I have concluded.

1. currently the vendors are unbalanced in the sense that TC is affordable and everywhere else is not by comparison.

2. we got into this situation by changing too many things at once in the first place and creating an imbalance.

3. the obvious and most logical solution is to just reduce the imbalance in cost to every other area and that is all.

4. why are staff so concerned with how long something takes to sell on a vendor etc etc etc ..

so 4. is where I am going to focus.. and ask again

why?

because its fun? it makes the game more interesting for players? it performs an necessary economic function? etc etc

if it doesn't answer a question like that, the idea no matter the topic is a foolish errand. The shard is a game, call it a community a this or a that, nope its a videogame.. and videogames are supposed to be fun.

so when it comes to gold sinks, I suggest you look elsewhere to suggest that a vendor is an appropriate place to extort and correct inflation is a silly notion, and we have to ask why are we going down that road?

because it is fun? it makes the game more interesting for players? ... you get my drift

gold sinks should be 100% voluntary if not OMG I gotta spend to my last dime kind of cool stuff, trying to do it via the vendor system is a crusty method that flies in the face of logic.

As for most of the ideas on this thread I am seeing, new systems, tweaked systems, code for exploits we aren't even sure will be widespread etc etc etc. so an open invitation for bugs bugs bugs etc reverts restarts etc etc

all to solve a problem that is simple

1. make the vendor fees everywhere fair... thats all that has to happen, the pull and reprice is a SYMPTOM the stool selling is a SYMPTOM of the imbalance, those behaviors should receed in time, and honestly

if staff wants to get that into what each player does how they sell etc (remove reprice) you guys are gonna have a bad time, its like wack a mole, waste your time plugging this hole so they can open that one..

The answer is because even though the idea is to balance out vendor costs between TC and vendor malls, there should still be a gold sink involved, without blaring obvious ways to get around it. It's that simple. In many of the other updates I've personally pushed, I've tried to add more gold into the system, to make those things more competitive with other activities. There were ZERO complaints (or even concerns) about us adding gold faucets. Now, I'd like to take some of that, and funnel it the other way. A minimal amount, but still, an amount.

Going from x per day, to x total seemed like a logical choice. Fees have always been there, this is just changing the way they're handled (and overall lowering them at the same time).

The only time a player would actually "lose out", and pay more with this new system vs the old system is if they put an item on, and it sold very quickly. For any items that normally sat a few days, this would save them money.

[Yoda]

req I am not going to debate the need for a goldsink here.. because you are flat wrong


a vendor is where the gold is made so to place a gold sink here eats into the gold made

ergo the player will compensate for this making any control sink etc etc etc

GONE as in net zero benefit, it has sinked nothing.

a raffle sinks gold because 1 guy wins and the rest dont
an auction sinks gold because of the competition but 1 guys gold.
although a vendor appears to sink gold its more that it gets absorbed into the cost of doing business as in no matter the fee it gets factored in and the same money is made, not really sunk..

[+Requiem]

req I am not going to debate the need for a goldsink here.. because you are flat wrong


a vendor is where the gold is made so to place a gold sink here eats into the gold made

ergo the player will compensate for this making any control sink etc etc etc

GONE as in net zero benefit, it has sinked nothing.

a raffle sinks gold because 1 guy wins and the rest dont
an auction sinks gold because of the competition but 1 guys gold.
although a vendor appears to sink gold its more that it gets absorbed into the cost of doing business as in no matter the fee it gets factored in and the same money is made, not really sunk..

So, with the old daily fee structure... it says you pay 6000 gold per day, for every million on your vendor... You're telling me someone gets this 6000 gold?

If we have a sales/listing fee - and this money is removed from the game, it's not a gold sink? (If the player lists the item for more, to compensate, more gold goes out of the system, because the fees are higher).

The only time it doesn't, is when players remove an item from their vendor to haggle/negotiate, which was the purpose for this new way of doing fees - so that if an item touches a vendor, there's some sort of sink involved.

[Yoda]

no its not

say the fee is a flat 30,000 for easy typing

the item the player wants to sell for 3,000,000

yes you removed gold but its about people behavior not numbers.. with no fee they price at 3,000,000 with the fee they price at 3,030,000 that isn't sinking gold truly it is but the player negates the benefit.

so once again I am not saying no gold is sunk I am saying its a non-benefit to the shard or inflation and to say it does anything is silly and you know it.

this line of logic isn't good. where does it stop do we tax loot?

you pick up 30 gold but 11 gold falls to the ground "sinking" into it

[mattwaldram]

"You smear a bloody thumbprint all over 3 of the Elven Notes - no self-respecting Elf will accept these now!"

#LootSink

[+Requiem]

no its not

say the fee is a flat 30,000 for easy typing

the item the player wants to sell for 3,000,000

yes you removed gold but its about people behavior not numbers.. with no fee they price at 3,000,000 with the fee they price at 3,030,000 that isn't sinking gold truly it is but the player negates the benefit.

so once again I am not saying no gold is sunk I am saying its a non-benefit to the shard or inflation and to say it does anything is silly and you know it.

this line of logic isn't good. where does it stop do we tax loot?

you pick up 30 gold but 11 gold falls to the ground "sinking" into it

No, I don't want to tax loot. In your example

player puts item on vendor for 3,000,000
fee is 30,000 - 30,000 is removed from game, player gets 2,970,000

or

player puts item on vendor for 3,030,000
even if the fee stayed the same 30,000, 30,000 removed from game - player gets 3,000,000

So more money has transferred between players, but 30,000 was still sunk. The player hasn't negated 30,000 being removed from the system at all. He's just negated his "loss" from it.

[Yoda]

and negated the benefit of your "sink" or as we should call it nickel and diming of players for net zero game benefit

call it what you want man its not important to do. Its not fun, noone will like it because its a silly road.

the loot example was supposed to show you the silliness of your CURRENT line of thought

vendors aren't people
they don't require water or food
.... or compensation

its videogame, if you think the inflation is helped more by vendor fees than it would be consistantly loading the raffle tables with hotness and making more exlclusive ways gold can be sunk BY CHOICE then it will sink gold.

this will become a vendor malls 3.0 update in 6 months that starts with

so the tax didn't work......

[+Requiem]

Perhaps, perhaps not. But i'm trying to keep the overall economy in mind. There's more gold than ever going into it, and less and less coming out. If we remove the daily fees from all vendors as planned, that's even less coming out.

No, it may not be fun, But it does need to be balanced. We can agree to disagree. You know my point of view. I know yours. The other staff will read the thread and we'll discuss it, and figure something out.

[Yoda]

don't take it out at the vendor because as demonstrated the player can end that for you simply

its a rabbit hole. make a tax now players avoid the tax

avoid the tax and now we make a control

to avoid the control the player buys a warding snake

the warding snake is controlled by the poison mouse

the antidote .......


or.. don't fight the economic battle of inflation on this battlefield.

[Pheobe]

So I've tried a few times to read through this thread to get an understanding of what the changes may be for vendors as someone who has run a vendor mall in the past. My problem is as I'm reading it, my head keeps spinning and I can't keep all the conditions and "if this than this" stuff straight and I work for a government body......

The other thing that keeps going through my mind with all the conditions and "if this than this" stuff is the code changes required, the system testing, the user acceptance testing and regression testing needed to ensure that all of the proposed changes would need to ensure 1) it's working as expected 2) it didn't break anything else and 3) there are no obvious exploits. The amount of scenarios you'd have to create to test the suggested changes for vendor malls alone...... Sorry 12 plus years of system testing experience is making me a little nervous here.

What I'd like to see with the vendor changes is to make it more balanced between Town Centre, Makoto Zento and Vendor Malls. What I saw with the last vendor changes was Makoto Zento empty and vendor malls become impossible to maintain with the lure of Town Centre. The reason people started selling Town Centre spots is because it became a coveted item, when you have that people are going to sell it and make money. I am fine with Town Centre have some special features like different currencies.

The idea of adding a "sales tax" won't hurt the person selling the item it will hurt the person buying the item because as stated in other threads above the seller will factor the "sales tax" into the listing price and then the buyer will be paying for the fee. I thought the idea of having vendors was to sell items between players without having to pepper worldchat with million of buy/sell ads. Adding a "sales tax" to the vendors will make them less desirable and worldchat will become more about selling and buying and less about talking.

My suggestion would be to start with one change, like remove fees from all vendor spots, see how it goes and then see if other changes are needed. The biggest lesson I've learned in my career is Keep it simple. One change at a time means it doesn't take as long to roll it out and it's obvious what the result is without trying to figure out which of the 20 changes is causing the problem.

This is just my two cents

[+Requiem]

So I've tried a few times to read through this thread to get an understanding of what the changes may be for vendors as someone who has run a vendor mall in the past. My problem is as I'm reading it, my head keeps spinning and I can't keep all the conditions and "if this than this" stuff straight and I work for a government body......

The other thing that keeps going through my mind with all the conditions and "if this than this" stuff is the code changes required, the system testing, the user acceptance testing and regression testing needed to ensure that all of the proposed changes would need to ensure 1) it's working as expected 2) it didn't break anything else and 3) there are no obvious exploits. The amount of scenarios you'd have to create to test the suggested changes for vendor malls alone...... Sorry 12 plus years of system testing experience is making me a little nervous here.

What I'd like to see with the vendor changes is to make it more balanced between Town Centre, Makoto Zento and Vendor Malls. What I saw with the last vendor changes was Makoto Zento empty and vendor malls become impossible to maintain with the lure of Town Centre. The reason people started selling Town Centre spots is because it became a coveted item, when you have that people are going to sell it and make money. I am fine with Town Centre have some special features like different currencies.

The idea of adding a "sales tax" won't hurt the person selling the item it will hurt the person buying the item because as stated in other threads above the seller will factor the "sales tax" into the listing price and then the buyer will be paying for the fee. I thought the idea of having vendors was to sell items between players without having to pepper worldchat with million of buy/sell ads. Adding a "sales tax" to the vendors will make them less desirable and worldchat will become more about selling and buying and less about talking.

My suggestion would be to start with one change, like remove fees from all vendor spots, see how it goes and then see if other changes are needed. The biggest lesson I've learned in my career is Keep it simple. One change at a time means it doesn't take as long to roll it out and it's obvious what the result is without trying to figure out which of the 20 changes is causing the problem.

This is just my two cents

For the most part, I agree. I was just trying to replace the "daily fee", with "something", so there was still a gold sink involved in owning/running a vendor.

If it wasn't clear before, the sales tax/listing fee was to be on all vendors, not just non-TC ones.

[Animol]

Adding a "sales tax" to the vendors will make them less desirable

What are you talking about? TC vendors are taxed.