Vendor Ratings

[Vim-]

tl;dr The player vendor mechanics of this game are outdated and crippling the player economy. I suggest that after 3 days of vendor inactivity (nothing purchased, nothing stocked), vendor name turns dimmer brown. After 7 days, the player vendor name no longer shows up. Any vendor activity resets the timer.

The Problem: >50% of the player vendors on the server are empty [source: Yew moongate]. Finding things as simple as rune books or spell books is a pain in the ass without digging through the forums, irc, or finding someone gating to vendors at brit bank.

2 Potential semi-player driven solutions:

Proposed Solution 1: Player feedback from vendors, that is displayed with vendor name.
Players can rate a vendor 1-5 stars depending on prices / how often they are stocked / quality of wares. Rating can be displayed on vendor names either by a [1] - [5] after name, or different colored vendor names depending on rating.

Potential issues: Players abusing the system with multiple accounts. Vendor owners setting out to rate their competition low. Too complicated.


Probably Better Proposed Solution 2: Players can flag a vendor as out of stock (OOS). When enough flags are given (5 sounds reasonable), the vendor name changes to a different less vibrant color, so players know not to check them. The vendor owner will receive a message the next time they log in, notifying them that their vendor is OOS. The flag is auto-removed the next time the vendor is stocked with at least 1 for sale item.

Potential issues: Same as before. Less complicated.

 

[Vim-]

It was brought up in irc that we should reduce the amount of code required by GMs and just add a condition that when a vendor is out of stock, their rent increases to a very high amount, so that they will drop shortly after.

My response is:

1. This is too easily bypassed, as players can put 1 gold on their vendor selling for 1000 gold and no one will ever buy it. There would be no way for the game code to determine whether a vendor is truly out of stock or not.

2. If we incorporated this into the player OOS-flagging, it would encourage abuse. Players could constantly flag their competitors, and cause rent prices to spike while the vendor owners were not online.



The more I think about it, proposed solution 2 is likely easier to implement and more efficient. It could be implemented through adding an additional drop down menu on vendors after 'Open Paperdoll'. Perhaps 'Flag Vendor as Out of Stock'. While the vendor flags > 5, the vendor name hue is some darker yellow (brown?), and vendor owner is PMed in game. As soon as a For Sale item is placed onto the vendor by the owner, the flag counter is reset to 0.

Would this be difficult?

 

[jkg8787]

Just wanna say as a newish player, getting started is always the hardest part, the vendors here are sometimes overwhelming when trying to find something. Overwhelming with empty packs mostly.

I think after 4 or 5 days of running around, I've sort of sussed out which vendors are selling what, but it could be improved and reduce a hindrance of getting started.

 

[monktoast]

Just make it where if nothing is bought for a certain amount if time the name changes colors like you say. This means either prices are too high or most likely it's empty.

No flagging and no room for abuse. And if you are feeling adventurous you can still check the dimmed names because maybe there's good deals but no traffic.

 

[wreckognize]

nice post @Vim- ! Well done
+1 OP
-1 vendor fees going up when empty

 

[Vim-]

Just make it where if nothing is bought for a certain amount if time the name changes colors like you say. This means either prices are too high or most likely it's empty.

No flagging and no room for abuse. And if you are feeling adventurous you can still check the dimmed names because maybe there's good deals but no traffic.

Thanks for the feedback monk. I really like this. It'd be a lot cleaner and easier to code, and it's practically abuse-free. What would be an ideal timer? 3 days? If your vendor sells nothing for 3 days, you can easily reset the timer by adding something to your vendor.

Would it be worth having 2 stages? 3 days of inactivity = dimmer brown name , 7 days of inactivity = vendor name no longer shows up, i.e. you can still double click vendor, but it won't cover up other vendor names on your screen when you 'show all names'.

 

[Jack Scallywag]

Just wanna say as a newish player, getting started is always the hardest part, the vendors here are sometimes overwhelming when trying to find something. Overwhelming with empty packs mostly.

Agreed that is horribly annoying. I don't even bother with vendors who put stuff in to Sub-Bags... All these morons with weapons have them and its a nightmare. I'd say easily 75% of PC vendors on this server are useless and empty.

 

[Vim-]

Yea. I definitely feel like this would be a low hanging fruit for the devs to implement. Haven't heard any opposition from staff or players that I've bounced the idea off of in game, in IRC, or on forums.

 

[rimmshot]

Why dont we as players just set up a thread of " good vendors , bad vendors " so people know what houses are good ones and bad ones ?

The reason i ask is cause like you guys i HATED shopping at vendors cause they are ALWAYS empty . SO thats why i started my own vendor house where the number 1 rule is ( YOU MUST KEEP YOUR VENDOR STOCKED ... OR GET KICKED ) .

 

[Vim-]

Why dont we as players just set up a thread of " good vendors , bad vendors " so people know what houses are good ones and bad ones ?.

I totally agree, excellent idea. Player driven solutions are great, and I think this would be a great addition to the forums or wiki either way, but it seems like this would only get us so far. I think this list and the proposed feature would complement each other very well rather than be two alternative approaches.

It'd be a large task to take on, building and maintaining a dynamic list of dependable vendors changing weekly / monthly. Hell, look at our wiki pages which attempt to document some of the static features on the server. It's pretty barren, although props to @halygon for making an attempt to get the ball rolling over there. Feel free to start compiling a list of dependable vendors, maybe even start a wiki page on it, so that it doesn't have to maintain 'bumps' to be seen at the top.

The reason i ask is cause like you guys i HATED shopping at vendors cause they are ALWAYS empty . SO thats why i started my own vendor house where the number 1 rule is ( YOU MUST KEEP YOUR VENDOR STOCKED ... OR GET KICKED ) .

I had the same aggravation as you when I could never find stocked reg vendors, which led me to make a dedicated reg vendor at a popular vendor spot (Yew Bank Mall), which I restock religiously as long as I am not out of town and unable to play.

 

[monktoast]

I think these ideas need to be looked at for real. I guess the temporary solution is to create a player made database of stocked vendors and empty vendors but I'm not sure that would be all that easy, at least not for me so i'll let someone else do that and ill reap the benefits hehe

 

[VonNeumann]

I think these ideas need to be looked at for real. I guess the temporary solution is to create a player made database of stocked vendors and empty vendors but I'm not sure that would be all that easy, at least not for me so i'll let someone else do that and ill reap the benefits hehe

Agreed

Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk

 

[Vim-]

I hope this is still under consideration by the staff.