Is there a problem with the current TC vendor system?

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Johnny Warren
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Is there a problem with the current TC vendor system?

Post by Johnny Warren »

Hey there, I have returned from a ~5 year hiatus and have begun playing again. In that time there have obviously been many changes. One of which is the way that TC vendors function. After playing with it for a while I am concerned that the current system may not be optimal and actually has led to some detrimental effects on the economy and pricing. I know that many will disagree (particularly those that own TC vendors), this thread is to start a conversation about the aims of the TC vendor change and whether the changes have actually achieved those aims.

I currently do not own one, but have, in the past owned one for longer than many players have owned their accounts. I am sure if I desired one I could acquire one, that is not the point to this thread.

I had a brief discussion with +R about this and he explained that they were changed so that people could use an alternate means to sell expensive high end gear as opposed to forum and [c advertising. I agree that this is something that has long been required. However, in my opinion, many people are taking advantage of the system and it is making pricing of items difficult to understand for newer players and, in some cases, could potentially be seen as taking advantage of uninformed players.

My concern is this: The prices on many vendors in TC are ridiculous. I'm not talking just a bit expensive, but, well, stupid basically. Sorry for the lack of better adjectives. Some examples (and I will not name player names but these are items currently available for purchase on TC vendors):

- A 3x12 resist 2x38 hit maul - 250ED or 12.5mil. Really??? (I sell 3x14 res weps for 100k)
- a 4x38 hit WITH a slayer malus on it - 600ED. I am hoping that one's a typo, but even at 60 ED it is about 1000% overpriced. (I don't usually loot 38 hit weps, but that wep would be 50k MAX on my vendor)
- 2018 lesser valentines day deco - 200ED!!!! the cheaper ones are 1mil. (I was selling these lesser items at 20k)
- A 3x46 hit (all the leeches wep) for 4.4mil (I currently don't have an all leeches wep. (I sell the 3x46 hit weps for approx 80-150k depending on the hits and wep type. That wep I would ask 150k for.)
- A Soul Seeker (the 3x40 all leeches wep with a slayer malus) for 3mil. (Never owned one, but would probably just put it in the new player donation box or on vendor for free - it is honestly a pretty useless weapon)
- 8/8 str/dex ring 900k.
- A 3x14 res 1x46 wep 200ED (C'mon guys, I've stopped looting 3x14 res weps because they don't even sell anymore!)


This is just a quick perusal of some of the vendors in TC and some of the prices. Some vendors DO use fair prices in TC, I am not saying ALL are taking advantage of the TC vendor system. Some of the items listed are from repeat offenders who have really ridiculous prices on everything.

My concerns are that most newer players are dumped in TC and see it as the 'main' vendor place. Whilst learning their way around the shard they see these prices and think that they are normal or indicative of true prices. They then either donate heaps and buy a useless 4x38 wep for 60 euros, find out it's worth jack all and quit/cry/dob +C into fair trading (lol jk). Even for more experienced players like myself, coming back and working out how far inflation had pushed up prices was very difficult. I started in TC and thought "OMG I'm gonna be so rich when I unload all my 4x46 and 3x46's for millions each" only to realise that someone is just trying to trick a newer player into a "no refund" purchase of way overpriced items.

There will always be discrepancies in prices and perceived value of stuff in games like this, but there has always been a baseline consensus on prices. The new system is, in my opinion, being exploited by some players and has removed a steady baseline for pricing which has had an overall negative effect on all item pricing across the server at best, and at worst it is being used by some as a deliberate ploy to rip players off. It has reached a point where a TC vendor seat is now one of the most expensive items you can buy in game.

Those are my thoughts on the situation. What do you all think? Am I overreacting? Are their prices fair and I am ripping myself off? Should we see change?

You will note that I have not offered any solutions (I have a few rolling around in my head), this thread is merely to start a conversation and see if there is a real issue with the current system.

-JW
Last edited by Johnny Warren on Thu Feb 15, 2018 2:15 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Is there a problem with the current TC vendor system?

Post by +Requiem »

I am a male not a female. No worries, as I know you didn't know. (But you do now)!
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Re: Is there a problem with the current TC vendor system?

Post by Johnny Warren »

My bad, my brother. You just seem too intelligent and sensible to be male hence my brain instantly thinking you were female. Edited original post to reflect +R's actual gender.

Although is that your in game gender or IRL gender? You don't need to answer, I'd rather the post stay on topic.
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Re: Is there a problem with the current TC vendor system?

Post by Possum12 »

I pretty much only go to TC to do my daily voting now.

Not even real sure how the TC vendors work compared to other places? Is it rent free & only pay a fee based on whats sold? Where other areas rent is based on total stock price on vendor is it not. No rent means no "harm" in asking inflated prices. No sale - no cost, item sells - woot less a %.

Stopped shopping or even really looking there not long after the big vendor changes as I too thought many prices jumped by ridiculous proportions. While I agree its not all, I still feel it is way too many. My play style doesn't give endless gold from farming gold 24 hours a day, I use no macros except the basic keystroke ones in base game & [claimall. Drag trash to token bag, smelt or sell items to NPC vendor. So to me the relatively small stash of gold I have is precious to me, barring the Trinsic raffles which are my vice *sigh*.

Even gave up a vendor I had in Zento as it was a huge gold drain to maintain, rent burned through any gains from sales plus millions more just to upkeep. (Note: Only was really offering +3/+5 crafting gear & Stat pots from Fel)

For the last 12 months or so its if I haven't found it - I don't got it
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Re: Is there a problem with the current TC vendor system?

Post by Johnny Warren »

Possum12 wrote:Not even real sure how the TC vendors work compared to other places? Is it rent free & only pay a fee based on whats sold? Where other areas rent is based on total stock price on vendor is it not. No rent means no "harm" in asking inflated prices. No sale - no cost, item sells - woot less a %.

That's basically it how it works...

It costs me 10k a gold PER DAY to maintain a MZ vendor. The most expensive thing on my vendor currently costs 100k. If that thing sells, and nothing else in 10 days I've basically lost all that gold (plus a bit for the actual rental fee). I've been thinking for a while of dropping that vendor for this exact reason.

Anyways, stay on topic JW... yeah TC vendors could have an item on their for 600ED or 12500000gp for as long as they want and not pay a cent extra unless it sells... That's the main reason for the stupid prices.
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Re: Is there a problem with the current TC vendor system?

Post by Yoda »

I think honestly the problem isn't the lack of sallary in tc

its the fact that now that that was introduced in one place it creates and imbalance..

I think its one of those catch 22's if they hadn't changed the structure of tc it would have remained empty

so they changed it about, now there is no daily sallary, and the rent is different, and they do multi currency options, etc
probably would have filled if the rent was proportional to MZ at the time regardless.. here we are.

Now with the 1 place with those significant advantages tc is full, but since its a magic "no loss" vending solution as QBF describes we have large prices.

sounds strange but I would suggest the fix is to drop the daily salary everywhere, on all vendors, and have a couple enhanced options for tc, so that TC remains the most attractive place to have a vendor, but not at the absolute expense of all other places, and rational pricing. I say this because if everywhere had no fault on the prices, you would see things level off, the insanity is from having

a) free no sallary vending
b) those vendors in one concise spot <- both at once

because of it only existing there it creates wacky stuff
Like say people offering up vendor spots in tc for sale....

its the same way searchable vendors with vendors.uoex.net wasn't a problem until it had prices, then we saw that result and subsequent correction.
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Re: Is there a problem with the current TC vendor system?

Post by Wil »

[quote="qbf"]Hey there, I have returned from a ~5 year hiatus and have begun playing again. In that time there have obviously been many changes. One of which is the way that TC vendors function. [...] I had a brief discussion with +R about this and he explained that they were changed so that people could use an alternate means to sell expensive high end gear as opposed to forum and [c advertising. I agree that this is something that has long been required.{/quote]

Howdy,

The alternative to a structure that allows expensive stuff to sit for a long time until someone wants it was the inconvenient display at a house, ask for pm's and spam world chat method. The current way is better.

I think it's a little nuts that the rich-people's vendors were implemented at Town Center right where new players start out, but while the location was odd I think the mechanics are fine.

I would prefer that the mechanics included me having one of the vendors. I figured it out late.

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Re: Is there a problem with the current TC vendor system?

Post by Johnny Warren »

Wil wrote:The alternative to a structure that allows expensive stuff to sit for a long time until someone wants it was the inconvenient display at a house, ask for pm's and spam world chat method. The current way is better.
You will note that I say in my opening statement an alternative method of selling high end gear was definitely required. I did not mention the houses with stuff all over the floor but I do mention [C and forum ads.

I would rather this thread not be about solutions but rather just a discussion about whether or not this is perceived as a problem.

However, if we are talking solutions a simple one would be to limit the number of items sold for ED on TC vendors to 5 and then charge a normal rate for all gold items. That way you won't get people charging 600ED for a 4x38 weapon as they will need to think carefully about which high end expensive things to sell first, price those so they are fairly priced and will actually sell, rather than just stick an over the top price on EVERYTHING and hope some poor fool accidentally buys them without having much knowledge of their real value.
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Re: Is there a problem with the current TC vendor system?

Post by Melkor »

Things certainly cost more in TC than they do anywhere else. I was talking to a new player the other day about Powerscrolls. They were looking at the prices of PS in TC and saying how expensive they are on this shard. When in reality most of the scrolls that are actually being sold are sold for a much more reasonable price. But with New players seeing the prices in TC, they think that is the real price of things, i don't think this is doing a good service to our community.
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Re: Is there a problem with the current TC vendor system?

Post by Yoda »

Disagree with this... Difficult to do it is ^^^
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Re: Is there a problem with the current TC vendor system?

Post by Wil »

qbf wrote:I would rather this thread [be] just a discussion about whether or not this is perceived as a problem.
I do not perceive the game mechanic of the TC vendors as a problem. There *should* be a way to sell stuff where the game mechanic doesn't directly penalize you for charging high prices.

I do perceive the location of that game mechanic (in the new users' faces) as a problem.

Regards,
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Re: Is there a problem with the current TC vendor system?

Post by Miranda Ventrata »

I don't think it is a problem. With all the resources players have, forums/vendor site/ WC/the players actually camping in TC, I find it hard to believe that anyone would be ripped of by the pricing. Yes of course someone COULD make a new account donate a bunch, and start buying things with absolutely no context or price comparison. (ex. context being they are buying a random looted wep not knowing why they want it). In reality, that isn't likely to happen. I think sometimes the expensive looted weps, are there in the hopes that someone needs something that specific. I remember paying way too much, for a resist wep, that had exactly the type and amount of resists i needed to hit the cap of all 70 in resist. So I didnt mind paying it to FINALLY get the perfect missing slot. Looted wep are all so random, that specific combos are hard to repeat. Making each one pretty unique. As for the Ring, and Soul Seeker you mentioned, that's a pretty fair price as far as I know. (Tinkers tools are expensive, and SS is a rare reward.) While I agree that some prices are way too high. I still dont think it is an "Issue". It's like the real world. Can go to a Mall, where its all overpriced, or just grab it off the cheapest place after some research....Likely Amazon lol.
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Re: Is there a problem with the current TC vendor system?

Post by Johnny Warren »

Miranda Ventrata wrote:I find it hard to believe that anyone would be ripped of by the pricing. Yes of course someone COULD make a new account donate a bunch, and start buying things with absolutely no context or price comparison.
That was clearly a contrived situation designed to highlight the absurdity of the price of that particular item, probably did not help with my argument.

My main argument and what I see as the real problem revolve around inflation and population maintenance on an mmorpg server (2 things that are critical to server longevity).

The tc vendor system is fine in theory, however by some people clearly abusing the system this leads to accelerated levels of inflation. When looking to sell a bc for example only tc vendors can sell those (rent would not be worth it on any other vendor) so prices would be based on mean or median tc prices. If those prices are artificially high then it drags up everyone's prices (inflation). I get that inflation occurs but keeping it to the minimum rate is critical. Why?

Population. If a new player sees prices (net/mean prices, not a one off absurd price) then they can see that as highly unobtainable and be intimidated into not striving to acquire it. Ie there is an increase in the gap between the haves and have nots. This in turn leads to younger players giving this server up, or new players not joining. This is critical in server longevity.

+c has integrated some fantastic mechanisms to reduce inflation: regular vendor fees, auctions, raffle stones, safebet (underused), lottery, pokies etc and he clearly understands the importance of minimising its effect.

My argument, in a nutshell, is that the tc vendor system is a mechanism that actually drives up inflation at an accelerated rate (inflation always naturally occurs on large servers when u have hundreds of people farming gold) and this will decrease the time it will take until we hit a hyperinflated economy that is not feasible for newer players to participate in. This end step is the slow stagnation of the player pool and ultimate demise of the shard.

There are the other smaller problems, like the feel bad for an individual when they get ripped off by someone abusing the tc vendor system, but the main problem is those abusing the system are actually really hurting the economy in a way that is perhaps less obvious to see.

-John Warren
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Re: Is there a problem with the current TC vendor system?

Post by Shindaril »

My two cents on this subject...

First and foremost, I do agree that the location of the Town Center vendors should be changed. The reasons being, where it's the place new players are ported, the vendors in this area do cause a lot of lag, possibly causing new players to think this carries over the whole shard.

And secondly, while it's a good thing for players to find vendors so easily, we have plenty of other means to find the vendors, thus I believe that separating the TC vendors from the new player spawn point would benefit everybody. For example, breaking the illusion of the TC vendors being the mainstream in the new player's eyes, but rather relocating them with a constant world teleporter location, even by specifying that location as a marketplace. Another way around this would be to re-locate the new player spawn point and area.

As for the privileges the TC had over other vendor areas, I believe to the supply and demand, the very core that defines the market. While some sellers have better marketing, it doesn't mean they would sell better. If the supply is better somewhere else, the buyers will find that place when the demand is there.

So, my vote for non-laggy starting place and open market. After all, the market is what we, the players, make it to be.
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Re: Is there a problem with the current TC vendor system?

Post by Miranda Ventrata »

I have seen folks try and drive the price of things up through the TC vendors. But competition of pricing kills that pretty quickly. I do agree that TC is the wrong place for the current Setup. Perhaps move the current TC vendors to the place that they used to send the TC vendors to die. (The afk ones.) Excelsior Halls i think it was called. I dont think they move the vendors there anymore, they just fall. (Automated)
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