Is there a problem with the current TC vendor system?

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

Post by Muolke »

How about bringing pricing back on the vendors.uoex site? Prices used to be included and then were taken away apparently because some "sellers" complained about people pricing their items just below others. But ins't that what a healthy marketplace is all about? Taking the prices away from that website just leads to what the OP talks about which is basically price gauging.

One other issue with the vendors outside TC is that the daily fees really add up. So instead of a daily vendor fee, how about a listing fee of 5% per item you place on your vendor that's charged right when you place an item on there. That way you know you have a fixed cost for the item and it's still substantially higher then TC vendors (they don't lose their appeal).

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

Post by Wil »

The daily fee discourages overcharging. I like that. I see the need for a place that doesn't. One place. But I like that the mechanics on the rest of the vendors make overcharging a money-losing plan.

Putting prices on vendors.uoex.net creates a race to the bottom, just like the buy-now on UOEX.

The buyer can run the field of vendors pretty easily to figure out who has the lowest price on the single item they want to buy. The seller would have to do it for every item and the repeat periodically if it doesn't sell. Also, the time that a common item stays on a vendor is a pretty good proxy for whether it's overpriced. You don't have to bother checking the vendor with the 120 powerscroll that's been there for 6 months. There's a reason it hasn't sold.
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Muolke
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Re: Is there a problem with the current TC vendor system?

Post by Muolke »

Wil wrote:Putting prices on vendors.uoex.net creates a race to the bottom, just like the buy-now on UOEX.
That's called "the marketplace" and stimulates fair competition. It works very well even in real life.
Wil wrote: Also, the time that a common item stays on a vendor is a pretty good proxy for whether it's overpriced.
This is incorrect. I've had Platinum Runic tinker Tools on my MZ vendor for quite a while now at prices below any of the other vendors and nothing has sold. I think I only have them at like 2.5k per use whereas most others have it at 3-5k per use. So clearly, something else is wrong.

The market works best when you apply the basic principles of supply & demand and allow as much competition as possible. Not by shielding pricing because you think it will cause a race to the bottom.
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Wil
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Re: Is there a problem with the current TC vendor system?

Post by Wil »

Muolke wrote:I've had Platinum Runic tinker Tools on my MZ vendor for quite a while now at prices below any of the other vendors and nothing has sold.
There's a market for runic TINKER tools? What do you make with runic tinker tools?
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+Requiem
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Re: Is there a problem with the current TC vendor system?

Post by +Requiem »

Hi all.

First, we have no intention of bringing back the prices on vendors.uoex.net. It removes a key aspect of searching for a good deal, and caused massive undercutting on a shard-wide scale.

I agree that too much inflation is bad, but so is too much deflation.

One thing a lot of people don't seem to realize is the actual negative affect of devaluing gear and selling everything "cheap". While it benefits the new player up front, in that they get stuff really cheap, it hurts them in the long run, when they turn around to sell that item, and they can't make any money off it.

Here's a quick example.
If the value of generic powerscroll is 1 million gold, you would need to sell roughly 25 of them to pay for a relayer.
Now, you get sold that same power scroll for 500k gold, and people now think the value is 500k.. 50 are needed to pay for a relayer.

If the "going" price drops to 250k, 100 are needed to buy that same relayer.

So basically, you're forcing that newbie to work 2-4 (or more) times harder, to get the same benefit, by selling to them "free" or "cheap".


@wil - you can make Jewelry with runic tinker tools.
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+Requiem
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Re: Is there a problem with the current TC vendor system?

Post by +Requiem »

Hello everyone,

These issues you are bring up have not escaped our notice. They are something I have been thinking about for several months now. A vendor-revamp is on the schedule for sometime in 2018, but there are other projects taking higher priority right now.

That being said, some of the points for discussion I have come up with are:
  • Vendors should be profitable. Too much tax/overhead isn't fun, or productive.
  • Vendors should be able to sell low end, and high end gear, without extraordinary fees.
  • If fee's are "too high" people go back to "pm me offers" with high end items on a display table. An item on a vendor should be listed at the sale price, not a "pm me offer" price.
  • If there is no fee, or the fee is too low, people exploit/take advantage of the system by listing items for ridiculous prices.
  • Collecting a fee at the beginning causes people to have upfront costs, when they are supposed to be able to use this feature to make money.
  • Collecting a fee when the item is sold, makes more sense, but then people just remove that item and sell it themselves to avoid the fee.
  • I feel that non TC vendors should be able to compete with TC vendors. No daily fee on one while the other has it is unfair competition.
  • TC can still have other advantages, like accepting tokens/ED/elven notes
So, how do we make it so the system won't be exploited/taken advantage of, utilized for both high-end and low-end items, and still be somewhat of a gold sink?

When the time is right, I will take the feedback from this thread and summarize it into a more offical thread, and I will see about getting some kind of vote in game, to allow more players to participate.
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Muolke
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Re: Is there a problem with the current TC vendor system?

Post by Muolke »

Well at the very least I will say that I appreciate you having an open mind about most things +R and willing to discuss/implement changes.

I was actually thinking about the "fee" on vendors and how to make it so that it is a bit more fair. The daily fee on a vendor I imagine is a set percentage of the price of all the items for sale on a vendor. Correct?

If that's the case, is there a way to have a smaller fee as more and more time goes by based on the day the item was placed on the vendor?

For example: If the fee is 1% per day. How about a regressive system where it's 1% on the first 2 days, then it drops by 0.1% for each additional 2 days so the most it will cost you to have the item on your vendor is 11% and that's after 20 days. If it sits there longer you don't get charged extra. That would be a more fair system that prevents an item from being listed for crazy amounts but doesn't eat up all your profits.
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Re: Is there a problem with the current TC vendor system?

Post by culichi »

i love new tc vendor rules i hope tc never dies again


1. i don't think pricing items too high is an "exploit" or even dishonest so long as no false claims are made. sometimes ill see something like a polar bear mask dyed black and priced the same as a spirit of the totem and maybe its an honest mistake but should be reported so admins are aware and can see if player keeps doing things like that. i collect rares and it can get really frustrating when someone in tc prices an item i need for two or three times what its worth refusing to negotiate on price. i could wait till the seller comes to his senses or if im impatient or afraid ill never see that item for sale again i have and will continue to "overpay" but that's my choice and the seller has done nothing wrong. values on a lot of items in the game are just opinions and sellers should not be subject to one persons opinion on what the "real" value is.

2. if a new player decides to donate and go on a buying spree before they understand the game or bother comparing prices of course they are gonna overspend on junk they don't need or buy great items that they will ruin because they bought the item before they new how to use it. the rest of the players shouldn't be forced to alter their game to make sure silly people don't do silly things. im not judging people for making these mistakes because ive done the exact same thing myself in many online games.

3. i like player vending malls but they rarely last and don't think they should be given too much consideration at the risk of hurting tc and tokumo vendor areas. keeping the no upfront fees feature to tc and expanding it to tokumo makes sure those areas attract vendors but if you make it a default feature on all vendors we risk going back to deserted tc and new players feel like they have just logged into yet another dead free shard. expanding the tc features to tokumo only does mean there should be changes to vendor limit in tokumo though from 3 vendor limit to 2 or even 1.
one way to make sure tc stays full while allowing player malls a chance to flourish is to make tc vendor rentals free. is the gold sink from vendor rentals really that big compared to other gold sinks? i like vendor malls and although i don't have much faith in their longevity maybe having same rules as tc would lead to something good . if the gold sink from tc rentals is something the server economy can do without i think its worth the risk to experiment a little and then if nothing comes of it just revert back in a few months or a year.

4. overpricing items on a vendor and including a message to pm for negotiations on price in order to sell the item without paying the final sale fee is really wrong. i know admins cant just hang around all day watching for this but i hope the penalties for getting caught doing this repeatedly are serious. if someone does this after a first warning i think they should not only lose their vendor but even get a temporary vendor ban. cheating on fees hurts the gold sink and gives less room for trying new ideas like the one i suggested for rent free tc vendors. i appreciate sellers willing to negotiate on prices im not calling out people who are being genuine its just the people that use this tactic to sell items under the table without paying sale fees. ( i have taken part in no fee sales before and i wish i had been more thoughtful of the consequences)
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Re: Is there a problem with the current TC vendor system?

Post by Yoda »

3. i like player vending malls but they rarely last and don't think they should be given too much consideration at the risk of hurting tc and tokumo vendor areas. keeping the no upfront fees feature to tc and expanding it to tokumo makes sure those areas attract vendors but if you make it a default feature on all vendors we risk going back to deserted tc and new players feel like they have just logged into yet another dead free shard. expanding the tc features to tokumo only does mean there should be changes to vendor limit in tokumo though from 3 vendor limit to 2 or even 1.
^^^^ not true, not even slightly

when tc was empty all that had to happen was the rent had to be 1 gold piece less that mz and it would refill, it was empty because the rent was MORE. As it happens at the same time as the rent was reduced the simultaneously added the multi currency and the no fee per item, at that point hiding what refilled tc. How can you tell when 3 changes happened at once? you can guess/assume no fees was the cause, but it would be a guess. Based on the beef being too high of rent, tc would have filled by only changing that.

Anyways taking fees away everywhere won't empty tc..
taking fees away everywhere, equalizing the rental fees 100%, and making all spaces equal would empty tc.

as it sits, there is far too much emphasis on tc.

As for the statement about players feeling like they logged into a dead shard.. on the flip side
how is our best foot being put forward with a tonne of lag from items at the new player spawn?
How is it in the best interest of player retention to start them at a shopping mall with starter gold?

those are 2 questions that I think are pretty obvious
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Re: Is there a problem with the current TC vendor system?

Post by culichi »

its been so long since the changes I don't recall the rent having changed in tc but I doubt that would have been enough to fill the back rows in tc or encourage people to spam wc offering to buy vendor spots in tc. another feature of new tc is vendor decay that is also very important cuz deadhead vendors is much more annoying than high prices.
I wish something could be done about the item lag but its really not that bad and clears up after a couple of minutes. as for having noobs start out in an expensive shopping mall with only a few coins I don't see what the problem with that is. for me one of the more exciting parts of starting a new game is seeing whats available on the shard even if I cant afford to buy any of it yet.
I don't think there can be too much emphasis on tc it attracts shoppers and bank sitters making the server feel active even during slow times. I feel that an active center is very important for any online game and everything that can be done to encourage and maintain one should be done. btw trinsic has never completely died off even after spanky shut down his shop I still see banksitting vets there its a good alternative for people that don't like the lag or vendors.
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Re: Is there a problem with the current TC vendor system?

Post by Yoda »

then we I guess must agree to disagree on that.

I can think of nothing worse than logging in as a new player to a pile of lag and a tonne of unaffordable items/idle players

I guess like you are saying it makes the shard appear active???? although we are talking about static items, and idle players by and large.

It suits your tastes sure, and the tastes of some, but it would be interesting to get a statistic like, accounts that get created, and abandoned in tc aas their only activity ever. for every taste there is the opposite and in this case, it is very easy to Logically paint a scenario or 10, where tc as it sits right now is a point of immediate frustration to a new player, and an exit point as well as an entrance.

as for how tc emptied in the first place, it was precisely that the rent went up.. thats all it took
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Re: Is there a problem with the current TC vendor system?

Post by +Requiem »

I'm not talking about your mistaken items. I saw items listed for tens of thousands, or even hundreds of thousands of EDs that weren't worth 200ED in my opinion. I saw one item for 999,999,999 ED. This is the behavior that I am speaking of. Not the honest mistakes, such as an accidentally added 0.

I don't think anyone wants TC to fail, which is why I mentioned leaving some of the advantages of using it. As far as I know, there are no plans to abandon TC.

Some people have suggested moving the starting area, which I'm not opposed to either. It can be overwhelming for players to log into TC. (I stole this from players I've heard it from). Yoda isn't the only one who thinks this. A few new players have brought this up, as well as older vets.

I agree with your assessment, but you see it all the time. How many people would rather advertise for ED, than pay the 3% fee on exex? I think it's the same on vendors, but would be harder to track. I'd like to point out, that while ED has been relatively stable, it too depends on supply and demand. If the price goes up, it goes up. It can't stay at 50k forever. I don't know what donations look like, but I'm sure they too must fluctuate.

As for the rent, Yoda is correct. It did go up prior to TC emptying out. It may have taken only a rent drop to fill back up - I'm not certain. I wanted it to be more. Im hindsight, that was a mistake on my part, that has led us to where we are now. It's one of the things I'd like to bring up for discussion at least. In one of my points above, I think vendors should be profitable. If you're selling low end items, or high end-items, the fee should be a cost of doing business, not a detriment to doing business.
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Re: Is there a problem with the current TC vendor system?

Post by lestatzero »

Personally I like the multi currency feature to sell higher priced items. And not having a rental fee but rather a final value fee.

Things That I would look at would be:

Make all vendors rent free and charge the percentage fee at the time the item sells. Make this feature available for all vendors including those at player houses.

Have upgrade options to support the tokens and the Ed Pricing.
Similar to how you have to pay to upgrade weight limit and item limits on vendors have an option for xxx Tokens this vendor can now accept tokens for payment and for xxx ed this vendor can now accept ed for payment.

As for removing items for a PM me offer just make it to where Items placed on a vendor cannot be removed for a defined time limit. (of course I would start that timer after maybe 5 or 10 minutes of placement to allow for organization and such and movement thats within the vendor's bag isn't hindered). If someone wants to accept a lower price they still have the ability to lower the price but not take it off the vendor and sell it directly unless it's already sat there for x amount of time.

As for how to keep Tc full. Add a bonus like no fee to list your items on vendors.uoex.net while all other's have a included price in the base cost of acquiring the vendor. Another option would be the vendor take on sales being less in TC vendors vs other vendors Say by .5%

Overall I think the features that were added are desirable features that can be altered to make a more fluid and competing market.

The only other thing that I would change with TC vendors is the amount of time you can go without restocking.

And you could even make the ones placable in a home cost substantially more (Both personal vendors and venter rental contracts ) ... I know I wouldn't mind paying a couple mil to have a vendor @ my house that I din't have to feed gold on a regular basis.

This would make the weekly rental fee to have a TC/MZ/vendor Mall vendor worth it for those that may not be able to afford the upfront cost to still be able to use vendors until such time that they may be able to buy one of there own.

These are only suggestions and I know they would require recoding and as such I know that it's not a priority. However I think it's food for thought.
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Re: Is there a problem with the current TC vendor system?

Post by Shindaril »

I still won't get to what benefits TC should have over other player vendor areas or anything related to that, but this is one thing I do agree with...
+Requiem wrote:
  • Collecting a fee when the item is sold, makes more sense, but then people just remove that item and sell it themselves to avoid the fee.
It's not easy to set up and it will need a lot of tinkering around to get it right, but one idea would be a combination of few different models...Here's a rough model after couple of days of idea tossing:

-Placing an item for sale on a vendor would take a fee that is returned to the player in full once the item is sold. This fee would be considered as insurance. The amount of this would be based on the item type and quantity. For example, a low amount of reagents would have a low fee while a single artifact of considerable value would have a high fee. Also the type of currency would affect this fee as well as the sale price. The insurance is paid also based on duration the item will be on the vendor for sale. The owner of the vendor can set this time as days when placing the item for sale ( this will need a lot of tinkering around to get it right ). There would be a maximum time for any item to be for sale, for example a month, after which, it would be returned to the owner of the vendor along with the insurance fee.

-If an item is removed from the vendor before the time set for the item to be on sale has expired, the item would be placed aside and only returned to the player after they have paid a hefty fee for breaking the contract with their vendor. Similar to the pet breeding deeds, for example. This fee would be roughly half of the selling price of the item when placed on the vendor, but this value would also need a lot of trial and error to find the balance.

-A vendor could still be removed and all the items that have been placed for sale would be returned to the owner ( along with the insurance fees ), allowing decay of the vendors as we already have. To avoid anyone from abusing this option, a timeout for one to few months would be placed for the location where their vendor was removed / decayed from. During this period, the player would not be able to place another vendor in the same area.

-About paying for the use of a vendor, there are some options that could be used. For example, using tax per sold item as in [exex, rent for the location based on the location and/or value of the items sold by the vendor, staff/house owner set rent, you name it as I don't really know what would be the fairest option for this.

It's still a rough model, but I do hope you get the idea and there are other ways of advertising different vendor areas, but as said in the beginning, I won't get onto that in this post.



*Added based on the reply posted while writing*
lestatzero wrote:Have upgrade options to support the tokens and the Ed Pricing.
Similar to how you have to pay to upgrade weight limit and item limits on vendors have an option for xxx Tokens this vendor can now accept tokens for payment and for xxx ed this vendor can now accept ed for payment.
I do like this idea and there might be more possibilities for upgrading your vendor, though the staff should consider the effects on vendor decaying as well if things like this are introduced.
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Wil
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Re: Is there a problem with the current TC vendor system?

Post by Wil »

+Requiem wrote:
  • Collecting a fee when the item is sold, makes more sense, but then people just remove that item and sell it themselves to avoid the fee.
Oh... I don't know why this didn't click with me before. Here's a solution: when you remove an item from your TC vendor, it account-binds for 14 days.
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