This is a shop owner problem, not a hub problem. In fact, additional hubs will only make it worse. The BUTT could fix this.
When someone opens a shop there is no required way for them to communicate how to get to them. When you look them up on the BUTT or you see their beacon name. Unless they name themselves SHOP-biitulaPSportal or something you can’t find your way to it.
If @Mayumichi wanted to add shops like were on the other shopping site, that would allow for directions to be put in, that would be ideal and solve the problem easily. Anyone could enter it in, like a wiki.
So you see sap for 1c being sold somewhere, but ‘how to get there’. Run there and see the portals back, and then record it on the BUTT as the way to get there. Then anytime you go there in the future or anyone else goes there, the directions are clear and it is easy to get to.
Most shops are connected to SOME portal hub, but there are a lot of connections they can make. If they choose ones you don’t use, you aren’t likely to find their portal.
Directions on BUTT are planned in fact, but it’ll take time to add that functionality. And it won’t be exactly like it was on BTN, since there’s no sign-up on BUTT
A network is just a group of people who provide a free service for zero cost. we dont use the coins personally but only for the benefit of the guild/ community. We try to help to connect the costumers/travelers/sellers to a large group and locations.
As i mentioned too, we arent at full strenght, a decent amount of portal masters are slowing down their activity to boundless. To request of the already smaller group to do more for everyones quality of life improvement might be to much to ask. And it isnt just adding a simple job to an activity. It would be indeed an easy task to put aside but then you still have to mantain the data. That the information is still correct.
So since i think we are close to our capacity, to request this to the masters is an other job they have to do while playing the game.
Is it then so bad to ask others to volunteer for the networks? it a nice way to increase the workforce and get in touch with the network keepers. building up an thrustworthly relation. who knows what comes out of that.
TNT are working on two projects that should help to greatly improve the shopping experience.
This will be a combo of web based improvements on BUTT and also ingame navigation project.
Another way could be for shop owners across the universe to take part in a standardised naming convention.
Much like what SePras suggested above and like many of the Mall shop owners do, literally give directions in the beacon name. Obviously to keep the name as short as possible it would be better to mention a portal hub name if the city its connected to isnt well known.
shop name > Portal hub > Tier > direction i.e. NW etc.
It would definitely be cool to do something, but there’s definitely quite a few hurdles to go through. First, we’d need a REALLY solid plan and some hard rules about how we want to do it. We’d also have to go through what planets to connect where in a way that balances both oort efficiency and making the system user friendly so people don’t just get lost. Honestly, the biggest hurdle would probably be actually getting people to use the system. Not much point in a portal system if no one cares to use it or prefers the existing hubs they’re already used to. There’s really just a lot. I’d want to wait to see what all this is about with TNT anyway. Maybe they’re doing something nice and organized that would work well, but my hopes aren’t high. Either way, I feel like the best bet would be to help one of the existing hubs be better. Heck, the Sochaltin I PS hub doesn’t even have signs for the portals! I know places that have been connected to Portal Seekers for 6-8 months that still have a generic S4 for their portal name.
I have to admit i havent read ALL the posts here, but what i don’t understand is, why can’t you just use the existing infrastructure? TNT and PS both have hubs on every single planet. They’re the 2 most connected networks in the universe. Creating a new network would only dilute the amount of portals per hub and likely have the opposite effect of what you’re trying to achieve. Not to mention that creating your own hubs to connect as a host, will cost you immense amounts of oort.
The only realistic option is to have the cities themselves connect to you. In which case, you might aswell use one of the existing hubs to stay as connected as possible As i mentioned earlier, creating new networks will only dilute portals per hub and have the opposite effect of what you’re looking for
I totally agree that a new HUB would add to the problem. But like others have said, a shop can have portals on PS, TNT, or any other hub. And even if they do have a connection to one of them, there is no guarantee it’s on the planet you are looking for it. Real example 30 min ago, I was searching for for a shop on (JEWELER on Raxxa to be more exact), I did go through some HUBS, nothing, and just started walking there. When I reached it, it had a portal to PS bittula. I actually talked with him and now the shop has PS Bitulla in it’s name, thing that would make things a lot easier in the future.
Exactly my point. If someone wanted to create an actual really good hub, it would take huge investment and you’d need to be very careful with planning it right. Then I went on to say the best bet would probably be one of the existing portal hubs, but they definitely need some help and some rule changes or something, which would make it actually work much better. I’d say PS is the best hub we have, but it could be so fast to use if it just had some more organization. Honestly, I’m just relying on memory for 90% of the portals since they can be located on any number of hubs. DK mall is on Antar VII, but links to Biitula PS, Alutech is on Arie, but links to Lamblis PS. Heck, the town I’m in links to Lamblis despite being on Sochaltin I because there’s not even signs for the Sochaltin I PS hub.
That’s true, but that’s a shop/city owners choice. Unless you plan to connect to every major shop/city on a planet yourself, how would you propose to fix this?
Yeah definitely agree here, there was a suggestion thread a while back for added information per beacon, i’d love to see that implemented.
Again though, it’s up to the shop/city owners. Not much the existing or new hubs can do about it
That’s true, but that’s a shop/city owners choice. Unless you plan to connect to every major shop/city on a planet yourself, how would you propose to fix this?
Again though, it’s up to the shop/city owners. Not much the existing or new hubs can do about it
By making it no longer the shop/city owners choice. Restrict it so they can’t link to a PS hub on another planet, but rather the one on their existing planet.
I’m obviously biased, but i’d say the network you can navigate without a map, prior knowledge and where you go from any planet to any other planet in 2 jumps, would beg to differ
Though it’s not very friendly to newer players when they need caustic protection just to enter the hub. Usually you’d want to host a hub like that in the most friendly environment possible. And this is personal opinion, but I’m not a big fan of the super ultra tall portals and trampoline floor along with frankly very ugly stairs made out of gleam signs and little bits of glass. Not to mention that since it’s(it being Portal Seekers) not a megahub all in one place, it’s not so crowded with portals to who knows what planet as often everywhere. I feel like PS could do some work on listing out the planets located on the main hubs though, they only list like a third of the planets, so until I got them more memorized, it was hard to know which of the 4 hub planets hosted the one I was looking for.
Seems like the issue you have is just with how PS organized their shopping hubs. If i recall correctly (and please any PS member correct me if im wrong!) They chose a few planets to serve as shop hubs. This was done before the shop scanner, so it made sense to gather all the shops in a few select hubs, to make shopping a lot easier.
I feel like this definitely needs an update, and the entire reason it’s not being done is because there would be some cost in closing and reopening the portals, along with the issue of if an owner of a portal was hard to get ahold of and never relinked their portal to the correct planet. Could cause them some popularity loss if the malls and places they linked to were no longer available. The problem will just get worse with time though.
Oh and one quick thing that I forgot, I also love how each PS hub uses the materials of the planet, giving each hub a unique look so you actually feel like you’re on lamblis when you see that nice green hub. It doesn’t feel all sterile and samey that some other hubs suffer from.
To be honest, I don’t think this can’t be done without the hubs enforcing more strict rules, like make the owner update his beacon name, or something like that. And don’t say it’s impossible, because PS already dose something similar (it has rules that you need to follow in order to keep your portal active, went through the process some time ago).
Yah, I would, but like ppl said already, I’m not going to make a new hub, and I won’t go through all the portals each week, or follow all the HUB discussions on discord or the forums, it’s imposible for 2 ppl to do that, even if you say other ppl would join in the future, I don’t want to start something that might fail and I just get all my work thrown out the window. So we would need a solid plan
@StormyClouds It appears you are talking about apples and oranges.
Ok, you can hate the look and design of the TNT Hub but as far as functionality then TNT imo is FAR easier to get to the planets, regardless of a whole 1 point in protection you have to spend.
I have friends on both guilds (so this is not to offend anyone) but for real I never got used to PS layout its way too complicated. I can never tell which portals lead to what.
Let’s say tnt hubs only connect to places om their own planet (not counting portals opened by the host). I’m pretty sure thats the case atm. In that case, you wouldnt need something in the beacon name. If its connected to tnt, you simply go to the right planet through the monolith
