Actually in real life I use the internet to locate things so I do not have to walk around. I also know for a fact that a grocery store will have certain items 99% of the time. The comparison to real life is probably not valid as people shop differently in real life versus a game.
I do not enjoy wandering around Boundless looking for something. I consider it a waste of time, when I could be engaged in an activity that actually produces something or allows me to build.
When I bring this up I keep being told it is an MMO Sandbox and MMOâs sometimes do include Auction Houses. But in any case, the alternative is to just not participate in the economy at all. I can with a few alts make whatever I need or just barter with friends in game and bypass the shops entirely. I am not sure that over the long term this is good or bad for the game, but it is less time consuming and less frustrating that wandering a universe with over 30 planets and who knows how many shops to find something.
But this is off topic the OPS point was it is hard to find people to buy not hard to find a store.
I would love an auction house that as soon you put something in a request basket or into shop a stand it goes directly on the auction house, this will mostly reduce some footfall but you will still be able to buy from the shop directly or via the auction house and while this requires some database/server ressources it shouldnât be to hard to implement and would be a perfect scenario.
You are correct it would reduce footfall. I think you should still have to go to the store to buy the item (so there is some footfall there for the store and any portals). It does eliminate footfall from other stores that are not visited, but why is that bad? Why should a store get footfall from a customer that does not by anything? Does this not just encourage people to set up storefronts near portal hubs just for the footfall with no real interest in getting customers?
People will use sandbox or MMO whenever it fits their view lol. The fact is youâre both right. A sandbox wouldnt have an auction house, an MMO would. It comes down to what the devs want to do. You have people on both sides. Some want an auction house or at least some way to find who is selling what. Some donât want anything and would prefer people wander around to stumble on shops and builds.
Me personally, I dont want a full blown auction house. I do want some way to find who is selling what and IN STOCK (or recently in stock at least), maybe without the price included so you still have to explore a bit to find good deals. The way I play, i have times when I want to explore and times when I just want to buy 1 silver bar to complete my mass craft. I spent a good 30-45 mins one day searching for a shop with silver bars and only found a couple selling them for outrageous prices. I decided to just go farm it myself eventually.
Very few actually create prices for themselves and would prefer instead to run around and see what others are selling things for and then ⌠copy.
Unfortunately with that sort of sheep mentality, all the shops sell the same things for the same prices except for the odd ones.
I suspect over time things will change. Anything sold cheaply right now is simply snapped up completely by a character and then placed on his store for the usual price. Don;t get me wrong, I m hppy to sell out of things, thatâs why I was selling them but I do sometimes wish it went to someone who actually needed it for crafting or for playing rather than another store owner simply making a profit.
I do not want all the transactions handled though the server. I think the customer should go to the sellers shop. I would prefer to see the price, but if I could be sure they were at least in stock, it would still save time.
To you last point, I think this is what might happen more and more over time. As we get more planets and more players and more stores, players will either find a couple of stores they find dependable for price and supply or they will simply craft or mine the item themselves. This either makes it hard for newer shop owners to draw customers or removes these transactions from the economy.
Request baskets are down to the seller though. They are not forced to sell at a low low price. In the same way we run around for good prices on sell Plinths, a seller needs to run around for the good prices on request baskets as well.
From experience, request baskets that offer almost nothing for your items actually get no sales so the store owner is not making anything. Same for sellers who are over priced, they do not get any sales so make no C
Sellers and buyers only make C if prices are fair. It also helps if the seller doesn;t have insane expectations for the prices they are going to get for their wares
If we had an auction house. Think of all of the buildings we would no longer have in the game to lok at.
There would be no need at all for any stores as we would simply stick everything on the auction house.
We would not be running around and exploring for new vendors as we would all be stood in the auction house.
AH might sound good for buyers but itâs rubbish for sellers and rubbish for builders and ⌠actually itâs just simply bad for the game in my opinion.
Something i havent really seen touched on here- if you want to sell to request baskets, most people use them to buy stuff they dont want or cant bother gathering. Most processed goods are not bought through buy baskets, usually they are sold on stands and people who need them come to the stand and buy.
The reason for this is not concrete, but i feel its to do with the time sensitivity of the trade.
Someone who wants compacted coal wants it now because theyâre going to cook or craft something. If i want another furnace or power coil, i go out and get one. From where i stand, buy baskets would probably only ever take in manufactured stuff if you set one up in your house (assuming you dont own a shop) and attempt to buy random things you might need in the future.
Store owners dont go running around looking for raw mats most of the time, as gathering is easy and someone is bound to come by carrying what you want.
I feel like my point is getting limp here and its just not coming over right selling processed stuff to baskets is like running around push-marketing your processed goods to everyone you can find for hand trade. It happens, but its just not a convenient system
I buy Oortstones for 175c which I think is a pretty fair price. I have hardly ever had any sold to me though itâs all part of the game and the market. Don;t worry about it. I have about 200 plinths selling all sorts of stuff. Sometimes I sell a lot and sometimes I sell nothing. Itâs all good though as itâs stuff I manage to gather while playing the game. The store is massive but itâs not the game for me so I do not mind if noone buys or visits - I would suggest you do the same and simply play and let the store develop at the rate it develops naturally - much more fun
After thinking about this a lot more I think it will eventually be the responsibility of the portal hub owners to solve this navigation problem. They both control the search algorithm (by organizing the hub correctly) and can enforce rules on the shopkeeper (by deactivating their portal).
We need portal hubs that are like âhead this way for shops that buy your monster dropsâ, and for them to treat those portals like advertising space. If the store starts selling tools instead, or runs out of monster drops, the portal is given to the next shop waiting in line. The more strict the portal hub owner is the better it is for buyers. For example, the portal hub can enforce profit margins on trade posts (âwe will remove your portal if your margins are over 5c/itemâ)
It works both ways though and recently I have actually thought about not selling raw materials at all in the store and simply sell only items that have in some way shape or form been altered via a machine.
Raw materials I don;t sell too many of despite having tons of stock and pretty good pricing as well for both buy and sell prices. The manufactured stuff though sells much better and the request baskets for raw items do ok.
My point, request baskets are good for raw and selling plinths are good for manufactured. If a store buys and sells the raw then there is a habit that characters will look at the buy price and then the sell price, work out the profit and not sell as if itâs bad the store owner makes a profit etc.
The seller should sell if they are happy with the price and not be concerned about the profit the store owner might be making.
This is a very good point, i wouldnât want that at all.
But looking at it differently, what if once your settlement reaches a certain prestige the warden could unlock some form of an auctioneer npc, block, etc. that doesnât sell anything but instead directs you to a shop. Once the prestige threshold is reached, each shop in that settlement could designate what kind of shop it is. For example shops selling food could have some sort of designator that the auctioneer recognizes and could then lead potential customers to the shop. If your shop sells a little of everything you would be able to check more than one box.
The warden placing this npc strategically (like on the other side of the settlement away from the portal hub) could promote footfall and more exploration of the city. People can easily get sidetracked exploring and stumble upon other shops otw.
Again this âauctioneerâ wouldnât sell anything, it doesnât even have to tell you if that shop sells exactly what youâre looking for. It would only say this shop sells food or this shop sells gems, etc.
You WOULD see such a thing, if the game was like Eve Online, where traveling to another location to get better stuff took hours of travel. But it doesnât. It takes me, personally, literally 5 minutes to get to any of the 42 planets on the game, from both Portal Seeker Hubs, and Ultima HQ Hub.
If it took people very long time to travel from home to a Coal World, many hours, most likely people wonât travel and only mine in their world. Thus yes, their resources would sell high and have low stock, while on a Coal World, the prices would be lower with much more to sell.
But like I pointed out, it takes literally 5 minutes to go anywhere. Coal doesnât cost more on a non-coal world, cause everyone just goes to the coal world to mine up all the coal to sell.
A Auction house would literally be the death sentence to having and maintaining a shop. A core feature of this game.It would be shooting this game in the heart. So I do not agree. This is not WoW.
I think this is a reasonable point. For example, I have request baskets for the vast majority of gathered resources, but I only sell weapons/tools - I donât have req baskets out for them.
The exceptions are the various states of ore (bars, compact, refined, machined) and gems (compact, refined). However, in the future I would like to have req baskets and shop stands for all manufactured items - but Iâm not able to fund those just yet.
A quick view through threads and youâll see that there are 3 shops now tryin g to change the request basket âscamâ. Myself being one of them. We buy things and sell things making only a few c per transaction. These stores are operating differently and are not using the same tactics as others. If your sick of the current buying really low selling really high problem with most shops then support one of the shops trying to change that. If everyone stopped selling their shin orbs for 25c to the shops that then turn around and sell em for 400c they will eventually be forced to adjust prices or they will loose all foot traffic and sales will stop.
Hmmmm⌠Iâd be interested if you ever plan to sell on concession/ supply a niche part of a sell all store⌠people dont seem to want my cheap wares
selling processed stuff to baskets is like running around push-marketing your processed goods to everyone you can find for hand trade. It happens, but its just not a convenient system