Player Vendors - high rent slow sales

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Originally Posted by Atis

Merchants that can be placed anywhere (except abusable spots) would solve this issue better.

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How is that any different than messing with the prices?

You still haven't said why it would be back for the prices to vary. Or where I said it had to be automatic.

And varying the price - so that the first stall is cheap and the last stall is more expensive - is not even a fancy or un-thought of algorithm. It's literally what they do at Pike's Place Market. The more stalls are reserved, the higher the price will be to keep the stall. That market opened in 1907. This is the example I was thinking of.

When designing a game, you're playing with the very rules which encourage or discourage player actions. Taking or learning from examples in the real world - from markets to stadium seats' pricing - is one way of doing that without reinventing the wheel. And yet, many times you might have to. Economics is often called a very soft science because the very pool of actions will change depending on information and experience. An experienced pool will have very different reactions to a set of prices than an inexperienced pool of actors. So over time, both the buyers and the sellers have to shift their target around.

Which means literally that there is no one price; that 'right' price will vary; and it won't be just a matter of numbers to get the right price.

The number of vendors available on different days of the week will vary because the game does, in fact, have 'prime times' based upon the population of players. Trying to maximize and entice vendors to stick around and offer things is in itself a game for the devs to play. A game which has a 'right' answer that will never be exactly the same, as the players wil game right back at them.

And that's how economic incentives work!

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Originally Posted by Crissa

How is that any different than messing with the prices?

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In all ways possible? Messing with prices is constant extra work for devs, allowing merchants everywhere is one-time work.

>You still haven't said why it would be back for the prices to vary.

I did in my previous post, the one you are answering.

> Or where I said it had to be automatic.

I never said you did. I covered both options - automatic and manual.

Real worlds practices are not applicable here mostly, players don't earn money to live, they just play. Incentives are different from the start to finish. Examples from older open world MMOs are more relevant.

>And that's how economic incentives work!

Not in game. Only incentive to make money is to buy skills. And it's more reliable to just grind money with combat skills without interacting with other players, something impossible in real world. How much players do you know that took some tradeskill to make money? It's totally opposite of real world, where trade is mostly about money and money are made by interacting with other people. Only most basic economics principles are the same, all conditions are different, so it makes no sense to apply something from real market.

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Not only that, but the rooms were intended to be sorted by what was sold! There is an underlying economic structure here and it's designed to avoid people monopolizing that front room. [That said, there's no good reason to have the other rooms sectioned off the way they are; there doesn't need to be "second" or "third" class rooms. THAT can be changed by geographically rotating the walls.

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I guess if after a new layout is in place, if there are still first/second/third rooms, rent could fluctuate on location. Closer to entrance = higher daily upkeep cost.

My fear is for when people get 2 accounts and start swapping the merchant between them - forever holding it in place while also keep their rent low. Perhaps there's nothing that can be done to prevent this, but I guess in that case I'll just take solace in the fact that there are more important things in life. lol

I've seen this sort of monopoly control in room E there's 4-6 vendors, is it the same person or a few from same guild not sure but prices across all of them are the same.

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Originally Posted by Atis

In all ways possible?

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There is no option of 'not messing with pricing'. The economics and pricing has to be messed with. Otherwise it will fall off the balance that it's at, one way or another, and then die.

Your statement 'not in game' is completely bs. Literally if grinding is easier to get money than the stores - the stores will die. That's economic incentives. It's not an argument against them.

The only reason for people iRL to accumulate money is the same as the ones in game: To perpetuate playing.

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Originally Posted by Crissa

There is no option of 'not messing with pricing'. The economics and pricing has to be messed with. Otherwise it will fall off the balance that it's at, one way or another, and then die.

Your statement 'not in game' is completely bs. Literally if grinding is easier to get money than the stores - the stores will die. That's economic incentives. It's not an argument against them.

The only reason for people iRL to accumulate money is the same as the ones in game: To perpetuate playing.

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You are welcome to try to not perpetuate playing with 0 money for a month in game and IRL. Would end up way better in game. Then you can taste the difference in incentives, literally.

You can play just fine without giving or getting any money from other players. You wont live long doing same irl. Not exactly comparable reasons to participate in market.


Multiple MMOs live without direct price control just fine. Only games that would suffer from poor markets would be ones where crafters are rare and you cannot do a thing without crafting stuff. In PG everybody except perma-animal players can be a crafter with multiple specs and items don't deteriorate. Market can die and revive once a week and it would be fine.

There is no "if", grinding is a better way to make gold, and stores live, not as a necessity but as a side activity, hobby sometimes. Thats perfectly normal for PG, it's a hangout game with zero competition or survival elements.

All that mush about "fall off the balance and die" cant happen in game where is no balance and nowhere to fall from. You need to build active market first and for that you either limit players in many ways to force them to trade or make trading so easy and convenient it's just silly not to participate. Limiting players is against PG concept and what could be more convenient than having player owned vendors around the world with low fees and loose time limitations?

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Originally Posted by Atis

You are welcome to try to not perpetuate playing with 0 money for a month in game and IRL.

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Okay, I'm done talking to you.

There is just nothing in your posts but repeated misreading.

If you have no coin in game, you don't get new abilities. As you deftly pointed out. You'd start having trouble making food, keeping your pockets clear, crafting, questing. At least you don't die, but without coin, you will certainly do that more.

If you want to continue arguing, go ahead. But you again pointed out why there is no one single true balance point, and the devs will have to mess with the economics - and in fact, do mess with the economics all the time with their application of drops, fees, etc.

i lurk a lot, play the game from time to time, played plenty of MMO's with personal vendors and played games without, one thing i always wanted to do in AC1 was set up a shop selling wares to peoples, but it was a naive thing to think back then.

having grown up watching mmo's evolve in strange ways, i couldnt help be think that the AC1 vendor system (sold items become stock of the vendor) was a really clever way of doing it, sure it could have done with a better interface (one long continuous bar of goods, poorly organised with no search ability was time consuming to look through in busy areas) but it did the trick, Players got their worth for the items, vendors sold them on, no loot lost or at least no useful loot lost.

now i understand these days that is essentially what auction houses do but it really doesnt have to be as complicated as that, you could even have some clever maths thrown in where the vendor reacts like a player.

you sell/give stock to a vendor, he has a base price and markup that he sells things at, the more of a certain item he has the lower his markup is (supply and demand yeah?) conversely he also has a markdown that he buys things at, the more of an item he has the less he buys it for.

the vendor still has to pay "rent" after all, this can be represented by stall/shop, even to the point of not having a vendor there to sell anything and you having to front the guy in the first place just so he can get a stall/shop running, but having a single guy or a few of them selling ALL players items makes it less crowded and easier to manage, skills in haggling and other financial concepts would result in you getting more money or paying less for your items.

"successful" vendors could then branch out, have more assistants, bigger, fancier shops, perhaps even multiple premises in different cities which share stock, the prices would be controlled by the fact that players want to make the most out of their sales, they will sell to the vendor offering the most and of course would buy from the ones offering the least, i'm sure they would then be a valuable trade market going on.

obviously this is just a ramble and not a fully thought out idea, but i always find masses of player run stalls to look "a bit shit" in games, especially if they are able to put them anywhere they want, i know this has a market hall, but still ... stall after stall after stall probably selling more or less the same stuff, no one has time for that.

tl:dr - player owned stores, Bad, NPC run stores supplied by players, Good.

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Originally Posted by Crissa

Okay, I'm done talking to you.

There is just nothing in your posts but repeated misreading.

If you have no coin in game, you don't get new abilities. As you deftly pointed out. You'd start having trouble making food, keeping your pockets clear, crafting, questing. At least you don't die, but without coin, you will certainly do that more.

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Pff, "Ingame market works like IRL one!" - "Not it's not, here's why" - "Repeated misreading!"

You get coin from farm, market can be ignored. If you change that, it's still no biggie. Ye, you don't get abilities, so what? Will you die? will you be unable to do stuff, if already have bunch of abilities? There is no rush to get coin at any cost.

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Originally Posted by Crissa

If you want to continue arguing, go ahead. But you again pointed out why there is no one single true balance point, and the devs will have to mess with the economics - and in fact, do mess with the economics all the time with their application of drops, fees, etc.

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Repeated misreading! I said devs DON'T need to mess with economics if market gets fixed, they need to mess only if market is broken and requires crutches.

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Originally Posted by Seadee

NPC run stores supplied by players, Good.

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Wouldn't that reinforce self-playing game part? Less control at player hands, smaller part of economic is player-run etc.

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Originally Posted by Atis

You get coin from farm, market can be ignored.

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That's like saying you can get coin by working in a factory/fishing/playing music on the street instead of owning a store. Of course it exists, but that isn't a feature that makes the market forces less like reality.