(Question) Siege NPC Vendors

[kelmo]

I must admit that I have had very little to with running a vendor over the last decade. Buying from NPCs is another story...

The topic of vendor fees comes up often in Siege discussions. I really have no idea what extra penalties/taxes we have on Siege concerning vendors. What are the differences in the vending systems of Siege and the other shards?

 

[Uvtha]

I must admit that I have had very little to with running a vendor over the last decade. Buying from NPCs is another story...

The topic of vendor fees comes up often in Siege discussions. I really have no idea what extra penalties/taxes we have on Siege concerning vendors. What are the differences in the vending systems of Siege and the other shards?

I think its 3x the cost like all the rest of the stuff. Honestly I think all the 3x costs should be removed. I get that the idea was that people would rely on people to get what they need, but generally the items people actually buy from npcs are usually ones that players can't provide, or at least not provide well enough, like regs, gems, boats, house tools, stuff like that. No one buys equipables off of npcs, and thats basically the only thing npcs sell that people can readily provide.

At this point I think the prices are just a pain in the ass, that don't really enhance the experience, especially with our lower gold pool.

One good example... the fish pie ingredients. I was psyched to be able to make useful food until I learned I had to spend thousands of gold to make them. Even if I sold them for cost... that's a TON for an expendable item. Why in christs name they need some extra ingredient I can only get from an npc is a rant I wont get into. Freakin high seas design team...

It also makes running the trade quest cost an arm and a leg, which makes it harder to fund towns, and I for one have yet to have a town buff active.

And of course we all know that any barriers to people putting/keeping up vendors are a bad thing with the lack of vendors...

Price hike is really just bad for the shard at this point. Sure would be nice if they gave siege a design pass once every 5 years or so. heh.

 

[TheDrAJ]

I think NPC vendor prices are fine and lowering them would cause more problems than it would be worth.
For example - why farm leather if you can buy a tunic cheap and unravel.
I have always thought that jewels should not be sold because they are readily available by mining, killing solens and other monsters.

I myself never buy much from NPC vendors (I do however agree on the fish pie ingredients being way to expensive . Those prices made them to expensive to ever sell!)

I do think anything that is sold by NPC vendors should be able to be crafted. Like runes, blessed empty no mod spell books, blow pipes etc.

However I think player vendor fees are way to high for Siege. With low traffic people can not afford to stock vendors and make a profit.

Anyway that is my 2 cents.

 

[Marisa Kirisame]

Honestly I think player vendor upkeep fee should be a percentage that has an upper cap of 500gp per week or something (no more than 1k per item per week), same with item sell fee.

As for NPC vendors I think they should be allowed to buy things from players, perhaps at 3x less price. Certain items should not be subject to 3x prices, such as skill books, fish pie ingreds.

 

[Uvtha]

For example - why farm leather if you can buy a tunic cheap and unravel.

Because its a waste of time, and probably a waste of money? How much leather do you get back from a tunic? It could take you all day to run the vendor up to the level where you can get several hundred leather. It would be MUCH simpler to either get the leather yourself or buy it off someone else.

Also, Does ANYONE harvest regular leather on the shard right now? I doubt it, because the market cannot be that high, and there are just better things to do with your time, profits wise. Hell there's a way better market for cloth than there is for plain leather. The only two things you could possibly need it for are re-forging and doing bods, neither activity are something most people do commonly.

I have always thought that jewels should not be sold because they are readily available by mining, killing solens and other monsters.

I wouldn't call that readily available. It would be one of the most tedious tasks in the game to harvest gems off of solens on a regular basis, and the rate you get them mining is much lower. If you craft a lot of stuff you are gonna tear through gems, 5-10 gems on a monster is simply not going to cut it, and it shouldn't be that hard.

I really don't see either of these outcomes as greater problems that the ones 3x prices cause. The population is thin, the game is designed for a different ruleset. We need more help.

 

[TheDrAJ]

Uvtha I am curious what you buy from NPC vendors?

If no one buys things - what is the problem?

oh and yes all sorts of new people harvest leather to get started.

 

[Uvtha]

Uvtha I am curious what you buy from NPC vendors?

Myself? Gems. mainly, as gems are an important resource in the post imbuing world, and I personally would like imbuing to be cheaper, as cheap as possible in fact, so its cheaper to make suits and people mind less losing them. I have literally spent millions on gems, in fact gems are a big reason why I don't stock imbued stuff, I can't get them myself without hours of tedious work, I have to buy them, they are too expensive to use them for crafting training gear, and I think that's stupid.
Bags and dyes as well (both of which which should be craftable).

I never said no one buys anything, I actually listed things they DO buy, like gems, regs, bottles, blank scrolls, and the other things that you can only get from npcs like boats, house tools, etc. I'm sure I'm forgetting things people buy. The fish ingredients like we both mentioned.... oh yeah! LOBSTER TRAPS. God. That expansion...
None of these things are supplied by the community with any regularity because they are too much of a chore to get yourself. Making farming the only source of gems for example would be pretty disastrous, because I think quite literally everyone wears imbued gear, and that's a LOT of gems and no one wants to farm them 5 at a time.

oh and yes all sorts of new people harvest leather to get started.

If I were new I would do cloth personally, it sells much better, and is easier since the sheep are all in one closed in area. Heck, harvest spined if you gonna harvest leather. Lizard men aren't much harder than animals.
Also, I want to be clear again that I don't think anyone would switch from buying leather from newbs to buying tunics and cutting them up, so I really don't think it would effect player to player sales one iota. I know I sure as hell wouldn't do it, because like I said, it would be more involved than just going out and killing a dozen cows, something established people currently clearly cannot be bothered to do. People re-forging and running bods already have enough repetitive crap to do.

Now if mining could pull out say...100 gems at a time... that would be at least slightly different.

 

[kelmo]

*smiles* This the discussion I had hoped for. Thank you all. I feel this could be important.

 

[RueTor]

"...I am curious what you buy from NPC vendors?..."

Dyes
Runes
Backpacks, bags, or pouches
Various tools when I am too lazy to put tinkering on
Commodity Deeds
Vendor Contracts
Small Ships
House Placement tool (once)
Trade deal goods
Gems for imbuing, but siege vendors have to be worked up for 20. Production shards start at 500.
Probably a few more other items I can't think of at the moment...

 

[TheDrAJ]

I am not sure (even after all these posts) that lowering NPC process would bring any more players here or to keep them here.
It seems like I have not heard (from my point of view) any really good arguments to reduce them.
(except saves me $$ or saves me time)
And for the people who do collect gems from monsters it seems it would hurt their style of play.
I do still think that player vendor fees are 2 high.

 

[FrejaSP]

Also this tax.. kits to show your big bear or fish. 300k, that's way to high.

I too say, lower it to normal shards taxes and set player vendor and stall/community vendor fee to 1% a week.
About gem, regs, bottles, blank scrolls, mining need a better drop of gems, monster could use 2x of what they drop now. Regs, also increase ddrop on ground and from monsters to 2x. One sand should give 5 bottles, and blank scrolls, as long a newbie scriber have hard finding them on player vendors, they need to be 1x prices on npc vendors

 

[Uvtha]

I am not sure (even after all these posts) that lowering NPC process would bring any more players here or to keep them here.

I think that's too large an expectation for any change, especially one like this. I just see it as a way to make life better for people who already play here, and want to play here. As I have said dozens of times the only real factor when it comes to siege players is accepting/enjoying risk or not. The rest is just icing.

That said, keep frosting the cake and it becomes a nicer one for everyone who enjoys that flavor.

And it doesn't just save ME money or save ME time... it saves it for everyone. I would also never support a change that I though was bad just because it benefited me. In my opinion the higher prices were a good idea... 13 years ago. Things change, the game changed, and they don't do what they were meant to do, they are just an annoyance.

 

[Bo Bo]

Bo thinks there is nothing wrong with the current system, and charges. So things cost more, great it's a gold sink. If you choose not to buy from npc you have to either farm the stuff or interact with others to buy what you need. How is this an issue?
As for player run vendors, you have your options to deal with the fees. 1 lower your price so your stuff sells fast. 2 raise your price to include the price of those fees. 3 sell via chat. So option 3 is what most people do these days. how is this bad for siege. this creates interaction with people. this is again great for siege.
people seem to want to make changes to just make changes, none of these would siege any benefits as far as increasing the population. In the many years Bo has played siege the Bo has never heard anyone say "I'm quitting siege cause these vendor fees are killing me."

 

[Uvtha]

Bo thinks there is nothing wrong with the current system, and charges. So things cost more, great it's a gold sink. If you choose not to buy from npc you have to either farm the stuff or interact with others to buy what you need. How is this an issue?

I guess the problem is that those resources aren't provided in enough quantity by the population.

As for player run vendors, you have your options to deal with the fees. 1 lower your price so your stuff sells fast. 2 raise your price to include the price of those fees. 3 sell via chat. So option 3 is what most people do these days. how is this bad for siege. this creates interaction with people. this is again great for siege.

If you have to sell at a bad price, then thats clearly a problem. You shouldn't have to. If you do, what purpose are these price increases serving? Gold sinks aren't that important.
As for selling on chat, or here on the forums, I think thats fine, but npc vendors are valuable because they are always available. You never know something you may need/want or when you may want it, and it could disrupt your gameplay to have to wait for potentially days to get what you are looking for. Especially if you are like me, and the only time you can play is when 90% population is asleep.

people seem to want to make changes to just make changes, none of these would siege any benefits as far as increasing the population. In the many years Bo has played siege the Bo has never heard anyone say "I'm quitting siege cause these vendor fees are killing me."

I actually have heard quite a few people say they were going to stop running a vendor, or stop selling high ticket items on a vendor because it cost them too much.

I don't think its a huge deal, but like I said, I just don't think its adding anything to the shard.

 

[TheDrAJ]

Bo thinks there is nothing wrong with the current system, and charges. So things cost more, great it's a gold sink. If you choose not to buy from npc you have to either farm the stuff or interact with others to buy what you need. How is this an issue?
As for player run vendors, you have your options to deal with the fees. 1 lower your price so your stuff sells fast. 2 raise your price to include the price of those fees. 3 sell via chat. So option 3 is what most people do these days. how is this bad for siege. this creates interaction with people. this is again great for siege.
people seem to want to make changes to just make changes, none of these would siege any benefits as far as increasing the population. In the many years Bo has played siege the Bo has never heard anyone say "I'm quitting siege cause these vendor fees are killing me."

Gosh - it kills me to agree with BO.

 

[Marisa Kirisame]

Marisa says that you can't always sell the wares you want to provide via the chat, simply because you aren't always online. Selling too cheap makes it unprofitable to get the items in the first place. Because vendor fee is a percentage, to cover it you would need to raise the item higher - at which point there's risk it won't sell and then your gold just goes away with no effect. Marisa thinks the fee should be a percentage, but with absolute (a certain number of gp) higher cap, so item priced past a certain value would have this cap for a fee, not more. The cap should not be higher than 10k - this would allow people to sell their wares when they aren't online. The main problem of the fee is that gold is more valuable here and due to low population items don't sell for quite a while, therefore you're losing more "real" (the actual product value of the gold) gold than on prodo - Marisa'd say, too much "real" gold to keep vendors. If only the population was a lot higher to make costly items sell quicker, or the fees lower - the people (most people, not wealthy moneybags like Sam) would be able to keep vendors for something priced for more than 50k gp.

What Marisa dislikes in npc vendors is that you can't sell items. She'd love it if they buy items even for a mere 1gp each.

 

[TheDrAJ]

Marisa - I know you are relatively new to the shard - but the reason we still have a great economy is that scripters and gold farmers can not sell to vendors and deflate the value of gold. It is very easy to make money on Siege if you are willing to put in the time. I am against anything that makes things too easy. Risk vs reward is the key.
That being said:
The economy on Siege is just orders of magnitude better than any of the other shards. Things have value here.

 

[Marisa Kirisame]

If I'll be able to sell even diamonds for 1gp per only, it'll be okay too. Don't want the money to deflate - I know how it works.

 

[FrejaSP]

Sell them to the community vendors in New Mag, and you may be a rich lady

 

[Silent Singer]

I made 110k in gold trying to key a peerless yesterday. I died many times. Plenty of risk there

And speaking of New Mag, when I was buying my scrolls last week at that shop on the north end of town, I ran just west to gate home. Guess what? Piles of logs laying under trees. Plain logs, big piles. The last time I saw a similar occurence was a script lumberjacker on a prodo shard. I was under impression that the no recall rule prevented scripting here so maybe someone was just logging and dropping plain on purpose. If so, please tell me next time, I'll follow you around with a packy!!! I need those logs for my carpenter.

 

[FrejaSP]

Maybe it was just someone who wanted higher level logs for enhanging and needed training

 

[Silent Singer]

For sure, which is why I'm offering to take any unwanted logs off their hands

 

[TheDrAJ]

I think the money comes from fungi and parasitic plants (or crystal shards in Ter Mur)

 

[Troop]

I like things the way they are. I see no need to change any of this.

 

[Barania]

If I'll be able to sell even diamonds for 1gp per only, it'll be okay too. Don't want the money to deflate - I know how it works.

Diamonds are worth way more than 1gp. I'd figure out plan B on this one.

Jack Nickelson

 

[Tanivar]

I didn't sell reagents and other items in quantity on vendors because the prices on vendor search were the same as the NPC price for that quantity. I would have spent hours building up the vendors to 999 each, more hours buying a stockpile, and then would have had to sell it at a price that gave me nothing for my time investment.

Selling furniture was also at a loss considering the failure rate. Wasn't even getting the 4 or 5 gold per log value involved in making items. Vendor search prices were to low. If I wanted a profit I had to just sell the logs at the bazaar.

The leather you get using salvage bags is affected by your Tailoring skill. Landreu, a GM+ Tailor got quite a bit of leather salvaging gear he made he wasn't happy with, Tanivar with zero Tailoring got one leather per item.

When I went out to gather logs I usually did so without a packer along and just left the logs in a pile. When the axes I had ran out I went back to the house for the packer and gathered them up. I loaded up the beetle, set a rune, gated to the house to unload, and gated back to the rune I set and picked up more of the logs. Someone else might be doing the same trick.

 

[Silent Singer]

Interesting and where might you be lumberjacking usually .... you know, out of curiosity

 

[Sprago]

Bo thinks there is nothing wrong with the current system, and charges. So things cost more, great it's a gold sink. If you choose not to buy from npc you have to either farm the stuff or interact with others to buy what you need. How is this an issue?
As for player run vendors, you have your options to deal with the fees. 1 lower your price so your stuff sells fast. 2 raise your price to include the price of those fees. 3 sell via chat. So option 3 is what most people do these days. how is this bad for siege. this creates interaction with people. this is again great for siege.
people seem to want to make changes to just make changes, none of these would siege any benefits as far as increasing the population. In the many years Bo has played siege the Bo has never heard anyone say "I'm quitting siege cause these vendor fees are killing me."

well said agree 100%

 

[Tanivar]

Interesting and where might you be lumberjacking usually .... you know, out of curiosity

Haven't lumberjacked since I got myself in deep puppychow with some people on Siege. When I did, it was through the trees north of my house up to the sand area. Nice stretch to log, worst you run into is a couple dire wolves giving you some spined leather.

I recall you posting that I could consider you as hostile to me. Just 'out of curiosity' huh?

 

[Marisa Kirisame]

Marisa would like to invite Bo to a tea party in her house.