Topic

Remove produce vendors

The automated, unlimited buying of produce pretty much eliminates the need for a garden, especially since vendors are so easily-accessible. Because money is VERY easy to come by in Glitch, and because produce is unbelievably cheap, gardening just becomes a more time-consuming, labor-consuming, and harder-to-access (you can only have one garden) method of getting produce. The reason we don't sell eggs, butterfly milk, and bubbles, too, is because it ruins that aspect of gameplay, in the same way that selling produce ruins the gardening aspect.

Removing produce vendors, while annoying initially, would promote trading between players who forgot a certain type of produce in their garden, adding to the vague economy of Glitch and boosting social interactions.

Posted 23 months ago by RobotGymnast Subscriber! | Permalink

Replies

  • Adjustments might have to be made with skill prereqs, prices, etc. to make it work, and then there's the coming garden revamp.
    Posted 23 months ago by Tingly Claus Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Not really sure what the revamp entails. Got any links?
    Posted 23 months ago by RobotGymnast Subscriber! | Permalink
  • They've only said it'll happen. It could be nothing more than getting it into the game window for all I know.
    Posted 23 months ago by Tingly Claus Subscriber! | Permalink
  • i don't think glitch needs to remove the produce vendors so much as i think gardening needs to be improved.

    this shouldn't be that difficult. the produce you grow yourself is much, much less expensive [free, even] than the stuff you buy from the vendors. yield is the thing. turn gardening into something more like agriculture and the vendors will become increasingly irrelevant.

    the vendors should stick around, as auctions are *far* too unreliable, especially given the small alpha player base and limited production capacity of the existing gardens.

    instead of removing vendors, glitch should improve gardening so that it can "beat the vendors". if they're able to do that, at that point consider dropping the vendors.
    Posted 23 months ago by striatic Subscriber! | Permalink
  • The Alpha is supposed to model the release version as much as it can, to be best-tested. I'm talking about the release version, in which vendors should be removed. The fact remains that as long as produce is cheap at vendors, there's not really a whole lot of benefit to investing time and effort into a garden, when practically infinite amounts of produce can be purchased from vendors.
    Posted 23 months ago by RobotGymnast Subscriber! | Permalink
  • "there's not really a whole lot of benefit to investing time and effort into a garden, when practically infinite amounts of produce can be purchased from vendors"

    it costs 2800 currants to buy 400 cabbage.

    if you cycle part of your harvest through a pig to plop out more seeds, you can grow 400 cabbage for practically nothing.

    it's an issue of yield.

    if vendors disappeared, i wouldn't take up gardening to get the cabbage that makes up the majority of my energy supply. there'd be no flowering of community and commerce so much as switching to other energy sources. no-no powder or pork fountains would be much more attractive than gardening.

    people might garden at home more to satisfy one off production for projects and quests as they come along, but that's not an economy.

    increase yield, on the other hand .. yes, then you'd have an economy. people would be able to produce enough excess produce to put it up for auction at significant profits, which wouldn't be the case if the vendors merely disappeared.
    Posted 23 months ago by striatic Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I didn't mean to imply there wouldn't need to be other tweaks and rebalances done; you're clearly right, there would need to be some re-engineering.

    Although, if gardens were higher-yield, then we could keep produce vendors, but make them similar to food vendors: uncommon, higher-priced, but available if necessary.
    Posted 23 months ago by RobotGymnast Subscriber! | Permalink
  • that's true.

    though they wouldn't necessarily have to be uncommon. they would be like buying milk at the convenience store. more convenient if you run out early, but rather expensive by way of punishment.

    fine in a pinch, but clearly not as economical as growing your own produce over time.

    tho i suppose vendors should generally be less common. the number of hardware vendors out there is kind of ridiculous when you think about how few visits you need to make to them.
    Posted 23 months ago by striatic Subscriber! | Permalink
  • That's true; going to a vendor should be a little mini-adventure in and of itself.

    What if the idea of production were extended further, into tools and such as well, a la Minecraft? You could produce anything you could buy from the vendor (with some exceptions), but you could buy from a vendor (more expensive) if need be.
    Posted 23 months ago by RobotGymnast Subscriber! | Permalink
  • You won't see the produce vendors disappear any time soon, but gardens are definitely getting a rework. Not everything has been decided yet, but they will be accessed within the game window and they will be scalable (to a point).

    Then there's the larger issue of economic balance. Our economy will continue to be tweaked as we approach beta, and there will always be adjustments to the abundance & scarcity of resources. This will also include a look at gardening and its potential reward.

    Oh, and vendors are going to undergo some changes as well …
    Posted 23 months ago by jdawg Subscriber! | Permalink
  • By vendors, you mean street spirits? Will they always be linked with both street building & selling/buying?
    Posted 23 months ago by Hburger Subscriber! | Permalink
  • No: their days as vendors are limited :)
    Posted 23 months ago by stoot barfield Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Interesting...
    Posted 23 months ago by Amy Pond Subscriber! | Permalink
  • What if produce vendors were really just resellers supplied by those who do gardening? You could apply this across the board to most vendors (so long as the items being sold could be user generated).
    Posted 23 months ago by en Subscriber! | Permalink
  • There's already a system in place for players to sell their goods.
    Posted 23 months ago by RobotGymnast Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Sell direct or through a certified reseller (less money, but less hassle).
    Posted 23 months ago by en Subscriber! | Permalink
  • "There's already a system in place for players to sell their goods."

    yes, and auctions aren't very good.

    mostly because the guaranteed return comes from selling to vendors, who always buy and give you cash immediately.

    the "resellers" idea is one i've had bubbling around in my own brain for a bit now, and if i follow what en is suggesting, resellers would work better than auctions because you could guarantee demand for whatever you produce, since the vendors would always buy.

    because of this, more product would go enter/stay in the player economy than would ever enter via auctions alone.
    Posted 23 months ago by striatic Subscriber! | Permalink
  • It sounds like the farming and the auction systems both need a revamp. If most of the produce vendors are eliminated, I would still like the ability to purchase 1 or 80 potatoes, not just whatever quantity someone decided to offer.
    Posted 23 months ago by Zaphod Subscriber! | Permalink
  • It would be awesome if you could have the option to sell some of your product C/per instead of en masse.
    Posted 23 months ago by Ani Laurel Subscriber! | Permalink