There's got to be a way to make these less like a sample sale at Filene's Basement. Like... unlimited wares on a X of X item per person basis for the duration of the bazaar. You might be able to buy several beads of perfume, for instance, but you could only buy one of a particular kind of steed (and it wouldn't really matter anyway, because so could others). In other words, everyone would have the chance to buy whatever they wanted for the duration of the event, but a single person wouldn't be able to buy, umm, 25 swans and 200 beads of perfume.

The merchants tried to accommodate would be buyers, but it was pretty much like sharks in a tank the whole time. And while a certain amount of reselling is fine (I LIKE being able to buy stuff from faraway/dangerous places without always going there), the cutthroats greedily buying up everything they could and reselling it in literally right in front of the denizen merchants has to have got some admin attention, since the merchants were clearly exasperated. To be honest, I'm not a huge buyer at these things, although I like to get a few items, but it would be nice to actually be able to SEE the wares in the shops. If I were trying to buy one of the mounts in particular, I'd be pretty frustrated (you're better off just getting a legendsteed and customizing it, really, which is what I've done). Now, these were repeat goods, and I will say that that is a GOOD thing. It's a great way to give more people a chance to get whatever item it was that they loved but didn't get a chance to buy either because they missed the bazaar or the item ran out.

Also, I guess these are now just before the end of each Great Hunt? If that's the case, it at least builds a certain amount of predictability into when a bazaar is going to happen, which is very, very welcome for anyone who can't live on Achaea!

You know you've ran out of things to complain about when..

Seemed to me like it just happened to fit here because it's IRE's 12th anniversary.


To add my bit to the idea, I think the shops should show what kinds of wares they sell even if they're out of stock. Seriously, it's no fun walking around and not being able to see what you even -would- be able to buy, since everyone's snapped everything up.

Ordruin got kinda depressed.

OBVIOUS SOLUTION: Make the Bazaar its own area and anyone in that area can kill anyone in that area for no reason at all.

Great! So now only skilled combatants, can get stuff!

Yes, let's make it impossible for noncomms or newbies to buy things...
No, but -with tweaking- I would like Jules' idea.

To the administration: so you're trying to mix it up a little bit, and spend some time creating new items? YEAH WELL YOU FORGOT TO MAKE SURE JULES COULD BUY SOMETHING FOR GOD'S SAKE.

Everyone had an equal chance to buy something.

Actually I thought that the Bazaar was a blast. Even though all I got was a flower. I could have bought a harp, but I'm specialized in flute. So no luck there. I found it quite fun. However, at the beginning, it was a little crazy. With people walling and what not.

That is not true. I got multiple items after walking into a room and asking for wares, then carefully typing out 'buy x from x'. The 3 bull mounts went fairly quickly - someone got one nearly instantly, I got one 5 seconds later, and Anaidiana got one about 15 seconds after that. There was plenty of time for anyone in that 20 second window to get one if they wanted one.

...and what about everyone after that?

EDIT: Look, it's like buying Blizzcon tickets (I gotta wait until they finally put the next batch up, which could be anytime, then make sure everything's ready and I can click and put my details in and oh poop too late). If you want it to be so hard to get, just run events/contests/quizzes. At least that's more fun.

Some things sold out in 2-5 seconds. In the beginning, mostly everything was sold out before I even had time to enter three shops. And even with 20 seconds, chances are you're not going to get anything without waiting in the shop for a restock.

Greedy people who buy out shops are a good gold sink.

I missed most bazaars but the ones I've been to have pretty much been the same, especially during the first 20 minutes or so after opening.

At least 50% of QW rushes to the bazaar, spams everyone out with theirs loyals following and lovebirds handholding and cuddling as though they're honeymooning at a nightmarket, some idiot will start fighting in the middle of the crowd. Much lag to be had.

This is accompanied by storeholders treating the bazaar as a wholesale market where they 'buy in bulk' (read: Buy almost everything) to stock their own shops or offer on sale on market. For some of us who are more inclined to window shop or browse goods first, this really sucks. Some players are poorer than others and would like to have a better idea of what they're buying so they get an item they really want, not just an impulse buy.

To be honest I find it on par with Black Friday, only the stuff at the mall probably lasts longer than the goods at the bazaar.

That said, I wouldn't go for unlimited goods. There could be limited goods, but only one person may buy 1 of each item, or 5 for food items (but they really should stock a higher quantity of perishables, you wouldn't see a guy selling only 10 single serve bags of dried fruit at his booth in a real bazaar :/).

I would also like to see display goods as well. It would be great for people who show up early (or late), so they can check out what's on sale while the merchants 'set up shop' or restock.

Something like that help? Otherwise, forgive my grammar, it's late.

Edit: As for the everything being sold out in the first twenty seconds thing, the only thing I can suggest is a short time to window shop before they actually sell. Easily justifiable as them still setting up shop, yet showing off their wares untill they are told they can sell by the master of the bazaar, if there is one. I never got the chance to go to one, sadly

Then it becomes a complete ping war, as every spams BUY HARP in anticipation of the shop opening.

[Edit]: No strong feelings about this idea, but it could be something for the Divine to keep in mind for the next Bazaar.

Yeah, I know. There's not really a way to win that except to make it into an auction.

Otherwise, at least with the example quote, people would be able to see what they missed.

I very much liked the example quote!

Just leave the item in the list, but with a listed quantity of 0. I don't know what the coding would involve, but would that really be so hard?

Actually I *really* like the example quote.

If I close my eyes and beat the heel of my palm against the side of my head, I can forget that this thread exists, or that people complain about having to buy text ponies at a mark-up in one of the player-run shops, or through the market channel.

It would likely be quite hard, since no other shops do so at the moment. I've got the feeling both denizen and player shops are exactly the same, with them showing what's in the stockroom. Without anything in the stockroom, it's hard to know what would have been there without making a very specific exception for that exact shop.

No, I mean, add functionality to shops in general allowing for this behavior. Ideally it would be as simple as adding a flag to whatever is allowed to have wares, which would modify the behavior of the WARES list... although in reality it's probably not that simple. But I see lots of libraries acting differently when it comes to checked-out books; some put an X on the left and the checker-outer's (lol) name on the right, and others remove the book from the list entirely. Reasoning it out, I don't think it would be "quite hard", although I don't know what the code looks like so it might be.

I could also be 100% wrong... oh well!

It's likely a bit different. Shops get their wares by things placed in a room, and there is no chance of wares going back. Thus, there is no need to keep a list of things that were dropped in the room. Libraries, however, have books that automatically go back to them, so there's always a list of which books are stored there, thus they can simply check that list to see which are missing. Adding the functionality to mark certain items as "always on sale" would therefore require shops to keep a similar list, which likely means rewriting much of the shop code.

In this particular case, we're talking about denizens, which either don't have a stockroom, or have an invisible one. I also think there are a fair few room-shops with no stockroom, so I'm inclined to think of the stockroom as an interface to the wares items rather than the wares list itself (the items are just like any other item, but maybe the room has some quality about it that manages them specially). And in either case, these items are automatically being restocked somehow, hence something has a list. Depending on how the code is architected, something might be able to view said list.

And I'm not particularly willing to theorize any further because it just ups that chances that I'll get something horribly wrong and the coding details don't really need to be discussed since the admins will be able to make far better informed decisions about the idea's viability.

I sympathize with the points Jules raised.
For all those who are for whatever reason interested in special bargains/items (and there are probably quite a few chars), it would be cool if those more seldom items (as those sold in the special Bazaars) could not be bulk-bought. I'd assume that this would still mean you'd have to be in the Bazaars rather fast, meeting the special occasion's tight timeframe.

In this game, afterall, designing items is an interesting aspect for quite a few players (be it of mortal or divine chars), and eventhough my char is neither a designer nor any sort of shopper - if there was the choice between something like 10 chars being able to rush to a special shop to obtain some special items or rather something like 30 chars, I'd personally prefer the later.

Edit: No idea whether coding such would be too extensive, though.

While I was eventually called away to help raise shrines, I spent a good 10-15 minutes (including being there the MOMENT the bazaar opened) and didn't even see a single item. The scabbards restocked while I was there and were sold before I could type to ask for wares. Deladan (and others, though that was the first name I saw) would just buy all of an item out immediately and then offer to sell them for ridiculous prices in the same room.

I'm all for people reselling items from exotic places for the most part, but it's sort of stupid when they're special items from a rare in-game event. The items are sort of a keepsake and it's nifty to get hold of them, even when they're not useful. The fun of the bazaar is really decreased when so many people are trying to profit from it and buy up the entire stock so quickly.

I would not mind a limit of 1-2 of each item per person. Better yet, a limit of how many items total could be bought from a single merchant per person if possible (as this would necessitate actually stopping to consider which item to get rather than looking at the list and buying as many items as possible as quickly as possible).

Edit: I realise that they're text ponies, but they're exactly the kind of text ponies that should be cheap and FUN and shouldn't involve this kind of speculation. If they were actually useful items and not just novelties, I would understand a bit more (though I still think it would be mean).

people camping at those stores and buying whatever pops up there should be not be left out by the "text-pony"-amused

The Bazaar restocked a few times and lasted quite a while. These are both changes from the Bazaars of the past. Moreover, selling at a markup should be completely acceptable and valid.

Some people are poorer, yes. You would not expect a pauper to be shelling out gold for exotic, hard-to-find fineries, nor should you expect Achaea's poor to be entitled to anything different. These aren't basic game necessities here; they're flowers and prettier versions of the same scabbards.

Waiting 3 hours for the bazaar only to have Siyad to yank you out just as you are about to buy something and then getting back in to find it is sold out is a pain in the ass.

Yes, it is great that the Bazaar restocked, I agree. And indeed, there is nothing wrong with people buying something the moment it appears "on the shelves". There is also nothing wrong with a capitalistic approach (more money = more goods) and the whole idea of buying to resell.

I still think a certain max per buyer (for instance 3 of the same item per person- one for oneself, 2 as gifts or to resell) could make sense, for pretty much the reason you stated when you pointed out those goods weren't "basic game necessities": Those special item sellings are probably obviously meant to simply bring a bit of extra gaming fun to those that love special "text ponies" and enjoy item design creativity - and if a couple of more chars could have a chance to get those items directly, I don't see anything awfully wrong with it -- eventhough I, personally, wouldn't set my alarm clock just to be online at the right time, whatsoever.

If -everyone- who goes to the bazaar is able to buy a certain (limited) number of any item, the items will still be relatively rare and unique, and will quickly become more so through attrition. Every bit of that statement applies to the steeds in particular, which seem to be one of the most problematic items for people to procure. I have 4 collared steeds, so really, it's not my problem, plus the most attractive steeds tend to be rather useless since they're not legendary (still, love the fiery war horse anyway). Reselling is one thing, but the way the bazaar is set up can't help but encourage the most stomach turning type of buyer and seller behavior. Increasing stock -might- be enough, but since the bazaars are rare, unpredictable (please find a way to give us heads up), and brief, I think an unlimited stock (controlled by limited ability to purchase) would make these a lot more civilized and fun.

At least this didn't happen!



Damn thing targetted as 'animal' and naturally I get a double crit instantly off a balance trigger

Ouch... I didn't even know you could target that generally...

Though thanks to someone very nice one of the remaining two was gifted to me, but that's the last time I take mounts with me bashing!

And there goes one of the three bulls!

I learned when the pet shop in Thera was released never to be lazy and target 'animal'. My targetting alias won't let me target any known mounts or pets now.

The bulls were neat, but they were mountable as what, heavy horses, right? Meh...

550 pounds only too, but yeah. If were stronger it wouldn't have died! They were only.. 95k I think though, legend steeds from the bazaar tend to run to 300k or so. Pity there weren't any of those there, I had a mountain of gold ready to buy one!

Say what you will, they might not have been legend steeds, but they looked AWESOME.

Yeah, they were!

I was very upset with the bull I was able to purchase. She talked it up so much that I figured it would be a legendary steed (I've never been to a bazaar before, and never seen any of the prices of anything). Then it came out and it was 95k and I was like 'omg a nearly unique legendary steed for 95k?!' so I bought it. It's not a legendary steed, but still very cool. I tried to sell it right away.

lol'd

That's why I bought 4-5 of each of the cheap items I could get, and gave them to friends that I knew wouldn't get anything either because they couldn't be here, or who were at the Bazaar the whole time and didn't get anything.

You could always try Lisbethae's shop. She has stuff priced fairly cheap. I try to sell stuff that I don't want that I buy for fairly cheap too.

Perhaps a sign with what they sell.

I love Soludra's idea of keeping a sample item. If that isn't possible then perhaps that could be put on the sign instead?

I'm all for limiting to a small number of items, but make it each time they restock. This makes it harder for shopowners but still possible. Many people never see these special items if they aren't in shops.

But seriously, when you have people say that everyone had an equal chance to buy as long as they did it in 20 seconds, there's something wrong. Putting more out there won't help, they'd just hit enter more times. Perhaps putting out stock more often would work, though there may be some sort of programming limitation....

All in all, lovely interaction, wonderful goods - we just would like a way for more people to have access.

I wouldn't mind a limit either. I never buy more than 2-3 of an item anyways.

makes sense.

Doesn't help on the mount vendors, though, they'd restock every 45 minutes or an hour and have 3 mounts.. which sell in as many seconds, heh. But that's just one of those things, rarest and most noticable items will always be super rare etc.