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Jon Asus
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Posted - 2007.02.13 18:42:00 -
[1]
Seeing the closing of Templi Cube Productions being attributed to the new contract system, what is wrong with the way the system opperates?
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ZebedeeUK
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Posted - 2007.02.13 18:58:00 -
[2]
 Originally by: Jon Asus
Seeing the closing of Templi Cube Productions being attributed to the new contract system, what is wrong with the way the system opperates?
Search facility sucks
Having to travel to place a bid sucks. |
Macon Squaredealer
Squaredeal Enterprises
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Posted - 2007.02.13 20:33:00 -
[3]
The old escrow system was easy for people to just open and then casually browse looking for things that interested them. This "window shopping" of the old escrow listings lead to a lot of impulse buying, and introduced a lot of equipment that newer players had never have seen or even heard of before.
The new contract system isn't easy to just open and browse. Because it is so click intensive and user unfriendly most people only use it to conduct a search when they want something specific. And if you have never heard of a certain piece of equipment it's kinda hard to search for it (assuming it's even in the database).
___________________________________________
Watch for the Squaredeal Enterprises IPO in the coming months. |
Ramblin Man
Empyreum
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Posted - 2007.02.14 04:21:00 -
[4]
Everything about it is non-intuitive and anti-ease-of-use. Enough said.
Can't wait for Rev. 02 though.
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GPszith
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Posted - 2007.02.14 04:35:00 -
[5]
If you asked me how to improve it, I'd say it would work much better if you could select a number of regions to search. I know people want a game wide one but I don't think that will happen just based on the database use. Course that's a guess based on how goods were listed and disappeared so fast.
I'd prefer it if there were two new ways to search multiple regions:
1. Select a number of regions from a list and it searched all of those.
2. Select one region and it automatically selects all the regions right next to that region and searches all of those.
If you have to travel to the spot to make a bid on something that's lame.
What I don't like is that if I want to buy an implant I have to rely on searching people's descriptions OR choose some very specific implant. /shrug that might just be me.
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Shadarle
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Posted - 2007.02.14 05:27:00 -
[6]
Originally by: Macon Squaredealer
The old escrow system was easy for people to just open and then casually browse looking for things that interested them. This "window shopping" of the old escrow listings lead to a lot of impulse buying, and introduced a lot of equipment that newer players had never have seen or even heard of before.
The new contract system isn't easy to just open and browse. Because it is so click intensive and user unfriendly most people only use it to conduct a search when they want something specific. And if you have never heard of a certain piece of equipment it's kinda hard to search for it (assuming it's even in the database).
You can actually browse the new contract system nearly exactly the same way you could browse the old system. The main differences are the ability to search, to limit the results by min and max prices, by seller/buyer, by description, by actual item, by type which the old system didn't have. The only real negative in the buying part is having to pick specific regions and being in that region to bid. If they removed the requirement for bidding the entire system would be good enough probably... it's the main problem to me.
Now, perhaps most of you don't know to change the "Sort Each Page By" to "Simple View". If you do this you have the old escrow system almost exactly.
Honestly I hated contracts for quite a while until I realized this... then the system became far better. It would be nice if you could search for a single word in the "Item Type" search box instead of specific items. That would be the 2nd most important change after allowing bidding from anywhere. Being able to search all regions would be nice too... or to search all .5 systems, all <.5 systems, etc.
Tanking Setups Compared
Stacking Penalty / Resists Explained |
Macon Squaredealer
Squaredeal Enterprises
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Posted - 2007.02.14 16:29:00 -
[7]
Shadarle
We're traders here mostly. We know how to use the new contract system, simple view, search, etc. For people like us the new contract system has a lot of good points. The problem is your average Eve player isn't willing to waste time trying to figure something out that they used to be able to just open and browse.
You can say it's better all you like, my BPC sales being down 90%, and Templi Cube closing say otherwise.
___________________________________________
Watch for the Squaredeal Enterprises IPO in the coming months. |
Erfnam
Time Cube Syndicate
Daikoku Trade Syndicate
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Posted - 2007.02.14 17:17:00 -
[8]
Originally by: Macon Squaredealer
Shadarle
We're traders here mostly. We know how to use the new contract system, simple view, search, etc. For people like us the new contract system has a lot of good points. The problem is your average Eve player isn't willing to waste time trying to figure something out that they used to be able to just open and browse.
You can say it's better all you like, my BPC sales being down 90%, and Templi Cube closing say otherwise.
QFT
Regardless of any other achievements done by CCP, they consistently fail when it comes to communication and documentation. The contract system is radically different from the old escrow sysetm. It's been in game for a while and this is their provided "Contract Guide". The system is great in theory, but like so many other aspects of the game client, it suffers from usability issues.
TCSyn is recruiting |
Robacz
Gallente
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Posted - 2007.02.14 21:16:00 -
[9]
Originally by: Erfnam
Regardless of any other achievements done by CCP, they consistently fail when it comes to communication and documentation. The contract system is radically different from the old escrow sysetm. It's been in game for a while and this is their provided "Contract Guide". The system is great in theory, but like so many other aspects of the game client, it suffers from usability issues.
Relatively good Contract guide is in KB, I am not sure why it isnt part of Player Guide as well... http://support.eve-online.com/Pages/KB/Article.aspx?id=324
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Buying/Selling: Implants & Hardwirings
Producing/BPCs: Mining Barges, T2 Components
T2 Distribution: 8 regions covered |
scthes wench
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Posted - 2007.02.14 21:35:00 -
[10]
Welll to be honest the contarct system was a good idea that has to many flaws in the implementation of it most notably the auction portion the fact that all auctions are absolute auctions is a problem.Eespecialy when they cant seem to make the decimal placements active as you enter amounts into trade auction or contract.So unless you have a pc screen the size of a big screen tv you just about have to use a magnifying glass or do it trial and error till you get it right and for goodness sakes dont misenter and expect anything to get fixed by the gms . Same old story so sorry to bad we cant fix it because we didnt break it but then in the next patch amazingly they make a fix to the problem.As things go for now a slow downturn has begun and gameplay is getting worse and worse not better new content yes playability no. Bigger blobs lag fests that are ridiculous .With all that off my chest fix the auction and contracts so that when you enter soomething you can fix it without starting all over or getting shafted because you didnt see it in time.And for those who are reading dont do any private auctions you will get shafted why these are an option i have no idea but if you are scammer get them while you can before they fix em since right now they just claim they are part of the game mechanics
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Dark Shikari
Caldari
Imperium Technologies
Firmus Ixion
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Posted - 2007.02.14 22:32:00 -
[11]
It also has no regex-like search method.
Lets say we want to search for a Chelm's item. We can't; we can only search for one specific Chelm's item. Escrow you could search for any Chelm's item.
EVE-Trance Radio--The EVE Textboard |
Argenton Sayvers
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Posted - 2007.02.14 22:47:00 -
[12]
Not long ago, i narrowly missed a Heat Dissipation field BPO II. The 7 day auction was in Lonetrek (0.5+ system), finishing on a thursday evening eve time.
It went for 8.6b.
That says all about the contract system i think.
(Hint for all those who dont know BPO prices: real value 30b+)
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Ebedar
Gallente
Primary Intelligence
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Posted - 2007.02.14 23:53:00 -
[13]
Originally by: Argenton Sayvers
Not long ago, i narrowly missed a Heat Dissipation field BPO II. The 7 day auction was in Lonetrek (0.5+ system), finishing on a thursday evening eve time.
It went for 8.6b.
That says all about the contract system i think.
(Hint for all those who dont know BPO prices: real value 30b+)
You mean you didn't know it was close to ending when the time remaining changed to "Less than a day"?!
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Vasiliyan
PAX Interstellar Services
Freelancer Alliance
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Posted - 2007.02.15 13:08:00 -
[14]
Originally by: Macon Squaredealer
You can say it's better all you like, my BPC sales being down 90%, and Templi Cube closing say otherwise.
I've tried BPC sales and given up. The nonrefundable deposit is a large fraction of the profits on anything other than tier 3 BS BPCs, so it's very risky to put them on market without an assurance that they will sell.
So what's happened to all the people that were buying BPCs? Have they stopped manufacturing, bought their own BPOs, or bought long-run BPCs?
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Callan Skiderlar
LIfeline Incorporated
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Posted - 2007.02.15 19:18:00 -
[15]
The costs are preposterous.
The search is difficult, as previously stated.
Some contracts don't show up in results, and private contracts seem bugged.
Even with maxed skill, you have an extremely limited number of contracts you can have open.
Freeform scams have made everyone nervous about contracts in general.
The question might be better stated as, what is going right?
---
"The market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent." - John Keynes |
Hockston Axe
Amarr
HocksCorp
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Posted - 2007.02.15 20:10:00 -
[16]
Am I the only one who canÆt get the sort by price to work on contracts? It does the crap that sort by next free time in labs used to do until recently. ThatÆs the main thing that irks me right now. How can that even be released like that? æOh no one will ever try to sort contracts by price,Æ canÆt have been something said by someone who ever used escrow or the market or generally played this game.
I made some courier contracts to check it out. They all got done fairly quickly even though most were around 20 jumps with smallish payouts. I balked at the 100k deposit which is stupidly excessive with the sharp limit to contracts already in place. Then I noticed that the length of the contract changes the fee, in my case from like 10k to 16k from min time to max time. Another useless feature, the deposit should be variable with length, not the tiny fee.
I made my little list of regions in contracts, but I donÆt know which is more annoying, switching regions and re-searching 10 times for every item, or re-typing your search 10 times for each region. I pretty much just check Forge and Domain now, when I bother with the ugly beast that is the contract system at all.
I bought some BPCÆs from contracts. They were T2 mining crystals. I got to see the nifty T2 change; when I got them they were just regular BPCÆs for xxII and a few days later the BPC icon had the little II up in the corner. ThatÆs about the only good thing about contracts for me that I can think of.
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Kerushi
Caldari
AeroSpace Engineering
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Posted - 2007.02.15 20:32:00 -
[17]
comes down to searchabillity
old escrow u could open and sort in different way and in 1 mass spam show see what u were looking for or any good deals
now u have to type in every damn module name for each region, no simple huge overview like befor in jita "list current solar system"
it has some nice features but that`s it, that`s what u get with all the whining
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Quia
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Posted - 2007.02.16 13:19:00 -
[18]
Courier Contracts:
my understanding please correct me if I am wrong.
120,000 M3 limit , not great as frieghter can carry around 750,000 M3
If I setup a courier contract the courier can peek into my cargo with out invalidating the contract.
This seems bad because the courier can discover what I am hauling and source and destination and now they have my trade route details.
Therefore im not using them.
Is this information correct and is there a way around this problem?
Q.
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Argenton Sayvers
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Posted - 2007.02.16 17:38:00 -
[19]
Originally by: Ebedar
You mean you didn't know it was close to ending when the time remaining changed to "Less than a day"?!
I got the end time down to 10 minutes, but someone who got it to a couple seconds sniped me. Was a friend so not that important.
What is more important though: A 30b+ item sold for 8.5b, it wasnt a strange location, it was a normal end time. Doesnt that tell you enough about how "well" the system works?
If you dont spam the forums and chat, noone will see what you have for sale. This is an improvement over escrow, right?
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Vincent Rott
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Posted - 2007.02.16 20:53:00 -
[20]
Originally by: Vasiliyan
Originally by: Macon Squaredealer
You can say it's better all you like, my BPC sales being down 90%, and Templi Cube closing say otherwise.
I've tried BPC sales and given up. The nonrefundable deposit is a large fraction of the profits on anything other than tier 3 BS BPCs, so it's very risky to put them on market without an assurance that they will sell.
So what's happened to all the people that were buying BPCs? Have they stopped manufacturing, bought their own BPOs, or bought long-run BPCs?
I feel your pain. I used to sell faction ammo, the nonrefundable deposit of the contract system put me out of business too. Time to look for something new.
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Lady Branwen
Amarr
Imperial Academy
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Posted - 2007.02.18 23:13:00 -
[21]
Notice how when you search for contracts "issued to me" nothing comes up ? d'oh
notice how now convinced no contract has been issued to you you dont look for it, and then you get a flashing contracts tab and a flashing journal tab telling you that "there is a contract needing your attention" because it's bloody expired ?
if you've noticed those 2 simple things then you know whats wrong with f'n contracts....... 
just a simple falshing contracts tab and journal when the f'n contract is actually ISSUED to you might just help a tad no ? 
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Lienzo
Minmatar
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Posted - 2007.02.19 01:07:00 -
[22]
Edited by: Lienzo on 19/02/2007 01:06:26
Even if you just want to use it for aspects of afk corp administration, the overhead costs per unit make it silly to utilize for anything under 2M isk.
It's not terribly accessible, nor seamless. Rather, it is very self contained, and isolated. Without the ability to link to a contract via a tag or html, it'll never be useful on any large scale for really common operations or small transactions.
It seems intended for people who want to offload or speculate on high end faction gear, and that's about it. But the poor visibility makes even that shoddy.
The only thing it is designed to accomodate is individual to individual transactions, and even then it makes it only slightly less difficult as a face to face transaction. In short, it's a rather poorly thought out implementation. The designer failed to accomodate for the human element.
"I have not been podded and run out of isk. I am merely camping my hangar." |
Heikki
Gallente
Wreckless Abandon
The UnAssociated
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Posted - 2007.02.19 13:30:00 -
[23]
For my style of play the contract system is improvement over the old:
+ I tend to use it to get speficic items (say faction 100MN mwd): usually get reasonable selection of items in Jita without spam/fake contracts
+ I use it to sell gained loot: so far turn over rate has been good, without need to refresh the contract a few times per day as with escrow
+ Can drag the escrow link directly to channels (e.g to as an ad to a trade channel)
So, from my POV: we coped with the old escrow system; the new one is better so we'll live with this too.
Of course, as with every thing, can suggest bunch of 'easy' improvements:
- Searching for specifc class of items (all 100MN MWD:s) is a bit tedious (either must trust to folks give correct descriptions (they don't), or do multiple searches)
-> Allow people to do partial match searches for item types. If it sounds too server intensive, charge enough ISK for such searches to deter spam
- Current system encourages super market hubs (unlike vision of CCP I think): To find good item, people either have to do multiple searches, or just search from one place (Jita). Sellers know this, so to any decent value for an item they must haul it to Jita.
-> Potential improvements: Allow easy viewing of all contracts (or placement of higher priced global contracts). Charge increasing contract prices on popular _systems_ (a bit like station wide office rental fees).
-Lasse
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swoj
The New Order.
United Connection's
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Posted - 2007.02.19 16:02:00 -
[24]
Originally by: Dark Shikari
It also has no regex-like search method.
Lets say we want to search for a Chelm's item. We can't; we can only search for one specific Chelm's item. Escrow you could search for any Chelm's item.
Just search for 'Chelm' and you should get all Chelm's items that are listed back. When I search for 'Gistii' I get ABs, MWDs, Shield boosters, etc so I don't see why it wouldn't work for Chelm or any other officer stuff (if you search for 'tii' you will also get the Gistii stuff back, so the search does seem to be of the '*phrase*' variety).
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Mona Lou
Essence Research
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Posted - 2007.02.19 16:09:00 -
[25]
Originally by: swoj
Originally by: Dark Shikari
It also has no regex-like search method.
Lets say we want to search for a Chelm's item. We can't; we can only search for one specific Chelm's item. Escrow you could search for any Chelm's item.
Just search for 'Chelm' and you should get all Chelm's items that are listed back. When I search for 'Gistii' I get ABs, MWDs, Shield boosters, etc so I don't see why it wouldn't work for Chelm or any other officer stuff (if you search for 'tii' you will also get the Gistii stuff back, so the search does seem to be of the '*phrase*' variety).
This works only if contractors use Description field. If they dont, then you wont find their items. I would say at least half of sellers don't use Description field.
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Shadarle
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Posted - 2007.02.19 19:17:00 -
[26]
Originally by: Mona Lou
Originally by: swoj
Originally by: Dark Shikari
It also has no regex-like search method.
Lets say we want to search for a Chelm's item. We can't; we can only search for one specific Chelm's item. Escrow you could search for any Chelm's item.
Just search for 'Chelm' and you should get all Chelm's items that are listed back. When I search for 'Gistii' I get ABs, MWDs, Shield boosters, etc so I don't see why it wouldn't work for Chelm or any other officer stuff (if you search for 'tii' you will also get the Gistii stuff back, so the search does seem to be of the '*phrase*' variety).
This works only if contractors use Description field. If they dont, then you wont find their items. I would say at least half of sellers don't use Description field.
So people complain about not selling their stuff, but they don't use descriptions? That is their own fault then. I find in almost everything I search for the description is filled in, I've done item searches vs description searches to make sure I wasn't missing stuff and I almost never am. The best priced items always have descriptions, as do the rarer items.
The only two issues with the system are that you can't bid on items from different regions and that there are not a set of skills to make contracts more efficient (broker relations/etc). If those two things were changed then the system would most definitely be better. Then for a minor change the default contracts view should be set to "simple".
Tanking Setups Compared
Stacking Penalty / Resists Explained |
Bored Trader
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Posted - 2007.02.19 19:52:00 -
[27]
What is wrong ... quite a long list, here's a very short version with the most glaring points IMO:
1 - not enough customer oriented, you are restricted to a region at a time and few items at a time, accessing it is even slower than the normal market;
2 - not enough mass producer oriented, the process of creating multiple missions of the same item (f.ex. selling multiple bps or creating multiple transport missions) is not made easier at all, considering all form controls lose their last value;
3 - expenses, taxes, fees even if your items are not sold, and you only have 14 days to sell them (compared to 3 months for normal market !), you can't change prices or extend the sale duration: is actually way less flexible than the normal market;
4 - auctions are so limited that their only effective use is to scam people;
5 - you need to spend skill training time for a ridiculously low amount of contracts;
6 - taxed couriers+ridiculously low number of contracts = there are currently 7 mission in Forge and 7 in Essence, go figure;
7 - less couriers = way harder to collect low level mineral from young miners.
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Mona Lou
Essence Research
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Posted - 2007.02.19 20:42:00 -
[28]
Originally by: Shadarle
So people complain about not selling their stuff, but they don't use descriptions? That is their own fault then. I find in almost everything I search for the description is filled in, I've done item searches vs description searches to make sure I wasn't missing stuff and I almost never am. The best priced items always have descriptions, as do the rarer items.
Erm, if you think it is normal to disallow partial searches for contract content, but allow them for OPTIONAL field (what if you sell 5 items at once?), then ok. I think it is major UI flaw. 
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Setana Manoro
Gallente
Firefly Inc.
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Posted - 2007.02.20 06:37:00 -
[29]
The contract system sucks, it sucks for a number of reasons related to visibility and SP.
On the old Escrow system you didn't need any special skills to sell you're stuff, you could make isk even on cruiser and frig bpc's as the tax was a flat 850.0 ISK. Now it's 1% + another 1% if you have crappy skills, so you lose 2% of what may be a 8-10% margin of profit ... this just sucks. To reduce this tax you need to have trading skills, which sucks even more because many didn't have them or didn't need them.
Visibility wise ... the contract system contributed to lag as far as i am concerned. If you want to sell you're stuff fast you need low prices and central trading hubs, which means that ppl will flock and put a stress on the server at certain points. It also means mass spamming of the forum, trade channels and even local where-ever you go.
As far as I am concerned the contract system has glitter but that is pretty much all it has. Functionality wise it's a failure.
Someone mentioned it wasn't user friendly.
Well, it isn't, took me 3-4hs of SISI testing to get the basics before it got implemented. First thing i did after testing was to use the still in use escrow system to sell all my wares and wait for the prices to come crashing down.
And they did come crashing down.
--------------------------------------------------
Always look on the bright side of life. :) |
Motivated Prophet
Zerodot Schools
Power Corrupts Industry's
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Posted - 2007.02.21 01:54:00 -
[30]
I'm still startled and confused by the decision to take away the "hidden market" without any replacement whatsoever. The economy works best when visibility is highest, as +5 implants have shown. Why not change the search tab to allow searches for all items, and leave the browse tab the way it is? Newbies don't get scared off, nobody has to go through and categorize all the officer items (even though I'd think it'd be easy; thisitem.variations.findMetaLevel(TECH1).marketgroup), and it actually makes sense to be able to see everything on the market using, of all things, the button labeled "Market"!
I have never heard a good argument for keeping the faction, deadspace, and officer stuff off of the market. This then frees up contracts to be used for their intended purpose--loaning out Hulks, handling POS fueling, and courier contracts, to name three examples that were brought up in the original unveiling of their functionality.
I'm not sure how to solve the BPC issue, to be honest. But I think this would sort out the faction, deadspace, officer, and COSMOS stuff quite nicely.
MP
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