Feature - Implemented Mall Search additions

I'm suggesting adding some options to the right-click context menu for Mafia's (in-Mafia, not in the Relay browser) Mall search:

A "Go to store" option that would send you, in the relay browser (or elsewhere if possible), to the store whose item on which you right-clicked.

A "Whose store" option that would tell you, well, whose item at which you are currently looking.

Say, for instance, you went searching for Angry Farmer Candy; you'd see the top however many stores carrying it, but would just see their names. Right-clicking on the line with "Incorporeal Exports Outlet Store" would give you the two standard options for the item (view in game and view in browser, I think), as well as "Go to Store" and "Whose store". "Go to store" could either open the relay browser to that store, or (if at all possible) just load that store in Mafia's Mall frame (though I'm not certain if that's even possible). "Whose store" would return "Tiny Plastic Edgy" or "Incorporeal Exports Outlet Store owned by Tiny Plastic Edgy" (to the CLI maybe? or to whatever the hell you call the single line viewable from all parts of the Mafia frame that just lists the last line in the CLI, though that would accomplish the same thing).

I dunno; I like being able to see who I'm buying from, but that may be just me.

Personally I could really care less who I'm buying from, but maybe that's me...

If they have the best price on something, give it to me from there. If they're a friend and I'm buying to support them, why was I searching for lowest prices in the first place?

Either/or. Can't really have both unless there's a column showing the owner/store name all the time.

I think we have rejected something similar before. Basically all of the use cases come down to wanting to buy from something other than the lowest price in the Mall for reasons that are too player specific and not especially generic. Your clannies are not my friends. Sometimes my clannies are not my friends. One meat undercutters don't bother me enough to buy elsewhere. People who spend meat on advertising deserve my business, and so on. Bottom line is this is one of those niche things that just don't seem worth the effort.

I can perhaps see Go To Store... if there is a particularly good sale and you want to see if there's others.

Otherwise mafia has generally not supported features that lead to buying from the not-cheapest in mall. Call it protecting users from themselves.

roippi said:

I can perhaps see Go To Store... if there is a particularly good sale and you want to see if there's others.

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In a way, that is kind of amusing. The standard advice when going shopping in the real world is to have a shopping list and only buy what is on the list. That supposedly saves money, compared to walking into a store and making impulse buys. So this justification for "Go To Store" seems like a way to enable a Mafia user to indulge in impulse buying, since someone sticking to a list would just repeatedly search the mall for the items on the list and then buy at low price.

I'd probably never use the feature - I'd probably write some kind of script that just looked at a list of potential impulse buys and alerted me if the historical price ever got below some threshold - but Go To Store might be something worth adding after all.

If your analogy is mall == grocery store, sure, but you can also use the analogy mall == New York Stock Exchange. Buy low / sell high is not impulse buying.

roippi said:

If your analogy is mall == grocery store, sure, but you can also use the analogy mall == New York Stock Exchange. Buy low / sell high is not impulse buying.

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Heh, the grocery store analogy breaks because, in order to properly use a shopping list, you have to buy ONLY what's on the list. That's why grocery stores encourage them. "Oh, I have a list! That means I'm only buying what's on it! ... and maybe this too since I'm here," says the average consumer.

In the end, the only thing that would encourage you to go to the specific store through mafia is the shop's name. If someone is advertising in chat, you already can click their name to go to their store. When using the Purchases tab, all you see is the store name which few people care about unless it's really funny/awesome/weird. The only advertising they can do through mafia is paying for it on KoL, which causes KoL to advance the shop name, not mafia.

... Heck, unless people were willing to pay for mafia to prefer their shop over others, there's not much reason. Although, that would give Jick's advertising some competition...

I don't understand how the proposed feature would facilitate buy low/sell high any better than what we have, in which case that to me is an argument against it.

Grocery stores hate lists in the hands of people who are disciplined enough to hew to the list. In other words if you only buy things that were on the list when you entered the store all of the tricks they have used to get impulse buys, possibly at higher profit margins, don't generate any additional sales.

I'm back to believing there is no use case for the feature but I also remember when Jick said "The Mall is not the Game".

The point is that there are other things to do in the mall other than object retrieval. Investment, arbitrage, day trading, etc. The mall is not a grocery store.

roippi said:

The point is that there are other things to do in the mall other than object retrieval. Investment, arbitrage, day trading, etc. The mall is not a grocery store.

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Agreed. But how does the proposed feature facilitate any of these any better than the existing mall search? If I am searching for items to manipulate in such a fashion wouldn't a single store's inventory be just one of many data sources and not necessarily a reliable one?

fronobulax said:

Agreed. But how does the proposed feature facilitate any of these any better than the existing mall search? If I am searching for items to manipulate in such a fashion wouldn't a single store's inventory be just one of many data sources and not necessarily a reliable one?

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People that set a 1/day limit on an item tend to set it on more than one item. Anyway, if you don't want to use the feature you don't have to.

r12127 adds Go To Store... to purchases tab right-click. I don't want to add/don't think we should add the other suggested context menu item in the OP, so I'll mark this implemented here.

fronobulax said:

Grocery stores hate lists in the hands of people who are disciplined enough to hew to the list. In other words if you only buy things that were on the list when you entered the store all of the tricks they have used to get impulse buys, possibly at higher profit margins, don't generate any additional sales.

Click to expand...

True, but think of how disciplined people are in general. That's why they make their money ^^

I'm back to believing there is no use case for the feature but I also remember when Jick said "The Mall is not the Game".

Click to expand...

And I just lost the game. Thanks Jick -.-