How many auto vendor is too many?

[yC]

Ever since the introduction of auto vending from eA, [insert disaster here] happens lol.

So assume you see the player count of a server and then you go in game, how many (express as a % of total) of the "player count" you expect to be auto vendors? 

How many (% of player are auto vendors) would you feel cheated?

How many % is acceptable? and what's the norm now if any?

Let's hear it.   

[Dean Stark]

Voted for 25%. 50%-75% is going overboard and 90% is retarded.

[Erebus]

20% vendor is a good average to have but that implies that stuff is REASONABLY priced and in 99% of the time, sadly its not. Gotta have vendors to get a good grasp of the servers economy but too many and then its over inflated

[DeePee]

Depends on the total amount of players on the server really. 50% on a 20 player server results in only 10 real players. However, 50% on a 1000 player server results in still having 500 real players. 25% or lower isn't really achievable unless you heavily limit the amount of allowed autotraders. Every player has the right to set up a shop after all.

[Triper]

What DeePee said but I like how some servers actually have a vending map and it shows in warpa how many are there so people can see +/- what is the population in the server so that players don't feel cheated when they see 300 players on at the server and then jump to in game and only see venders -.-

[Chemical Crush]

Yeah its hard to judge, if on a low population server, say 50 people, I see 25 Vendors, I'm not really upset.  But on a higher population like 1000 if there are 500 vendors I'm a little like O.o;

But 50% is okay with me, anything above that is just blargh.

[DavionFuxa]

10-25% of the population autovending probably indicates that something is going on in the server. Perhaps it means that the server administrator is kicking people off after a certain amount of time, or that people don't have venders or what not.

25-50% of the population autovending is probably indicative of a stable server that is experiencing a little growth. This is probably a fair server and something that can be expected.

50-75% of the population autovending is perhaps a bit lopsided but this could be indicative of a server where people aren't currently logged in at the moment. The Server Population may be logging in at a different juncture so that might have to be considered.

75-90% of the population autovending is extremely discomforting to see in a server. Now we are starting to talk about dying servers. Once your seeing a ratio like this then it is probably indicative that people don't feel it is worth playing on the server anymore. Maybe the server is resetting but most likely it is failing.

90-100% of the population autovending can really only indicate a ghost server. More then likely there is no one playing on this server anymore.

All the above said though, if I'm seeing a server that has 50% or more of the population autovending then it is unacceptable to me. If it so happens that I'm logging on at an interval when 90% of the server population isn't on then it probably won't cater to my style of gameplay (ie, partying). If that isn't the reason then the server has player problems and I have even more reason to find it unacceptable.

[Yusifer]

If the population is under 100, and half of them are vendors, I find that unacceptable. I'd accept ~30 max' for vendors in that case.

Around 150, 200, under 60 is preferable.

Once we start hitting 400, it's OK for half of those to be vendors, but not more.

If I log in and find that there's no people, and that there's just a ton of vendors (I try to avoid trying these servers altogether - if they don't have a "Who's Online?" I usually won't even bother joining) I get pissed :x

The rest of the population? Up to 10% ought to be dual clients, max. If there's 50 people with 25 of those being an extra client, well, that's only 25 "real" players and 50 vendors. Lopsided.