why are some stores setup like a maze?

[danicah]

Sometimes i walk into stores they look pretty much like a house with 2-3 levels and like 20 small rooms where it takes you forever to find things. Its driving me nuts. Why would they do that?

Wouldnt it be easier if they had just a big hall like (think it was Gothicatz?) where you can find things more easily?

[Ry0ta Exonar]

Yeah, I thought the same thing. Probably they want to make their store unique and true to RL.

[jennylongview Innovia]

It is smart marketing, tho annoying.. I hate getting stuck in a corner..

[Faithless Babii]

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danicah wrote:

Sometimes i walk into stores they look pretty much like a house with 2-3 levels and like 20 small rooms where it takes you forever to find things. Its driving me nuts. Why would they do that?

Wouldnt it be easier if they had just a big hall like (think it was Gothicatz?) where you can find things more easily?

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It depends on why Im shopping as to how I feel about store layout...if Im mooching I really enjoy the sort of stores that have lots of places to look in..or maybe a whole shopping area that has winding passages and tiny interesting shops to go into ..if Im on a mission and need something fast, I prefer a well laid out spacious area, with clear signage and teleports if I need to get around quickly..my personal preference is the quirky stores though, like !Go!..exceptional build and interesting to wander about....

[Venus Petrov]

Perhaps because some shoppers like to wander through rooms looking for that special 'find'.  I like the smaller builds that have at least a couple of floors and several rooms to wander through.  Camming works wonders, too.

[LoveAngeL Lyre]

Hello danicah. I agree with you. Often when i find something i like at Marketplace, i want to see it in world before purchase. Sometimes i arrive to HUGE stores and i can't find what i am looking for. So i leave and the merchant / brand lose lindens. Btw, i like Gothicatz very much also (stuff and store).

[Elisha Paklena]

Sometimes the reason is more practical: large rooms with giant walls of vendors generally equate to an environment that the client has to get and render possibly hundreds of textures to display.  Smaller rooms mean the client only hast orender what's within eyesight.  This means a lot of times the store could possibly draw faster.  That said, enough can be enough when you're trying to browse.  

[Princess Verwood]

I think that people set up a store how they like, or how they feel will be good. Maybe to separate certain things, or maybe because they feel it will help the customer flow from room to room. I personally hate stores with tons of areas, but like Faithless said, depending on how I feel at the time determines if I will enjoy it more/less. I can definitely appreciate a store that is different from others. But sometimes that can be over done. Sometimes people want to make their space represent something, or them, or what they sell I guess.

[Pamela Galli]

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Elisha Paklena wrote:

Sometimes the reason is more practical: large rooms with giant walls of vendors generally equate to an environment that the client has to get and render possibly hundreds of textures to display.  Smaller rooms mean the client only hast orender what's within eyesight.  This means a lot of times the store could possibly draw faster.  That said, enough can be enough when you're trying to browse.  

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Bingo. It's about how fast things load.

Store owners get a lot of flack for things not loading fast enough, as well as people not being able to see things all at once, and these are for the most part mutually exclusive.

My store is 4 sims, but departments are clearly marked so you can navigate to them easily -- however, once you get to a dept, there are walls between each room setting, so it limits the amount of textures and prims that must be loaded at a given time.

 

That said, there might be some other way besides a maze that would work for those merchants  -- but Ikea is set up like a maze and it works for them.

 

[Amethyst Jetaime]

I've seen on various forums and heard people in world complain about going to store that is essentially on big room and having to stand around for a long time while things rez.  Personally this drives me more nuts than navigating rooms.  As other posters have said, limiting sight lines by using rooms makes for faster rezzing.

In my opinion, it is not the rooms that are the problem, but the way the merchandise is laid out.  If a merchant has a lot of smaller rooms and displays products in no particular order, then that is frustrating, particularly when you are there to find a specific type of item.  To be laid out properly, each room should be a department with like items displayed in it.

Also essential in a large store with rooms is a floor plan map at the entrance to give you an overview of the store, clear directional signs and an efficient teleport system.  A well designed system eliminates the feeling of being trapped in a maze. The TP should be not only at the main entrance to take you to the departments, but in each department to take you to other departments.

Smaller rooms also are good for keeping people looking.  In a large hall layout, after the long rez, people stand in one place and do a quick cam around, then go.  Smaller rooms keep people in your store and looking because  psychologically people are drawn to see what is 'around the corner' or 'through that door'.

[Tiffy Vella]

It's what Pamela and Elisha said--texture loading--Merchants try to juggle between having everything accessible and easily seen, and using a technique called "object occlusion". This means partially hiding some textures to try to make the rezzing an easy, gradual process.  They are staggering the amount of information the customer's computer needs to process at one time.

It's a compromise, as of course merchants don't want to be hiding their products from you. One good technique is to use half-height walls, so that vendors are screened without hiding the entire room. I guess the trick is to let customers know what areas are available by making them partly visible (or by using store maps).

I like open stores too, but great big spaces can sometimes lack soul. The other extreme can feel cramped, and make your camera do weirdie things.

[Melita Magic]

Long as the layout flows, and the rooms have different things in them, I don't mind. Those big barn-like stores take minutes to rez every time your avatar walks a meter.