Architect Archive
Thread: Crafters... What would Make you want to use another Merchant?
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Milkent
Fri Aug 13, 2004 9:25 am
#14
What they have planned now will get merchants in the game. If people have to have certain levels of merchant to place harvesters, they will do it. In fact, I am currently planning on at least management 4 in all of my future templates. As for people who just play merchants, there are a lot of them, they just don't have merchant skills (yet). There are a number of people who go around looking for deals, buy them, and then sell them for a profit. I don't sell specifically for them, but its a nice surprise when they walk into my shop and buy 15 items (hmm...should I raise prices? Anyway...). I don't specifically make items for them but I could, as long as they were willing to pay what I would normally charge. After it leaves my hands it really isn't my concern. This change, and I don't consider it a nerf, would bring merchants into the game more, but there would be fewer people doing this due to skill point limitations.
Milkent
Brantoc-Pax
Sat Aug 14, 2004 9:15 am
#15
With 500 harvesters (about 45 million credit) inventory. NOTHING would let me use another merchent. Enless I got the money up front, or some kind of guarrantee of product being secure.
Dvnce
Sat Aug 14, 2004 2:10 pm
#17
Tahari wrote:
Nothin IM already a merchant=)
I know most of us already are... but the question is .. What would make you want to use another person as a merchant....?
Tahari
Sat Aug 14, 2004 2:38 pm
#18
hmm let me think on that well what are ur skills? how far in merchant are u
Iannyen
Sat Aug 14, 2004 3:12 pm
#19
I'd want to use another person as a merchant if I could walk up to the vendor and list items like it was my merchant. Let the vendor add a % markup on what I list it as, and when it sells, I get my money, and the merchant gets their markup. The merchant would "own" the vendor, and have the option to add 1-3 admins that could deal in their own goods. Or the vendor would have a listing fee, like a % of the item list price, as an inithal deposit, so the merchant gets their creds up front. I'd give up my 4-3-4-4 merchant status then, and use someone as a middle man.
The interface would HAVE to be easy to use, and I'd have to be guaranteed that my gods won't disappear.
Tahari, out of curiosity, whats your native language?
Pawlin
Sun Aug 15, 2004 4:31 pm
#20
The system Iannyen described would be perfect for me. If that existed I'd quite likely be dropping a lot of merchant skillpoints.
Crimsonsplat
Sun Aug 15, 2004 6:14 pm
#21
What would make me WANT to use another merchant?
A gun to my head. That's about it.
Otherwise it's going to be too much hassle. Items will vanish, money will get misrouted (yay bugs!), disagreements will happen, any system has the potential for griefing, and the system Iannyen described isn't ideal to me--it's loading on my back the dead weight of a merchant who is doing NOTHING, but profiting off my hard work at crafting. Somehow, I don't think buying a house, creating a merchant, and finding a few suppliers is NEARLY as much work as running harvesters, managing resources, creating schematics, dealing with inventory, and hauling factory runs to the vendor. Oh, and I'll probably have to find my own customers and send them to the vendor too.
Meanwhile, the Merchant sits on his combat alt and laughs all the way to the bank.
No. Thank. You.
A gun to my head. That's about it.
Otherwise it's going to be too much hassle. Items will vanish, money will get misrouted (yay bugs!), disagreements will happen, any system has the potential for griefing, and the system Iannyen described isn't ideal to me--it's loading on my back the dead weight of a merchant who is doing NOTHING, but profiting off my hard work at crafting. Somehow, I don't think buying a house, creating a merchant, and finding a few suppliers is NEARLY as much work as running harvesters, managing resources, creating schematics, dealing with inventory, and hauling factory runs to the vendor. Oh, and I'll probably have to find my own customers and send them to the vendor too.
Meanwhile, the Merchant sits on his combat alt and laughs all the way to the bank.
No. Thank. You.
Elyssa
Sun Aug 15, 2004 6:20 pm
#22
What happens when the merchant destroys his vendor?
Or deletes his character?
No thanks.
I'd be fine selling things for my friends who don't have merchant skills, but I don't really want to be bothered with the hassle of "customer support."
There's a reason my REAL job doesn't let me answer the "public" phone line. I certainly don't want to deal with other players.
StumanKadir
Sun Aug 15, 2004 7:23 pm
#23
A gun being pointed at my head and the words "you MUST use a merchant to sell your goods or else" being whispered in my ear might make me use a merchant to sell my stuff. 
Seriously though, without a consignment system whereby we can be guaranteed in our dealings with a merchant (ie; we get a fair and reasonable price for our goods and the merchant is able to make a fair and reasonable profit and no one gets ripped off in between), such questions are moot and not worth considering.
And without this and other tools to allow this sort of crafter to merchant trades, you will find the vast majority of crafters will pick up just enough skills to do it themselves (at the expense of other aspects of the game). Those that don't will more than likely ditch crafting altogether (if not the game itself).
Threatening people with things like "you can only sell x number of items" is not going to work, and will not make for a better merchant profession. Better tools ingame will.
But like THAT is ever going to happen 
Iannyen
Mon Aug 16, 2004 5:06 am
#24
As far as merchant vendors poofing or being removed in my scenario, I would caveat that the merchant could not surrender skills while vendors existed that required the skills, and the vendor could not be reclaimed if it still had goods that the merchant didn't own.
Basically, the vendor would be similar to a public house. People can see everything, but only certain people can pick up items. It would have to be coded so that only the owner could move/sell/withdraw the item.
As far as greifing, there would have to be an eviction command that would dump all of a seller's items to the stockroom, and send an email stating that they had been evicted from the vendor, and to come get their crap.
Merchants wouldn't just be sitting back doing nothing. The'd be the ones setting up the showrooms and malls. The'll be haggling for selling space, and trying to get the best suppliers to let them move their wares. As a merchant, I'd be going for the Architect that sells Paintings of Corellian Decidious Fauna, or Luxurious Bed or Nuevo Modern Armoires or Daktoonian Klappatu Shrub, rather than one that sells Painting of a Blumbush, Large Bed, Armoire, or Large Potted Plant, style one.
The merchant is taking a risk too. He's only making a % on the item sold, not the chunk that we are, and he's got to get suppliers that will keep him stocked. I'd change my original suggestion at this point to limit the vendor to 1 PC admin for goods, rather than 1-3. People won't come by to shop at vendors that are constantly empty. In doing this, I'd be able to give up merchant, in favor of a combat profession, or something else I'd rather spend 63 SP on.
As far as merchant alts, theres nothing preventing you from working up the merchant tree too, splat.
Anyone can be a merchant, all they need to do is spend the appropriate points. You can't hold people to fault for having alts that are other professions. Its just a choice.
GhOsT767565634765
Mon Aug 16, 2004 11:34 am
#25
-Merchant Ships in JTL and merchant cars, maybe even a caravan
-Malls placable by master merchant and what happens is you go to the merchant he puts you on admin, depending on mall size there are lets say are 3 types of malls, one with 10 shops, 20, and 30 shops. A structure management terminal in each, it takes lets say 5k a day, 2.5k for maintence and 2.5k to the merchant. Ther merchant puts you on admin for the main mall then you rent a terminal, each terminal can hold 6 vendors and are placable by other merchants or regular artisan merchants.
-I would like to see billboards set up around the galaxy advertising business, lets say there are 100 billboards on each planet and can be put anywhere but limit of 5 in each city, there can be designated city locations and the the billboard background can be selectable like jabbas. This could definetly cut spam down.
I'll think of more later.
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