Architect Archive
Thread: Very Important Question for Architects... and I guess any crafter.. or anyone with something to sell
Cafa
Mon Aug 09, 2004 12:48 am
#40
1) Will you pick up merchant?
Already have it on 3 character on Tempest and 2 characters on other servers. All have mastered. 3 are 3/4/0/4 and 2 are Master Merchant
1a) will you have enough with the item limits to hold your viable business.. ?
No way in the world will I have enough. 6 vendors at 110 items doesn't even cover my normal sales for Master Artisan (12 points) Items, mush less anything in Architect or Chef (12 points in both). Not to mention I have a Smuggler that is grinding master and a Master Doc (12 points). So even though I expect limits, this is just ridiculous. To say that a single line of text with a descriptor even 1024 bytes long is enough is beyond pale. The limits imposed on TC are incredibly low. So low in fact that I would probably just set the damn prices on the vendor to display one item and tell people to contact me to purchase in bulk if this went through. It wouldn't be so hard to swallow if we were all ignorant savages, but those with any acumen for the technology know that their excuses are pathetic and beyond any reasonable limits for the developers that supposed know this game. They are WAY to low to handle the demand for goods and I sincerely doubt a single one of you play this game as much as me and my family so no one is going to convince me that the item counts can be refilled without being a slave to the restocking gods.
2) will you find a merchant to sell your stuff?
N/A
3) will you give your items to that merchant and have them pay you as they sell... ?
For anyone to honestly believe this "trust" relationship will exist is so juvenile that it doesn't even value a response. The devs have no controls in place to hold people to contracts and the CSRs have FLATLY refused to hold people to contracts with me, even when I have the emails stating so.
4) Will you make the merchant pay you first?
N/A see question 3.
If none of these questions fit for what you are planning on doing what will you be doing?
Well some applied, as to what I plan on doing I just don't know. This decision only makes people like me better off in the end and hurts the little guy even more.
Fivo Asia
tyaa
Mon Aug 09, 2004 12:57 am
#41
Here are my thoughts on your questions.
1) Will you pick up merchant? No
1a) will you have enough with the item limits to hold your viable business.. ?
No, I have a single vendor will all of the Architect items on it. Even at one copy of each item, the list comes to approximately 400 items. If the vendors were not meant to be used this way, why do they have the filter capabilities (eg: deeds, furniture, components, etc.)
2) will you find a merchant to sell your stuff? No. I would have to have a merchant that just sold my stuff if the limits stay as is. If a merchant came to me to buy items to sell, that would be fine but I am a retailer not a wholesaler.....I have no desire to have middlemen. The margins are low enough in our trade already!
3) will you give your items to that merchant and have them pay you as they sell... ? No.....there are too many folks that try to cheat you in this game. If they were looking for this to happen, they need to have a mechanism in place to have the Merchant accept delivery and place them on the vendor but for the funds to go to the owner/crafter when they are purchased from the vendor less the merchants markup.
4) Will you make the merchant pay you first? Definitely. If they want to sell my stuff under the current situation...they have to buy it from me and then they have the sales risk, not me.
Iannyen
Mon Aug 09, 2004 5:29 am
#42
1) Will you pick up merchant?
I'm already 4-0-1-4 Merchant.
1a) will you have enough with the item limits to hold your viable business.. ?
I have one merchant that sells Deeds. She has about 80 items on her.
I have one merchant that is going out of business, since its a soda machine.
I have one merchant that is furniture. He has about 300 items on him.
I have one merchant that sells only crates of furniture. She has about 200 items.
The above 4 are all in my workshop/house, which takes 2 lots and has a storage limit of 150 items.
I have one merchant on another planet, in a large house, which holds 250 items. The merchant hasabout ...300 items on him, a mix of furniture and deeds.
I have a 6th merchant in a mall, recently added, that is furniture only. I only have her half loaded, but she has almost 600 items on her.
2) will you find a merchant to sell your stuff?
I look at merchant abilities as a hybrid profession. Merchants themselves don't have the capacity to store my wares to sell at reasonable prices (i.e. factory runs), and most wouldn't have the money to buy my stock anyway, even if they could store it. If hand to hand combat experts can also have ranged weapon skills, if Riflemen can also be entertainers and dancers, then whats the problem with crafters being merchants?
To make furniture vending proffitable, I have to run 100-200 items at a time. That means I end up with 10-20 crates of goods for each of the 80+ furniture items. Thats 800-1600 CRATES @ 10 items per crate. Other professions get items in 25 item crates, and architects get structure mods in 100 item crates.
I"m going to make this very simple, and very clear, and it may not be sweet, flowery and nice, but here it is. Any database problems that are being experieced because of having too many in game items is the fault of the programmers and the devs.
If I could get 1 or 2 100 item crates, instead of 10-20 10 item crates, I'd be much happier, and wouldn't need a vendor just to store my extras.
Personally, I think merchant is a useless stand alone profession. You could easily roll the merchant profession up into several skill trees in each of the craftine professions, or change the way that merchant works all together.
Additionally, my workshop / house is fully decorated. In addition to selling items out of it, it gets used as a gallery so that people can get furniture arrangement ideas for their own homes.
3) will you give your items to that merchant and have them pay you as they sell... ?
No, no, no, no, and hell no.
4) Will you make the merchant pay you first?
Yes. Everyone else pays me first, why are merchants any different? I can't walk up and blast a merchant who rips me off, can I?
5) You didn't ask it, and I don't know why. The one thing that SOE and devs will care about.
If these changes go live, will you keep playing?
See #3.
OHafi
Mon Aug 09, 2004 9:26 am
#43
What is really funny about this whole thread is that WE are all right, and the DEVS are all wrong and not ONE of them answers this thread. In guild chat, people are saying no Dev will answer because they will get slammed. Now, I have really believed that this game DOES, in general, listen and respond favorably to the customers. That would be US..the paying customers. I mean, what do they really care about our little 15 dollars a month? It is not gonna break them. So heretofore, they have always been responsive. I am HOPING they will be again.
I too logged my crafter in, looked around at the whole TOWN I built, and customized to be a roleplay refugee town, paid for, plotted and planned. And all I could feel was depression. We have only a handful of vendors, not all mine. We dont have or want a shuttle. The few vendors we have supply the needs of the town because they are always well stocked. They will not be able to be well stocked anymore. So the town will have to shop elsewhere? I cant keep medical supplies, housing supplies, food, clothes, harvestors, smugglers supplies all on one vendor, the trading post. They will only be able to stock maybe 50.....
SO another ghost town appears and disappears on the map....A roleplaying town...but after all, this isnt REALLY a MMORPG....its a MMOCJG.....combat jedi game....c'est la vie?
Bah.
signed
Disgusted enough to go back to UO
Atock
Mon Aug 09, 2004 2:25 pm
#44
1) Will you pick up merchant?
1a) will you have enough with the item limits to hold your viable business.. ?
2) will you find a merchant to sell your stuff?
3) will you give your items to that merchant and have them pay you as they sell... ?
4) Will you make the merchant pay you first?
1) Almost Master already.
1a) I am just getting set up for my second time as an architect...so not right away
2) no
3) no. Too much risk.
4) This may work well for weapsonsmiths and armorsmith, but not for architects. Why you ask? The simple fact of the matter is that too purchase the stock to fill a vendor will require an upfront investment of millions of credits. Their will be a limited number of merchants who can offer this. Giving the choice between selling weapons/armor or deeds anyone with the brains to have accumulated millions of credits is going to choose the first option.
SkyfireDL
Mon Aug 09, 2004 2:32 pm
#45
Dvnce wrote:
Ok... So .. If things with vendors Should happen to stay the way they are presented now...
1) Will you pick up merchant?
Got some merchant, can't master it as I'm Master Archi and Master Tailor, with a couple scouting skills.
1a) will you have enough with the item limits to hold your viable business.. ?
Not when I was considering getting a third vendor for selling furniture. Now I'm forced to choose between houses/harvesters or furniture. And I ain't even going to mention the tailor goods.
2) will you find a merchant to sell your stuff?
Won't be that many players with Merchant skills in game that will have vendors free'd up for the other crafters. And since I doubt random people will drop some of their other skills to pick up merchant just to help the crafters, the answer is no. Would also be difficult to make sure they don't go away on vacation just when the vendor runs out of stock. Pay to play, and schedule my time around someone else? Asking too much.
3) will you give your items to that merchant and have them pay you as they sell... ?
4) Will you make the merchant pay you first?
If none of these questions fit for what you are planning on doing what will you be doing?
IF things stay as they are, with a cap of 110 per vendor (at master to boot, which I'm not), I'm cancelling my second account, and will flip a coin to decide the fate of my main account. Heads I loose, tails they win. Err...
Ok .. Please No flames.. just simple answers... thanks ... and be as kandid as you can be....
Message Edited by Dvnce on 08-07-2004 11:43 PM
Mkappus
Mon Aug 09, 2004 3:49 pm
#46
I am a master artisan, master architect, master merchant.
This will greatly affect my furniture business. I normally do runs of 50-100 of each furniture type and put up singles, crates of 4-6 and full crates of 10. I have more than 650 items currently just on my furniture vendor. If this happens I will probably not make furniture, maybe just bestine paintins and lights/candles. It isn't worth it to craft things by hand.
I also run a resource business with 230 items on it, and a smuggler/vehicle vendor. All in all I have over 1200 items for sale.
Mkappus
Mon Aug 09, 2004 3:51 pm
#47
Dvnc on #4 the merchant will have all the power. There is no way you can "make" the merchant pay you first. If things go in the way they are, there won't be enough item slots on merchants for all the goods on the server. The merchants will be able to pick and choose what they want to sell, and at what terms.
ZenDragonMLS
Mon Aug 09, 2004 3:59 pm
#48
Right - with these limits, even IF we had some improved merchant interface things (e.g., consignment sales, vendor "rental", etc) there would be no point - just about any elite crafter with a decent sales volumn would completely overwhelm a single merchant.
Lecivius
Mon Aug 09, 2004 4:16 pm
#49
IF they stay the way things stand on the TC, I quit. I have an alt 4/0/4/4 merchant, I have gone over the math, I can't make things work. Note I say not work, not just not work well.
Crimsonsplat
Mon Aug 09, 2004 4:35 pm
#50
Sigh.
/uiAction bonkBonkBonk!
Quit NOW. Then maybe they'll get the point. You can still play until the sub expires, which will give you time to find out if they do or not.
/uiAction bonkBonkBonk!
Quit NOW. Then maybe they'll get the point. You can still play until the sub expires, which will give you time to find out if they do or not.
rofak
Mon Aug 09, 2004 6:01 pm
#51
I wonder. I am still pondering why people think they can have everything and not pay for it. I want 110 items, but I couldnt bare to drop master rifleman. Why should you get 6 vendors, Master Architect, and Master Rifleman? You can't do everything.
LAR
Mon Aug 09, 2004 6:25 pm
#52
ZenDragonMLS wrote:
I'm already 3044 in Merchant. I honestly don't know what I'll do. I could try more "specialty" vendors ("chairs, sofa's and loveseats), but I think that that sucks pretty badly. I'll give serious consideration to going out of business rather than trash my reputation or spend more of my game time servicing vendors. So I may help them with their database problem by quiting the game.
Well I'm glad other Architects are on top of this one. I read the dev tracker pretty regularly and missed this one until a guildmate told me today. I for one agree pretty much with that Zen here.
I've sacrificed all of my combat abilities in order to be bothan Architect and a Droid Engineer. I already have Merchant 4/0/0/1 because it feels like a necessity. I'd rather just drop Architect all together then have to deal withthese vendor restrictions. I'd rather not stock any furniture then have my clients complain they can't find something in my shop.
If nothing else matters the one thingI do know is that my clients arehappy when they find my shop because they say they have a hard time finding a vendor with a wide, well stockedselection of furniture. This update definately does not help that problem.
Later,
LAR