Architect Archive
Thread: Architects Poll what are you going to do when the Vendor fix is implemented?
Baccarat wrote:
So drop merchant.
GenChaos wrote:
I think the true issue here is that people who keep their vendors and drop the skills, have an unfair advantage over those that keep their merchant skills. Why should I, as a master Architect, Master Weaponsmith, Master Artisan and Novice Merchant have to compete with someone else who is Master Architect, Master WS, Master Artisan, Novice DE who has all the vendors that a master merchant would be entitled to? Why should they be able to produce another line of items that I can't and yet they can continue to have as many vendors as me?
Aucob wrote:
Oh, and I hate to tell you guys this: you all don't get to call "exploit". The devs do. Until they do, it's speculation and opinion (otherwise known as "grey area").
You may be vindicated someday for your beliefs, but this ain't the day.
BoberFett wrote:
Aucob wrote:
Oh, and I hate to tell you guys this: you all don't get to call "exploit". The devs do. Until they do, it's speculation and opinion (otherwise known as "grey area").
You may be vindicated someday for your beliefs, but this ain't the day.
The devs have said that it's unintended behavior. I'm not sure where you're coming from.
6) Products from smugglers, Doctors, Combat medics, etc may become very difficult to stock/obtain as most will not tie up 24 points to sell their items. Doc chews up so many points as it is.
I dont think the pharm... Industry would have much of a problem being funneled into a tighter distribution network.. As for smuggler items.. ie Spice.. when is the last time you saw Crack for sell inside your neigborhood walmart.. Spice is a drug.. so i have always found it odd that it be sold openly on the public market and not in a more shady and inconspicious matters...
ok .. here is my view on this issue.. Vendors are a hired help.. employees.. not property like a structure or peice of furniture.. The merchant correspondent and I have pages and pages of posts going back and forth argueing this very subject.. and the logistics of a master craftsman having a hired hand to help in distribution manners of their products.. I have argued that merchants focus should not be in the form of soley being a vendor handling profession and many more skills should be a priority of fulling enabling the current merchants to be true merchants.. I have argued that the main focus for merchants should be for things that help them be more effiecent in commerce.. in ways of a actual mall.. better advertising techniques.. and actual shipping skills.. ( merchant only packs that held more items , merchant only vehicles that had the ability to haul many items). Anyone can get a guy to stand on the side of the road and sell oranges a merchant can set up a shop and sell oranges better.. Yes.. the merchant profession is gimped and needs alot of attention..
Now on the subject of this thread or at least what it has evolved to.. Is leveling merchant .. dropping merchant and retaining the benifits of the profession right or wrong.. well.. I am going to give this analogy and you read between the lines.. For those of you that have seen the movie Bio Dome you will understand this.. (for those of you who havent seen it this still should make sense.. ) I compare this game to the Bio Dome.. a confined realm that requires balance to be stable and survive and sustain life.. Now when the scientests started the project they entered the Dome from the front entrance. The objective to survive inside the dome for a one year.. the rule .. they could not leave the way they entered until that year was up.. as the movie progressed our nitwit would be heros ( Bud and Doyle ( played by polly shore and one of the baldwins) found a key left in one of the access windows and was able to come and go from the dome.. were they breaking the rules? technically no because they never left the Dome the same way they entered when the expirement started. But as the story progressed Many Many more people accessed the Bio Dome through this newly found door. What happened to the integrity of the Bio Dome? It was almost completely Destroyed... Only until this technically not against the rules entry/exit point was sealed, the integrity of the Bio Dome was restored.....
Morale of the strory? There are alot of things that technically arent wrong.. and as the numbers increase of people utilizing these "grey areas" the integrity of the game is lost.. SOE has ALWAYS made a point that the position of this game is for players to be reliant on creating relationships and depending on others.. Does droping merchant and still benifiting from the few bonuses given to the merchant do anything of accomplishing this goal of being dependent on other players?
I am 100% for the vendors being fixed... BUT... Upon fixing the vendors I also demand that systems be put in place to make developing a crafter to merchant relationship realistic. This comes in form of merchants having the ability to transport large quantities of items ( packs and vehicle). This comes in giving crafters some sort of mock vendor.. this mock vendor would be able to accept deliveries.. ( I know many crafters have resources and componants Delivered to their vendors all the time..) this mock vendor would also be able to have bulk orders placed on it with the name of the merchant being able to be placed on it and only that merchant is able to pick it up.. ( This Mock Vendor would not be able to sell to the open public).. I know there are some other issues that would need to be implemented as well to make a true merchant and crafter relationship even possible.. AND ONLY THEN would this vendor Fix be able to be done with out shaking the economy too much...
As Far as Inflation... We are too afraid of that word.. people this is only monopoly money it isnt real.. Higher costs are not a bad thing.... Even if a casual player only has a few hours a week to play.. they can still make several 100k a week.. it is not that dificult to do.. I think across the board everything is too cheap.. ( at least when it comes to the best of the best)..
Bottom line.. for this game to be able to sustain players that will continue to play for the long stretch changes need to be made.. and with every change there will be some sacrifices..these grey areas that some people like to defineare not good for the game.. when you have a game that is filled with people that thrive on pushing the envelope these grey areas Have got to bebroken down and defind inblack in white.... It only protects the integrity of the game....
Now someone get DocSavage some water and something to fan himself.. and for gods sakes help his fainted butt off the floor...
Hey Dvnce -
Nice to hear you chime in. And so diplomatically too!
The problem I see with your biodome analogy is that the back door to the biodome essentially destroyed the entire point of the biodome. This vendor "feature" (lets call it) that enables us to keep vendors doesn't have any big impact on the game in a negative way. The main problem with it (and I agree with you here), is the fact that people consider it a grey area. Which means you have upset people who have chosen one viewpoint (the exploit viewpoint) who are suffering because of their opinion, and the other group of people, who, like me, choose to work with the system as is, and get called names (who came up with the name "poacher" on the merchant forums?).
I definitely agree that some kind of resolution would eliminate this antagonism. If the devs just say things are fine, then everyone can drop merchant and we can move on to business as usual. If the alternative is chosen, like you say, unless there are radical changes made to the game, this will be devastating.
I would like a black and white statement made. For practical reasons, I think it should reinforce the status quo, until they have a well tested and reliable (yeah right) alternative. This is too dangerous to do in a sloppy way.
Baccarat wrote:
Hey Dvnce -
Nice to hear you chime in. And so diplomatically too!
The problem I see with your biodome analogy is that the back door to the biodome essentially destroyed the entire point of the biodome. This vendor "feature" (lets call it) that enables us to keep vendors doesn't have any big impact on the game in a negative way. The main problem with it (and I agree with you here), is the fact that people consider it a grey area. Which means you have upset people who have chosen one viewpoint (the exploit viewpoint) who are suffering because of their opinion, and the other group of people, who, like me, choose to work with the system as is, and get called names (who came up with the name "poacher" on the merchant forums?).
Here is some impact.. and here is some damage...
- many of the "grey area" vendors are not even being used for selling items.. but for storage that are causing more database damage than most can imagine... ( and are the source of the alledge vendor item rumor)
- Though when I was more forcebly on your side I was arguing the issue that a master crafter would have such an assistant.. As you can see from this poll the higher % of crafters that have a vendor already have merchant skills.. though I argued that a craftsman able to make fine products would have some business sense to at least employe a basic salesman.. this does not account for the commandos .. tka.. brawler.. marksman.. etc etc.. that have a vast majority of these "grey area" vendors..
- Being able to make 1000 finished good items at one time is bad enough.. but making it easy to flood the market with these 1000's upon 1000's of finished goods Is even worse... ( you can see this the clearest in our very own profession.. with 1000's of structures available on the market you get the Panick selling ( people dropping their shorts and pricing well below the value of the product... ( I know I know there are a few noble players that do this sort of pricing out of morality and not fear).. And in our profession when we are meant to sustain our self off of fewer sells and higher prices this is becoming impossible to do because with lower prices we must be a volume craft to make ends meat which only makes the problem worse because since our product decays it is only a matter of time that structures made far surpasses structures needed...
- the merchant class has merit.. and if equiped with the proper tools can be a valuable componant in the commerce structure but if everyone has a vendor already then really what use is the merchant.. ?
Your right in the fact that the needs of the crafters in combination with all the combat profession with their nicknacks they peel from the corpses of their slayed.. and miners removing "grey area" vendors would leave the economy without ample representation to support the product needing to be sold.... But where we disagree is that Instead of campaining to save the "gray area" vendors that ARE a neglected access window left open... would not your energy be better served in campaining to give the merchants the tools to properly represent the economy of their server? to give people an actual reason to want to be a merchant?
I definitely agree that some kind of resolution would eliminate this antagonism. If the devs just say things are fine, then everyone can drop merchant and we can move on to business as usual. If the alternative is chosen, like you say, unless there are radical changes made to the game, this will be devastating.
I would like a black and white statement made. For practical reasons, I think it should reinforce the status quo, until they have a well tested and reliable (yeah right) alternative. This is too dangerous to do in a sloppy way.
I 100% agree with the quote in pink...
Dvnce wrote:
Here is some impact.. and here is some damage...
- many of the "grey area" vendors are not even being used for selling items.. but for storage that are causing more database damage than most can imagine... ( and are the source of the alledge vendor item rumor)
- Though when I was more forcebly on your side I was arguing the issue that a master crafter would have such an assistant.. As you can see from this poll the higher % of crafters that have a vendor already have merchant skills.. though I argued that a craftsman able to make fine products would have some business sense to at least employe a basic salesman.. this does not account for the commandos .. tka.. brawler.. marksman.. etc etc.. that have a vast majority of these "grey area" vendors..
- Being able to make 1000 finished good items at one time is bad enough.. but making it easy to flood the market with these 1000's upon 1000's of finished goods Is even worse... ( you can see this the clearest in our very own profession.. with 1000's of structures available on the market you get the Panick selling ( people dropping their shorts and pricing well below the value of the product... ( I know I know there are a few noble players that do this sort of pricing out of morality and not fear).. And in our profession when we are meant to sustain our self off of fewer sells and higher prices this is becoming impossible to do because with lower prices we must be a volume craft to make ends meat which only makes the problem worse because since our product decays it is only a matter of time that structures made far surpasses structures needed...
- the merchant class has merit.. and if equiped with the proper tools can be a valuable componant in the commerce structure but if everyone has a vendor already then really what use is the merchant.. ?
Ok lets see...
1) I am 100% with you there. I hate empty vendors more than anything. And I don't use vendors for storage (not for any moral reason, just i don't see it as necessary). I think the hologrind is to blame for this to a large extent.
2) I hate to say it but i think alot of crafters were scared away by the name calling... people didn't start replying on my side until well after I had started making my points. I agree, hard to think of a reason for a commando to have a vendor. Maybe require novice artisan? Hard to say what the right answer is. Maybe a vendor price cap of 500k per item? That would discourage the storage of valuable stuff i guess.
3) I think the reason our profession is suffering has a lot to do with static lot swaps. Resources are cheap and abundant. Nobody harvests their own resources. As a result harvester sales have tanked, and structures are cheaply made.
4) I agree 100%. I think the mall concept would be really cool. We could also give them the ability to manage vendors remotely (wow imagine restocking a vendor on dantooine from tatooine). I bet I could come up with half a dozen things that we could add to merchant that would be fantastic and not hurt everyone else.
Your right in the fact that the needs of the crafters in combination with all the combat profession with their nicknacks they peel from the corpses of their slayed.. and miners removing "grey area" vendors would leave the economy without ample representation to support the product needing to be sold.... But where we disagree is that Instead of campaining to save the "gray area" vendors that ARE a neglected access window left open... would not your energy be better served in campaining to give the merchants the tools to properly represent the economy of their server? to give people an actual reason to want to be a merchant?
I have several ideas, like those i gave above as an example. The problem right now is I think a lot of us are personally threatened by the proposed vendor changes, and I feel like I need to respond to that before we get hit with the evil hotfix of doom. I'd love to start a merchant idea thread, but the amount of venom I'd catch on the merchant board might make it fairly futile. Although it is worth a shot I guess.
Baccarat wrote:
But dont you agree.. that if the proper tools went into effect FIRST for merchants to be able to amply service the servers body of people with something to sell.. the vendor FIX would only improve the over all game.. It is pretty open that since you challenged Pawlins Loaded question.. the question had some level of merit.. ... I think your campain has sustanance... BUT... I think the objective of your campain has a mistaken focus.. I think that if the focus was in improving the WHOLE system then there would be room in backing the push of the vendor fix..
I have several ideas, like those i gave above as an example. The problem right now is I think a lot of us are personally threatened by the proposed vendor changes, and I feel like I need to respond to that before we get hit with the evil hotfix of doom. I'd love to start a merchant idea thread, but the amount of venom I'd catch on the merchant board might make it fairly futile. Although it is worth a shot I guess.
BTW, if anyone is still listening...
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=dev_archive&message.id=42341&page=1
Thunderheart:
"Merchant: Currently there is a lot of debate about the fact that there is no skill point check for managing vendors. Is it the intent of the development team that vendors operate normally even when owned by players who no longer have the Management skill required to place that vendor?
It was never intended for players to be able tokeep and manage vendors after surrendering the Management skill boxes used to acquire them. This is scheduled to be fixed in a future publish and we want to upgrade vendors also, but it’s a bit early to start talking about that."