CUEmu - Thread Posts

Dvnce

Thu Jun 10, 2004 2:36 pm

Ok .. lets focus this discussion and I will present this to DocSavage.. the merchant corr..

this discussion is only for crafters and crafter/merchants.... If you are only a merchant please wait till this discussion gets opened up on the merchant forum...

Ok there is an obvious line drawn between those for and against the Vendor Fix.. .. Bottom line.. It was not intended so it should be fixed.... However I do agree with the AGAINST side on one very important issue.. and that the merchant system now is not capable to handle the needs of people with something to sell once they become the sole source of a vendor....

So I wish to give this sort of arguement and rally all of the energies of both sides of the arguement to make sure that in the end... No matter what happens.. The crafter has ample resources to sell their goods..

So with that being said.. Answer this question.. What would have to be added to the merchant profession to make you as a crafter want to use another player merchant to sell your goods..?

This is my response.. For me to use a merchant.. The merchant would have to have the means to come to me and be able to pick up large orders of finished goods.. this can be made possible by giving them Merchant Only Backpacks with extended item limits.. and by giving merchants a vehicle that has storage capabilities.. The merchant needs to have a system in place where my items can be placed on his vendor.. when it sells I get my pay and the merchant gets his "cut" of the deal.. I also as a crafter need to be able to have some sort of feature that will serve two actions.( terminal, or permenant shop droid..).

1) a means for resource suppliers or subcomponant suppliers to drop of these items ( in the fashion that is currently available in the vendor offer screen) ..

and

2) be able to bundle large orders on and assign to a certain merchant the ability to pick up.. the order... .. When this is place I would feel that the merchant body could handle being the sole source of vendors... Actually what would be ideal.. is for this to be a terminal.. the merchant would access it see the order with the set wholesale price.. from hear He would be able to transfer it directly to his vendor whereever it may be with the adjusted retail price.. that way we have control in making sure the correct wholesale ( consigned price) is put in place..

Ok that is what I have .. I know it may be a little confusing because I have been slammed at work and a little tired.. but I am sure the great minds we have here can work together to come up with proposal to submit to the merchants..

Imaka QuHurl

Im Not Dead Yet Careful I bite

Heed the warning

PadreBook

Thu Jun 10, 2004 2:50 pm

#2

I agree completely--sounds like a winner!

Padre
Dropped all Merchant skills just to say hello to my little friend DocSavag

ThothTheWise

Thu Jun 10, 2004 3:10 pm

#3

Dvnce wrote:

Answer this question.. What would have to be added to the merchant profession to make you as a crafter want to use another player merchant to sell your goods..?

-If the Merchant were able to drop there vendors within Static Cities, It would be of benefit for me to outsource my products to them.

- I would have to be able to Not have to rely on said Merchant to have to possess huge amounts of Capital in order for them to first BUY my product from me and then HOPE to resell it. It would be better if, as you stated, the iteams were put upon his vendor by some sort of "admin" function by myself...and then the Merchant who OWNED the vendor would simply recieve a cut.

How many Crafters tho arent already Merchants Tho? Of my 4 accounts, 3 of which are Crafters, Two of them are also Master Merchants.

The dumped the Industrialist, and Mining Professions...and made it actually very easy to be a Self sufficient Crafter/Merchant. I am not sure that They can sucessfully make it a viable aspect of the game now for people to specialize in such a degree. People simply refuse to specialize, unfortunetly.

♠ Semi -Retired

For Public Viewing: LOWCA GALACTIC GALLERY of FINE ART: LOK -3219 -269 (StarForge)

IntoTheGarbage

Thu Jun 10, 2004 3:21 pm

#4

I have posted this idea many times, i don't know if it has caught the dev's attention or not, but rather than post this long winded suggestion again, here is the link to the last time i suggested it:

http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=droid_engineer&message.id=65004#M65004

The advantage to this idea in this particular case is that non-merchant crafters could simply place stuff on a bulk vendor in their basement and the merchant would be able to buy it from them since a Master Merchant would have access to every vendor in the galaxy. Easy for the crafter, easy for the merchant.

___________________________________

Ok, just for the record, my original name was: IntoTheGarbageChuteFlyboy. However the names have since been shortened and my name went from really cool to really confusing.

Thank you for your patience.

Shayughul1

Thu Jun 10, 2004 3:51 pm

#5

Well I started life as strictly a Merchant. Thinking that I would be able to do just buying and selling. Or have regular customers that would supply vendors for me. This was not a viable solution thou i found out. Like mentioned above...If you don't have huge venture capital to start with and have a great understanding of what sells and what doesn't then you aren't going to make it.

Since my time with only Merchant i have now taken up Master Art. and Master Architect. I love them and wouldn't drop Architect for anything.

But i have always felt that Merchants need the ability to have somebody place items on thier vendors. Either throu a system like buildings/harvesters now where you could give a person admin right to a vendor. The people on the admin list would have rights to Pay Maint, Add Items, Adjust prices of items they placed on the vendor, and the Merchant alone would have the ability to adjust the % they took from the sale.

I know something has to be done...because if they decide to remove all these vendors....alot of people are going to be in a world of hurt.

just my 2 credits.

Meplorium

Thu Jun 10, 2004 4:17 pm

#6

The reason why people are hating this uncoming change is because there are a lot of people with vendors and no skills. Part of why people do this 'exploit' isn't because they can but because vendors are very useful to non-crafters and for crafters selling items, merchant is a lot of skill points without many benefits.

The non-crafters are using the business 3 vendor as a post office box. They put a few items up, special orders or loot drops for very specific people or freebies to their guild and they also have people offer items to them, aka a mail box. This is a basic function that most people need and only a vendor fufills this. This basic need should not be restricted to merchants.

The other problem is you get your 6 vendors, maybe they say something or on the map. Once they are loaded with goods, there isn't much to do. Most of the 'merchant skills' are not game related. They are you advertising on the boards or to others, holding sales to get people to buy things, knowing the market so you know what to make and want to price it at. The point here is being a 'merchant' requires your own personal business skills and not some in game mechanic. So the in game mechanics need to simply cost fewer skill points. Maybe make novice merchant cost 5 skill points, with 3 skill box trees going 4,3,2 and then master merchant costing 1 point. That would make merchant 42 skill points, which is more inline with what the profession actually does for you.

Also people simply need to have a mail box. Maybe an extra terminal in their declared residence where people can offer items too and they can list 20 items on and people on their mail box admin list can pick up.

I think with those 2 changes, lower skill point costs and mail boxes, people would not be hating this vendor 'nerf'.

As to having someone else sale my good? Umm no and no. They are my goods, I wish to sell them. I often have a long list of items to list, furniture anyone?, that requires way to much inventory space for me to hand over items. I have sold crates of the bestine paintings for resale, but that is about it. Others have bought me out before and resold my items too. Both are fine but in the end I need a place to exchange my goods for money and that place is a vendor.

- Meparch (Master Crafter, AS, DE), Mepaarch (MiniMep, Chef, SW), Meparca (Master Wookiee), Mepthorian (Master Naturalist, CH, BE)
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Baccarat

Thu Jun 10, 2004 4:40 pm

#7

You know, the mall concept, where a master merchant (or maybe some other tier merchant) places a structure, within which crafters place vendors, and pay a commission to the merchant, is effectively identical to having the merchant have sole control over vendors. The only difference is in this case the crafter controls the vendors and sets the prices. The merchant would set the tax rate, and could potentially offer other incentives (centralized location, advertising etc). We could add incentive by limiting the number of vendors in regular structures to, oh say, 3 or so.

Maybe we could give merchants control over player city bank structures.. this obviously has lots of potential for abuse... but I could imagine merchants running "banks" where players can invest money, and the merchant can use the money to speculate on resources, etc.

A merchant is a figure that should control some grander scale aspect of commerce. I can see merchant more as a class akin to politician, where maybe each city has a merchant, who does advertising, taxation, and other financial aspects of a player city.

Furia, Kavala, Xana, Tarantella (Xana's alt, before NGE), all cancelled.(3 accts total)

Dvnce

Thu Jun 10, 2004 4:51 pm

#8

Baccarat wrote:

You know, the mall concept, where a master merchant (or maybe some other tier merchant) places a structure, within which crafters place vendors, and pay a commission to the merchant, is effectively identical to having the merchant have sole control over vendors. The only difference is in this case the crafter controls the vendors and sets the prices. The merchant would set the tax rate, and could potentially offer other incentives (centralized location, advertising etc). We could add incentive by limiting the number of vendors in regular structures to, oh say, 3 or so.

Maybe we could give merchants control over player city bank structures.. this obviously has lots of potential for abuse... but I could imagine merchants running "banks" where players can invest money, and the merchant can use the money to speculate on resources, etc.

A merchant is a figure that should control some grander scale aspect of commerce. I can see merchant more as a class akin to politician, where maybe each city has a merchant, who does advertising, taxation, and other financial aspects of a player city.

What about if master merchant got a structure ( Mall) that had say 8 rooms in it.. and these rooms each had a terminal.. the merchant could in a sense sell admin rights to these terminals.. once a crafter was given admin rights to this terminal they would be able to work it like a vendor.. add items set their own price on it etc.. the merchant would then be able to do the advertising of the mall.. building.. and set a % "tax / cut" of sales.. like the player city sales tax system.....?

Imaka QuHurl

Im Not Dead Yet Careful I bite

Heed the warning

ThothTheWise

Thu Jun 10, 2004 9:27 pm

#9

Baccarat wrote:

You know, the mall concept, where a master merchant (or maybe some other tier merchant) places a structure, within which crafters place vendors, and pay a commission to the merchant, is effectively identical to having the merchant have sole control over vendors. The only difference is in this case the crafter controls the vendors and sets the prices. The merchant would set the tax rate, and could potentially offer other incentives (centralized location, advertising etc). We could add incentive by limiting the number of vendors in regular structures to, oh say, 3 or so.

Maybe we could give merchants control over player city bank structures.. this obviously has lots of potential for abuse... but I could imagine merchants running "banks" where players can invest money, and the merchant can use the money to speculate on resources, etc.

A merchant is a figure that should control some grander scale aspect of commerce. I can see merchant more as a class akin to politician, where maybe each city has a merchant, who does advertising, taxation, and other financial aspects of a player city.

A great deal of what your suggesting is along the lines of the once proposed Craft of Industrialist. They would own structures and charge others to use them. I actually still have industrialist xp LOL but sadly Like the mining Profession..It was never to be =( and now it is all comming back to haunt them.

If they went back and revamped the merchant class to do both the "industrisalist type things once proposed..as well as what Merchant currently provides...then you would have a solid profession.

The Merchant would possess Factories and "malls" / open air bazzars, and charge others time on them. Its an idea..tho maybe not my best one. Lol

Message Edited by ThothTheWise on 06-10-2004 09:31 PM

♠ Semi -Retired

For Public Viewing: LOWCA GALACTIC GALLERY of FINE ART: LOK -3219 -269 (StarForge)

Baccarat

Thu Jun 10, 2004 9:56 pm

#10

Dvnce wrote:

What about if master merchant got a structure ( Mall) that had say 8 rooms in it.. and these rooms each had a terminal.. the merchant could in a sense sell admin rights to these terminals.. once a crafter was given admin rights to this terminal they would be able to work it like a vendor.. add items set their own price on it etc.. the merchant would then be able to do the advertising of the mall.. building.. and set a % "tax / cut" of sales.. like the player city sales tax system.....?

That sounds perfectly reasonable. The point is that you keep the stocking aspect with the crafter, so the crafter can market their own wares without feeling like there's a middleman who can make an arbitrary markup and has monopoly of the market. Plus the mall would be a lot of fun.

Furia, Kavala, Xana, Tarantella (Xana's alt, before NGE), all cancelled.(3 accts total)

Splutty

Fri Jun 11, 2004 4:33 am

#11

I've seen a lot of nice replies to this one, and I think what it comes down to is: We don't much mind paying a bit of extra money to get stuff sold, but we don't want to spend 30+ skillpoints to even be able to sell anything.

A suggestion that might also be easier to implement might be the following:

Say a merchant makes vendors, then has the ability to decide what he(m/f) wants to sell on his vendor, by accepting offers from others, with only one small detail changed. The price on the offer, is the price that the seller wants to sell it for, the item goes up for sale with an added % for the merchant, and when the item actually gets sold, the money goes to the seller, and the extra % to the merchant.

That way a merchant can (if he wants to) decide if he wants to sell certain stuff, but at least the seller doesn't have to 'trust' the merchant with his wares.

So instead of only a 'buy' and 'dismiss' button in the offers section, a merchant would also have a 'sell item' button, which would put it in the vendor for sale with a certain percentage added value (call it tax

The merchant would get extra money (for maintenance) and after that make a nice profit, if they'd be able to get enough people to sell through their vendors.

Mad.

Baccarat

Fri Jun 11, 2004 8:12 am

#12

So what's the next step, Dvnce? Can we propose this to the devs as a way of resolving the vendor issue? There still are a lot of details to be worked out but the broad concept seems like a nice solution.

Furia, Kavala, Xana, Tarantella (Xana's alt, before NGE), all cancelled.(3 accts total)

Sevardos

Fri Jun 11, 2004 8:21 am

#13

Well, I found the last thread to be silly with semantics being used to justify a clear exploit of a game bug.You only need to read theagreement when you log into see what is defined as one.That being said, I applaud your attempt to make a constructive discussion regarding options to resolve the issue.

Key Understandings:

1. I have the same concerns as everyone else that Merchants don't have the tools to deal with crafting and player community requirements.

2. The reality is, the player base is accustomed to using their own vendors even though it wasn't intended.This requires the Merchant profession to evolve to the new realities of the current player economy dynamics.

My thoughts:

(1) Master Merchant profession to evolve and able to contract out (sell) Vendors:

- Allow Master Merchants to sell vendors... or more accurately, act as a temp agency for the NPC vendors and sales/leasing agent for the terminal & droid merchants.A 'hired' vendor can be purchased from a Merchant by anyone, no matter the class.However, their would be some restrictions and particulars:

(a) These vendors cannot be advertised via the global map

(b) Instead of maintenance, you would need to purchase weekly/monthly "contracts" that must be added to the vendor - similar to adding power to a harvester.These "contracts" are crafted by a Master Merchant and can be purchased from them. (like batteries for droids)

Alternative to (b) - instead of maintenance, a percentage of all sales on that vendor goes back to the merchant.However, my concern with this suggestion is that I can see it being grossly abused where a small number of players will 'take over' the market.

(c) Once initialized, the hired vendor cannot be moved.If moved, the merchant client needs to hire/buy another one from a Master Merchant

(d) The player who hired/leased the vendor does not have to rely on the Merchant for anything else other than purchasing it (keeps things simple)

(e) Restricted to only 3 vendors per player.

Last time I brought this idea up; I got a lot of grief from statement (e).The reason I'm suggesting this many vendors (3) is that it creates a large, viable market for the merchant.The merchant will have greater opportunities to contract out/ lease merchants and sell volumes of maintenance contracts.If you were to reduce the number of available vendors (to 1 for example), you would severely reduce the merchants' market opportunity universe.

2. Allow NPC vendors to be altered by an Image Designer.This provides more revenue opportunities for that class plus alleviates the issues of having unlimited number of variances as is now.

3. Existing vendors without the Merchant skill have to go. But, there would be a 37 day grace period to allow those players to purchase new vendors and move or sell through their stock.I chose 37 because that’s the maximum you can have something on the vendor without losing it so players who don't act, can't say "Hey, I lost all this inventory!" ... because they would have lost it anyways.

4. "Crafting" (for lack of better word) Vendors for Master Merchants.This part, I'm a little stumped on right now.There needs to be a process implemented that forces Master Merchants to somehow 'craft' a vendor.It can't be like how the current professions work (purchase materials + craft) but can't think of any ideas right now.Please feel free to add suggestions.

5. Consignment system for the Master Merchants for current 6 vendors.I don't want my proposed ideas to suggest that a merchant will stop being a merchant and still will require richer tools to perform that job.

NOTE: This augmentation of the Merchant profession does not take away any of the current advantages a Master Merchant would have over a hired/leased vendors given to their clients.They will still enjoy a larger number of vendors, lower cost maintenance, and ability to advertise - but now they'll have even more tools of commerce.

Something like this is what I would like to see - or variations of it. This accomplishes 2 things that would hopefully make both sides happy:

1. Makes the Master Merchant elite profession credible in that you have to keep it to take advantage of it

2. It allows ALL players, crafters or non-crafters, to have vendors to sell their wares or loot (which I think is the main desire)

Anyways, it's not a perfect idea but it's my 2 cents

Sevardos

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