Bio Engineer Archive

I think that in a game like this, where the economic aspect of it is fundamental, it is a huge mistake to create a 'merchant' profession. Buying and selling is primarily what we do in this game. I think it would be analogous to creating a 'health nut' profession and only allowing people with this school to have more than 10% of their HAM points, with only a 'master health nut' having his full potential. There shouldn't be any single skill that you HAVE to spend points on to have a useful character.

In any case, The merchant class is not very well designed, only a few blocks have anything useful, and it all just functions like an enormous skill point sink. I think the whole system should be replaced with something that everyone has access to. That's one of the things that is good about UO, no matter what you produce or how, you can sell it easily on your vendor. A merchant class can't create more fun because of the skill points spent on it, it can only take away fun. If the merchant class was taken away, existing merchants could do everything they do now, but suddenly with more skill points to spend on other things.