Droid Engineer Archive

BudaKhan,

You are using NPC vendors. Enjoy that low maintenance while it lasts, see the Merchant board for more (mostly awful) info.

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Draelen wrote:

So what's to keep everyone from just changing all their vendors to droids? What is the benefit to NPC vendors?

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Currently, Droid vendors incur much higher maintenance rates than NPC vendors do. Therefore it's much more cost effective (for anyone not selling resources) to use an NPC vendor if they have the skill to do so. This decision may need revisiting once the revised vendor charges go through.

For a really great summation of what is going to happen with the vendors, see the post at:

http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=merchant&message.id=6426&view=by_date_ascending&page=1

Hmm, I read the Merchant posts and all I can say is I'm out if business. SOE tried and tried to take me out before but I hung on. They killed the money-maker probot. For about a week or so no droids worked at all. They increased critical fails. They made non-CH pokemon much better than our best droid. After all of that I still have managed to make a profit. A small one but still a profit. Just yesterday I took down my NPC vendor and put up a Terminal (I dropped Merchant and I needed to move) and I put up FOUR items (1 probot, 1 surgical, and 2 orders for pickup). Just with those FOUR items my maint. fee is 75! I don't even want to do the math to figure out how much that costs.

What galaxy is everyone that is seeing this? I am on the Naritus Galaxy/Server and I have not seen a NPC vendor do this yet of mine.

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AmbassadorFrito wrote:
What galaxy is everyone that is seeing this? I am on the Naritus Galaxy/Server and I have not seen a NPC vendor do this yet of mine.

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Test Center, Frito. Test Center.

The strangest thing about this is that the devs have truly accomplished something the other games have not (at least not the games I have played) they have a functioning model for a player economy. The economy may not be perfect, but it isn't in the real world, so I cut them some slack on that one. As a general statement players can get the gear they need but are still reluctant to buy stuff they simply want but don't really need.

Adding this change will empty most vendors and drive the player economy to its knees if not kill it outright.

I have already removed all but a few BH droids (because BH need them and I'd rather sell them than have the in game vendor reinstituted). So my sales are pretty much going to be through that silly and buggy "secure trade window".

In RL I like "pay at the pump" gas stations, I love ATM rather than going in the bank. I don't quite see the need for "face to face" sales if my customers know how to use droids and know I am not trying to rip them off.

Frito, I am also on Naritus. The vendor charges are quite high for me.

Draelen - You are on the live Naritus server, not the test server?

Shinjin just posted this was on the test server?

This is why I am confused, please help clarify. Thanks in advance!

I think some clarification in general is needed.

The NPC vendors they are referring to that are bugged are the humanoid types under the subclass NPC in the vendor creation options. These currently charge extremely low maintenance as opposed to other vendor types. This is OBVIOUSLY a bug. This change is a FIX not a NERF.

The droid and terminalvendors charge at a rate dependant on what is currently stocked, which I believe is already at .1% or 1 for 1000 credits. I currently use the terminal vendor that looks like the bazaar.

Updating the status screen is as simple as calling up the status screen again. Just hit it twice and it will update to the real maintenance rate.

I hope they implement the sales tax type of solution, this way people who prefer to keep items on their vendors for large amounts of money as 'notes', like one of the posters on this thread, still have this option. Personally I don't do this, but if I decide that I want to, it would be nice to at least have this option available.

Vendor costs for those that "work correctly" now as well as the NPC vendors if they are "fixed" are too high! There's no way I can adequately stock a good selection of droids for those who might stop by and pay for the vendor fees, especially when I barely sell anything right now from my vendor. And if I don't sell them I have to do mission to get credits to pay the maintenance to keep the vendor running that isn't making me any money. The alternative is to take everything off the vendor (which I am doing), but now if somebody stops out to my house/shop I have no chance of selling them anything.

If there are to be vendor fees it should be more like RL. If I have a store with 4K Square Feet I don't pay more for the rent on that property if I start selling a few more items.

Make Vendor Fees be a very low maintenance and charge us a Sales Tax as items are actually sold. That is the only way to control the economy somewhat and not drive the potential salesmen into the ground.

NPC vendors will soon join the mechanical vendors in requiring maintenance fees of 3.2% of total asking price of all items / day. The 1/1000 charge is assessed every 45 minutes.

There are (32) 45 minute blocksper day. 32 x .001 =.032 = 3.2%of Total of asking prices / day.

Stupid concept like so many others in this game.

I should have included in the original post that just because the low-cost vendors were broken, doesn't mean I think the vendors SHOULD be the cost they are now.

The prices are too high. It makes no sense. There should be a commission/sales tax approach where X% is taken from sales to cover the cost - commission would make more sense as it goes to pay the vendor for how many items he sells or some such. Maybe a combination with a very low maintenance fee of1 for 10000 (.01%) as opposed to the 1 for 1000 (.1%)currently in existance AND a comission 'cut' for the vendor.

But yes, I think the price is too high to maintain variety.

I have been leaving a lot out of my posts lately...bad DE, no extrusive for you.