Merchant Archive
Thread: Vendors..still one thing not addressing
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DajonJamore
Tue Aug 17, 2004 9:35 am
#1
As a M/Weaponsmith I should not have to use so many points to go up in vendors to sell my goods.I think that if I have to go up to bussiness 3 just for one vendor then why not make it a higher number for this one vendor. Like 500 would be good, that would give me enough room to keep most of my stuff in stock at 1 location and if I want to expand I can either go higher in merchant or make a deal with someone in the merchant profession. And I am not talking about just weaponsmith, I am saying anyone that crafts needs atleast 500 to put up a descent number of each of there products.Armour in the future is going to change so that all armour is useful and everyone is not going to be running around in composite only( yes the devs have said it themselves) marine armour, stormtrooper bone armour, all of it is going to be revamped to be similar.Docs need room for all of their components, buffpacks, stims so on and so on.
M/Merchant should have the most vendors and number of items they can hold but a crafter( especially master) should not have to go up the merchant tree just so they can sell there goods. If they want to expand there bussiness outside there home or guild hall then yes we should have to spend points to get more vendors and hold more goods, or again we can make a deal with a merchant.
I am currently M/weaponsmith ,m/pistoleer ,novice medic, 0/0/4/3 merchant and 4/0/4/1 in artisian. I am needing to go up in surveying and there are on 2 ways to do this, one is to drop medic and then not being able to heal myself or two, drop some of m pistoleer and ruin what little combat I do have.Actually dropping medic is ruining my combat play.
Bottom line is WHY , should I have to sacrifice my ability to have 1 master combat profession with novice medic to go up the vendor tree to sell my goods,I already have to spend extra points in surveying to collect my goods, not to mention I need inventory for my resources( which is a different problem which could be fixed easily) and surveying tree to scan better for resources.
There should be a way to let us keep 1 m combat class, novice medic , with surveying and be able to go up the merchant tree itself to sell our goods in multiple places and kept a descent stock of items in those vendors.
RagemanStoo77
Tue Aug 17, 2004 9:43 am
#2
I disagree, why should the actual Merchants of the galaxy suffer becuase the current system and the system you propose takes away the need to find dedicated merchants to sell you're stuff. This is one of the things I envisage as happening in the merchant revamp, it will be easier for a master merchant whos main line of income is the sales of other people's goods. Also if you want to do combat, you have many other servers to do that in, you are not tied to a single character with a mish mash of odd skills. Do you not find it seriously funny that people characters who pimp slap kimogolas then turn around and whip up a mean souffle with its innards? Or a deadly TKM who will slice and dice all in thier path... then knit the finest jumpers in the known galaxy?
RagemanStoo77
Tue Aug 17, 2004 9:48 am
#3
On a side note though, do you actually need to go into surveying? i'm sure there are hundreds if not thousands of surveyors who you can contract to find what you need.
DajonJamore
Tue Aug 17, 2004 9:54 am
#4
Only casual gamers playing 8 -12 hours a day would have time to look for resources run harvesters, make all their goods to sell and place them in their vendors go get buffed and travel to do any combat , look for other goods they need, since i am m weaponsmith no need to look for weapons, but armour , food, ect., what about haveing to reload swg to play your other character on dial up no less. Someone like this could do that but how about the peeps that only play 2 to 4 hours a night and maybe not everynight they could not enjoy playing this game.. we are not just talking about people who play 8-12 hours a day here.
Korrack
Tue Aug 17, 2004 9:56 am
#5
The only thing barely being address is that people want to be a Master Crafter profession, a Master Combat profession and still have vendors and whatever else they can get their hands on.
The game was designed with a skill point system to prevent people from being everything. It was not a conspiracy by SOE to force people to buy second accounts or to force them to not have fun, it was to promote diversity in this multiplayer online game.
If it were intended for people to be everything, then there would be no skill points, just experience points and everyone could be all 32 classes.
Merchant was never adequately set up from the start. A class that could have always used some buffing up, and is still due for a major revamp. The merchant profession was intended as a full side profession for a Master Crafter (I used to be Master DE, Master Artisan, Master Merchant), or as a partial profession sideline for a combat profession (Master Smuggler, Master Pistoleer, Novice Merchant). It has never been a free profession or an add on to anything. Despite how weak it is, it is still a stand alone profession and there are many people who get very wealthy in this game from reselling objects they buy.
Expecting to be a Master Crafter/Master Combat/Healing ability/Merchant/Miner/Scout is not part of the designed game mechanics.
joined42904
Tue Aug 17, 2004 9:57 am
#6
I totally agree with Regeman.
Although I wish they had kept the lower 50 item limit for business 3 and not granted any more items or vendors until novice merchant.
If you want to run a successful business selling a large number of items, you need to be a merchant. Because...take a look at what you're doing...you are acting like a merchant!!
To be a merchant, you need merchant skills. Just as to be a swordsman you need swordsman skills. This seems quite fair to me.
You have to decide where you wish to invest your skill points. Do you want to do amazing combat with your character or sell a lot of goods? That is your decision. You can't have both anymore.You have to make a decision based on what you value.
Maybe someone else in your guild will take master merchant to sell your goods. Just a thought.
warrenowen
Tue Aug 17, 2004 11:45 am
#7
I can see two sides to this.
I'm happy with the new vendor limits, and what has been said about the role of merchants.
However, for Merchants to be truly effective then a method of allowing the crafter to list his goods on a merchants vendor is required. The limit of 25 offers to a vendoris not workable for a ws selling volume goods.
As a weaponsmith I would be happy to use a merchant mall if I could list my own goods, be responsible for the vendors maintenance etc, and then pay a cut to the merchant (a merchant set % of sale - say 10% of my sales)
Likewise asa mechant I would be happy to lease out my vendors to an armorsmith as a complement to my ws line of goods at my current location.
But we need the tools to do this. Dumping backpacks full of goods and expecting the merchant to pay you, or arranging face to face meet ups to trade is not particularly slick or effective if you are operating in a high-volume sales environment.
If this turns out to be the merchant revamp, and this is all we get, then this is extemely disappointing.
Nerfing non-merchants using vendors will not create an effective merchant class, it is a necessary step along the road, but we will be left with a broken profession rather than a non-existent one unless other changes are made.
So I sympathise with the WS who wishes to do a bit of fighting, bit of WSing and bit of selling, because it isn't as simple as just working with a merchant..... as a casual gamer you don't want to spend 45 mins of your gametime each day arranging to meet up with a merchant to hand over a pile of weapons that you have spent 30 mins getting sliced by a smuggler - life is too short.
joined42904
Tue Aug 17, 2004 11:50 am
#8
warrenowen,
You aren't being creative here.
Arrange for a drop-off location. That's right...plant a house and admin both parties and let the WS drop goods off in the house labelled in backpacks with the proposed sales price. Simple enough. Now...the merchant has to list them.
If the tools for allowing a second person to list items are granted by the devs, then the entire merchant profession will become utterly worthless. We merchants need to guard vigorously our perogatives as the only class (along with the business line) that can list items on vendors. What is to stop cross-server vendor exchanges if your proposed changes are put into effect? Nothing.
Kevm
Tue Aug 17, 2004 1:51 pm
#9
How about Doc's and BE's who want to sell their wares? They need to spend an additional 15 skill points just to get novice artisian. That's on top of the 135 skill points just to get BE and Explore 4 (which isn't a requirement but you have to have if you make pets)
DajonJamore wrote:
As a M/Weaponsmith I should not have to use so many points to go up in vendors to sell my
Bottom line is WHY , should I have to sacrifice my ability to have 1 master combat profession with novice medic to go up the vendor tree to sell my goods,I already have to spend extra points in surveying to collect my goods, not to mention I need inventory for my resources( which is a different problem which could be fixed easily) and surveying tree to scan better for resources.
Malitevv
Tue Aug 17, 2004 2:03 pm
#10
warrenowen wrote:
I can see two sides to this.
However, for Merchants to be truly effective then a method of allowing the crafter to list his goods on a merchants vendor is required.
Yes it is. There needs to be some secure and easy to manage interface for having a merchant sell another player's item for them. I am otherwise, happy with everything else.
Malitevv
Tue Aug 17, 2004 2:06 pm
#11
joined42904 wrote:
warrenowen,
Arrange for a drop-off location. That's right...plant a house and admin both parties and let the WS drop goods off in the house labelled in backpacks with the proposed sales price. Simple enough. Now...the merchant has to list them.
That will work, but it is insecure, and won't work wellfor so-called casual players who seek a merchant to sell their wares but may not play often enough to be close friends with a master merchant whom they know they can trust.
Message Edited by Malitevv on 08-17-2004 02:22 PM
RagemanStoo77
Tue Aug 17, 2004 9:38 pm
#12
But surely a merchants success is guaged by his trust? If a merchant requires people to bring items to him/her for sale then it is in the merchants best interest to be trustworthy, lest they find thier supply base shrinking rapidly.
warrenowen
Tue Aug 17, 2004 11:20 pm
#13
Two linked points as a follow-up
Yes, we can plant a house, and get a crafter to drop backpacks - but if they are passing on sliced weapons with individual prices then it becomes a pricing nightmare.
Also it isn't secure as already stated. Either you need one house for each crafter customer you have, and the implication on lot allocation is clearly untenable, or you have a generic house where all your customers drop off items, and if they happen to turn up and see a backpack from another customer lying around.... well... as a merchant I maygain trust (as the previous post says) but I can't vouch for my crafting customers, not all of them, especially when I've admined them in the house drop off point and we have no audit trail of what was dropped off and who may have picked it up.
So yes you can be creative, but we shouldn't have to, we need secure ways of doing this.
I appreciate that admin to vendor could potentially cause lot swap issues, but if the devs implement it properly then that should be eliminated. It doesn't alter the principal that it is desirable, and frankly my view of the merchant profession isn't one that spends all day listing items on a vendor, that isn't fun. What is fun is building deals, identifying business locations, working with the best crafters on the server, working out where market opportunities exist.
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