Merchant Archive
Thread: Some reasons why vendors should stay after you drop Merchant.
I'm not going to read through all of this thread, but it is simple:
Vendors should be merchant only.
The current (bugged) situation is a slap in the face ofthe REAL merchants that are next to useless now because no crafter or resource seller needs us now.
Don't want to keep your merchant skills do you? Fine, but your choices to sell your merchandise should then be limited to:
- using the vendor the artisan business tree gives you
- selling your goods on the bazaar
- selling on the forums
- shouting at starport and selling face-to-face
OR: starting a partnership with a merchant !! (thus giving some purpose to the profession)
If you're concerned about the money you'd be 'losing' here, its called an economy. People charge for their services and manufacturers rarely sell their own stuff without some sort of middleman. And rest assured, a lot of merchants would charge reasonable amounts, based on their actual effort.
JimerLins wrote:
JimerLins wrote:
Your implication (based on the number of pages this thread has reached) was clear, and I don't think my interpretation was out of line. You have definitely been asserting and/or implying you are correct, even going so far as to use personal insults (clown) when I disagree with you.
Alrighty. For the record I respectfully request that you and anyone else who is so inclined please refrain from telling me what I meant.(snip)
Ah, so you don't like it when people tell you what you mean either, huh? How interesting. Considering that I protested you putting words in my mouth, this is hollow criticism at best.
A last note on this topic: My biggest pet peeve is people telling me what I meant. Period. Numero Uno. To avoid that I CLEARLY state what I mean. My statement was 'Obviously since this thread is on page 5 and heading towards page 6 many Merchants consider this a big issue', to say that reading that statement as 'I am in the majority in my opinion on this issue and you are in the minority on your opinion in this issue and I am therefore right and you are therefore wrong' is anything other than a gross twisting of words is ridiculous. If I mean something I'll say it, it is in no way a 'hollow criticism' to respectfully ask you NOT to delve into my words for a meaning that isn't there.
I would also like you to point out where I have told you what you mean? Feel free to bring upwhere you mentioned how you 'stand by what I said' even though you explicitly wrote two different things. In thatcase I quoted your .EXACT. words, and pointed out that the .EXACT. words that you used in the two cases mean DIFFERENT things. This was not a case of interpreting your words or telling you what you meant, it was holding up two statements that mean categorically different things.
And for the record, I respectfully don't believe you when you claim your comments weren't intended as insults. If they were not, they would have been phrased differently. I think any reasonable person who reads your comments about amusement and clown would reach the same conclusion I did- that you intended them as, at the least, backhanded insults.
In all honesty? Whatever. You've harped on a throwaway reference that was intended as 1) humor and 2) an example for far too long, if you wish to feel as if I insulted you, than fine I insulted you. I honestly could not care less at this point. Feel free to take that comment as an insult too.
Regardless of anything else, we've obviously lost track of the original discussion, and I think I'll just leave it be. You and I may not agree (or maybe we do, since I'm not going to try and interpret what you mean any longer, as that's apparently a no-no), but we're also not getting anywhere.
You know what? We're not getting anywhere, and I get the feeling that there is no point in discussing this or, quite frankly, any other topic with you. There is quite a lot of middle ground between not twisting someone's words for meaning that isn't there and assigning that person motivations that he doesn't have, and not debating a topic at all. If you can't see the middle ground where open and honest debate lives? Then we really have nothing to gain out of this or any other conversation.
In accordance with my new appeasement policy, feel free to take any statements listed above as insults, either back-handed or otherwise. I ask only that you refrain in the future from .interpreting. the text rather than reading the actual text for what is said. It may be a classic debate tactic to try to put someone on the defensive that way? But it's a deterrent to useful discussion.
As an aside to the people who've implied that Jimerlins and I are flaming each other? That hasn't happened up to this point, but I think there does seem to be quite a wide lake if dislike between us so keep that eye out for future fireworks.
Vithu wrote:
I'm not going to read through all of this thread, but it is simple:
Vendors should be merchant only.
The current (bugged) situation is a slap in the face ofthe REAL merchants that are next to useless now because no crafter or resource seller needs us now.
There is one fundamental problem here though. If I want to make money selling my goods, even if I had access to no vendors at all, I would still not need a merchant to sell goods for me.
All the 'feature' does for me personally is allow me to sell a wider range of goods to a wider market. I don't make any more money - in fact I actually make less since supplying specialised items to individuals is far, farmore lucrative. (I'm still making more money than I know what to do with - really and truely the shop is a hobby).
Seriously, I think the answer here would be to give more abilities to merchants (increased pricelimits on the galactic bazaar, additional lot slots, the ability to set time limits on auctions, etc, etc) rather than yet another 'nerf' which has the potential to strangle the game economy.
JimerLinswrote:
Actually, NONE of us KNOW how the devs intended it to work. Their intent has not been made clear in this matter, as far as I'm concerned. However, as it has been said- this feature is working as documented. Whether it is working as intended is something that only a dev can answer.
Claiming it is otherwise is assuming a knowledge you do not possess, and this is not only unseemly, it is unwarranted.
Whatever makes you feel better about your position - doesnt change a thing though, Doc has been asked to try and find out the community's suggested way(s) to fix this without those no longer in posession of the skills losing everything - I think this is a pretty clear indication of where the devs are headed dont you?
GFoyle wrote:
There is one fundamental problem here though. If I want to make money selling my goods, even if I had access to no vendors at all, I would still not need a merchant to sell goods for me.
[..]
Seriously, I think the answer here would be to give more abilities to merchants (increased pricelimits on the galactic bazaar, additional lot slots, the ability to set time limits on auctions, etc, etc) rather than yet another 'nerf' which has the potential to strangle the game economy.
You could still get your stuff sold without a merchant and that's the way I think it should be: merchant-crafter partnerships should be a worthwile alternative/addition for your business, not a requirement. Right now they're virtually non-existant though. The fact that you don't need us will also keep our offerings reasonable.
Before this 'nerf' some adjustments would have to be made to the vendor system, making it easier to rent out a vendor. These include allowing the crafter to restock his own vendor, addingvendor tax (per item surcharge - like city tax) and/or vendor rent (per hour charge).
A few more welcome additions would include an increased number of vendors (to9 or so, +3 for master?) and vendor sales statistics: that way a merchant could evaluate how much revenue a vendor is generating and adjust his rates accordingly.
As far as implementing the'nerf' to non-merchant vendorsgoes, this might work: start increasing the vendor maintenance cost exponentially. That way everyone has some days to clean out their vendors or even retrain some merchant skills, while stubbornly keeping the vendors for a month would clean out your bank account.
On a sidenote: I support the added lots-idea 
Heck no.
We worked on this skill tree to have vendors. Not fair to have someone zip up the management line (or take up Holomerchant) and then drop it and reap all the benefits.
I have spent 6 months shooting nothing harder than a durni cos I have minimal hunting skills. I chose that, I am ok with that, merchant and tailor is my profession. I would be pissed if someone could have the store that I have, then run off and be a pistoleer and not continue the commitment and headache that being a merchant entails.
Everyone on this forum keeps screaming about nerfs and how this class is getting screwed. Nothing would make this more true than if vendors stayed up after you dropped the ability to make them.
No offense man, but that's silly. Database technology only goes so far. The dev's DO have database problems. They've always had them. Ya see, this game has more stuff stored than any other game. All those personal touches to yer face? Yeah. That's like many many times a normal MMO character. They've got the best they can get, and well, it's not always enough. There's a LOOTTT of people playing the game.
But let's not argue technical stuff. I don't believe either of us are qualified to.
/sarcasm on
Reason #101:
Allow everyone and their mother to train a bit of merchant and have vendors so the DB bloat becomes ridiculous with everyone selling their 2 units of meat they looted and CDEF pistols and stone knives. Then they will just nerf Merchants down to 150 items per vendor and everyone gets screwed. Sweet concept.
/sarcasm off
If they removed vendors from those currently without the merchant skills to create those vendors and change the merchant skills to mean "running vendors" instead of "placing vendors" as the sematics people in this thread word it, then the DB bloat would be cut drastically. With everyone having vendors now, the bloat is being taken out on those who maintain their merchant skills.
Gosh, I had no idea I started such a busy thread! Wow!
However, the Devs are doing some Jedi mind tricks on us so watch out!
"These are not the bugs you are looking for..."
"You only need 150 items on your vendor..."
"Move along..."
And then I read about how our top 5 was ignored and we were fed what amounts to a few cheap nerfs... and I cant help but think..... Is it really suprising? Its exactly what I said would happen several times. Whine that a working game mechanic isnt working, and you will be ignored. Offer comprhensive ideas and suggestions about why that game mechanic should be changed, and you may catch an ear or two.
And then I got to thinking, as frustrating as it is that a vocal minority of the Merchant Community lacks the ability to understand the very simple points I was making about game documentation and skill mod mechanics.... by focusing on those minor points specifically I was contributing to lead us away from the real questions that should be asked repeatedly until we get action.
***How can we structure and improve Merchant so that retaining skill points in this Proffesion is worth while?***
It is what?.... 6 months into this game? And we still do not have a comprehensive, coherant, analytical state of the proffesion. At least not one that I could find. The sticky is pathetic.
This should be step one. We need to re-do that sticky. It needs to include a substantial write up of bugs, a large community wish lists that reflect a general consensus, and where it does not reflect a general consensus it should be noted, it need to include a well thought out top 5 list....
When I was a ranger - their state of the proffesion was a document of some length and detail that would put ours to shame. And ya know what? They recieved attention.
Of course none of this guarantees action by the devs, and in all honesty it probably only raises our chances of getting what we want by a miniscule amount... but it is a start.
I cant do this, and no one here would want me too.... I dont see any of the major players in this debate as capable of doing it. But I do think Doc could do it and I think we should push him to.
Very sad to see the amount of justification that some people will come up with to support their use of an exploit.
Um, I haven't read this thread, but the original poster is crazy. Huh? So, if I become a combat medic and then untrain it, I should still be able to use range packs??? Think about this for a moment.
Besides, it's people keeping vendors when they aren't supposed to that is surely adding to the database problem and not we are facing a drastic vendor cut. Thanks a bunch!!