Merchant Archive
Thread: can this be addressed w/o being flamed
I've looked. The predominant refrain is "yeah yeah, improve the game, AFTER we stick it to those fscking exploiting scumbags!"
Songe wrote:
Now, just because some of us want things to be fair for everyone (and particularly for merchants who do spend those 100 points), doesn't necessarily mean that we don't also want the game to improve. If you look around, you will see that most of us are also giving ideas and participating actively on the threads about merchant improvement.
Actually as I've stated, many merchants think this is key to improving the profession. If most people are content, very few changes will occur. Ideally, It will all come at once, but if I have to settle for one fix, this is it... and if it means sticking it to those "fscking exploiting scumbags", well, that's just gravy for my eggs! 
Message Edited by DingoBoi on 06-15-2004 01:12 AM
To start off with. Perhaps half of you cannot grasp what this particular subject is about. "Vendors as storage". It should have little or nothing to do with vendor poaching. I know it is hard, but you really should keep the topics separate.. oh, but wait, that would mean you would have to give up on your crusade to end vendor poaching and actually use logic and reason and polite discussion in a completely different subject matter. guess that idea has to be tossed.
(this is also why people think these forums are hate-filled and single-minded, etc. You turn just about any topic on these boards into a flame war over vendor poaching. And several of you cannot just discuss it, you have to bash people that don't agree with you. If I was a DEV, I would be hard pressed to reward your actions with anything, much less what you are asking for, even if you were right. That is not behavior you reward.)
As far as Vendor poaching.. Get over it. You are getting what you want. Merchants will be the only ones to have vendors (except for business 3).. So anything else, any other attacks (which is all some posters can do), are pointless. Get over it. Move on. Work on ideas for improving the profession overall. This is a dead issue. It will be eventually fixed. Bashing people gets you no where, except maybe more people doing it just to spite you.
oh.. and just because this was really funny to me.. "ID's are a screwed profession, simply because there really is no need to change the day to day look of a character." I could say the same exact thing about Merchants. Their 'big' thing.. their ONLY thing is vendors... ALLLLLLL their tools are set up around placing VENDORS, and guess what... you don't need to change vendors from day to day. So I guess merchants are just a screwed profession too. Thanks for agreeing with me Balkstar
Maybe if you concentrated on giving merchants something more to be than just slave-stockers to a utility service, you wouldn't be so angry and won't feel so cheated when someone else has the sense to come in from the rain. If merchant had ANYTHING else to encourage people to keep skill points invested, poached vendors wouldn't be an issue. And while we can only wait and see, my bet is that the DEVs are going to forget all about merchant as soon as vendor poaching is fixed and move on to more important things that actually draw players to the game, namely combat, some crafting, and more importantly -- the space expansion. The space expansion alone will keep them busy well into next year, and do you really think they are going to want to stop work on the 'larger' picture to improve merchants after they already fixed your 'biggest' issue? Do you think the player base will want that? I don't think so. Hell, I for one will be pissed if they bother. As much as I think this profession could be a lot of fun.. once they open up space to me, I will be really annoyed if it isnt running smooth and they stop even for a second to fix merchant.
Balkstar wrote:
The problem has always been when players have stated that the Merchant profession needed a revamp, theyhave talked about it in away such that extra goodies should be added INSTEAD of fixing vendor poaching. The 2 were never added together in the same posting. I know it took you quite a while to warm up to the idea the the poach itself is very damaging, but you were a big proponent of additions to the profession instead of fixing the bug.
I am still of a mind that if that is fixed completely, the merchant profession will indeed see the light of day. The extras everyone keeps talking about is just fluff, meant to pasify us and make us happy little players. If they want to do that to us, fine, but fix the core problem first and foremost. That means end vendor poaching once and for all.
I've never said that the profession should be added to instead of fixing the bug, but given the choice, I'd much rather have the profession enhanced. To me, poaching is a symptom of the fact that the merchant profession has a single thing going for it - the ability to place vendors. Changing that to "the ability to place and maintain" vendors doesn't give the profession anything new, it just redistributes its skills a little.
You're hoping that when poaching is fixed, the resulting outcry will motivate further fixes and enhancements. I don't share that optimism, because the outcry will be coming from crafters, who are already second-class citizens in SOE's eyes. It'll just be one more thing. "We fixed poaching and gave you vehicles," they will say, "what more do you artisans want of us?" and then they'll go back to the Jedi revamp or the combat revamp or the smuggler revamp or the ID revamp. And all the crafters will dabble in Merchant, further hamstringing their ability to participate in any of the new content coming in all the other revamps, and life will continue as before, except some people will either be having that much less fun, or shelling out for second accounts (and gee, SOE must be losing sleep over that).
Your gameplay won't be affected, either positively or negatively. And I think you know that. You might have noble aspirations of fixing the profession by drawing more people into it. That's the part that I think is a pipe dream.
The less noble motivation (which is the part that makes me want to argue with you) is the drive to punish all these "scumbag" exploiters. Mind you, I'm completely in favor of halting exploits that are harming other peoples' gameplay, but I find it extremely distasteful to seek "punishment" of other playersfor its own sake. And I don't get the sense from your posts that you care at all about anyone's gameplay experience - you're motivated solely by hatred.
Dingo is similar, though he at least expresses his hatred in a lighthearted way.
DragonScout wrote:
If merchant had ANYTHING else to encourage people to keep skill points invested, poached vendors wouldn't be an issue.
So long as it is possible to have the abilities without having to use the skill points people will exploit the system. Why would someone keep master doctor if they could use enhance medpack E's to with the same effectivness as a master doctor, but while dropping the skills? Some people would do so because they have honour and are moral and don't like to cheat, but many people obviously feel it is okay to cheat with venders and i am sure those same people would do the same with any other skill they felt useful if they could.
If you stop vender poaching then merchant does have something to encourage people to keep skill points invested, it has venders the original intended tools of the merchant class.
How can you justify keeping the skills of a profession you no longer have as anything other than exploiting the system. It is cheating and exploiting and therefore it is morally and ethically wrong according to my personal moral code and the generally espoused moral code of the majority of modern develped countries. If you, or the others defending the rights to have poached venders, don't follow these moral codes then that is your choice but don't expect to be liked by those who do.
This may be only a game but, morally, exploiting or cheating in the game is no different from walking into a store and stealing all the takings.
At the very least, alt players are legal. They may not get much attention from the players, but they are at using the skill allocations as intended. Alt characters are not griefing me, because I know I will always have an easier chance to be a better merchant then they will, as I can devote my ENTIRE game time to the persuit of the merchant profession, whereas crafters will still have to focus on the creation of goods and the gathering of resources. Thier system is much more inefficient, if the player has to split time to do that and also work on thier alt character every now and then.
p4Samwise wrote:
Sure there are. People buy alts and run entertainer buffbots so that they don't need to go interact with real entertainers, or spend skill points in an entertainer profession themselves to buff their guildmates. Many people do the same thing with doctors, crafting professions and even merchant - have a "mule" that exists solely to effectively give them more skill points. The only difference between them and "poachers" is that buying alt accounts to run "mules" puts more money into SOE's pockets - the overall deleterious effect on the profession is no different.
p4Samwise wrote:
Sure there are. People buy alts and run entertainer buffbots so that they don't need to go interact with real entertainers, or spend skill points in an entertainer profession themselves to buff their guildmates. Many people do the same thing with doctors, crafting professions and even merchant - have a "mule" that exists solely to effectively give them more skill points. The only difference between them and "poachers" is that buying alt accounts to run "mules" puts more money into SOE's pockets - the overall deleterious effect on the profession is no different.
Hey If someone wants to fork over the extra 15 bucks to have a tactical advantage over me, then I say all the better. At least they want to play within the legal bounds of the system.
If you want to start a thread on the evils of alt accounts, go ahead and start one. Personally I could care less about them. And before you say "You're missing my point." I'm actually not, as I know that you will say this perpetuates the notion that Merchants are a second profession.
Whether you will treat it as second class profession will not mean that I will treat it as a second class profession. All this profession needs is a little kick in the ass to get back into the family of professions. That means fixingthe bugs first and formost. Add all the fluffy crap that you and Dragon keep spouting later. Professions work the best when the base, the core tools if you will, are fixed.Adding extras to an unstable and broken platform is just stupid, as you are just asking for the entire profession to collapse.
p4Samwise wrote:
Just to add on to that: I've never seen so much outcry on any other profession board for "retribution".
Image Designers for a long time were far and away the red-headed stepchildren of SWG. In fact, they still are. In an attempt to appease them, the developers took stat migration away from the masses and made it an ID-only tool.
Did the IDs celebrate because now they were more important, and because all the people who'd thought of them as worthless now had to come begging for help with stat migration? No.
Do you think that if someone found an exploit that allowed people to migrate their stats the old way, the IDs would seek retribution in lieu of a genuine fix to their profession? Probably not. In fact, the majority of IDs, as far as I can tell from reading their boards (and I followed them intently after the revamp because I was curious to see how the changes were being received), would be very happy to see stat migration returned to the masses as it used to be, even if it gives them less "prestige" or "value" in the eyes of the powergamers.
There is no retribution going on here.
You do see people plenty mad that their skill has been usurped by a bug that the devs have stated should have never existed which unlike ID made merchant percieved as a useless class because you could drop it and keep control of the vendors. Whether you consider ID skills useless or not would be immaterial the main difference is if you drop ID you lose the skills and therefor that legitimizes the profession to contributing to the community,
Yes there are a lot of vocal, resentful merchants because the skill that legitimizes their profession could be kept after dropping the profession entirely.
I see no retribution here.
What would you say if the show was on the other foot and if Icould master weaponsmith, drop the profession entirely and still craft weapons. That would kinda make your profession useless wouldn't it. It's the same thing. The one skill that merchant is based on can be kept after dropping the rofession entirely which is wrong and the devs considered it a bug.
This is a genuine fix to the profession, without the profession legitimized in the communities eyes the devs will not prioritize further fixes. ID on the other hand was considered a legitimate profession so it is easier to justify to the dev's to add more. So your ID analogy is flawed