Merchant Archive

Alrighty, I posted about a dozen pages ago listing the same concerns and thoughts of the last couple of hundred posts. And they are very very real issues that will in fact dstroy the merchant profession. However, Ive been doing a little Brain Storming, and I think I may have come up with a reasonable compromise. So here goes.

1) Making your vendor searchable throughout the galaxy from any bazaar would be a Master Merchant acquired skill

This would eliminate every Tom, Richard, and Harry from cluttering the bazaar with their storage packs, leftover grinding items etc. And would add value to the profession mastery rather than destroy it.

2) The way your items would be listed would be by vendor name, not in the jumble of categories already there.
For example, the left side of the bazaar screen that has all the categories would read down Armor, Weapons, Misc
then Vendors.If you click on the vendor subcategory you have a list of all the master merchant searchable vendors.

This would keep advertising and location still very important aspects because the galaxy is not filled with master merchants and this would not replace shops, but simply be a bonus to those of us who run shops as Master Merchants as our primary function in the game. It would also keep Brand loyalty and impulse buys alive , because you would be searching a particular vendor from the bazaar, not the galaxys storage bin of random stuff by category. It would help players search all there favorite vendors. And since its by the vendor not by the item, there is still brand recognition and an overall ease of searching for the consumer.

3) All items purchased through the Master Merchant vendors on the bazaar, MUST be delivered. There are far too many scenarios where pick ups could cause problems, entrance fees, shop bans, city bans....its just a nasty can of worms to open.

4) This would be a convenience to customers, but of course we all want customers to come visit our shops and check us out. So as with any convenience there would be a cost associated with galaxy wide shipping and handling. Make the cost similair to bank tipping maybe 3%.

This would also encourage people to visit the shop, so they dont need to pay the 3%. and would still allow them to search your vendor remotely to see if the trip is worth it. You might not want to pay that 3% shipping and handling on a 1 million credit uber item, but it may be well worth it to pay the 3% on a crate of power ups rather than travel across the galaxy.

Well, thats all i could come up with , but i think this would solve quite a few problems and be a nice bonus to the non-glorious profession of merchant, as well as a great service to our customers.
Thanks,
Iid Lightwaver
Shadowfire

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Jade92 wrote:
Ugh. I really hope SOE goes through with this change and doesn't let the complaints of a few ruin a patch that would help the game overall and would make the game so much better for so many others. I'm a master merchant and have been since nearly game start. I have a prominent shop in a prominent location, so generally, this patch is really not all that beneficial to me. However, it would help the game in so many ways.

This should really HELP npc cities. There is less resaon to gather in player cities when you can do all your shopping at the local bazaar. I can really see this change bringing some life back to a couple npc cities. (The argument is made that more people will end up in Coronet and Theed, I disagree, the lag and overpopulation would spill into other cities)

Along with helping npc cities, we would get more player interaction. People may be less scattered across the galaxy in a hundred player cities.

Then, there is the whole issue if competition.

It really hurts one-stop shopping locations, such as malls, or uber crafters. They lose their point as much as merchant cities, if not moreso.

It increases competition. In my mind, it makes it more fair. Crafters who have incredible locations no longer has an advantage over people because of location. Location, which is somewhat of a first-come-first-serve advantage, is eliminated. This VASTLY helps new crafters who get free galactic wide exposure, rather than being in some new place that no one knows about.

But as location is removed from the scheme of things, quality and price become the two competing points. It's argued that such a deep quality and price competition is bad for new crafters, but what's worse? quality+price or quality+price+location+existing customer base? Honestly, I feel like I have a fair shot in any crafting business now. I hate the fact that the economy is made unfair be these artificial means, and I see in a lot of the arguments here that people are trying to cling to their artifical advantages in the economy.

I can't help but think this just makes the economy more fair. Sure, we may have fewer crafters, but only as supply and demand dictate. The change acutally allows supply and demand laws GREATER control over the economy. Prices will better reflect supply and demand. Excess demand can more easily filled by new crafters. Sure it hurts new crafters going into markets with excess supply, but it greatly helps new crafters going into markets with excess demand.

There has been fewer crafters lately anyway. It's hard to find the things you want, I have had to travel to distant planets and buy from people I don't want to buy from to find what I want (after spending an hour searching). Us MERCHANTS don't feel this pain as much, because we keep up on who's selling what and where, we feel this less than most of the people on the server, but this is a TERRIBLE issue to many people, a frustrating, game experience-smashing experience.

I will be very disappointed if this patch doesn't go through AS IS.

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I've set up a mall in a very prominent location. I've always allowed anyone to set up shop with me at no cost. There goes your "unfair" competition for Starsider due to location. Thank you very much. I would like to add, no one just gave me my shop location and reputation a month ago just for kicks. In the begining, I had to keep a close eye on openings in the area I wanted. Now, for well over a year, I've worked at maintaining/expanding the place. Does a new crafter really deserve to step in now and expect the same advantages without putting in the same effort? (Note: The same advantage is available in my case regardless.)

You're right, this change will remove location and existing customer base from the equation. This will be a bonus for newer crafters trying to break into the market, I agree. Having steped into the Armorsmith role well into things, however, I can tell you that with enough thought, you can easily break into the market under the current system. In fact, I found that to be the most enjoyable aspect of the profession for me. Do we really need to create a more shallow Merchant experience for the sake of catering to the subpar Merchants?

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Andymantium wrote:

I don't think a buyer should be able to retrieve the item from anywhere in the galaxy. Not only does this hurt some merchants in the form of xp, but it negates the purpose of our Advertising skill tree. Fewer people will even bother shopping around like they do today, so shops everywhere will be empty.

I think most here are in favor of a galaxy-wide searching system, but at least make it so the item requires in-person pickup.

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totally agree

I'm sorry but this is possibly the single least thought out improvement they could have made. I'm not impressed just to make it easier for lazy player to get on a shuttle to travel about looking for items he now can search the bazaar for what he needs. Problem is this it will kill the game out right in a few months.

1) Everyone undercutting each other to make a sale.

2) Crafters like me will mine and harvest resources by myself for myself cutting out the need for miners/rangers/scouts so i can sell my items cheaper and make a bigger profit. This will cut the money going into the player base which means i get richer other players don't.

3) This will create resellers some will be the very very very rich players and existing crafters who will try to cut competition out by buying competitors stock and selling it as their own; making them look good as they have all the stock and you have nothing to sell. This basically makes it easier for a single crafter to monoplise the market. Sounds extreme but it will happen.

There are countless more reasons why this is a very very stupid addition, i understand the need to make it easier for even lazier players to play the game but please think things through first because i have actually stood by this game and carried on playing even though its been a sack of poo until recently. I have stuck with being an Armorsmith for over a year and now that you are basically going to ruin the only fun i have playing this game. Should this change go live you will kill the game eventually just like smuthering someones face with a pillow it will be a slow death.

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Asir_SWG wrote:

The devs have got everything so wrong since pub 13 it's unreal... sure everything seems cool, fun, nice to have, but each is just another nail in the coffin....

The whole crafting side of the game is what keeps many many people playing, if this goes live I fear it will be broken beyond repair.

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/agree

It's like they're putting on bandaids in a state of panic. Trying to fix things that aren't broken, and then ingoring bigger issues, like having an overarching plan.

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Cafa wrote:

If this is a time cutting effort, then they need to stick to those efforts that PROMOTE communities. Lowering buff times and prep times for BATTLE promoted communities by getting GROUPS into the battles faster when the opposition invariably shows up fully buffed and ready to go. Lowering shuttle times to 5 minutes promoted communities by making the waits on travel faster to get to events. I'm still out on the 1 minute travel times, but eh. This change will not promote COMMUNITIES in any manner and essentially REMOVES the need for a Player City community at all for merchants.

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Cafa and I have politely disagreed on a lot of issues in the past, but on this, I completely agree. In my earlier posts on the subject, I focused on how this change destroys individual playstyles. After reading the thread, I can easily see how this also destroys communities.

As it stands, I can get from my shop in a player city on Corellia to my second location in a player city on Tatooine in about 3 minutes, on average. Given the current travel times, what is so wrong with making people travel a little bit to "shop"? I understand the problems of dealing with empty vendors, but that is why you develop relationships with reliable merchants.

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Doc's suggestion of the Player City Terminal that shows the vendors in a community makes much more sense, and gives more validity to developing groups past the simple 'group' command.

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Given that prices can easily be embedded in the names of crafted products, I'm beginning to lean away from the "allow global searching, but don't show prices" to "don't allow global searching of any sort". But the city-wide searching does seem like a very nice idea. It rewards people who have come together to create a vibrant player city, without hurtingmerchants in general.

Answer this, if this goes through the economy is basicly scrapped. If that happens arn't we loosing one of the most unique things about this game, that makes it stand out from all the rest. Am I wrong here? Yeah, JTL is nice... but its not keeping people playing, I know the crafting/mechant system is.

I strongly support this change as a welcome and neccesary change for the game. I agree it harms the merchant community, but I believe that with this change, merchant should be folded into the crafting classes and their abilities distributed with master crafting abilities.

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nikko11 wrote:
I strongly support this change as a welcome and neccesary change for the game. I agree it harms the merchant community, but I believe that with this change, merchant should be folded into the crafting classes and their abilities distributed with master crafting abilities.

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terrible idea.