Merchant Archive

I may be forced too

I think I'll have too. I'm a casual player, just getting started inthe merchant field. I don't have a huge clientele, most of my clients are my Guild mates (thanks guys) who buy my clothes.

So if SOE's goal is to cut down on the number of merchants in the game, they'll be able to add one to their win column...

No question about it. The day it goes in as described, I'm done. The effect will be different for different classes, but it will hit architect merchants about the hardest. Our stuff is simply too high priced to make it viable, and you can't move everything the same day you make it. At least I can't.

I'll have Adv. 3 skill and one empty vendor who will bark a message about e-mailing me with orders, and about how SOE has no clue. :-)

I've been working on Pistoleer lately anyway, and I'm sure Urban planner will require some skill points. So at least when I dump most all of my merchant skill points I can do something productive with them. (I hope)

Yep no doubt about it, I'd drop the vendor's stock to zero. I'm a weaponsmith and I like to keep 2 (that's TWO) of every item I sell up on the vendor. So I typically have about 40 some items up there and most of them are about 10k each. No way I am going to pay the fees as described. I'll have an empty vendor that just Barks instructions to call me. (of course Barking has to be re-enabled each day on Radiant as it breaks every time the server goes down, same for global advertising

It's not a good idea at all. People love to come to my shop and COMPARE different weapons on the vendor and then pick the one they want. I don't sell that much and I'm certainly not rich. (have about 120k in the bank atm)

If they ruin vendors with this, then I have to consider if I even *want* to sell to the general public. I can always just go to a city's bank on a given day and make weapons to order to cover my expenses. Players will absolutely HATE THAT WITH A PASSION as they want to purchase things and get immediate gratification, not wait to see if a wandering salesman is in town or not.

I will drop all my architect skills accept for furniture making because having a large house or something that cost a lot of credits on my vendor but won't sell quickly is going to end up costing me a lot of money.

You do realize this is another hotfix for using your vendor as storage. First it was the lie about griefing people, and now its this.

I would ask this, if there are just supposed to be money sinks everywhere so no one has money then what the hell is the point of having a class, Merchant, whose sole purpose is to make money?

Without a reasonable vendor solution, I would be forced to dropNovice Merchant. With the amount of Furniture I keep on my vendor, I'd go bankrupt in a few days.

Guess I can use the points to pick up novice medic...

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Sheia wrote:
In a phucking heart beat I would drop vendor....

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Bwaha, way to get around that censor!

I'll go one step further, though. I only play this game because I thought it was the first one since UO to get the craftsman/vendor part right.

I killed enough freakingmobs in EQ to last two lifetimes, and I am NOT going back to hawking my furniture at the bank.

I'll just cancel the account andshed a tear for a game that could have been great.

In one sense, I have already. My logout point last night was in a combat area, and the last few skill points I used were not in the Merchant tree. I am afew experiencepoints away from dropping some merchant "skills" since they are already useless. The fun is pretty much gone. What is the point of being a merchant who loses money? Its not like the customers seem appreciative.

Medic went down the same tube early after release. No return for doing others a favor. Rarely even a thank you. Entertainer flushed in beta for the same reason. Artisan wasn't too bad, but my carpal tunnels won't take it as a long term activity.

So combat is the only action left with any return at the moment, but maybethings will get better if SOE decides to invest in some improvements in time for the retail season. My Everquest characters are still there, and combat in that game is smoother and less buggy, so we will see where I actually play. Or maybe I will catch up on my reading.

However, I will probably keep some items on the bazaar. I can make enough there to pay the maint on my houses and some largely empty vendors. I am a lot of experience points away from having to drop Eff 4, so that will stay for a while. I hope it is more of a vacation, than really quitting.

You know, I'm not a crafter. I've tried it and I just can't deal with the grind.

And I'm not really a fighter. I find the endless cookie cutter missions boring and unfulfilling.

But you need money in this game. And so, after much thought, I became a merchant. I sell what others make and I sell what crafters need to make things (resources mainly). I sell at the lowest possible prices to help others struggling to attain their goals. And it feels good. I get fulfillment from knowing I am providing a useful service and helping the community evolve. I enjoy the interaction with the crafters and I somehow manage to make ends meet. But I am in no way rich! I use a droid vendor for my resources to avoid the resource bug. The high fees for the vendor and harvesterseat away nearly every penny I make. I'm at the top of the advertising and efficiency lines, which is the only thing that has allowed me to keep my resource prices lower.

And now the proposal is to raise the fees for NPC vendors as well? And to the rates equivalent to droid and terminal vendors? I can't really afford to keep up the resource business at this point and I can tell you right now that after the change there is absolutely no way I will be able to sustain additional vendors for actual merchandise!

When this takes effect, I will be using the bazaar or shoutsfor all sales - including resources - because that's the only way I'm going to be able to make any cash. And I'm willing to bet everyone else will (at least to some extent) do the same. Why bother to keep a shop if you will lose money on it? Why bother with the merchant class at all for that matter when the best efficiency and advertising can be gained through a shout or a 20 credit auction?

Where's my useful interaction? Where's my fulfillment? What purpose am I except as a giant MONEY SINK? Forget it. I'm not going to be an economic tool for the devs. Honestly, I'll probably just leave the game entirely. When the game becomes more frustration than fun it's time to go.

Just change the merchant titles to all say TOOL please. Yes, I'm angry. I've enjoyed this game in my own ways from beta till now, but this is really an ugly way to treat players. We put time and effort into this class knowing it would eventually be fixed and useful to the community as a whole. And now we find that our only use is to go broke...

my Merchant skills are on the axe.. and i'm boning up on combat to earn money.

I certainly will. I'll be damned if I'm gonna go screaming in town to sell my stuff, vendors are there for a reason, to make it so we don't have to do this(Spam in EQ anyone?). Stupid things are a nightmare to deal with anyway, for christs sakes, can't they at least fix them first! I'm stunned at the way things in this game are being looked at!

Argh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

My vendors will shut down immediately. I have no other choice. I will probably keep my merchant skills, and wait and watch, until I find something better to put them on.

My shops primarily stock architect items. I easily have 600,000 to 1 million credits worth of goods stocked at a time. There's no way I can absorb the value-based costs they're talking about.

On a side note, the number one complaint I hear (from customers) about player vendors is how poorly-stocked most of them seem to be. They can't stand finding and running out to a vendor, to find only a few items on it.

This change certainly won't help that. I realize they need more money sinks, but this is the wrong place to look, in my opinion. The merchant profession will go into limbo for six months, until they come up with something else, is my guess.

If (more like when) this change goes in it is likely to be the straw that broke the camel's back for me. As a master architect, I've weathered a lot of borked things in this game. I finally settled on a nice niche as a furniture dealer. I don't make a ton of money but I stay afloat. I do this by having reasonable prices, good customer serviceAND a fully stocked vendor. With the amt of stock I usually carry on my vendor I would not be able to break even if I continue to run my shop. I recently took up tailoring as I thought it would go well with my furniture business. HAHAHA I can just forget that now. I'm waving the white flag here. I surrender! Since I find combat incredibly dull and being a business person will be unsustainable I guess I'll probably just throw in the towel completely.

----unconstructive negativity alert---

I really hate to be negative and uncontructive but after playing many mmorpgs I am really beginning to think the people developing them were...I dunno...not hugged enough as a child. I can think of no other reason for the "fun sponge" syndrome they all suffer from. Yes nerfs are needed at times as you have to balance one person's fun with another's. But a change like this does nothing positive for anyone. It increases fun for noone except maybe some poor "fun police" developer somewhere who is still ticked because they always got picked last for kickball.

----end unconstructive negativity---