Merchant Archive

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Clackdor wrote:

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Very true, and I'm really amazed at the parallels to real life: Government (SOE) punishes and restrains successful businesses (dedicated, full-time crafters) so that smaller businesses (lazy/casual players) don't have to work so hard.


Rippen

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Not to get too political, but I think it is important in the RL to have these laws and trivial in a game. Why don't you go tell an owner of a small business that he is lazy or isn't dedicated?

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Does this game really need more timesinks? Would you really enjoy going from vendor to vendor, city to city, planet to planet hunting through "mom-and-pop" vendors praying you can find what you need? Personally, I'd rather be out using the goods, not shopping for them.

The "Wal-Mart" stores suceed becuase people feel there's a good chance they'll find what they need when they go to one. They're lining the pockets of the arch-crafters for more than the quality of the items - they're paying for the availability and selection as well.

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Yes, it is a pain in the ass for players. I was gonna point that out and forgot to. I am personally not a shopper, but I know some people who can spend hours in the few big merchant cities we have on Scylla. What makes the situation different from "Wal-Mart" is that most of the really big shops are also the ones with the best quality items. It's the opposite from what you would expect in RL. This change might bring about the specialty shops and reverse that in the game. It would be kinda interesting to see a Weaponsmith that only sells carbines. Add the crafting bonuses for FS in Pub 10 and its a definite possibility.

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No no, you didn't understand me. Why would I call small business owners in real life lazy and undedicated? I was comparing the role similarities of small businesses in real life to those players in SWG who don't sell as much (either due to laziness or casual play), but I would never presume to say that small businesses in real life are small because THEY are lazy or casual. The point was that those who do more seem to be punished for it, both in real life and in SWG.

Rippen

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Rippen208 wrote:

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No no, you didn't understand me. Why would I call small business owners in real life lazy and undedicated? I was comparing the role similarities of small businesses in real life to those players in SWG who don't sell as much (either due to laziness or casual play), but I would never presume to say that small businesses in real life are small because THEY are lazy or casual. The point was that those who do more seem to be punished for it, both in real life and in SWG.

Rippen

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Hehe, exactly!

IRL, if I saw someone at a bus station with a sign looking for donations to help them get a bus ride, I'm not going to make assumptions about them - I don't know about their life.

In SWG, however, when I see some smacktard spamming over and over at the Starport saying, "PLS GIVE ME 500CR SO I GET SHUTTLE!!!" over and over, I do know that this person arrived in the Galaxy in the same exact way I did (broke at a Starport) and I know that ANYONE has a multitude of ways to make money themselves. Unlike real life, in this game everyone has exactly the same choices available to them, and anyone can support themselves.

Hey, for the first two days of live play way back last June I didn't see the outside of a City - I was too busy running deliver missions from place to place trying to make my starting money and get some FP. Anyone that wants 500cr now can run a half-dozen local deliver missions.

A while back, I was at the Moeina shuttle port and one of these people was spamming, in total desperation, for money to take a shuttle, spamming "PLS GIVE ME 250cr!!!!". They looked new, and I very kindly pointed to the mission terminal and told them how in the five minutes they had been standing there spamming they could just run a few of these local deliver missions and be on their way to where ever it was they wanted to do.

The guy looked at me, and said, "d00d, that's BO-ring!"

Pause.

"PLS GIVE ME 250cr!!!"

No joke.

AO

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The day of the one-stop hardcore shops are gone. Everybody has a favorite weaponsmith on their server that they know will be stocked with what they are looking for. Now, people might have to shop around a bit more.

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Why is this a good thing? Shopping is annoying enough now, already. I don't want to have to navigate around peoples houses looking for deals. Malls are there because malls are better, at least in SWG.

My gameplay is not enhanced by shopping around more to find things.

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DarkDeathDude wrote:

yup thats true, people get punished for being good at business in RL, (microsoft raise a hand!) and now in fantasy worlds.

People like Malls, why the hell do you think they exist in the first place?

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this change a lone would make the Malls even more valuable though... instead of 1 person running a shop with his vendors and having a huge amount of inventory. The malls, that involve several people and their vendors will have a far better selection and inventory than the lone shop keep.

Think on this.... how does this benefit the small crafter. Resources. Unless that crafter can afford to buy or make his own harvester (to start) or wants to hand sample everything, he will have NO way to buy resources except on the bazaar and those prices will skyrocket even more. Howso? Do you really think the resource merchants are going to have any quantity less than 100K for a resource and waste that space? Let's figure 3cpu for an item on the vendor, that's 300K. Nearly all sellable crafted items use more than one resource, many use 3-6. So, just looking at 3 items... 300K for -each- resource is 900K. Then there's the bazaar. Price capped at 6K. Right now prices on the bazaar can be 2-3 times what you can find on a vendor (if you look), but I seriously doubt that would stay for long. 6K for 1K or less of a resource vs 3cpu for the big block the "rich" can buy just by the merit of already having made some money.

Entry for the new crafter will be non-existant. He won't be able to afford quality resources to get sales to make money to afford more quality resources to get more sales to make money... He will need to be bank-rolled from the beginning.

It also severely hurts the non-crafters, too. Why would anyone want to keep lower-priced goods on their vendor and take little to no profit from them? I would rethink my keeping quality "lesser" armors on the vendor ever. If bags are counted as one item, why would any armorsmith ever carry pieces? Break your boots? so sorry, but a complete new suit.

But.... the total items allowed might well count items in bags and the bag, too. Composite is 9 pieces, Padded is 10 (counting the belt), Ubese is 9 (counting the shirt and bandolier), the Kash armors are 4 each, and so on...

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Ainwyn wrote:
Think on this.... how does this benefit the small crafter. Resources. Unless that crafter can afford to buy or make his own harvester (to start) or wants to hand sample everything, he will have NO way to buy resources except on the bazaar and those prices will skyrocket even more. Howso? Do you really think the resource merchants are going to have any quantity less than 100K for a resource and waste that space? Let's figure 3cpu for an item on the vendor, that's 300K. Nearly all sellable crafted items use more than one resource, many use 3-6. So, just looking at 3 items... 300K for -each- resource is 900K. Then there's the bazaar. Price capped at 6K. Right now prices on the bazaar can be 2-3 times what you can find on a vendor (if you look), but I seriously doubt that would stay for long. 6K for 1K or less of a resource vs 3cpu for the big block the "rich" can buy just by the merit of already having made some money.

Entry for the new crafter will be non-existant. He won't be able to afford quality resources to get sales to make money to afford more quality resources to get more sales to make money... He will need to be bank-rolled from the beginning.

It also severely hurts the non-crafters, too. Why would anyone want to keep lower-priced goods on their vendor and take little to no profit from them? I would rethink my keeping quality "lesser" armors on the vendor ever. If bags are counted as one item, why would any armorsmith ever carry pieces? Break your boots? so sorry, but a complete new suit.

But.... the total items allowed might well count items in bags and the bag, too. Composite is 9 pieces, Padded is 10 (counting the belt), Ubese is 9 (counting the shirt and bandolier), the Kash armors are 4 each, and so on...

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considering every single new crafter will go up the engineering Line (4 of the 6 major crafting professions are off the engineering line).., they all will be able to make their own harvesters.. considering how little the amount of resources a new crafter needs.. i don't see it as an issue at all..

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theoden-flurry wrote:

but think of it this way it cost me over 1 mill credits to get resorces to master weapon smith some of them resorces were bough in 2k -20k blocks nor if i had to buy 100k because i needed 10k it wouldnt realy help me especialy if i am only a small shop and cant realy aford to keep buying 100k units here and 100k units there. come on how many vendors can you see cuting their profits to sell less or sell that weapon that is only worth half the othe weapons its going to become you start play your stuck with your cdef or other basic weapon till you get the master prof as there will be no entry level weapons or armour as it wont make as big a turnover for the smith then when you do get to novice in our master prof all the cheap low end stuff is gone and in place is the top of the range stuff seling for 10 times more so yet again its even harder to get a weapon or armour to help you in that prof and this also aplies to crafting the resorces worth the most will be on the small quantitys will be gone.

what would you rather? only players who are already set up can play the game or any1 can start the game and be able to get everything they neeed?

in terms of suply and demand with the vendr nerf demand will be 100 times more than suply meaning more empty vendors more time seaching for what you need so go from hunting nightsisters one day to hunting that powerhammer or single peice of composit armour you need the next.

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What?

Rippen

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Clackdor wrote:

...but, don't you think this change will be good news for the casual crafter?

Just a couple points:

1. Now, there is a goal for the casual crafter: keep your vendor fully stocked. Since the item limits are pretty low, its a very attainable goal and the casual crafter won't have to spend all that much time crafting to reach it and might be more motivated because of that.

2. The day of the one-stop hardcore shops are gone. Everybody has a favorite weaponsmith on their server that they know will be stocked with what they are looking for. Now, people might have to shop around a bit more. This will get the casual crafter's vendor's more traffic. There won't be a "Wal-mart" taking over the mom-and-pop stores if you will pardon the parallel.

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Valid points. The problem I see though is there aren't enough "mom and pop" stores in game. If I can't keep my vendors stocked that isn't fair to everyone that comes to my vendor. Even if the mom and pop store was constantly out of certain things you wouldn't go back there.

I know I would go to buying 20 of something at once just so I know I have it. I'm not going to buy 1 and then a week later I have to do another 4 hour seach for another of the same item. Thats a waste of time and not what I pay for.

This does hurt the hardcore crafters a lot. Probably not the best example but what if Walmart, Target and a few other large department stores went out of business because it wasn't profitable anymore. I really think that would have devestating effects on the economy. Demand stays the same and supply severly drops. Governments don't restrict the size of stores so its not the best comparison.