Merchant Archive

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Avair wrote:

No amount of top end controls on the economy are going to convert a poor business-creature into a succesful one. They will only drive successful ones away (to World of Warcraft, for example). I believe SWG has the created one of the bestmultiplayer economic simulations ever (whether intentional or not), and to aspire to make a controlled socialisteconomy is sadden at worst, and tragic at best.

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/bravo

/golfclap

Very good post and 5 stars

I myself entered the Architect market about 9 months into the game. Yes there was a lot of competition and I didn't make much money to begin with competing with other high stocked and low priced architect vendors of those architects who have been around much longer. That didn't stop me though and I didn't go 'out of business'. I worked hard at being an architect and setting up vendors, offering a good selection of goods and working to gather the resources to make better wares (pretty much max BER harvesters and more selections of paintings since I'm an architect).

I found my niche by joining an outpost shortly after it was formed. I ended up being the main structure provider for the town and 70% of the buildings now in that city, which is now big enough and holds a shuttleport, which I made too by the way . I sold at less than market price to the mayor, and also the quickness of my making of structures for the mayor is why he kept buying from me. I set up a furniture vendor there as well which had at a point had about 1000 items on it, and this vendor was in that city that I live and built most of, mainly providing easy purchases for those living in the city. Sure there's other architects that still likely sell furniture and structures for less than me, but that doesn't hurt me, because I found my niche in the market and am doing well.

If this vendor change goes in as is with such an unreasonably low item cap, I'll no longer be able to have a furniture vendor that can anywhere near be stocked with what could be even considered and adequate stock of furniture. There's no reason that any crafter cannot work to become competitive and successful in their business. Any 'failures' to penetrate the crafting market are pure and simply just laziness and excuses by crafters who do not put in as much work as those who have done so already to make their businesses successful. Monopolies in this came cannot exist, because the barriers to enter the market aren't as bad as some might think. It's all about finding a niche in the market of particular item/s which you can make better than a number of others, or can provide better than a number of others, even if it's just to a single city that you live in, you can still make decent business.

It seems it's just those crafters that complain they're not making as much as they can 'because the big guys are stealing their business' are making it seem bad, when in truth they can very much compete, they just have to be patient, work hard, and be committed like the 'big guys' have, are, and will continue to be. There's absolutely no reason to punish successful crafters, as they cannot hold a true monopoly in this game, as anyone can get grind resources and grind up any crafting profession they like. Destroying the business of the good crafters will only prove to make SWG economy consumers suffer greatly, and every single player in SWG is a consumer of another player's goods within SWG.

Message Edited by Kharn_JB on 08-10-2004 02:53 PM

Message Edited by VarnaxDespin on 08-10-2004 12:04 PM

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Artiman wrote:

Ask yourself this. When you started, were there HUGE operations that had fully stocked vendors out there that you had to compete with?

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Were people rich to the point that they didn't comparison shop on the basis of price, or even quality?

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Us "newbs" don't need a vendor item cap. All we need is a place to sell our wares, where a customer doesn't have to invest a huge amount of extra time to buy from us rather than you.

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What you need to do is worry about improving and establsihing your own product and reputation, and stop worrying about conspiracy theories. Customers will invest a huge amount of extra time if they feel they're getting their money's worth. Unfortuneately, the attitude I'm reading here is that you'd rather compel customers to accept your product as the best that they can get at that moment because the people with a better product and/or price are sold out due to artificial vendor limits.

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joined42904 wrote:

This guy didn't outsmart the devs at all.

I haven't heard any proponents of these changes say that a coercive monopoly exists here. To the contrary, I think you hear of oligopolies.

Do you even have a clue what an Oligopoly is and how it impacts an economy? dictionary.com says this: "A market condition in which sellers are so few that the actions of any one of them will materially affect price and have a measurable impact on competitors." I don't see the large crafters on the server artificially reducing prices on the newbies' vendors through their actions.

I have yet to hear anyone complain that they were forced out of business. You are correct that this cannot happen. But you are attacking a straw man of your own devising.

The issue is whether oligopolies will be permitted in the SWG gaming world. I support the devs' decisions that they should not be permitted.

Why do you think the devs are targeting oligopolies? Especially since they don't exist in SW:G? Got a link?

If the average quality of goods goes down, that may not be such a bad thing. Certainly folks won't want their own goods' quality to go down. But if it does I think most people will either deal with it or find ways to help out crafters who can make the goods they desire. Example: This AS will keep me stocked if I start mining and sell goods at a low price. Same for WS. Goes double for those willing to acquire organics....

I think the reason is to allow newer crafters some method of entry into the market. And I think it will work. It will become fun rather than just a grind for folks starting crafting professions. And this is I think what was intended.

Again, why do you think this was the devs' intent? And why do you think it's so hard for a new crafter to enter the market? On my server, we have new armorsmiths and weaponsmiths starting up with some pretty nice frequency. I know this because they are my customers (I'm a miner, mostly). I just don't see the phenomenon you're implying.

Is there a good reason why 3-4 crafters per profession SHOULD be permitted to dominate server economies? Hmmm? And all that money being sold on ebay....where does it come from? I think I know....

If 3-4 crafters per profession are the only ones producing great quality stuff at reasonable prices, then why should they NOTdominate the market? And if you're worried about ebay sales, maybe you should petition SOE to get their legal begals off their asses and onto ebay's ass...

This is a game. The object of a game is to have fun. The most fun for the most players including hopefully the most crafters. This is to be accomplished by shooting down the means that make oligopoly possible. Kudos to the devs!!!

Again, there is no oligopoly in this game. Only hardworking intelligent crafters and crafters who for some reason haven't figured out how to be successful yet.

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joined42904 wrote:

Varnax,

The folks who will consider it a time consuming pain are the present oligopolists.

For those who claim there are no oligopolies,

How many top quality weaponsmiths are there on your server? at least a dozen, with about 1 neweach month. Docs? More than I can count. Dozens. Chefs? At least 6 that I can name, and more just about weekly. This is the new "hot" profession.

You forgot Armorsmith, probably the toughest to break into. Yet my server sees about 1 new high-quality AS per month too.

How many of you can name more than 3-4 such folks on your servers? If you can't....how do you contest my valid claim of oligopolies?

Since I can name way more than your challenge, will you shut up now re oligopolies? Please?

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You are basically admitting that the current system is broken beyond repair. I can't compete with you on price, quality,.. anything. By being earlier to the game you have a nice industry heavily protected to new entries by the govt. (SWG). Congrats!

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The only real barrier to entry in any of the crafting professions is simply whether or not the crafter is willing to commit and put enoguh time, effort, and patience into their business. New crafters don't have a chance? that's nonsense. If they commit long enough they'll get the credits for the harvestors they need, they'll catch the spawns of good resources they need to make high quality goods if they pay attention, and they get the business if they work to make good items, that are reasonably priced, well stocked, and advertise them. I went through this exact "struggle".

I entered a crafting market which was already highly estabslished by other crafters of that same profession having their shops set up and goods well stocked. I didn't whine r complain that these crafters were takign all the business. I saught out business opportunities by finding what I could make well with what I had and there was some slack of the other crafters in that area I could take advantage of. Any other crafter can do the exact same thing, but they have to be commited and work at it. The only reason a crafter wouldn't be successful is if they didn't work hard and long enough, because the game is big enough that anyone can drop a harvestor on a good resource spawn, anyone can pick up a crafting profession of a certain type, anyone can set up a shop and sell their wares. The big crafters are limited now anyways, with 10 lots and maximum 6 vendors if they pick up master merchant. Don't have the experimentation SEAs? Well, then make money selling other stuff to get those SEAs, it's impossible, it just takes work.

There's absolutely no reason why a new crafter cannot become successful. The only reason why crafters would not be able to break into a market would be because they were not willing to commit the time and effort into doing so. What fun would the game be anyways if there was no challenge? It wouldn't be very fun at all, I can tell you that. Nerfing the vendor item cap will only hurt the good crafters and all of their consumers. And then what about those newer crafters if they achieve the quality and level of the other crafters? Doesn't matter much anyways because they'll be grossly limited in running their bussiness from the disgustingly low caps, so what's the point in 'being successful', when you can't even be successful?

The system is fine as is. Any complaints of monopolies are simply complaints from people who are too lazy to commit. I know, because I've worked past the "monoploies" and become very successful in my crafting profession. It was a lot of work, but I did it, and it's much mroe reward to have succeeded after puttign so much work into it. And to simply have all my, and every other commited and successful crafter's, work tossed aside because some new crafters want instant gratification and be 'successful' without the commitment is just absurd.