Merchant Archive

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Havok3060 wrote:

becaouse you shouldnt have the venders. People who think they should keep them are ignorant and bias. Sorry but, its true.

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Well, I've had one of the more successful shops on Radiant for a year, and yes, I have a master merchant - and my 3rd toon has a bit of merchant as well - guess I'm one of the ignorant ones. Since I HAVE the skills - I'd like to know how I'm biased towards anything but the healthist economy.

The more people participating in the flow of goods in the economy - the better. It doesn't hurt me one bit if Johnny down the way wants to have a vendor for his small shop, he's probably not competition - but even if he is, that's fine too.

All the merchants that use interdependency as a crutch don't stop to consider that someone with a vendor is likely to interact with dozens, if not hundreds of people over any given time. Vendors are only delivery mechanisms. Crafters have to know about their wares to be successful - and they have to be able to answer questions. THAT is one thing that makes a crafter successful. Now - same crafter deals with a merchant to resell - what interaction is that? Oh yeah, that can't happen with item limits - but bear with me here - say it could. Now, instead of dealing directly with customers - you deal with one - or even 5 merchants, that's more interaction? OH - and BTW - you do know all the tiny little details of what you sell - right? What foods are best for what, how BE clothing mods work - all the ins and outs of armor?

Merchant was a terrible idea as a profession - period. It was an attempt to manipulate players to limit themselves in what they can do - a futile attempt I might add - because anyone serious enough to pose a 'threat' is going to buy another account - or several. Don't get me wrong - interaction and interdependency is a good thing - but it has to be open ended enough - with enough choices to be the better option, not something you beat players over the head with and make them feel like they are in a straightjacket. At least as the system stands at the moment - those people DID have skills at least once to have those vendors.

And don't give me storage vendors as an excuse - because this does NOTHING to stop that practice.

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Barris wrote:

The limitless vender storage always made me wonder how long before it was hit with a cap. The current cap purposal is way too low. I'm glad that I have support from more than just the people in my situation though. Thank you Wire.

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It's worse than that Barris. Folks using vendors for storage supposedly is one reason this is necessary - but this change doesn't DO anything to stop that. You can still pop junk in a bag and list it at 999,999. Course - you have to have some merchant skills to do it.

I can see it now - the only valid function of the merchant class will be 'bankers' for others storing goods. Even at 110 (which undoubtedly is a lowball number and will be raised) 110x6x50 is still 33,000 items. I can well imagine a world devoid of crafters, but full of storage NPCs with rented storage space on them.

Just wait - next will be the inability to sell in bags (which I TOLD folks would happen - and I TOLD them that's why they tried to get rid of it some months ago) - say bye-bye to yet another mechanism honest merchants use.

The problem isn't storage - the problem is NEED for storage - which players (at least those that stay) are going to find one way or the other.

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Barris wrote:

The limitless vender storage always made me wonder how long before it was hit with a cap. The current cap purposal is way too low. I'm glad that I have support from more than just the people in my situation though. Thank you Wire.

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You do have more support than you think. There are merchants, including myself, that support a cap on vendor items. Its just that those who play this game as crafter/merchants are concerned that the caps are too low that they hurt they're businesses.

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Barris wrote:

Sad, just a bunch of pissy merchants defending this profession (for what ever reason) and can't back it up. They say what they think, but no reasoning.

Sir, it would be good of you to refrain from returning insults - it devalues whoever uses them, period. Besides, you've said what you think and I feel you lack reasoning and fail to adequately back it up, but I wouldn't call you a 'pissy rifleman/CM'.

The skill is PLACING. Not using. Plain and simple. We had to get the xp and do all the crap the current merchants had to inorder to have these venders, but we wanted to do something more with our template. So, tell me, how is this wrong? We still had to get the xp, and when we give merchant up, give up the skill to place new ones or do any of the goodies that goes with it.

Barris, we've gone over this before. You're arguing pedantics, and we'd cleared that. You're relying on interpretation of a tooltip - and this entire debate wouldn't exist if the said 'operate' instead of 'place'. To place a vendor is to USE a vendor. Find me an example of where a person will PLACE a vendor, but never USE it. Even if it's to set up as a store greeter, that's deriving USE from it. No one will just place a vendor for no reason. To placeIS to use. And the bottom line is this exact functionality was already identified as 'not working as intended' by the people upstairs. You have to stop arguing the point that you think the state of affairs should stay as is - you have to argue why Thunderheart is wrong.

These types of venders helped the economy. More businesses = better economy because of more trade. These venders did not hurt or deface the merchant profession in anyway, since once again, you had to pick up merchant to get the venders. So, if they did not hurt you, ruin the profession, or make for a game breaking exploit, what's the big deal with having them?

See, this is more the line of attack you should be sticking with. Leave off the "but the skill is to place" because it's weak by definition and unfounded by the devs' declaration.

However, yes, they did deface merchant - you said so yourself, several times about how 'gimped' your template would be without freebie vendors or how 'useless' the profession is - you pretty much have no respect for the profession and yet you stand there and claim it's not been defaced? Am I the only one seeing the irony?

By making it 'work as intended' it will bring value to those skill trees. Instead of suggesting to wipe out an entire profession because you feel the profession is a waste of time, perhaps you should come up with alternatives to bring value to Merchant other than vendor operation. I totally agree, Merchant is fairly weak, but this change will bring a solid value to it. You can't argue how 'pointless' it is to need to have skill points expended to keep a vendor any more than someone can argue it's pointless to need to have Master Rifleman tokeep Strafe Shot 2. It does hurt the profession but you seem to relentlessly still base your arguments on it.

Your continuous reliance on how you had to "grind up Merchant to get the skills" should therefore allow you to keep them because you had to work for it - well, thing is, that's the case for ANY profession. Merchant is not some magical exception to the rule. XP must be gained in order to access skills. Merchant is the ONLY one where 99% of the benefit is maintained after dropping those skills. Your arguments that you had to grind up merchant so it was hard work or what have you is, bluntly and politely, useless. It doesn't make it any different for other professions in that regard.

I have yet to have someone come to my krayt shop, look and say, he is a cm riflemen, he doesn't have skills for placing those venders! I better not buy from him even though he has what I'm looking for. I better go shop around more places until I find it, It's onlyright to buy from 'legit' venders. It's just not fair that he can have venders and be able to use them to make a living while other people choose to keep the profession and do the exact same thing, but have no need for the skill points that merchant eats up.

Do you advertise the fact you don't have legit vendors? Regardless, you're probably right - I'm sure most buyers aren't particularly fussed where it comes from as long as it's available. However that doesn't count for anything when it comes to bringing the profession to working as intended. If you want a shop, you need the skills to operate one. I wanted to be Master Rifleman, I had to take the skills up for that. Running a business to some is like combat to others - it is their content.

So, instead of being able to have fun with a combat template, I had to surrender it to be merchant gimped inorder to keep my shop open, which sucks. You who are crafter/merchants don't have any use for the skill points that merchant actually eats up. PvE people do. The basic 24 skill points it takes to get just management 3 eats up a very large amount of needed skill points for those who are combat professions.

Friend - you're being entirely self-centric. You speak of crafters with suchdisdain - intended or not. There were always meant to be two broad classes of players - combat and crafting. Crafting by extension relies on sales of goods to the combat types, who get to go out and have fun hunting down rare loots, doing high end dungeons and what have you. You made a choice - you wanted to keep the store open so badly, you had to make the sacrifice in combat skills.

You think crafters do have it easy, do you? We need to be able to sell our wares for the most part, and that means not only do we invest the same skill points in our elite crafting profession as a pistoleer, a rifleman, a carbineer, a TKA - in order to fully gain the experience and benefit of that we also need Merchant to do so.

I'm trying to stay focussed but in all honesty that comment "you crafter/merchants' comments has got me irritated. I for one am not your personal troll, with no use for skill points whatsoever. I'm a weaponsmith - and you know what? I DO have use for those skill points. You speak as if we're some social vaccuum. I had to drop master rifleman in order to prepare for the coming changes, but that is MY CHOICE. You have a choice - and you seem to have made your choice. Sometimes I'd like to go out and hunt with my friends as a break from working hard on my profession and business. Push has come to shove - and I can't really do that now.

Arguments about your template will not save you. The world changes - and you adapt.

It doesn't even dent a crafter template in relation to what it does a combat person. Crafting people have to have artisan. Combat people don't use artisan for any thing, less keeping their shops open like myself.

Ask a medic/doctor - they don't need Artisan to make buffs and stims but they will need Artisan to sell their goods. I'll grant you the dent won't be as large, but that is still not a justification I'm afraid. Your argument still relies on wanting to keep something for nothing. The size of the 'dents' are totally irrelevant. You want to be a combat type - then BE a combat type. You want to be a crafter and particpant in that area of the economy, then BE that. You say you enjoy having a shop in your off time - well I'd sure as heck like to enjoy combat in MY off time but unlike vendors I can't keep combat skills after dropping it.

You're wanting both, and you've really not come up with one solid reason why this should be. Your reasons have been based off functionality that has already been tagged as broken by the devs, a tooltip wording, and how badly you will suffer in order to have vendorsyou must 'gimp' your template. There's nothing convincing. You've alluded to removing invalid vendors as 'bad for the economy' but you've not really fleshed that idea out saving that you won't be able to sell your krayt loots anymore (which is, once again, self centric) or that it will cause inflation (which isn't necessarily a bad thing, see below). I'm trialling a new way to sell things on Trade Forums and it's working pretty darn well for me.

Venders are like bazaars. You sell stuff on them. I want them to make offering items to a bazaar a novice artisan skill. It's not fair that these random people can sell stuff just like you guys who kept merchant. If using a vender takes skills, then so should a bazaar.

The Bazaar has a 6k cap and a 25 item limit to it. There is no comparison and is grasping at straws.

I am currently a merchant again. Do I think its bogus, yes. Do I think that this needed to be fixed? No. Why? Because there was no need for it to be. All this does is cause inflation (you just watch if you do not beleive me) and make for headaches.

I don't think inflation will increase hugely - but even so that's a natural state of affairs and indepedent of any vendor changes. I remember when buffs cost 5k. If there is enough money to be had in the market, it will lure people into the crafting professions, and will lead to more stores opening. Prices will take care of themselves.

EVERYONE has the option to sell things with no skills whatsoever and in whatever quantity and whatever price. It's called the trade forums. I suggest you try it out.

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