CUEmu - Thread Posts

Astronaut_jones

Tue Feb 17, 2004 11:17 am

No offense tarnak but becoming a "good merchant" has alot to do with aquiring the higher level boxes in the merchant tree. Global advertising is essential. Max vendors and the ability to customize their look is often overlooked but also important. These things are aquired high on the merchant tree. Obviously, the bottom line is "What do you have on the vendor?" It is the little things gained higher on the tree though that will get your shop remembered.

DocSavag

Tue Feb 17, 2004 2:01 pm

#15

I really think that access fees were meant as a cover charge for entertainment or other conent. They have evolved into mainly a way around the no private vendors rule. If we can ever get directed sales or pickups then they won't be used for that any more.

That being said there is no real scam here unless there is something that offers you something for coming inside which isn't available. If My sign says "Rare Loot Drops for Sale" and inside there is an empty house you've been scammed. If the sign says "Doc's House" and you pay 50k to go inside and see what is there you haven't been scammed, no one promised you anything. As far as everyone being used to the 1 credit. That really is not excuse for not reading those warnings. I get them all the time and have to decide if I am going to pay for them. If the charge is 1 credit I usually pay it and grumble about grinding the merchant profession. If the charge is 5-10 credits I usually pass. I can look at half stocked vendors for free all day long. If the charge is 50k I laugh out loud and move along.

----------------------------------
Chataka Windae
Rifleman/Combat Medic
CEO, Windae Enterprises
Mesric Sanctuary Founder

JTGAlpha

Tue Feb 17, 2004 2:51 pm

#16

Doc, agreed...

HOWEVER I would like some signage outside or some kind of indicator an access fee is applied because, frankly, I get REAL annoyed taking five steps in then warping out. Makes me think soemthing's screwed up.

Dayasi Vo'Boda CEO of SCUM PA.
Founders of Agrilatia in the Agrilat Swamps Of Corellia (Intrepid).
Taking Scum and Villainy to a new Level to Serve YOU.
Remember: SCUM does it dirtyAnother Horseman of the Smuggling Apocolypse

progman63

Thu Feb 19, 2004 6:44 pm

#17

Tarnak_Archvold wrote:
A true merchant do not need that extra 50xp from the entry fee, they already get 50 xp for you browsing the vendor, and if they are a proper merchant with a vendor worth browsing then you will return many time to buy from then...
Do not ever enter a show with a 1cr access fee. It is a sign of a bad shop, and an even worse merchant.

Aw cummon man.......

People complaining about ONE CREDIT?!?!?! For chris' sake!

A 1 cred fee is NOT the sign of a bad shop, it's the sign of a NEW merchant who needs XP.

Perhaps you personally have had bad experiences in the past being ripped off 1 cred.

Sorry for your loss.

The rest of us are trying to get XP so we can offer better services to our customers.

Sorry if that offends you, but that's the game mechanics...........

BTW, I mark down all items on my vendors 1 cred so people don't feel ripped off.

NOT!

"When Sony and Lucas set out, we said, How can we do this and not make another EQ? We didn't want it to be all about Luke, or combat, or lock our players into a class. So we created a system that would allow players to switch professions during the game, and there would be a lot of gameplay around making that change. If you want to go from architect to scout we've created a system to make that happen."
Julio Torres

Neon_Black

Thu Feb 19, 2004 7:23 pm

#18

Arrya wrote:

Lol, thanks Kilun. This is par for the course though, the merchant community is probably the most unhelpful group I have ever seen in this game. I think it is because of a rough childhood of repeated dev abuse though so I can't blame them completely ;

Sorry to hear that.

Merchant was the first thing I mastered after launch. (Well... as soon as I could log on to Starsider)

I never used an entrance fee as I didn't realize that I could get XP out of it. I placed as many vendors as I could and had all my friends and guild-mates browse them as often as they could.

As a Merchant, (my main walk of life) I try to be as helpful as I can whenever I can. I'm sorry to see that this isn't the case in your community. While I DO gripe over abuse issues

I do my best to not take it out on my patrons.

As for your issue... I kind of like the sign idea. Perhaps for those who use the entry fee cap to virtualize private vendors, (hell...something had to be done!

) you could offer them a light with a friendly warning statement and reserve the not-so-friendly lights for the scammers who wont answer your e-mails.

Good luck. Keep us posted!

KaiRan

Thu Feb 19, 2004 11:06 pm

#19

Dumb question here- what if the sign outside clearly states "Do not enter" or "No Tresspassing!"... ?

If the sign already warns against entry, and the limit is set to 50k, heck, even if there is no vendor in the house, wouldnt that be warning enough? And if there is a vendor, it may be that it's being used for supply storage only...

I dont know about you, but If I came upon a house with "DO NOT ENTER" as it's sign and paid 50k to see an empty house, I'd be the only one to blame. Heck my smuggler would love a vendor placed in his house tohold overstock w/o counting against the limit, but if someone too dumb to read the "NO TRESSPASSING" sign and/or read the 50k entry fee can complain and get me banned, I'm not going to risk it.

jnoh | master smuggler + master pilot | starsider

If you don't want me to "play the forums," then I suggest you make time playing the game more rewarding and less repetitive than "playing" here!
READ THIS before telling me I cannot complain about Smuggler
GOT SMUGGLING? - I AM STILL NOT A SMUGGLER - GOT SPICE?

JPFREEK

Fri Feb 20, 2004 4:07 pm

#20

I'm not sure that all the 50K access fees are a scam.. I have a 50K access fee on my work shop, not my storefront though. I do this because you can't make a structure private if you have a vendor in there. On my work shop, I have a droid vendor in there that I use asa storage unit.But, it really annoys me if a customer is over my shoulder asking me a jillion things if I'm busy crafting at my station.

So, I put an huge access fee on my door to try to discourage players from walking in my workshop. The storefront is across the street.

Barrett Ackchi
CEO - Master Weaponsmith/Master Shipwright/Master Artisan
BARRETT-TECH INDUSTRIES
Kadaara, Naboo (-4928, -191, 6064)
Purveyors of finely crafted Blasters, Explosives, Heavy weapons, Personal Vehicles, Spacecraft, & Spacecraft Weaponry

Skyfish

Fri Feb 20, 2004 6:41 pm

#21

Arrya wrote:

Lol, thanks Kilun. This is par for the course though, the merchant community is probably the most unhelpful group I have ever seen in this game. I think it is because of a rough childhood of repeated dev abuse though so I can't blame them completely

One quickquestion for everyone: One person told me that his hosue is bugged and that when he resets or turns off his access fee, it always comes back to 50,000 credits. Has anyone ever heard of a bug like this? Sounds like a line of BS to me.

Well, it goes beyond dev abuse - it's also the fellow-players who continue to insist that the dev abuse is the way things ought to be, which changes Merchant from a profession to a quest that you finish and get rewarded for, and don't have to keep your skill points in to keep the one defining ability of the profession. I am sincerely sorry to hear about your problem -and I'll get right to it in a moment- but you've got a broken profession here (I really should say a limitless-access profession),and people in that profession are largely not going to have a lot of sympathy.

Anyway, I did see above posts where a couple people here suggested the idea of placing streetlights as signs/warnings in front of the unscrupulous person's shop.I am at a loss for any better ideas within what the game makes possible right now. Myself, I would support the idea of the Mayor being able to slap fines on buildings/citizens, or revoke zoning rights. Pretty draconian measures, yes, but I don't know of a better solution, right now. It's after 5pm on Friday at the end of a pretty icky week, and my brain wants to crawl into a warm bed and go to sleep. I suppose you could instruct your militia to watch out for the owner, and /cityban that person, so at least they have the penalty of not benefitting from the cities amenities directly. Or is the person declared as a resident, and do I remember that cityban doesn't work on citizens? -I can't quite remember. I suppose you could go around to each of the city's public buildings, and manually put that person on the ban list for each building. That should still work, I'm thinking.

I can't say for sure whether it's BS or not, but the auto-returning 50k access fee is something I have never experienced or been told of. I would be suspicious too.

I sincerely wish you good luck in getting this problem solved, Arsenal.

__________
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Lobotomy: A surgical procedure that convinces them it is acceptable and even clever for them to do so.
__________

Asteroids

Sat Feb 21, 2004 5:07 am

#22

For those that charge access fees to keep people out and / or for custom orders. They mention adding the customers name to the entry list so they don't have to pay the fee. Doesn't making the building private and adding the customer to the entry list work?

Asteroids

Sat Feb 21, 2004 5:08 am

#23

Lol ignore the last post. I just remembered you can't have a private house with a vendor in it. Sorry.

Tarnak_Archvold

Sat Feb 21, 2004 6:24 am

#24

A 1 cred fee is NOT the sign of a bad shop, it's the sign of a NEW merchant who needs XP.

Well if you intend to become a good merchant and actuarially run a business, then an extra weak or two would to get to master merchant would NOT hurt you in any way.
Here is a bit of math for you: you already get 50XP for someone browsing you vendor. So if you get as many as 1 customer per hour and only have one vendor you will only cut you training time by 20%. If you have 6 vendors and still get 1 customer an hour you will reduce you training time by only 5%.

A good business is achieved by maintaining a good stock on the vendor for the right price and by building up a good customer base. The customer base alone will take you a lot longer then

If you do not have the stock you 1cr entry fee will only assure that you customers never return, if you do not have the entry fee and still do not have the stock, you customers MIGHT return just to se if you have it at a later date. However if you have the stock you costumers should be returning to your shop often, and you will not need the 50 xp from the entry fee to advance fast.

I will keep to this: If a merchant is so desperate for xp that they have to use a 1 cr access fee to get XP fast enough, then browsing thair vendors would be a waist of time.

"Once upon a time Rangers roamed the galaxies... Before the dark times, before the NGE. "
Once a Ranger, Always a Ranger.

Merchant Archive

Thread: Excessively high access fee scams, need some help