Merchant Archive

I would like to see the vendor changes handled in a couple of ways.

Firstly, I'd like to see more of a whole system overhaul than just a bandaid to the database. This should include:

• Reviewing and re-organising vendor categories. This is one of the things that annoy me most in the game. When I am shopping, I use the categories to sort things by, and I would like to think other people do as well. Some of the categories are ridiculous, and some serve only to mislead people into thinking that item is not in stock - buildings anyone? I understand that this is probably a very difficult task, and that any old items would not go into the correct categories, but only post-patch ones would (like when they added categories for clothing), but I would love it if this could be done,

• Allow stacked items to belisted at a cost per unit basis. This has been mentioned by many others, and would be a way to reduce items without losing functionality. This should apply to "stackables" like resource containers, and also to factory crates. A merchant could stock one stacked item, and list a cost per unit price. When the customer goes to buy it, they get a slider that allows them to select how many they wish to buy (up to the full stack) and the price is multiplied by that number.

• Removal of the Vendor Limit, in conjunction with a Stock Limit. My main concern about the idea of an item limit per vendor, is that it restricts the way in which we can use our vendors. Orders vendors, or City Information vendors would become a waste of their item limit, since those type of vendors are rarely fully stocked, but serve a purpose nonetheless. So I'd like to see the Management line changed to include a Stock Limit, that increments the amount a stock a merchant can handle with each level. That stock could be placed all in one vendor, or spread across as many vendors as the merchant likes. To place a vendor itself would cost 10 items toward the Stock Limit. This would allow merchants to choose to place more than the current limit of 6 if that is what best suits their business.

• Give Master Merchants some perks. First of these should be an increased Stock Limit. I would also like to see Master Merchants be able to ID their vendors, or hire Image Designers to do it. A special, larger tent would be nice also.

Anyway, I know I'm mostly just wishing, but it never hurts to ask, right?

Agreed Aylish - the way stackable items are handled is crazy. There should be a column for item type, and a separate one for count. That would be easier on us, and easier on SOE's performance problems.

That would also allow setting prices on a vendor on a per unit basis. So on a resource vendor, you would set the price per unit for a resource type. If you add more of that resource, it just updates the amount. If you change the price, it is change for all of the inventory of that resource, and when someone makes a purchase, they can buy whatever quantity they choose.

And instead of being stored on the server as multiple rows, it's one row with a column (or field) for the count.

The categories on the vendors definitely need to be revamped also. (How hard would it be to only show the categories for which actually stock exists on that vendor?) They need to get rid of some, and add a more detailed level for others. (Why not allow you to select only steel instead of all minerals?)

Generally speaking, it seems like there needs to be some serious tuning done on the backend databases used for this game. Improve the programming and design, so that you can do away with nonsensical limitations such as the proposed vendor limit, the limit on how many items can be in a building, etc. The job market isn't that great in IT right now - you'd think they could bring in some people who could get the job done. I know enough about that type of work that I don't want to be too hard on them, because things are often more difficult than they seem. But at the same time ... I know enough to think that they ought to be able to do better.

Ok, end of rant.