Merchant Archive
Thread: My take on the upcoming Vendor and Merchant changes
If a merchant wants something to do with their skill then take up a crafting profession. Frankly, I would have never considered merchant class to be a stand alone skill. I always saw it as a secondary support skill for a crafter. To expect someone to move goods through another player is just unrealistic. In the real world you can wholesale or play middle man by supplying transportation, packaging and handling. What does a merchant do for you? Place it on their vendor? Oh boy. I would prefer to handle my own merchandise. The way the turn over in this game is what am I supposed to do if my merchant decides he has had enough of the game or gets an unfortunate downtime on his computer or account?
Personally I took up merchant skills because I enjoy selling stuff. It is just a means to help me do that better. I never expected others to come to me to sell their stuff. In fact, I tried running a resell vendor in our guild of 200 for those that didn't take the skill. Yea it took me about 2 days before I saw what a pain that was. The only thing you can do is purchase stuff from others and try to resell. The hassle is not worth the profit. I would rather sell my own wares and make 100% of the profit. I don't know why a merchant would even want to do this unless they are totally ripping off the crafter and taking tons of profit. Who wants to nickle and dime their way to riches? Not me.
To DingoBoi (and the other trolls in here)
If you can't be bothered to reply to a concern by another player by either countering the raised concerns, pointing out where the original poster is wrong, and can only revert to nonsense - how can youexpect anyone to treat you or your profession with the seriousness you are asking for? To put it simply, if you act like a joke do not to be too disappointed if people consider you to be a joke.
I made a post about the concerns that I, and others have about these changes. You (and some of the others in here) in turn act like children!!! So what are you saying? That because my concerns are the opposite of your viewpoint that this then gives you the right to ridicule, post sighs, etc?
For myself and others that read these forums, we can only look on this complete lack of counter-argument as being an admission of defeat. There has yet to be one reason for this change being implemented aside from the standard line of "its a bug and its being fixed". There are many and varied designproblems in this game. My POV and the reason for my initial posting is that this problem with Vendors remaining once you drop the skills should be left as is. Sure its a bug, but to me and many, many others its a bug that works - and works well for lots of people.
Empty vendors can be dealt with as needed - if a vendor has nothing on it for 2 days straight (for example), it gets removed. If the player who owned it wants it back, they need to repick the skills again to make it happen. Plain, simple and satifies most players. No one loses anything and the game is cleared of the detruss of empty vendors, bung planetary ads, etc. But empty vendors are not the reason for this "fix" and shouldn't be used to justify the change. They are two related but different issues and should be treated as such.
So really, if you areso tunnel visioned in your POV that you feel the needto keep falling back to the "its a bug thats being fixed" reason without any thought as to the ramifications beyond your own self-serving needs, then more loss to you.
Maybe if you grew up a bit we can start treating your profession like a profession because at the moment its nothing more than a farce heading towardsa tragedy. I for one would pity the crafters on your server who may be forced to deal with you as a Merchant.
Seriously though. I like the idea of a merchant profession, but not the current shape of this one in SWG. It has about as much usefullness as a mining profession would have had, and as much reason for being removed as the mining profession had.
Until this profession becomes a "Merchant" profession and not a "Vendor Utility" profession, it is going to continue to be a waste of skill points in most peoples minds.
Darkov wrote:
They need to impliment rentalable vendors or player auction houses or something where the merchant takes a small cut of the sale, instead of requiring the merchant to purchase the stock, manage the stock and sell on the stock en masse.
Though you can get a vendor with business in Artisan.
Really good idea.
Only thing I'm afraid of is storage, I don't really sell things at all, and just got business 3 to get 1 vendor to store guild things. The way it's setup and all organized, it makes categorizing things easier along with the fact that it doesn't take as much database compared to actually storing the items in houses. I wish there was some kind of guild storage vendor, but doubt that will be implemented in a long time.
The other thing I'm afraid of is that since merchants need to make profits, a lot of thigns price rise will start inflating...
I for one don't like the idea that you continue the tie with the merchant after you drop off the goods. There are too many people who quit the game or are gone for long periods of time. If you find a merchant to work with and he/she has your goods what are going to be the safeguards for when this player quits or disappears.
Alot of you must live in a perfect world because you never seem to post about the drawbacks. You only mention the wonderful things that it will introduce. I will keep my merchant abilities along with my crafting ones because I personally think introducing the parasitic relationship of a merchant to a crafter will be a bad idea. I think the merchant class is fine the way it is. Next you will see merchants wanting some way to influence the GCW. Oh wait thereare already postings about that. People please. Not every single person in the galaxy has to be an equal to another. All professions are not equal in fun or power. That is real life also.
/throws more eggs.
SargusQuintek wrote:
Why should it concern you what other players are doing? Because it affects our gameplay. Others having vendors does not change your game play.um.. yeah, actually it does. Are you saying if others are able to place vendors and operate them that your business is going to be any less? yes
Vendors are successful for one reason and one reason only--they have goods stocked in them that people want. You just proved the last 'yes' response here. If there are 10 vendors selling the same product at the same price, but only 3 of those vendors are 'skill point invested', then yes, those 7 other vendors are stealing sales.
You are asking the DEVs to "fix" merchant just so you can have other players' game ruined. /throws eggs.
The merchants in this forum are not the only ones affected by this change you are requesting. Just because you may have the skill does not give you the right to insist on changes yes it does.
I think if this were to go to the majority of the players in this game you would find an overwhelming NO on this change. Ask the masses if they also want free commando skills and you will get a resounding yes. Point is players by nature will want what is best for them, which often is directly opposed to what is best for the game. It doesn't matter to the DEVs what the merchants say in here. What does matter is if they make a change that affects their paying customers to quit they will lose revenue. I don't think you are going to be heard on this subject. Why do you think so many players come to this forum to post in outrage over the change? The majority will not accept this change and it sparks passion in posting here often about it. The majority will adapt after things are fixed.