Merchant Archive
Thread: Vendor Poaching a Fallacy?
1) cannot place new merchants. No way to expand your business if you wanted to. If you got the business artisan tree, you cannot select the race of your merchant. You can't give each vendor a "uniform" either, if you wanted them all dressed the same way.
2) pay higher maintenance fees. The efficiency line has all those reduced fee modifiers, remember?
3) cannot start or stop a vendor barking.
4) cannot register or unregister a vendor on the planetary map
5) cannot change your shop's sign.
The only thing you can do without merchant skills is have a pre-existing vendor running at the normal maintenance costs and with any previous customizations.
person who has 5 vendors and is advertising and then on top of that charge a entry fee then after checking out there vendors come to the realization that there isnt anything on there vendors...
saxmahoney wrote:
The vendor exploit certain IS a problem, but "poofing" or whatever is NOT a good solution. I see the BEST solution would be to allow the vendors to remain, but become "inactive." I've seen inactive vendors before where the thing is there there but you cannot buy/sell/offer things to it. This would prevent people from losing MILLIONS of creds worth of items, and have a chance to retrieve/move the items to a different location, but not be able to continue the exploit. I know some would LIKE people to be punished for their exploiting, but I really think it would be too harsh to do something like this where rare loots just get destroyed because of it. Just my 2 cents.
that's what people get for exploiting, is losing all their stuff
PhatMadness wrote:
My suggestion would be that legitimate merchants just stop responding to these threads with people justifying stealing vendors. They pop up every few days and its always the same old news over and over and over and over and over again. Let them post their rationalization, then let it float down to the bottom so we dont have to look at it anymore, we're not listening to them really, and they arent going to listen to what we say, we should just bide our time until the bug is fixed (and who knows when that will be) the dev "this is a bug" post was a very long time ago as I remember.
You are exactly right of course. Responding to these things just fuels the argument and gives those who want to continue this practice of using vendors without skill point cost more attention than they deserve to have. The problem is that it is very difficult to stop yourself from countering when someone posts a completely unsupportable position with bad analogies and questionable facts. I avoided the topic for several weeks but have been drawn in myself lately.
We should all try harder to avoid them however because it doesn't accomplish anything to respond to them and accomplishes even less when the threads ultimately descend into flames as they always do.
DocSavag wrote:
PhatMadness wrote:
My suggestion would be that legitimate merchants just stop responding to these threads with people justifying stealing vendors. They pop up every few days and its always the same old news over and over and over and over and over again. Let them post their rationalization, then let it float down to the bottom so we dont have to look at it anymore, we're not listening to them really, and they arent going to listen to what we say, we should just bide our time until the bug is fixed (and who knows when that will be) the dev "this is a bug" post was a very long time ago as I remember.
You are exactly right of course. Responding to these things just fuels the argument and gives those who want to continue this practice of using vendors without skill point cost more attention than they deserve to have. The problem is that it is very difficult to stop yourself from countering when someone posts a completely unsupportable position with bad analogies and questionable facts. I avoided the topic for several weeks but have been drawn in myself lately.
We should all try harder to avoid them however because it doesn't accomplish anything to respond to them and accomplishes even less when the threads ultimately descend into flames as they always do.
Yea I was thinking the same thing. Something I could stick to the top of the forum and we could just refer the thread poster to and end the discussion there. I could probably get one of the Mods to lock the thread so it couldn't be modified.
You are all forgetting that most of these posters don't want to read what they haven't posted. (Thanks again SOE for the hologrind craze) No matter where you post it, even in HUGE RED LETTERS SAYING "READ ME FIRST!!!!"they will still ask the question, quite sincerely, expecting an expediant answer.
And they will keep asking, always leaving it at the top of our boards no matter how much you try to sink it to the bottom. Why? Because this question as been asked so many times before. It has a huge track record. Not that many people post to this board. And it is the burning topic for this profession. More than anything else, this exploit has ruined the profession.
Werekoala wrote:
By that logic, if someone is an armorsmith and decides to drop it and go for something else - all the armor they ever made should go *poof* too...?
Or if you are a vendor in real life and buy a Coke machine - and later go into another line of work - the machine goes *poof*...?
Since, in order to maintain a vendor, even if you have no skills, you have to pay maintainence on them - why should they not keep existing as long as you pay their salary/maintainence? Seems to me that just vanishing at the drop of a hat loses something in the Suspension of Disbelief department.
Here's an idea; Instead of making the vendors go *poof*, double or triple their maintainence costs. Or better yet, *reward* Master Merchants with something more exciting than clothing for their employees - I know my buying decisions have nothing to do with what the in-game vendor looks like, but with what's on it. There must be SOME tangible benefit that the Developers can give someone who's mastered the profession.
At any rate, the point I'm making is that Vendors "in-game" and in real life are "real" things that don't just vanish when you forget how to make them, any more than rifles or cases of Brandy. Let's keep it that way.
Try to think of it this way; hiring is a managerial skill. Merchants are the master of this. You need to know how to advertise "help wanted". You need to know how to tell an employee, I'd like you to wear this "snazzy" new outfit. If you aren't a merchant ( i.e. no tact), they'll assume you think their own clothes are classless, get offended, and quit.
Anyone here a manager in real life? You reallllllly gotta have people skills. It requires being able to deal with the whining in a fair manner. It means schedule juggling. People who think they are being treated unfairly, will go find employment elsewhere. When you drop your business skills, you become an ineffective manager. People are willing to work for less ( reduced vendor fees) when they have great working conditions and a good boss. If you have no people skills, people will move on to better jobs, for the same pay.
This means you drop the skills, your vendors will quit ( He just said I look fat in this dress!).