Merchant Archive

I normally 'rent' lots from guildmates. I provide the harvesters and they place. I pay the maintenance and I pay them .5credits per harvester unit of power they harvest. I have one person running 8 harvesters whois due 500k in earnings so far this cycle and I will be paying out over 2 million in earning to all my employees.

I run a very lucrative lot rental agreement. I'm already wealthy and this spreads the wealth to the others in my PA, which is primarily a bunch of broke entertainers (no offense, but it's true)

Trust is definitely key. But i'd rather lose a few harvesters if somebody quits than be burned for 5 million which I have been before. Now I keep all my expensive assets (like the store itself) in my name and just let people use the harvesters. I have about 9 contractors I use who place harvesters in quanities of 1-8 harvesters each and I run 50 harvesters about altogether. Coordinating all of them is a job in itself.

I like the lot renting idea. However, i've found in the past when i've tried this (1cr per unit of power, 3cr per unit of resources), individuals have decided it was more profitable to harvest and sell these items themselves (has happened several times). and to pay them what they can make by selling themselves would prevent me from making any profit (just my personal experience on Radiant, clearly yours was different). It seems though that if the devs don't want more lots per player, then it aint happening. However the problem is easily fixed (imnsho) by a suggestion already given. Tents and factories 0 lots, you could even include a declared residence and tweak as needed. True this is kind of adding lots (particularly if you used the residence), but it's not a blanket addition just one specific for merchants and crafters who are needing a few extra lots. It is an almost infintely maleable solution (ie-can place 2 free factories 4 free tents, 1free factory 2free tents, or any other combination that achieved the desired result) use of primary residence need not even be included. I'm sure it's just wishful thinking but it seems a reasonable solution for all concerned.

A good solution to the lot problem may be allowing players who don't want or need their lots the ability to sell them to others.

Maybe we could havea real estate office (similar to the bazaar) that allows players to list the lots they have for sell and the asking price. Once the lots are sold, they would be included with the buyers lots. This would allow the devs to keep the same number of lots allowed by the server. The overall lot numbers would remain the same, just the ownership would change.

From the very beginning, there should have been an Industrialist profession. Comes from the Business and Survey lines, and this person is solely responsible for large scale operations. Only the Industrialist would be able to run medium or large harvesters through the Mining branch. Only the Industrialist would produce items in factories through the Production branch. If a crafter wanted a factory run they'd give schematic to the Industrialist.

This would be the profession to get added lots. It's too late to create this profession now. Imagine the howls of protest if crafters suddenly lost large harvesters and factories.

Excellent solution MidnightFlame. In fact, if it were done at the beginning they probably could have given every player fewer lots. How many lots do combat characters really need anyway? For personal use not too many. I'd best most combat characters just let friends use most of their lots.

I would of thought the 4 reasons would have been more than enough for convincing... Well here are some more to add.

5. Lot Renters (rather they would be guild mates or in game friends) cannot be trusted. All it takes is one time to put the no-trusting flag on. If someone takes your harvs (or money) then it will happen again.

6.Resource Sellers; Hard to find, always out of stock, and never have what you need (which is essential to being a successful crafter).

7. Its Easier this way

8. Its far more convenient

9. It rewards players for hard work

10. Saves everyone time

11. Protects the people from fraudulent acts aka Scammers

12. It'll make people happy (except trolls nothing makes them happy)

13. Helps the resource sellers out by adding variety and quantity to their market.

14. It helps out the people who don't normally even use harvs by buying from the RS because they will have more variety.

15. It can help guilds out for stocking up resources for player city (destroyable) buildings/defenses such as turrets and mines.

16. Its going to help the casual gamer as well as the hard core.

And...

17. Belive it or not it's going to help the trolls (not really nothing can help them)

If this is still not enough reason and you are still un convinced I want you to go to your nearest mirror and look at your reflection and realize that you truly are a troll.

Now if you want more reasons... I can mke the list go on and on so keep that in mind. I know eventually that we will be given more lots its only a matter of time. It will all depend on how the devs implement it.

If you don't like what i have to say... I don't care.

Kabooki, the problem is server and DB space. More lots means more buildings, means more items in storage by factors of 10. That's a lot more memory space. I think it NEEDS to happen too. More buildings means a need for more lots. Like I said, that's like offerening more skills and professions but not more skill points. They need to start working on it now. However, it's not some simple matter, it's an ENORMOUS problem to fix. Your talking about a core memory problem, not just a variable in one string of code.

I would love to have more lots to play with. I think that making extra lots part of hte merchant skill tree would be a great idea and encourage more people to become merchants and even master merchants. As master merchant should get like +5 lots to give a total of 15 lots for that character.

I believe that lot limits are very helpful to the game. They increase player interdependency. Joe Crafter needs his lots for storage and factories, so he must buy resources from Sally the Miner and must rely on Bob the Merchant to sell his wares.

House storage limits need to be fixed to reflect lot cost, but otherwise I think the lot system works fine. If anything, maybe allow Master Merchants enough lots to have stores on every planet and in every major city (ala Walmart). This would give Merchants another unique ability and make us more important in the overall game economy.

Rai

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RaiCella wrote:

I believe that lot limits are very helpful to the game. They increase player interdependency. Joe Crafter needs his lots for storage and factories, so he must buy resources from Sally the Miner and must rely on Bob the Merchant to sell his wares.

House storage limits need to be fixed to reflect lot cost, but otherwise I think the lot system works fine. If anything, maybe allow Master Merchants enough lots to have stores on every planet and in every major city (ala Walmart). This would give Merchants another unique ability and make us more important in the overall game economy.

Rai

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With a merchant tent taking up only 1 lot you could conceivably have 10 stores on 10 different planets. wouldn't have much room for your stuff though

The other reason (besides items) that lots are limited is because you don't want to introduce hundreds of additional harvesters into the economy and make a huge increase in the amount of resources that are being mined, it has a negative effect on the player economy. I can tell you that the devs are already unhappy with the amount of resources flowing they don't want to increase it significantly.

really dumb post... if u want more lots work for them , i rent from friends - cross server lots, and have 3 accounts.

lazy selfish ppl like you, ruin MMORPG's.

Nice post, good of you to be all contstuctive saying mine or someone elses is dumb.

You don't think that people should get more lots that's fine, but no need to get insulting.

If not lots I think master merchants shoud get some other benefit besides a pink droid. Spending all those skill points should be worth something. I'd like a little extra land cause I don't have friends with extra lots to lend me and I woulnd't trust someone I just met with access to a havrester or house.

I don't think if they gave master merchants extra lots it would really be that huge of a change I mean compared to other professions how many people have master merchant?

Anyway, to recap, master merchant needs a better benifit.

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MageMirage wrote:
Nice post, good of you to be all contstuctive saying mine or someone elses is dumb.

You don't think that people should get more lots that's fine, but no need to get insulting.

If not lots I think master merchants shoud get some other benefit besides a pink droid. Spending all those skill points should be worth something. I'd like a little extra land cause I don't have friends with extra lots to lend me and I woulnd't trust someone I just met with access to a havrester or house.

I don't think if they gave master merchants extra lots it would really be that huge of a change I mean compared to other professions how many people have master merchant?

Anyway, to recap, master merchant needs a better benifit.

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To be fair only one person called this post dumb. I would ignore that post. The rest of us agree that it would be nice to have lots but as I 've been saying for a whlie it isn't likely to happen for a number of reasons.

I agree 100% that master merchant needs something other than the reduction of vendor fees and the mute protocol droid that it currently has.