Merchant Archive

The modification of the waypoint sounds like a very elegant and serviceable solution.

Good job!

I agree, it would be best to eventually define shops, though this would take longer for the devs to implement. Reason being, although the vendor waypoit "View Stock" option would be an awesome temporary solution, it still doesn't eliminate "I'm at so-and-so's vendor on Tatooine and they're all out of T21s, I don't wanna pay to go to Corellia if you're out too."

This is a major problem for weaponsmiths... I've worked all the way from novice to master with one. Believe it or not, it even affects DEs too lol. Even if we are talking about independent merchants (who do not craft their stock) defining a shop of some sort, viewable on all planets, would be the best way to eliminate the thousands of tells that drive elite artisans berserk. Albeit, I like the waypoint solution, my problem is the world map only shows the current planet... if all planets were viewable,the waypoint solution is viable. By grouping all the vendors fromone merchant, it shouldn't be too difficult to define the "shop" you speak of.

This is very slightly off-topic,but Juht Owt, you put your finger (er, that IS your finger, isn't it?) on one of the really odd things about the current design of SWG: there's virtually no support for a "galactic-level" view.

Admittedly this is pre-Space Expansion, but it strikes me as strange that nearly all in-game tools are extremely planet-oriented -- the only significant exception being the Bazaar, whichallows you to see sales on other planets. (Yes, you can keep waypoints from multiple planets inyour datapad, but I wouldn't call that"significant.") It's as though the designers either didn't imagine that anyone would want to have a system-level view of some aspect of the galaxy, or thought of it but didn't implement any such tools to deliberately keep players focused on planet-specific activities.

A galaxy-wide "shop" listing (like the SWGYellowPages, heh-heh-heh) would help get players thinking of themselves less as stuck on one planet and more as "citizens of the galaxy" (which I'm presuming would be a Good Thing), as well as cut down on the number of sales entities (i.e., vendors) listed.

--Flatfingers

@ SaarK5

Wow... actually this is a really good idea! It's very simple actually... if you have advertising III your vendor shows up on the world map... advertising IV or master merchant will add "View Stock" to the waypoint.

And it shouldn't take too long to get people to use this... even though new people don't realize the player vendor on worldmap feature right off.

/hi5

Indeed...

Merchants can also placevendors in multiple locations i.e.in ahouse on Tatooine and in a house on Corellia, soI presumethe "shop" should include waypoints for each vendor...

I'd think so, yes, since we're just talking about the ability to see what's for sale, not actually buy it.

Given that we're talking about interplanetary commerce, it would also be nice to have the ability to tell a vendor to set aside items for particular customers, as in,"The only person to whomitem X can be sold is Player B." There'd need to be a time limit, after which the item automatically drops back into the general public list.

--Flatfingers

I feel that there would be many on either side of this issue... From one side you have the person in the shop browsing stock then all of a sudden something just mysteriously disappears and no longer available to buy. On the other side you have the person off-world browsing stock, buys their ticket, travels to another planet, runs to the vendor and the item they wanted has been bought by a local guy. Given the bazaar system has already given the benefit of the doubt to the latter, I assume that this would be acceptable to the majority. Is this true?

I feel the ability to see the stock is the most important issue here. I mean, we are essentially talking about the same system as the bazaar, just extended a bit more and available only to merchants. Since the bazaar is limited to 3000cr sales, this makes it even more important for merchants to have a feature like this.

In my other posts I suggested this ability be available at advertising IV or master merchant, not being a merchant myself (other than my robot vendor lol) are there reasons or arguments as to where this ability could be earned more specifically? I mean does advertising IV already give a merchant incentive to earn it? Or does master merchant lack incentive to go all the way? Thoughts?

(I've always wanted to solve the vendor in house-with-fee griefing problem by just having a postal service deliver items to the bazaar of the user's choice. Pay an extra fee that depends on distance like the travel tickets do (nice money sink!), and zoom, the item is delivered to your home bazaar. Why can't there be mail order in the SW universe?)

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CeejS wrote:
(I've always wanted to solve the vendor in house-with-fee griefing problem by just having a postal service deliver items to the bazaar of the user's choice. Pay an extra fee that depends on distance like the travel tickets do (nice money sink!), and zoom, the item is delivered to your home bazaar. Why can't there be mail order in the SW universe?)

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Please allow 4-6 weeks for delivery.

What it boils down to is that this would be a useful feature. And what do the devs avoid at all costs? That's right. They're too busy breaking bugs and fixing useless things.

Merchant xp doesnt work 80% of the time. Knockdown is broken. But item decay was removed from clothing.. praise the lord (/sarcasm)

These are really good ideas. Too bad they will be ignored. Too bad they didnt get people like you guys on the development team.