Merchant Archive

Heck yes, I'm an architect. I'd drop merchant altogether, convert my shop to a private home,sell low ticket items in the bazaar and high-ticket items person to person (or to THEIR vendor), only. And I'd probably still make as much. Then I'd use the skill points I had to get pistoleer and probably make more than I did before because I could do higher ticket missions.

If they go through with this idea, which is very obviously flawed on so many levels, hated by the vast majority of people responding, won't solve the stated problem whatsoever, and makes you wonder what they're thinking when there are so many things that need to be FIXED first, I'd be surprised if a lot of folks didn't just give up with frustration and leave completely. When things like this are pushed on us as a knee-jerk reaction to some few extreme cases (someone must have reached the 20 mil mark or something...woohoo) and aren't thought through as to how they're going to affect everyone, folks will leave.

In my own humble non-politically correct opinion, the change is moronic. They should force the progammers to actually play the game and see how they like it! There were some wonderfully thought out and intelligent suggestions to solve the stated problem (too much money in the game) and to even the probable REAL problem (to many items). It would be a show of complete arrogance to go through withtheir plan. And it would prove, beyond any doubt, that they don't wantSWG to be a game that WE'd enjoy, but that they can look at from the code and say, my, isn't my code nice and neat.

Well, developers, this is a plan that may have looked good on paper and itwill be easy to implement, but will NOT meetyour stated objective.

I'll untrain all my merchant skills. No need to have them if I can't afford the vendors.

Then, I'll go shell out the $40 and another $15 a month for a second account, and set up my East Commons Mule.. except will pretend Coronet's Starport is East Commons. And he'll be there all day, every day, hawking my stuff via macro. And anyone interested can send me an ingame email that I'll answer when I get home from work.

But wait... me buying another copy of the game and a 2nd account makes more money for SOE.... hmm.. maybe THAT'S what they want us all to do.

Nope, I like being a merchant. I will adjust and sell in alternate ways.

Not only will I quit merchant and all crafting, I'll do it the easy way by quiting the game.

If this goes thru, as proposed, the message I'll be hearing is "we don't give a f**k about the players or what they think, we just want to fix our database that we screwed up with by creating tons of things people will want and need, but didn't acctualy think they'd do all that".....

I really enjoy this game, but this will destroy any chance of keeping my tailoring and armorsmithing viable.... since they lowered the mission payouts, my business has already dropped to the point where I"m only breaking even. And with armor being totaly fubar'd, I'm relying on tailoring to pull me thru. Put this method of charging for the vendors, and there's no way I could survive long enough to even figure out what to do with the inventory on my vendor, short of just deleting it all immediately.

there is no way this can be "adjusted for", and will kill all but all of the true die-hard crafters. Very bad idea.

I'd been considering it for a long time, I'm really at the point where skill pts are at a premium. It seemed like Merchant was offering very little enjoyment with all the things that were broken for artisans as it was ... this is yet another reduction in the "fun factor" of the game, one that also tells me that the devs simply aren't listening to the players and have little or no conception of what our gameplay experience is currently like.

If one of the tailors can consult with me before they're driven out of business, I'll probably be looking for a set of dirty rags to wear in my new profession of Hermit ... I'll be lurking near a Drall cave berating passers-by with tales about the "good ol' days" of crafting ......

I might stay a day or two to see if there is a manageable solution to the proposed fixes, and if there any accompanying balances to it.

But from what I've read and thought about, I don't think it's gonna go very well.

I'll likely drop it. Of course, this could be their (SOEs) exact goal. I had read somewhere they where concerned how many people decided to take up crafting/merchant skills and had issues with it.

Seems like they would change the game to fit the playerbase, but what do I know *shrug*.

YES

I did the maths and realised I'd have to do missions to keep the vendors going after the change. That isn't my idea of fun. I also counted up the items on my vendors, and knew I couldn't remove them all the day it changes. I simply don't have enough storage for it all in my inventory/house/bank. So I'm preparing in advance. My shop sign has changed to say it's closing, and I'm selling the stock off on the bazaar. Hopefully I can sell it all before the changes.

I feel a bit sad about it, as I enjoyed being a merchant and running a shop, even with the bugs. I was looking forward to hiring 4 working and things. But I'd feel sadder watching all my stock poof on the change day, so I need to start acting now. I'll keep the merchant skills for awhile. If vendor payment options do appear that are better for the average player, maybe I can reopen.

To be honest I only need 1 box for Master Merchant and I already have to pay large maintenance fees for my vendors due to the fact I sell resources so this will not have a huge effect on me, I was planning on closing my shop and going out to have some fun.

The basic fact of the matter is that SOE want to reduce the load on the database, creating a money sink is total bulllfrog.The net result of this amazingly stupid decision is that the vendor will become obseletewith most trades made face to facevia secure trade. This means that only pure crafters will be supplying the market and money will become kinda useless as supply will drop dramatically, you just wont have anything to buy with your credits so cash levels will increase thus having the opposite effect to a money sink. If money was the issue then insurance costs should be made essential and costly. The vendor system is one of the best parts of the game as it allows crafters to go out and have some fun while still be able to trade, take away the vendors and people will have to meet their customers thus limited any spare time. The only sense I can make of the increased maintenance tactic is that they hope crafters will increase their prices to cover the costs of the maintenance, but if you increase your prices you increase the maintenance costs which makes it kinda pointless to increase prices.

In truth what will happen, certainly in the case of resources sales, is that people people will sell using the global bazaar which will increase the load on that system and increase the load on the database. For example if someone has 1000 units of a very rare resource and decide they want 10cr per unit for it, on a vendor you will have 1000 units for 10,000cr, on the bazaar 300 units for 3000cr times 3 and 100 units for 1000cr, therefore 4 listing as opposed to 1. This would also be true in regrads to components, stimpacks, upgrade kits etc. If the product you sell is worth more than 3000cr per unit its face to face business only for you, but you want to go out and have some fun? well hard luck SOE dont want you to have any fun.

Please please please SOE listen to the posts being made, if you want to reduce the database simply put a limit of 10 items per person on the global bazaar. If you want to create a money sink dont tax the broken class which we are but tax the creatures and the faction pets, make insurance essential and costly, make weapons, clothing and armour degrade a lot quicker, dont just kill a broken class thatloony people like myself who have worked hard to achieve for no real benefits, or is this you intention to save you fixing it!

Keeping my vendors stocked is already a hastle. I KNOW there are bugs with the way maint fees were being calculated before, with rates going insanely up even if the worth of your items went down (like it was cummulative).

If they institute the proposed fees I'll likely close my shop, not out of being reactionary, but just it not being worth my time or fun factor anymore.

I would support a flat sales tax just fine. Much like bank transfer fees, as I know money sinks are important, but not the proposed maint hike.

I will be untraining the last of my merchant skills. As a merchant from the start I have been slowly surrendering anyways, simply because almost nothing works and that which works isnt worth having. The last reason for being a merchant was because the terminal costs were rediculas, specially for an architect. Without cheaper fees it simply not worth it, the difference between the vendors is asthetics, nothing else.

Dont get me wrong I thought NPC vendor maintenance was too low, but the proposal to make it the same as terminals.... good bye merchant skills.

Culland

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Skedoozy wrote:

You do realize this is another hotfix for using your vendor as storage. First it was the lie about griefing people, and now its this.

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Fair comment. Now if only they'd *fix* their database. It's obviously not man enought o do the job. Fix that rather than nerf a class to achieve a insignificant reduction in items in the world ??

Pretty much you will find that architecture firms and structure firms will dry up. Structures as they have a prettly low profit on them to start and furniture because you not only need to maintain a wide variety of items you need to stock a dozen or more of any single item. Not alot of people come in for one torch or kitched chair so if you want to have common items not be wiped out by one purchaser you need a dozen torches plus a few crates a dozen wooden chairs and a crate etc. Tailor will also be blasted by this sort of a fix as they are another class that "needs" to maintain a high lvl of stock on their vendors.