Merchant Archive
Thread: The nonskilled ‘merchant’ problem – or be careful what you ask for.
Wire3k wrote:
joined42904 wrote:
This first post strikes me as extremely foolish.
What will I do if they list good compo on the bazaar? Buy it and sell it in my shop of course.That's what a true MASTER MERCHANT can do under the new rules. Plenty more vendors for a second shop. I'll just resell the stuff they are selling at a loss.
Can they keep it up? Well...NO...they can't. But I have enough to buy how many 6k bazaar sales? Any other merchant can do the same.
So I still tell them to spend the skill points or use the bazaar. Why? Because it's what they deserve if they don't invest skill points in vendors. And I hope they take your foolish ideas to heart. Because if they do I will make a killing.
You absolutely can do this - for awhile. Till you run out of space and it doesn't resell because the market is flooded and there is no room for the markup.
Folks have done this before - with a LOT less motivation than they have now and no cooperative effort or organization.
Just how many people doing this would it take to really gum up the works? How many people with merchant skills that have become bored (or are ticked over their own issues) would join them? I love my shop, I love my customers, I love a truly free system where everyone has a shot and effort and competence is rewarded, AS a merchant - this cheapens MY experience by removing equality in the competition.
Hmmm... being a Merchant and the fact that I like going around looking for deals, I'd do the exact thing that I do now when I see a deal on the Bazaar.
I'd buy it ALL and then resell it. I do it all the time now especially with vehicles - you want tosell swoops at 6K on the Bazaar? ... great! I'll gladly buy all your stock and resell it.
I actually hope your right. That's a lot of resell product I can buy for a song. However, it's very unlikely.
Barris wrote:
SeraphinAnnie wrote:
You say you don't blame the merchants. But your original post was full of "they need to pay", and "be taught a lesson" and that "a point needs to be made." What point? That they shouldn't of complained? Or that they should of posted nicer? It makes no point to merchants. They didn't make this change, and they can't reverse it either. All you'd be doing is wasting your own breath and time.
If you don't blame merchants, then you have no cause to try and punish them. You are saying that those pissed by these changes have/could have the motivation to try and ruin a merchant's gaming by ruining their business because their posting on these boards was harsh or spiteful, that's what you're saying yeah? Yet...that act alone, and your posting is created solely out of spite, which makes you no better than the people you want to teach a lesson to. Do you see that?
The only thing you'd be proving, is that you're bitter. Be angry, if you must. But trying to take away from other players' gaming experience, or to encourage others to do it, just because it will make you feel better is very misguided.
Actually the nerf will be taking away from players' gaming experience more than w/e you think wire is trying to do. Wire actually stands up not because he is trying to cause a fuss but because he is concerned with the economy and profession as a whole.
I support what he says, however people like ourselves are often met with torches of short sited ignorance who think that some how not having skills to place venders but still using them 'defaces' the profession, which is only really good for placing venders and nothing more.
The profession can be fun, but as it stands all it is really is a skill point sink for combat characters such as myself and many others. Many crafters look and say, it's not fair, blah blah blah, etc, flame flame, but never look at the fact that even the 24 sp it takes for management 3 in artisan can cripple a temple very badly. Crafters get to have the skills for merchant in the same starting tree line (artisan). For combat characters they have to pick it up totally separate from their skills, which is an instant 15 sp missing there, then all the other sp that goes into merchant and keeping what ever level you need with the up coming nerf.
As it stands, I went from being MCM M-rifles to M-Rifles, novice brawler, 4/3/4/0 medic, 1/0/0/0 scout so I can actually walk up hills (something CM allowed for) artisan 0/0/4/0, merchant 0/0/1/4, with about 5 SP left over. Can you see how this is a drastic change from MCM and M-rifles, a template I was happy with, to this which is all but useless. Granted I could go master melee something master rifles, or master 2 ranged professions, but I won't be truly happy with it, because I enjoyed my CM rifles template.
All that happens with most crafters is they invest another few skill points to get merchant, and put the rest into crafting. No real issues come from this, as it does not affect ones ability to try to function in the comunity in a PvE or PvP fashion.
And I'd love to be a M-Fencer, M-Doctor, M-Rifles with a bit of CM for kicks and giggles ... but I can't and I had to make a choice.
That's the point of skill-based system. Just because you keep calling the profession a SP sink doesn't make it so.
joined42904 wrote:
Wire3k,
I don't think you can gum up the works all that much. I'd like to see people try. If I run out of space on my vendor, I'll just buy it for 6k and delete it. No harm there. And I don't have to buy everything either. If there aren't any composite chestplates or helmets or leggings that's enough that folks will come to a real shop to buy armor. Don't you think?
Plus I 've got the 25 item limit working to my advantage. And 2 accounts.
I really don't think you and the other vendor exploiters are going to make a dent in the server economy using the bazaar no matter how much you try.
So yeah...please...go ahead and use the bazaar if you don't want to invest skill points in vendors. There. I said it again.
This sets the expectation of customers lower - they aren't going to be as happy with your prices.
You'll never be able to buy everything - the danger here isn't the occassional person that tries to do it alone, THERE ARE MORE OF THEM THAN YOU, the problem is a sleeping Goliath.
There you go calling them exploiters again - throwing gasoline onto the fire. It's NOT an exploit - everyone was equal - anyone COULD have managed their points in the same way. I chose not to - you chose not to - doesn't mean either of us COULDN'T have - the very definition of exploit is gaining an unfair advantage over others.
From Raph's rules page....
Darklock's First Law
Cheating is an apparently advantageous violation of player assumptions about the game. When those assumptions are satisfied, all apparently advantageous methods are fair. When they are violated, no apparently advantageous methods are fair. "Using exterior means to influence the play of a game is not necessarily cheating. It is only cheating if it violates the assumptions of other players *and* provides an advantage. When a player expects that gaining levels in a game takes a long period of time, he will call any method of gaining them rapidly "cheating" -- even if it is an intentional feature of the game. When he expects that gaining levels is a rapid process, however, he will not think the people gaining them slowly are cheating... because that is not an apparently advantageous situation. It does not matter whether this actually *is* an advantageous situation, only whether it *appears* advantageous."
Corollary to Darklock's First Law
A bug is an apparently *disadvantageous* violation of player assumptions about the game. "This may be viewed as a specific application of Dundee's Law, "Fighting the battle for nomenclature with your players is a futile act. Whatever they want to call things is what they will be called." It does not matter whether "cheating" or a "bug" was an intentional part of the game design; it only matters whether the players *assumed* they were intentional."
BOTH sides of this argument have valid points within BOTH of these statements. Since everyone had access to the same game mechanics - and those mechanics weren't addressed for a year - the position of those that want more from their experience is every bit as valid as the position of those that claim the high moral ground of 'what was intended'.
Further about player motivations....
Mike Sellers' Hypothesis
"The more persistence a game tries to have; the longer it is set up to last; the greater number (and broader variety) of people it tries to attract; and in general the more immersive a game/world it set out to be--then the more breadth and depth of human experience it needs to support to be successful for more than say, 12-24 months. If you try to create a deeply immersive, broadly appealing, long-lasting world that does not adequately provide for human tendencies such as violence, acquisition, justice, family, community, exploration, etc (and I would contend we are nowhere close to doing this), you will see two results: first, individuals in the population will begin to display a wide range of fairly predictable socially pathological behaviors (including general malaise, complaining, excessive bullying and/or PKing, harassment, territoriality, inappropriate aggression, and open rebellion against those who run the game); and second, people will eventually vote with their feet--but only after having passionately cast 'a pox on both your houses.' In essence, if you set people up for an experience they deeply crave (and mostly cannot find in real life) and then don't deliver, they will become like spurned lovers--somebecome sullen and aggressive or neurotic, and eventually almost all leave."
I aspects of the above that apply to this particular argument is that taking away tools and options that have existed since day one to a large number of players is making their world experience SMALLER - not larger. It makes those that crave a deeper experience have fewer options that are acceptable to them - and at NO BENEFIT TO MERCHANT AS A CLASS. I've seen the pox on both your houses in action time and time again - up close and personal - it ain't pretty.
Wire3k wrote:
joined42904 wrote:
Wire3k,
I don't think you can gum up the works all that much. I'd like to see people try. If I run out of space on my vendor, I'll just buy it for 6k and delete it. No harm there. And I don't have to buy everything either. If there aren't any composite chestplates or helmets or leggings that's enough that folks will come to a real shop to buy armor. Don't you think?
Plus I 've got the 25 item limit working to my advantage. And 2 accounts.
I really don't think you and the other vendor exploiters are going to make a dent in the server economy using the bazaar no matter how much you try.
So yeah...please...go ahead and use the bazaar if you don't want to invest skill points in vendors. There. I said it again.
This sets the expectation of customers lower - they aren't going to be as happy with your prices.
You'll never be able to buy everything - the danger here isn't the occassional person that tries to do it alone, THERE ARE MORE OF THEM THAN YOU, the problem is a sleeping Goliath.
There you go calling them exploiters again - throwing gasoline onto the fire. It's NOT an exploit - everyone was equal - anyone COULD have managed their points in the same way. I chose not to - you chose not to - doesn't mean either of us COULDN'T have - the very definition of exploit is gaining an unfair advantage over others.
From Raph's rules page....
Darklock's First Law
Cheating is an apparently advantageous violation of player assumptions about the game. When those assumptions are satisfied, all apparently advantageous methods are fair. When they are violated, no apparently advantageous methods are fair. "Using exterior means to influence the play of a game is not necessarily cheating. It is only cheating if it violates the assumptions of other players *and* provides an advantage. When a player expects that gaining levels in a game takes a long period of time, he will call any method of gaining them rapidly "cheating" -- even if it is an intentional feature of the game. When he expects that gaining levels is a rapid process, however, he will not think the people gaining them slowly are cheating... because that is not an apparently advantageous situation. It does not matter whether this actually *is* an advantageous situation, only whether it *appears* advantageous."
Corollary to Darklock's First Law
A bug is an apparently *disadvantageous* violation of player assumptions about the game. "This may be viewed as a specific application of Dundee's Law, "Fighting the battle for nomenclature with your players is a futile act. Whatever they want to call things is what they will be called." It does not matter whether "cheating" or a "bug" was an intentional part of the game design; it only matters whether the players *assumed* they were intentional."
BOTH sides of this argument have valid points within BOTH of these statements. Since everyone had access to the same game mechanics - and those mechanics weren't addressed for a year - the position of those that want more from their experience is every bit as valid as the position of those that claim the high moral ground of 'what was intended'.
Further about player motivations....
Mike Sellers' Hypothesis
"The more persistence a game tries to have; the longer it is set up to last; the greater number (and broader variety) of people it tries to attract; and in general the more immersive a game/world it set out to be--then the more breadth and depth of human experience it needs to support to be successful for more than say, 12-24 months. If you try to create a deeply immersive, broadly appealing, long-lasting world that does not adequately provide for human tendencies such as violence, acquisition, justice, family, community, exploration, etc (and I would contend we are nowhere close to doing this), you will see two results: first, individuals in the population will begin to display a wide range of fairly predictable socially pathological behaviors (including general malaise, complaining, excessive bullying and/or PKing, harassment, territoriality, inappropriate aggression, and open rebellion against those who run the game); and second, people will eventually vote with their feet--but only after having passionately cast 'a pox on both your houses.' In essence, if you set people up for an experience they deeply crave (and mostly cannot find in real life) and then don't deliver, they will become like spurned lovers--somebecome sullen and aggressive or neurotic, and eventually almost all leave."
I aspects of the above that apply to this particular argument is that taking away tools and options that have existed since day one to a large number of players is making their world experience SMALLER - not larger. It makes those that crave a deeper experience have fewer options that are acceptable to them - and at NO BENEFIT TO MERCHANT AS A CLASS. I've seen the pox on both your houses in action time and time again - up close and personal - it ain't pretty.
Fine then. Don't call it an exploit. Call it a FIX on something that was broken because that's what it was.
Doesn't change the fact that the liklihood of your worst-case scenario coming true is fairly low. Could it happen? Sure ... just as it's also possible that a spaceship could land on my front yard - however I wouldn't bet on it.
Wire3k wrote:
The sky is falling! The sky is falling!
The Apocolypse is at hand!
Repent! Repent!
Ah I see the "Merchant of Doom and Gloom" is still at it. Well, you are persistant I have to give you that.
The fact is most players who log on want to do certain things. The majority of them are combat-centric. Only a small percentage of them will actually take the time out to even care. I'd venture to say that so few of them even know about whats happening with vendors, after this next patch the biggest change they will notice is actually pulling up the planetry registry and actually finding stocked vendors. In the end, thats all they care about: getting their weapons, armor, and supplies to go fight someone or something.
Go ahead and take this message to the GCW forum and see how far you get. I dare you. I double dog dare you.
Message Edited by MaDuece on 08-18-2004 09:21 AM
SeraphinAnnie wrote:
I am really starting to be amazed...is that you still don't get it. They are not fixing the bug "instead" of making merchant better, geesh. We have our day coming, totally seperate from this. Yes, THEY took away your ownership of free vendors. I'll say it again: They weren't ever supposed to be yours.
And I'll say this again - I HAVE a master merchant, I have a 3rd account with some merchant as well. What part of this is unclear?
As a merchant - what's best for ME - is what's best for EVERYONE. As a MERCHANT - my gameplay is diminished if others are handicapped, if equal and fair methods of distribution are denied to OTHERS. As a MERCHANT - turmoil and price dumping OR price spiking and monopolies (which can't exist NOW - but can if you mess with open markets) are BAD.
As a MERCHANT - *I* need a large array of tools to make my business work effectively and efficiently which we will never see if merchants as a class consider HAVING vendors the core defining aspect of the profession.
You want to be able to sell junk limitlessly, without investing anything into it.
I HAVE invested into it and I don't sell junk, thank you very much.