Merchant Archive

I'm sure the first thing they'll add to the Merchant class is a new schematic for a PICKET SIGN...

HaH! This class really is a thorn in my side, only reason I'm still with it is because I thought from the beginning it would be REALLY COOL to have a shop...I Could have 3 Rancors by now and be running across the fields carelessly whacking everything in site....

All complaining aside, I do like Efficiency IV and Hiring IV ( I like playing dress-up with my vendors, woot! hours of endless entertainment....hah! )

For Christ's Sake ..............DEV's PAY ATTENTION TO US! .............PLEASE!!!!!!! ( pretty please?)

We should really form a support group..

At night... when I lay down to sleep... I cry...

Maintenance costs are reduced by 20%, and it works great. I love it, and was the original reason I started working my way through the merchant profession.

Alright, how about some possible solutions?

Give Merchants extra lots? Possibly just the ability to have small houses on the populated planets, along with the normal 10 lots?

More vendors, to go in more shops (2 per shop, maybe? Linked to number of houses?)

Link Advertising to Bazaars.

Fix the bugs, of course, but even then it would still be a somewhat useless profession. Possibly an elite-elite profession of galactic trader to follow?

I don't really mind the ad barking. Advertising is the next skill for me to pick up, and I'm hoping it will be useful, due to my location, so I'd hope that will be useful. Also, Master Merchant definately needs some perks.

There definately is gain to be made by not being an AFK entertainer. Do you tip AFK's? Because I don't. Also, if you have time sometime, visit The Oasis on Tarquinas. It's between Mos Taike and Mos Entha. It'll be one of the biggest cities in the game, and it all started as a Cantina in a Med. House, which was popular because of the people that played at the Fallen Star since the first week. Now a PA that pretty much isn't at max because they put a membership freeze on it. None of the entertainers are AFK, unless they aren't playing.

But yes, Merchant is definately a weak profession. Although the most broken profession is still Vehicle Engineer

Sunday of this week was the last time I logged into my Master Merchant character. Not because of frustration or anything, but because I had to go out of town until today. My vendors were stocked and my business partner was drilled on what he needed to do in my absence (which he couldn't because he forgot my password) and I took a much needed break from this addictive Hell called SWG.

I have become very negative over the last few months, starting near the end of Beta when they said it was going to launch, bugs and all. It has felt like every bug, exploit and nerf was aimed directly at me to make my gaming experience the worst it could possibly be. I KNOW this isn't the case, but let a man go insane without rubbing his face in it, please.

I would like to think that this break has given me a much need perspective shift and, as such, will reflect on my "less" negative postings on this and other forums....hmmn.

That said, Merchant is indeed broken and, as long as there is a vendor available in the Artisan tree, useless. Sure, we get some decent reductions to bazaar and structure fees/costs, but aside from dressing a vendor up in Chitin armor I have seen little to recommend the profession to anyone else. I have made multiple suggestions about bringing the bazaar cost reduction out of Merchant and down into Artisan and visversa (sp?) with the Business III vendor and have even gone so far as to recommend that the title for Business IV be changed to Salesman and reserve the Businessman title for those who earned it as a Merchant.

But all of this talk concerning the Merchant class will come to no avail simply because I have only seen one "Red Shirt" response (a Dev, in case you don't get it) on this forum. Even the post concerning the "Sales tax" thing was posted on a different forum. It doesn't raise my hopes that all of the earnest and intelligent discussion concerning our profession is being seen by those who could use it to better our profession.

Its just a suggestion, but why don't we take our rants, raves and reviews to the SWG discussion forum. Only there do I see regular responses by the Dev's. The Combat people have done so, and so should we. If anyone says we should move the discussion back to this board we can either ignore them and continue our discussion or explain politely that we get no response here and have moved our discussions to where they might be read. I am not saying this will work, but I have all but given up hope of a response in this forum and post here only to communicate with others of my profession.

Vaylis Arturin, Mercenary Master Merchant and Master Artisan on Starsider

Home office Moenia, Naboo

Coming Soon! Crazy Vaylis' Used Speeders

I had Master Merchant. For about a week. And quit. Cold. I could have lived with everything else that was broken about this profession, but when I found out that the "7 day" rule wasn't a bug, it was an intended feature, and that the developers were flatly determined not to get rid of it - I wound down my sales, scheduled a quit date for a week out, and stuck to it. I released all of my Merchant points, and went back to using an Artisan Business IV Standard Terminal as a glorified mailbox - and it's usually empty.

To be a merchant, you basically have to commit to staying in your store, the whole time you are logged on - never go to the bar, never go hunting with friends, never take an afternoon to do the necessary surveying and moving of harvesters it takes to sell resources or craft anything. Nope, to be a merchant in SWG is to do nothing but stand in your house and buy and sell, all day long, the whole time you're logged on. Sure, you'll make money hand over fist. You won't have time to spend it, though.

It would not surprise me if there were one or two people per server who wanted to do this. It would very, very much surprise me if there were more than that. Which means that once people smarten up to how badly this profession sucks, SOE will be maintaining (or not maintaining) an entire profession for 30 or so Master Merchants and a couple of hundred merchant-wannabes who haven't yet figured out why they'd rather do anything else.

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BradBradley wrote:

when I found out that the "7 day" rule wasn't a bug, it was an intended feature, and that the developers were flatly determined not to get rid of it - I wound down my sales, scheduled a quit date for a week out, and stuck to it

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Do you have a dev quote for that? If the 7-day thing for vendor sales actually IS intended to be that way, and not a bug, I'll probably do the same. I've made my million already, anyway. I doubt I'll really need to earn money again in this game.

If the devs are really that determined to make operating a player-run economybe THAT annoying and UN-fun, they can come run it themselves.

I'm sitting in my office watching the sun go down..literally and figuratively. I've had one of the most productive days in the company's history....having created a new sales program that is already breaking all previous records at a third of the cost.

However I'm a tad sad..because my OTHER project today was to get a Dev to acknowledge we exist. I went as far as to risk my ACCOUNT on a ploy for Dev love..but I was completely ignored.

I know I'm ONE bothan in ONE profession out of hundreds of thousands of players in many professions..but I thought the light might shine on us just for a moment.

Instead I read every darn post on credit duping. I log onto SWG to make credits..it's a game within a game to me and I enjoy it..and now it seems that game is over. And I lost. I lost to a 13 year old with too much time on his hands who with no skill or panache learned to make money from thin air..while I WORK to make it with a buggy vendor system, punitively underimplemented skills, and an environment that is practically hostile to commerce.

There's always tomorrow fellow merchants..tomorrow we may see a glimmer of hope. Tomorrow our cries may be heard.

Of course maybe I'm taking this a bit too seriously..but my playtime is as valuable to me as my worktime...and I don't want to spend it unhappy.

Until tomorrow

/bump

Want to see 1000 posts. Maybe we should do this in Development forum.