Merchant Archive

THESE ARE EXACTLY THE ATTITUDES THAT THE BUSINESS 3 VENDORS HELP PROPAGATE THAT WE MERCHANTS DO NOT LIKE.

Yet both of the people who you quoted are merchants.

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<Ninyania Quote>

I'm quite happy running my own shoppe, stocked to the gills with Tailorin-goodness. Personally, I have ZERO need for an external merchant ...

</quote>

THESE ARE EXACTLY THE ATTITUDES THAT THE BUSINESS 3 VENDORS HELP PROPAGATE THAT WE MERCHANTS DO NOT LIKE.

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And if you take my vendorS away, I'll STILL have no use for a "pure merchant" contract. I do enough hand-crafted on-demand tailoring to keep myself in credits til the cows come home.

And, I'm NOT a "Business 3" person. I'm sitting at Hiring 4.

As a pure merchant, I want my class to mean something. I agree with most things that have been stated, however, there's a glaring flaw at the core of our class. An artisan-merchant will always beat a pure merchant. How? Simple economics.

Artisan-merchant - Resources cost ~1-2 cpu. They then take what profit they need/want and add it to that cost. Then they sell.

Pure merchant - Resources cost ~1-2 cpu. The artisan constructing the item takes what profit they want, and sells to the merchant. The merchant then needs to push up their prices in order to cover maintenance. They also need to maintain stock, lots of it, in order to push selling.

Where's the interclass requirements? High end 'smithing requires items from other professions. Why not require merchanting? As it stands, any artisan worth their salt who isn't a grind monkey is cranking out their own items and running their own stores. At the end of the day, there's no way to compete, and the pure merchant loses out.

How to stop this? Put in required interoperability. Make merchant not a "sidebar" to other classes. Perhaps class limits? I'm already facing artisan-merchants who can undercut me to zero or negative profitability. Give merchants bonuses to their MXP for selling items they didn't make. Give them bonuses that make sense only to merchants. Give them much larger % off vendor maintenance for their bulk loads of items.

Right now, the top merchants on my server are artisan-merchants. Their prices are the best. *shrugs* I currently exist on the fact that I can buy and move large bulk orders, and the artisans I know are willing to give me money off. Most just don't need it anymore. There is currently no compelling reason to play a pure merchant, much like there was no compelling reason to play a shepherd in UO.

As a pure merchant, I want my class to mean something

There is NO SUCH THING as a 'pure merchant'.

Unless you are trying to tell me you have 157 skillpoints just sitting around you never ever intend to use.

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XCal78 wrote:
Business 3 should be reduced bazaar fees not a vendor. Doesn't matter what you do to merchant but business 3 vendor needs to go.

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Reduced bazaar fees? Reduced from what? 20 credits. Pfft!

Now if the bazaar fee was still 300 credits, the way it was for a few weeks at the end of beta, I might see your point.

That's the problem with a lot of the efficiency ideas. I look at efficiency and reduced maintenance on my house and harvestors? By the time you get enough merchant xp to get those skills, the costs on harvestors are trivial to you. (BTW in terms of "original intent" if "real merchants" aren't supposed to be crafters, why does effiency give you lower costs on harvestors?)

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Wire3k wrote:

There is NO SUCH THING as a 'pure merchant'.

Unless you are trying to tell me you have 157 skillpoints just sitting around you never ever intend to use.

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I class myself as a "pure" merchant - I have no crafting abilities whatsoever (sold back Engineering and Domestic Arts) - No I don't have 157 skill points hanging around - They have been used on Scouting, Marksman, and Entertainer, things totally unrelated to merchanting / crafting- I am however a "pure" merchant as it is my primary profession, and I have no crafting abilities (I have never sold a single thing I crafted.)