Merchant Archive

Being a Merchant is more than just having a vendor. As you can see from the countless idiots that have EMPTY poached vendors across the galaxies. There are in fact more vendors than houses. A merchant is responsible for 1 thing, selling. Using Merchant tents, advertising (real advertising not the vendor listing crap), being concious of stock. People say that it would include too much vendor stocking and that on that basis alone reject the vendor fix. Clue: WE LIKE VENDOR STOCKING WE'RE MERCHANTS....dingbat. Merchants comb the galaxies brokering deals and looking for hidden treasures. So take that information poachers and shove it where the sun doesnt shine. We are sick and tired of hearing about how you want Free abilities at the cost of our gameplay.

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SargusQuintek wrote:

You have nothing to offer them other than shelf space for their stuff. You do not package their goods. You do not handle them or ship them. All you will do is stock them. For this you will ask for a percentage of the sale?

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• merchant is supposed to be a viable profession by itself


• vendors are intended to be ran only by merchants who have the skills to do so


• arguing against eitehr of the two above will get you flamed/mocked etc.

but yet people continue to post drivel in direct opposition to these two fundamental premises. After seemingly endless debate, I only have the energy to 'flame'. I try to keep it short and sweet while expressing discontent. If I had the time, I would reference people back to the umpteen million threads on the same subject andmy posts their, however, I don't.

So,

/throws eggs

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StumanKadir wrote:

Just for the record, I am a Master Architect/Master Artisan, am the Mayor of a Level 5 city and have been operating Vendors almost since the server went live.

To keep the game interesting, I have just about mastered swordsman, and am in the process of re-picking up my Merchant skills to 0/0/0/3 at the expense of my politician skills

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Right there, I bolded it. I'm a master DE, I had to make a decision, do I want to be a BH or stay a DE. I can't make droids and be a BH.

Make a choice, keep Swordsman and Politician, or run your own vendors. You can't do both. You got a lot of post there, lot of bad things that can happen. Only thing is, none of them will, if the folks pick up their merchant skills again, like their supposed to have.

As a master crafter, your doom is my boon. I choose to make the sacrifice in points, those that don't will be just less competition for me in the long run, probly end up a customer instead at some point.

Also, would not be surprised if most serious crafters purchsed a second account to be their master merchant.

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ZeckAzuenden wrote:
Also, would not be surprised if most serious crafters purchsed a second account to be their master merchant.

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That is it RIGHT there. that is probably the sole reason the DEVs are keeping merchant in the game, and the only reason they would get rid of vendor poaching.

It will encourage people to pay for secondary accounts. Making more money for them -- and then they can even say the population is growing. How convenient for them.

And that is what I was going to suggest to the guy... just get a secondary account, like most people do who are politician/merchant -- because both suck to actually 'play' because you can't really 'do' anything with them -- and keep the politician/merchant on the first one, and just be swordsman/architect/artisan on the secondary. That way you get the best of both worlds. Can still have fun, and at the same time, when you need your utility professions, you can log them on.

For the record I do have merchant, 3 rows of it. I have been vendoring for about 7 years now which came from Ultima Online to here. Many of you have presented your arguments that merchant should be fixed on vendors. None of you have convinced me yet. Further more, do most of you not realize this fix is going to totally upset the player base? Do you know how many countless players will quit if vendorschanged before storage issues are resolved? I'm guessing most of you will say so what, let them quit. I guarantee you SOE is not saying that

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DragonScout wrote:


That is it RIGHT there. that is probably the sole reason the DEVs are keeping merchant in the game, and the only reason they would get rid of vendor poaching.

It will encourage people to pay for secondary accounts. Making more money for them -- and then they can even say the population is growing. How convenient for them.

That's because of the 250 points limitation. Doesn't matter whether it's merchant or another profession, at some point people always find something more that they want to do. That being said... with the changes to Jedi, it will make it possible to have a secondary character without having to have a second account, so why would they do this if they really wanted to encourage people to get a new account? The reasons they are getting rid of vendor poaching is because it's a bug... Or are you implying that they put in the bug on purpose to force people to get a second account when they fix it?

lol. honestly, I wouldn't put it past them. but you are right, it is a bit far fetched.

I think they set it up that way because they didn't want to deal with a system that could possibly have bugs that would delete legit vendors. Just think of the customer service nightmare THAT would be. And at this point, I wouldn't be surprised if merchant went the way of miner, or at the very least went the way of the pilot professions and instead of keeping a real skill point cost they will have it use 'phantom' skill points. It would make the greater portion of the customer base happy -- which is essentially their primary concern.

Who do you think the DEVs want to please more? the 50% or whatever that are primarily crafters with a bit of merchant on the side? or the what, 1% that are 'true' merchants who are other professions on the side? This is part of why I have been saying the majority of posts (regardless of people coming in here reposting the same questions over and over -- grow up if you can't handle things like that -- it is called the 'real world' ) should be focused on expanding the merchant profession as a whole into something that is viable on its own. Instead of just focusing on making it the best darn stand alone utility profession it can be.

If I was SOE, which I guess you 'true' merchants are happy I am not -- hehe, I would say forget it, and just require people to get business 4, and as long as you had business 4, you could work up through the merchant profession but it wouldn't take any skill points. It would make it more obviously what it already is, a utility profession. But that is just what I would do. And then, they wouldn't even have to worry about expanding the profession at all. Which in the end, would save them time.

As far as the secondary character slot, while I am sure some people will use it for merchant instead of a jedi... most people will be using it primarily to turn SWG into KOTOR online. I for one am not planning to bother with jedi. I am going to use my second slot for shipwright/droid engineer/merchant and maybe weaponsmith. just depends. hehe.

Well, after all is said and done, the change is going to happen irrespective of whether people are going to like it or not.

As its been stated here ad nauseum, its a bug, and SOE are in the business now of fixing bugs.

The way players in game react to this fix will be largely determined by their own game playing experience. If they really hate it they will either quit the game or quit crafting. If they have the skill points available they'll revert to dabbling. If they have a good relationship with a trustworthy existing merchant, they will go that way. Those lucky enough or rich enough will create a second account, and those that are dedicated enough will use their Jedi alt to hold the skills.

I agree that this fix has not been made to date for the very reason that it will screw a lot of people over. I agree that at present the Merchant profession really has no need for existing because of this bug and kudos should go to the people who have persisted with it for so long.

I also agree that this fix will seriously break the game economy in a major way and will not resolve any of the issues that the serious merchants want resolved. The busier locations will see players organise their vendors so that they can drop and pickup the merchant management skills as needed, or will drop their merchant numbers back to maybe 1 or 2 leading to massively overstocked isolated vendors.

Myselfand others have our opinions on this matter, and you guys (the dedicated merchants) have yours. They will never match up, there is no happy medium point we can agree on. You have won the chalice and for the sake of the game, I hope that you find its not a poisoned one.

I'm done with this topic as I play this game for enjoyment, not for anger and frustration. And this issue and the "head in the sand" attitudes of some in here causes me nothing but anger and frustration - both towards your profession, and towards the game mechanics as a whole.

I wisheveryone good luck,we are going to need it.

Message Edited by StumanKadir on 06-09-2004 02:37 PM

Stuman,

We are on the same server and we in Mos Vegas started preparing for this well over a month ago. We will have plenty of merchants because we have rallied everyone and informed them of the concequences. We have a couple of master merchants now and more grinding.

The issue you habe is fundamentally in your title.

This is not a change it is a bug FIX that should have been fixed MONTHS ago.

The devs have stated emphatically that it was never intended that people could manage vendors after dropping the skill to do so.

I do agree there should be a consigment system that is a game mechanic so each party has no worries in the transfer. Maybe if the devs would have fixed this much earlier it would be in place now. Maybe the crafting community will now push the devs for that, they have not done so yet. I know my main is a crafter lol.