Merchant Archive
Thread: Nobody likes Merchant because they're doing it wrong
Noobs need a place to shopand the bazaar is a nice place for small items like stims, quest items, loot drops, resources,used weapons, clothing, backpacks, cheap armor, powerups, and the billion other things i forgot about.
After reading this post, the following thought occured to me:
- I don't like being forced to interact with other players to sell my quality products.
- I don't like people waiting for unrealiable people to keep my products stocked.
- I don't like people's attitudes in the game most of the time.
- I don't want to spend more money for an account that I can divide my time between combat and crafting.
Like I said before:
WHY NOT A SECOND CHARACTER ON EACH SERVER?
WHY NOT ALLOW MERCHANTS TO GRANT ADMIN?
WHY THE NERFING? ARE THE DEVS TRYING TO KILL THIS GAME?
Yolner, I hope you take the time to interact with people in the real world. Church is a wonderful place, full of great people filled with faith.
BaudGnarly wrote:
Yolner, I hope you take the time to interact with people in the real world. Church is a wonderful place, full of great people filled with faith.
Thats pretty weak.
Can't think of a counterpoint because youre WRONG so you go back to the old "You're a geek, I'm a real person with a life" insult.
I, like many other people who play MMOGs have a wife, kids, full time job, bills to pay, etc. AND STILL want a Multiplayer game to mean that you have to interact with other people. Thats why Im playing an MMOG instead of some single player game where I can do everything myself.
I know your comments werent directed at me personally, but your lame comments to insult someone because you disagree infuriates me.
Yolner,
You know what... you only need to spend 9 skill credits to get a vendor. I have to spend 24 points. So do scouts.
You talk about Merchant profession as if you are one, but seriously you aren't. Go and drop Master Weaponsmith and come back and post in a month and tell me how much fun you are really having.
Full-time professional Merchants and no other elite Artisan profession? Maybe a few people who wanna-be a shop in RL... but really how many do you know?
Merchant is a money making class? Combat classes and simply selling resources/power on the Bazaar will make you just as much. Supply ore to most architects and you'll be rolling in it.
I can see your need to sew Merchant up and have it as a nice play-thing for your Weaponsmith career.. but lets face some facts:
1) Most players suck. For every good merchant, there will be 100 lousy ones that are unreliable, slow to respond, difficult to communicate with. Nobody wants to deal with other players to just simply sell their product.
2)Merchant sucks.Seriously it's all about the product... do you honestly know any full-time merchants who do nothing else but merchant? Of course not.. they all have a primary crafting profession.
3) Merchant sucks. I dare you to drop Master Weaponsmith and do Merchant as a career. No way would you do that.
4) This game is losing way to many players as it is. Do we really need any more frustrations and gripes? Do we need any more reasons to quit or only log in once per week?
5) Yes this is a MMORPG... but that doesnt mean we have to group/interact for everything. Full-time professional merchants can go right ahead and make lots of money by reselling.... nothing stopping you. But leave other people out of it.
The real issue here is this game... the senseless swinging of the nerf bat... and the amount of people who are leaving.
I've gone from logging in every day to logging in 2-3 times a week max... and that's only to restock my vendor. A lot of my friends are already doing the same.
At least 50% of people on my contact list never log on anymore... and of the crafters I know ingame most of them echo my feelings that it's too boring, tedious, annoying, not-fun. etc. etc.
Why nerf what all of us think should be a basic skill available to all players?
Before you post more, friend... think about dropping Weaponsmith and consider would you really be a full-time merchant. Think about professions that don't get cheap access to a vendor.
Most importantly... don't be so quick to ask for the nerf bat.... what goes around comes around.
You know what... you only need to spend 9 skill credits to get a vendor. I have to spend 24 points. So do scouts.
Yah and you guys can fight better than me and you can have terran negotiation. Whats your point?
You talk about Merchant profession as if you are one, but seriously you aren't. Go and drop Master Weaponsmith and come back and post in a month and tell me how much fun you are really having.
When the devs fix merchant I will probably do that. Easier to resell than hunt resources and run the **edit** factories all day.
Full-time professional Merchants and no other elite Artisan profession? Maybe a few people who wanna-be a shop in RL... but really how many do you know?
Not too many people, but I believe that will change when the devs finally fix merchants.
Merchant is a money making class? Combat classes and simply selling resources/power on the Bazaar will make you just as much. Supply ore to most architects and you'll be rolling in it.
Lol you really dont know how much a good merchant can make do you. Just to give you an example I made 13 million in 1 day reselling sliced armor. Can someone selling ore on the bazaar touch that? No i didnt think so
I can see your need to sew Merchant up and have it as a nice play-thing for your Weaponsmith career.. but lets face some facts:
1) Most players suck. For every good merchant, there will be 100 lousy ones that are unreliable, slow to respond, difficult to communicate with. Nobody wants to deal with other players to just simply sell their product.
I think the problem here is that you dont like dealing with people in general. Try a single player game.
2)Merchant sucks.Seriously it's all about the product... do you honestly know any full-time merchants who do nothing else but merchant? Of course not.. they all have a primary crafting profession.
So what? They craft and resell at the same time. What your problem with that?
3) Merchant sucks. I dare you to drop Master Weaponsmith and do Merchant as a career. No way would you do that.
I could make 3x more money if i dropped weaponsmith picked up some smuggler and just sold sliced weapons/armor. Hell i would go straight merchant if it was working right.
4) This game is losing way to many players as it is. Do we really need any more frustrations and gripes? Do we need any more reasons to quit or only log in once per week?
Games always lose a lot of players in the first few months. In my guild tons of people came back in the last 2 months. The space expansion will bring even more players. If you dont log in for a week you dont like this game. Just try something else.
5) Yes this is a MMORPG... but that doesnt mean we have to group/interact for everything. Full-time professional merchants can go right ahead and make lots of money by reselling.... nothing stopping you. But leave other people out of it.
Yes it does mean that you have tointeract withother people for everything. THATS WHY WE HAVE A PLAYER ECONOMY.If you dont like people then play a single player game.
The real issue here is this game... the senseless swinging of the nerf bat... and the amount of people who are leaving.
The game needs balance just like every other game. People are leaving and people are coming back.
I've gone from logging in every day to logging in 2-3 times a week max... and that's only to restock my vendor. A lot of my friends are already doing the same.
So this game isnt for you. Try a single player game.
At least 50% of people on my contact list never log on anymore... and of the crafters I know ingame most of them echo my feelings that it's too boring, tedious, annoying, not-fun. etc. etc.
Thats funny because most of the people i know like this game. The point is if you and your friends hate it so much just leave.
Why nerf what all of us think should be a basic skill available to all players?
Who thinks that? The exploiters? They also want duping for everyone and god mode for everyone.
Before you post more, friend... think about dropping Weaponsmith and consider would you really be a full-time merchant. Think about professions that don't get cheap access to a vendor.
yes i would be a full time merchant if they devs would fix it. Like i said above i can make a lot more money just reselling.
Most importantly... don't be so quick to ask for the nerf bat.... what goes around comes around.
Read my lips ITS NOT A NERF ITS A FIX. I play amch and i know that beingfixed isnt alwaysfun but it has to be done sometimes Just deal with it.
1) Most players suck. For every good merchant, there will be 100 lousy ones that are unreliable, slow to respond, difficult to communicate with. Nobody wants to deal with other players to just simply sell their product.
Yes. Just like now for every good crafter there are 100 lousy, unreliable ones. People still deal with them. Why would it be different with a merchant? This is what youre failing to understand. It would be NO different than it is now. Crafters could always put the skill points into Merchant and sell their own things. Alot of them do it now. But the point is, they HAVE TO INVEST THE SKILL POINTS. Not just work their way up, place the vendors, then drop the points to something else. Instead of being Master Artisan, Master Weaponsmith, Master Armorsmith, etc all in one, they have to sacrifice one of those professions for Merchant.
Thats why the current system sucks. You get the benefit of the Merchant skill points without investing them.
2)Merchant sucks.Seriously it's all about the product... do you honestly know any full-time merchants who do nothing else but merchant? Of course not.. they all have a primary crafting profession.
This is why you're failing to understand. It's not JUST about the product. Merchant is a service profession. We don't actually produce anything ourselves, but we work to bring together alot of things that players need and are MUCH more invested in dealing with our customers than any crafter.
Wal-Mart doesn't produce anything. So why can they mark up their product and sell it above the cost of what they bought it from the wholesaler? It's because, for one, they provide one stop shopping. You don't have to go to the toy store to buy stores, then go to the janitorial store to buy cleaning supplies, then go to the pharmacy to buy asprin. You can buy it all at one place. People are willing to pay for that, thats part of what Merchants are able to provide.
People are also willing to pay to insure that they will be able to get what they want, when they want it. Merchants can draw from multiple crafters. If one crafter can't keep up with the amount of Stimpack B's I can sell, I can buy them from 2 different doctors. Whereas a Crafter Vendor would be out of stock until the crafter can make more, the dedicated Merchant uses the time he would have had to spend making the item to making arrangements with 2 or 3 different doctors so that he is ALWAYS supplied.
3) Merchant sucks. I dare you to drop Master Weaponsmith and do Merchant as a career. No way would you do that.
I was a merchant for several months before I sold ANYTHING I made myself. To this day, I make 10 times more credits selling my merchant goods that I bought from wholesalers and resold than I do sellingthe Master Crafted Weapons that I make myself. The only reason I took up Weaponsmithing is because there are no weaponsmiths willing to sell their products in bulk for resale.
4) This game is losing way to many players as it is. Do we really need any more frustrations and gripes? Do we need any more reasons to quit or only log in once per week?
Players in every single MMOG always claim that players are quitting in droves whenever there is something they dont like. The fact is that there will ALWAYS be alot of players who start playing MMOGs and decide they dont like dealing with other players and go back to playing Single Player Games. But you know what? The subscription rate is always rising. There are always new players to replace the ones who quit because they decided the game wasnt for them.
Far more people quit because of bugs and bad patches than do because they would have to invest an extra couple of skill points into merchant to sell their own things. *rolls eyes*
5) Yes this is a MMORPG... but that doesnt mean we have to group/interact for everything. Full-time professional merchants can go right ahead and make lots of money by reselling.... nothing stopping you. But leave other people out of it.
That's like when the Creature Handlers said "So what if I'm out making millions of credits a week hunting things by myself that were meant for groups of 10 or more. Im not hurting you".
All we're asking is for people to have to KEEP the skill points they invest in Merchant. You don't want to deal with other players to sell your Stimpacks? Fine. Invest your OWN skill points into Merchant and you can sell them yourself all you want. Nobody here is saying that you can ONLY be a merchant and nothing else. Just that if you want the benefits of a Merchant, you invest the skill points to do it.
Yolner wrote:
You know what... you only need to spend 9 skill credits to get a vendor. I have to spend 24 points. So do scouts.
Yah and you guys can fight better than me and you can have terran negotiation. Whats your point?
Who says I have Scout or the points to invest in it? And can I fight better than you, a Master TKA? Seriously... the nerf bat will not end here, because there are a lot of people unhappy about the survey/business skills that biased toward crafting professions based in Artisan... and not in Medic. Any nerfs to other professions because of your single-minded desire to exclusive-ize vendors is going to come back and bite EVERYONE.
You talk about Merchant profession as if you are one, but seriously you aren't. Go and drop Master Weaponsmith and come back and post in a month and tell me how much fun you are really having.
When the devs fix merchant I will probably do that. Easier to resell than hunt resources and run the **edit** factories all day.
Friend... let the devs FIX merchant first.. THEN nerf. I have seen WAY too much nerfing, nerfing, nerfing and not enough fixing. The devs removed hex colors for crafted items... did they add that to the Merchant tree? NO.
Stop asking for nerfs and start asking for FIXES. THEN, and only then do you ask for nerfs.
Full-time professional Merchants and no other elite Artisan profession? Maybe a few people who wanna-be a shop in RL... but really how many do you know?
Not too many people, but I believe that will change when the devs finally fix merchants.
I believe it won't change. And until the devs actually fix something I won't be moved from this position. FIX merchant... then NERF. If you endorse any other approach you are going to hurt yourself and this community more.
Merchant is a money making class? Combat classes and simply selling resources/power on the Bazaar will make you just as much. Supply ore to most architects and you'll be rolling in it.
Lol you really dont know how much a good merchant can make do you. Just to give you an example I made 13 million in 1 day reselling sliced armor. Can someone selling ore on the bazaar touch that? No i didnt think so
13 milllion in one day... a blip on the radar. You won't sell 13 mill of armor every day... money doesn't grow on trees and there is a limit of how much money can be pulled out of combat missions (unless of course you are a duper).
My point stands... if you want to make barrel loads of money, you've got many other options which are more reliable than Merchant re-selling.
And besides... 13 million? 30 million? 100 million? What's your point? Once you get over 10 million money is useless.
I can see your need to sew Merchant up and have it as a nice play-thing for your Weaponsmith career.. but lets face some facts:
1) Most players suck. For every good merchant, there will be 100 lousy ones that are unreliable, slow to respond, difficult to communicate with. Nobody wants to deal with other players to just simply sell their product.
I think the problem here is that you dont like dealing with people in general. Try a single player game.
I dont like dealing with people that waste my time, in a game or RL. The idea of a player middleman to sell my crafted items is another layer of tedium and frustration that nobody needs.
I get on fine with people in game. But just because I have to share the same house with them doesn't mean I want to share the same bed with them,
2)Merchant sucks.Seriously it's all about the product... do you honestly know any full-time merchants who do nothing else but merchant? Of course not.. they all have a primary crafting profession.
So what? They craft and resell at the same time. What your problem with that?
Hello? It's not fair that medics, doctors and bio-engineers have to pay an extra 15 skill credits for a vendor!
3) Merchant sucks. I dare you to drop Master Weaponsmith and do Merchant as a career. No way would you do that.
I could make 3x more money if i dropped weaponsmith picked up some smuggler and just sold sliced weapons/armor. Hell i would go straight merchant if it was working right.
As per my above comment... FIX first NERF later. I won't pretend to understand why you would want your fellow players nerfed with impunity when :
a) You are a dabbler yourself, and the odds are you will be nerfed to death as well (take CH for example)
b) You plan to switch to merchant to make money... but make money for what? I've got just over 50 million in the bank and so what?
Seriously... I said it once... I'll say it again. The devs need to FIX this profession first. Hex colours would be a good place to start. Make it worthwhile as a standalone profession first.
Let dedicated merchants start to thrive and become available BEFORE the entire bloody economy ends up in a shambles again!!!
4) This game is losing way to many players as it is. Do we really need any more frustrations and gripes? Do we need any more reasons to quit or only log in once per week?
Games always lose a lot of players in the first few months. In my guild tons of people came back in the last 2 months. The space expansion will bring even more players. If you dont log in for a week you dont like this game. Just try something else.
I do the like the game.. but I hate seeing it nerfed before it's fixed. FIX before nerf. It's the simple.
5) Yes this is a MMORPG... but that doesnt mean we have to group/interact for everything. Full-time professional merchants can go right ahead and make lots of money by reselling.... nothing stopping you. But leave other people out of it.
Yes it does mean that you have tointeract withother people for everything. THATS WHY WE HAVE A PLAYER ECONOMY.If you dont like people then play a single player game.
Friend... we have NEVER had a player economy. Between the class nerfs, the credit dupes, the multi-slicing and the entire inventory/housing content losses.... what part of a player economy have we actually enjoyed?
I can think of 3 people straight away who quit when the second credit dupe hit. They were architects and armoursmiths.... and despite all their hard work and effort there were people ordering off them saying things like "I want it now, charge me any price".
If the Merchant class was actually workable, if the player economy actually existed.... there might be some basis for a dialogue along these lines.
But there isn't. We have no economy, and we certainly don't have any competent, dedicated merchants to fill the void if vendors are nerfed.
The real issue here is this game... the senseless swinging of the nerf bat... and the amount of people who are leaving.
The game needs balance just like every other game. People are leaving and people are coming back.
No they aren't. Because our PA alone lost 6 people over the last 3 months and none of them have come back. They are playing Horizons, FFXII or waiting for World of Warcraft.
How do I know this? Because I talk to them.
I've gone from logging in every day to logging in 2-3 times a week max... and that's only to restock my vendor. A lot of my friends are already doing the same.
So this game isnt for you. Try a single player game.
Because I don't want my crafting business to be stymmied and controlled by another player I should play a single player game? Tell me you are just being stubborn and argumentitive and this is not your real solution or response?
At least 50% of people on my contact list never log on anymore... and of the crafters I know ingame most of them echo my feelings that it's too boring, tedious, annoying, not-fun. etc. etc.
Thats funny because most of the people i know like this game. The point is if you and your friends hate it so much just leave.
Well we are obviously not leaving because we are enjoying it. But the point is.. we don't need another blow to our enjoyment and fun by having an essential crafting skill nerfed before they even fix the profession.
How about you channel your vocal responses into the Development forums and get them to fix this class??????
Why nerf what all of us think should be a basic skill available to all players?
Who thinks that? The exploiters? They also want duping for everyone and god mode for everyone.
Well I could say you are an exploiter, for getting plantetary registration at 3-0-0-0. If we follow the CH method, you'll be forced to go 1-1-1-1 then 2-2-2-2 then 3-3-3-3 before you get plantery advertising.
We are not talking about exploiters here... we are talking about a basic crafting profession skill: to sell ones own products effectively!!!!
Before you post more, friend... think about dropping Weaponsmith and consider would you really be a full-time merchant. Think about professions that don't get cheap access to a vendor.
yes i would be a full time merchant if they devs would fix it. Like i said above i can make a lot more money just reselling.
FIX FIRST NERF LATER
Most importantly... don't be so quick to ask for the nerf bat.... what goes around comes around.
Read my lips ITS NOT A NERF ITS A FIX. I play amch and i know that beingfixed isnt alwaysfun but it has to be done sometimes Just deal with it.
ITS A NERF!
The Merchant class is broken
The player economy is broken
Hex code colouring is gone.
If you "fix" the vendor thing before you fix everything else... Im afraid in terms of gameplay and enjoyment this will be the single biggest game-breaking event to occour after the last major credit dupe.
Who says I have Scout or the points to invest in it? And can I fight better than you, a Master TKA? Seriously... the nerf bat will not end here, because there are a lot of people unhappy about the survey/business skills that biased toward crafting professions based in Artisan... and not in Medic. Any nerfs to other professions because of your single-minded desire to exclusive-ize vendors is going to come back and bite EVERYONE.
Your bitching about how much it costs to get a vendor and im saying that you have to spend more since your a fighter not a crafter. Is that too hard to understand? Medics are support classes not purecrafters. If you want to be a crafter medic get artisan skills and if you want to fight get Doc/tka. The devs dont want everyone to do everything.
Friend... let the devs FIX merchant first.. THEN nerf. I have seen WAY too much nerfing, nerfing, nerfing and not enough fixing. The devs removed hex colors for crafted items... did they add that to the Merchant tree? NO.
Stop asking for nerfs and start asking for FIXES. THEN, and only then do you ask for nerfs.
FOR THE LAST FRIGGIN TIME ITS A FIX NOT A NERF. FIXING AN EXPLOIT THAT ALLOWS EVERYONE TO USE OUR SKILLS WITHOUT THE SKILL BOXES IS NOT A NERF.
I believe it won't change. And until the devs actually fix something I won't be moved from this position. FIX merchant... then NERF. If you endorse any other approach you are going to hurt yourself and this community more.
The firststep is toFIX this exploit. Hell adding new features and not fixing the exploit is just about the biggest nerfmerchant can get.
13 milllion in one day... a blip on the radar. You won't sell 13 mill of armor every day... money doesn't grow on trees and there is a limit of how much money can be pulled out of combat missions (unless of course you are a duper).
13 million is probably more than anyone selling resources on the bazaar will make in a few weeks. What does this have to do with combat missions anyway.
My point stands... if you want to make barrel loads of money, you've got many other options which are more reliable than Merchant re-selling.
Actually2/3 of my money comes from reselling.
And besides... 13 million? 30 million? 100 million? What's your point? Once you get over 10 million money is useless.
Maybe for you. Serious crafter have resources to buy you know.
I dont like dealing with people that waste my time, in a game or RL. The idea of a player middleman to sell my crafted items is another layer of tedium and frustration that nobody needs.
Umm just sell to the reseller. Problem solved.
I get on fine with people in game. But just because I have to share the same house with them doesn't mean I want to share the same bed with them,
Hello? It's not fair that medics, doctors and bio-engineers have to pay an extra 15 skill credits for a vendor!
Fine then itsnot fair that doctors can buff/heal and bio engineers can make pets/stims. When artisans can do that you can have vendors for free.
As per my above comment... FIX first NERF later. I won't pretend to understand why you would want your fellow players nerfed with impunity when :
Exactly fix the exploit first and add new features later.
a) You are a dabbler yourself, and the odds are you will be nerfed to death as well (take CH for example)
Hello Master Weaponsmith/Master Artisan/Master Merchant here. Dabbler my ass
b) You plan to switch to merchant to make money... but make money for what? I've got just over 50 million in the bank and so what?
Do you know how much pearls cost?
Seriously... I said it once... I'll say it again. The devs need to FIX this profession first. Hex colours would be a good place to start. Make it worthwhile as a standalone profession first.
Exactly FIX THE **edit** EXPLOIT FIRST.
Let dedicated merchants start to thrive and become available BEFORE the entire bloody economy ends up in a shambles again!!!
**edit** are you talking about? People will adapt just like they did to everything soe did before good and bad. If the exploiters quit then new people will take their place.
I do the like the game.. but I hate seeing it nerfed before it's fixed. FIX before nerf. It's the simple.
Ok when will you understand that FIXING AN EXPLOIT != NERF
Friend... we have NEVER had a player economy. Between the class nerfs, the credit dupes, the multi-slicing and the entire inventory/housing content losses.... what part of a player economy have we actually enjoyed?
Do you know what a player economy means? It means that players craft all the items for other players. So it does exist and it works just fine.
I can think of 3 people straight away who quit when the second credit dupe hit. They were architects and armoursmiths.... and despite all their hard work and effort there were people ordering off them saying things like "I want it now, charge me any price".
So what? Dupes suck just like ALL THE OTHER EXPLOITS
If the Merchant class was actually workable, if the player economy actually existed.... there might be some basis for a dialogue along these lines.
It is workable and the economy exists. Youare part ofit every time you buy/sell something in this game.
But there isn't. We have no economy, and we certainly don't have any competent, dedicated merchants to fill the void if vendors are nerfed.
FIXING AN EXPLOIT!= NERF
No they aren't. Because our PA alone lost 6 people over the last 3 months and none of them have come back. They are playing Horizons, FFXII or waiting for World of Warcraft.
How do I know this? Because I talk to them.
People leaving your PA doesnt mean a **edit** thing. More than 10 people came back to swg in my PA.Untill SOE releases subscription data (whenit snows in hell)nobody can really prove anything here.
Because I don't want my crafting business to be stymmied and controlled by another player I should play a single player game? Tell me you are just being stubborn and argumentitive and this is not your real solution or response?
Nobodycan control your business if you simply sell to a few different resellers. You get your money and you dont have to run vendors.
Well we are obviously not leaving because we are enjoying it. But the point is.. we don't need another blow to our enjoyment and fun by having an essential crafting skill nerfed before they even fix the profession.
I think exploiters do need a blow to their enjoyment and fun. Ohh and FIXING AN EXPLOIT != NERF
How about you channel your vocal responses into the Development forums and get them to fix this class??????
No i think i will just keep you exploiters from crawling all over our boards.
Well I could say you are an exploiter, for getting plantetary registration at 3-0-0-0. If we follow the CH method, you'll be forced to go 1-1-1-1 then 2-2-2-2 then 3-3-3-3 before you get plantery advertising.
Hey once again MASTER ARTISAN/MASTER WEAPONSMITH/ MASTER MERCHANT. Dabbler my ass
We are not talking about exploiters here... we are talking about a basic crafting profession skill: to sell ones own products effectively!!!!
They can sell their products just fine with a business 3 vendor or the bazaar and medics are not a crafting profession.
FIX FIRST NERF LATER
FIXING AN EXPLOIT != NERF
ITS A NERF!
NO ITS NOT. LETTIN EXPLOITERS LIKE YOU KEEP USING OUR SKILLS IS A NERF
The Merchant class is broken
Yes it is. Everyone can use our vendors without any skills.
The player economy is broken
No its not. If you buy your items from other people the player economy is working just fine
Hex code colouring is gone.
Big friggin deal.
If you "fix" the vendor thing before you fix everything else... Im afraid in terms of gameplay and enjoyment this will be the single biggest game-breaking event to occour after the last major credit dupe.
Maybe its going to be the single biggest game-breaking event for all you exploiters but its along awaited fix for everyone else.
Enix_Dayspring wrote:
From the very beginning, the Merchant profession was supposed to be someone who bought crafted items and resold them for a profit.
But I've been reading more and more from people wanting the Merchant profession done away with because they're doing it wrong.
I've been reading several posts of people who are using SOMEONE ELSES VENDORS (that person has the merchant profession), paying them a small fee to stock the vendor and set adbarking, etc. But in reality the CRAFTER is controlling things and the MERCHANT is simply acting as stockboy.
In the above method of operations, I can see how the "merchant" is more of a pain since it's still the crafter doing the work, but having to do it through another person and coordinating schedules, etc.
But is this really the way the Merchant is SUPPOSED to be played?
The succesful merchant buys in bulk and resells the items at a marked up price.
I have a contact who supplies me with Spice. I go to him once a week and say "This week, I need 20 crates of Muon Gold and 10 crates of Neutron Pixie".
He says "That'll be 210k credits (at our agreed upon rate of 7k per crate).
I pick up the crates (or he delivers). This is the end of the crafters involvment. He doesn't deal with customers, he doesn't pay vendor maintenance or shop maintenance fees. He simply supplies bulk amounts of crafted items and makes a good profit for his troubles.
Iplace the crates of producton the vendor at 11k.Set ad barking, send out emails of specials to regular customers who have requested them, pay vendor maintenance, etc. For my troubles, I make a 4k per item profit, minus maintenance fees and time spent dealing with customers.
So why is it that this arrangement is looked upon as undesirable by so many crafters? It is these crafters who want to sell their OWN products without investing the skill points in the Merchant profession that are complaining about the idea of only Merchants having vendors.
Am I the only onewho sees the above explained arrangement as being desirable? Especially for weaponsmiths or armorsmiths who hate being bothered by their customers. Simply supply your goods to a merchant and let them deal with the crazy people.
There are actually three models for sales that you could adapt in the game.
The first iswholesaler-retailerthat you've outlines.
And that works just fine. There are plenty of merchants who buy bulk/wholesale from crafters and resell those items.
This method encourages relationship building, which is a strong motivation of the designers. But due to the transient nature of online games does have pitfalls. It can be difficult to establish and maintain these relationships to ensure a constant supply.
There's nothing wrong with that method of selling. And it can be a very satisfying for both the wholesaler and the retailer.
This method works mainly because the merchant already controls the vendor and does their own pricing for items.
And the game features for vendor control are already adequate for performing this function.
The second is producer/seller.
Where the person makes the items and sells them.
This is the crafter that takes Merchant so they can sell their own items and is probably the most common method used in the game.
Although it might not be the most realistic model, it's the most expedient. The person that produces the item controls how, where, when and for how much the item is sold. It also requires fewer steps move items to the customer.
The same adequate vendor controls are used by this person.
The other iscommission/consignment.
There are many crafters that would like to 'rent' space and abilites from a merchant.
They would like to produce items and sell them, but don't wish to spend the skill points to get the abilities. So they are willing to use money instead of skill points to achieve their objective.
This is the method that we could/should use the Offer feature to facilitate.
The problem with this feature is that is requires several, simple yet time consuming, steps to facilitate the exchange of items between producer and seller.
I see thisshortcoming (besides the people that just want free abilities) as the main problem with using current vendors.
There was another thread that started discussing implementation of a feature set that could make this method a viable and expedient means of selling items for other people.
This discussion outlined a means, using a vendor Admin List and other vendor and bazaar features already in the gamethat wouldallow merchants to offer this method of sale to all players.
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=merchant&message.id=20355