Merchant Archive
Thread: The Merchant Profession: What works and what doesn't?
p4Samwise
Thu Jun 17, 2004 1:53 pm
#40
That's how Balki responds whenever someone talks about adding functionality to the Merchant profession. He dismisses it as "useless fluff." Look in any thread he's posted in in the past few days, you'll see plenty of examples.
Mind you, he's the only merchant I've seen who does that, but he is very vocal about it.
Haruspex77
Thu Jun 17, 2004 2:09 pm
#41
Well, I have been fairly clear about my disinterest in the cosmetic and role-playing skills, but I have a different primary meaning in my head for "fluff", and amvery fond of my fluffer.
But I know that many fluffers are fond of playing barbie-doll.
p4Samwise
Fri Jun 18, 2004 12:10 am
#42
QFE, and 100% agreement. No other class is forced to invest so much XP and so manyskill points for what's essentially a "role-playing benefit".
Haruspex77 wrote:
DocSavag wrote:
[snip]Again I detest the argument that something is useless..but everyone wants it. Well if they want it it isn't useless. [snip]
Merchant has a lot of skills that are useless, but fun to many people. Dressing vendors, choosing their race, and teaching them to say interesting things is as valuable for role playing as nice clothes and furniture. It also seems to have little or no impact on sales, tho some opinionsmay differ.
p4Samwise
Fri Jun 18, 2004 12:26 am
#43
If you want vendors that have an interesting appearance, though (again, suppose you're a Droid Engineer and you want a protocol droid as your vendor because it'd fit with your shop's "look"), you are currently forced to take the Hiring Line (and in the protocol droid case, Master Merchant) to achieve that look.
Contrast thiswith other elements of the game that have modifiable "looks" for role-playing purposes- if you want to change your hairstyle, you can pay an ID, or if you want to decorate your house, you can buy the decorations and do the job yourself.
I get the sense that folks who like the Hiring line where it is aren't into role-playing at all and hence don't really use it anyway... am I mistaken?
Songe
Fri Jun 18, 2004 12:37 am
#44
No, but again I think that that line is a waste, but that's just me lol.
p4Samwise
Fri Jun 18, 2004 12:41 am
#45
See, I find this to be a rather unfortunate pattern.The folks who want the Hiring line kept as an elite merchant skill are the ones who don't see any use for it whatsoever... but damned if they'll let anyone else have it! 
This is what really indicates to me that Merchant needs some more benefits... people are clinging to the ones that they don't even use, simply because there's so little to cling to.
This is what really indicates to me that Merchant needs some more benefits... people are clinging to the ones that they don't even use, simply because there's so little to cling to.
Songe
Fri Jun 18, 2004 12:44 am
#46
Well actually I am sure that some people find it useful. Personally I'd rather have it combined with management as well... I don't really care if people keep a good looking vendor without the skills, what bothers me is they keep the benefit of skills they don't use. Just the principle really.
But I don't think anyone is arguing that merchant needs more benefits.
sparkz1111
Fri Jun 18, 2004 10:32 am
#47
well the most fun thing about merchant was dropping it all and getting all my skill points back 
Dremvek
Fri Jun 18, 2004 11:04 am
#48
This thread has sparked a new idea for me: How about if a player's merchant ability was related to the vendor UI? For instance, if a player comes in and looks at a Business 3 Vending machine, the UI is what is currently available now. However, looking at a Master Merchant's vendor, the inventory is properly sorted, searchable, filterable, etc. In other words, we only get the "reworked" vendor UI (if it ever comes about) at master merchant (and smaller improvements throughout the Merchant tree on the way to master). This would enable master merchants to have the easiest way to restock and sell items, while artisans have a rougher time.
This correlates nicely to real-world merchants as well. Business 3 you get a pop machine. Has to be restocked manually, and the customer doesn't know readily if it's stocked, if the Slurm inside is any good, or if the machine will even dispense a product or just "eat" the dollar I put in.
Novice merchant, you've got your average high-school mall employee. You know, the one that absolutely doesn't want to be there, will point you to the general area of the store where he thinks what you need is, and will ring up your purchases if you can interrupt their personal phone call long enough to get their attention.
Master merchant is your high-end retail store. The salesperson brings the items to you, not sending you searching throughout the store. They restock items out of the stockroom automatically, pricing them at what they have always been priced, etc.
Give merchants something to work towards! At master merchant, they are focused more on opening new shops than doing the mundane tasks of daily store operation - let your sales people do the grunt work!
Songe
Fri Jun 18, 2004 11:05 am
#49
Yeah I was thinking of it too, but I don't know if it would be doable.
p4Samwise
Fri Jun 18, 2004 11:50 am
#50
Yeah.... I like the idea of more perks for Master Merchants, but I don't think better UI exclusively for higher level vendors is the answer.UI/presentation should always be as streamlined and pleasant as possible, rather than being a "reward" in and of itself for having a higher skill level (or dealing with someone who has a higher skill level, et cetera). Grappling with a bad UI does not generally make a game challenging or fun.
Mind you, there are multiple places in SWG where "gameplay" consists of grappling with a bad UI (advancing in somecrafting professions, for example, consists of negotiating a resource/time gate usinga UI that requires you to click repetitively rather than allowing you to automate common command sequences, as can be done with combat). But I think we should be striving to eliminate those - if we can have a betterUI, make it available everywhere where it will improve the game experience (including the bazaar if it makes sense to do so).
DocSavag
Sat Jun 19, 2004 12:27 am
#51
p4Samwise wrote:
Yeah.... I like the idea of more perks for Master Merchants, but I don't think better UI exclusively for higher level vendors is the answer.UI/presentation should always be as streamlined and pleasant as possible, rather than being a "reward" in and of itself for having a higher skill level (or dealing with someone who has a higher skill level, et cetera). Grappling with a bad UI does not generally make a game challenging or fun.
Mind you, there are multiple places in SWG where "gameplay" consists of grappling with a bad UI (advancing in somecrafting professions, for example, consists of negotiating a resource/time gate usinga UI that requires you to click repetitively rather than allowing you to automate common command sequences, as can be done with combat). But I think we should be striving to eliminate those - if we can have a betterUI, make it available everywhere where it will improve the game experience (including the bazaar if it makes sense to do so).
I would agree with that. The interface should be consistant. The only difference should be additional features or services but those should be added value not just efficiency gains. Making the interface easier and less time consuming is vital to going forward with the profession.
Dustin_Asche
Mon Jul 05, 2004 7:10 am
#52
I agree on the UI issue, too. Besides it being a coding nightmare for the programmers, abetter UI is something that everybody deserves. Now, if certain options on the UI were reserved for Master Merchants (not on the customer side) I might understand that, so long as they're ones that make reasonable sense.
I definitely don't think that Master Merchant gets enough. So it gets an extra 20% off the upkeep of vendors. Yipee, they cost peanuts as it is. Kick up their maintenance four or five times (after all, how do we expect them to pay their mortgage when they're paid less than the upkeep of a small house?) and then maybe that 20% or 40% will mean something. And an ugly pink 3PO? Master Merchant should definitely get something much more useful. And extra +2 vendors would be a good start, Master Merchants being skilled at opening chains of stores and what-not. And like I said, there has to be more ways to advertise spread out amongst the Advertising line of the tree, including maybe the ability to mass-email the entire server a small message (at an extremely high cost of something like 1-mil a pop to prevent spamming) at Master Artisan.