Merchant Archive
Thread: Give a little.
Balkstar wrote:Where as now where we have virtually no competative edge in being in the profession we are in? Come on.
If the bugs were removed, and only merchants could run shops, then yes.Concider that what "skills" we obtain are actually capital to let our selling ideas blossom. They may not enhance our merchant aura around us, but I would think that they will help when being able to grow our shops bigger and better then what they started out as.
The worst riflemen out there can still obtain Master status, but if they don't understand tactics, they will become durni bait.
Exactly, running a successful, interesting and satisfying shop has nothing to do with the skill points spent on it. It's a labor of love. Eliminating the merchant skill changes nothing but give current merchants extra skill points to play with.
Answer this question. Is it your own imagination and drive that makes running a shop fun, or does the fun come from having less competition due to skill point expenditure? Are you afraid that, if these abilities were available to everyone, your shop would be lost in an ocean of vastly superior shops? If your shop is well maintained and serves it purpose by rewarding you and your customers, who cares about what everyone else is doing? It is a common character flaw to abandon the idea of working to improve one's self in favor of working just as hard, not for one's own improvement, but to prevent other's from doing so. People who think they can serve themselves to the detriment of their community will not find happiness.
Songe wrote:
Yep, that's why they need to fix vendors before starting to change the profession.
Do I get a cookie?
I can tell ya, we could have fixed that brick foundation to better than new, and a good 7.1 would still have toppled the whole house to the ground.
What was needed was good fluffy concrete.
Cephalo wrote:
The problem is that 'merchant' is not really a specific profession, it's a general function. Every single other skilltree provides a set of goods or services that other players can make use of. This implies the need for selling things. There's simply no reason to engage in any of these specializations if you can't sell your produce. Requiring 'merchant skill' for any effective access to the economy simply creates a monopoly on a fundamental aspect of the game for those who have the skill. It gives a single class too much power.
Where as now where we have virtually no competative edge in being in the profession we are in? Come on.
Concider that what "skills" we obtain are actually capital to let our sellingideas blossom. They may not enhance our merchant aura around us, but I would think that they will help when being able to grow our shops bigger and better then what they started out as.
The worst riflemen out there can still obtain Master status, but if they don't understand tactics, they will become durni bait.
In RL, you learn nothing about a person upon finding they are a 'merchant'. The next question you must ask is "a merchant of what?" Usually you find they are skilled in some other area, such as clothing or home improvement or real estate or whatever.
Don't tell Sam Walton that. He'd likely sell your mother to you if he had the chance. I think he qualified as a Merchant, don't you?
Message Edited by Balkstar on 06-17-2004 12:44 PM
p4Samwise wrote:
Songe wrote:
Yep, that's why they need to fix vendors before starting to change the profession.
Do I get a cookie?
I can tell ya, we could have fixed that brick foundation to better than new, and a good 7.1 would still have toppled the whole house to the ground.
Trade routes, consignment sales, and all that fluff that is constantly tossed around in this forum is a little further up in the tree than what needs to be fixed. If there is no reason to be at the bottom of the tree, where the skills are a little less complex, what's the point inentering the professionin the first place?
Vendors are a key base for this profession, a vital tool that from the outset provides much needed capital to the novice businessman. It is the perfect foundation for the profession, and it needs to fixed first and foremost.
Cephalo wrote:
Exactly, running a successful, interesting and satisfying shop has nothing to do with the skill points spent on it. It's a labor of love. Eliminating the merchant skill changes nothing but give current merchants extra skill points to play with.
Answer this question. Is it your own imagination and drive that makes running a shop fun, or does the fun come from having less competition due to skill point expenditure? Are you afraid that, if these abilities were available to everyone, your shop would be lost in an ocean of vastly superior shops? If your shop is well maintained and serves it purpose by rewarding you and your customers, who cares about what everyone else is doing? It is a common character flaw to abandon the idea of working to improve one's self in favor of working just as hard, not for one's own improvement, but to prevent other's from doing so. People who think they can serve themselves to the detriment of their community will not find happiness.
The problem isn't one of competition for sales, it is in the availablility of goods.
Lets assume we allow everyone vendors for a minute. Anyone who wants to sell stuff can and anyone who wants to be a 'merchant' can try to. They set up their vendors, research the market and establish what is needed in their area then they try to source these products and the system falls apart.
As every crafter can have a vendor for free, they have all set up their own little stores, they only sell the goods they have produced, but as they are getting retail prices for these goods there is no reason for them to sell their goods at a wholesale price through the merchant. If a merchant cannot source goods then they have nothing to sell and can't be a merchant.
For merchant to be a viable profession there needs to be a reason for crafters to want to sell through them, this reason is the fact that a merchant can have well stocked, 24/7 vendors so that customers can purchase the crafters goods at any time without the need for the crafter to be available. This allows the crafer to consentrate on crafting, and alows the merchant to consentrate on being a merchant and they have a symbiotic relationship rather than a competative one.
Crafters would be competing with other crafters to ensure their goods are the ones that the that merchants want to stock and merchants would be competing with other merchants to attract customers to their shops.
For this to work there needs to be an addition of a secure loan, or consignment system to enable merchants to buy from crafters without needing millions of credits.
Cephalo wrote:
Balkstar wrote:
Where as now where we have virtually no competative edge in being in the profession we are in? Come on.
If the bugs were removed, and only merchants could run shops, then yes.
Concider that what "skills" we obtain are actually capital to let our selling ideas blossom. They may not enhance our merchant aura around us, but I would think that they will help when being able to grow our shops bigger and better then what they started out as.
The worst riflemen out there can still obtain Master status, but if they don't understand tactics, they will become durni bait.
Exactly, running a successful, interesting and satisfying shop has nothing to do with the skill points spent on it. It's a labor of love. Eliminating the merchant skill changes nothing but give current merchants extra skill points to play with.
Answer this question. Is it your own imagination and drive that makes running a shop fun, or does the fun come from having less competition due to skill point expenditure? Are you afraid that, if these abilities were available to everyone, your shop would be lost in an ocean of vastly superior shops? If your shop is well maintained and serves it purpose by rewarding you and your customers, who cares about what everyone else is doing? It is a common character flaw to abandon the idea of working to improve one's self in favor of working just as hard, not for one's own improvement, but to prevent other's from doing so. People who think they can serve themselves to the detriment of their community will not find happiness.
You missed my point entirely.
Every player in this game brings in attributes that fall outside the realm of skills in every tree: How much 1st person shooters simulator experience, Customer Serviceexperience, other MMORPG experience any one has. I think SOE realized that in this game we aren't playing in a bubble.
What SOE can do is provide us tools that that will help enhance our natural gifts. Those tools require a price. They aren't necessary to be successful, but they do make working in a particular field much easier. The trick is that merchants never got that exclusive tool that could help their endeavors. I've been sworn not to argue that point here though, only to say that the Devs have it on their priority list to fix the vendor poaching bug.
Realize that badgame play is not exclusive to the Merchant profession. I've seen some horrible Master Doctors that thought they were Rambo and went toe-to-toe with a Rancor single-handedly. At the end of the battle, we had to carry his remains off with a shovel.
The point is that, no matter what skills you have in the game for ANY profession, unless you know how to use them, or be able to work without the use of them, you will never be successful in the game. Just let skill point allocations have meaning when they are invested in skill boxes. That means exclusive use of tools and attribute enhancments.