Merchant Archive
Thread: I think the proffesion of merchant itself is stupid. So I have a new idea.
DragonScout wrote:
That is it. Now, all of those things are passive. You can't actually USE them daily. ANYONE can buy things. Anyone can set up factories, harvesters, houses, etc, and pay maintence on them. And anyone can use the forums and bazaar to sell things. So what is it that merchants have that they use daily that is something only they can do? I don't see it. give me facts, not one-sided opinions with nothing to back them up.
Combat/crafting professions daily use their abilities and skills, they have a variety to choose from. Merchants don't. And that is something that needs to be fixed in my opinion if they want this to be a real profession.
Zerathi/Shawn -- the grumpy wookiee of shadowfire
In general, I still don't see how fixing it so that only merchants can use vendors will fix anything long term. Yes, placing items is an active thing, but it is passive in that then you have to wait, or go sit in a spaceport and annoy the people around you with spam (from you or a droid, it is still spam). If anything, this 'fix' will just make what appears to me to be a utility profession limited to alt characters -- because everyone can find uses for the one thing it has, vendors -- and I guess that works for sony.
Like I have said before, until they add in features like trade contracts between cities, or a commidities market in cities that players can risk investments on, things that are active like that -- that they can actively participate in -- that doesn't involve stocking vendors, it isn't going to 'fix' anything because the main problem doesn't lie in people just wanting to use vendors without paying skill points for them. The problem lies in the fact that once you are a master merchant, and have set up vendors, there is nothing else for you to do. And until they fix that, Merchant as it is now, is nothing but a utility profession in my opinion (and obviously a lot of other peoples opinions or the problem with 'vendor poaching' wouldn't be an issue.)
If anything, my suggestion for this profession as it stands now, would be for it to require business 4, and then as long as you had that, you could work up through the merchant profession, and just use phantom skill points. This would free up 63 skill points, and would at least make it worth it. 29 skill points to invest in business 4 to get a utility isn't that bad. 92 is, with the current mechanics that merchants get.
Zerathi/Shawn -- the grumpy wookiee of shadowfire who isn't going to bother responding to the power monger guy or balkstar anymore because they have yet to say anything but the same flaming responses over and over and over again.
DingoBoi wrote:
so unrefreshing that you still don't get that many people play this as their primary profession and giving up the skills to you poachers is not going to happen.
/agree, and a 5 star post for you!
DragonScout the 63 skill points are there for a reason. They are there to make it a choice. If everyone can have 6 vendors and sell 24 hours a day then running a merchant shop ceases to be a challenge at all from a game mechanic standpoint. Having to give up skill points to run a shop makes you decide what you want to do with your SWG "life" you decide if you want to be a Doctor who heals people or a doctor who sells buffs on a vendor or both.. but you have to give up skill points to do it. That is one of the challenges of the game.
There are a lot of good ideas for making the merchant profession more. I love the idea of "trade agreements" between cities and merchants should play a part in that when it comes to pass, but there won't be a merchant profession to do it if we don't protect the skills we already have.
DarthEhsan wrote:From the minute this game came out I wanted a shop with vendors. But then I learned I need merchant to go ahead and do this. So I did. But it held alot of skill points for something I do not use anymore. With everyother proffession you use the new skill points and mastering the proffesion does something. If I start a buisness why should i go under just because I drop these unused skill points. So I have an idea.Maybe Merchants should get manager skill points. Let non merhcants buy vendors from merchants and then hire the merchants as mangers, You use the vendors as normal but every week you have to pay and extra fee to the merchant that placed the vendor for you. You all decide the fee yourself and that is it. Non Merchants keep the vendors and People with the Merchant skills get an extra fee a week. If the manager drops the skill points you get a mail and 30 days to find a replacement.There a soultion we can all agree on.
The only problem with any new idea that sounds good on paper is you got to throw in the human factor. Someone out there would find a way to abuse this idea.. I can already think one right off.
Claiming that then viewing other peoples vendors and buying them out to resell at higher prices and various other non-mechanic-supported activities might float your boat, and might be commendable in the realm of RP, but from the viewpoint of "what do I get for my buck?" Merchant, as the profession is right now, is a bad buy -- even if they fix it so that only merchants can have vendors.
I think I am done posting here. I think this profession could have a lot of potential. But it seems to me that there is a lot of narrow-mindedness centered around 'vendor poaching'. To me, it is a non-issue and people that do it will be dealt with whenever they fix it, and the majority of discussion shouldn't be centered around bashing people who do it, but around ways to make it so that those 'poachers' would WANT to keep their skill points invested in merchant.
Zerathi/Shawn -- the grumpy wookiee of shadowfire who is an evil terrible nasty exploiter that is sure to be going to some part of hell because he plans to 'vendor poach'. hehe
ps. if I post here again, it will be with a more detailed suggestion for a commodities market. I have dealt with them in other games and have enough experience with working models to hopefully offer something the DEVs can use. Thanks for the responses DocSavag.
Message Edited by DragonScout on 05-21-2004 11:42 PM
anybody notice that is only NOOBS posting responses here and in other threads.. yes they might have been registered sicne launch.. but if you only have 7 posts... i don't think i'm going to respect your opinion.
Especiallyl not the fools posting on this forum who want skills for free.
DingoBoi wrote:anybody notice that is only NOOBS posting responses here and in other threads.. yes they might have been registered sicne launch.. but if you only have 7 posts... i don't think i'm going to respect your opinion.
Especiallyl not the fools posting on this forum who want skills for free.
No 7 post count people that I see off the bat.. surely, my 60 pales in comparison to your 1731. Board post count doesn't define who the experienced are in-game, though. You'd have to be pretty conceited to think that it was. And yes, I got master merchant and I've kept it since I got the training. I'm along with a couple of the others that posted in saying that it's probably not worth the 63 points, but the only way to fix this is to add stuff to the profession. The developers can't be expected to think of everything, so they got to get ideas from somewhere. The people that play the profession submit feedback. The subject line "I think the proffesion of merchant itself is stupid. So I have a new idea." suggests that this individual has an idea for the developer team to look into. You might not agree with his ideas, but stuff such as this comment quoted above is not very constructive.
Ijuakos wrote:
No 7 post count people that I see off the bat.. surely, my 60 pales in comparison to your 1731. Board post count doesn't define who the experienced are in-game, though. You'd have to be pretty conceited to think that it was. And yes, I got master merchant and I've kept it since I got the training. I'm along with a couple of the others that posted in saying that it's probably not worth the 63 points, but the only way to fix this is to add stuff to the profession. The developers can't be expected to think of everything, so they got to get ideas from somewhere. The people that play the profession submit feedback. The subject line "I think the proffesion of merchant itself is stupid. So I have a new idea." suggests that this individual has an idea for the developer team to look into. You might not agree with his ideas, but stuff such as this comment quoted above is not very constructive.
The point i was making is that it is person who doesn't participate and hence, as seen by the absurd ideas put forth, are not knowledgeable in the profession. (and there was a 7 count poster when i posted that).
The way to fix it is to first stop the exploiters. PERIOD. Once that is done there should be a general cry for tools merchants can actually use. Combat issues are typically the first to get corrected and ARE paid more attention to. Our profession gets very little attention as well as other non-combat roles. Fix the EXPLOIT and people will demand the features. As it stands now, there is no reason for outcry to demand anything since poachers are fulfilling the market... and flooding it.
In reference to your comment about not being constructive.. well, the initial post was idiotic. The title states merchant is stupid and basically goes on to say how we can eliminate the profession. I don't call that constructive. Maybe in your small little world you do.
Have a nice day!