Merchant Archive

I think most of us agree (but not all, so save your click) that something is not right in the area of buss to merchant area.

Count the number of posters in each of the threads. It's not a majority or even close.

Yes go look at my last 2 list threads, for the love of god, even the correspondant for the class said something could be done (She did not say Yes or No, she said that this area of the tree needs to be looked at). I have heard you, I have marked you in the NO pile. You can stop now.

Is it any wonder that artisans dont want their vendor away..

However, this isn't the artisan board, it is the merchant board.. Artisans having a vendor that can do everything that a master merchants vendor can do, except advertising, is a very serious problem, it hurts all people who want to play merchants.

Hmmm...I'm unhappy with the status of this thread. Looks like a lot of people have some very unrealistic expectations, and nobody's looking to work WITH the game.

Ok...so let's say they take away Vendors from Artisans. What then? How easy is it to go up to Novice Merchant instead of just Business 3? Is the problem Artisans selling their own wares, or is the problem Armorsmiths, Droid Engineers, Weaponsmiths, Tailors, and other professions who make actual GOOD stuff selling their own wares? What's to stop a Master Weaponsmith (hi! like me!) from just picking up Novice Merchant? Skill points? What else do I have to waste them off after I've Mastered my chosen crafting profession? Combat skills? I know I'll always be mediocre in combat...the fact that I've wasted 50-odd points on Master Weaponsmith already dictates that I'll never be as good as a full fledged Master Rifleman. 10 extra skill points for a Vendor at Novice Merchant....I'd get that anyway and STILL be avoiding the use of "pure Merchants".

See, the whole point is that Merchants get NOTHING from taking away a vendor from an Artisan. A vendor is USELESS without advertising...if no one knows it's there, then no one will ever buy off it. What Merchants need is to boost their own power of Advertising, and Efficiency. I, for one, PRAY that the Artisan vendor continues to cost a huge amount of cash to maintain...this would give Merchants with Efficiency a HUGE advantage. Sure, you may be able to place a vendor, but will your piddly traffic really keep you afloat?

Merchants need more market power. Pure and simple. More advertising, more efficiency.

The one odd-ball, radical thing I would suggest is a whole new 4th tree for Merchants, after putting Hiring and Management together. My suggestion is a Delivery skill set....that could encompass all the ideas I've thrown about before, as well as some of the new stuff I've seen here(remote access to vendors...sweet idea).

Simple Solution.

Move reduced bazaar fees to business 3, move vendor +1 to business 4. You need merchant exp to get novice merchant so you have to have some type of vendor in the business line.

Make business 3 have like a 10% reduction in fees and you can still keep efficency 1. Move the +10 hiring to Novice Merchant and make it +20.

Keep the vendors in the business line cause I definately DO NOT want to have to craft another 10k exp worth of general items to get merchant.

I dont care how its made.. just as long as I can sell it.

so here is what I suggest:

Business 3: Reduced Bazaar fees +10 (10%)
Business 4: Vendor +1, Hiring +10
Novice Merchant: Hiring +20, Vendor +1
Efficiency 1: Reduced Bazaar fees +10 (20% total)

So by changing the Reduced Bazaar fees to a skill modifyer like hiring it will work. That way we arent nerf herding the artisians.

This thread perfectly shows the problem with the coorespondent system. The system is designed for the correspondent to pass on the issues of the people playing the class. They are supposed to represent the actual players by passing on their thoughts,feelings, and ideas.

Here instead we have a coorespondent taking it on himself to push his own personal agenda instead of representing the general concensus. He has even taken it on himself to misrepresent the level of support his ideas have by generating falsified numbers (i.e. 2/3 support).

What a sad misuse of responsibility.

The coorespondents in general seem to be doing well. I see it as unfortunate that some are taking their position as being some mandate to do whatever they want.

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4 - Remove Vendors from the business line.

• This is a mixed issue, but the majority (I say 2/3)of the community support this issue. Make NOVICE MERCHANT take General Crafting Exps like some other lines. Remove the vendors (Or put MAJOR restrictions on them) from the BUSS line and replace them with the reduced bazaar fees.




• This will make merchants a real class, vs a off-shoot or sub-class.


• Makes a Merchant that has to be worked for (Not an Auto skill picked up just by placing a low-end vendor in your locked house.)

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I have mixed feelings about this. Right now I'm strapped for skill points, just keeping novice merchant for the NPC vendor (until the fix the maint bug). Once they fix it I plan to drop merchant and go with the Business III vendor. I think having a vendor at Business IV would be fine, but maybe restrict the amount of items that can be listed on it (say 15 items).

The main reason I don't want to give my products to a Merchant to sell is trust.Deeds may go for up to100k mark and Iwouldn't trust a Merchant to sell it on an honor system.Ifthere was a way to buy Vendor space from a merchant or something. Like offering my item to them to sell on their vendor, but they don't actually have access to the item, I'd pay the Merchant to list my item, much like a bazaar.

Give the seller a permissions option, so if they want to give Merchants access to their products they can.

Vendors would list items by category or by person. So if you want to look at all the items that Zarcath has for sale on that vendor, click on the tab with his name.

Essentially Merchants would be able to rent out vendors as communal. Give Vendors a limit as to how many sellers can be attachted to the vendor.

Allow Merchants to link their vendors, or even link vendorswith other Merchants, making their own player-network of vendors, or a mini-bazaar.

Do not nerf the artisan profession to buff up the merchant class. If you make the Merchant class worthwhile, people will take it.

If the Merchant profession is fixed and made viable and people STILL don't take it but settle with Merchant III vendors then maybe it should be adjusted. But I don't believe in taking away because someone else doesn't think they're getting their fair share.

That said...

Please let me get my items out of my storeroom!

Depending on coding problems. Here is my list of how to work on the solutions to the Bus 3 vendor issue.

1. Vendors should only be able to be managed by someone with the required skill. Thus if someone gives up Novice merchant, they can not use there basic NPC or droid. If someone gives up Business 3, they can not use their clunk vendor.


2. Tie items vendor maximum capacity and sales price to the skill level. Thus at Bus 3 the player basical get the same option as the bazaar. 25 items max price of 3k. At Bus4 Doulble to 50 at 6k. Etc.


3. Make vendor maintenance a flat rate that decreases with Eff.


4. If these are to hard to work make this be tied to the vendor you place, thus the bulky vendor is not as good as the Merchant vendors.

Don't take away vendor from artisans. That's just a terrible idea. There are so many ways the merchant class can be improved; taking away from another class is the easy way out--I'd rather have things added to the game.

Some ideas for improving merchants: cheaper travel, larger inventory (I think this one is obvious),special streamlined building/vendor management interface, remote management of harvesters and other buildings, coupons and gift certificates, special "store" buildings that can only be used my Merchants and take up1 or 0 lots (max 1 or 2 per character)...of course, making thebroken features work would also be nice. There's a ton of other ideas I have for improvements, but I'm at work so I gotta keep this short

I've thought of an easy way for merchants to be made more desirable to Artisans / Crafters without even getting that brand new NERF BAT out of its shiny plastic wrapping.

How about ANY item that is sold through a merchant (who isnt the original crafter) generates twice the useage XP when used ??? (Benefits all crafters, makes merchants more desireable as distribution tools for artisans & crafters, and not one nerf in sight...)

Ive started another thread for discussion about this as that doesnt belong here, but as the majority of this thread is about the Bus 3vs Novice merchant issue, I thought it was relevant.