Merchant Archive

stone time tax when put on the market. 2.5% maybe? and then apply a 2.5% sales tax to the consumer. That way, both ends are getting the same shaft.

stI take that back. In fact, I oppose the whole thing. as a droid engineer, I spend all the money I make on keeping harvesters going, so I don't have the kind of money to buy a new shirt, let alone support the kind of sink you're planning on. anyone who's willing to support their own vendor will need to raise their prices so high as to be completely unaffordable just to cover their maintenance costs..... my droids can sit on a market for near to a week before someone buys them, so that means for every 20k credits worth of droids I have, I have to pay 20 credits every 45 minutes for a week? 20cr*32 (cycles per day) *7 = 4480 credits a week just to maintain a 20k stock! I can't even keep that much in my bank account now, let alone after this happens..... besides, aren't harvestors enoguh of a money sink already?!

r

I'm not a merchant but I disagree with whom who say we, final customer have to pay for maintenance (the ones who told to make a % on sold item, everybody know that the price will raise and customers will pay it and I'm sure it is not what is planned).

But I think the rate is too high.

However it will help to maintain a good economy : people will no longer overcharge item on vendors.

But it will help a lot if an option is added to the usual Bazaar to browse to all planetary vendors (maybe using your advertising feature ? or/and by paying a fee ?)

Gaptia

st

If this change were to go in as they are saying it would drive a lot of small independant crafters out of biz. Especially those crafters who have setup shop on smaller worlds where the sales are significantly less, but the compitition is less as well.

For example, I have about 250k worth of items on my vendor now, with this formula in, that would mean I would be paying 8,000 credits a day in fees, and 56,000 credits a week. I still have to be competitve with crafters on other planets since the price to fly to them is realatively cheap. And I still have to compete with other crafters in buying resources to make my items.

And since its all based on the total value of the items its not like I can just reduce the price to lower my fee, th percent is still the same, i pay less fees yes, but im also making less.

What I would rather see is basing the fees off the planets, planets like corellia which are more convienient and have high popluations will pay higher fees. So us smaller independants at least gain some benefit for the price of having lower sales.

Or base the fee off what you sell rather than the value of the goods, a "sales tax".

Those are two ways that I think are much better than the proposed way.

ueEveryone is forgetting... You all say we have to raise our prices to meet new maintance fees... NO WE CAN NOT... the higher the price the higher the maintance fee... We have to LOWER to keep maintance down but then we loose money cause all our money went to maintance and we cant buy any more products therefore we are now out of business...

ue

I, for one, would be VERY interested in hearing a developer's reaction to what the population has said. They could shut us all up with a different proposal, a "we have heard your concerns and are taking them into consideration," or a "we have decided, due to the overwhelming reaction, to rethink this policy."

There have been numerous ideas, imo almost all of them better than the original concept. What do the devs think? We don't know.

But we get silence. Anyone in the "know" have something to say about this?

Anyone?

st

I would also like to state on the outset that the merchant skills regarding vendors should be fixed prior to doing anything. They don't work right and I would be paying a high price for something that does not fuction as it should.

With that said:

All the proposed system would do is cause people to stop using vendors all together and start using only face-to-face sales or get out of the crafting business all together.

Crafters are already paying the lions share back to the game for upkeep. I have to have a house for my vendor or use someone elses (at a much higher cost to me). I either have to pay someone to make items in a factory or own a factory. I either have to pay for resources from people or have to have my own harvesters. These are daily costs to run my business. I shell out anywhere from 4k-10k in maintence/purchases a day just to be a crafter. I am, at this point, making no credits extra. All my sales are going to pay for all my operating expenses. I am at the breaking point as it is.

I think this problem is being looked at from the wrong direction. It's the 'hunters' and PA's that have the credits and that horde them. Have them start paying into the system more.

I would think that a sales tax that is assessed at the point of sale would be the best course of action here. If someone buys a weapon from me then charge them a % of the sale price10-20% of the total price of the item sold directly back into the game.

You could also assess one from the merchant at that time too, but again I think a large population of the crafters out there are barely making by as it is. Anything over 10% would be hard be me to deal with at this point.

If you still need more credits from the game removed then have the operating expenses of a PA cost more. Make people have to work to be part of a PA, putting time and money back into them.

The bottom line here is this to me: If more expenses hit crafters then a large section of them will no longer be able to operate and will close down shop. Only the large PA backed or extremely successful merchants will still be able to operate. You will not see any new merchants/crafters come onto the scene as the costs to do so are prohibitive of that. Then the player based economy begins to degrade from there from a system that is barely working now.

Obloerick

stThis idea is ridiculous at best. Once again you guys are treating everyone in the game like we ALL have 24 and 7 to play this game. SOME of us (probably a GREAT majority), don't have the kind of time it takes to make money hand over fist. You nerf this and make it cost more the ONLY people you are going to hurt is the Casual gamer. The Powergamers will STILL make money hand over fist and not be affected by this in the least.

My god you guys need to get a clue as to what your nerfs do to those of us who can't be here 9 to 10 hours every day.

st

Bottom line, before you guys make any changes at all, send the guy who is going to be designing the system to a couple of economics courses... becuase the way you want to do it, does not work in the real world.

And Eyyn makes an excellent point, why punish the guys who right now are paying into the money sinks the most money? We have to have a house, that costs, we have to have harvesters, that costs, we have to have factories, that costs, we have to buy resources, that costs, we have to have power, that costs...

Hell, if I take a few days off from the game, I have to plan out everything to make sure all my stuff is going to be paid for and powered up while I am gone...

Non crafters have very little expenses compared to us full time crafters, its time they started sharing the burden.

st

All in all I see what they're trying to do. They're trying to break the current Crafter/Merchant combination and give Merchant some viability. The savy merchant will have a good stock of varied merchandise,and move the merchandise quickly enough to make a profit, despite the costs of vendors.

Now, is the vendor fee reasonable? Absolutely not. I stock 3 million credits worth of inventory on a regular basis. The math on that is 96,000 credits / day, which I don't even make in one day. I may make that in 5-7 days, depending on what the current demand is.

I am a crafter and a merchant and because of this I will do one of two things:

- Get rid of my vendors completely.

- Stop crafting and merchant all together and do something worth while.

To me it seems as though SOE doesn't realize this is a game, and is supposed to be fun. I work 10 hours a day, I play this game to RELAX as does everyone who is here posting their ideas and comments.

So, SOE, please take note of our concerns and work with us, not against us, to arrive at something that will work. You've created a great player economy concept, and just need our input to finish it.

Cheers!

st

Attibus that would work if anyone other than the merchant could put items on your vendor. But the only person who would want to take merchant, would be a crafter. No one, would ever want to make a non crafter into a merchant, or be just a merchant full time.

If I as a merchant could setup a store and a vendor, and charge crafters a fee to sell thier items from my store, then sure, that would be great. As a crafter, I hate having to spend points on merchant, but I have to do it, if I want to run multiple stores, or distinguish my stores, etc.

ue

To all,

I must say that I am really impressed with the way people are grabing the short and long term econmic models that this game is providing. I went toa top ten businesss school to learn all of this!

That being said, I feel that the Devs would be very wise to read all of these opinions. In short what they are saying is they will at most turn their vendors in to waypoints to get people to com to a shop, and then the people will have to special order everything that they want so as to not have a glut of items.

My solution is quite simple. Charge a flat200-500 a day for vendors. not piece work, not a tax, just a single flat rate.

My justifications are quite simple:

Tax rates are coming in the player city expansion. If we agree to this tax rate, who would acccept another?

A commision system is fine on paper, but think about what it will copst the people like architects. A small house is at most going for 12K right now. That is almost the cost for material!

A fee per price on a vendor is similarly flawed. Why should we pay an outrageous amount for listing our goods? I almost gave up on vendors all together till I realized I could use the npc kind for less than the Machines.

A flat rate seems to be the best answer. I disagree that there neeeds to be a 'money sinkhole' added to this game in this way. It will only effect the merchants. And the merchants will quickly not become merchants as this makes it useless to be one!

Please read This 25+ pages of negative feedback to your proposal and truly comprehend what it is saying. Your proposal is a mistake. There is no other way to say it.

Lazurk

Architect on Scylla server

I'll start with "fix vendors before you nerf them." That is critical to maintaining happy crafters.

Second, approach this problem with the intent to make the powergamer pay more and be dissuaded from grinding the competition into the dirt. Vendor maintenance fees should be based on how much money the owner has in cash and in his bank account and how much property he owns or has access too (ie, is on the admin list). Think about it. If a corporation is making money hand over fist don't their employees look to get a bigger share of the profit? More raises are demanded, the companies suppliers are more inclinded to raise costs and so forth, because the successful company can pay it. Powergamers who have multi-million if not billion credit bank accounts should be paying a lot more than Joe Dabbler who only plays part time. The admin list comes into play so that people can't hide their profits by buying durable goods (harvestors and houses) and giving them to other people with the agreement that "I'll be on the admin list so I can have access to it. You would have to make a change where people would have to be notified when someone else was trying to put them on an admin list and have them accept to avoid griefing.

Vendors, structures, harvestors, anything that needs maintenance should be based on the "success" level of the person using it. Ok, you are all right, people would just hide their their wealth by giving it to other non-artisan guild members, yadda, yadda, yadda, but at least this system would make them do it. Welcome to the wonderful world of Tax Avoidance!

Don't make the newbies quit, make the power gamers quit. We don't need them around to have fun anyways. Basing vendor fees on vendor stocks punishes the newbie who isn't well know and doesn't make top of the line products. In the armorsmith field, those who have made their way to the top by playing 24/7 have virtually empty vendors and over stuffed bank accounts. You system won't even make a dent in them.

Thirdly, admit it Q, this initiative is just part of the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy to reduce the number of objects in the database. The VRWC knows that the databases are getting squirrely due to having waaaaaaaaay too many melons stuffed away in people's stockrooms. I know I'm saving mine for when the power of the melon is truly unleased.