Merchant Archive

st

Q-3PO,

First, let me say thanks for asking us first.

Now on to the problem...

I agree their needs to be maintenance for vendors, but charging maintenance based on the total price of items isn't the way to do it. I don't believe it's fair for one class have a majority of the money sinks. Between house, harvester, factory and vendor fee's, business owners shoulder a vast majority of money sinks in the game.

Each vendor type should be a flat rate to maintain, with higher level vendors costing more until you get high enough in Merchant to reduce those costs. This should be offset by low level vendors holding less items, to prevent them from being used by advanced players. Also a flat rate tax should be imposed on all vendor sales. Holocron had stated previously there was a 7% increase in player money per day, so somewhere around a 10% flat tax on all vendor sales sounds about right. Players who sell items on the public vendors are charged a flat fee of 20cr which is about 6.85% of the 3000cr max imposed on the public vendors. This flat tax insures that no matter how much a merchant jacks their price up, that 10% of it will disappear on a successful sale.

The system above should add to the money sink but not over penalize novice merchants who don't have a high volume of sales.

There are still bugs with vendors also.

1) It takes 2-3 attempts to retrieve an item from the stockroom. Requires a refresh after almost every retrieve.

2) Some items purchased from vendors don't show up in your inventory until after you log off and back on.

3) Resources can't be effectively sold on vendors since most of the time they can't be retrieved, or if the sale is canceled, then the vendor ownercan'tretrieved those from the vendor.

I would suggest you would also look into repairing the money sink that affects most of the other classes in the game by re-instating cloning fees and preventing people from running around not caring if they get killed or not. This makes all the combat classes reckless and also makes it easier to attack higher con creatures without having to reclaim their corpse. If people had to spend more time reclaiming their corpses, there would be alot less new money coming into the economy.

st

There are too many great posts with great ideas other than the one the Devs are suggesting. I am not a crafter, yet, nor do I plan to be for some time. But I do see just like the many crafters and merchants who have commented on this subject that this idea the Devs have come up with is just plain stupid.

I would gladly pay a sales tax on each purchase than have my favorite vendors I go to stop carrying the assortment of items.

stIve read onepost. My answer is charge a tax on items sold and perhaps a tiny daily maintenance fee that would equate to someones salary if they were working at wallmart

st

Well I guess I will forgo vendors period on this goes in. Since one they are broken and items get stuck and I get players yelling at me like it is my fault and Two the vendor maintenance will be too expensive for big items. Now if I want to list a few small houses that may sell over the next 3 weeks it will not be profitable period. example

3 houses @ 10K each (I know this is kinda low) = 30K

30000/1000 = 30 Not a whole lot

32 payment intervals (every 45 mins)

Total = 960 per DAY

Now lets say nothing sells for the first 20 days - (with houses or any large ticket items this can be the case)that is 19200 credits and you have not even sold a thing. If you sold 2 back to back after those first 20 days you would just break even for the vendor maintenance andstill loose around 3 to 8K on the items themself (the cost to produce them or purchase them from the crafter) So I guess we go to the old fashion way of selling.. posting on the internet people will sendan in gameemai, arrange a pick up time and place and make money avoiding the major penalty for the ablility to run a vendor. All I see this doing is making no items available for those that playduring the off hours.

If you have toadd a money sink then I would suggest making uspay forlisting the items at the time the sale is placed on the vendormuch like the bizzaar. Then we know the cost of selling the item and can adjust our price to pass it on to the consumer.But if you realy want to add a money sick just increase the maint cost on buildings. everyone has them that has a vendor that cost will be passed on to the consumer. So all in all the only people that will get hurt is the end consumer.

st

Hi all -

I just wanted to state my feelings and thoughts about the upcoming changes, if they go in as suggested.

I am a new Master Tailor. I chose to push to master before I began teaching again in the fall, which just started. Before that, I would log in during the a.m., reset my vendors' advertisings, and collect resources. I would take a break during the day, and eventually join friends later in the day/evening for some adventuring and 'face time' with my steady customers.

I have had a fairly successful time as a tailor. I financed myself, paid the NPC for each one of my boxes, and either gathered my own, or purchased my own resources. With the playtime that I had, and used, attaining master tailor, and mid-boxed merchant was attainable. Additionally, I am also running an armor vendor on Naboo for an armorsmith friend...placing him on the global map and supporting his craft through timely and profitable sales.

Now that I'm back to school, however, some of the current issues with the merchant profession have become more prevalent and game-affecting. Granted, this post was originally intended to be about the upcoming changes - but please trust me, I'm getting to them. These 'bugs' are affecting my play, my experience in-game, and my overall ability to tailor and merchant well. My vendors are no longer registered on the planetary map <after each server reset>...meaning, for 12 - 16 hours of each day, my vendors cannot be found by new <to me> customers. I am, or will be, charged the upgraded rate of maintenance for a broken skill line that turns itself off for all practical purposes when the servers come down for daily maintenance. They are not listed on the global map or bark until I manually reset them at my log in, now, much later in the day.

I have had a total of 71 items 'stuck' in vendor neverland=stockroom. Most of those items have degraded and are no longer in existence. My ticket has been responded to, responded to by me, and I actually had a CSR in-game with me until the recent corbantis server-bump to fix the transport system....and no action since. I have given up on that ticket, those lost items, and the recompense that would/should/could have come to help resolve it.

I am a tailor - and as such - have been successful by offering a variety of items, from domestic-tier clothing through master-items. There is an average of 100 items on my clothing vendor <modest, considering the choices and colors available>. Additionally, I have an armor vendor with an average daily stock of 30 - 40 items.

I cannot fathom what this new money-sink will do to my currently difficult merchanting experiences. If my vendors cost me more than I sell, due to current bugs, it will be difficult to offer items to those people who's playtime does not match mine. I fear I shall go by way of the dinosaur, or proverbial sarlacc, and simply become a custom-only tailor.

I add my support to the money-sink to the money-getter movement. We essentially launder money for the economy - it is created by mission terminals, given to us by combatters, and fed by us to harvesters, house/shops, and vendors. If there is 'too much' money in the system, then we should start the adjustments with the money earners, the ones that create new money in the economy, rather than with us, the point at which it leaves the economy.

Additionally - if this is complicated by a DB issue - I suggest that each level or tier of merchant is limited in the number of items that it may hold/sell. In this way, the total number of items can have a cap.

I know this will hurt, this fix, that is -- I just hope our discussion, oppinions and thoughts actually count

st

You guys got to be joking about this rate. As an architech there is no chance in hell i can afford to keep items on my vendor. I would try to offer a constructive thought but i read about 8 pages of replies and they all say the same thing,this idea is a total joke at the current rate. To hell with it i dont even want to think of trying to keep up with this bit of insanity, my shop will close as soon as i log in. Theed get ready for me to panhandle and spam all my items in the city. Obviously they clearly are on drugsor dont play the game themselves so they donthave a clue as to how this will affectsome of us Thanks again sony for the great game play (sarcasm).

st

The game is NOT in need of more money sinks. What it is in need of is an entirely reworked economy. Inflation is already a serious issue in this game, and this "alteration" will only increase that problems. I'll try and point out some fundamental flaws in the game's economics and suggest fixes as best I can.

First off, we'll talk vendors. There's only two types of vendors right now. The first is the bazaar, the second is the player-run vendors. If you want anything in this game, it comes from one of those sources. Enter problem number 1, no price undercutting or gouging control. If you're the only supplier of, say, link-steel aluminum on the planet in large quantities, and you choose to charge 15k creds for 1k of the resource, there is absolutely nothing to stop you. Conversely, if you're one of many suppliers of, say, micro flora farms, you could undercut the competition and charge a measely 50 creds and flood the market. Yes, it would hurt your returns. However, you have the returning client base right off, and you've just put one or more players out of business.

So how do we defeat this? Simple, you follow in E&B's footsteps. You institute an NPC vendor system that is handled completely independently of the player-run economy. If someone wishes to, they can purchase stock-grade quality items off of the vendor, and not off of the bazaar or your own vendor. Quality, not quantity, should determine the price of an item. Allow the casual player to get the toys the hardcore players have at a lower quality and without the worries of gouging.

Next, let's cover baseline price. Anyone remember that saying, "everyone has a price"? The same should hold true for each object sold. CDEF rifles should have a price that cannot be gone below. Let's say a standard CDEF rifle would cost 50 credits off of an NPC vendor. Here's the baseline price upon which your, as a crafter, must base your markup. Your quality should also exceed (note I did not say meet, I explicitly stated exceed) that of a standard CDEF. If it does not, you should either a) be banned from sale of the item or b) forced to sell it at the baseline price.

Ok, so we have our baseline price, now what? Well, quality, not quantity, should determine price. Figure a per-credit value of each point of quality above the base quality, and factor that into the price. If a standard CDEF can only do 20 damage, and your's does 30, then we add, say, 2 credits per point of damage quality. So now, if we use the baseline price of 50 creds mentioned above, plus add the quality baseline, we get 70 credits. We'll call this the base sale price.

So now we have a base sale price for our higher quality CDEF Rifle. Now we're down to the nitty-gritty, how much do we wanna charge. This is where market economics and supply and demand come into play. You now choose how much you want to sell that CDEF for, so long as its above the 70 already established. Now what's to say you don't flood the market with CDEF's at 70 credits? Ah, here's one for the crafters. How often do you make an item with the exact same quality each time without using a factory? Yeah, that's what I thought.

Ok, so let's summarize. First, we have an NPC vendor system that is completely independent of player control. Second, we have a price that based on type of product and quality that no one can sell below. Third, we have a markup price that each player can independently decide upon for each and every item. This gives us a final selling price that is determined exclusively by how well the player can manipulate his selling point to yank more credits without losing customers to the NPC system. Don't like the idea? Give me a better one that fixes the entire problem, not just the vendors. When personal mineral extractors, that cost around the order of 1000 creds at the very least to make, are selling for 50 creds a pop, there is something wrong with the system.

There is absolutely no reason why I should have to spend 2 hours every day, 7 days a week to just keep my vendor's maintenance up. As it is I spend 2 hours every day, 7 days a week keeping the maintenance on my harvesters up. Throw in the house for an extra little big of pocket change. The money sinks keep building and building. I shouldn'thave to consider a reduction of price on my personal mineral extractors down to 500 creds (which is just about cost level) because the system currently allows people to undercut for the sole purpose of causing inflation.

To me, the solution is simple. Take the economy away from the player. Model the economy off of E&B (which has a very healthy economy, both player-based and NPC-based). Two things common to a person that a computer cannot mimic entirely: greed and megalomania.

ueHere is my two cents,

It seems there are two seperate issues: storage on vendors and vendor costs. I think there should be a separate aolution for each. First, limit the number of items that can be sold on a vendor. This limit could be small for a player with only business 3, say 25 items like the bazaar. The merchant tree would then increase the number of items you could sell, say +25 for novice and +50 for each box in the management branch, for a total of 250 per vendor. I don't what technical limits the database has or how the number of items increases the cost of running the servers for SOE, but this data could be used to tune this limit; in any case, increasing your merchant skill should give a large benefit in the number of items you can sell. Perhaps a separate per vendor limit and a total item count limit, to control the total number of items a player can stored.

Second, charge the normal bazaar fee to list an item for sale on any vendor (sales, offers, anything). Merchants already get a cost benifit here, though it is fairly small. Also charge a sales fee when the item is finally sold. Prehaps 10 percent, with a significant reduction given to those with high merchant skill, at least 50 percent for master merchant. There could also be a small ongoing charge for the vendor, but given the additional costs suggested here, I would keep this small (not much more than an NPC vendor currently charges).

These proposed changes address problems with server database size and create a money-sink, while still preserving the viability of player vendors for selling high-end items.

-Ashia, Radiant

st

If you do this, I am ruined. And I'm still reeling from the items in houses and factory problems recently introduced. I'm an architect that has a large selection of furniture, harvestors, and even houses. My business succeeds because I may not be the cheapest place, but everything they need is there when they need it. Some of those things are very expensive. To charge by item values on it is not only horrible to architects who can't make much profit now anyway, but will encourage people to give minimum inventory and selection and pretty much do away with vendors.

I know now exactly what I'll do if you did something this, um, shortsighted. I'd take my houses out of the vendor, set them up for me, house all this stuff I now have on vendors. Sell it face to face only or by appointment, give up merchant (because let's face it without vendors, its a pretty useless class anyway since everything is broken about them), and save my points for city planner.

Actually, go ahead. Bankrupt the merchants. I'm actually finding it a challenge to succeed no matter what rules you change or bugs you implement(usually rapidly and randomly). Perhaps that is the point of the game? It has its satisfactions to do well even when you do everything in your power to foil us.

st

you say you want to promote a player economy, well with "/1000" fee the people who offer a selection or expencive items will suffer forcing people to keep the bare minimum on the vendor. Unless this is your intent to reduce server load. I feel a vendor should be competitive with the bazzar, if you want to draw people to the player cities someday. A SALES TAX is where my vote is, and the current cost per day like droid venders currently have.

Im a DE and i dont even have a vender because i find making a custom droid to order is easier for me than to have to advertise the waypoint of my house.

Current venders allready have a crappy selection, dont do this to me as a consumer.

st

Here's my input.

Don't do it. At all.

Player run economy, consider this a tax that hurts the economy. Absurd idea....hurt the ability to run business. Heck, we need more tools if anything.

Consider converting faction training to a money sink instead of the player's ability to have a shop with anything in the vendor.

Turning to the Merchant vendor aspect for a new money sink is.....a lack of creative thought. Remind yourself what this game is supposed to be.

st

As a new merchant myself I need to throw in my voice with my fellow businessmen and vote a resounding "No" to this new maintenance formula. Take an example from the real world and institute a per item sales tax. This will foster well stocked player vendors while ensuring that a portion of the credits blinks into oblivion. If you do not heed the warnings of the Merchant class you will be dooming us all to hollow shops and bloated storerooms.

To'Bosh
Senior Industrial Technologist
Bosh Mining Consortium

st

I know this has been said a few times already but the proposed maint fess would aboutly kill any use of vendors in my profession. As a Master Architech i would like to have the following items in stock continualy so i would need a minimum of 2 of each item but lets assume i stock one of each and 2 houses and 4 medium mineral harvesters

Heavy mineral Harvesters 145k

High Capicity Flora 120k

Heavy Gas 140k

Fusion Generators 130k

Large houses 2*150k for one of each style generic

Large houses 2*140k for each style correillan

medium mineral 4*20k

Now yes this is a lot of money but keep in mind that unlike most other proffesions architect is a very low margin field with all these items selling at just over the cost of buying the materials off of the bazzar to make them. So the daily maint rate on this Vendor, with ONLY 10 items on it,is 38,240cr each and every day regardles of sales.

Ciiirybeccaskyr

Master Architect The Tribe

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