Merchant Archive
Thread: Why every Merchant poacher cry baby should be quiet....
DingoBoi wrote:
What harm would come from allowing people to get a vendor and run a business out of it IF they wanted to dedicate the time to make a succssfull one?
Because there is more than just combat. SWG was designed so you could be nearly anything you wanted to be, and that includes non-combat professions. Merchant is an archtype that has been neglected in games past (and many feel neglected in this one).
But it doesn't make it a 'bad' profession. In fact, standalone merchant could be quite robust if they gave us the skills to really make it work well. I play this game primarily as a merchant and am proud to call myself one.
But would you not consider yourself a merchant IF there was NEVER any merchant class or skill points. Say from day one all you had to do was hire an NPC vendor and set up shop. If you where doing just that right now, doing EVERYTHING that you are doing right now, but without a title set that says your a merchant would you not consider yourself a merchant?
Games in the past never neglected merchants. All the tools have been provided for a player to set up a shop and run vendors selling goods they make or aquire. Why do you need a defining term listed on your character's data sheet to consider yourself a merchant? Would you be playing this game any differantly if there was no merchant skill trees yet could still run a vendor and shop?
I consider my character a merchant as well. By my actions in game, not by what skill boxes I picked up or what my title may say.
Songe wrote:
Then everyone would be a merchant, and we would just be confronted to the same situation as now - people who don't restock their vendors because they basically don't care. Bad idea. Leave it to the players who enjoy it, won't mind spending the SPsand will spend time restocking their vendor to be a merchant. I have no problem seeing the merchant profession centered around vendors, as they are such a good tool to sell things... and isn't it what merchants do?
To me, I don't see the usefullness of 63 skillpoints tied up in merchant when it is centered around only vendors. That isn't enough in my opinion to make a 'real' profession. Look at Jabba the Hutt. I would consider him to be a merchant, yet do you really think he cares about vendors? Merchant has a ton of potential, and yet as long as merchants only concentrate on vendors, it is never going to reach that potential because they are grinding away at something that should only be a small part of what they are as a whole. But that is just my opinion.
Stocking vendors does not a profession make.
That is tedious boring drudgery (especially with the crappy tools in game now) that while is a part of merchant, is far from what I expect most players would say makes their day.
In a perfect world where merchant could be anything and everything you possibly wanted as a profession, ALLLLLLLLLLLL you want from merchant and those 63 skillpoints is the ability to stock your vendors?? I mean come on...
Ok, how about just make the merchant profession into what ever it is the "real merchants" think it should be and let the rest of us run our vendors in peace. IE: remove all the ++++++ vendor stuff from merchant line and just let them be for hire off some NPC.
Honestly what the one poster is saying is true. Merchant profession = vendors. Just like my smuggling profesison = slicing. Whole set of skill trees and one 1 real good thing comes of it.
And to the poster who says they see empty vendors all the time. Yes I do see them too, but since they are emtpy where is the harm in that person having that vendor up and not having the skill points required to run it? How does that effect the merchants? How does that man's empty vendor hurt you? He is NOT a merchant. He has a vendor but is by no means a merchant.
As I will restate. You don't need skill boxes and titles to define you as a merchant. It's how you play. Your actions in the game can make you that merchant. Seriously here, if the whole profession was just wiped from the game I see no impact what so ever that would do anything serious to the game. Wipe the profession and let all people with merchant boxes filled in pick ANY skill of the same point value in their place.
Paxlar wrote:
And to the poster who says they see empty vendors all the time. Yes I do see them too, but since they are emtpy where is the harm in that person having that vendor up and not having the skill points required to run it? How does that effect the merchants? How does that man's empty vendor hurt you? He is NOT a merchant. He has a vendor but is by no means a merchant.
As I will restate. You don't need skill boxes and titles to define you as a merchant. It's how you play. Your actions in the game can make you that merchant. Seriously here, if the whole profession was just wiped from the game I see no impact what so ever that would do anything serious to the game. Wipe the profession and let all people with merchant boxes filled in pick ANY skill of the same point value in their place.
At this point it doesn't matter at all if people are merchants or just have vendors. Empty vendors *do* hurt merchants, as they are just taking room in the planetary map and totally discourage any potential customer to go visit the other 20 vendors of the list knowing that most will be empty too.
Everything you do in this game is based on points. We don't get anything for free. It would impact the economy (and it does) way too much to have everyone sell what they want without any drawback - seen the artisans complaining about all the resources vendors? You have to make a choice in this game. Merchants get tools to help them sell better, and will get even more of them in the future, how is that useless? How is that useless to have only merchants be able to use the planetary map? It's a very powerful tool for advertizing. You really don't have to get any merchant skill if a machine that takes 1k maintenance a day is good enough for you - I prefer my NPC vendor that takes 1k a week and is on the map, and my 20% fee reductions on all my structures though.
Paxlar wrote:
Ok, how about just make the merchant profession into what ever it is the "real merchants" think it should be and let the rest of us run our vendors in peace. IE: remove all the ++++++ vendor stuff from merchant line and just let them be for hire off some NPC.
Honestly what the one poster is saying is true. Merchant profession = vendors. Just like my smuggling profesison = slicing. Whole set of skill trees and one 1 real good thing comes of it.
And to the poster who says they see empty vendors all the time. Yes I do see them too, but since they are emtpy where is the harm in that person having that vendor up and not having the skill points required to run it? How does that effect the merchants? How does that man's empty vendor hurt you? He is NOT a merchant. He has a vendor but is by no means a merchant.
As I will restate. You don't need skill boxes and titles to define you as a merchant. It's how you play. Your actions in the game can make you that merchant. Seriously here, if the whole profession was just wiped from the game I see no impact what so ever that would do anything serious to the game. Wipe the profession and let all people with merchant boxes filled in pick ANY skill of the same point value in their place.
I'm not sure if you're talking about the post I made or not...may be or may not be, but it doesn't really matter too much. I said that if you just want to have a vendor to sell goods on, the rightmost tree is all you really need(i.e. a subset of the Merchant profession most will find useful). This isn't to say the rest is useless. You can think of it as a Pistoleer. All you really need from Marksman is the Pistol line. However, going up the Ranged Support tree helps and even Master Marksman provides pistol bonuses as well.
Advertising is useful to register yourself on the map (might be for barker droids too, but I'm not too sure as I don't use them).Efficiency is useful for the reduced fees and the ability to place a merchant tent. Hiring can be useful as well. Maybe you want to have your vendors dressed alike to make your store look more professional.
You can sell your goods on a vendor with just Artisan. Merchant provides tools to promote yourself, lower costs, and better organize your business to make it more successful. I think it is a viable profession and a valuable one at that.