Merchant Archive
Thread: Merchant Item Limits Focus Thread: Please try to be constructive and rational (Pt 2)
90% of my game time revolves around the crafting system, my harvesters and my shops...
What is the point of being a Master Tailor if I can't sell what I make?
Right now I live in a player city where I run 14 vendorsby having the merchant skill on 3 different accounts. Since the town started I have run almost all of the businesses in town so that other players wouldn't have to give up their skills to sell items... isn't that what a Merchant is supposed to do?
With the new vendor item caps, I would no long be able to runthe 3 mostly decorative vendorsin the Burnin' Hookah Cantina to resell Food, Drinks, and Spices for the local residence... which means I might as well take the building down since there would no longer be a reason for anyone to goin there. After all entertainers and doctors can dance/heal/buff in any public player owned building in the city. Sorry Mayor.
And poor 'Hilda in the Jolly Roger Cantinawould get the Axe, no room for a vendor that sells cheep drinks for Role-Play purposes...
And say good bye to the Black Market, no room for a Pawn Shop merchant to resell furniture, structures, harvests, and decorative items... No room for that shifty Black Market Dealer that sells cheep items for new players... No room for the Bio-Engineering vendor, no tailors and chefs left to buy thetissues anyways... Might as well take that tent down since it's empty now... Sorry Mayor
Now that I've freed upsome vendors, I don't have a building big enough to place them all in... All my lots are taken up by Factories, Harvesters, and Small Storage Houses for my supplies (since for some unknown reason a small house can hold 150 items... but a large taking up 6 lots only holds 250... I'm still trying to figure out the logic behind that one)...Hmm... Take down the Clothier'sTent since it can't hold all 6 or more vendors... or make people run to anywhere from two tosix different buildings just to look at the 110 pieces of clothing.... oh scratch that, I can't even stock 110 items because I don't have to skill points for Master Merchant without dropping almost all of Master Dancer...
Drop Master Dancer.... I didn't want to have fun in this game anyways...
Now send customers to 2 to 6 different buildings to admire the 2 of each style clothes I can make, one in black, one in white....
With the Merchant Item limits, this game stops being fun and turns into a full time job that I *pay* to maintain...
Now doesn't that seem a little silly?
bus 3 - 1 vendor, 50 items per (50 total)
Nov Merch - 2 vendors, 75 items per (150 total)
Management 1 - 3 vendors, 125 items per (375 total)
Management 2 - 4 vendors, 200 items per (800 total)
Management 3 - 5 vendors, 300 items per (1500 total)
Management 4 - 6 vendors, 400 items per (2400 total)
Master merch - 6 vendors, 600 items per (3600 total)
These limits keep the business 3 dabblers down, allows the crafters who have some merchant skills to operate, and gives a big bonus to those who master ther merchant class and wish to truely operate as a merchant, buying and reselling goods.
These are the limits I could live with. I would certainly support higher limits as well.
DocSavag wrote:
I am researching what happened to the other thread. Please post your suggestions and counter proposals to the item limits here.
Please try to keep the flame to a minimum. I understand you are angry but try to remained focused on the goal which is to prevent the item limits from going into production at a level that will not allow us to do business in an efficient and reasonable manner.
I find this announcement disturbing and discouraging and if implemented in the described manner without modification would be enough for me to cancel my extra account. As a Master Merchant I have four vendors that I make sales from. I have Heaven-N-Earth Vehicles, Let Me Heal You, Tools-N-Things, and Hudson’s Fine Fashions. Their names are self-explanatory but why I am in disagreement with the current proposed limit is how I use the “Let Me Heal You” and “Tools-N-Things” vendors. I supply low cost Stim-A’s and Wound kits in crates of fifty for 2k per crate. On “Let Me Heal You”. I have around five hundred crates up for sale. This particular vendor gets incredible repeat business as you could imagine. On “Tools-N-Things” it is similar but with armor repair kits, melee and ranged power ups, and other like items. I pride my shop on having great products at fair prices and on “always” being stocked. When I read threads about ghost vendors and complaints about paying entrance fees only to find a vendor nothing in it related to its advertised name I “know” it is not about my shop and me. My customers always know that I will be stocked and that their suggestions for product options and availability are listened to seriously. It was suggestions from my customers that led me to use the current system I am using today. The current proposed limit would make it difficult for me to supply my customer’s needs in the way they want to be served. I want that limit to be increased to at the very least one thousand five hundred for Master Merchant. This would make it less “offensive” and a “burden”. It all comes down to a simple matter of convenience for both me and my customers. If you wanted to make a positive impact on the Merchant profession you could do us a favor and increase the operations expense benefit from 20% at Master to 35%. This profession is the only one where at Master achievement you get bumkus! That should be addressed long before you considered this proposed ill advised venture!
The above was my original post. If you want to quote your original post you can just click your name and then use the link to "Find all post by this person" and cut and past it to this one. I admit I was “Hot” about this issue when I first found out about it. I have had a bit to cool off a tad…only a tad and I have a post that is a little more constructive and less angry. These totals I have come up with are per vendor and “not” across the number of vendors you have initialized.
Artisan
Novice Vendor Item Modifier +0
Business I Vendor Item Modifier +0
Business II Vendor Item Modifier +0
Business III Vendor Item Modifier +100
Business IV Vendor Item Modifier +25
Master Vendor Item Modifier +25
Merchant
Novice Vendor Item Modifier +50
Management I Vendor Item Modifier +40
Management II Vendor Item Modifier +160
Management III Vendor Item Modifier +180
Management IV Vendor Item Modifier +230
Master Vendor Item Modifier +200
Vendors +1
Efficiency I No change
Efficiency II No change
Efficiency III No change
Efficiency IV Reduced Maintenance Fees –20%
Master Reduced Maintenance Fees –15%
Message Edited by BULLROACH on 08-10-2004 12:01 PM
bus 3 - 1 vendor, 50 items per (50 total)
Nov Merch - 2 vendors, 75 items per (150 total)
Management 1 - 3 vendors, 125 items per (375 total)
Management 2 - 4 vendors, 200 items per (800 total)
Management 3 - 5 vendors, 300 items per (1500 total)
Management 4 - 6 vendors, 400 items per (2400 total)
Master merch - 6 vendors, 600 items per (3600 total)
These limits keep the business 3 dabblers down, allows the crafters who have some merchant skills to operate, and gives a big bonus to those who master ther merchant class and wish to truely operate as a merchant, buying and reselling goods.
These are the limits I could live with. I would certainly support higher limits as well.
Okthis is thefirst Cap limit suggestion that I could really deal with... it gives a comfortable middle range, and is expansive enought that it works for those who dont want all of merchant and it works for those who do...
Message Edited by Jordan_Karr on 08-10-2004 11:56 AM
Tanooshman wrote:
If every one suffers the same limits, I can live with it. So there, it's said.
But.
I can't imagine what is triggering this change. Last I heard there were 1 million SWG players - spread over 25 or so Galaxies. Even assuming 100k players per server, with 10k items EACH - that's only 1gig items in the database. I'm unaware of any modern Commercial grade Db for which that is a daunting number. If you had to allocate 10k of storage FOR EACH ITEM, that's still only 10 terabytes. I'd be impressed if we were talking about my brother's home setup - but for a SONY game of this stature I fail to see any major challenges before 100 times the number of players.
If it's a gameplay issue, there's some room for argument. An artisan with Level 3 business skillprobably doesn't need, and maybe shouldn't have unlimited vendor storage capacity. But a Master Merchant? I can't fathom the reason for a limit on Master Mechants - therefore I can't elucidate an alternative.
But it's clear if all BUT Master Merchant had limits, the DB issue would evaporate, regardless of the limits.
I have to comment that SOE has not demonstrated an award-winning capacity for seeing the consequences of its changes (to date). Just as the Holocrons had an unintended consequence.
The simple FACT: The players WILL HAVE THEIR STUFF!!!! If you take away this avenue - there will be a backlash. It may very well be less convenient!
We have no where near 1 million players. If you don't know how much space each item takes p, how do you know the size of the DB. The client side of the game is about 2 gigs. No way the DB is 1 gig.
1 - Save database space on the game so they can pay less money to run the game
2 - Force people to purchase multiple accounts
This is not right at all. This nerf is completely geared toward making SOE more money.
This is not what a game is supposed to be about. Ever. The heart and soul have left SWG, I fear.
And I hope they delete this post, so they can pretend they're not trying to get more of your money.
I don't know about you, but I want the heart and soul in my game.
Manipulation of Crates:
Allow crates to be used as containers. A vendor can support N amount of crates (N = max limit). A player can purchase a given amount of items from the crate without buyin' the whole crate. Fer example, there be a crate of 25 T-21's. A customer wants only 3 T-21's and buys just 3 from the crate. The crate now has 22 T-21's remainin' in the vendor.
Deleted threads...
I feel like Am relivin' the Combat Balance issue once again...
- Players who do not have Merchant or even Artisan get charged more, for vendor maintenance (doesn't necessarily have to be this way, just to give players a chance to clear stock without destroying their items, and those who need to reacquire the skill, then in a few publishes time could make it that they require skill to operate vendors)
- All players should be able to have a vendor, but only operable when using a house, naturally, and can sell only as many items as what they can sell on the bazaar, or even maybe share the amount across the bazaar and a vendor if they have one. Is it 25 items a person can sell on a vendor? Haven't used it for ages, anyway if its 25, and a player (without artisan) places his only available vendor in his house, and advertises 10 items, then that player can only advertise a further 15 items on either the vendor or the bazaar. If the player then acquires Business 3, they can then have another vendor and an increased amount of items, and then be able to still sell 25 items on bazaar and whatever amount will be by having a vendor or two at Bus 3, then further vendors can be acquired at each relevant skill box of vendor+1
A possible exploit could occur from this Merchant Nerf:
Also this nerf could also make people create loads of 14 day accounts, to gain 10 more lots to store their masses of items from vendors, resulting in loads of houses or factories popping up everywhere, and then no one will be able to drop an extractor. Heres the thing: Create a 14 day account or two or three or four etc, drop loads of factories/houses, give admin rightson the paying accounts char house/factories to the 14 day accounts, then those 14 day chars can movethe items from the main char to the 14 day accounts factories/harvesters, then in about 13 days later activate more 14 day accounts, and with the first batch of 14 day accounts move the items back to the main chars structures, and use the new 14 day accounts to move the stuff from the main chars structures to their new structures, then the first batch 14 day chars removes their structures and places them in storage in the main chars structures for storage until 13 days later when a third batch of 14 day accounts get created and so on.
A rather long winded process but to those who have spent a yaer crafting and to suddenly lose it all, it could very well be worth it, and especially as this Nerf will in essence "ruin" the game for the majority, so people won't care, but this will cause a huge strain on the SWG servers, uses up loads available names unnecessary, could turn the playing field into a mass factory/house wasteland, for those who don't remove their structures before the 14 days are up or those who can't be bothered to remove them, resulting in not much room to place harvesters/houses legititmately. Although they would go poof soon enough when the maintenace runs out, unless someone pays 50k credits on each of them. Also this would mean that Gamespot/Fileplanet will suddenly have a false mass increase in their userbase, which could end up putting a strain on their servers too.