Merchant Archive
Thread: Merchants Unite! We must get devs to take away vendors from Business 3 and 4!
Numtini wrote:
People who want clothing, personal harvestors, stim packs, entertainment healing and many other things don't need to go to an elite class either. Merchants are hardly singled out. The entry professios are alldesigned to offer a little of everything. Artisan lets you make your own clothes and your own harvestors. If you want better, you need to go to an architect or tailor. It also lets you put a single big ugly box in your living room and sell things. If you want better you need to become a merchant. I don't see what the difference is.
Please explain to me what "you want better you need to become a merchant," means. There is no "better" merchant at novice merchant.
Please explain to me what "you want better you need to become a merchant," means. There is no "better" merchant at novice merchant.
That's odd, at Business 4, I had an ugly droid and at Novice you get an NPC. It makes the place look a whole lot nicer and a big part of what you're selling is ambiance.
Not to mention you get a second merchant which you can use to make your wares easier to find or stick in a back room as a place for special orders or put in a different building to open a second branch.
Good god
You people are frightening and confusing me.
Do you REALLY think craftsmen have no desire, or in some posts the RIGHT to sell their own goods?
Why, just to justify your existance?
If you wanna JUST run a store, buy and sell - by all means do so. If you're people skills and connections are up to the challenge, you should do absolutely marvelous.
Many posts in this thread are boardering on taking away the ability for anyone to sell their own merchandise so you have a monopoly sewn up and they HAVE to go thru you.
It's totally within your own power RIGHT NOW to make them WANT to go thru you.
You don't need any manipulating of the skilltrees to do that.
I merchant my own stuff - thank you very much, and always will. I consider myself as much a merchant as I am a tailor or a bio-engineer. To me marketing my wares is as much a part of crafting as selling them. One side of the equation is just not enough for me.
I'm not entirely sure why they made merchant a seperate profession, but being able to have 6 vendors, list on the map and pay less fees to me is very much worth it (course it will be lovely once all that stuff actually WORKS).
I've found placing a few items on the bazaar as advertisement works better to get folks to my store than the global map which has to be reset each morning. Each sale gets an email from me with a waypoint to find more of the same goodies.
The merchants key to success is contacts - and making their store so choke full o'goodness people keep the waypoint and visit often.
Hobbling other people's ability to sell (read - limiting your competition) isn't going to make you successful.
MMOGAddict wrote:
Frankly I'd rather see vendors stay at business III and instead nerf the bazaar.
Artisan aren't our enemies, the bazaar is, specially when ANYONE can dump product on it for a lousy 20cr fee.
Plus it keeps people in the towns rather than coming out to our shops.
Nerf the bazaar and you'll cripple miners. Have fun getting your resources then. 
With the NPC vendor bug, all miners have to sell resources on the bazaar or on VERY expensive terminal vendors.
Numtini wrote:
How about shops. Add shops to the architect line and make them ownable only by people with specific merchanting skills. How about allowing master merchants to build within the 1km border of a town? Maybe "shops" can have merchants out on the porch?
how about bazaar "camps"
since camps now can be placed in no-build zones (yet outside city limits) this would mean, they could be virtualy on the edge of town. giving merchants a bazaar-style camp where they can place vendors and the camp would stay up as long as a vendor is placed and maintained in it? or how about creating a designated area within the city limits where merchants can place vendors and display their wares(stockroom-like)?
since camps now can be placed in no-build zones (yet outside city limits) this would mean, they could be virtualy on the edge of town. giving merchants a bazaar-style camp where they can place vendors and the camp would stay up as long as a vendor is placed and maintained in it? or how about creating a designated area within the city limits where merchants can place vendors and display their wares(stockroom-like)?
I fear putting things inside of towns would turn them into a lag fest which they already sort of are.
I really like the idea of a bazaar just outside the city though. That's a great idea. I would not limit it to merchants but would place it higher up the merchant line somewhere. It's not the bottom of the line that's an issue, it's higher up.
"The artisan vendors aren't hurting your business"
I see you've played the merchant class very long and well grasshopper. I've been hammering this point since beta as a merchant there. My view hasn't changed since beta. Business 3 vendor has no place in artisan tree. Reduced bazaar fees do. 50 merchant xp per successful bazaar sale. By the time you go thru business tree you'll have xp for merchant instead of playing the wait game with a vendor. I demand a pet in 3rd box in scout tree or remove vendors from 3rd box. Since vendors and petsmake the class they deserve to have their living entirely in their class not giving to a smuggler who learns artisan then business 3 just to unlearn it fast and keep their vendor without any artisan skills. That's bs.
I wrote a long reply to this but I seems to have been eaten
Short version:
Would/should you guys be 'targetting' the elite crafting professions rather than the artisan (I know the ability stems from the same place though) there is no low level artisan market, you'll not gain anything by nerfing that (anyone here was to buy my stock off 33 bone armour chest pieces at 750cr each? No didnt think so) and you only hurt the low level crafter by nerfing that or the bazaar - what you are really looking for (but no one seems to have said it) is making it very difficult for those in the elite crafting space to run their own vendor (because thats where the money is)
On the other hand I've _never_ been approached by a merchant interested in moving my products for me (Im on Eclipse) I'd love to be able to dump stock onto one guy and get on with the crafting, but the problem is that you cant offer me a resonable price for my goods (see 750cr per bone armour chest piece above), because you wont be able to get a resonable price from your customers (due to cut-throat pricing to just get UXP, lack of low level sustainable markets etc etc)
Merchants need perks - other people's ability to sell their own goods is fine as is (well - except for the insane rates those boxes charge - that's just punative)
Once upon a time, in a beta far far away - the master merchant was supposed to be able to hire a NPC IN TOWN. Somewhere in the wee hours between server down on beta - and release - that one disappeared.
Given that somehow I don't think there will be NEARLY as many master merchants in an area as NPCs standing around for fetch and carry missions - a few of those spots could surely be opened for that purpose.
As has been mentioned by others - a distinct and unique shop should be available to the master merchant - one designed to be suited more for the purpose of a store than a house. Personally - I'd prefer one larger room myself - perhaps with a tiny anti-room for crafting machines, but one where the outside is different looking and instantly signals any potential customers walking by - HEY - this is a shop!
These shops should have a VASTLY greater storage and sales capacity than an average house. Storage and sales space is the lifeblood of the merchant. You can't sell what you can't stock, display or store.
Being able to list an NPC on the global map is nice, but it's not NEARLY as effective as being able to list the shop itself - with an mouseover, customizeable advertisement. I would have thought this would have been easier - and actually expected it to work that way, but now, I have to name my vendors what they sell instead of something more fitting or creative. Perhaps they need to add a function to the bazaars itself for 'shop adds'. On the bazaar listings - this would be interplanetary if someone just searched the galaxy.
There are a million and one other things merchants could use to attract folks to their shops, and attract artisans to sell to them - but the majority are not game mechanic issues - they are people issues. People issues you already have the power to command.
Everyone has a basic right to sell their own goods if they choose. No one has the right to tell them, well - my class specializes in that - you CAN'T, which is what a good deal of this thread is boiling down to.
The benefits of the merchant profession needs to be visibility, advertisement and storage/sales/display space. The rest dear friends is totally up to your people skills, which is after all - the true litmus test of any true merchant.
"Everyone has a basic right to sell their own goods if they choose. No one has the right to tell them, well - my class specializes in that - you CAN'T, which is what a good deal of this thread is boiling down to."
Exactly just not the right to use vendors as an artisan. Anyone can sell items on bazaar or word-of-mouth.Life isn't fair you have to be a bounty hunter to use lightning rifle or commando for rocket launcher or creature handler for pets. What item can merchants say they have that no others have? Ooo yea that's right nothing. Go even father to say that's the ONLY item merchants get. Fancy that. And look the only specility item we get anyone with 2 hours work can get. Yay!!!!
Absolutey not a single one of us is saying artisans shouldn't be able to sell their own wares.
What we ARE saying, is that they should be REQUIRED to use skill points in order to do it. Sacrifice points they would spend elsewhere and put them into the Merchant skill. The problem is one of balance, it is making it far too easy for non merchants (people without the merchant skills) to have and use vendors. This DOES in fact create an unbalanced situation for the people who DO put skill points into the merchant class.
A lot of the above statements are accurate. If I wanted to use certain pistols, heavy weapons, grenades, whatever, I would be required to spend skill points and gain levels within a certain class path.
The only specialty item we get we absolutely needed at business 3 or 4 otherwise there would be no way to become a merchant. Yay!!!
Keep it the way it is, its fine and isn't hurting anyone.