Merchant Archive
Thread: Consignment, is it an endless cash machine for merchants?
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p4Samwise
Tue Jun 22, 2004 4:08 pm
#53
My new hobby is collecting agreement in my sig. To the untrained eye it makes me look well-loved and respected.
Doc, I'll let you know when I've got something. I'll include whatever I come up with on the Advertising front as well, since part of my goal is to have every branch of the skill tree be useful in its own way, in addition to all strengthening each other when combined. Kinda like Captain Planet.
Haruspex77
Tue Jun 22, 2004 6:07 pm
#54
I really think the key element of a SWG banking system is that it not involve system created money, but only player owned money being loaned at the owner's option.
Some element of security is required: automatic bank/inventory withdrawal, garnisheement of mission/bazaar/vendor payouts, or mortgage reposession of structures would all work. The simplest would be to have an automatic bankwithdrawal, like tax collection is now, but it would occur in fixed ammountsdaily until the debt was paid. It would be far better if it would draw from inventory as well as the bank.
Neither would eliminate the possibility of defaults. If you made a loan to someone who never earned enough to pay it off, you would never be paid. That makes the system require some judgement on the lender's part.
On the other hand, it could greatly enhance sales of expensive items if you could agree to make a loan for part or all of the price of it. Loaning a Master Doctor 100k to buy a set of buff packs from you doesn't sound like a big risk. Loaning a newbie 10k for a set of buffs does, but might be worth it for the Doc if he was idle and the guy sounded ok.
It would be doubly nice if the loan paper itself were tradable. It might work like this:
1) a suitable level Merchant creates an item called a "Blank Loan Form" that is fairly cheap in resources. And trades it to another player or uses it himself to borrow money.
2) The borrower "use"s it andfills in the terms: total, payment ammount, payment frequency(daily, weekly, or whatever). This changes it to a "Payment Note from [borrower]" that is a tradable item, and its terms show when examined. He can then trade this item for cash or goods in a trade window, just like any other item. It could even be sold onthe bazaar, offered or sold to a vendor.
3) Oneach payment date (according to the terms on the note) the payment ammount is deducted from the players bank and/or inventory (just like a bazaar/vendor purchase) and sent to the current holder of the note (just like a bank tip or vendor sale, but with a different email), and the "total owed" is debited.
4) If there are insufficient funds to cover the payment, the Note itself is updated with a "default" record with the date and the payment is skipped. After some (>30) number of defaults, the system stops trying, and the item becomes a "defaulted note from [borrower] for nnn cr" which is only a piece of junk but provides evidence of the defaulted loan if the borrower still exists and can be pressured somehow.
5) On examination in a trade window or bazaar offer, the current value, original issue date,and default history is visible. It is possible to trade a note like any item, and the buyer of the note can decide what it is worth to him. Since the owner of the Note is the character paid, the buyer will get future payments.
6) A note that is destroyed is forgiven, no future payments will be taken. An email to the borrower will notify him of this turn of events, even for a defaulted note.
Implementation note: It may not be easy in some circumstances to determine the owner of a Note. In that case there are afew possibilities:
- The payment of a note without an owner may be skipped until the next payment date (the requirements to be paid must be very clear in the patch notes and holocron),
- The payment by the borrower could occur when the owner selects "collect" from the Note's radialafter the scheduled payment.
- Or the payment may be declared to acrue to the note and stay with that object (like harvester maint) until withdrawn buy the holder ("clip coupon" command?).
I would prefer the latter solution.
I really like the idea of a whole new sub-game for Merchants. Some could specialize as bankers who bought and sold Notes. Someone who wanted to help newbies get started could accept high risk Notes from them, and get paid back sometimes. A Merchant would have an easy solution available for the guy who claimed to be a little short on cash to pay full price. Lots of benefits, even if the system is a little complex to implement.
lisasdarren
Wed Jun 23, 2004 3:00 am
#56
p4Samwise wrote:
When trying to make a system grief/exploit proof, bear in mind that SWG credits currently go for about$20 per million on many websites. If it's profitable to start up an SWG account, take out a million creditloan on each server, "launder" the credits by trading them to another account, and then cancel the "fugitive" account (or maybe just delete the character and start over, depending on what the system allows), and then sell the credits for real-world cash, someone will do it. In large numbers.
Based on my system, work needed to make $20(I'd say a million credit loan would be absolute maximum at master merchant, if not less)
- Buy 5 accounts ($75 / month)
- AFK Level one of them to master merchant using the other four to afk view the vendors (since there is no method on record to specify which vendor you want to target you cannot level all 5 using the other 4 to afk view 4 vendors in turn) estimated time 2 weeks (I have seen it done quicker using access fees and merchant tents, but thats not afk and still took 10 days)
- Grind sell- buy loop to increase actual credit rating to maximum, estimated time 1/2 day (can't macro this)
- Use credit to buy item at 1 million credits
- Make $20 dollars selling credits
- Delete merchant character and start again.
Money made every month $40, costs $75, loss $35
I still say it could work
Happymob
Wed Jun 23, 2004 4:30 am
#57
That's the key. The merchants risk their own money and reap the rewards. If a merchant lends 1 million credits to someone who sells it on eBay, it's their own fault.
Haruspex77 wrote:
I really think the key element of a SWG banking system is that it not involve system created money, but only player owned money being loaned at the owner's option.
Songe
Wed Jun 23, 2004 3:30 pm
#58
That system is too complicated for not many benefits. Besides, we are merchants, not bankers.
PadreBook
Wed Jun 23, 2004 4:08 pm
#59
I don't see how endlessly relisting items and have endless emails is more rewarding and 'merchant' like. In real world terms you described a 'Turnkey' business and those are a type of merchant so what's the problem. It needs to be EASIER to be a merchant in the game not more of the same.
Padre
Padre
Happymob
Fri Jun 25, 2004 8:19 am
#60
Songe wrote:
That system is too complicated for not many benefits. Besides, we are merchants, not bankers.
I think the goal is to make merchants a more varied and active profession. Part of the problem with consignment sales is that it is nearly a completely passive skill. Suggestions such as the in-game auction system and moneylending potentially add variety to how a merchant can be played. Despite smugglers not really being able to smuggle, the thing that makes them a very interesting profession is that they have 4 very unique abilities and playstyles in their 4 skill trees (faction point broker, slicer, combat, crafter). I welcome any active skills that they can give us that fit into a broad definition of "merchant" (and bankers are merchants that effectively buy and sell money). I don't want us to be just about vendors (particularly if that becomes passive).
That's not to suggest that we don't need a whole lot of vendor help.
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