Merchant Archive

I just have to add one more thing. SOE is really good about coming out and saying things like "Before we just randomly beat the crap out of you all with a nail filled nurf bat... We would like to propose some thing to you... Here is our suggestion." Then they offer some out ragious senerio like (total value of item /1000) * 30 increments a day. Well that sucks we all know it sucks and scream that it sucks. They arnt supprised and dont eaven have to read the MB because they knew it sucked. Come the day when the half nail filled nurf bat start a swinging they say

"Well we tried different senerios and this seemed best for all... By the way its what YOU wanted cause we listened to what you said on the MB."

You get beat with (total value of items/500) * 30 increments a day. This STILL BLOWS SOE! Dont pull the same political undermining of your customer base that is so well know by all your customers that have been apart of your Online endevor for YEARS AND YEARS... The same situation comes up again and again and again. MOD Rods from EQ? Mana Stones? Kunark Cleric BP? Mana Burn? Countless hits to spells that where once usefull... Fear Kiting in the PoP. CAMPING! My GOD CAMPING FOR 7 DAYS STREIGHT!

And its just sad that EQ was wittled down to a nub of perfection that it could have been. ALONG time ago mind you but it was there. Until the greed that enveloped the dev team by the mindless COE's that havn't a clue about what people want when it comes to MMORPGS. The only thing SOE has learned though its great tryuphs and defeats( SOE is never defeated by the way) is that if they make a game with MASS contect some pretty graphics and an endless supply of meaning less dribble to waste time on people will play it.

Well some of that is true but the real reason why we play it ( listen up you freaking ignorant COE's) is becuse we would love to see a game come out that acutally is enjoyable to play and is worth the time to play it. The "E" in SOE is what we are after. Please just spend the time to at least make the basics of the game work before putting your ass on display for the public! I mean really who is the fool here? The person spending 15 bucks a month in hope to acutally find a game worh playing or the multi million dollar company with all the brain power of NASA (NOT) spending millions of dollars to produce a game that cant even cover the basics Skills like Murchant. And then thinking it would be ok to hang your nasty ass out for the public to view and instead of covering your self up and fixing your mistakes you would rather beat the SOB's ( your customers ) laughing at you?

I quit EQ a while ago... I devoted almost 5 years to it. Then I had kids and thought I would give up games until EQ II came out and see if SOE invested in brain cells some where along the way. Now that I see what SOE is pushing to its customers it just makes me want to ditch this game and forget about EQII.

What a drag the KING is still a whinny money hungry exec that could careless about any thing else other then the bottom dollar...

If you guys are so worried about too much money in the system, why don't you quit DRAINING the poor merchants and just charge a 1% bank interest fee per day to EVERYONE. That will take a great amount of money out of the system without completely KILLING a potentially awesome profession and game dynamic?! Then just slap a small vendor charge per day, and a small % per item sold.

Someone on here earlier said "do you intentionally take the worst option". I tend to agree with this person. It doesn't appear like you guys are thinking things through and doing the math. It like you have a meeting and just throw numbers out and say "Yeah! Let's run with it".

I love this game, and as a Master Artisan working towards Master Weaponsmithwith a vendor I am going to stick with it and wait you guys out, because this is all part of the development cycle, there are millions of variables and I am going to be patient with you guys and let you work it out. But I BEG YOU:

1) Think things out (do the math)
2) Listen to the people that post here
3) Hang in there, this is an awesome game - we, or least I, know that you guys are working hard, and I appreciate it. I was a lead qa tester for another game company and understand it's tough.

-LutherHtoo

Yes,

I'm going to plan on a 7 day sales cycle and raise my prices by 25% to cover my costs. I've determined that you'll be charged 3.2% per day on the listing price of the item, so I'm going to bundle that cost in plus a little cost for my frustration.

I have an excel spreadsheet if anyone wants it. It calculates both what your costs would be over time, and what you should price your goods at to make a certain profit.

http://tryax.ddsconnect.net/vendor.xls

Cheers!

Here is how to avoid the DEV on this one...less call it an exploit

1. Remove all vendors but one

2. List one item for 1cr

3. NAME the vendor - Email (YOUR NAME HERE) for any items

4. Go to the bank and /shout I got stuff for sale

5. Raise your prices on everything...since nobody can find any vendors...items will now be scarce..can you say 100k for a CDEF...ok no...they will still clog the Bazaar

6. Load up on the cash and smile

7. use /say LOL to anyone who runs a store with Vendors and items on it..they will go broke

8. Register vendor with Planet Map - With the title EMAIL LOWAR for any items - Just let them know what you sell and to email you and your name

9. DUCK (SEE 10)

10. THe NERF bat will be back...maybe they will ban /shout who knows

Now I will have to see how this works in game before I got nuts and scream for someones head...but I assume based on this post by the DEV...its LOGIC BE DAMMED...FULL SPEED NERF

Vendor Maintenance as it exists presently is too low. There are features of the class that don't work properly either. As options are corrected it is understandable that additional costs are worked on. Increasing the base cost is reasonable however basing it on a /1000 rule per 45 minutes is intolerable and will devastate the market and profession.

The following is my alternate suggestion. The numbers are just suggestions and are subject to discussion and negotiation. I think the true motivation has more to do with database space because there are much easier ways to suck the lifeblood out of crafters. I've taken that into consideration in my approach.

A Vendor can only be stocked with 50 items. For each level of the Efficiency Skill it can hold 5 more. A Master Merchant would get 10 more. Thus the most a Master Merchant would be able to stock onto a Vendor would be 80 items.

A basic Merchant Vendor would have maintenance Base=(10cr + 10cr*(#Items/50)) per 45 minutes or 320 cr per day without any stock and 832 cr per day with maximum stock (Master Merchant with 80 items stocked)

With Barking or Advertising the Vendor would be double the Base (*1)

With Barking and Advertising the Vendor would be triple the Base (*1)

With Advertising IV it would reduce the extra cost to be 1.5 meaning that Barking or Advertising would be 1.5 * Base. Barking and Advertising would 2 * Base. (*1)

(*1) The morning reset of Barking and Advertising must be fixed before adding the expense of these features.

Having Uniformed Vendors would add 0.5 the Base (*2)

Having Outfitted Vendor would double the Base (*2)

(*2) The ability to have Outfitted Vendors and Uniformed Vendors would need to be fixed before adding the expense of these features. If there was better customization options within a race that would be also be worthy of consideration for extra expenses. (How many Male Humans Vendors look like fat blonde dopes?)

Each skill level of Efficiency should reduce the overall costs of the vendor by 10%. Mastery of the profession should reduce it an additional 10%.

Example:

Joe Novice Merchant has a Vendor with 32 items. His maintenance is 16.4 per 45 minutes or 525 per day. He advances to Advertising 2 and activates the Bark and his maintenance increases to 1050 per day. He advances to Advertising 3 and activates the Advertising and his maintenance increases to 1574 per day. He advances to Advertising 4 with the Bark and Advertising and his maintenance drops to 1050 per day for both or 788 per day for just one or the other.

Joe Merchant now goes into Efficiency and moves it up to 4. Now his maintenance having the vendor with Barks and Advertising active would be 40% discounted or 419 per day. If he decided to do the maximum stock of 70 instead of the 32 items it would be 614 per day.

Well, I can go into other examples but I've run too long already. This idea is relatively simple to implement and would give some marketing strategies for merchants to use. It would also give some advantage of dedicated merchants over dabblers. It is also strongly contingent on SOE fixing a small subset of the merchant bugs. That is the way it should be.

Fidg'Ter

Q-3PO wrote: Total Listed Value of Items on Vendor / 1000 every 45 minutes

<HR>

THis should be a point of sale percent of value.

I recommend 10% mitigated to 5% with more merchant skill.

Your system is.. well.. I am shocked you put that forward. THat screws two classes of people:

1) People with slow moving high price items (architecht, resources)

2) Casual players who maybe dont have the throughput of a more active player.

My system would be fair to everyone.. you pay a "tax" based on the sales, not the inventory.

I discussed this with some friends in other games recently, and to a man (and woman) they all were completely surprised that you would pay maintenance on inentory price rather a fee at the time of sale.

I am usually pretty open minded.. but this is an obvious one.

Another benfit is you can make it high.. because the player is making money at the time the fee is paid, it becomes inherently more palatable.

If a combat character lost 10,000 xp a day, and had to struggle all day to try to make more then 10k xp.. well.. this would be great for an elite few since they will be the sole pursuers of their combat. However.. the majority of players would have to give up combat. Should a player be forced out of a combat profession because they cant earn the same amount of xp in a given time period then a more accomplished player? No.. they should be able to enjoy the game at whatever lskill and time level they are able to bring to it..

Regards,

Artuk

You people seem to be missing one important fact about the economy,

IT'S NOT THE CRAFTERS WHO HAVE ALL THE FREAKIN MONEY!

This nerf would mean it would cost 3200 credits per day on 100K credits worth of stuff. Ok, so an Architect who goes through the long hours of work to prebuild 3 guild halls should have to pay roughly 89,900 credits per week just to make these items available to people when he's not logged in? If you think that is fair, quite simply, you are stupid. I am sorry to be so blunt, but if you thought about it you would think so too.

The purpose of vendors is to give the player, who is a real human being with a life out side of SWG, the oppertunity to sell their elite items while not in the game. If this weren't the point then you would not have capped the bazaar price at 3k. If you impliment this ludicrous formula you firstly suggested, you can kiss your in game economy good by.

A logical formula would work something like so,

maintenance per 45 minutes = [(number of items on vendor + 750) / value of items on vendor ] * [(value of items on vendor)*(0.03)]

Examples:

1. Big Time Retailer: 100 items for sale. Total value ofitems is 150,000 credits.

Maintenance=[(100+750)/150000]*4500 =25.5 =816 credits per day

2. Focused Architect: 5 items for sale. Total value ofitems is450,000 credits.

Maintenance=[(5+750)/450000]*13500 =22.65 =724.80 credits per day

3. Average Joe: 75 items for sale. Total value ofitems is25,000 credits.

Maintenance=[(75+750)/25000]*750 =24.75 =792 credits per day

4. The Moron: 5000 items for sale. Total value ofitems is5000 credits.

Maintenance=[(5000+750)/5000]*150 =172.5 =5520 credits per day

Same variables, much more dynamic layout!

Nice spreadsheet. Assuming the figures are correct (and I am)...a quick rule of thumb is for merchants to tack an extra 250 credits on to each item, per 1k of sale price. In other words what you charged 1k for before would now sell for 1,250 credits. A 45k credit item would have 11,250 credits tacked onto it, with a new price of 56,250.

I acknowledge that the previous maintenance rates were too low...practically non-existant. But this proposed change (that may have gone live, reports are contradictory)...is just way too much of a hit to merchants. My estimates of my costs will jump from under 1k per day (for vendors only) to over 20k per day. PER DAY. I can not spend time providing good customer service in my shop, I will be forced to go out and do missions for several hours every day. Or I can pass on the costs to my customers.

In either case, it takes what was a diverting game, that gave me a relaxing evening, and turns it into a heckuva lot of WORK. Raising 20k of extra money so I can go buy a bigger house is one thing. Raising 20k just to pay maintenance is no fun at all.

PLEASE DON'T KILL THE MERCHANT BUSINESS!!!!

I am a tailor and still low level. I charge barely more than my stuff costs to make because I think the prices should be fair. If you were to add the proposed maintenance fee i could not afford to sell my wares. I would probably close down my shop and maybe even delete my character.I spend most of my time making things and my only income is from selling. I put a lot of stuff on my vendor so customers have choices, like 6 different colors of the same 200 cr shirt and I would not be able to do this. I would probably just get rid of my vendor and put everything on display with a sign that says email me to purchase items.

I propose the following:

Make the fee a "tax" type fee. Charge the merchant a certain percentage of every sale.If that will not work due to program design, then charge the merchant a fixed fee when they list the item on their vendor like the bazaar system.

There could also be a nominal regular maintenance fee like with harvesters but it should not be based on the price of the items that are on the vendor. With advertising basically broken those of us that put points in it have already basically wasted them.

Please do not charge what you are proposing and put me out of business.

The lower insurance cost is also a good idea for a money sink since more people would buy it if it was cheaper. I have never bought it. I can't afford it.

High-end crafters, like the Master Weaponsmiths, etc, are already 'money sinks'. They put the money in the bank, and don't use it because there's really nothing they can spend it on. As rough as this sounds, if people have too much money, it's because the low-end missions are too easy.

When I first started playing, I thought that inflation would run rampant. I disagree with this idea now. Even if the money supply grows through the roof, prices are kept low by their artificially low production costs. In a real economy, money is recycled into the economy by the rich, and thecost of resources is bid-up as well. In this economy, the rich 'sink' the money, and the cost to produce resources is fixed by the harvester maintenance fees. The prices on things should fall as more and more people climb the skill trees, and are capable of producing more and more high-end goods, with the price limited on the downside by the cost of the resources, and the price on the upside limited by the Law of Supply and Demand. If the cost to market those goods goes up, then so will the prices on those goods, but is this what you want?

Im a tailor merchant. In order to get some sales - i need to offer a vareity of clothing styles and colours - so that cutomers can have a choice. If you do this to my vendors then ill just stop using them - destroy the stuff in them ( as it will cost me too much to keep them ina vendor) ans simply become a grinding blimp who does not participate in the SWG player econmy any more than i absolutely have to. Once i reach master ( after a lot of grinding) I will make stuff to order only.

This does not make an integrated community. I expect to lose interest in the game a few weeks after that - and then just stop playing altogether.

If you want to take money out of the ecoonmy as a whole - then add a sales tax to every vendor ( and bazaar ) transaction. People who spend more would pay more in tax ( ie those who are building up all this dangerous money you are talking about - would end up giving more away. If you wanted to aid this plan you could allow bigger sales back on the bazaar ( say the old 10k limit) and charge a higher tax on the bigger sales.

If you force this onto merchants/crafters only - then they will have to put their prices up - and they will make less sales - so it wont have the desired effect of bringing more money out of the game.

Gimme a break, at your prices a vendor with 100,000 cr in merchandise is gonna run over 3000 a day to upkeep, more than harvesters! This is gonna break architects and droid engineers as most of what we make isn't destructible or likely to be destroyed therefore lowering return customer rates, meaning we need fresh business all the time which for both classes isn't a guarantee. Especially with droids getting worse all the time.

heres the formula bro...

Total Value/10,000 per hour

If the game developers didn't want people banking, storing, harvesting, creating hundreds of items because their own storage situation can't handle it, why did they create a game that revolves around such huge amounts of diversity!!!

Thats like going to a resturant with a huge menu, but the cook can only chef 10 out of 12,000 items available.

I'm a tailor, I need to stock vendors with 3 tiers of creations, different colors, etc. Its an amazing amount of items a tailor (not even master) can create.

I'm a furniture, harvestor archicect, again...a huge amount of items to create and a HUGE AMOUNT OF ITEMS I HAVE TO HARVEST AND STORE so I can make them.

Possibly looking into chefing, will trade architect for chefing if I decide i like it. OMG!!! a HUGE amount of variety, and harvesting of items to STORE and to create and offer to clients.

I'm a merchant, I should master tonight (why bother....), I have maximum amount of vendors, each filled with tailoring, chefing, and architect items.

I LIVE for my store right now, I run around filling my vendors, making new items to fill the gaps, I don't make ONE duster and put it on my vendor, I make 6 or 7 dusters of different colors, I want my the world filled with color, not just black.

My husband is working towards bio engineer, he would like to sell his pets through me, OMG I NEED more vendor SPACE, not to mention all that he harvests and STORES for creating his wares.

If they didn't want such variety, why make 10 different coppers, 9 different steels, 200 different hides and meats...we need a place to PUT IT.

The more I play this game, the more I see people who have no common sense who work for this company.

They obviosly don't play the game seriously, and they don't care to listen to anyone who does, as long as they get their 15 bucks off my credit card every month, they keep a nerfing.

Wow, can't wait.

Zak

Ahzi,