Merchant Archive

ue

Time to get in trouble.

I am at a complete loss as to why you think adding maintenance fees to vendors is going to create a money sink that will actually do anything to stabilize your faucet and drain debacle in the first place.

WE TOLD YOU THREE YEARS AGO that the faucet and drain economy was antequated, irrelevant and completely overrideable and now you are telling us we need more sinks?

So now you want to 'tax' vendors who by the way don't make money by using the mission terminals in the first place where the problem starts, by slamming those that sell high price items or wish to actually maintain an inventory so people can select from a choice. Sure it is great for the exploiters out there who sell rifles for 70k a piece, now they can put one rifle on at a time and sell it at twice that price and blame you guys for the pricing change. And then we will have to pay 3 times the price for resources and then we will have even fewer people selling hides and bones becuase it will be even easier to make money using harvesters.

Now I don't really care cause this 'solution' is merely an annoyance in that it just changes my business model.

You have to know how easy it is to bypass this solution of yours don't you?

All you are doing is again rewarding people who play for hundreds of hours a month and once again smacking the casual players, if there are any left, in the head.

Now to stop this from being a rant, here is some solutions to your problem that you guys are not going to implement but make infinitely more sense than this pointless exercise in annoying your customers.

We are customers by the way, I realize we are stupid customers but don't insult us indefinitely.

The fact of the matter is that HOARDING is killing us. And you set hoarding up as a goal in the first place by telling people that they should save for ships and toys in the future.

You have to start charging transaction fees between cash and the bank.

You have to start making insurance and cloning work the way they are supposed to.

You have to start a tax that hits high bank accounts, I mean we are under the Emperors rule for the love of...you don't think he would know someone who has 5 million in the bank?

You have to get people to spend the money, want to spend the money and set up control mechanisms so that this price gouging crap we have in the bazaars and with weapons stops.

You have to start using the bank and the cash system the way you said you would 3 years ago.

I seriously don't want to have to pull all my inventory from my vendor, pull my advertising vendors and drop merchant entirely and then start using storage droids and set up shop in town.

Can you just please wake up and create an economy forum where we can rationally and logically discuss the whole problem instead of being relegated to critiquing your 'solution' solely?

I mean your solution is not a solution at all it doesn't address the problem, it doesn't impact anyone who doesn't want to be impacted and just creates a more have/havenot environment.

I mean I know you guys are not stupid either. So lets have a serious effort put forth on this guys and stop lillywagging.

But seriously, if you want to tax merchants with a money sink then set up a reward system where people can set up vendors in partnerships, where people can sell items in packages rather than one piece at a time, so that its worth it for us to want to get merchant in the first place.

And also let us set up demand packages as well so that I can automatically pay people at a fixed rate for specific items.

Give me a reason to keep my merchant skills, don't give me an excuse to bypass it.

Cause seriously, if maintenance fees come into play I see no reason to tie up my skill points in merchant any longer.

Put a tax on the bazaar before you put a tax on vendors...think guys I know you know how.

eq

The problems of being a simple merchant:

Advertising, works when it wants too. Add barking doesn't work on the terminals and the option to make your own add doesn't work at all. Sometimes you vendor will show up on the planetary map, sometimes it doesn't.

Efficiency, the break you get on vendors and structures is so minute that I don't even see it.

Hiring, well, this is an interesting one. Each level you get an expanded variety of vendors, which is nice on the surface. If you sell resources like I did, you cannot employ either the npc or droid vendors, they won't let you retrieve the resouces. So your stuck with the terminals, they do work with selling resources. Only problem with them is, you cannot rotate or move them, so you are basically stuck with what ever position it is placed in. Also, they have a higher maintenance fee for less options, go figure that one out.

Vendors, it's nice that each level you can get one more of them.

On the whole, I like the class, but I am getting out of it now, maintenance fees are just too much. I can understand that you need some sort of money sink, but why place all the money sinks in the Artisan field alone? As it is slowly becoming a class where no one wants to play it, you would think you would be working on ways to make it more enjoyable for the players. As a noob crafter, since you can't afford a harvester, you have to go out there and sample, you have taken away an ability to macro sample afk, making sure the player has to stay there to sample. That is just rediculous, your company has gotten it's money, why are you hampering our abilities. Just because some folk out there don't like the fact that you can sample afk (and why not, you can't afford to buy the resources or a harvester, so you now have to sit there for hours on end to collect them in what can only be said as the dullest job in the game next to crafting) and have whined and moaned that you actually nerfed something that was more of a benefit than an exploit? By listening to all those morons who aren't even crafters and nerfing the artisan class and it's off shoot professions, you have done more damage than good. Every Droid Engineer I know has moved on to something else. Tailors, Weaponsmiths, Armorsmiths, what few Chefs I know and anyone who has bothered to be a merchant is pretty fed up. Now it's fees on the vendors that need adjusting, before that it was items in houseing that caused us problems, before that it was macro sampling. Aside from the fact that you make some resources so scarce that certain items aren't going to be made, eggs and milk are stilla rarity and the loss of materials due to critical failures, this sure is a fun class to be in.

/sarcasm off

I have closed my shop, sold all my goods and am going to drop my merchant and artisan skills and become a Master Scout. I hope I won't be the only one to leave the artisan class, but if you keep messing with them, I won't be the last.

eq

Went for a walk, and the mess that this would cause just became more apparent.

You make, I don't know how many, but many different varieties of belts for example. Now should the customer buy a two pocket belt? a leather belt? a bristly belt? Only one way to decide, it would be nice if someone had each type of belt in stock so I could look at them. Sorry, costs too much money too have a low sell item kept in stock. This story is repeated for many clothing items. Clothing stores will be reduced to dusters. And only one duster, to keep the costs down.

It just doesn't make sense to do it the way you propose. I get comments that people like to come to my store because of the large selection. My store will go away if this takes effect. So another enjoyable part of the game gone.

I'm trying to figure out if I have any kind of option other than closing the store. How about this for a work around. I'll list my items using some worthless item like a powerup with no experimentation. I'll name the powerup "Admisistrators Robe 250" and then sell it for 1 credit. People will buy the worthless powerups with the wierd names and make appointments to see me to exchange the items for what they really want.

I'll have to do something like that or close the shop.

The problem is that you built a system designed around decay. Then took decay out or never got it in (I don't know, I wasn't in beta). So now you try to fix a broken system by breaking something else. NOT the way to go around it. Sell vehicles costing 500k through npc vendors only. Have them break down and need maintenance. THERES a money sink for you. Reintroduce some kind of decay (pretty soon everyone will have all the clothes they ever need, and there goes the tailoring profession.).

rOk I read a lot of the last posts, but not all of them as it is very very long! (Read a few and you got your answer Q )

You want money sinks? heres a few ideas...

Enhanced Gambling, yes the machines are a good idea but remind me of a BBC Micro game I used to play...How about Rancor fights or Pod Races...nothing fancy just a small segment of the winner finishing off their opponent (in a small pop up, similar to the examine screen) or the winner crossing the line...that kind of stuff. Make them placable Vendors...I would pay more to place one of those in my next venture (a bar).

Reduced Hunting payouts...these are amazingly high...You can take a 'kill 45 Rill mission' out of Mos Eisley..run round the outskirts of the town and kill them all in about 30mins...making 4000cr. Take two missions one for Lesser Wamp Rats at you go and bamm 8000cr in under an hour.

Place healing Vendors in remote towns/ on remote planets...This may sound like it would take away from Docs..it wont it will encourage people to pay them, or face the 30cr per wound point heal that they need.

Increase cloning charges on remote worlds? Yes this will hit the combat classes but when I can sell Reb/Imp Mission disks for upto 30K (when I stood and one shot killed around 20 RagTag Goons for it) I think they can afford it.

Upkeep on Faction Pets...yeah they got to eat and how much does it cost to oil an AT-ST? I gotta pay to keep a box in my house that sells stuff yet this AT-ST does not cost a penny? Hmm somethings wrong there.

So Just a few ideas for money sinks, rather than this horrific, Combat characters can make 30K a day easy so why cant we? are they going to pay earnings tax? (This is not a suggestion!!)

I agree with what was said, get ready to see: ArrTooDeeToo shouts "Selling 5K of copper (777 OQ) 3cr a unit, will split send tell!!" in all the major towns...and this sucks...you dont think it is rubbish spend an hour outside Coronet starport...is like Billingsgate Market down there. Shout this and shout that...and it is unfortunately necessary cos I will be damned if I am gonna sell a Small house for 3K...and with out my Vendors this will happen.

I for one hope this rule does not take effect, it is a stupid rule...It is Clown shoes

Thanks.

P.S- Why are Eisley and Starport not in your spell checker? (oh and it picks out any word with 'st' in it also

st

A money sink is not something I need. As yet I have not sold a single item from my very expensive vender. I have some nice stuff on him at reasonable prices, mostly electronics in factory crates (made inbetween thos mysterious times when the factory does not work at all). I sell planty of stuff in the city bazaar and laboriously type my vender's location on each item so that those customers know where to find more and at lower cost per unit than the bazaar.

Right now I can barely make enough sales in the bazaar to support my harvesters, my nearly useless bugged equipment factory and now these huge maintenance fees on my vender. I would like the have the time to try questing or maybe some combat with things other than stray mutant womprats that stray close to my structures, but as it is now what time I have I spend scraping money together to stay afloat.

Figure out a different way to drain money from the economy, maybe sales tax.Right now i dont dare put anything on the vender for fear I can't afford the maintenance, so what good is it?

Tammerlane, Struggling Master Artisan of Gorath

st

You BETTER, and i want to emphasis on BETTER, fix the %$/"/ vendor bug before you implement something like that.I lost so many sales...I had to refund customer and lost the item... I lost 50000 cr in one shot.

FIX IT FIRST AND THAN WE'LL SEE!!

I think a sale tax would be the better way to go.If a beginner merchant as no real good stuff it will cost him more to have some stuff on sale for a week than he will make money.

But Think for once!There is so many vendor bug...i can t believe you are looking to implement something like that when the bugs are not taken care of!!

Wake up and smell the Coffee!

ue

Vender maintance is not a money sink, if you do it product will not be sold through venders but through markets, the east commons market theory - cornet starport is my choice

I have no problems pricing in a 5 or 10% sales tax, but you are wiping out player sales by not allowing us to show buyers a variety of product. Instead of giving the customer options we will be forces to sell at the star ports or only have very limited supplies on our venders. With limited supplies on the venders they will go empty much more often pissing off people who run out to a vender to find nothing on it.

I'm sure the programming isn't there but a sales tax is the way to go, not a maintance tax...I would even be willing to pay the sales tax up front(when I put an item on vender, makes it a pain to change prices, but at least its a fixed price per item)....

For the weapon smiths/armor smiths who get 20 credits+ per resource it wont be that big a deal, but the rest of the world that gets 3-4 credits per resource it will change the way we operate. I'm already turning to selling rare resources instead of using my master title to make items. I can get more money mining high quality resources then I can making high end master skill items...I guess I just chose the wrong profession and you are trying to finish me off....

Master Architect / Master Merchant / Master Artisan

ueAND low and behold the NPC Vendors are still BROKE. I swear I lose confidence in the Dev team everytime I read this board, could be why I avoid it more than anything now. OOOOOO Let's nerf this, or Nerf that. There's got to be at least one person there saying, Um, why we nerf'ing that, when it still doesn't work going into the third month? Why are we4 worrying about nerf'ing stuff when we've just created quite a few new bugs? I swear I would love to see you all fired, except for the programmers, or have someone with an understanding of BROKE be put above you all to overrule each ludicrous decision, and actually have you fix bugs. I had an NPC vendor, and it was fully loaded with all kinds of furniture, at least 70 to 80 pieces, and people could not retrieve the items. So I ended up refunding about 100k credits, and closing down the vendor. The worst part is that I could not retrieve my own items from the vendor, and therefore they went poof, and I lost quite a bit of credits. I'm at the point where I'm just going to surrender my merchant skills because it doesn't seem like anybody over there at SOE, involved in the decision making, has a lick of sense.
Imagine a plumber coming to your house when you have a leaking pipe, and suggesting he increase the water pressure first, before fixing the pipe. I, see that mentality way to much out of you people, and begin to wonder if you were born on this planet or not.

Schlok

EX- Merchant

st

Definitly make the maintance based on what is sold, like a tax. There is nothing worse for a merchant than trying to keep a small amount of items listed on the vendor, to avoid this time based fee. And constantly having to re-stock.

I would much rather see a fee based on what is sold. Or a flat rate, say, the same cost as a small house.

st

I like to be able to put up 100 pistols after a factory run, and not have to worry about re-stocking for 6 days. It allows me to actually play the game, rather than be a slave to my store. Even after 6 days, I'm lucky if I sold 25 of these pistols. There I can simply re-stock. This new change will force me to keep low stock, and constantly have to monitor things.

I like being a weaponsmith. But I like exploring other parts of the game, rather than my small store.

Just because Fry's electronics stocks HUGE amounts of products, doesn't mean the employeesare paid HUGE wages. Base the fee on the amount ofitems sold.Don't charge me every 45 mins for itemsthat arejust gathering dust

ue

I am not seeing the logic here... I am a master wep smith and I have plenty of money sinks already.. harv maint alone is prolly 50k a day, plus power, plus shop, plus factories.. so why dont you make us pay more. So the way I understand it, the crafting profession is going to get screwed because of this.

so if I am a combat class the only thing I have to spend money on is weps.. you dont need food, cloths, armor, houses, vendors, harvs, nothing else except guns. so lets say you save up 15k running destroy missions.. take you maybe 2 hrs. that gets you a descent wep plus a good slice. and you can continue to do missions making money and exp and not need to spend more.

All you are doing is punishing the crafters for YOUR mistakes.. we didnt make gnort missions give out 2500 per mission. We didnt create the Mok bug so u could run into a lair and kill it unharmed and make 13k. We didnt cause any of the problems you want to make us pay for..

My solution for you.. let the money stand as is now.. in the near future release some NPC sold item like a motor scooter and charge alot for em. Or sell AT-ST from the recruiter for money not faction..

All your "solution" will do is stop people from using vendors... I guess the one good thing that would come from this is no one would play a merchant so no one would complain about bugs in the class.. then merchant problems would go away... just like the monsters do when I pull the sheet over my head.

Filthee McNasty

stHey I don't have a problem paying more maintenance fees but don't base them on time but rather charge a fee when you go to initilize them and maybe add a realistic sales tax. But, but, but before you charge anything I think it would help if something within this profession worked correctly such as items getting stuck on vendors, ad-barking quits working every time you log off, customizing your vendors appearance doesn't work at all, and vendors show up on the planetary map the first time you post them and then poof there gone. Maybe focusing on fixing this profession rather then making it more unplayable...just a thought.

st

Vendor maintenance will most likely SLOW the money sink situation. Many people will perceive it is costing too much and that will result in only the serious vendor shops staying open. The fact is that, yet again, the designers have continued to make the same mistakes that were mede in UO and Everquest. DAoC has faired better but not by much. Before they can even attempt to fix a broken economy they need to determine where the problem is. Who is it that has all of this money? While there are many "rich" crafters, they are in the minority. I would expect if they pulled data from the database they would find that the richest people in the game, by class, are the fighter types. Why is this? Because they have a finite list of stuff they need. Say you have a pistol specialist, he buys a Nice weapon, 25K Set of armor 100k, Medium house, 150k (with furniture) ok he is at a grand total of 275k He is running destroy missings at 3k per set, taking him 15 minutes. it will take him about 92 runs, which is about 23 hours. Ok, lets assume he continues to run destroy missions 2 hours a day, thats 24k a day, take maintenance, tips to doctors and dancers, and house maintenance. 6k a day. Lets say he travels a bit, another 6k a day. OK he still nets 12k a day, thats 360k a month, at this rate he will end up with 4.3 million in the period of 1 year. Even if prices are doubled and Speeder prices and maintenance are insane, He would still have over a million credits in the bank. There is the real problem, and 5% even 50% vendor maintenance fees will not do anything but make a bunch of broke crafters. All in all it won't solve the problems with the broken economy.