Merchant Archive
Thread: Two types of people opposed to this merchant change
CheezeWhiz
Mon Aug 09, 2004 4:15 am
#66
As a master merchant..............speaking for the proffesion as a whole............we are being penalized because of the masses who dumped their merchant skill pts so they could keep their vendors? Why didn't the dev's just come out and warn players that they had a certain amount of time to have the skill points for their vendors or they would lose them. Whey does everything have to come out of nowhere without any advanced notice or warning? Where is the logic in the approach that is being taken to NERF the merchant class across the board?
cwhooks
Mon Aug 09, 2004 4:22 am
#67
Actually I am a bit up in arms about empty vendors going *poof* and yes I am a master merchant. NPC vendors are great for decorating houses! Look at what has been done with some of the home show winning entries! Just unregister empty vendors from planet adertising and the overhead map. Otherwise you are taking out a valuable tool for home decorators! Doubly so when considering the expense of the items put on some of these empty vendors!
As for vendors limits, I don't hink we really need unlimited for master merchant... A limit of somewhere between 500-1000 should work well. I could live with 500, but wouldn't feel comfortable with anything below 700....
DocSavag
Mon Aug 09, 2004 4:39 am
#68
While I feel for decorators Vendors are not decorations. Each one is tied into the vendor database and affects the system over all. Those vendors shouldn't be placed if they aren't being used for selling items. If the architects want to petition for "NPC Decoratons" I'll be behind their position, but I'm not supporting the use of vendors by non merchants because they make good decorations.
EvilHomerSimpson
Mon Aug 09, 2004 5:05 am
#69
I'm a crafter. I have the points for novice Merchant if I want. But why? To be able to sell 600 items. No thanks. Merchant is broken and should be disolved into Artisan if they don't fix it. If there was a way for me to easliy sell wholesale to a Merchant (and not be gouged in the process) then I would be behind the profession. As it is now is a waste of skill points that I want to devote to Spaceship building when it comes out.
Ferrek
Mon Aug 09, 2004 5:36 am
#71
zukem wrote:
2) Exploiters. [They] have no or minimal merchant skills.
[snip]
If you are type 2. Then really you have no business posting here. Merchant is a profession, and soon to be a very valuable profession.
Your "realization" needs some work.
To correct your assinine presumption: There are three types of people who are opposed to this change. 1) is the merchants (e.g. anyone with business 3 or more in Artisan who own a vendor) who will be directly affected, and 2) is everyone else capable of reasoning more than 5 minutes ahead who understand that this change will affect them in a negative way, and 3) is those who will whine on forums regardless of the topic just because they can.
You have no right to deny any of these three types to voice their opinion.
What you're saying is - if you're not a novice merchant you have no business posting about an issue that will affect you regardless of which profession(s) you hold (you really are quite stupid if you think these item-limits only affect people who have their own vendors). Being allowed to have a vendor at Business 3 in Artisan is - per your own definition - an exploit to utilize (no skillboxes in the merchant profession).
I personally have one vendor and I have business 3 in artisan, my one vendor is stocked with over 600 items (and it's in need of restocking). So either I am an exploiter or you are a... I'll let you figure that one out.
As a master weaponsmith - if these changes go through - there's no way I can keep my vendor stocked with even 1 item of each kind with my skills, nor is there any way I'll pick up more merchant-skills just to keep my one vendor (as I need just one) stocked with up to 110 items, nor is there any way another merchant will want to sell my wares since he'll need his 660 item limit for his own items. But I guess exploiters like me have no right to an opinion on this and deserve to get screwed by the devs - after all, we're actually using the skills given to us from spending skillpoints in certain skillboxes. Can't have exploiting like that going on, can we.
Iceman-KG-
Mon Aug 09, 2004 6:58 am
#72
Type 3: customers who appreciate a well stocked set of vendors.
Javac
Mon Aug 09, 2004 6:59 am
#73
This is exactly why so many people did it in the first place. Some people are abusing it by using vendors for 'storage', but in my case I'm unwlling to pay an additional $15 per month just so I can sell my wares. If merchants truely acted like merchants and they could 'rent' or 'consign' vendors I'd be all for the change. As it is right now, it destroys the game for me since I'll ONLY be able to craft or ONLY be able to do combat.
Solitiri wrote:
I can understand why people were getting the merchant profession, getting the vendors then dropping the profession. Not everyone can afford 2 accounts let alone 3 or 4 of them.
XyBeRFuNK
Mon Aug 09, 2004 7:00 am
#74
If this nerf goes in to affect it will completely destroy my business. I love SWG for having a "Business" aspect and a free trade-enterprise... it is very unique and important to this game. I do not think it is broken in any way shape or form to the tune of this nerf that is in the works....
This nerf will ruin my business and I will be forced to close my shop and go kill nunas for fun. I will sadly leave the game....
SWG is currently capatilistic, the Devs stay out of your business and let you trade and give you opportunity of free-enterprise... This nerf is on the border of Socialist/Communist activity, with the Dev limiting you to what you can sell and how much...
SWG will go the way of the hammer and sickle (Russia)... it will fail, the economy will be ruined and all the crafters will suffer...
Pray this doesnt happen....
Brilyn
Mon Aug 09, 2004 7:21 am
#75
< This nerf is on the border of Socialist/Communist activity, with the Dev limiting you to what you can sell and how much... >
No, it's not.
I really *really* wish people would get a clue about this.
Sure, bash away. But it ain't socialistic, or Communistic at all.
Everquest was far closer to that than this, in that all the vendors were controlled by Verant (ie state-controlled).
A more accurate analogy is that you have a grumpy landlord who has just decided (arbitrarily) how big your shelves may be.
DaNumpty
Mon Aug 09, 2004 7:44 am
#76
Despite all our protests, it appears that merchant will be nerfed to some degree. This is evident by threads that been deleted and the lack of dev response. I am in catagory one, btw. SOE created the issue by offering unlimited vendors, and made the issue worse, by allowing players to keep vendors even though merchant skills were dropped. So their answer is to punish all merchants by installing horrible limits to vendors. Limits on vendors relative to skill rank can be workable if proper realistic limits are allowed. If server capacity and stability are the issues, arrive at a limit that players can live with. The days of unlimited vendors are likely gone, as SOE may not be able to fix the " get merchant, get vendors, drop merchant, keep vendors" issue in a way that is cheap and easy from a programing standpoint.
So I think with a little bit of work that a Master Merchant could live with a max of 650 items per vendor and a decreasing scale relative to skill points after that. So that an Artisan could only have one vendor with a max of 50 items and novice merchant two vendors with a max of 50 items another max of 100 per tree and so on. That way vendor items are a known quanity that server management can anticipate and account for. As I noted in another post, I came across a loot vendor that had well over 800 items on it. Most of them were junk. That can be considered a potential abuse of the system, regardless of that owners intent. Lets just put stuff on vendors that are needed by other players and not just trash to take up space, or make it look like the vendors are active. If we as merchants excercise some discipline, perhaps SOE will back off a bit. As proposed, theses changes are an economy killer.
joined42904
Mon Aug 09, 2004 7:51 am
#77
Brilyn,
Thank you for talking sense to these folks.
Go ahead and gripe if you are inclined to gripe.
Are some customers going to be unhappy that they can't get everything they want from their local oligopolist? Sure. SOE knows that. What will they do? Option 1: Quit the game. Option 2: Get to know other crafters...starting crafters....minor crafters...and pay a reasonable amount for them to make what you need. Option 2 sounds like a crafting utopia imo. Because no 3-4 merchants can dominate server economies anymore.
Correct me if I'm wrong...but 1 backpack still counts as one item on the merchant. Right? So with the present proposals...that's 110 suits of compo armor on one single vendor at master merchant. Looks to me as if the "nerf" will affect AS little if at all.
Will there be so many individual pieces available? Perhaps not. But so what? I wager folks still sell helms, chests, and legs as individual items. Because that trade is profitable.
For those of you who sell powerups, how many powerups on average does a customer buy? In my experience, around 5 crates or so. But maybe I'm off. Hmm...how about this...put 5 crates in backpacks and sell in groups of 50 instead of groups of 10. Add in some extra cost for the backpack and the time it took you to do that. I think your business will still succeed. And you will have 550 powerups on one vendor using this technique at master merchant. Don't forget to use copy and past keybind. 
Maybe folks will have to buy a bit more than they want in some circumstances but overall I see no necessary detriment to the economy of the server from this change. Far more detrimental will be the mission payout nerfs...at least for the crafters. But maybe this just means that people will change the valuations of various items.
The present proposals could be lived with by almost all crafters if they approached the problem intelligently. Can't carry a variety of wardrobe on a vendor? Can't carry all kinds of furniture on a vendor? Then look at this in a positive light. No one else can either. And now your personal services are required. Personal services cost more. Who doesn't think that tailored goods and architectural furniture are too cheap? I do. Tailors needed some love from the devs. They just got it. No longer do they have to compete with cheap vendors. Because the vendors can't stock a good variety of colors for all merchandise anymore. Come to my shop for personal fittings between 8-9 p.m. EST...full wardrobes priced by the number of sockets...50-200k.
Whoever can't live with these changes, please tell me two things:
(1) The number of skill points you have invested in merchant
(2) Why the changes will be detrimental to you financially (in terms of credits, not ebay earnings); and
(3) Why you can't cope with this by putting items in packs (assuming that packs count as 1 item toward the limits)
EvilHomerSimpson
Mon Aug 09, 2004 8:35 am
#78
Whoever can't live with these changes, please tell me two things:
(1) The number of skill points you have invested in merchant
(2) Why the changes will be detrimental to you financially (in terms of credits, not ebay earnings); and
(3) Why you can't cope with this by putting items in packs (assuming that packs count as 1 item toward the limits)
That's THREE things.
(1) doesn't matter. You don't need to be a merchant to have a valid opinion.
(2) The economy will tank, inflation will rise. It's hard enough for newbs to earn creds now.....
(3) Can't see in packs and doesn't this negate the whole database issue?