Merchant Archive

Concern 1: Dissappearing items bug after making a purchase and crossing a server line. I have to explain this bug 20 times a day to people who are agrily demanding a refund for thier items.

Concern 2: Global advertising getting reset. I have a full time job and leave for work before the server comes up, hence, my global advertising is down for the majority of the day. I paid the skill credits for it, I pay the maintenence for it, but I am only getting half the benefit for it

My Improvement: I wish I got an email when someone offers me something on a vendor. Email would hopefully contain vendor name and location.

CONCERN: Yes, there are still a lot of bugs with vendors I'd like to see fixed. That's not the real problem. The real problem is that the Merchant profession as a whole is BORING compared to all other advanced/elite professions.

Compared to the Master Artisan, the Master Weaponcrafter can create very cool weapons that attract lots of business. Ditto for the Master Armorsmith, Master Architect, Master Droid Engineer, Master Tailor, and Master Chef. The Master Merchant, however, is significantly different in that he doesn't gain positive creative abilities; instead he gains abilities that reduce his costs.

Wow.

I realize I'm not being entirely fair to the original designer(s) of the Merchant skills. I know it's hard to come up with cool skills and abilities. (See my repeated attempts at a set of effective and fun "Spacer" professions.) But darn it, coming up with such skills is precisely what SWG designers are paid to do, and the Merchant profession just doesn't measure up. The current Merchant skills are not cool. They are not sexy. They are not interesting. They are NOT FUN.

Vendors are an interesting and worthwhile concept, so that's one discipline that can be retained (though preferably with more powerful skills). But the other three desperately need to be replaced with skills that are more fun to use and more meaningful in their results to let the Merchant be a useful figure in galactic society.

Ultimately, becoming a multi-planetary Merchant Prince ought to be extremely difficult. But, darn it, the possibility should at least exist!

IMPROVEMENT: See above.

--Flatfingers (Master Artisan, Radiant/Naboo/Keren

1. Vendors

2. Factories

Concern: The slew of bugs relating to vanishing items/server boundaries, advertising (barking/map), etc. They've already been listed.

Improvement: I have a few in mind, but here's my biggest one: Improve the merchant class by putting that hiring branch with the management branch and adding a new one that takes some of these other nice suggestions into account. Personally, it'd be nice to add in a "storefront" or something branch that combines all the suggestions for larger stockroom/more lots/etc. into account and perhaps allows you some other shop-oriented extras (like music, signs, items listed in the Bazaar [consider the Bazaar as another storefront option, in other words). Storefront could also include a "shipping" subline that improves: (1) you have the ability to ship items from store to store for a fee[no more loading up and using the starport/shuttle and bank vault [or not if off planet] to restock other stores]; (2) you gain the ability [along with your bazaar listing] of allowing customers to pay a flat fee or percentage extra to have an item shipped to a town of their choice. Improvement in shipping can be reduced fees for yourself, but never for the customer UNLESS they're also a merchant. [Shipping can serve as a NICE money sink for merchants and customers -- pay more for convenience just like in real life!]

I was very tempted to put in "better merchant interface" that included getting rid of those cycles on the vendor (7 days...eek!), allowed for repricing without withdrawing, kept a sales log in another format besides email, etc., but I really am torn! Can I simply put the interface in with the "improve the merchant branches" thing?

Concern: 7 day limit on sales and stockroom deletion of items. If it's called a stockroom, it should be one. Not a "que". Have the vendor charge more if there are wares in the stock room for long periods of time. As I stock vendors I leave extras to put for sale when items sell. Hence, when I sell a white breastplate, I add a new one to the list from the "stockroom" which deletes items and it shouldn't.

Improvement: Searchable wares. As in EQ, allow the user to be able to search all the wares of a particualr vendor or global bazaar by name, items, specifics. It was an amazing build in EQ, and I believe it would lend itself to SWG immensley.

Player Vendor Auction

Introduce the ability for Merchants with Management IV to have an Auction Vendor. The Auction Vendor would allow them to place an item for sale for a specified period up to 7 days with a starting price. Potential buyers would be able to place a bid and the highest bid wins the Auction. This would be very nice for selling high end or expensive items where demand exceeds supply allowing the consumer to place the value on the item through their bids. (And thus reduce whines about it costing too much because it is actually the consumer that is driving the price and not the seller)

Fidg'Ter

Improvement: Amount sliders on resource sales - seller sets price per unit, buy chooses how many units to purchase.

I know I'm just cutting and pasting this.. but without it, I may as well not even play. It would make the game so much more enjoyable for us miners.

I'm concerned about the vendor rate as it currently stands - put a bunch of items on my first vendor and had a rate of 93! Only 3 items were over 5k, and with All selected, only had two, two/halfpages of items, most 1k and less.

Flat rate (hired pay) of even 8 (small house) with a modest tax would take money when money is made. Not all the time when stock just sits around. Especially for us new guys. Tax can't be too high or we'll have to charge more thanproducts on the bazaar. Who'll buy from us then?

I would like to customize vendors - name, look, maybe even vendor type? - on the fly without having to waste a whole day taking everything off one vendor just to restock another and enter all the descriptions (my7yr old niececould write a better editor.....) back in! Especially as you climbmerchant and get more options.

And of course, decorating your shop. Interior design is just some more furniture. You can't "decorate" anything without playing monkey games on the stairs. My small Tat doesn't have stairs and stuff looks stupid on the floor. Doesn't look like a shop or workshop - looks like a slob who can't keep his place clean.

And CONTAINERS! Fix unlocked container and give us more/larger containers. All these NPC have em. Give use some!

Oops, sorry. That was three

Concern: Competition from crafters with vendors that give them no reason to use merchants or to give usgood prices. Basically what is this profession supposed to be where are the tools to succeed at our intended purpose?

Improvement: Instead of flipping between lame TRAFFIC CONE signs use simple awnings to choose between. I use a tattooine PA hall as my Mall aka Emporum and you cannot even see the sign as it is way off in a corner of the building.

Concern: Set a tax on sales (commission) instead of the foreseen bigmaintenance fee for vendors.

Improvement: We need more visibility with Planetary Advertising. Most people don't know Merchants can place their vendors on the map! The actual thing working smoothly would be cool too... >

Syxix

Here is that I posted to the devs. Lot of great ideas, I had to go with 5. so, here is what I read.

---

Hello all,

First off, thank you, recently we have seen a lot of fixes, and improvements, so out list is looking more “Improvements” and less “Fix this”. Thank you.

1. NUMBER ONE ISSUES, The reset of ad campaign and barks with every server reset, this makes this feature hard to deal with, and those of us who work, are screwed.


2. Change the 7 day time limit, it works on the bazaar, but not in a vendor, make it 30 days.


3. (Little hard, but would really make us happy) We want to sell resources, but not my the “Stack” We want to set a price per unit, and a slider, so people can buy as much, or as little as they can. The price set should be able to have a single place after the whole number, and round up. So we sell then for 2.5 per, or 3.3 per. With resources whole numbers will not allow any real competitive dealing.


4. Make master merchant worth something!!!!! Give us a few extra lots, A flag on our shops, or MY FAV Allow us to have a vendor that is like a pet, stored in the datapad, and we can pull it out. This would allow us to sell things in town (While we are there) This would make us true merchants. (not sure how to do it, but it should be a pet, walk behind you and so on, and you should not have to take everything out of it to pack it away.)


5. Change the items price, without withdrawing it

My pet pave, and this is a controversy. Make the artisan vendors have some limit on them, so that taking merchant has a real advantage over those that do not. The line on who wants what is clear, those that do not want to spend the points; don’t want this, those that do, want this. Given that I am a merchant, I am for, and I speak for merchants as a whole. Set the limit on these non-merchant vendors to 5000, and no limit after novice merchant.

Oooh! Can we ask for new stuff every week for awhile?

Is it also possible to get an official response on how one gains Merchant XP? I've seen several different answers, and I'm confused. I WAS getting the first level of a skill in about 2 days or less. Now it's taking me a week or so. Either Merchant XP is broken, or it was changed. (I've put in several bug reports because it was my understanding that you accrue hourly XP, and I haven't been doing so for awhile.)