Merchant Archive

st

Set up my first vendor the other day - yeeea!!!

Maint said 1 before I put anything on it. Cool, I won't have to worry about feeding this thing too often...

Put maybe 2-3 pages of product up for sale and a few extra items on hand in the stockroom to replenish.

Two items were Kortech EE3's I got stuck with for 10k (cost), one small Tat house I came across for 7k, and everything else was less than 1k. Well, maybe 1 or 2 items were 2k.

Check the status - maint is 93!!! WAAAAAH!

Took most of the stuff back off just to get it down around 60.

Forget about selling droids or medium harvesters! I'll only be able to put 1 or 2 up. Heavy harvesters? No way! No more structures either.

Do I have to just use the bazaar and sell my shtuff dirt cheap - blow the whole economy out of the water. PA halls for 3k!!!! I'll make it up on volume. At least it will only cost me 20 cred!

Cummon guys........

We're up to 33 pages here now and my vendor isstill bleeding me dry. I'm just starting out, but what the hey!

Flat rate of even 30 - medium power harvester - would be better than this.
(not really)

I'm trying to be positive, I LOVE THIS GAME! But I'm just a simple engineer who loves droids. I'm giving up most of my combat skills just to gain merchant.
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Flat maint (hired pay):
8-15 maybe
Tax/surcharge:
20 cred for under 3k like the bazaar (thats .066% BTW)
maybe as high as a flat 10%for over 3k 35,000= 3,500, 90,000 = 9,000
or maybe graduated.2%/1000for over 3k 35,000 = 2,450, 90,000=16,200
(that would sink where it's needed most wouldn't it?)

That should suck enough money out of us.

And please don't just retread the bazaar! Seven day time limit????? What the heck?
Why am I going to waste my time actually trying to SELL my product (user desc especially) if I have to redo everything every week.... What the heck???

ue

THIS THREAD IS IRRELEVANT NOW. PLEASE DO NOT POST HERE ANYMORE. HOLOCRON HAS ALREADY STATED THAT THEY HAVE DECIDED AGAINST THIS PLAN AND ARE LOOKING TOWARDS A TAX AND SET MAINTENANCE FEE OF AROUND 200 CREDITS PER 45 MINUTES (LOWERED TO 100 WITH MERCHANT SKILLS).

st

For those of you who don't watch the "Dev Tracker" list.. here's what I'm talking about:

http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=Development&message.id=444371#M444371

ue

Hey I'm a "straight rate sales tax" kinda guy in RL, and I'd say in SWG as well. I say: Flat-non-scalable Fee on each vendor and a percentage sales tax on items sold deducted from the profit of the sale. Call it an Emperor's tax. No, Rebels are NOT exempt....

Want to make this really cool? Allow the up-coming city system to play a part in this. Allow city managers (mayors, whatever) to levy additional city-taxes on sales as well... The wise Mayor would keep this as low as possible (oh, have it a mandatory tax, the mayor could not set to zero, say 1% at least). The mayoral tax would also be a money sink, it would not be dropped into the city coffers.

eq

At 100 credits per 45 minutes I would prolly close my shop as well...

stPlease, please, please, please institute a sales tax per item instead of scaling maintenance. I simply don't get enough customers through my store to justify a scaling vendor fee. It's not because my prices are too high... my prices are as low as or lower than most other weaponsmiths I've seen. You could have the tax come out of the amount that goes in the owner's bank account. For example,supposea 10% taxand suppose Ilist an item on my vendor for 5000 credits. If that item sells, the buyer pays 5000 credits, and I receive 4500 credits. The other 500 are your money sink. You could also charge a ( small! ) flat vendor maintenance fee, which would not scale up with the number of items or the cost of the items. The scaling fee was killing me, I had to take merchant and set up the NPC vendor to keep from losing money.

st

My comments:

• The current proposed amount is excessive; it amounts to a more than 20% "tax" on each item that stays in the vendor's inventory for a week. For those individuals selling high-ticket items with low inventory turnover (e.g., harvesters, houses, high-end weapons and armor, rare items, etc.) this is potentially crippling.


• Merchants/artisans represent an necessary part of the game's current design. Regardless of the need for a money sink, the proposed changeis a disincentive for them to maintain their vendors. These vendors are obviously necessary due to the game design, unless true NPC vendors (as in UO or other games) are implemented.


• The change (as proposed)could result in price increases for most goods; this may be the intent, but it could prove extremely harmful to new or casual players.


• The other possible outcome is that the prices will crash as merchants/artisans begin to place their goods on the bazaar instead of on vendors.

My suggestions/recommendations (many of which are voiced in other responses):

1. Impose the rate as proposed, but have a cap/limit on the total fee amount per vendor. For example: Total Listed Value of Items on Vendor/1000 every 45 minutes, not to exceed 500 credits per day.


2. Impose the rate as proposed, but have a cap/limit on the total fees charged per item (similar to above).


3. Impose a much lower rate, or have fee calculated less frequently.


4. Impose a "flat" sales tax; doing so will allow merchants to adjust their prices accordingly.


5. Imposea sales tax/commission in addition to a (relatively low) flat daily fee for the vendor.

Regardless of the course taken, I highly recommend that a great deal of thought goes into the decision. Obviously, you're soliciting feedback- that's always a great sign. This is a significant change, however- we're not talking about nerfing one weapon or a change to just one class. These changes impact every player in the game, and the effects of the change need to be weighed carefully.

st

I would like to raise a point of discussion.

I am concerned that merchants might become rather unhappy in the future if things develop the way I think they may.

My main concern revolves around the way in which money sinks are implemented. I think that a variety of negative side effects could be avoided by chosing the right path.

Before starting I am working from the premise that money sinks on the economy are a requirement and that they will hit crafters and merchants directly in the form of credits, and other players more minorly , some credits, (like travel) but mainly through buying things. ( I don't necessarily agree with this but I can understand it. If things are balanced perfectly then all players share the same burden)

Fixed cost Money sinks.

This is like the one time payment to learn a skill from a trainer. It cost a given amount up front and then you begin to reap the benifits if (and only if) you wish.

Benifits - You don't have to worry about playing the game every day. If you aren't making money you aren't losing anything.

Negatives - if set to a reasonable price compared to the all the benifits in the future then they can create a significant barrier to a particular skill. The price would be very high.

So what they have done is set them low and allow players to avoid them if they wish.

Semi Variable Costs

An example of this would be vendor maintenance based on the price of items on the vendor. The costs to put a 1000c weapon on the vendor could be low if it is sold right away, or it could be a lot, taking away all profit, if it is up for a week.

Benifits - It is possible to deter people from making too many items, only make enough to barely meet demand. This helps the database.

Negatives - Vendors may often be bare of items, as they sell, the merchant will need to be on to restock them. But, if he is a casual player his vendor may go for hours or days without supplies, causing a stockout situation, causing him to lose customers. Also, if items do not sell, then this places the merchant in a negative cash flow situation. This type of cost puts the most risk on the shoulders of the merchant.

Variable Costs

The best example of this would be a sales tax. If an item sells, a % gets paid to the "State", maybe a % also gets paid to a City.

Benifits - Both the buyer and the seller bear the cost of the money sink. There is little downside risk to the merchant and the customer is more likely to find stocked vendors.

Negatives - There will be more items created in the database as vendors stay stocked.

By reading this you'll see what method I prefer. Variable costs being best, Fixed costs, next best, and semi variable (especially time based ones) the worst. Can we get the devs to avoid semi variable costs?

I would like to say that decay is one way that customers bear the burden of money sinks but... now that more and more items don't decay the balance may swing against the merchants. I really think that use based decay is better for the economy than is time based decay. Time based costs only encourage people to feel the need to log on and keep the fire fueled so to speak. I feel that this can cause to manycasual players to avoid merchant or become addicts or failto keep up with players who are on all the time. In fact they will not even have a chance to moderatly succeed. They will likely lose money if the semi variable time based costs are too high.

Usage based decay does not discriminate against casual players.

So, discuss... What is the best way to implement money sinks considering the above?

stThe system as it is today is not working for me. As an architect, the items I want to place on the vendor cause the maintence fees to be too high and the lower priced ones get more exposure in the bazaar. Most of my funds go to harvesting resources so I cannot afford to keep a vendor stocked. That means I have to hawk my equipment factories, etc. and that is a slow way to sell. Need some help here.

st

I have to agree, as an architect your proposed changes will put me in the street to sell my wares. One heavy harvester or fusion generator (selling it low at 100,000) would cost me around 3190 per day to list on my vendor, thats more than it costs to run the harvester! Your changes would also greatly effect the resource selling market.

The only way your formula would work is to apply it to any item priced under 25k and anything over that would just be charged a flat fee per hour reqardless of price.

stYou need to have a fixed Daily amount and then have a fee per post and/or per sale. Charging me 30k a day to post up 2 million creds of Armor I just made does no good to me if no one buys it. I just get fed up and dump the whole vendor idea and do mail orders only then. Please FIX IT

st

Charging maintenance for the vendors is fine by me, but they should also work properly. I really would like to not have to reset the vendors everyday. I cant even get on untill the evening hours so most of the day goes by without the vendors doing anything. Why should i be charged when they arent doing anything.

Tarinia Dosla ---Gorath--

Culinary Master/Buisnesswoman

stVENDOR fee IS too HIGH my Shop is GONNA die!