Merchant Archive
Thread: The nonskilled ‘merchant’ problem – or be careful what you ask for.
Your rhetoric is dismissed.
Elioi wrote:
Because I still lack good quote-fu: Me in Red, SeraphinAnnie in Yellow.
Elioi:
That's actually not a good comparison for 2 reasons:
1) Those are structures, not vendors. They may have maintanence in common, but that doesn't make them the same.
Following the same logica comparison between Merchant and Rifleman (oft used in this forum)doesn't hold water then, because Rifleman deals with rifles and specials, not vendors. Politician is a much better comparison, quite frankly because the boxes and skills share terminology, and they behave in comparable ways, they both deal with skills that allow and say "placement", they both currently allow upkeep after the renunciation of the skillbox, they both involve the management of a community function (shop vs. city).Politician also already have a check system in place with every weekly update. If the devs really intended people to all follow the same rules, they would impiment this at the same time. But why have they not? Answer follows in the next section.Politician is not nearly the same. A politician doesn't make any money and has NO skillsets that let them earn money. A politician invests, and often spends tons of their own money for the betterment of the player community. A vendor is solely for the betterment of the individual player. This is an extremely poor comparison
2) If memory serves, it's already been said that it was also not intentional for people to place cantinas, and drop the skill that allowed them to place it either. Don't be surprised if that changes in the future too.
The reason you haven't heard about this, and virtually no threads are bantering about the same terms and arguments on the Politician board, Dancer board, etc. is that those communities have not made it a priority, because most don't have a problem with it. You will probibly never see developer time spent on this issue because of those communities. It is not on a single top 5 list - and certainly not the number one thing! People need to realise that it was Merchants that caused this change, Merchants that clamoured for the "poached" vendors to be stopped. Damn right we did. Right or Wrong Merchants and Doc have thrust this forward to be the main item needed to be fixed for this profession. Some of us warned a couple of months ago that the loudest voices for this were going to get this bug focused on at the expense of improvements. Many merchants feel that this one change is paramount to bringing improvements to the profession. If this change did not occur, we would not be enjoying the near universal support for real improvements in the profession we are seeing now. Merchant alone was not enough to get improvements like mailboxes and consignment. Having the near entire player base clamoring for these now will bring about the improvements we have been wanting for ages. With limited dev time and the really ambitious schedule they have you really only see fixes that will quiet the squeaky wheel, and this one has been screeching for a long time. And now that it's getting fixed, the squeeky wheel is the ones that want improvements
So while Wire3k's scenario is probibly not very realistic, you can expect two results - neither of which should be very catastrophic. First you will see anger - particularly from formerly happy people who are now forced to make a hard decision, many of them will leave the game I think waaaaah (but that should just reinforce the haters here as theycheer and go through the self-delusion that less players mean more sales for them).actually, that'sexactly what it means. The poacher 'merchant' quits. So what! They weren't buying from us anyway. Now their customers need to seek out a realmerchant and not a scumsucking poacher. How can you delude yourself into thinking this won't improve sales for real merchants?And second you will see a short spat of dumping onto the bazzar which may have a short term detrimental effect to the economy (I know of at least 2 large retailers on Naritus already culling stock that will be untenable for large scale bazzar dumping to regain at least 6k on stuff rather then deletion). And the rest of us real merchants will glady snap it up and relist it for triple price.
DingoBoi wrote:
Your rhetoric is dismissed.
I am so glad you are here Dingo - it saves folks that haven't been keeping up with these forums like SeraphinAnnie an upclose and personal look at exactly how idiotic, selfabsorbed and shortsited the more vocal crowd here has been without all that messy digging thru the forums. You are the posterchildto lack of enlightened selfinterest.
Sera - here is a classic example of why anyone coming here for months to attempt to get resolution fled in disgust, and why if any of my scenarios played out, would have fueled the fire enough for it to happen. And you thought *I* was trying to grief my fellow players?
Wire3k wrote:
I’ve tried to be civil and present both sides of this issue here for discussion. Very few folks want to discuss anything. MOST ‘merchants’ are digging in their heals and accusing their fellow players of being everything but a child of Jesus – the cause of allllll their woes.Funny how you don't even consider that exploited vendors has beenour number 1issue on our top 10 for the past 8 months. And you think that coming here and re-hashing all the arguments that happened 7 months ago is going to change our minds about the exploit of our profession. Try again.Things will magically be better if they are just exterminated – preferably with extreme prejudice. They have a point in that Merchant as a class sucks so badly it’s not ‘worth’ investment in skillpoints (much less an elite class) unless they have sole vendor ownership. You can own them to as long as you invest the skill points.
The other side has presented argument after (good and sound) argument to the fact that they enjoy other things in the game and Merchant sucks so badly it’s not ‘worth’ investment in skillpoints. You know, with an attitude like this, its obvious that you are noteven going to be reasonable. Isee no point in trying to convince you otherwise. And trust me, Merchant WILL be worth the investment of skill points once the exploit of our skills is over.They do have the fact that selling produce is intuitive and a natural and organic extension of gathering, hunting, producing – as well as the fact that not all professions are created equal and some very fairly do NOT have extra points to expend.
Notice a common ground here? Perhaps the Merchant as an elite class sucks part? Yes I notice the common ground, you are an exploiter, and you are going to loose your vendors. bye bye
Notice a common ground here? Perhaps the Merchant as an elite class sucks part? Yes I notice the common ground, you are an exploiter, and you are going to loose your vendors. bye bye
Just out of idle curiousity - are you very very young, or just certifiably brain damaged. Reading is fundamental - my vendors are just fine dear - but thanks for all your concern.
DingoBoi wrote:
let's try this in really really big letters so you might understand.
Notice a common ground here? Perhaps the Merchant as an elite class sucks part? Yes I notice the common ground, you are an exploiter, and you are going to loose your vendors. bye bye
Well, far as I know Doc - all these disenfranchised players don't have any kind of representative, who is responsible to see that those kinds of concerns are brought to SOE?
DocSavag wrote:
Come on guys we've been through this arguement before. Please don't make it personal. You guys dont' agree and that is it. Frankly arguing over the vendor skills thing is pointless now more than ever. Its done.
Wire3k wrote:Well, far as I know Doc - all these disenfranchised players don't have any kind of representative, who is responsible to see that those kinds of concerns are brought to SOE?
DocSavag wrote:
Come on guys we've been through this arguement before. Please don't make it personal. You guys dont' agree and that is it. Frankly arguing over the vendor skills thing is pointless now more than ever. Its done.
You're being overly dramatic. Everyone knows their desires and I have presented them myself and there are 6 other Artisan based Correspondants who represent crafters and more than 14 Correspondants representing Combat players.
What correspondant would you have created? I'm sure you have voiced your concerns and posting them here has voiced them as well since the devs read them. I am sorry you are opposed to the design of the merchant profession but it is here and the devs are commited to trying to make it be what it is supposed to be.
LonelyGhost wrote:
WHat do you think the recent decisions are for? They are a result of the "Voice of the Merchant" as plainly obvious in 80% of the posts on the forums here. The people upset that they will no longer have poached vendors dont *DESERVE* a Voice, becuase theirvery existense is a BUG! But, I'm sure that their voices are coming through loud and clear..."We want to have vendors to sell our stuff without maintaining a Skill Point expenditure to operate them." So, despite this, the Devs have still decided to eliminate this BUG, and that is that! Move on...nothing more to see here...
Ghost, you may want to stick a flag squarely into the middle of all commerce and try to claim it, but the needs of the players haven't gone away. Those needs still are going to have to be addressed in some fashion. SOEapparently made the bet that more would buy a second account (which btw - STILL doesn't change anything for 'merchants', i.e., competition, specialnessor anything else you might have thought it would bring) than would quit.
Personally, I think this is an extremely poor bet - as those that can afford - or desire to have multiple accounts - already DO. Multiple accounts make the SP sink moot - the only folks that benefit then are the suits at SOE counting the beans. The poor smuck trying to exist and have a satisfactory game experience with only ONE account (ya know - like you theoretically are SUPPOSED to have) is the only one out here.
Someone needs to address this. Since a lot of the functionality was 'good enough' with vendors - and ya'll managed to pry them loose (although I truly think paragraph 1 and 2 above had more to do with it) and at least some of them are somewhat commerce related - why do you think they shouldn't have a voice?