Merchant Archive
Thread: Give me a single good reason why non-merchants SHOULD be able to use a vendor?
DragonScout wrote:
Wrong. Anyone CAN use a flamethrower. Being a commando just increases your skill at USING it, and gives you special moves to perform WHILE using it. There is a difference. Not to mention that you get a variety of things to actually do while BEING a commando.
And vendors are not enough to make a profession out of. I am sorry, but placing vendors and then stocking them -- which is all the tools you actually get from the profession -- does not make a profession.
Have you ever used a weapon you're not certified for? To say you can use it is ludicrous. Yes, you can put it in your hands. Yes you can pull the trigger. But good look hitting anything, and when you do good luck doing any damage.
If you want non-merchants to have vendor abilities equivalent to an artisan using a flame thrower? How about 75% of the time a non-merchant vendor sold a weapon, it took the money but didn't give the person a weapon. And the other 25% of the time when the person did receive the weapon, it had stats comparable toa looted CDEF.
That's more like it.
Wire3k wrote:
BoberFett wrote:
. Now that they're closing that loophole, there is something to merchant. Everything is working properly now.
Brother - I bet the dev's wish there were a few thousand of you - you sell out REAL cheap.
OditeFosore wrote:
I like to think big and dream about what the game could be. In my make-believe version of SWG in my mind, merchant doesn't show up on the radar. I agree with a poster from the first page in that I think anyone should be able to take part in the economy and I don't personally believe it should cost skill points. Merchant is a bit of a stretch to me in making it a skill that you learn. Merchant should be something that your in-game abilities in selling should help you with and the quality of your products should help you with, not whether you spent skill points. That's just my take, I'm not trying to debate, I just don't see much point in the merchant profession. I have merchant skills in this game because I have to and I felt it was exploiting to keep vendors without having the skill points, but that's only because I have to work within the confines of the system that SOE designed. Ideally, I think there would be no merchant skills, everyone would have the ability to sell items, and we'd all have a few more skill points to spend on other things.
I also think there should be no bounty hunter profession because it seems like anyone who wants to try to hunt jedis should be able to be a bounty hunter - it's not really a skill, it's a profession. Smuggler - same, it should be a skill and there are some reasons that smuggler should maybe require a few skill points, but a full profession tree and a lot of skill points, I don't see it as necessary. I want to be a smuggler, but I want to use rifles, oh sorry, you have to be a pistoleer to be a smuggler in this world...bah, no biggie, this game is great in a lot of respects, but to me successful merchants should be differentiated by the quality of products they sell, the prices they sell at, and how well they advertise using their abilities in-game, not how many skill points they spend.
1. Tailors make components that are used by armoursmiths to make armour
2. Tailors make Bio-Enhanced clothing that allow you to play the game better
shadowdefender wrote:
As an ex-tailor...
1. Tailors make components that are used by armoursmiths to make armour
2. Tailors make Bio-Enhanced clothing that allow you to play the game better
Great, so roll those couple schematics into armorsmith. Why should armorsmiths be held as slaves to tailors any more than crafters should be held as slaves to merchants?
Same goes for BEs. Let them put their tissues directly into socketed loot clothing.
I can see ways to get rid of Tailor completely which are every bit as valid as the push by some over zealous whiners to get rid of Merchant
DragonScout wrote:
Wrong. Anyone CAN use a flamethrower. Being a commando just increases your skill at USING it, and gives you special moves to perform WHILE using it. There is a difference. Not to mention that you get a variety of things to actually do while BEING a commando.
And vendors are not enough to make a profession out of. I am sorry, but placing vendors and then stocking them -- which is all the tools you actually get from the profession -- does not make a profession.
Yes, ANYONE CAN USE ANY WEAPON. But instead of killing something with one shot, it would take 200 shots without the cert for that weapon, and you would most likely be dead before you could kill your target. This comparison has been used too many times, and has no relation to this discussion. If you want to compare, than good, you get a vendor, and you can sell 1 unit of any item for no more than 2k, which can only stay on the vendor for 1 hour before it's dropped into the stockroom. Good, like that, it's a realistic comparison to the Weapon certs. NEXT!
VENDORS ARE ENOUGH TO MAKE A PROFESSION. I run a large business buying/selling millions of resources a week, Selling Structures, Houses, Power-ups, Loot, Artwork, Crated Components, etc... I had up to 16 Vendors on three planets at one time. Making contacts with freelance miners, and with crafters to sell their wares and resources on my vendors IS a profession. It's called business. It's what I like to do, and I kept a lot of people employed, which made EVERYONE money. If you don't like to be a businessman, then craft your items, and sell to people like me (professional merchants). Plain and simple. There are reasons why wehave limited skill points. The main one is so we have to rely on OTHER players.
-Trystian
Message Edited by Trystian on 08-24-2004 03:04 PM
Message Edited by BoberFett on 08-24-2004 05:08 PM
BoberFett wrote: I wouldn't be opposed to the moving of merchant to a novice profession. That would require 20 less points to get novice merchant. But it does need to be a skill under the current system, and it needs to require skill points. Without that expenditure of points, it allows combatants to compete economically with crafters, but crafters don't get a free ability to compete in combat.
Explain this. Why does it NEED to be a skill under the current system? How exactly would it 'hurt' the game at all if merchants were completely removed tomorrow and vendors were opened to everyone, and the item limit was decided another way? If anything, most people wouldn't notice the change except for having more skill points to use in other things. This is because merchant gives you nothing beyond vendors.
The merchant profession offers nothing that is actually practical. Fee reduction is a joke. And that, aside from vendors, is all you get from merchant. Soo.. switch it around, leave merchant in the game... and take away vendors. Which is essentially what they did with this item limit at first. Everyone complains because vendors are the issue. Not the profession that limits them.
You can talk about taking other professions out of the game, but they all have their own niches... And while some could be improved and combined to a certain degree.. Claiming that removing tailor is the same as removing merchant is just asinine. Tailor as a profession produces something within the gaming enviroment. And since you cannot buy anything from NPCs, if looted clothes were the only things available, there would be a lot of naked people. Merchant offers nothing similar. It is only there as a limit upon a utility.
BoberFett wrote:
Hey Trystian, good to see you still hanging around brother. I'm glad somebody else sees that the use of non-certed weapons is a silly analogy.
Message Edited by BoberFett on 08-24-2004 04:57 PM
Been busy as hell IRL lately. But I still check the boards. Haven't hadmuch time to play in the last week or so. Just started up three separate RL businesses, and they are kicking my butt. 
Hey DragonScout, care to reply to my previous post?
-Trystian
Message Edited by Trystian on 08-24-2004 03:04 PM
DragonScout wrote:
Explain this. Why does it NEED to be a skill under the current system? How exactly would it 'hurt' the game at all if merchants were completely removed tomorrow and vendors were opened to everyone, and the item limit was decided another way? If anything, most people wouldn't notice the change except for having more skill points to use in other things. This is because merchant gives you nothing beyond vendors.
Merchants want to change that. Read any thread around here, they want more abilities. That does notmean however that everyone should get an unlimited vendor. I'm in support of lowering the number of items per character on the bazaar, but removing the price cap. That would be like giving everyone a vendor without allowing non-merchants to conduct full fledged business without spending skill points.
The merchant profession offers nothing that is actually practical. Fee reduction is a joke. And that, aside from vendors, is all you get from merchant. Soo.. switch it around, leave merchant in the game... and take away vendors. Which is essentially what they did with this item limit at first. Everyone complains because vendors are the issue. Not the profession that limits them.
Then work to improve vendors. Don't remove the profession.
You can talk about taking other professions out of the game, but they all have their own niches... And while some could be improved and combined to a certain degree.. Claiming that removing tailor is the same as removing merchant is just asinine. Tailor as a profession produces something within the gaming enviroment. And since you cannot buy anything from NPCs, if looted clothes were the only things available, there would be a lot of naked people. Merchant offers nothing similar. It is only there as a limit upon a utility.
It's only an asinine comparison in your opinion. My opinion still stands that the only reason merchants don't have a niche is because since Day 1 you could operate vendors after dropping merchant. If becoming a Tailor then dropping the profession still left all the Tailor schematics in your datapad, nobody would ever buy clothes, rendering the profession "niche-less". So the reason Merchant is not a valued profession in some peoples eyes is because so many people devalued by taking their ability to use vendors without spending the skillpoints. If the game had worked correctly from the beginning, nobody would have batted an eyelash at the idea that you had to be a merchant in order to sell something. Crafters would have adapted and combat characters would use merchants as outlets for loot. The only reason people are up in arms now is because their toy is being taken away after everyone was set in their ways.
People can choose to adapt or they can quit.
And that is nice that you think that stocking vendors makes a profession. I don't. I don't consider stocking a vendor, and then ignoring it until it needs to be stocked again playing a profession. If I can go to sleep and still be playing just as effectively as if I was logged in, that is not a profession.
I can PLAY the game as JUST a rifleman or as JUST a bio-engineer.. or as JUST a tailor. You cannot play the game as JUST a merchant. Hell, it would take forever to just grind to novice, and you wouldn't even be using merchant skills to do the grinding. That is NOT a viable, stand-alone profession. Not to mention that EVERYTHING you do as your precious merchant profession beyond stocking your vendors has absolutely no support from the skill point sinkhole you call a profession.
I am all for improving the profession if it is going to remain. I just have always felt that improving the profession, is far more important than caring about people who vendor poached. If there was a reason beyond vendors to have the skill points invested, people wouldnt be as likely to drop it.
And, I also never said anyone should be able to have an unlimited vendor. Perhaps instead of just standing your ground and shouting your same thing over and over, you might read what I have said, and the suggestions I have made. Hell, go back a few months and read them.
I also don't really think vendors need improving. They work fine for what they do. bit tiresome in some aspects, but overall, they work really well. And as it is, the time spent stocking your vendors is the only time you are doing anything actually related to merchant.
And merchant on the whole wasn't abused as much as most people think. I always thought it was sad that we had to spend skill points on merchant just to sell the goods we created, and once I mastered it to try selling my tailored goods -- after finding that going through a third party merchant was not viable, I found out how little the profession offers beyond vendors. And vendors aren't worth 92 skill points to me.