Merchant Archive

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Wire3k wrote:

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BountyBlunter wrote:

Question : If merchant is useless , why do you want the skills in merchant rolled out into your own professions ?.. If it were the case and merchant were useless then it should be removed from the game entirely and no skills should be passed on to the crafting professions at all as the crafting professions constantly state they are useless.. Sound logic I think..

Doc's said that in the past, but no one really came back with anything close to a decent response, and I expect I will probably just get a one star and ignored myself...

Message Edited by BountyBlunter on 08-16-2004 04:25 PM

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Would you ask yourself this if looting was a seperate advanced profession? Distribution of goods is a natural 'payoff' of crafting. Those that value what other few benefits merchant as a class bestow (and I don't disagree if kept as a class should be far deeper) take up merchant.

Well, that's dumb - of course if I kill something I should be able to loot it - my point exactly.

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By your logic if you kill a Bantha you should be able to gather hide from it. You can't though becuse that requires additional skills.

Distribtuion is NOT linked to manufacturing. Its different. It requires different skills. That it would be more convienient for many in this game to link them doesn't make it true. They are separate skills.

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DocSavag wrote:

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Wire3k wrote:

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BountyBlunter wrote:

Question : If merchant is useless , why do you want the skills in merchant rolled out into your own professions ?.. If it were the case and merchant were useless then it should be removed from the game entirely and no skills should be passed on to the crafting professions at all as the crafting professions constantly state they are useless.. Sound logic I think..

Doc's said that in the past, but no one really came back with anything close to a decent response, and I expect I will probably just get a one star and ignored myself...

Message Edited by BountyBlunter on 08-16-2004 04:25 PM

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Would you ask yourself this if looting was a seperate advanced profession? Distribution of goods is a natural 'payoff' of crafting. Those that value what other few benefits merchant as a class bestow (and I don't disagree if kept as a class should be far deeper) take up merchant.

Well, that's dumb - of course if I kill something I should be able to loot it - my point exactly.

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By your logic if you kill a Bantha you should be able to gather hide from it. You can't though becuse that requires additional skills.

Distribtuion is NOT linked to manufacturing. Its different. It requires different skills. That it would be more convienient for many in this game to link them doesn't make it true. They are separate skills.

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Scout bestows other benefits besides skinning - and organic resources aren't needed by everyone - that scout however should be able to sell his produce.

Distribution IS linked to manufacturing by motivation of crafters. That is obviously not the design, but the design is faulty because it ignores player motivation. The final proof is in the pudding, players ultimately vote on design decisions with their subscription dollars.

We have never agreed on your ideas of distribution and we most likely never will. We do agree tht it isn't working right now. My solutions all involve making merchants more effective at fulfilling their role in the game which is to be the distributors.

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DocSavag wrote:
We have never agreed on your ideas of distribution and we most likely never will. We do agree tht it isn't working right now. My solutions all involve making merchants more effective at fulfilling their role in the game which is to be the distributors.

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Nope - we've never agreed on this point. As the correspondent, you are duty bound to defend the class - and I do not envy you that position at all.

My solutions - presuming merchant is retained as a class - is also about giving it teeth and making it valuable to have, instead of a skillpoint sink. Actual distribution vehicles, i.e., vendors - are only a tiny part of that - there is SO much that could be done - but I've lost hope at this point ever will be done because things are absolutely in full bore reaction, instead of action mode. The more things go south, the worse that syndrome gets. Once bunker mentality sets in it's a downhill slide from there.

You cannot treat symptoms and hope for a cure of the disease. Sometimes that means looking at what was intended, what was actually done - results and asking that simple little question of WHY. Why did this happen, what was the cause in the chain of cause and effect.

Why do players NEED methods of distribution on their own, what benefits does EVERYONE get if everything is funnelled thru merchant only hands. Not only the crafters, suppliers and merchants, but Joe Average consumer at large. What are the benefits of anyone being able to reasonably sell the fruits of their labors?

Why do players NEED such massive storage requirements.

Why does a class exist that artifically creates necessity by splitting organically connected activity.

Why do players want a bigger bite out of the world?

There are pro and con answers to all the above - then you have to look at all the ramifications of actual day to day play on users and address answers that not only address the underlying issues but hit a happy medium in fullfilling as many needs and desires of the most players as possible. Systems have to be in place - not promised or dreamed about to actually allow those decisions to function - and those systems have to be in place and functioning successfully before you can take out what players themselves have done to fill those needs that have either been ignored or discounted as nonimportant.

Acarrot is always preferrable to a stick in influencing player activity because eventually even the most diehard fan gets tired of being beaten.

Way too early in the morning for this, but the pure arrogance shown by Barris deserves a few moments of my time. I warn you, this won't be pretty. People with far more sleep than I, have said most there is to say. Coming four pages into this, I'll cover some sporadic commentary before getting to the meat.

Oh, where to begin.. I know.

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Barris wrote:

Sad, just a bunch of pissy merchants defending this profession (for what ever reason) and can't back it up. They say what they think, but no reasoning. The skill is PLACING. Not using. Plain and simple.

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Do you actually think about the words you type, or are you just hitting the keyboard? If you are thinking, then you'd realize that if the skill was meant to be "placing" and not "using" then SOE wouldn't have stated otherwise or be nerfing it. I know you haven't missed it, but I'll paste it once more for you. SOE's response, "It was never intended for players to be able to keep and manage vendors after surrendering the Management skill boxes used to acquire them."

But then, I realize you're really grasping at straws here to support your selfish wants and greed, and it appears semantics is the best you can do.

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Barris wrote:

The inflation will affect you. People having venders with out the skill didn't hurt you, this nerf will.

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Besides the point that you wouldn't have the slighest clue as to how real merchants were affected, you're wrong. It affected us quite a bit actually, and in a funny way exactly in the same manner you're threatening us with. Having players who wanted to run a business as -well- as be a combat classes led in no small way to the current inflation. While we "gimped" our templates to provide you with products, you did not.

The result being that you were free to go gathering loot drops, turning around to charge us an arm and a leg for it, and -still- maintaining an additional income through your business. In fact all you had to do is place your loot on your exploited vendors, and we had no choice but to buy it. That alone cut out the bartering you would have to go through to sell them otherwise, and likely that pain would have led you to accept lower prices or be faced with your house and inventory overflowing.

And guess what? Charging those prices led to us raising our own prices in order to maintain a reasonable profit. And there you have the inflation you're threatening us with. Honestly? After the first week I bet you that you'll see prices -decrease- across the board. You'll be faced with the choice of either:

A) "Gimping" your template (and as a result gathering lower quality loot).
B) Having your house overflow with surplus by keeping the same high prices you could "offer and forget" on a vendor.
C) Actually lowering your prices so that you keep selling.

In turn, not being charged an arm and a leg, many of us won't have to charge the same... In due time this could well be one of the key points in fixing the inflation right now.

And moving right along to my favorite response so far...

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BoberFett wrote:

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Barris wrote:

So, instead of being able to have fun with a combat template, I had to surrender it to be merchant gimped inorder to keep my shop open, which sucks. You who are crafter/merchants don't have any use for the skill points that merchant actually eats up. PvE people do. The basic 24 skill points it takes to get just management 3 eats up a very large amount of needed skill points for those who are combat professions.

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My skill points are worth less than yours? You are a self-important little turd. I pay $15 a month for 250 skill points just like you. Being a master weaponsmith and having enough merchant to run a galaxy wide weapon business doesn't leave me with a whole lot of skill points. Would I like to be a master combat profession? I sure would, so I wouldn't have to pay the exorbitant prices that scumbag combat types like yourself gouge us crafters with. I'm a smuggler and have some OK combat skills. Do I wish I could master pistoleer? I sure do. But after weighing my options I chose to run a shop first, and do combat second. The difference is that you want to be combat character first, and run a shop first. You want everything.

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Amen, brother. Took the words out of my mouth on that one. "We don't have any use for the skill points that merchant actually eats up"? Seriously, GET OVER YOURSELF. Just keeping on a crafter template, if we didn't keep the merchant class we could pick up additional crafting professions. Some exploiters do. But let's forget that... There's not a day that goes by for 90% of Crafters and Merchants, that we don't wish we had a nice PvE template just so combat classes didn't extort us for looted components. Or perhaps a nice PvP template, so we could partake in all the faction-related fun that goes on outside our shops. But instead, we choose to run a business so that -you- have something to wear and wield when you go out galavanting in the galaxy. And you know, it -almost- might be doable to get some combat into our template that would serve more than taking down womp rats. All we'd have to do is drop that silly merchant class... But most of us don't. I could try and explain to you why we don't, but I'm afraid the point would be lost on you. See it involves a key element called "integrity" and I ain't talking about armor. So we'll move right along..

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Barris wrote:

My problem is the gimpness that comes from having to have merchant to keep my shop open, can't have a shop open and a good template at the same time.

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Sorry, did I hear that right? Brilyn, you get a cheer next time I swing by Starsider, for making him own up to the truth.

Barris, the whole reason you have tried to raise this point thread and thread again, has nothing to do with the Merchants. In -fact- it has nothing to do with -any- player besides yourself. Granted there may be exploiters out there like you who share your feelings. But at least they didn't have the audacity to actually try and rationalize why they should be permitted to continue exploiting. Well.. Maybe some did. They're being served as dinner once the flames subside. But you just had to take it a step further, come to the Merchant Forum, call us all a bunch of pissy merchants, and proceed to spew forth illogical arguments until someone slapped you with enough of a reality check to stop.

No Merchant is happy about the vendor limit numbers. No -player- is happy about them, period. But that has nothing to do with you. You're upset because like many of your kind you're now faced for the first time with choices. Choices that all the rest of us made long ago, without having our hand forced. Combat prowess or improved business income. So either put down that cake or eat it, the free ride on pure merchant's backs is over.

Yours truly,

V'Tal Fion.

Master Tailor & Merchant
Minister of Cultural Affairs
Da'Vinci City, Tatooine

You are a self-important little turd.

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Its your fault! (and mine apparently but shhhhhhh....)

Message Edited by ORyanNosann on 08-17-2004 09:43 AM