Merchant Archive
Thread: The nonskilled ‘merchant’ problem – or be careful what you ask for.
lisasdarren wrote:
- The need to sell things? Well anyone who wants to sell things can gain some business skills, i direct you to my recent post on possible templates with business or merchant skills
Wire3k wrote:
lisasdarren wrote:
- The need to sell things? Well anyone who wants to sell things can gain some business skills, i direct you to my recent post on possible templates with business or merchant skills
Yeah, I saw your post - I see some issues in it, specifically in Bio, but I don't know enough about other classes to tell if that's a fair representation or not.Bio's worth their salt are NOT EVER going to be able to make do with anything less than explore 4 - and even then they need a +25 maskscent outfit - and even then, they still get eaten with great regularity sampling.
BE's are the toughest profession to deal with in relation to their templates and their need for merchant skills. They stand alone of the non Artisan crafting professions as the profesion that exists solely to create products to sell to others but who have no easy access to vendors. There have been many ideas tossed around to try to make that better but nothing that has been without problems.
It is possible to do BE and Artisan to get a vendor it usually means you have to give up the Elite combat Master and dabble in combat. Just a quick check looks like you can take Business IV and Exploration IV and still get most of a combat elite profession. If you choose to Master Scout and BE you can still get business IV if you only take 4 boxes of a combat profession. These aren't optimal templates but they do allow you to do most of the things you need to do to be a BE.
Elioi wrote:
I think she was talking to Dingo - you know, the Merchant version of Anne Coulter?
I take that as a compliment.
PS: Anyone who wants to ***edit*** and moan about losing poached vendors or how it is somehow wrong in their warped ignorant minds should immediately have their vendors and all items deleted, then be shot and left to rot in hell where scum like them belong.
Viva la Merchant!
No, BE can't sample from corpses,
joined42904 wrote:
(I assume that they can sample from corpses...never played BE but if they can corpse sample DNA...after all they shouldn't need more than a hair follicle and it shouldn't take all that long...then I don't understand why scout should be regarded as a requirement for BE.
joined42904 wrote:
Can they at least sample in combat? Maybe they just need to change it so that they can sample from corpses that they have looting rights to then. That would make logical sense and would remove the need for them to have scouting skills.
No, you can't sample dna in combat.
joined42904 wrote:
Wire3k,
I just noticed you are a BE. And this is I suppose why you are less happy than other folks about the changes. I think you have a right to be given the present constraints on BEs who make pets.
Would you find the changes I propose acceptable? Or not really? I'd like to know. If you think they would be acceptable maybe you can recommend that on the BE forum.
Heh - they've asked for that FOREVER. You are right - it makes no sense. It would be good to sample in combat to make them group friendly - 'hunting' with a BE has got to be the most boring of all activities ever created. Stand back and watch. To make them even further group unfriendly - you can't harvest off a critter a BE has killed either.
It's not so much a reason I think this is a boneheaded move by SOE, than my reason for being able to be empathic to the plight of others this affects. Since I've always had 2 accounts - and have had my 3rd for some time - none of this affects ME, but I can well imagine what I'd be up against with only one account.
Wire3k wrote:
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.
What needs exactly?
- The need to sell things? Well anyone who wants to sell things can gain some business skills, i direct you to my recent post on possible templates with business or merchant skills
- The need to have a place for things to be dropped off? Well arrange a time to meet face to face, give them admin on a building (if you trust them), and hope they implement a mailbox at some time.
- A lack of storage? If you're a crafter this can be an issue but you will probably have some vendors anyhow, if you're not then stop hoarding stuff, throw out anything you havn't used recently and have no plans to use, give stuff away to newer players etc.
What functions did vendors fill that can't now be dealt with in another way?
SeraphinAnnie
I don't know about ALL the other forums, I do know about the ones that touch my gameplay and I keep up with. I suspect what you say is true about most of the combat type forums because of the nature of them being confrontational instead of cooperative.
I've NEVER seen anything even remotely resembling what goes on in here displayed in any of the 'crafter' type forums.
We will have to agree to disagree that no one NEEDS to sell, no one NEEDS to play SWG either - that too is a want, a desire. But presuming they are here because they do play - what is a reasonable expectation of those players to function.
Crafters can be logically sorted into groups primarily by their motivations to craft. You have some that only want the end product - either in gold, or items. Those that want the convenience/satisfaction of doing it themselves - and those that actually are crafter/merchants - which historically has always been connected. The first group is actually more likely to be pure merchants as the system envisioned - they couldn't care less what they sell - they are after an income. The second won't be much touched by this change; they probably aren't interested in selling anything anyway. The last group is the one that's in direct conflict.Their emotional payoff comes from customer contact either directly - or thru their vendors to their customers. If that group has more interests than JUST crafting - forcing them to deal thru merchants - or merchant skill, is depriving them of half the crafting game or their other interests - to them it's connected and you aren't ever going to convince them otherwise.
And getting back to enlightened self-interest, if you remove the motivation of the desires of the largest crafting class - how is that good for anyone?
We can agree to disagree on this - but the final decision is in the hands of the players. Would this be a major problem if players felt their needs that the system created by virtue of design decisions be nearly as crippling if they were addressed FIRST? Most likely not. How would you like to buy a car - drive it for a year, then have the engine recalled and be told - oh yeah, we'll get ya something to do that same job, probably be a year or so - OR you can rent this nice bright shiny new engine right now, course it will cost ya an extra 15.00 a month.
The more transparent the push to encourage multiple accounts becomes the less likely players are to do it - or continue to do it even if they already have multiples.