Merchant Archive
Thread: Current Merchant Issues List
DawnTreader777
Wed Jul 14, 2004 12:43 pm
#92
AlanjaAngeli wrote:
And, if they do make it so you have to have the merchant skills to have merchants, are they really going to make the vendors just poof? While many of the merchants may feel it is 'fair' that these people loose all their resources and items, etc for exploiting, that is not a very wise idea PR wise because people do quit the game when they loose their items - and where many people may have quite a few things on their vendors, unless they are given a way to get them off after the change over, they will quit the game.
hehe. they already do that. i lost millions of credits worth of items back in March. "working as intended" go here :
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=merchant&message.id=32100
Bonae-Indolis
Sat Jul 17, 2004 7:09 am
#93
Item 3 is still very relevent....
Is this ever going to get addressed?
Bonaette
rhian
Mon Jul 19, 2004 3:48 am
#94
Greetings everyone,
I dunno if already someone has posted about this.. did not find anything concering this Restock-Feature.
I guess many of you here know the pain to restock vendors when 30 days are over and the vendors spit all items out that passed this time span.
I am Master Merchant and also Master Tailor. I am one of the best stocked wanderhome tailors/merchants, but being a tailor means to have always a huge selection of clothes in lots of different colors. Some ppl like some colors more than others.. so I have to stock my vendor up with 10 pieces of the same cloth in the same color, just because sometimes more ppl look all for the same item. Makes alot of items(I have over 4000 itemson all my vendors together)on your vendors.. and I also have already sorted the items on several vendors. I have one vendor who sells handwear, footwear, belts, bandoliers and backpacks..one for formal wear and one for casual wear.. makes sorting aloteasier and the customer like it, because they do not have to search their butt off for one item.
When those 30 days are over, a painful week starts for me. I have a real life and work to do.. so I can only spend about 3 hours online. I need the online time to talk to my customers, help them with their requests, giving hints what looks good and so on. I honor both of my jobs.. merchant and tailor. I get very rarely any complaining from my customers and if I get some.. those come most of the time from little kids who have no manners and think that customers can behave like pigs. Well I spend one whole week, 3 - 4 hours each day to put back all my items. I already tried to split this time span into four week cycle.. but even 1000 items are alot of work to put them back.. and this can be very tiresome as well and makes being a tailor and merchant very painful... after all I enjoy to stay in touch with my customers and not hide in my corner and check my vendors..
A simple Feature would make it so much easier and less painless to restock vendors. You can mark in your storeroom of your vendor all items, to get them out all at once. Why not the same for restocking, so I do not have to take items out first or click each item extra for putting it back. Marking all items that go for the same price and put them all back at the same time.. this would save sooo much time!
Yeah I know, you can mark them all yet, but you still can put only one item back, so the marking is only useful if you want to get them out all at once..
/wave
Rhian
Atan
Mon Jul 19, 2004 5:17 pm
#95
How about tradeable Vendors?
Which means that first a merchant creates a Vendor, then he goes to the customer and trades the Vendor. Then he (the customer) places the Vendor inside his Shop at the desired location (maybe moveable Vendors, too 
). Then the Merchant would need to initialize the Vendor and could be consented by the customer to perform the Merchant skills(uniforms, ad-barking and the planetary map service). The Merchant would also set a desired rate of credits per hour, which get added to the maintenance rate. The Customer would only need to pay the maintenance and would need to get a merchant for any change. As an addition there could be a 2-4 weekly "checkup", which means a Merchant would need to look after the vendor and set it as active, otherwise it gets deleted after a week. (should remove empty vendor + abandoned Vendor together)
). Then the Merchant would need to initialize the Vendor and could be consented by the customer to perform the Merchant skills(uniforms, ad-barking and the planetary map service). The Merchant would also set a desired rate of credits per hour, which get added to the maintenance rate. The Customer would only need to pay the maintenance and would need to get a merchant for any change. As an addition there could be a 2-4 weekly "checkup", which means a Merchant would need to look after the vendor and set it as active, otherwise it gets deleted after a week. (should remove empty vendor + abandoned Vendor together)All of that would require that all "illegal" Vendors would be removed, otherwise there would be no/little use for it. And the Merchants would need a much higher count of Vendor, about 20 i think, from which they only can place a certain amount themself.
With that consent system the ID's could be included, too. And as there is a person which placed it (the customer) he could receive all the mails about sales usw...
Notes on other thinks:
- Like the Ideas of the Mannequins instead of Vendors 
- The issue with the music in a shop should be resolved if they should really let droids be added to houses (Just imagine crosslinking 3 profession... DE builds it, musician records tracks, merchants use it)
- i think they should implement a working consent system for Vendor with a high priority, then maybe some people won't even pick up the MM because they dont need it to sell stuff
- The Stockroom should be location based, like linking every Vendor in a building
- I like the idea of the directed sales, too... they had a scene in KoToR, when a npc was giving you a discount when you acted anti-Imperial and was ranting about his imperial customers Maybe implementing it for Overts?
Maybe implementing it for Overts?MfG
Atan
MArt - MDE - MM Infinity
Privateer21
Wed Jul 21, 2004 7:41 am
#96
On the issue of removing 'dead' vendors from a structure....
A nicely worded CSR ticket from the structure owner will usually get a truely dead vendor removed. My impression is that the CSRs check to see if the acct is still active andif not, the vendor is removed. Various people in my guild have used that successfully at least 3 times, one of those times was in the PC cantina.
P
aswex
Thu Jul 22, 2004 9:13 pm
#97
I haven't been on the merchant message boards in a while, but I had some concerns and then I saw this thread. Unlike many of the people who posted on pages 3, 4 and 5, I actually just finished reading the whole... darn... thread. I have a headache from straining my eyes and I just took two antacid pills for my indigestion (but that's probably from too much ice cream). I gave several people 5-star ratings because I appreciated their ideas. I also appreciate DocSavag's well-written initial post. I hope this post is constructive. At least those of you who skipped reading pages 2-5 will know what _I_ thought the good ideas were 
Also, it's almost amusing how much the vendor exploit resembles a religious debate: Everyone has an opinion that they think is obviously The Truthand nobody's budging. For the record, I believe that the vendor exploit is indeed exploiting- isn't it obvious ?
Also, it's almost amusing how much the vendor exploit resembles a religious debate: Everyone has an opinion that they think is obviously The Truthand nobody's budging. For the record, I believe that the vendor exploit is indeed exploiting- isn't it obvious ?First, I'd like to publicly give props to those with great ideas.
*Pappi was the first to post about the ability to relist items at the original listing price. I hatehaving to open up my Pricing spreadsheet when things don't sell.
*Neutral had a good idea with his vendor description/welcome message button on the vendor. I, like many others, offer an item called "Read Me!" for 99999999.
*Amscu_Edfo suggested allowing customers to look at your remote vendors from the vendor that they're at. I actually told my clients to do this until one of them wrote back and told me it was a benefit of the Merchant class. Oops.
*Danaih brought up the fact that items don't sort properly by name when you have several pages of items. DocSavag might have written about that using some obscure code-speak (batch processing?).
*Kwee mentioned that the item descriptions often don't fit in the area provided. Can we make these multi-line?
*Vandaemus suggested that the number of items on the vendor be listed in planetary advertising.
*DarthDrogseth wanted to be able to rename vendors. That'd be useful for me when I get more vendors. Then, I could change "BE Tissues by Isscossk" to "BE Chef Tissues by Isscossk" and move all of the tailor tissues to my new vendor "BE Tailor Tissues by Isscossk". As it is, I have so many items that if I wanted to make that change, I'd have to move everything onto "BE Chef Tissues by Isscossk", destroy my old vendor, and move thetailor tissues from "BE Chef" to "BE Tailor".
*Finally, I would like to nominate "Bulldog" Balkstar for Merchant Union President.
Now, onto my suggestions:
1a) How to handle vendor exploits: If you no longer have the skills then planetary advertisements disappear, uniforms disappear, and npc's transform to droids. Vendors that you are no longer qualified to handle should not go "poof". That would be a really, really bad way of handling it. Those vendors should simply be inaccessible to customers. They should continue to require maintenance, but maintenance can no longer be paid on them and items may no longer be stocked onto them. The owners of these vendors would then receive a 10-hour countdown (the number 10 is arbitrary). Every hour that they spend online, they will receive a warning that their vendor(s) and all items on it(them) will be destroyed. Note: this is 10 hours online time, not 10 hours RL. 10 online hours should be enough time for these exploiters to find a merchant (a class that would joyfully enter tell hell), and if not, turn a couple of harvesters into a house and move everything onthedyingvendor into it. The number 10 is debatable, of course- I didn't give it much thought. I'm sure the devs could come up with a good number. 30? 60? It doesn't matter to me. In time, the exploiters will be gone.
1b) Handling potential disasters: Consignment MUST be in place before this happens. Merchants aren't going to have the billions of credits necessary to buy everything on the dying vendors. If a merchant destroys a vendor with items on consignment, the items should show up in the owner's safety deposit box in the bank. If the safety deposit box has an item limit, temporarily suspend it and give the owner a 10-hour countdown to retrieve everything.
2) The countdown mentioned in #1a would also be an acceptable method for mall owners to get rid of unwanted vendors. And I don't believe it would be considered griefing, but I'm new to that concept. It can't be any worse than barring someone from a building.
3) Vendor maintenance is too low. I don't even notice it. It should start out higher and then lower with experience. To help get rid of abandoned vendors or storage vendors (also an exploitation), could we let the maintenance rate gradually increase if the owner doesn't sell anythingafter X days?
4) Advertising 1: Planetary advertising. Advertising 2: Owner name listed in planetary advertising (I name my vendor "BE Tissues by Isscossk" so people know who to contact- in RL we have phone numbers in the phone book too!). Advertising 3: Customizable vendor description in planetary advertising. Advertising 4:May pay more to be listed higher and asteriskedin planetary advertising.
I can't wait for the vendor exploit to go away. When that happens, the merchant class is going to go crazy. I'll put on my Merchant tag when that patch goes through and I'll be receiving tells every hour like"Hey, are you a merchant? I'm a master rifleman/master ranger and my vendor doesn't work since the @#$%^& patch. Can you sell mycreature resourcesfor me? I'll give you XX%, ok? #$%^& patch." Every merchant is going to have several vendors fully stocked with things that other crafters created. We'll see threads in the trade boards like "Master Weaponsmith seeking Merchant to run 3 vendors", "Master Merchant seeking other Merchants for Megamall", and"Selling resources? I'm your merchant!" There will be a whole new aspect to the game. Some will whine (like the rifleman/ranger in my example), but someone always does. For all the whiners out there, here's all I can say: Many of the best video games require you to be a micromanager. But that's not what makes it a good video game- it's simply an aspect, and a common one. SWG is different. You just can't be a warrior/crafter/merchant. There is no shortage of skill points or lots.If you accept that, you'll find a way to have a good time. I made it to multi-millioinaire MBE/Merchant without an alt. And, if I ever get an itchy trigger finger, I play my Shadowfire character.
Caedet
Tue Jul 27, 2004 3:31 am
#98
DocSavag wrote:
2Game PlayRemove Empty Vendors from Global Map
The Global Map is littered with vendors which are empty. This makes finding things a difficult and frustrating journey to one empty vendor after another. It lessens the impact of advertising since people no longer trust that the global map listing means anything. There is considerable debate on the full implementation of this issue since it is justly pointed out that making the item count simply be greater than 1 will allow people to use high priced items they know won’t sell (99999999 chance cubes) to keep their vendors on the map. How to address that isn’t universally agreed upon but it is universal that no one wants empty vendors to show up on the map. We suggest that the vendor simply remove the registration when it is empty forcing the Merchant to re-register it when he refills the vendor.
My suggestion would be get rid of the whole map idea and make a searchable database that will return a list of all vendors carrying the specified item(s) you are looking for, but not the information that you would get while being there. Such as cost, amounts, stats, owner, ect. It would just simply place a waypoint in your datapad of the retrieved items you choose if you request it to do so. Would save a whole lot of grief. This is totatally frustrating. Without exaggerating, I went to over 150 vendors in the last 2 days and I would say that 3/4 of the vendors I visited either were empty or carried junk that didn't pertain to the titles. The other 1/4 had the correct items, just very few of what I was looking for. So I pretty much waisted 2 days.
I thought it was sad when true vendors would have to go to town to spam their goods so that customers could find them over all the dead vendors and people whom do not keep up their inventories. What's even more sad is that now buyers are spamming in town too since "we" cannot find any of the vendors we are looking for.
Message Edited by Caedet on 07-27-2004 06:35 AM
Suarve
Wed Aug 04, 2004 3:41 am
#99
How about a /vendorSave function to download the contents that is on a vendor(s) - this will make stock taking very easy and enable people to manage their good a lot more efficiently. Hell, maybe you could even put a stocklist on a website so people dont even have to travel to your vendors to see the stock!
Delerium
Ham-Jo
Fri Aug 06, 2004 8:50 pm
#100
I have another one to add to the list......
How about someone smack the DEVS upside the head so that they realize that this merchant "fix" is completely stupid.
Stupid morons. HOW ABOUT MESS WITH SOMETHING THAT IS ACTUALLY BROKEN.
Damn im tired of this crap. I have been playing this game since the day of launch, and all i can say is that it has gone downhill ever since. Cheaters are still playing the game, the "fix" stuff that is not broken, and ignore everything that is.
Ignorance is bliss.
Rcabbott
Sat Aug 07, 2004 3:34 pm
#101
Removing vendors of people who have dropped the skill will be a disaster
1.
WorriedViper
Sun Aug 08, 2004 3:16 pm
#102
#3 --Ability to Remove Vendors
Mall owners need to have this ability soon.
WorriedViper
Sun Aug 08, 2004 3:22 pm
#103
VengerStarsider wrote:
number one is plain garbage. i am here to have fun, spending the time to get a vendor and then lose the skills is fine to me. merchants who keep the skills have advantages. but for me to totally gimp my character just to keep merchant skills ruins my game play. if that ends up being changed i'll just move on to warcraft or some other game on the horizon, its a game breaker
Count me in too. Game Breaker.
Barris
Sun Aug 08, 2004 4:04 pm
#104
DocSavag wrote:
1ExploitMerchant Skill Point Exploitation
Currently it is possible to set up your merchant tent. Get your vendors, set your advertising. Dress the vendors and then surrender all merchant skills and business skills without any effect. You are then able to run your merchant enterprise without any merchant skills until you need to change some aspect of your shop. Many merchants feel this is unfair to them and allows people to use those skills for other crafting professions or combat professions which is against the spirit of the skill point system.
This is not an exploit... Merchant is the skill to place them, not the skill to manage them, and keep them updated with products. Thus, there is no skill point exploitation.
2Game PlayRemove Empty Vendors from Global Map
The Global Map is littered with vendors which are empty. This makes finding things a difficult and frustrating journey to one empty vendor after another. It lessens the impact of advertising since people no longer trust that the global map listing means anything. There is considerable debate on the full implementation of this issue since it is justly pointed out that making the item count simply be greater than 1 will allow people to use high priced items they know won’t sell (99999999 chance cubes) to keep their vendors on the map. How to address that isn’t universally agreed upon but it is universal that no one wants empty vendors to show up on the map. We suggest that the vendor simply remove the registration when it is empty forcing the Merchant to re-register it when he refills the vendor.
Cheers
Message Edited by Barris on 08-08-2004 04:05 PM