Merchant Archive

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BoberFett wrote:

You're not serious, are you? You think the real value of merchant is dressing vendors?

Get real. The value of merchant is having vendors to sell your stuff 24/7. Re-dressing vendors is all you lose if you drop merchant. How can you say that not moving a vendor is as harsh as not being certed for a weapon? If you're not certed for a weapon, you do a tiny fraction of the damage, and rarely hit what you're aiming at. A vendor that you're poaching still has all the advantages you bestowed upon it when you dropped merchant. It still barks, it's still on the map, it still sells your overpriced loot.

The equivalent to maintaining a vendor after you dropped merchant is still having all of the bonuses you get at master rifleman if you never unequip your T21. You could drop all rifleman, and take up master doctor and master medic. The only thing you can't do is unequip your T21, or you'd lose your rifle skills. How is that fair?

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No, the real value of merchant is the ability to move the venders' location. The 'window dressing' is a perk, just like /concealshot. Just because today the location of your vender is perfect, and it sells out of its 1k of items in a week, doesn't mean that next month, or even next week, that location will still be just as prime. I am completely behind SOE's removal of empty venders from the global map, as well as the removal of venders that are behind on maintenance. Yes, non-merchants still get to sell items, some even soak people for their hard-earned credits by overchargeing (I'm not in that group, I'm one of the undercutter group.) If you cannot move to where the market is strongest, you will eventually shrivel and die off as a business when your target market does the same.

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joined42904 wrote:

DarthAbyssmal,

The real use of the merchant skill is not in the placement or barking or uniform of the vendor. That isn't the real use. The real use of the merchant skill is in the daily selling of merchandise, not what the vendor says or whether the vendor is attired in one manner or another.

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I disagree, see my above post. Can't sell anything if no-one is looking in on your vender. They go hand-in-hand.

Message Edited by DarthAbbyssal on 08-17-2004 12:29 PM

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Be0Wulfe wrote:

Oh push off.

If you've had a vendor forever and never kept the skills for it, you deserve a thorough drubbing and loss of the vendors you do have.

I'm tired of slacktards who can justify their own pitiful reasons while some of us have doggedly kept the skills we "needed" - regardless.

Get a clue, you want vendors, get a merchant skill. You want storage, plop down some factories\houses\whatever.

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If you are talking to ME Beo - I not only have a master merchant - I have a 3rd account with quite a bit of mixed merchant skills. This kind of attitude is what's not helpful, it's vindictive and seeking to punish players for what you see is a personal grievance instead of looking at what has been a problem and ways to address those problems all around.

I have no idea what you sell - but good luck finding 'loot' items if folks that have the skills to harvest them can't sell them in a reasonable fashion. They too are part of the economy, denying them access to reasonable methods of distribution isn't helping anyone. Whether you are an end consumer or a buyer looking to resell.

There are some that will take up merchant - giving up their hunting skills. Say goodbye to those people as potential customers for food, armor, weapons or anything vaguely combat related.

There are some that will give up their accounts completely in disgust - say goodbye to those people as potential customers for ANYTHING.

There are some that will give up all crafting completely and piddle around with fighting stuff. I don't give them much hope of staying terribly long - if fighting was that engrossing to them - they probably wouldn't try to have crafted in the first place. Say goodbye to them as possible wholesale suppliers or buyers of resources or components.

There are certainly easier ways to make more credits than anyone 'needs' to function than trying to run a shop/vendor. Those ways however are dependent on a healthy supply of folks willing to devote a certain amount of their time collecting, creating or reselling to other players. While the shift to combat or crafter may eventually even itself out - it's still restricting the very people that have gone out of their way to try to fill their play experience as best suits their individual tastes and are now being told - uhhh no, we have this elite class over here that as it stands has no validity beyond this artificial means of creating it. YOU don't see it that way - others do - and they have some very valid points.

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Brilyn wrote:

< No, the real value of merchant is the ability to move the venders' location.>

Nonsense. Utter nonsense.

You can cross the galaxy in 10-15 minutes at worst now.

Even before the shuttle change, I had people tell me they were willing to take two shuttles to get to my store.

I've never moved my vendors. I will never move my vendors.

If you move your store frequently, repeat customers will never find it, and you'll lose their business.

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I salute you, then. I have found it nessesary to move my venders around 3 times now. As venders in proximity to mine stopped being re-supplied, business dried up. As I have said, I am an undercutter; I sell my weapons at well below market cost, and i dont sell junk, they are on par with weapons being sold by the top WS's on the server. Even so, with my highest cost non-limited run weapon selling at only 5k, business beyond the resellers I sell to has dried up from 2 previous locations as other venders dried up.

Also, I have my re-sellers go to my home vender now, not my mall venders, as my home vender usually has better selection; in this way i keep my 'repeat' customers.

Message Edited by DarthAbbyssal on 08-17-2004 12:41 PM