Merchant Archive
Thread: can this be addressed w/o being flamed
I can understand wanting to help out a profession, however, I have been back reading through some other threads and I counted at least 30 different posts from you (in the last 3 days!), each one essentially saying the same thing in different ways.... "Merchants are useless". You have made your opinion well known, sir.
You seem to have a chip on your shoulder, and I would even say that you don't really care about improving my profession at all. I really enjoy being a merchant and the role-playing that's possible. As faulted as the profession might be, it's how Iidentify myself in SWG and I really don't thinkit fosters a good discussionwhen you refer to us as little more than a tool for use by other players. And in another thread you then wonder about our defensive reactions?
You're right, though. Unless SOE fixes this before the asteroid hits in two weeks, it's all moot (http://www.rense.com/general53/rumor.htm).
-Saigo
And you forget the other half of that statement.. "merchants are useless... as they are now". And I still think that. Once a merchant sets up their vendors, it is all about stocking them. All the tools and abilities you get, go to placing vendors, and after that, nothing. To me, looking at the skill point cost, that is worthless. That is not even being negative. That is just stating my opinion, that as the profession stands now, it doesn't have enough to keep it viable. Especially considering what it could be if the time was spent on it to make it better.
As far as the rest of your post, about me not wanting the profession to be improved, I am not sure where you came up with that, but if you had read any of my posts, a good portion of them have ideas to better Merchant. And if people can't take constructive critism -- which is different than having a chip on ones shoulder, or bashing as some like to do -- without getting defensive and letting their base instincts react, then perhaps they shouldn't be reading the forums in general.
I'm sure you have the best intentions and that you do want to see the profession improve.
However, I don't agree that you are providing constructive criticism. Why would you criticize merchants?Rather, I see you insinuating "Merchants are useless"in different ways in every thread. That's neither constructive nor polite. Even kind of troll-ish.
As for a defensive reaction from merchants..... Go into ANY other profession forum and tell them you think they are useless because of your perceived issues with their profession, guage that reaction, and get back to me.
I'm happy with what I've accomplished as a merchant using the tools that SWG gave me and my own imagination.And I'm going to be even happier when all those illegal vendors go poof.
Constructive criticism is pointing out what is wrong -- in my opinion, and then making suggestions to fix those problems. That is exactly what I have done. As far as criticizing merchants themselves, I haven't yet, I just criticize the design of the merchant profession, which is badly in need of an overhaul.
I am not here to be polite. But I am not rude, and I don't bash other posters. I just simply point out my opinions, and since this is a public forum designed to discuss our opinions about these professions, I have every right to do so. And it doesn't really bother me when people 'defensively react' to my opinions. It is usually just funny.
It could even be said that the defensive reaction is part of why I keep coming back. hehe.I think I am going to stop responding to posts directed at me, and not towards the actual issues that are being discussed. It is a common thing that happens in discussions. One side cannot back up their arguments, and so they attack or question not the ideas facing them, but the person presenting them. No one is perfect, myself far from it, but if you want to discuss me, we should go to another folder or at least start a new topic. If you want to continue the discussion on vendors as storage or vendor poaching, stop trying to sidetrack the issue.
Say x ore is worth 2cpu, raw.
But if the ore is processed then it is then worth 50cpu.
The thing is you have more then you can use in a week.
But u are willing to part with it for 10cpu.
Odds are it will never sell for 10cpu b/c its only worth 2cpu.
Your selling it at a price you are willing to part with it b/c honestly you don't want to part with it.
So its not going to sell, just like it's not going to sell at 9,999,999
We sound alot alike in character hehe. If I posted in error then I apologize. I don't even look at the names of posters but rather the content. Any replies I posted were my thoughts on subjects addressed and not meant as reactionary. I reread some of your posts and actually checked the name this time I found several good points. In fact many of the posters here have good points. The challenge is getting a DEV to hear them and then work toward fixing any problems that exist.
For me the most irritating and thus most important problem facing merchandising, not as a profession, but as a core system problem is relisting items. As I am posting and waiting to get back on my server I have about 200 items in my stockroom that have to be relisted. This is such a waste of time. I pay for my vendor sothe items should stay on there indefinately until I remove them. I have never thought of any reason why items go off sale. All it succeeds in doing is wasting my time and pushing me closer to quitting vendoring altogether.
Songe wrote:And I'm sorry but using the excuse that the items stored on the vendor are still for sale is hypocrisy at its paroxism. It's like saying you didn't steal the cookies when you hid them somewhere where nobody can find them.
LOL! Emphasis is mine...
Even if Songe, along with most of the other posters on this ridiculous thread, (keep up the good fight, DragonScout, you're the only one really making any sense at all here and I'm rooting for you, though you've got little chance of winning against the foaming masses) wasn't so clearly and rabidly wrong about pretty much every single statement s/he's made so far, that one sentence alone would serve to erase any kind of credibility or suspicion of intelligence that one would be in the slightest bit inclined to grant the poster. You should learn how to use only the words you actually understand. That whole sentence is a stone cold riot to begin with, as have been most of your arguments, but could you please just tell me what the heck "hypocrisy at its paroxism" is?
Actually, never mind...if you answer that means I'd have to actually pay attention to what you said, and that makes my head hurt to have to read.
Songe and her/his ilk are the reason I've been coming to these boards less and less over the past few weeks and months...I was a regular forum reader until the nincompoops and the flamers began to take over. This forum especially has some of the most hostile, least informed individuals it is my misfortune, as a master merchant, to be inherently associated with that I've ever seen on any forum, anywhere. You guys should pretty much all be ashamed of yourselves. Especially since Doc is such a well spoken and hard working correspondent. You make him all look bad. Shame on you. You should be able to discuss any issue, not just this one, without sniping at each other like a bunch of mindless, spoiled five year olds. Whether or not you think this or that is an exploit, you should be able to conduct yourselves in a civilized fashion.
And just for the record, I agree that vendors without the merchant skill is a terrible exploit, and that using vendors for storage is not only not an exploit, it's a valid solution to an increasingly bad problem until the dev team gets their thumbs out of their nether regions and begin to realize that the crafter's game is hopelessly mired without a vast increase in storage space, and an increase in lots, and that all players in general could really stand to have a few more skill points.
It's like these guys work as hard as they can to erase any sense of fun from this game, and insist on having people play it the way they intended it to be, instead of catering to their customers and making the game into something the players actually find enjoyable. It's disgusting, and the dev team, while being hard workers, need to plug in and get a clue and start really paying a lot more attention to what is going on here. The first really good MMORPG that comes along is going to suck up a large portion of their player base. Most of the people I know can't wait to quit this game. They just dont do it now because their hobby is MMORPGs, and they dont want to be bored. I can see their point. If a game I was interested in was released tomorrow, I'd probably quit SWG within the next eight weeks, and it'd only take that long because there are parts of the game that I'd truly miss...and that's the worst part about this game. You see the incredible potential, and then you see the dev team not doing anything about it, and it just makes you crazy.
Add the rude and obnoxious players and flamers and ignorant fools that you have to tolerate both in game and on the forums to the equation, and some days, it hardly seems worth continuing to pay for not one but two accounts to have to deal with. Bah. This is a game! Aren't I supposed to be enjoying myself?!
Songe...I think that a perfect birthday gift for you would be logic classes and...a DICTIONARY.
A link you might find educational, dear:
http://www.webster.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?va=paroxysm
Good luck to you. And thanks for a great laugh.
May the Force be with you.
I'm French guy... Go make the same post in French then you can come back to me about how my grammar and vocabulary suck. I'm glad it made you laugh though, I just hope you have more respect towards foreigners than this in RL.
Message Edited by Songe on 06-06-2004 10:02 PM
As far as the good fight.. I will keep on fighting it. Even if it has slowly died down. I think it is just in a lull. They are hoping I will go away. hehe.
And perhaps the problem then Songe is a lack of understanding with what we are each saying. If you are translating everything I say from english to french -- especially if it is with a program, that could cause all sorts of problems. Translations can suck. Especially with the way English is all confuddled. (though honestly, I found latin easy to learn -- just mind numbing, and spanish evil evil evil. Not sure how well/easy french translates though.)
Anyways. I just found an awesome vibro axe tonight so I am in a good mood. 225-901 damage, 3.9 speed, and infinite mind fire. -drool- Can we just start counting the millllllions of credits? lol.
Perilous wrote:
And just for the record, I agree that vendors without the merchant skill is a terrible exploit, and that using vendors for storage is not only not an exploit, it's a valid solution to an increasingly bad problem until the dev team gets their thumbs out of their nether regions and begin to realize that the crafter's game is hopelessly mired without a vast increase in storage space, and an increase in lots, and that all players in general could really stand to have a few more skill points.
Until I hear a dev state that as far as they are concerned using vendors as a storage medium is okay I will continue to believe that it is mis-using a game mechanic and therefore wrong.
We also don't need more skill points, you just need to decide what is most important to you and select your professions on those criteria. In the same way you need to decide which of your possessions are most important to you and dispose of those you cannot fit into your allocated storage (or get more storage using legitimate ingame methods such as hiring lots of of another player (on your server))
You can't always get what you want, and games need to have rules for them to have any meaning. If there are no rules and no limits then their is no challenge, without challenge there is no fun.
That is your opinion and one I will argue is a minority opinion. I see your a crafter in your byline so there is something you are using as a storage or you are not running vendors. A crafter has a serious disadvantage when using storage. I have tailor ingredients such as leather portions lying around that I will need when I get schematics.
I want resource stacks changed and similar serial numbers on all items stackable for simplicity and a time saving tool. It takes a long time to sort through the resource stacks to find the resources that match. If all of them stacked into one pile it would save me time. The same goes for searching serial numbers on these leather portions.
YOU may not need the storage update but others do. What is fun to you may not necessarily be fun for the next person. Yes there are rules for the game and it is those rules we wish to change on this topic. By the way it is the "hiring lots from other players" that has all the artisans in an uproar and wanting harvestor certifications. So your so called legitimate tactic is not so legitimate to them. As I said, one person's opinion is not always the next person's. It is funny you pick and choose what to call legitimate. My personal opinion is if the game allows it then it is legitimate until it is changed so you can't. If people want to use vendors as storage so be it. So as you can see we differ in opinion.