Merchant Archive

Going to keep this short and simple.

The entire concept of the Merchant profession where players would control the "auction houses" is a failure in MMOG design.

The idea of having a Merchant Class that would handle the trade funuctions in a MMOG looked good on paper but in reality didnt pan out.

Going forward no MMOG in design or currently live has players in control of the auction houses.

Case in point - The Trade Forums.

At some point the developers realized that a large portion of the player base had no effective means to sell looted goods.

The Merchant Class concept where a group of players would act as "brokers" didnt materialize.

A bazzar system (auction house) was in place on each planet but couldn't be utilized because of the credit limits to prevent the Merchant profession from being made irrelavent.

So instead Trade Forums were introduced to facitlite the needs of the player base.

Text Based Auctions with no safeguards, no rules, and no standards.

The correct way to handle trade is with open bazzar markets (public auction houses).

Crafters could list the goods for sale, Buyers could go to one location to purchase the items they need and combat players can auction the loot they find.

Currently SWG MMOG has evolved into a 3 prong trading system that is very cumbersome.

1) The crafter/merchant who lists the goods they produce or trade forin one location.

2) The bazzar system limited to 6000 credits for low priced items in major cities where the majority of the player base is.

3) Text based Trade Forums for looted and unique items with no safe guards or rules.

The simple mechanics of trade in a MMOG should be open to all players, should be secure and located in clearly marked areas.

A working and robust auction house/bazzar system loacted in major cities would better serve the community by consolidating the many different crafted products in one location and provide a secure means for looted items to be traded.

I actually suggested once, that merchant skills be utilized on the bazaar to increase the number of items that can be offered, and also increase the price cap. It sounds like you have come up with another alternative, of allowing greater scope to what can be offered at the bazaar, without tying it into the merchant tree. Since the devs have completely ignored our pleas to fix even a few of the problems that exist with vendors and the bazaar, I would bet that this (as with many other good suggestions) will probably fall to the wayside.

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LadyGrey

Don't let the negative AFKophobes get you down. Play the game however you want.

Is the beta testing almost over for this game?

No, the Trade Forums were introduced to cut down the SPAM traffic on the galaxy fourms.

Rexan Ryu
Master Smuggler
Flurry Server

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