Merchant Archive

We have GOT to do something to get some attention here. Please try to keep this post at the top so that maybe JUST maybe Holo will see it and give us some lovin' too. Also I open the floor to anyone who would like to make suggestions about how to save the Merchant Class. (For good ideas on an overhaul please lookon the Rangers Board and see how their entire class is getting an overhaul.) Add things to all the skill boxes, change skill boxes completely, and new skills entirely. Whatever you think will help, please share. I am very interested in this as well.

I think if we pull together some great ideas for the Devs here on what can be added to our class to make it better in one place we may get some attention.

Thanks in advance.

Here's my suggestions... these all assume that the functionality of existing abilities used here get fixed.

ADVERTISING BRANCH

Advertising I: Improved Bazaar Access - allows "premium" auctions and for the merchant to placepredetermined signature text in the description of items he sells. For example, I currently type a blurb advertising my shop in the description of items I sell on the bazaar... with this I could set the blurb as my "signature text" and click a box to have it appear in the description.

Advertising II : Vocalization - both preset and custom vocalizations for vendors are gained.

Advertising III : Planetary Ad Campaign - allows you to register your shop on the planetary map, increasing maintainence costs of the building by 10%.

Advertising IV : Word of Mouth - Mission giving NPCs in the town closest to your shop will give delivery missions to your shop, As well as being able to hire NPCs to "bark" a brief message (similar to Ad III) at a cost per hour.

EFFICIENCY BRANCH

Efficiency I : Reduced Travel Costs - save 25% on all shuttleport and starport ticket prices

Efficiency II : Increased Productivity - Harvestors and Generators increase output by 10%

Efficiency III : Reduced Maintainence - 25% reduction in all maintainence costs

Efficiency IV :Increased Efficiency- additional 10% productivity increase and 15% reduction in maintainence costs

MANAGEMENT BRANCH:

Management I : Vendor Management - may have additional vendors based on house size (+1 small, +2 medium, +3 large)

Management II : Land Management - Structures use 1/2 lots (round up, minimum 1 lot per structure)

Management III : Shop Management - May designate admins on vendors, allowing them to place items for sale. The shop owner may set a percentage fee that they receive from the sale price.

Management IV : Resource Management - May remotely monitor, pay maintainence, change resource and turn on/off harvestors and generators. Must still physically deposit power and retrieve from the hopper.

HIRING BRANCH:

Hiring I : Selective Hiring - may choose a PC race for vendors (plus droids)

Hiring II : Expanded Hiring - may choose from NPC races for vendors (plus terminals)

Hiring III : Uniforms - may hand clothes and items to the vendor to hold and wear

Hiring IV: Corporate Image - may customize the PC race vendors

MASTER MERCHANT:

Additional vendor per building, additional 5% productivity, additional 10% maintainence reduction, able to place an NPC barker in front of the building (but still on the lot).

Now that is what I am talking about. Those are All BRILLIANT ideas and would make merchant a worthy Elite Profession to have.

Keep em coming, folks!

I'm new to this area of the boards. After reading the skill box descriptions, I was a little hesitant to spend XP in Merchant. I went ahead an advanced past novice, but after reading through the Merchant threads, I'm even more hesitant to spend those XP's.

Here's something I believe would make an excellent addition somewhere within the Merchant tree:

Partnership

There must be some method by which merchants (or one merchant and any other profession) can enter into partnerships. The benefits would be something along the line of an automatic dispersal of revenue from all vendors. Maybe always 50/50, orideally the merchant can specify who gets what percent of the sale.

Another benefit could be a common bank account, or safety deposit box. Common lots are also possible. If, for example,two players are business partners, then each player's available lots becomes 20. This is not to say 40 lots total, just that each partner has access to, and can make use of, the other's lots. This also means that if one partner created and placed a harvestor, then the other has the ability to destroy/redeed it.

Obviously a large deal of trust must established before a partnership could take place. These ideas stem from the fact that a good friend and I entered the game with the intention of creating a business and being "business partners". It wasn't long before we realized that there really aren't too many game mechanics available for doing so. (I'm just glad they fixed the house issue where added admins couldn't drop/pickup items).

Also good ideas. There definatley needs to be some way to give merchants the ability to sell goods on their vendors and that money go to another person. Instead of having to buy things from someone and then mark them up, a person could offer something to the vendor for the price they want to sell it for agreeing that if it sells on that vendor the owner gets 15% or something close to that. This way the merchant doesn't need to buy and mark up to make money.

Also adding Admin Rights to Vendors should be a priority as well. Give the person permission to put things up for sale and remove their own items for sale, but not items placed by the owner.

So many little things that can be added to actually make us more of a Merchant class and not a worthless class.

All great Ideas.

Many fantastic ideas for this class have been posted here, I find it so frustrating that the Devs just don't acknowledge or comment on them.

Questions I want Answered

1. Has a Dev EVER played a merchant (all the way up)

2. Because our XP is easy to come by is it the Dev's "vision" that the skills awarded be less (as it certainly seems so.)

3. What is the basic vision of the Merchant.?

4. Can we have a Dev statement on how they see a Merchant being more advantageous / usefulto selling than a Crafter with a vendor.

5. Throw us a bone and let us know if we as emrchants get any extra abilities related to player cities...

6. Will the Dev's Start listening to the merchant community as we have a whole host of very valid and useful ideas that can be implimented.

P.S I'm still fuming about the 3 Newbie melons...

Hey, I think I should post the three newbie melons on my vendor for 1 mil...

The only problem about this thread being here is that the DEVS don't even know this forum exists.

Here are my ideas (many are recycled from other threads):

Assumptions:

1) Many (most?) of the merchant skills are currently broken/bugged

2) There is very little that distinguishes a merchant (even a master) from someone with business 3

3) The general consensus on this forum is that the merchant class is largely useless.

Goals:

1) Make the merchant class viable and "Fun" (this is a game after all).

2) Provide the merchant class with useful skills that allows them to excel at their chosen profession

3) Maintain the limited ability for non-career merchants to sell there wares in a store

Proposed changes:

Business 3 (artisan) - Reduced bazaar fees (how about something meaningful like 40-50%?)

Business 4 (artisan) - Grants the "Vending Machine" - style vendor with higher maintenance costs and limited items (say 25?)

Novice Merchant -

1) Grants the ability to place 1 additional vendor

2) Grants the ability to use random npc-style vendors

3) Grants the ability to use non-customized "ad barking"

Advertising 1 - grants the ability to use customized ad barking

Advertising 2 - grants the ability to place a "billboard-style" sign outside the merchants home.

Advertising 3 - grants the "planetary advertising" feature (unchanged from current)

Advertising 4 - grants the ability to advertise in town (via a "yellow pages" directory attached to the bazaar and/or signs in town)

Efficiency 1 - grants the merchant a 25% reduction in all travel expenses

Efficiency 2 - grants the merchant a 15% reduction in home, vendor, and harvester maintenance

Efficiency 3 - grants the merchant a cumulative (Eff 2 and 3) 30% reduction in home, vendor, and harvester maintenance

Efficiency 4 - grants the merchant the ability to remotely administer homes, vendors, factories and harvesters for tasks such as paying maintenance fees, adding power, swapping schematics, enabling/disbaling vendor barking, etc. (but they still must travel to retrieve/load items).

Hiring 1 - grants the merchant the ability to select a custom npc vendor from a limited choice of races (unchanged)

Hiring 2 - grants the merchant the ability to select a custom npc from an expanded range of races (unchanged)

Hiring 3 - grants the merchant the ability to place clothing on vendors (the "uniforms" skill from the current line)

Hiring 4 - allows the merchant to hire an npc bodyguard (similiar in specs and capabilities to a rebel or imperial soldier). This can be purchased with creditsor maybe experience points??

Management 1 through 4 - unchanged

Master Merchant -

1) grants the ability to place one additional vendor

2) further reduces maintenance by 10% (40% total)

3) grants the 3-PO Protocol npc vendor

4) grants one additional bodyguard (must be purchased)

This skillset would make the merchant a formidable, but by no means over-powering, class that can benefit the player-run economy while providing useful and "fun" skills for a merchant toa spire towards.

Fine ideas!

I particularly like "Land Management" and "Harvester Productivity". Of course I love the NPC bodyguards because they were originally my idea..

Some changes are sorely needed. I find myself wondering EVERY day why I run like a hampster in a wheel every day to make the same money any melee_001 can make on Dathomir or Lok justsigning up for missions.

I want to be Lando, Han, and Jabba all rolled into one!

At least..give methis as an option...

Thank you!

P.S. Where's my Corellian Freighter?

I am at the point of, “hey this is kind of cool” in the Merchant profession boarding on the “you know maybe it would be better if this did that”, all very excellent ideas above.

I am gambling a bit buy advancing with my Merchant with the hopes it will be somehow related to Mayor profession of the up incoming player cities. Has anyone some insight into this and how he or she thinks Merchant will play any part of the Mayor profession?

I find gathering any information on the Merchant profession very difficult on the SWG boards as far as a detailed guidebook. This forum is the only good source I have found to date.

It would be nice if merchant somehow tied into the new city systems.

You guys really need a partnership method. Especially with the Creature mounts coming out all of US ch's will be needing you guys to sell some of our good and the bioengineers as well. I play on ahazi and haver never seen a master merchant at all. I hate to say bad things about you guys but right now with the way crafters can get merchants at business 3 you guys are almost a pointless class. At least DE's still have some sort of purpose. I will definetly be wanting to sell creature mounts but if the merchant system is not fix I'll be the one dealing with customers all day long and not you guys the way it should be. Also having to deal directly with the merchant all the time is not very fun especially when you have a worked out system. Partnership needs to be formed. I agree with this 100% wholeheartedly.