Merchant Archive

I know it's frustrating trying to get people to your store when you have no advertising abilities beyond networking. But if you look at it realistically, you've only been playing the game for just over a week. Why does everyone expect to have everything all at once? What's the point of playing this game if there's nothing to work towards? I totally understand the frustration, but that's part of the whole point of becoming a great merchant. You have to start somewhere. If it were that easy to get ads on such a massive scale the bazaar would be flooded with crappy store ads, run by newbies that really don't know how to run it yet. It all takes time.

I think we all need to sit back, and realize that we as merchants are the most messed upat this point in the game. The economy is in chaos, prices are all whack, and trade just hasn't been able to settle yet. For merchants to expect things to run smoothly right now is unrealistic, and if that IS what you expect maybe you're in the wrong profession (at this stage in the game). We need to look for opportunities in this mess, not fight the current. You can try if you want, but I for one plan on using good business logic and find a niche. Ride it out. Our time in the game hasn't come yet... those who see that will be doing extremely well later.

This post is not directed at complaints about XP gaining for Merchants. Obviously if we can't get XP from Merchant-type activities, um... how do we become Merchants? This post concerns economic principles.

Please post your opinions on this subject, and suggest otherwise if you think I'm way off base here.

If there are any merchants on Starsider who would like to talk to me about business arrangements, networking, alliances - whatever - give me a shout. My name is "Aragon" from Daeric, Talus.

I agree with Blackmugen. Great thing about this game is that it takes time to develop skills and professions. Look what happened with AC2 - a thousand people running around at the level cap with nothing to do and complaining about it.

If you don't have the patience for merchant, or understand entrepreneurship and basic economics, this may not be the profession for you...or it's a great opportunity to learn.

Chataka,

I agree with your concerns about shops not having signs. THAT makes absolutely no sense to me either. How can you have a shop without a sign? I used to play UO and at least you could put signs outside with symbols displaying what kind of stuff people could find inside.

The only thing I'm concerned about is the non-stop complaints about the economy being broken. It's not broken, it just doesn't exist yet.

As for bazaar advertising for novice merchants, I still think that should be reserved for a little higher up the ladder. When was the last time you saw a local Fries Wagon with a National or even Regional advertising campaign? I know this is just a game, and Starwars, but still some "realism" (if you can call it that ) is appreciated. And to have INTERGALACTIC advertising for a newbie shop... IMHO is rediculous. I think we need to work for it, and why not?

Agree? Disagree?

(1) We do get one sign and that's the name of the stucture. I update it to keep fresh information on it. However, not everyone reads it. But yeah, we need more signs.

(2) I agree, the merchant profession is still incomplete.

However, with the fix in merchant XP put in today (I have 1350 Merchant XP!), the fix in for poofing structure. We have all the basic mechanism we need to be successful merchants.

The only outstanding bug which really hurts is the fact that some transaction money goes into the maint pool for the vendor rather than the bank every now and then.

The issue of items not appearing in the local bazaar is a NICE TO HAVE, not a MUST HAVE for a merchant.

Likewise, the issue of not being able to see what's listed elsewhere is a NICE TO HAVE not a MUST HAVE.

The way I think the vendor items on bazaar should be fixed is that ONLY when you get to Novice Merchant do your items appear on the regional bazaars. Then as you get Adv1, have them appear on the planetary, and then at Adv3, galaxy. The reason that I don't think it should appear right away is that until you figure out your operational procedures, you won't be able to handle the load. It may sound great to come home and have everything in your shop sold out, but what that means is that several customers came to the store and were disappointed BECAUSE IT WAS EMPTY. And you don't even know who they are. You need to be in a position to control the flow to your store befor you up your advertising.

So, how then do you start getting people to your store? OK, I am giving away company secrets, but here is a set of steps to becomming a merchant:

(1) Location, Location, Location - even though your shops have to be outside of town, there is some prime realestate out there. Try picking up a destroy mission -- don't do it, but check out where is spawns. Hmmm, wouldn't a shop look lovely close by. Also, there are places people WALK to. Go with a group who does. Scout out a good location and waypoint it.
(2) Start by build your supply chain. You will need resources. Make friends with LOTS of scouts. Even before you have your first store, get the scouts into the habbit of selling to you. These scouts, btw, will end up becomming your first customers. They will eventually attract others.
(3) Post the store opening on your galaxy board.
(4) Give free training to other Artisans. In return for the training, ask them to offer things to you at your shop for a cut rate. Don't have this conversations in tells. Do it in a nice crowded public place. Email the artisan the store waypoint. Two or three eavesdroppers typically also ask for the waypoint.

Oh I agree about the location. I chose a location within visual site of a city as close as I could get and be out of the build one. It is heavily traveled by people going in and out of the city.

Currently I am trying a strategy of putting some items in the bazzar and more items in my vendor. Whenever someone buys from the bazaar I send them an email with a promotional pitch about my shop and a waypoint. The prices in the vendor are MUCH cheaper because I don't pay the overhead of the bazaar and because it is in my interest to drive people to my shop. We'll see how it progresses.

The thing that I think is most underused about merchants is the ability of users to sell them things. I would love to get some regular customers who traded their resources and looted items to me and bought things they need and want in the wild.

And I know that we get the one sign, but there isn't anything about the building that distinguishes it as a merchant shop. A different sign..larger perhaps..different color..I don't know something that would indicate that you should stop buy and take a look inside.

I have no arguement with the fact that the ecnomy is chaotic right now. It will be for a whlie and things will settle down and we can figure how how this will all work. That being said however doesn't mean that we shouldn't push for the Merchant profession to get equal time with some of the others for fixes and balences.

In a game with no NPC merchants I think it will become vital that a working player merchant model exist. Right now that isn't true. This isn't news we said the same things all throughout beta. The lack of advertising at the lower levels is a serious problem and it shoul be resolved somehow. I don't want to lower the value of some of the higer skill perks but give us some way to attract customers into the shops considering that they are so hard to find anyway. I would live with even the ability to put a special sign or symbol on my house to indicate that someone should detour 5m out of their way to see what I might be offering. Maybe vendor items should appear in the bazaar until a certain merchant level. (You get free advertising for a while then you have to work for it) I don't know but right now the merchant profession is a mess.

Here are my thoughts on what they could do to help fix the merchant (based on what's already been said in this topic). Now I do think that merchants need a little more, but these fixes will make them viable and are most needed....

First, give the novice architect a beacon object that they can build. Maybe in 5 or 6 varieties. Then give the novice (or Advertising I) merchant the ability to place the beacon on their building. What this would do is it would give a floating icon a little bit above the building that has a vendor in it (maybe make a req be that a vendor must be in the building too just to stop people from putting it on every building vendor or not.) The different variety would coincide with the craft being sold by the vendor and maybe an additional "general" beacon for your general store. I think this would have to be done early in the merchant's career just to help young merchants have a way for players to find their stores. The icon wouldn't have an incredibly range, maybe if you see the house on the horizon you see a little blue dot, but if you get closer you are able to make out what type it is. This would solve doc's legitmate problem of not being able to identify stores as well.

Next, to fix the bazaar listing problem. I kind of agree with the developer's decision to take out item listing... I mean if you were able to do that then the bazaar would just get overcrowded and it'd be difficult for newbies to find things. However it did provide a great advertising tool for vendors who wanted people to go to their stores so its a needed thing somehow. My idea is at Advertising IV, players get the chance to "buy advertising space" on the bazaar. Maybe have a new tab at the bazaar for vendors nearby cities, planets and universe-wide options. Players would be able to pay a fee to have their vendor listed here and then they would also have the ability to have a personalized slogan er something next to the listing. The vendors could then be broken down into categories much like the bazaar type already has, just maybe more basic such as housing, weapons, clothes, food, armor, general, etc... (ie no components, resources and such, only for actual profession-types). They could also add a master merchant ability to highlight these vendors just like the bazaar which could give worth to the master merchant.

Next,take their reduced advertising fees out of the advertising line and move it to Efficiency III and then move the increased market to efficiency II and remove vendors completely out of here. I think the reduced fees for the planetary ad campaign just fit better in efficiency and you could also add the ability to reduce the above bazaar vendor listing fees.As an alternate way of doing it, you could just move reduced advertising fees to II and leave the increased market where it is. If this is done I would suggest having reduced bazaar vendor fees to increased market instead of at the advertising spot. I think that it fits in both and just gives more worth to the III spot in general.

Now onto Hiring. In my opinion hiring is just utterly useless. This isn't really talked about much cause people want the bazaar back so much or that they wanted xp in the first place that those take precedence but this is a problem too. I don't even know what hiring does (I not a merchant yet) but from what i can tell it only allows you more vendor-type options. Allowing you to select how your vendor looks is nice and all but is it worth 14 points to give a vendor your items? I'd say no and because master merchant also has little use my template doesn't call for even putting anything into hiring and I wouldn't be surprised if it is similar for others. My suggestion is to remove vendor from efficiency II as stated above and making how much vendors cost based on a player's hiring skill. Have it so that what you would get for a reduced fee from Eff II now reside at Hiring III with whatever bonuses you have at that point and then you actually would pay even less at Hiring IV and Master Merchant. This would give a ton of use to the entire line I think and Master as well.

Anyway I think these would be very good base fixes. It wouldn't solve all the problems but I think would fix alot of the main complaints with the line and make it more viable. After this I think the next biggest problem is giving reason to be a Master Merchant. I also think that adding remote management to the Management line would be cool (this could already be in place if it is nevermind=) Heck maybe they could throw the old Word of Mouth NPC ability up to Master, I am sure part of the problem was crowding the streets of cities with these NPCs but I doubt there'd be a ton of people who go to master just for the ability to do it like they could at Advertising IV.

Thank you for the input Verge,

I agree with most of your suggestions, they would certainly be good tweeks to the Merchant class, and still 'realistic' maybe even more so.

I'm not sure about the Hiring suggestions though, only because I don't know enough about it. Maybe there's a really good reason for it, it's just hidden in there somewhere (don't you get reduced Vendor fees? That's always good, IMO).

Anyway, maybe someone could explain the Hiring branch a little better, someone who uses it.