Merchant Archive
Thread: Merchant Dev Response as of 9/23
I am posting what I believe are some relevant facts affecting the requested bug-fixes to the merchant class. I don't care as much about the wish list as I'd prefer to just have the features I paid for as a Sony customer working before I concern myself with future changes.
A lot of this focuses on the outstanding work Marqie has done, and in no way should this be seen as a criticism since there is only so much Marqie can do for our profession without developer assistance.
The Point of This Post: What response are we getting? Have we given up on getting any meaningful changes? Have we given up on at least getting some sort of response from the Developers to let us know they are aware and working our issues?
Marqie wisely stated "I do not expect, nor have I ever expected a a weekly responce to our issues, to expect one is unrealistic... by the time it gets here, chances are (with the daily patches) it would be moot." But our #1 issue has not been fixed with daily patches and hasn't evoked a developer acknowledgement in weeks.
Last Correspondent Consolidated-Issues Post: Marqie's 9/06 Reply to "Merchant Correspondant (Week 7)" Marqie listed requests for more meaningful content/skills for Merchants and the following #1 issue:
"The reset of ad campaign and barks with every server reset, this makes this feature hard to deal with, and those of us who work, are screwed."
Last Developer Post in merchant forum: 8/15 "Merchant Issues - Designer responses," Q-3PO
- It appears Holocron spent some time on our forum 8/14 and 8/15 for which we are very grateful.
So what have we had thus far? A review of the Recent Update Archive shows the following changes effecting Merchants on 9/04 (Client version 55186.45 ):All of these changes were welcomed, but there has been no listed changes since the 9/04 patch. Specifically, nothing in regards to our #1 issue. Not even an acknowledgement of our concerns.
- Auction items and vendor locations should clean up properly when a player vendor is removed.
- Fixed some issues with splitting resources when it should not be allowed. There were several exploits with splitting resources over and over again using your vendor. This is fixed.
- Fixed an issue where players where unable to retrieve items from vendors and the bazaar. We had an issue with the region name that these vendors were in that disallowed items to be retrieved from them.
- Fixed issue where resources would combine when placed on NPC vendors. This made it difficult to sell resources in set quantities.
- Vendors will now properly accept clothing handed to them if you have the merchant skill Hiring IV. You will now see your vendors wearing the clothes you give them.
- Added a "customize clothing" option on vendors that describes how to do this if you have Hiring IV. This feature teaches you how to dress your vendors.
- Added merchant ability to update player shop signs. A new option on the terminal to choose which type of sign you want.
So what about our #1 concern? There've been some attempts to get attention on our issues, (Csin, 9/22 "TODAY is the DAY--get off your butts!") But we have seen a dwindling amount of posts on the merchant forum. So I'm curious; are less people playing Merchants, as Mackle stated in his well-crafted post on 9/22 "The Merchant Manifest... Sending out an SOS"; have we grown apathetic following the lack of developer response; or are Merchants content with the current situation?
Are we going to settle for our flashy new shop signs (when any player can add colorful tags to their homes)? Are we content with our buggy vendors and limited merchant skills when any Artisan with Business III can get a vendor? Or will we demand more attention to our legitimate concerns about bugged Merchant skills and the addition of meaningful Merchant abilities?
Ladies & Gentlemen... Post your concerns in this forum... even if it's been done a million times before. Sony only responds to their most vocal customers. Please, flood SOE with your /BUG posts. I send one every time I need to reset my vendors' ad-barking & Map Registration (that's daily - We're getting charged an hourly rate on a broken skill!).
My thanks go out to the many Merchants (Marqie, Csin, and Mackle to name a few) struggling every day with our gimped profession, and still trying to draw attention to our plight.
~ Neth
Sadly, you do not see the correspondant board, the fact is some things now take place out of sight from you, and while I do not 100% with SOE deal on this, it is in fact thier game, and thier rules.
So in short, things are happening, I am sorry it is not all donr in front of you
We complain about customers that visit our shops then send endless tells demanding we return now to make them custom things, or give them a discount. If a customer asked once and listens to the answer, it isn't annoying, and you can work something out with them. Like the time you'll be back. But there are always those that need that pair of red pantaloons right now, and they'll keep hassling till you return and make them. The fact you're out harvesting resources to make the items doesn't count. You should be there for them right now.
We've all had people like that in our shops, and we need to be careful not to become them. Just as you or I would get a very bad view of a customer that spams us with messages, the developers are going to as well. They do need to work on other classes as well, and bug fixing does take time. If we hadn't had any bugs fixed, then it might be placard waving time. But bugs have been fixed. Not all of them, but we won't draw proper attention to the remaining ones by spamming bug reports every day.
Posting here is a good idea, as is supporting the correspondant. But before posting daily bug reports on the same bug, or hassling CSRs, or whatever else people decide to do... think about that whinging shop customer first. You don't really want to have the developers viewing you in that way, or ignoring your bug reports because it's known you spam them daily.
marqie wrote:
Sadly, you do not see the correspondant board, the fact is some things now take place out of sight from you, and while I do not 100% with SOE deal on this, it is in fact thier game, and thier rules.
So in short, things are happening, I am sorry it is not all donr in front of you
Marqie,
And I look forward to those things being revealed, but until then the communication level remains unacceptable. I don't necessarily disagree with the correspondant forum, but the state of affairs for the merchatnt profession has gotten worse not better over the last few weeks and the least we should get should be some reassurance by someone on the dev team that they are aware of the issues and are dedicated to finding a resolution. Perhaps you are seeing that, but until we see it we can hardly be satisfied.
Doc, I agree with you again today
The fact is, correspondants are not allowed to "repost" info from that board. I have no idea why. So yes communication sucks, and this board has not fixed it as of yet.
I am not sure that our class has gone down hill in the last few week, it has stayed the same, with the exeption of no hair. At this point, given the bugs introed in a rush to fix things, it is best that they not rush fixes for us.
I will go on the correspondant board and ask for a clear direction on when we can "repost"
Marqie, I apologize if my comments upset you. That was not my intention at all. I'm sorry but I can only comment on the information I have available to me. Your response, in-fact, confirmed my point that we are receiving no information from the devs on our concerns.
Now if I am mistaken, and you are receiving more detailed information that I have somehow missed on this forum then by all means share it with me and I will be the first to sit-down and be patient.
Once again, I am greatful for the work you have done representing us. All I am seeking is some comment on the state of our affairs while we await fixes.
One star? **edit**... I didn't think I was that far off the mark.
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My biggest reason for stating that it is going down hill is the apparent rush of people dropping their skills. And the issue of the vendors that are still being operated by former merchants. etc. The balance isn't getting better its getting worse.
bug wise I don't think we are all that bad. As a functioning class in the player economy we are still crippled and at a disadvantage when we shouldn't be.
I have not used my Vendors since the cost of item/1000=45min charge...EVENT...nor do I think I will.
They bugs have been present since beta...and remain...to ask us to remain calm and wait will fall on deaf ears...If I sold you a car and it did not run...you would be very upset if I said....
We are working on a fix..please remain calm we will get to it...
Please try to put on a different hat....one of the customer and ask yourself would I be mad if....
My tv does not change channels unless I smack the remote 3 times....We are working on a fix..please remain calm we will get to it...
The DEV know they are not giving feedback or if the do..its spotty and may not be accurate.
While they know we NEED feedback...or we will quit the game or proffession we still dont get feedback....and telling us the standard line of wait and remain calm just wont work
Last point 
If I mess up...you dont want to hear me say I am sorry you want to know what every customer wants to hear ...When will it be fixed so I can enjoy my product
I give The Devs Some Credit, They have fixed a Few of our most Glaring adn problematic troubles we were having such as the bug with selling resources using a NPC Vendor, The inability to clothe our vendors with Hiring 4, ect.
But this is just the tip of the iceberg and yes we do neeed more fixes for alot of the problems that merchants face.
So in short, I believe our voice is being heard but dont be expecting any comments by Devs anytime soon, they seem to be on a short leash about commenting on problems with the game.
The_Ripper wrote:
I support Marqie 100% and think she has done a Excellent Job, Not her problem that SOE has continually failed to provide any type of feedback for almost all of the proffesiion problems.
I certainly hope no one has ever taken anything I have said as a criticism of Marqie's efforts. On the contrary I am very satsified with her efforts to represent us to this point. She has been steadfast in her duty to represent the merchant voice. My complaints are all directed at the SOE dev team who underdesigned this profession in the beginning then put it last to be fixed after going live.
Someone posted a while back that it was obvious that no dev really ever spent any time playing a merchant and that statement is undoubtedly true and points to the true problem with the profession. There may be changes coming that will fix everthing. And if there are I'll be singing praises to the people who brought them about, until I see at least a communication that they are changing however it remains a severe failure on the part of the design team.
And btw I am of course a Master Artisan and a Rifleman and BOTH professions have their own isuses but neither is as competely crippled as Merchant. (Though I think an NPC vendor once incapped my Rifleman character before he could get off a second shot)
Thank you Marquie, I think you're doing an outstanding job with a difficult situation.
As small things have been addressed, and others apparently ignored, the merchant issues that are drawing my attention on a regular basis has shifted. As of today, they can be split into three areas:
1. bugs - ad-barking and palnetary map reset
2. borked profession - No one needs merchants (or needs to keep the skills once vendors are placed) to sell things via vendor, empty skill trees, no distinctive skills (See all the other posts in this thread for great ideas on how to address tese issues.)
3. exploiters - this is the one that makes me steam. Resource and Money duping need to be stopped and those who engaged in it should have their characters deleted.
Keep up the struggle! Merchant is a class worth saving!
In short guys, I feel your pain, I really do.
I will tell you this... We are getting some love, I am not sure when, but we are getting some. SOme of out ideas in our last post, have been shot down.
I think the reason that SOE wants to control the info is that there is no timeline, and they do not want to set themselfs up for failure. That is in fact, a smart plan.
Love is coming, trust me.
My main concern though, is that most of the people who post here seem to have no idea how hard it is to try and find some of these bugs in what must be a huge amout of code. This isn't like fixing a TV remote, or even a car. It is serching through millions of lines of code to find the one line that is bugged. I'm sure the devs are working a lot of overtime to get this game working as intended. And bear in mind that the devs didn't want to release the game as early as it was. If they don't communicate with us, it's probably because everyone there is so busy dealing with all the bugs AND the new content they are working on. So I for one have voiced my concerns and await the day when they fix the problems. One by one our problems will disappear and 6 months from now, new Merchants will be wondering why there aren't alot of Merchants. I am sticking to my guns, and plan on becomming a Master Merchant just because I know they will make us a great class to play. In the meantime, I will deal with the bugs, and be happy to be playing this great game.
Osskibi Tossinki
Master Artisan, Rifleman, Merchant and Weaponsmith
Lowca server