Merchant Archive
Thread: Better skills that are reasonable and not game breaking.
Lots of good ideas for Merchant skills have been posted, or advertised by SOE, since beta. While we have done better than Pikemen, Droid, and Bio- Engineers, we haven't gotten much love until this last patch. Marqie really delivered this round with the tents and (at least partial) fixes to the worst bugs! I don't know how she managed that, but her prompt departure afterwards is a hint that GM didn't send her flowers.
We still need solid skills that allow us to sell more:
Visible stores! The tents are better than nothing, but we need specialized retail buildings that are visible from a long distance, have shop windows or at least some advertizing on the outside beyond the name, and a floorplan that is appropriate to the use.
Inventory space! We were supposed to be the only class that could have more than one house. We should at least get some extra lots so putting up a tent doesn't cost a harvester location. Better would be major relief of inventory limits on those retail buildings.
Advertising! In ways that customers don't have to seek out, and that have some room to promote our wares. I had to explain powerups to a Weaponsmith who had never tried one the other day. That should be information I could place on a nice big billboard near heavily traveled routes. Or, even better, with the deleted Ad 4 skill that would give me an in-town barker. (Yeah, I know some people thought automated spam was worse than crafters shouting their wares.) We need ways to advertise that people must actively work to avoid rather than that they have to seek out like the planetary map or the tiny sign in front of my house. The ads should allow graphics (icons) as well as reasonable amounts of text.
Shipping skills! The ability to ship goods from one place to another without traveling ourselves or having a well-trusted associate to do it. They could be safe player missions (with a time limit), or just some automated transport.
Financial Skills! Some way to make a loan to someone we don't trust completely so they can buy our more expensive merchandise. One way was discussed in http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=merchant&message.id=12838&highlight=#M12838
And of course there are still a lot of bugs, even if some seem as-designed to SOE.
Premium sales on the first page (as previously advertised)
Ability for vendor to split quantities for sale on a per-unit basis
Silent protocol droids
Planetary ads actually staying active without having to log in daily
and many ways to lose merchandise without compensation
OK Doc, there you go. Go get em! I hope GM likes you as well as he did Marqie.
I'm afraid I can't compete with Marqie on many levels but I'll do my best. Wonder if GM like cookies...
Visible stores! The tents are better than nothing, but we need specialized retail buildings that are visible from a long distance, have shop windows or at least some advertizing on the outside beyond the name, and a floorplan that is appropriate to the use.
Yes! We need stores...Master Dancers/Musicians/Chefs/Doctors get professional buildings, how about Master Merchants? Just a 2 lot structure roughly the same size as a medium house, with a retail-conducive floorplan and a distinctive storefront (possibly with a few graphic options like tents and statues, but make the option chosen upon placement).
While on the topic of shops, allow us to register our shops (be they houses or stores as suggested above) instead of our vendors on the planetary map. Allow us to list in additional categories for an additional charge. And actually make it so we don't have to log in daily to restore our ads.
Allow us to set up admins on our vendors for consignment sales with a commision option.
Quit making our vendors turn around when they bark. Allow protocol droids to bark.
Let us use protocol droids to bark our wares in town and allow our customers to get waypoints from them.
Let image designers give our vendors makeovers.
Shipping skills! The ability to ship goods from one place to another without traveling ourselves or having a well-trusted associate to do it. They could be safe player missions (with a time limit), or just some automated transport.
Let us generate player delivery missions! Say I agree to sell something to Glasja, who lives too far for me to run (especially since I can't use a mount). I could set up a delivery mission that would be picked up at my designated vendor and delivered to Glasja's.
On my end, it would be something like:
Create Mission - Designate Destination Vendor - Designate Parcel - Designate Mission Fee - Designate Offer Price. The mission would then go into the que for delivery missions in the closest town. This would be set up through an interface on my vendor, who would have to have the item in its storeroom.
Now say Ffed X needs some credits, sees my mission, and decides to take it. He receives the waypoint to my vendor. When he gets to my vendor, he gets an option others don't get: Converse. After conversing, he gets the destination waypoint and a shipping container in his inventory (the container is just a mission object and does not actually contain the goods). He hopes on his kaadu and heads off for Glasja's. When he arrives, he receives a converse option which allows him to receive payment and moves the parcel from my storeroom to Glasja's vendor as an offer at the established price.
- What if Ffed destroys the container? The mission is aborted and goes back into the que.
- What if Ffed sits on the container? There could be a timer, which if elapses aborts the mission, or a player bounty could then be placed on him (which I'd have to pay for).
- What if Ffed proves to be a reliable courier such that I'd prefer to make sure he gets my delivery missions? Make these missions mailable as attachments, same as waypoints.
The ability to generate missions should be in the Hiring tree, around III or IV.
Inventory space! We were supposed to be the only class that could have more than one house. We should at least get some extra lots so putting up a tent doesn't cost a harvester location. Better would be major relief of inventory limits on those retail buildings.
How about the ability to use a Vendor Slot instead of a lot to place a Merchant Tent?