Merchant Archive
Thread: Hiring Skill, Ugly Venders & An Idea
I’ve recently begun to climb up the Merchant skill tree for the second time, and started looking around at other characters’ venders. While my experience slowly trickled in, I noticed a startling trend - most of the Venders were gosh-awful ugly. They were horribly short or unbelievably tall, skinny as twigs or round as tires, and almost all of them looked like they were 80 years old. I won’t even get started on the horribly colored and mismatched clothes ... I mean, who dressed these guys anyway?
After poking around the in the Forums, it seems that all the high levels of Hiring grants me is the ability to place different kinds of ugly NPCs, and at the highest of ranks, finally get them some coordinated clothes. I wasn’t able to find any posts with a similar idea, but how about...
As your Hiring skill increases, you are able to better influence how your employees will look when they report to work (they obey the uniform rules better). Between Hiring I and Master, an Image Designer would be able to work on your vender just as if they were a player, and at Master Merchant should be able to change all available options (assuming they are a Master Image Designer). It would help two under-used professions at the same time!
Hi,
This sounds like an interesting idea but I wouldn't want to master image designer to change the vendors looks. Merchant seems to be a profession that is mainly learned with crafting professions. That doesn't leave anough skill points to learn much. I think it would be nice if a high level image designer had the option to do it but they wouldn't have to be the owner of the vendor. That would still make image designers called upon more.
Just my opinion though. 
Aloski wrote:
Hi,
This sounds like an interesting idea but I wouldn't want to master image designer to change the vendors looks. Merchant seems to be a profession that is mainly learned with crafting professions. That doesn't leave anough skill points to learn much. I think it would be nice if a high level image designer had the option to do it but they wouldn't have to be the owner of the vendor. That would still make image designers called upon more.
Just my opinion though.
I agree. Hiring an Image Designer to come in and design your vendors would be a great feature. I don't know how complex this would be to code though. Part of the problem would be working out permissions.
Just a tip however you can delete the vendor and build another one until you get one who is better looking. It can tak a while but the vendor appearance is random. Eventually you'll get something less unappealing to you.
DocSavag wrote:
Just a tip however you can delete the vendor and build another one until you get one who is better looking. It can tak a while but the vendor appearance is random. Eventually you'll get something less unappealing to you.
That's exactly what I do. A lot of times it takes me 20 or so iterations before I'm finally happy with my vendor's looks. Before I got to Hiring IV though, it seemed that I could never get a human vendor with hair. I always used a Twilek vendor then so I could dress up its leku with those beautiful wraps. See, I'm a tailor so it's important that my vendor look like she stepped out of Vogue. 
Elannor Gamgee (master tailor, etc etc)
Hi,
the problem with the ugly vendors existed for several weeks. They suddenly had no hair (no joke) and you had to be very lucky if you were able to get a not-so-ugly one after some tries. Those problems seem to be fixed, but I dont even consider to replace my vendors with others, not with 300+ items on each vendor.
I dont think we should need an ID, why do I skill that damned and useless tree? We should either get rid of the Hiring-Tree completely and Tailors and IDs do the work for us, or we should be able to alter the Vendors ourself everytime we want to if we have the skill.
I never understood why I can choose that many races and why all the womens seem to be pregnant and hairless. Half the races would do it, with the option to alter them.
Read ya.
). Allowing us to hire an Image Designer would give us the option to help our poor unbeautiful vendors out while giving the Image Designers a market. What is wrong with that?
Hi,
nothing is wrong with that idea, beside the fact that you have to completely revamp the interface for IDs and the fact that the Merchant Class really has other problems than the lookalike of vendors.
I am quite aware whats possible with vendors, and I had this ideas weeks ago. But hey, I want better sales-tools, THEN we can talk about how vendors look. Nobody in here cared about hairless vendors (am I the only one who /bug 'ed that?), so why should we now cry for ID's knowing we wont get them, cause they would need to revamp the ID-Interface for 20 more races to design.
When you are asking for something, you should be aware of what is necessary to do it and if its a gimmick or a significant feature for the class.
I like the idea, but I doubt it has a chance to get done and I doubt that it is an issue we are talking about here.
Read ya.
PS: I dont fear to be independent :-) I like to be. But a Merchant as such is never Independent, otherwise he would be a Crafter :-)
I said "interdependant" which is pretty much the exact opposit of independant. It seemed to me that you were opposed to Image Designers because it wasn't something you could do yourself. I don't think we should begrudge the ID's a job so I have no problem with them being the ones to change the appearance of the vendors for us.
I never said this was a top issue. It has been mentioned many times though especially by those who sell clothing and other appearance related items on their vendors.
I also don't think we should only ask for things that are easy. We should ask for things that make the game more fun for us to play as a class. If the answer is no that will take too many resources then fine, however you never know until you ask.
Right now I agree our primary focus should be on the bugs andthe ability to generate more businss (a reason for the crafters to sell through us).
DocSavag wrote:
I agree. Hiring an Image Designer to come in and design your vendors would be a great feature. I don't know how complex this would be to code though. Part of the problem would be working out permissions.
Just a tip however you can delete the vendor and build another one until you get one who is better looking. It can tak a while but the vendor appearance is random. Eventually you'll get something less unappealing to you.
So true. It takes me forever to get a decent Twilek.
I like the idea of an ID or if we could get the character creation screen at Master.
Hi,
well, a misreading by me due to pre-coffee status of my brain, sorry about that.
I dont have a Problem with that ID-Thingy cause my shop is shared with the one of my GF, who is Master Tailor and Master Marchant, as well as ID. As you can see in my other post today I am still looking for a reason why we spent so many skillpoints on Master Merchant while half the skills are worthless or non-functional.
That is the reason why I think we should have other options with Hiring4 or Master than simply choosing Races noone wants or needs.
Beside the fact that I would prefer to double the number of possible Vendors first :-) I need at least 3 or 4 more :-)
Read ya.
I suspect the 6 vendor limit is a database thing. I'll ask about it and see what the response is. It would be nice to have at least one more at the master level.
Wow, I didn’t think my little idea would spark so much controversy (and I freely admit that it’s unlikely I was the first to think of this, hehe). I agree that there are many more “important” things the Merchant class could use in the mean time, such as the aforementioned selling tools or better ways to communicate and interact with our customers. We should be the Masters of selling goods (if not services), with a powerful advantage over folks with only Business III or IV (and Master Merchants should, of course, be far better than their Novice Counterparts).
However, one of our tools should be the ability to catch players’ eye, and have them home in on our venders over the next guy’s. I spent over three and a half hours last night (Yes! Hours!) trying to get a decent looking Human Male - I didn’t even care about the clothes. I finally wound up with a strapping young fellow who is about seven feet tall and clad in horrible shades of yellow. Should anyone really have to spend that much time just to get a decent looking vender? I know it was undoubtedly bad luck, but still ...
I digress, and thus apologize. Thank you all for commenting on the idea - I really didn’t think it would get much of a response at all