Merchant Archive

What, exactly, do you merchants sell??

Oh, I'm talking you PURE merchants, you Master Merchants....you who think anyone who isn't 'pure' merchant shouldn't have so much as a vending machine.

Pardon the hostility, but until recently I considered myself a merchant. I read this forum every day. The way I looked at it (apparently I was oh so wrong) that Merchant is a complementary class to Crafting, a way to sell your product that you have worked so hard to do.

I am a Master Tailor---worked my tail off to get that too. I have Management 2, which allows me to have 3 NPC vendors (a female, a male, a wookiee) which is all I need. I have Ad/Vocal 3 so they can shout out to customers and let them know what vendor carries what. And I have HIring 4 which I foolishly got for dressing my vendor (*sigh* hehe).

I will never be a Master Merchant....there are no points left over. I frankly don't see how one can be a Master Merchant and a Master Tailor/Architect/Armorcrafter/etc......the artisan profession eats up quite a bit of points.

So I wonder at all these posts about 'pure' merchants, and how anyone who isn't a Master shouldn't have the abilty to have multiple vendors, or a store, or a certain number of items on their vendors. So I ask you---what do you sell? Are you all importers, who work with other artisans and buy their stuff so you can put it on your vendors???

Sorry to be defensive...I know the majority probably are in my boat rather than the other, but I'm genuinely perplexed at the LEET UBER MERCHANT attitude I'm seeing in some posts hehe. As far as I'm concerned, as a Master Crafter I should get the ability to sell my wares and show off my stock in a showroom. I should get to list 100's of items if that is what I need to do to keep my sales flowing. And I shouldn't be punished for not aspiring to Master Merchant.

That's all Anyway...hope they get our bugs fixed

Blodie---merchant lowbie

I think that a very small (but highly vocal) minority of merchants feel this way. The vast majority of merchants that I see posting on this board don't want to take anything away from non-merchants (or even low skilled merchants).

For whatever it's worth, Blodie, I agree with you. However, I also feel that there should be some very tangible benefit for a Master Merchant (of which there currently isn't any).

A Novice tailor is no less a tailor than a Master tailor - only the master can make better and more items. The same should hold true for a novice merchant vs. a master merchant . . . .

I'm a pure merchant. I sell clothing, weapons and power ups, armors, foods, a wide variety of medical supplies for players and pets, bioengineered and trained pets, crafting devices and I used to sell resources until the recent duping spree. I havea lotin stock and I get more everyday. I work off a commission from each of my suppliers.

I'm not elite. I just like selling stuff better then making it.

Anything that people don't want to have to spend time in town yelling what they have for sale,That is what I sell.

I have no problem with the 'General Store'....or merchants who don't like crafting and would rather just have a store to stock and then go run out and play

I just have a problem people who think after sitting in my house all day making clothes, that I don't deserve the pleasure of having a store, merchandising it to look cool, and having a client base. You don't have to have Master Merchant to be a merchant....much less a successful one. Like I said, I view merchant/crafting as complementary professions. Don't know why some take such a 'us vs them' attitude and seek to restrict a crafter's ability to run a buisness.

I think the "vocalisation" ability is something very normal for a merchant character

Out of any irony, i dont think any pure vendor is asking to prevent crafters from being able to sell their wares. The claim here is to give some cost advantage to make the profession viable and somewhat needed. The basic idea of a mmorpg is interraction. Interraction is favored by the fact that your profession is needed by other professions. A soldier needs a gunsmith and an armorsmith to make his character more efficient. A CH needs a bio engineer, etc etc.

Currently the merchant skill tree fails to offer this complementarity as a crafter can be self suffisant without investing in the merchant skill tree. If the skill tree was efficient, a crafter would have the option or to invest skill points in the merchant tree and to be sales efficient (regarding costs and advertising), or invest his skill points in other trees and leave the marketing task to a merchant. As the merchant tree has very few to offer, crafters dont need to think about this option, they just go to novice merchant to get the 1cr maintainance npc and regard merchants more like crafters pimps than a really interesting cost efficientalternative to their sales strategy.

Regarding the master merchant, we have also an oddity here. All masters in all professions are given advantages that make them more efficient, more able to make a living, more powerful, more needed, that the non masters. Just like the merchant is already an oddity as not being needed, the master merchant doesnt have any real advantage compared to a non master merchant. Why then spending 650 learning points that take quite some time to gather for no benefits?

So basicly the claim is : please, make us needed...more then please, prevent crafters from selling directly to customers.