Merchant Archive
Thread: Idea: Treat vendors like Pets
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Iplyvi
Tue Apr 27, 2004 2:49 pm
#1
I have my vendors because I maintain my merchant skills accordingly. But I am not sure on why it must take so manyskill points to have them. To role-play, I am hiring an NPC to sell my stuff. Where is the skill in that?? I would like to see Vendors become like pets/droids and here's why:
Everyone should be allowed to sell things.Those with no skills, however, won't be very good at it and will sufferlimitations. Those who train in merchant will be allowed to benefit and have a stronger selling presence, perhaps like:
1. Merchants (part of artisan) should craft vendors of the machine/droid variety.(Can't craft NPCs of course. 
1a. Vendor types will have limits. Machine vendors could be limited to 100 items. Droids, 200 items. NPC vendors for merchants remain unlimited. (an NPC should be able to sell as much as you give it, he works for you. A machine/droid has finite storage, period.)
2. Non-merchant players can have 1 vendor. Merchants can have up to 6 (or more) depending on their skill level.
3. Non-merchant players can buy and use machine or droid types only because they lack the "management" skills to handle a 'staff'. Merchants, with their business degree, can hire NPCs on staff to help manage their business
4. If a merchant with NPC vendors decides to drop merchant skills, he will have to 'lay-off' the NPC vendors. (destroy, or sell back to a merchant). If he has more than 1 vendor of ANY kind, it would be 'overwhelming' and will have to drop all but one - a manageable number.
So the idea is to allow everyone to have a vvendor, giving the non-merchant who lacks any skill investment in merchant only the basics.Those of us who are merchants get benefits for investing in the skill by way of more vendors, better vendors, and all-around flexibility in use (dressing, naming, crafting, etc). We should be the only ones to have these advantages.
This is similar to other professions.Anyone canpick up a CDEF weapon, for example, but nothing much better. They will only hit something 10% of the time as well. But they can still USE the weapon. Should they decide to invest skill points, then they will get BETTER and get MORE options. etc. You see?
As a merchant of only a few months (does that equal years in SWG time? maybe this has already been discussed and discarded. But to me, this is how I'd like to see Merchant evolve. Taking vendors away from everyone except merchant seems unreasonable and unattainable - especially nowadays.
maybe this has already been discussed and discarded. But to me, this is how I'd like to see Merchant evolve. Taking vendors away from everyone except merchant seems unreasonable and unattainable - especially nowadays.
relaxin
Fri Apr 30, 2004 7:33 pm
#2
I have, as well as many others I'm sure, espoused similar ideas of merchants selling vendors to non-merchants. If anyone could have merchants then this silly keeping vendors after dropping the profession argument would finally go away. A few ponderings of my own to add to your ideas:
1) vendors should have decay, remove the maintenance on it as that money doesn't go anywhere, it just disappears from the economy, which seems pretty inconsistent. have a one time pay up front price for the vendor, determined by the merchant selling it.
2) the "crafted" vendor should have different qualities to differentiate the vendors that different merchants can produce. the higher level merchant should be able to sell vendors that have different item limitations, an ad bark, or different uniforms, maybe even a planetary ad, but only the merchant can alter those qualities. limiting the vendors available from merchants to simple box ones seems unfair, perhaps not making the entire gamut of npc species/droids yet allowing for some form of personalization to the merchants to offer customers.
3) merchants should also be able to change those qualities on existing non-merchant vendors, create another service for a profession that has such a lack of them. not happy with the vendor you just bought, hire a merchant similar to an image designer and change its characteristics. even better would be a custom kit similar to the vehicle custom kits offered now.
4) vendor item limits are something i have a hard time reconciling because of the needs of the different crafter classes. a tailor because of color differences will more likely need more space than a weaponsmith. placing a fixed item limit doesn't address that concern so unless an elegant solution could be come up with, i would prefer the no limit on items.
5) vendor limits for non-merchants should be somewhere between the limits for non-CH pets (2) and droids (5). more important would be removing/raising the 6 vendor limit to merchants, thats just too low.
i still think the merchant can still be salvaged from the lowly station it fills now in the SWG pantheon of professions, not by alienating the majority of the players that currently run businesses, but by creative additions/changes to the profession skill set and a changing of how the game handles vendors.
1) vendors should have decay, remove the maintenance on it as that money doesn't go anywhere, it just disappears from the economy, which seems pretty inconsistent. have a one time pay up front price for the vendor, determined by the merchant selling it.
2) the "crafted" vendor should have different qualities to differentiate the vendors that different merchants can produce. the higher level merchant should be able to sell vendors that have different item limitations, an ad bark, or different uniforms, maybe even a planetary ad, but only the merchant can alter those qualities. limiting the vendors available from merchants to simple box ones seems unfair, perhaps not making the entire gamut of npc species/droids yet allowing for some form of personalization to the merchants to offer customers.
3) merchants should also be able to change those qualities on existing non-merchant vendors, create another service for a profession that has such a lack of them. not happy with the vendor you just bought, hire a merchant similar to an image designer and change its characteristics. even better would be a custom kit similar to the vehicle custom kits offered now.
4) vendor item limits are something i have a hard time reconciling because of the needs of the different crafter classes. a tailor because of color differences will more likely need more space than a weaponsmith. placing a fixed item limit doesn't address that concern so unless an elegant solution could be come up with, i would prefer the no limit on items.
5) vendor limits for non-merchants should be somewhere between the limits for non-CH pets (2) and droids (5). more important would be removing/raising the 6 vendor limit to merchants, thats just too low.
i still think the merchant can still be salvaged from the lowly station it fills now in the SWG pantheon of professions, not by alienating the majority of the players that currently run businesses, but by creative additions/changes to the profession skill set and a changing of how the game handles vendors.
Redondo
Tue May 04, 2004 7:50 am
#4
It would be really cool if a NPC vendor was actually like a pet and could follow say a Master Merchant around into the starports and what not. It could be like the barker droids in that they time out if you are too far away, but that would be neat. Maybe limit the amount of items it could hold, but you could do some nice business having a a vendor in town even if for only a short time. Of course starports might get crazy, but they already are. I like all the ideas though. Basically I feel that merchant should take away from others being able to sell but allow merchants to have more advantages to selling,
Iplyvi
Fri May 07, 2004 2:11 am
#5
Yes, for role-playing fun, it would be really neat to have a roving vendor. Would be fun to tell him to go sit in the cantina and sell some T'ssolok for awhile or something. Or maybe a door-to-door salesman LOL
Or maybe a door-to-door salesman LOL
Realmswalker
Fri May 07, 2004 8:39 pm
#6
That would take up such an extreme amount of memory and cause SO much lag we'd all melt into little puttles of goo.
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