Merchant Archive
Thread: City Shops A Master Merchant ability only!
After reading through the merchant forum and reading a lot of really great posts/rants/suggestions, I started thinking about the current system and how there really is no incentive to be a master merchant. Sure, you get to be a little more selective about the vendors you use, and you get to make them wear "perty" clothing, you're able to advertise on the planetary map, and now as of late, you get to place a tiny little tent that no one else can.
Vendor selections are still a pain and now any human or twi'lek comes out with that good ol' granny look..... in afleshwrap....
Planetary map advertising is a great idea but now that there's about 60% empty vendors out there, people have stopped using that system. **A vendor that's empty for more then 4 days should lose the planetary map advertisement optionand after a week, be deleted*
Tents. Great concept but takes up another lot and you're still restricted from placing them within major city limits (with the exception of player cities) So there's no advantage to having them over a nicely decorated house.
So, with the above facts in mind...people have no reason to keep any merchant skills once they've acheived the skill level necessary for the amount of vendors they want.
Why aren't some of the beautiful buildings within the standard cities turned to merchant shops? Requisit for "leasing" a building within these cities is to have Master Merchant (and keep it, if you drop merchant, you lose your items within the building and your lease is revoked)
Why can't merchant "tents" be placed inside the cities in designated areas? Think about it, when you go to a market is it placed 1km outside the city? Nooo, they're within city limits. Yes yes, this is why we have a bazaar, but it's really lacking and this post is about boosting the Merchant profession anyways.
There's just so much potential here for the Merchant profession and so many ways to make it something that people would want to use there skill points on.
Just my two cents here. 
i am not going to argue whether it is a good idea or not....
but will say this...it is all just more window dressing.
thats fine you give the master merchant a more high profile shop...but what is he selling?
are his products of better quality or better priced? does he have a wider selection?
someone with buisness 3, a small house on the outskirts of town with a great product can be a better merchant than someone with a big flashy tent in the center of Coronet.
there is still nothing that makes being a Master make youmore money than not being a master...and after all, being a merchant is about making money.
Naufragus wrote:
i am not going to argue whether it is a good idea or not....
but will say this...it is all just more window dressing.
thats fine you give the master merchant a more high profile shop...but what is he selling?
are his products of better quality or better priced? does he have a wider selection?
someone with buisness 3, a small house on the outskirts of town with a great product can be a better merchant than someone with a big flashy tent in the center of Coronet.
there is still nothing that makes being a Master make youmore money than not being a master...and after all, being a merchant is about making money.
Naufragus what skill would YOU add to merchant?
DocSavag wrote:
Naufragus what skill would YOU add to merchant?
doc...sorry...i didnt come here to just trash the profession. i only came to the forum because i herad about the nerfs. then i end up getting personally attacked and jumped on and it got my dander up.
i have been giving suggestions since beta. i was a merchant when vendors just sat in your house uninitialized and the skill tree was nothing but blank boxes.
i dida long post earlier today that really laid everything out but the forumate it and its was too involved to get back into.
the only skill i would add is this. We are able to give people listing rights on our vendor. They can come and drop merch to sell. Much like the offers window. When the item sells, the owner gets the money and we get a %. The % would be set up in the ADMIN list. OR we would could charge a flat fee for the listing similar to the Bazaar. that is really all that can be done with this profession. everything else i have seen suggested is simply window dressing or vendor functionality. not really a skill i personally, actively use
but we are about to enter the games 9th month soon. i have grown sick of waiting for improvements in all areas of the game. i have come to the conclusion that Merchant will never be a full blown "profession". There are too many other factors involved. it just isnt a matter of making changes to this skill or that skill. Other sytems such as transportation and resources would need to be adjusted.
Merchant works well the way it is. It allows crafters to sell their goods and create shops that add to the player driven content. everything is really ok. the only change i would make is to degrade merchant from being a "profession" and just move the skills to Business 1-4 and save people from wasting skill poinst to dress their vendor or change their sign
You see the way this dev team works is they dont improve things, they just take the system thats already there and nerf it or gate it or restict it and just suick what little life it had away.
I know you are trying to do a good job. but my fear is that when they get pushed on issues and start looking at professions we get things like getting 150 item vendor limits.
it slike another guy said more elouqutly than i in another thread. instead of adding postives they just make things negative. instead of making people want something, they make them have to have something.
To me the ironic thing is that i was told earlier by the guy who says im not a real merchant that i was bitching...i actually think its just the opposite. I am not bitching. not demanding any changes. Im happy with the status quo.
Naufragus,
I do like that idea a lot. It should be a skill you get at Master Merchant. It lets you add people to the admin list of your vendor. This allows those people to put things up for sale on your vendor and along with it you can establish a % of the sale price that goes to you the merchant.Lets say a value between 0-5%.
This would make the master box worth getting and would allow for easy business dealings between merchants and non-merchants.
Naufragus,
I hope you appreciate the fact that I haven't once in these debates flamed you or questioned your motives or anything like that. I don't agree with you on the vendor issue but that is fine we don't have to agree.
Your suggestion for admins on vendors is very close to the consignment system we are requesting. The only real difference is that the merchant still has a click or two in the process. But we have asked for a system that allows a user to offer an item up for sale and provide a retail price to which we add our fee and they get their money at the time of the sale and we get ours.
Other systems that take the merchant out of the sale transaction altogether I feel lessen the service of the merchant and I don't really think they help the profession in the long run.
As for window dresssing. Well I don't think window dressing is a bad thing and I disagree that it doesn't make any difference. People talk about things in game that are interesting or are different. Just like in real life if you create a "buzz" about something you generate attention to it and increase traffic. For a merchant those things can set you apart from the crowd. Is it all about the product? No..not really people get into habits and they will buy less quality items at a higher price simply because it is what they know or they are too lazy to look for a better deal. Some merchants use hiring skills, adbarking, tents etc to enhance the experience of the customer. Is that for everyone? No. It isn't useless to those who do it though and I would suggest that there are a number of people using those skills.
I don't want to give anyone the impression that I don't want new skills. I do. I think that there are a number of areas that could be improved. Many of those are outlined in the Top 5 solutoins post based on data provided by those merchants in this forum who were motivated enough to speak about what they want. There is a consignment system, a directed sales system, changes to the way the UI works for selling and reselling things. In addition there are some other ideas about shipping and travel discounts.
Why are many merchants so rabid about the vendors and skill surrender? Any profession is protective of the things that set them apart from other professions. Vendors are what do that for the merchant. Do you need a vendor to sell things? Nope you don't. But having one makes it a lot easier to sell things. You don't have to be online and you don't have to constantly fill up 24 slots on the bazaar. Having people use those vendors without the skills cheapens the fact that we have them. If you reach a point where everyone has a vendor what sets the merchant apart? Nothing. Does that mean get rid of the profession? Not to me it doesn't To me it says strengthen the profession by protecting its skill perks and making people either take the profession or make deals with someone in the profession.
Is the above the opinion of the majority of merchants? I don't know. I know that in this forum the debates run heavily on the side of most of the ideas above. That is undoubtedly not the case if you ask the same question in the artisan forums or the other elite artisan professions...which is fine they have their forum and their agenda and we have ours. The devs balance that when they make decisions about changes. They don't just ask the question here.
/agree
I love this idea. Also, I don't think there should be a limit on the number of people you can put on a vendor's admin list. But if they did limit then I would hope that they have an option where anyone can use the vendor for a fee as well (i'd like to have both options, but thats not likely), just like the bazaar. This would work very well for mall type settings. I personally want to set up a bazaar type vendor in my mall on Scylla, but there is not real way to do this. I hope of all the things they get from this forum, they add this function.
i jsut dont feel cheaped by the skill thing...my feeling is just the PRODUCTS are more important than how they are being sold.
I would be rabid about the vendors and otehr skills as well probably if people where not having to pay fees. thats really the sticking point for me. I feel i am paying a fee for the use. if people where getting FREE use then i would totally be against it.
Naufragus wrote:
i jsut dont feel cheaped by the skill thing...my feeling is just the PRODUCTS are more important than how they are being sold.
I would be rabid about the vendors and otehr skills as well probably if people where not having to pay fees. thats really the sticking point for me. I feel i am paying a fee for the use. if people where getting FREE use then i would totally be against it.
Well but you are putting up both credits and skill points for it..they are only putting up credits....skill points are FAR more valuable than credits in this game. You can make millions of credits very quickly in this game you can't make any more skill points than you start out with..unless you find a way to get skills without tying up the skill points.
I see your point about paying for it..I look at it like this: If I pay my rent on a store I can still be shut down for not being licenced to operate a business.. the rent is just maintenance.. the license is the skill point cost.