Merchant Archive

I recently built a vendor and I seem to be getting heaps of merchant xp. Is it based on sales, and if so how much xp do you get per sale?

Currently Merchant XP is based on time.

100 XP per hour per vendor.

do yo uget more than that?
also, right now merchant XP is crazy bugged. Most of us dont get ANY.

Yeah I am getting all my XP, it just seems strange that I get xp without doing anything. Shouldnt it have some baing on how much we sell, or the value of the goods we sell?

You get 50xp per time someone browses or buys or offers an item on your vendor. It works once per 15-20 minute interval per person.

That makes sense, XCal, because I seem to get a lot more xp on nights where a lot of people buy a few things than when one person with a PA hall sized order comes in and cleans me out. That's strictly anecdotal, though. I've never tried to actually measure it. I suppose I should.

How about when someone pays an access fee to your house? It's a business function. Seems logical you get some xp for it.

Two weeks ago I was getting on average a box a day...it took me a week to go from novice merchant to Advertising 3.

Last week it took me a week to get two boxes on the efficiency line, which I got about mid-week.

Since then I have gained maybe 15,000 XP only, not enough for a single box.

People have been coming into my store in droves, in fact I did over 130,000c worth of sales yesterday.

So Why is my experience gain so slow?

I know this has been a topic broached previously, but the only thing I have ever heard said is, "we have no idea how it works." Well, has someone figured it out yet? Is Merchant XP broken?

Is it possible for an SOE employee to chime in here and inform us?

I don't pay $$ a month so I can be kept in the dark on subjects that should be common knowledge, like how a character gains experience.

Ebbatuu

Corbantis

HI,

This is how i believe Merchant xp Works. You get 150 xp an hour for each vendor you have set up. You will get 50xp from an entrance fee to your house, even 1cr will net this for you. Lastly i believe you get 50xp when somebody buys from you one time not each item. I think it is on say a 1 hour timer.

Rom

You get experience from vendors existing, vendors being used, and access fees. You won't always get experience from these, because it often breaks. It seems to break at an individual level... one person stops getting experience, but the shop next door is fine. If your experience breaks, there isn't much you can do but wait. It'll come back eventually.

My experimentation has shown the following:

1) Vendor Existance: When the feature is working, you get 150xp per vendor per hour. This happens when you're on or off line. However, this feature often breaks at an individual level, like the above poster said. For instance, it is currently broken for me, and I have gotten practically no vendor xp for the past two days, despite having 3 vendors.

2) Access Fees: You get 50xp every time someone pays an access fee to enter your structure. The fee itself is not important. It can be 1 cr. An access fee grants access for 1/2 hour (you can not modify this), so you can get 50xp from any one person once per half hour this way.

3) People looking at your vendors: You get 50xp every time someone looks at your vendor. They have to "Use Vendor", and open up at least one tab. It's not good enough just to open the window. They have to look at an item list. To prevent exploiting, there is a timer on how often a single character can do this. After careful experimentation, my friend and I established that it is 10 minutes.

4) MYTH - Vendor purchases: Contrary to what you may have heard, you don't get any xp for someone buying items from your vendor. You'll get the 50xp for them looking at your vendor, but no additional xp if they buy something. I hear it *used* to be that way, but I assure you, it is no longer that way.

HOW TO POWERLEVEL MERCHANT XP:

It isn't easy. After going up the business line (with General Craft XP), get a merchant as soon as possible. To get a merchant, you have to have a structure or have administrative access to someone else's structure. Use the structure control terminal to create a vendor. Make a vendor, and place him somewhere. You'll get 150xp per hour (If you're not bugged).

Once you get 5,000 xp, you buy novice merchant. This allows you to place another vendor. Do so. When you get 10,000 more xp, get Management I, which gives you another vendor. Do that, too. Etc. Keep working up the Management tree so you can max out your vendors, and thus your xp gain per hour. You get 150xp per hour PER VENDOR (when the feature's not broken, which it often is).

WARNING: At first, you will only be able to get Terminal vendors. As soon as you can, get NPC vendors. Terminal vendors have a huge upkeep cost based on the items they have for sale. NPCs don't. If you have to use Terminal vendors (Like, before you get Novice Merchant), DON'T PUT ANY ITEMS ON THEM. Just let them sit there generating xp.

SUPER-CHEEZY XP GAIN METHOD, BUT NOT A VOILATION OF TOS:

Have a friend or another account hit your vendors every 10 minutes. Also, place a 1 CR access fee to your house and have that other character enter it and pay every half hour. You'll get 50xp per half hour for the access fee, 50 xp per 10 minutes for him looking at vendors, and 150xp per hour per vendor just for them existing. Of course, this would require you to have another account, or to have a friend playing who is more patient than God.

NOT-SO-CHEEZY WAY:

If you have a house, give every merchant wannabe in the guild administrative access. Have all of them put their vendors in your house. Then, by agreement, all of you merchants hit each other's vendors as often as possible. That way everyone works, and everyone gains from it. You might also work out an agreement to pay access fees to enter each others' houses as often as possible.

I hope this helps.

-Saff
Novice Merchant, Flurry.

The key to remember about what Saff was saying (great work by the way!) ... is that is how it is suppose to work.

Right now it is very VERY buggy. You will literally go days/weeks with no XP and then BAM it fixes itself and starts workting again.

I went the past 2+ weeks in broken mode and suddenly last Thursday it is working again. Lord knows why as I am not doing anything different now than I was then.

Our profession is so broken even our XP system is borked

You know, I'm beginning to suspect that this game was not ready for launch, hmmm.

Surprise? George Lucas' movies aren't even ready for 'launch.'

/Naruto