Merchant Archive

I'm not sure where to post this, so I'll post it here and on the normal forum. I have a few suggestions that would REALLY help out shops.

1. Give merchants a NEW type of vendor, a pick up vendor. As a Tailor I get tons of custom orders (More so than people just buying my stuff through my vendor). I would love a special vendor I could set up where I could throw in someones order, add a price, and add the name of who its for. Then when that person comes and uses the 'Pick-Up' vendor, it reads their name and only displays the stuff I have left for them. This will help in a few ways: A. I wouldn't have to be on-line fore someone to get their custom order. B. I would get merchant exp for DOING custom orders. and C. I could leave a persons Custom order in a vendor and not worry about someone else buying it.

2.Put a Terminal in the CITY that only merchants (With the proper skills level of course) can be on. Example: A person needs clothes (Armour, droid, etc...). But right now they REALLY don't want to look at the planitary map and go look at 5 different vendors just to find no one has what they want. So instead they go to the Merchant Advertising Terminal, there they can look up Crafters (That have registered with that planet), get a discription of the Crafter (The crafter would fill this part out, most likly stating what skills he/she has so customers know what he/she can make). The Customer can then choose which crafter they need, and mail them a custom order.

3. Not all of us WANT to own a store! Give merchants the ability to put a personal vendor (Just 1) IN THE CITY. Only allow a certian ammount in each city, and only allow those who DO NOT have any other vendors the ability to put on in the city.

4. Give Droid engineers a Advertising Mod for their droids. Merchants can then have their droid out, and while their running around with it out it will Spout advertisments of your choice (Store location, sale times, etc...).

5.I think merchants should get their very own type of house! One for each planets (Or just a generic type, whatever). This 'House' will acually be a store. I really think its stupid that we have to turn our houses into stores, plus this would give crafters even more insentive to get Merchant class.

6. And Finally, not sure how un-balanced this would make the game, but I think merchants should be able to 'Rent' other people plots. There could be some sort of in game way of keeping track. Example: I only have 10 plots, but I need a whole lot more since I want to be a Merchant, DE, AND Tailor. I'm pretty well off though, so I just find a Fighter person that doesn't use 50% of his plots, and make a deal. I will 'rent' his plots for X number of days for X number of credits, the deal is made, and the game keeps track. I can keep making payments to this person for however long both of us are in agreement. But if I should fail to pay or whatnot, his plots are auto transfered back to him. (Not sure what should happn to the stuff thats using his plots). To balance this though, there needs to ba a way to keep newbies from just selling their plots to make uber money.

Aaaaand, thats all I can think of right now.

I don't like the idea of vendorbots in cities because I think it would clog what's an already laggy area. I guess it sort of depends on who gets one. If it's just master merchants, it might not be too terrible.

Reposting my ideas from another thread...

Store model buildings available only to merchants (novice through master under advertising)
1 lot kiosks/pushcarts available only to merchants (efficiency 2 & Advertising 2)
Restructuring of vendor pricing to make efficiency worthwhile (efficiency)
Ability for merchants to charge and manage placement of vendors and limit placement of vendors in other peoples homes to the merchant skill (only merchants can accept other players vendors in their house and would have a variety of methods to charge "rent" for the space starting with a static charge up to a percentage or any combination) (Hiring)
Allow master merchants to place shop buildings within the 1km unbuildable city zone (master)
Shop signs with improving functionality (advertising)
In city billboards for Master Merchants -- just need a few let them rotate between displays -- click on sign fora waypoint. (master)
Allow merchants only to "bundle" goods so a suit of armor could be sold as a unit rathr than as individual pieces (efficiency)
Allow merchants only to "tag" goods for a specific customer to allow for special orders (efficiency)
Bazaar Waypoints -- New category under bazaar. In addition to listing a vendor on the map, any listed vendor could have a free waypoint "purchased" from the bazaar and loaded into the buyers datapad. The number of listings and cross-listings would go up with advertising. Ie, at novice merchant you get one listing in one category. By master merchant you would be able to list each merchant (is it 7 or 8 you max out on?) and choose up to 4 (1 for each advertising) additional categories for each merchant. So if you have 7 merchants in 7 locations each selling guns, armor, clothing and resources each one would be listable under all those categories at master. At novice only one could be listed in only one category. (Advertising)

I think this type of an overhaul would first of all be reasonably possible. And second would make each line worthwhile without nerfing anyone else. (Well actually placing foreign vendors as a merchant only feature would be a nerf, but since it's never worked for anyone, it would be a minimal one.)

Existing:
Advertising: Only useful feature is listing on planetary map and that's minimal.
Efficiency: Unknown because correct pricing for NPC vendors is bugged. Of moderate value to crafters.
Hiring: Useless. Anyone at novice can reroll until they get something they like.
Management: Additional vendors are useless to some and most important skill to other.
Master: Useless

My suggested additions:

Advertising: Add progressively better shop only buildings and buliding signs
Efficiency: Add abilities to bundle and target sales
Hiring: Add a new line dedicated to managing and charging for placed vendors
Management: Adds nothing, additional vendors are a solid line.
Master: Allows city sell and city advertising.