Merchant Archive

Ok, I'm not a Merchant. Nor do I think I want to be one as they are now. I've perused the abilities that Merchants get several times and every time I end up asking why would one want to put skill points in to it. I guess it just doesn't have enough rewards from my point of view. There were 2 skills I was looking for, well I looked for them when I first got the game, and am surprised that they don't exist. Thus I offer them as an idea to add to the profession.

1. At some point a Merchant need's to be able to have wares on their vendors listed on the bazaar. There would be several levels. At 1st level your wears appear on bazaars at the closest Dev city plus any player cities between your vendorand the Dev city, I would think a radius type function would be best. At 2nd level your wares can appear on all bazaars on that planet, and at 3rd level they can appear on any bazaar. When a player looks through the bazaar with the appropriate settings they would be able to purchase from your vendor and then get a waypoint to go pick up the item. Unless they can do my 2nd idea.

2. At some point a Merchant should be able to have their wares shippable. This could work for any item on the bazaar really, but in that case Merchant wares should ship for less than non-Merchants and take less time to reach their destination. (personally I think only Merchants should be able to have wares shippable) When a player purchases something outside the city they are in, a window would pop up and they would be given the option to pay a mailing charge to haveit shipped to their location. The charge could vary based on distance, including if it has to travel between planets, and on how long you're will to wait for it to arrive. I would suggest that time be in only 2 possibilities, instant or 10 minutes plus 5 minutes for each planet it has to go to. But there are a lot of ways to play with the time factor. The charge for mailing is lost and is a money sink.

Just my 2 cents. I feel the profession should add to your enjoyment through granting you a power that others envy and thus though I would like mailing possible with any item on a bazaar, I feel that it is a "skill" that only a Merchant should have access to. If you need a "reason" for this beyond balance and fun factor for the Merchant...come on, they should have something to brag about. Think about it. It doesn't take that long to fly between planets and fetch what you need. Only a Merchant with their connections can do it faster than you can do it yourself. A value added incentive.

1) Vendor contents used to be listed on bazaars by mistake. This is why houses with vendors can no longer be private - people were buying stuff on the bazaar, got a waypoint, only to find a locked, private house, and no way to get their goods. And while shops are now forced public, scammers can put huge entry fees on their shops, preventing retrieval of goods that way.

2) *Nods to an old friend, suggested many times before*

Cool, thx for info.

Why not have the access pad outside the house give you the item then? Does it have to be the vendor? Have it such that any purchased item is retrievable by the buyer at the entry pad. Or make it such that when you purchase the item it is sent to your location no matter what, unless you're at the vendor that owns it, and you have to pay a mailing fee. In this case the fee would have to appear at the same time you purchased the item to avoid inability to pay for mailing.

There are many ways to foil scammers, just takes a little bit of thinking.

I also figured someone had to have suggested these ideas. Just curios why Merchants aren't demanding them is all, so I thought I would throw them up. There is so much a Merchant should be able to do that i'm confused by the lack of demands by the players of that profession.

In one the game guides that you can buy at the store (Primius? or something like that) it says that Merchants have the ability to hire NPC's to advertise in Town. I thought this was a great idea. Why in the world did they nerf it? You could set it up some the NPC would have the "play" button when you target him, people could then converse with it and bingo, a nice ad would appear about your shop. It's not like they would have to roaming around the city yelling at the top of thier lungs, oh wait they do, they just aren't NPC's.