Merchant Archive

Thread: A pre-release Idea that I think would make Merchant 100 times better.

Boooozark
Wed Jun 16, 2004 9:09 am
#1
Sorry if the new face in the merchant forums startled you but I've been a master since about month two and in general I love Merchant. Perfect accent to master artisan and master armorsmith. In any case, Merchant just doesn't have a lot of substance when you look at the skills involved. So thinking about enhancing the profession led me to a pre-release idea that the devs have to ditch for some unknown reasons.


The idea is relatively simple: Allow one skill tree in Merchant to be composed of Making Missions for others. Before being release (maybe even pre-beta) the devs had stated that they would like to have mission terminals where players could post delivery and harvesting missions. I think by making this a skill tree under merchant, it would make all the skill points I put into master merchant so much more useful. As an armor smith I always find it hard to find reliable resource collectors, so having the ability to make missions for things such as hide or a certain resource would not only make my life easier, I think it would add to the game in general.


Getting the missions to work properly might be difficult, especially delivery ones. I do think however that all the resources exist to makecollection missions an achievable goal. Here's a breif skill tree summary and how I think it could be implimented.


Start off by combining the hiring and management trees into a single tree, and thenmake a new tree dedicated to player created missions. I'm open for ideas on the types of missions that players could crate, but for now I see the only feasible kind as resource collection missions.


The skill tree would be something like the following

Missions 1: Can set up missions at a mission terminal for inorganic resources on the planet of the mission terminal only.

Missions 2: Can set up missions at a mission terminal for organic resources on the planet of the mission terminaly only.

Missions 3: Can set up missions at a mission terminal for both inorganic and organic resources on other planets

Missions 4: Can set up missions for resource collection for vendors, bazaars, and mission terminals.

At master maybe you could set up droids for this as well.


As to how one would actually go about working this into the game. The merchant would go up to the missions terminal and click "Create Mission". He then gets a pull down option for inorganic/organic, one for the planet, and one for the actual resource name. Below the pull down menus there could be a box where you type in the credits paid per unit of resource collected or you could enter a set number of the resource you want collected along with the amount you would pay total for that resource.


Once a person takes the mission the go collect the resource, and then drop it back on a designated mission terminal where it goes into a "stockroom" much like droids have. They get the money from the mission makers account and the mission maker gets an email saying "So and So has completed your mission, please pick up your order here *a wp would be included*"


This just came to me this morning so I might be missing a crucial aspect but any feed back on this idea would be appreciated. Thanks.


Boo



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DingoBoi
Wed Jun 16, 2004 9:37 am
#2
i like it.





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Kluges
Wed Jun 16, 2004 9:58 am
#3
excellent idea



The Kluges Family

Chinatown, Lok
Strikke
Wed Jun 16, 2004 9:59 am
#4

This is a good idea,several suggestions, though.


A) I would not want a whole tree of Merchant devoted to this, make the abilities a part of the management tree (ie, you are managing more 'projects' and people).


B) People shouldn't take these as missions, but should be able to view the list and 'accept' the mission only when they have the required resource (or item, etc)and are able to fulfill the requirements. That way the merchant doesn't have someone take the mission and never fulfill the order.


C) The money for payment should be removed from the player's banking account when the mission is created and held in escrow until the mission is fulfilled or cancelled.


D) The player should be able to set the 'mission' as 'keep open until X units are gathered. This would allow me to indicate to the system that I want 100k units and the 'mission' would stay available until I had gotten all 100k units - even if it took 10 people to fill the order. The 'mission' should indicate to the mission takers how many units remain to be collected so they don't waste their time gathering 100k when there is only 10k worth of funding left.




Bloodfin: Dakkor Lightrunner - Adventurer - (Here, There, Everywhere)

Starsider: Heph Starstrider - Master Weaponsmith : Fencer - (Location Classified)

Boooozark
Wed Jun 16, 2004 10:13 am
#5




Strikke wrote:


This is a good idea,several suggestions, though.


A) I would not want a whole tree of Merchant devoted to this, make the abilities a part of the management tree (ie, you are managing more 'projects' and people).


B) People shouldn't take these as missions, but should be able to view the list and 'accept' the mission only when they have the required resource (or item, etc)and are able to fulfill the requirements. That way the merchant doesn't have someone take the mission and never fulfill the order.


C) The money for payment should be removed from the player's banking account when the mission is created and held in escrow until the mission is fulfilled or cancelled.


D) The player should be able to set the 'mission' as 'keep open until X units are gathered. This would allow me to indicate to the system that I want 100k units and the 'mission' would stay available until I had gotten all 100k units - even if it took 10 people to fill the order. The 'mission' should indicate to the mission takers how many units remain to be collected so they don't waste their time gathering 100k when there is only 10k worth of funding left.




While I don't quite agree with all of these, they are excellent suggestions indeed.


A) I don't see why it doens't deserve its own function. Seems Hiring and Management should be 1 category anyway since they both deal with merchants...in general this isn't a big issue.


B) Agree 100%


C) Agree 100%


D) Agree, or set it up in blocks where you could set a minimum and maximum limit as to how much each person could provide. For example, say you want to get a minimum of 1k of the resource you could set it up such that you don't get people putting up 134 units which would just get annoying.





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Songe
Wed Jun 16, 2004 10:38 am
#6
Really good.



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Novice Lekku Stomper
Strikke
Wed Jun 16, 2004 11:01 am
#7




Boooozark wrote:


A) I don't see why it doens't deserve its own function. Seems Hiring and Management should be 1 category anyway since they both deal with merchants...in general this isn't a big issue.


D) Agree, or set it up in blocks where you could set a minimum and maximum limit as to how much each person could provide. For example, say you want to get a minimum of 1k of the resource you could set it up such that you don't get people putting up 134 units which would just get annoying.






A)I think this ability would be a good addition, I would just want more bang for the buck. Merchant has had some really worthless skill boxes (20% off Bazaar listing fees??? Wow, 4 credits! Hoooozzzaaah!) and I'd like to get as much as possible, when possible.


D) Good idea. Anything to make it easier to get large amounts (and quickly), but since the resources would presumably stack, I don't care if there are 1000 people kicking in 100 units each.






Bloodfin: Dakkor Lightrunner - Adventurer - (Here, There, Everywhere)

Starsider: Heph Starstrider - Master Weaponsmith : Fencer - (Location Classified)

Boooozark
Wed Jun 16, 2004 11:49 am
#8
but what if only 1 person does your mission and you only get 123 units....I know I'd feel a little cheated



-Profile Starts here-
So you guys are Pedro's cousins with all the sweet hookups: Boooozark-I've got what you need.
Girls only want guys with great skills: Master Artisan, Armorsmith, Shipwright
This gang wanted me to join cause I'm pretty good with a bowstaff: Member of The Guardians
I'd be off in some mansion soaking it up in a hot tub with my soulmate: Still looking
-Profile ends here: if you get this sig contact me in game for a free prize-
Happymob
Wed Jun 16, 2004 2:42 pm
#9




Boooozark wrote:

but what if only 1 person does your mission and you only get 123 units....I know I'd feel a little cheated


The offer would need to remain open if it's only partially filled. For example, I could offer 100 cpu for up to 100K units of some good avian meat. 10 million credits would go into escrow. I might get offers of 1400, 8000, 22, and 23000 units. Each gets paid accordingly. After some time, the offer closes, I get the remainder of my money back.


Under this system, I generally benefit by having the offers be more visible (less need to create signs with offers or spam in-game or post in the forums). The seller benefits by instantly getting paid. If you allow partial offer fulfillments, the merchant does take some risk that you'll have an offer for 10K units and you only get a less than usable 123, but from my perspective, that's a risk worth taking.


This idea... the moneylender idea... the auction idea... all of these are nice ways to give give merchants some variedplaystyles (much like smugglers can be fighters, slicers, or crafters - and soon will truly be smugglers depending on how they want to play).




Imadoh and Ikiecobi
Quality Resources and the Corellia Butcher - NoCo
NoCo Trade Center, Corellia (just northeast of Coronet) 796, -3076


p4Samwise
Wed Jun 16, 2004 8:06 pm
#10
Basic Survey missions (in which the mission recipient has to return a waypoint, rather than harvested resources) could be very useful as well. It can take up to a couple of hours to find a good spot to plant a harvester, but any novice artisan can do it if he/she is willing to run around long enough. Since harvesters don't require certs, the ability to give out Survey missions would make the merchant an ideal industrial miner - lowered maintenance costs on harvesters, and a mechanism to get good resource waypoints with a minimum of effort.



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StromLightmyre
Thu Jun 17, 2004 5:40 am
#11
Excellent idea Booz.


Heres a bump from a fellow Starsidian
AngusMacGregor
Thu Jun 17, 2004 6:45 am
#12
I'd like to see something like this in the game.




"C O L O N E L A N G U S" M A C G R E G O R
DEAD SMUGGLER - KILLED BY LACK OF CONTENT AND COMMUNICATION
I am Jack's ignored profession.
My account payment has been moved to a long term implementation.
Songe
Thu Jun 17, 2004 7:20 am
#13
For the negative part though, you can bet that if merchants got something of the kind the crafter professions would complain, because after all they are the ones who use those resources.



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Novice Lekku Stomper
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