Merchant Archive
Thread: The Pains of Merchanthood
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Skywalkerstorm
Thu Jun 16, 2005 2:06 am
#1
Being a Merchant is a beautiful thing. Imagine - being able to sell items at locations throughout the galaxy! Yeah, right. I'm here to say that as an avid salesman, I find that carrying around Merchant is a burden to bear!
Firstly, the Developers didn't make it easy. From unusable vendor interfaces to uncountable credits worth of items being deleted in stockrooms across the galaxy, the basics of Merchanthood are thrown out the window right away. It's almost not worth taking the chance, paying the upkeep, and running around from Tatooine to Naboo to keep up a band of vendors selling disappearing items! That having been said, I'm willing to be careful about where my items go and work with the poor interface and few options...but I don't think I can work around the following:
-There is absolutely no means of communicating large amounts of information in any efficient manner to people visiting your vendors. Why? You can use details, but when you remove the item even to the stockroom, the details get cleared. Save the details, allow copy and pasting in the details window, or do something to allow item descriptions to not be destroyed! Descriptions are invaluable for communicating to players about how you name your item sales (useful for tailors or smiths who often have lotsa details to explain, such as color, style, and efficiency,) about ordering custom crafts, or simply about where your other vendors are. Better yet, create in game bulletin boards craftable by Merchants that could display information about your vendor and include multiple bits of information including such important things. That'd be amazing.
-Once you've got it, you've got it. You've mastered Merchant now and you're ready to make your protocol dro...oh wait. You have three ol' bulkies, a rodian in hot pants, and two bumbling wookies. You should be able to change the aesthetics of your vendor after they have been placed. It just makes sense - you can change your sign, you can change your travel packs, you can even change your profession if you have a respec token...but you can't change your vendor's appearance? Eek.
-Let's hope nobody visits our shop today...I just stocked it with cheap armor and I just know I'd have a box full of spam! Give options to consolidate vendor notices...give a daily report on sales, or give them an option to turn it off all together.
These are just small things I've noticed as the little pains of Merchanthood that kinda make it something that you just say...ehh....I don't know how long I can keep this up for....
Cheers!
Ani_cul
Thu Jun 16, 2005 6:50 am
#2
only note I want to make: You can copy/paste into details window.
You must go set copy and paste in your keymapping to keys and then you can use /no to keep info to copy/paste til you explode.
Tarnak_Archvold
Sat Jun 18, 2005 4:59 pm
#3
There is nothing new in the fact that you have to be a bit of a sucker for punishment to be a merchant. That goes back a long way, even further back then our bugs.
Generally I like what you ate saying, and I really wish the DEV's would read posts like this, and perhaps even understand that know one like time sinks. Especially not ones that are defined by excessive mouse clinking and button pushing. They did away with the shuttle waiting time right, and thoughts time sinks just required you to sit around a wait.
However, there are ways to distribute information in the game. Like having a vendor bark "Send [you character name] an email to learn about custom orders", and adding the same like (by copy/paste) to all your items for sale, add a line with WP's of you shops. Or perhaps even use a backpack as a sing in you shop. The backpack could be named to say "look at [insert you web site address] for more info" if you wand to go really over board on the information side.
Creativities use of the tools at our disposal will always be necessary. And our minds will always be our greatest asset in game. Let the Jedi and Jedi wannabe's use pure skill mods as crutches for lacking brains, and use you mind to do what you wand.
Generally I like what you ate saying, and I really wish the DEV's would read posts like this, and perhaps even understand that know one like time sinks. Especially not ones that are defined by excessive mouse clinking and button pushing. They did away with the shuttle waiting time right, and thoughts time sinks just required you to sit around a wait.
However, there are ways to distribute information in the game. Like having a vendor bark "Send [you character name] an email to learn about custom orders", and adding the same like (by copy/paste) to all your items for sale, add a line with WP's of you shops. Or perhaps even use a backpack as a sing in you shop. The backpack could be named to say "look at [insert you web site address] for more info" if you wand to go really over board on the information side.
Creativities use of the tools at our disposal will always be necessary. And our minds will always be our greatest asset in game. Let the Jedi and Jedi wannabe's use pure skill mods as crutches for lacking brains, and use you mind to do what you wand.
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