Merchant Archive

As a master merchant who has been greatly affected by the GWVS, I was thinking about ways that SOE could make this better for ME (after all, I did invest the skill points). I was wondering what other master merchants thought.

1) Non merchants losing the ability to list on the GWVS. Yes, this would make a lot of people mad, but so did losing the ability to change your HAM and SOE still did that. In compensation, perhaps non merchants could get the abilty to list on the planetary map with an added vendor maint fee.

2) GWVS listing being directly related to merchant level. Want people on Tatooine to be able to see what's on your Naboo vendor? Well, you have to be a master merchant. Want people in Corellia to see what's on your vendor near Tyrena? Well, you have to be a novice merchant. Yes, I know this would lead to even larger suburbs around Coronet, but I believe that is a very small price to pay (especially considering I rarely ever travel to Coronet anymore).

3) Merchant level dictates your listing on the GWVS. Imagine premium auctions, but on a GWVS scale. Masters get listed first, then Advertising 3, then Advertising 1, then Business 3. This would probably be the simplest change to implement and might cause less of a fuss.

So, what do you all prefer?

Message Edited by RamondChappell on 03-28-2005 07:12 AM

1) Fix Region to be all vendors within 2.5k of the Bazaar Terminal. This skill is included with Business III
2) Planetary Listing Skill is provided with Advertising III
3) Galactic Listing Skills is provided at Master Merchant

This has zero chance of being implemented because the dev team doesn't seem to give a damn about the wishes of merchants about this feature.

/whispers to Doc

I meant which do you prefer of the three I listed. The reason I'm putting this out there is because I believe that most people are unhappy with this system. Now that it has been implemented (and badly), people who are searching for items are mad. It's no longer just the "wealthy merchants who still want to overcharge everyone." Call me an idealist, but I think that if we got ONE major way of making it change, and all of the merchants got behind it, then it would have a shot.

I know, it sounds far fetched but hey... it worked when I was a jedi.

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RamondChappell wrote:
/whispers to Doc

I meant which do you prefer of the three I listed. The reason I'm putting this out there is because I believe that most people are unhappy with this system. Now that it has been implemented (and badly), people who are searching for items are mad. It's no longer just the "wealthy merchants who still want to overcharge everyone." Call me an idealist, but I think that if we got ONE major way of making it change, and all of the merchants got behind it, then it would have a shot.

I know, it sounds far fetched but hey... it worked when I was a jedi.

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Sadly I disagree with you. The devs don't care what the merchants think about this issue. If they did they would have made changes to it that were requested the first time it was implemented. Or perhaps even responded to questions and concerns about it the second time. When the GCW changes were announced the devs spend days answering questions and making minor changes to respond to issues that were raised. Can anyone find a single red named response to any issue raised on this feature? I personally can't recall a single red named response to anything about this issue since it was put on test center. All of the bugs and the issues and concerns that were raised were completely ignored. I don't hold out any hope that this will magically change. They were given feedback that not tying this to merchant skills would be detirmental to the merchant profession and they obviously didn't consider that worth any comment let alone code change.

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RamondChappell wrote:
/whispers to Doc

I meant which do you prefer of the three I listed. The reason I'm putting this out there is because I believe that most people are unhappy with this system. Now that it has been implemented (and badly), people who are searching for items are mad. It's no longer just the "wealthy merchants who still want to overcharge everyone." Call me an idealist, but I think that if we got ONE major way of making it change, and all of the merchants got behind it, then it would have a shot.

I know, it sounds far fetched but hey... it worked when I was a jedi.

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Sadly, they don't care about us anymore...unless all of us grind to jedi and then complain as a group, we'd probably get a quick turnaround then.

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DocSavag wrote:
1) Fix Region to be all vendors within 2.5k of the Bazaar Terminal. This skill is included with Business III
2) Planetary Listing Skill is provided with Advertising III
3) Galactic Listing Skills is provided at Master Merchant

This has zero chance of being implemented because the dev team doesn't seem to give a damn about the wishes of merchants about this feature.

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Too bad. I had the same basic idea, except I pushed any advertising up into Novice Merchant.

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Parody wrote:

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DocSavag wrote:
1) Fix Region to be all vendors within 2.5k of the Bazaar Terminal. This skill is included with Business III
2) Planetary Listing Skill is provided with Advertising III
3) Galactic Listing Skills is provided at Master Merchant

This has zero chance of being implemented because the dev team doesn't seem to give a damn about the wishes of merchants about this feature.

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Too bad. I had the same basic idea, except I pushed any advertising up into Novice Merchant.

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I am sensitive to the fact that the devs want this available to all vendors. They obviously don't think it accomplishes their goals to limit it to merchants. The only way I can see to get around that is to include some functionality at Business III while pushing the really powerful advertising features to merchant abilities. One can do a LOT of business and people can find items easily with the filter set to planetary. In the age of 1 minute shuttles and JTL you can get to a bazaar on the major planets in seconds. Global Advertising would be a nice perk for master merchants while not completely nerfint the consumers search ability. Frankly less items in the galactic search wouldn't be a bad thing until they fix the damn thing so it isn't just a mess.

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DocSavag wrote:
I am sensitive to the fact that the devs want this available to all vendors. They obviously don't think it accomplishes their goals to limit it to merchants. The only way I can see to get around that is to include some functionality at Business III while pushing the really powerful advertising features to merchant abilities.

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There is that. I still like the idea of adding things just for the Merchants, however. Heck, once I posted on the Tailor forum about pushing Relist functionality into Merchant: Relist Single at Novice, Relist All (on this vendor) at Something-or-Other (Efficiency?) III, and Relist All (entire galaxy) at Master.

I'm sure that'd get a *warm* reception.

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DocSavag wrote:
One can do a LOT of business and people can find items easily with the filter set to planetary. In the age of 1 minute shuttles and JTL you can get to a bazaar on the major planets in seconds.

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True, true. Doesn't really change the status quo (most people will check only Coronet and/or Theed), but there's not much you can do about that while the suburbs remain.

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DocSavag wrote:
Global Advertising would be a nice perk for master merchants while not completely nerfint the consumers search ability. Frankly less items in the galactic search wouldn't be a bad thing until they fix the damn thing so it isn't just a mess.

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Agreed, even though I'd be kicked out of global. (Haven't been Master Merchant for quite a while.)

Here's hoping for some more work on this feature!

Message Edited by Parody on 03-28-2005 05:28 PM

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freedomwarrior wrote:

This whole patch stunk beyond belief. I dont know about all of your servers, but on chilly, most only do planetary search, and thats on corellia. This has increased sales on corellia but killed sales on the other planets. My vendors on naboo used to do 1 to 2 mil every other day in sales, now im limited to sales on the 1 corellia vendor I have. THis patch was lame and ill thought out. Its forcing a sales venue to 1 planet, which I dont think the design was for.

I also used this system to check out for others sales. A friend of mine has 1 pair of comp gloves he sliced of mine on his vendor, just one. But yet, that same pair of gloves showed up on the GWVS 8 different times. I mean come on, my vendors are all enabled and I didnt see one blasted sale on my armor anywheres in like the first 30 pages, and gave up after that. Thats how most of the people are gonna feel. THis patch is wrong and might just force me to move on to guild wars when it comes out in May.

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From my experience on RAdiant, this just is not true. My Vendors are 2000m away from Dant Mining Outpost. I am doing well. I discarded my Ad points to pick up Scout the day BEFORE the new system went into Live. All I did was log in after the patch, and enable the search. My sales are up...And I am not on Corellia, nor am I within 600m of any Outpost..

But let me add, that anyone who follows this Forum AND the B&E forum will know that from the initial time this system was announced, I was totally against it, and I still am. I even went so far in my responses to point out that this GWVS would HELP my sales - Which it has. Why? Because I was and AM a "Boutique" as opposed to a "Mall" - I have a pricing policy that is below established practices. I knew I sold cheaper, and as a Boutique, I had a set Customer Base who knew about me, and only spread it to their friends ("Need this thing? Go to Phaelyn's vendor - you'll find it cheaper"). They WANTED to keep me a secret, so they could benefit - And I liked it that way.

Now EVERYONE can find me. And as such, I am making MAD sales. I am undercutting my fellow players without changing a THING. I knew it would be this way, and I TRIED to help my fellow merchants to NOT have to directly compete with me. I, like others of teh same mind, lost our battle. We have the GWVS in place.

Let the chips fall where they may. I tried to stop it - But since I was among the people who lost the battle - My Bank Account WILL win the war.

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Phaelyn wrote:

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freedomwarrior wrote:

This whole patch stunk beyond belief. I dont know about all of your servers, but on chilly, most only do planetary search, and thats on corellia. This has increased sales on corellia but killed sales on the other planets. My vendors on naboo used to do 1 to 2 mil every other day in sales, now im limited to sales on the 1 corellia vendor I have. THis patch was lame and ill thought out. Its forcing a sales venue to 1 planet, which I dont think the design was for.

I also used this system to check out for others sales. A friend of mine has 1 pair of comp gloves he sliced of mine on his vendor, just one. But yet, that same pair of gloves showed up on the GWVS 8 different times. I mean come on, my vendors are all enabled and I didnt see one blasted sale on my armor anywheres in like the first 30 pages, and gave up after that. Thats how most of the people are gonna feel. THis patch is wrong and might just force me to move on to guild wars when it comes out in May.

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From my experience on RAdiant, this just is not true. My Vendors are 2000m away from Dant Mining Outpost. I am doing well. I discarded my Ad points to pick up Scout the day BEFORE the new system went into Live. All I did was log in after the patch, and enable the search. My sales are up...And I am not on Corellia, nor am I within 600m of any Outpost..

But let me add, that anyone who follows this Forum AND the B&E forum will know that from the initial time this system was announced, I was totally against it, and I still am. I even went so far in my responses to point out that this GWVS would HELP my sales - Which it has. Why? Because I was and AM a "Boutique" as opposed to a "Mall" - I have a pricing policy that is below established practices. I knew I sold cheaper, and as a Boutique, I had a set Customer Base who knew about me, and only spread it to their friends ("Need this thing? Go to Phaelyn's vendor - you'll find it cheaper"). They WANTED to keep me a secret, so they could benefit - And I liked it that way.

Now EVERYONE can find me. And as such, I am making MAD sales. I am undercutting my fellow players without changing a THING. I knew it would be this way, and I TRIED to help my fellow merchants to NOT have to directly compete with me. I, like others of teh same mind, lost our battle. We have the GWVS in place.

Let the chips fall where they may. I tried to stop it - But since I was among the people who lost the battle - My Bank Account WILL win the war.

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