Merchant Archive

Here's what I'm thinking,

1. only now are we beginning to see decent numbers of people with master or elite titles (which means more dropping of those lower level but useful skills by people who are going for their ideal combos, which means more inter-dependency)

2.Right now, before implementation of mounts and vehicles, people spend more time out in the field than they would 2-3 months from now, which makes self suffiency that much more important... when they are in, it will be that much more inviting for people to drop those skills when they can go back and forth with more ease (not even factoring in when shuttleports will be in player cities when that finally comes around)

3. The people who can't really deal with having to actually take the time and maybe even enjoy crafting a decent<insert yourcrafted item here>consistently will drop their skills when the population (who will also be that much richer and settled) begins to demand more quality since they will have that luxury,

Now taking that into consideration, and the plethora of money sinks for crafters vs. fighters could create a crafting community that can't afford to completely undercut their prices under a certain level and a consumer class with a good deal of spending cash looking for the best they can afford, which really works to our favor. I know that money is probably not at all even an issue to a lot of master weaponsmiths/de/etc. out there who were in the first dozen or to reach that on their server since they had a monopoly for a while. But to the crafters who worked their way up without macroing or grinding excessively jst having fun while playing and dealingto a large degree with a population unaware of the benefits of power ups, food and such that they depend on to make money, this will make all the difference in the world as they near those master titles also. The only thingsthat could be an issue are possible mass quantities of dupes out there still, and people with 2 accounts, or people dabbling, but I don't think they will be in large enough numbers to really affect the economy, and dupes will eventually run out, probably by the time the player cities are introduced.

I am not even going for master merchant but I will be going upsome lines and being as competeitve as I can in the economy, and I'm not saying anything bad at all about dabblers or people with 2 accounts, just considering them in the overall economy as they will have an impact somewhat, particularly because people with 2 accounts tend to be the hardcore players who... wel, have a lot of time to play or know all kinds of weird secrets about macros.

On somewhat of a side note, I still think one of the best ideas I've seen posted on the board was the one about moving all gun certifications up into elite branches like the vibroknuckler, this would not only allow crafters to sell to people their own level (and with that much more money), while creating a key market which is lacking now for novice artisans in cdef weapons up through 4 or novice of their chosen profession. How this would affect combat is another story but there are always ways to work around things like that, an unarmed person goes up through 4 without any weapons or the power ups that come with them.

just some thoughts...