Merchant Archive

As always, the details are what get developers in the end. To that, here is a list of ideas that expand upon the basic concept.

• Merchant skill not required: To keep the competition lively, using an npc city vendor does not require any merchant skills. Your buying a service here, not running a business yourself. This also allows those players with piles of loot that they would probably be willing to sell, for the right price.


• Location: These vendors would not be centrally located. They would be scattered about the city. For commercial cities, a few might be located in a common area and be easy to find. Some might be found at points of interest such as the jawa camp.


• Specialist: Some vendors located in specific location might require the bidder to have minimal skills in one of the elite professions. As an example, chiefs would be able to place bids for the vendors in cantinas. A smuggler vendor might be found in an ally way or other dark corner. This adds flavor to the city.


• Limited items on Vendor: The city vendor would have a low limit of the number of items, maybe 25 or so. Players with actual merchant skills would have a slightly higher limit such as a max of 50. Items not sold within the month, are place in a stockroom for 30 days then deleted. Stockroom items count against the limit. Items on the bazaar or player vendors do not. Anybody with items in the stockroom would be able to pick their stuff up. Alternatively, items on the vendor at the end of 30 days could picked up on the city bazaar. {This could be a pain to code.}


• Credit limit: City vendors should not become storage mechanisms or replace player vendors. Items sold on city vendors need an upper limit, maybe 100k.


• Merchants can advertise: Players with the appropriate skill can advertise, just like vendors of their own. This includes the regular merchant spam as well as global advertising.


• Merchant cross vendor listing: Players with merchant skills would be able to register their vendor with an npc vendor on the same planet. Masters would be able to register cross planet vendors. What this does is lists, but not sell, items available on the player’s vendors that have been registered.


• Unused vendors: Some vendors are going to end up, un-bid on. For these vendors, I would suggest that customer service sell loot items. Hay, some of us are not combat types and do not have a good chance of getting some of this. {Turn off shameless plug for non-combat types to get loot items.}