Merchant Archive
Thread: Real Example of REAL Merchants which sad to say, isnt true of most of you...
Go read the above thread. It's an example of REAL merchants in action. I had no intention of every stepping foot back in this forum, but when I saw what these guys did, I made an exception long enough to point this out.
Here's what these guys did.
1. They found a armorsmith on one of the more peaceful planets.
2. They bought a large bulk order of composite armor. Enough for 20 full suits.
3. They undercut the going rate on a full suit of composite armor by about 60%.
4. They posted all the armor on a vendor at a shop on Tatoonie between Anchorhead and Mos Eslie. That's **edit** close to the middle of the biggest war zone on the server. Namely between Anchorhead and Bestine.
5. They got the word out about the armor, location of the vendor, and the price.
What happened? The armor flew off the vendor in less than half a day. They walked away with a nice profit, I'm sure the manufacturer did pretty well on profit too. They pissed off alot of people who were use to selling the armor at 3 to 4 times the price they sold at and caused quite a stire. In short, as merchants, they are winners! Which is pretty obvious is not true of most of the people who campout on this forum making their game design change demands. Merchants like this would trive and even get even more aggressive and bold using free access trading systems. Unlike most of you who would die.
Alot of you make me think of the snickers commercial where the girl walking down the street hears cries for help. Scales the side of the house, makes a huge effort to help, only to find the boy on the couch (most of you) who says, "Oh! Hey, can you hand me that remote control?"
The best thing that could happen to the merchant class is to have its exp required to advanced raise to the level now required of droid engineers. Also have the automatic exps from just operating a vendor completely removed. Then ONLY give merchant exps for items actually bought and sold. And put alot of audit trail in to elminate buying and selling the same item over and over. Also no exps for buy and selling an item on the same planet. Tied the amount of exps to the number of planet hops between were the item is bought and where it is sold (i.e. buy on Dantoonie and sell on Rori would get a big payoff).
I suspect tho that if these changes actually happened, alot of you would be switching professions, looking for the new one that becomes the title holder for the least common denominator profession.
Adios.
and?
This happens all the time, we just run to the board and brag about it. I am sorry that SWG has not granted you with powers that allow you to know what is going on on every server at once. If they did, you would not come to this board and make statments that make it clear that you are talking out of the backside of your face.
"It is better to be thought of as a fool, than to open your mouth, and remove all dought" ~Mark Twain
I have to agree with Venar here. I don't generally complain about merchant, but it is true that the whole of the merchant line has very little return for the skill points invested. I am a fairly successful merchant on Chilastra, but have found very little reason not to drop all of merchant except for Hiring I and Management I. The rest of it is just flat broken or useless. Aspeople have rehashed many times on this board:
Advertizing: -- virtually worthless --
- Ad I - Works for about half an hour then quits.
- Ad II - Works for about half an hour then quits.
- Ad II - Stops working on server reset
- Ad IV - in light of the rest of this line, it is simply not worth it
Efficiency: -- arguably worth it --
For a "real", "successful" merchant, the credits saved in this line are minimal. The skill points are better spent somewhere else. Perhaps if there were more lots involved or better structures (with higher maintenances), this would be more acceptable.
Hiring: -- useful for NPC vendors --
Since the maintenance is terribly high for any vendors other than NPCs, you need hiring one to get them. The rest of the vendors look nice, but can't be used by a "real" merchant with "real" volume until the maintenance issues get a balance pass.
Management: -- useful for more vendors --
This is the line that is actually useful. More vendors allow for more locations. This is something that a "real" merchant uses. So to be a merchant that is basically as effective as a Master Merchant, all you really need is Hiring I and (optionally) Management I
This means that any Joe Gumby can spend between 40 and 45 skill points to be the same level of merchant that someone that spends the full 92 skill points to get Master Merchant. I think that the members of this community understand that Merchant will be an important aspect of Galactic development. We simply want more differentiation. I mean, we aren't asking to be able to solo AT-STs, but we would like to be set apart from the Artisan that wants to have a vendor in his house.
I see. Tell you what. I'd like to see droid engineer require you to demonstrate real-world acumen at assembling droids.
What you're talking about is what people do with the game mechanics, and how some people have good ideas that do not rest on the game mechanics per se. Your vision of Merchant actually is skill-less, in the sense that it does not propose that any Merchant would have any game mechanics to it at all, that there would be nothing distinctive to it in terms of the powers or capacities that the game permits you.
Or here's another proposal, quite in keeping with the tenor of yours in this forum. How about allowing Merchants to make droids? I don't mind the work! That's fair, isn't it? How about allowing Merchants to make everything? And Droid Engineers to make everything? And everybody to do everything, for the same number of clicks.
Now if the advancement curve in your profession seems stupid to you, then I agree with you. I'm also a weaponsmith, and I think that the devs settled for designing around a grind in a quite soulless and anti-fun way. But it takes a really messed up person, when he's in a prison, to sullenly look around and demand that everyone come inside the prison with him. Why not look to have all professions grow more organically, in a richer, less mindless way, and have a niche carved out for them that's meaningful and distinctive within the game economy?
I just don't quite get the hatred and bile and meanness of spirit in your posts. Really, I don't. I think you need to take a break from the game, to be honest.
In other words, those guys were a bunch of morons who made a fraction of the creds they could have. Take respite in that.
Of course you realise that all that is needed for your little plan is Artisan Business 3 ??
You see, we complain that our skill tree does nothing. You prove our point. Thanks.