Merchant Archive
Thread: Merchant Revision Suggestions
Simple Revision for Bazaar, “A Credit Sink”
Non-Artisan’s pay 50 Credits to post items on bazaar.
Novice Artisan’s get reduced bazaar fees that lowers it to normal 20 credits.
Merchants receive their normal bazaar fee reductions.
This doesn’t impair newbies as they can pretty much buy the novice artisan and dump it latter. This does however have an impact upon the masters of other professions that don’t want to waste skill points as they become move into elite professions. Mostly has an impact on pure combat types. There are ways around this though for all players, see the new Business Politics Discipline for details.
The Four Disciplines for Merchant:
Vendor Discipline (Manager)
Harvester Discipline (Miner)
Corporate Management Discipline (Corporate Advisor)
Business Politics Discipline (Legal Advisor) [Can also lead to Politician Elite Profession]
Major Discipline Changes and Redesign Suggestions
Vendor Discipline (The Manager) Defined
Most Vender related skills except reduced fee’s go into the Vendor Discipline.
Under Vendor Discipline You Have
Vendors +1’s
Hiring +##’s
Shop Signs +1’s
Advertising Improvements
Uniform Improvements
Anything that improves vendors choices, customizations, and shops. Would like to see image design on vendors possible as well as clothing customizations.
Harvester Discipline (The Miner) Defined
This discipline will focus on harvesters though not the credit fee’s associated with them.
Reduced Power Consumption [Lower power consumption rate]
Advanced Reduced Power Consumption [Lowers power consumption rate but needs power droid attached to facility to work]
Increased Harvester Gather Efficiency
Advanced Increased Harvester Gather Efficiency [Needs special miner type droids attached to facility to get increase.]
Access to Special Resources [Or at least more resources than other players]
Harvester Jury Rig
Harvester Repair
Harvester Gather Cool down
Advanced Harvester Cool down
Remote Harvester Control
Harvester Jury Rig + Harvester Repair
This allows the miner to repair their harvester themselves without the need of paying credits but the overall durability of the harvester is reduced. Which means this can only be done so many times before the harvester is scrapped. (This also relates to long term decay of harvesters that at some point should be introduced.) This skill could also provide a small but useful lowering of power consumption and efficiency giving a double incentive to use.
Harvester Gather Cool down + Advanced Harvester Cool down.
The harvester cool down period is a one day period that the harvester is allowed to harvest a removed resource it was harvesting before. This gives the miner time to switch the harvester or keep mining as much as possible before the resource is gone forever. This is an efficiency improvement in that the player is warned the resource is leaving but their harvester is still mining even though everyone else’s without the skill is shutdown. The advanced version could just add more time like an extra day. This gives the miner at least 2 guaranteed days of resource harvesting for a particular resource without worries of shutdowns or losing the resource do to a move.
Other ideas associated with these.
Possibly reduced power consumption requires an artisan consumable device to be installed on the harvester every 168 hours to receive the power reduction. The advanced version of power reduction would require a battery droid that should last about a month before needing a new one.
Also same idea for increased harvester gather efficiency it could require an artisan consumable device to be installed on the harvester and it also would last 168 hours to receive the efficiency bonus. Also needs droid(s) for the advanced version and the droid(s) should last about a month before needing to be replaced.
Remote Harvester Control
The ultimate in control is the ability to control your harvesters from anywhere in the galaxy. This takes a device that lasts for 100 uses and allows the miner to change to a new resource anywhere in the galaxy. This should be at the high end of the discipline.
(Continued)
Corporate Management Discipline (The Corporate Advisor) Defined
This is basically the efficiency line renamed as there are obviously different types of efficiency this one deals with monetary efficiency in all aspect of a corporation and also allows access to player driven missions.
Reduced Advertisment Fees [Moved here]
Reduced Bazaar Fees
Reduced Vendor Fees
Reduced Maintenance Fees
Planetary Vendor Access [Viewable Vendors]
Galactic Vendor Access [Viewable Vendors]
Player Mission – Vendor Delivery
Player Mission – Resource Gathering
Player Mission – Advanced Resource Gathering
Player Mission – Non-Corporate Vendor Delivery / Resource
Player Mission – High Risk One Chance Quick Delivery [Bounty Missions - Dangerous]
Increased Bazaar Storeroom [Can Have 25 items posted on bazaar and 25 in storeroom available]
Increased Bazaar Stored Item Time [A merchant has more time before having to collect items]
Planetary Vendor Access
This allows the merchant to buy items from other vendors all over the planet. These vendors of course have to be planetary available through advertisement in the vendor discipline to see them.
Galactic Vendor Access
This allows the merchant to buy items from other vendors all over the galaxy. These vendors of course have to be galactic viewable through the vendor advertisement abilities.
Player Mission – Vendor Delivery
This allows the merchant to post on the merchant mission terminal a delivery mission. For example let us say the merchant has access to galactic vendor access skills and buys an item on Tatooine player vendor while he is on Rori (or anywhere for that matter). He doesn’t want the item instantly and doesn’t want to run over there and get it himself. So he has the option when he looks at the items available in the terminal to post a delivery mission for this item. This mission places a hold on the item for seven days where the mission is available for players to take and complete. Posting a delivery mission costs 100 credits + amount to be paid to deliverer. The poster also has to specify one of his vendor’s as a delivery point. The person taking the mission on Tatooine receives an item stub that represents the item but is actually not useful, very similar to tickets for shuttle and starport travel. When the stub is delivered to the vendor on rori the player receives their reward and the item is placed on the vendor for retrieval by the merchant. Problems to deal with is how to pay travel fee’s and maybe there should be skills for merchants to get a reduced cost for travels fee’s for posted missions as well as getting a suggested price to make the mission worth a players time to do or even a minimum to cover expenses of the travel.
Player Mission – Resource Gathering
This allows the merchant to place a mission on the merchant terminal either from the terminal itself or from their vendor. The merchant specifies the amount of a particular type of resource specified from a list, such as I want aluminum. The merchant also specifies amount of resource wanted plus the instant amount to be paid upon delivery of the resource. The fee for posting is also 100 credits + amount to be paid upon delivery of resource. The player wanting to take the mission takes it very similar to a normal mission but must deliver the resources to the specified merchants vendor. The mission could also be taken from the vendor itself so if someone happens to come by and notices he can sell something to the vendor he can do so instantly for the reward.
Player Mission – Advanced Resource Gathering
This is a little more complex. It allows the merchant to a specific quality of the resource required to complete the mission. Such as the merchant wants the aluminum but also wants it to be 800+ conductive rating. This mission works the same except that the merchant has more control of what they want.
Player Mission – Non-Corporate Vendor Delivery / Resource
The idea is if someone doesn’t have the ability for delivery missions or resource gather but has a terminal or a rented terminal (see politic’s discipline) they can make a deal with a merchant to be a middle man of sorts. Basically the merchant uses the radial menu or a /command while targeting a player. The player receives a merchant request (like trade window request) that opens a special interface. This interface has a place to place an item, or credits and the merchant can see this. The merchant can see the interface while the player can manipulate the interface to setup up the delivery / resource mission which is very similar to the normal setup. After all the settings are complete and the players agree to the price the mission is posted on the merchant terminal. Things to note are the merchant will be charged 100 credits, and they only have access to see terminal’s they could normally see but as this should be so high up the line it doesn’t matter. This skill is most useful used in combination with other skill mentioned in other area’s.
Player Mission – High Risk One Chance Quick Delivery
Okay there are a few tweaks that need to be worked out with the other missions. Like what if someone takes a mission but doesn’t deliver… Well obviously there should be a time limit like 4 hours on the other missions before it times out and gets sent back to the mission terminal for someone else to try and take. Well this mission takes it a step further and costs a chunk of change. The merchant wants an item and want’s it now. This allows them to post their delivery mission like normal but also setup a time limit. Such as after a player takes a mission they have 1 hour to complete it. Unlike the previous types of mission’s this one is a binding contract which means if the player fails to deliver the item in the time period the merchant has the option of posting a one time bounty on the player. This mission costs 1000 credits to post on the merchant terminal and is only resent to the mission terminal a total of 2 times. And the bounty is extra if the player fails the mission, so the player taking it doesn’t know how much of a bounty could be put on their head. The player who failed the mission isn’t offered a second chance to try and take the mission again, so they are unable to keep failing the same mission. Actually that would probably hold true for all missions as a player cannot take the same mission more than one time after failing to complete it.
Business Politics Discipline (Legal Advisor) Defined
This could also be a secondary way to the politician elite profession instead of having to travel through architect. This discipline focuses on a few extra mission types, paper politics and renting out things. The idea is sort of a paper pusher discipline that can manipulate the establishment and get people to work through them by who they know and they can make money also through renting out or leasing things. It is also assumed these merchants know people or at least know the system and people go to them to work around the system.
Legislative Lot Relaxation +1 lots [Addition lots available each skill level]
Vendor Rental +1 [Additional vendor rentals available each skill level]
Player Mission – Destroy Creature/Lair
Paper Politics – Tax Relief +2 [Addition relief options per level]
Paper Poltics – Bazaar Fee’s +2 [Addition relief options per level]
Paper Politics – Planetary Access to Vendors
Paper Poltics – Galactic Access to Vendors
Lot Lease +1 [Additional lease options per level]
Player Mission – Resource Recon
Paper Politics – Vender Advertisment +2 [Additional abilities at each level]
Legislative Lot Relaxation +1 lots
This just gives the player more lots to play with. This in and of itself makes this discipline useful.
Vendor Rental +1
Vendor Rental is a very interesting idea. Basically it allows the player to create a rentable vendor that can be traded. All available vendors to the merchant are available to choose from and it takes credits + resources to make this item though no skill. Item can be sold and only lasts for 24 days. Very similar to the bazaar for every sale the merchant gets a 5% cut from the sale. The cost to make this vendor is 5000 credits + resources and lasts 24 days before disappearing. All items on it at the end of the 24 days remain for 3 days after but the vendor is unusable. After 3 days it is destroyed. Of course the merchant can create a new vendor at the end of the 24 days or possibly slightly before this time period so things can overlap a bit for convenience. A merchant cannot use this item for themselves; it is only usable by another player.
Player Mission – Destroy Creature/Lair
Basically this allows players to give out destroy missions for creatures and lairs. Why? Well I have had creatures and things near my house that I would really like to see destroyed and removed from the property. Obviously factioned npc’s of the rebels or empire could only be targeted by the appropriately aligned faction member. The cost to post the mission is 100 credits + amount to be paid upon completion. Players can take this mission from the merchant terminals in towns. How to do it is simple, if the player can target the creature even at distance they can pull up the radial or use a /command and get creature stub. They take this to their vendor or a mission terminal and can specify the creature as the target or the creature and it’s lair if it has one and post the mission to the merchant terminal for players to take.
Paper Politics – Tax Relief
This allows a tax cut on things like vendor costs or harvesters. The tax relief only lasts a specified amount of time such as 14 days, costs money to produce because you have to pay the right people. Each tax relief gives things like reduced advertisement fees, reduced vendor fees or reduced maintenance fees. These are good for players who own a lot of houses or harvesters or vendors or who don’t have access to these reductions in the corporate line. It is debatable whether they should stack in some manner to make them more useful but that might not be necessary to keep them useful in and of themselves. If they are stacked the developers could think of raising maintenance rates slightly, though with player cities these things could extend to facilities and other maintainable’s and be very useful to towns. Obviously thought because of empire law the player making the tax relief paper cannot use it for themselves it is only usable by other players. The cost to start with to make this item would be around 5000 credits and the merchant specifies what type of tax relief, such as maintenance fees or such that will be granted by using it.
Paper Poltics – Bazaar Fee’s
This could be the entry level benefit granted to the player to learn how politics works. It costs 500 credits to make and lasts for 14 days as well. It basically gives a leg up on bazaar fee’s reduction by giving the next higher reduction. For non-artisan’s they would get the artisan reduction to 20 credits, and artisans’ would get the next higher level and so on. This could even stack with the other reductions and give a special high end bazaar fee reduction to 10 credits per post and 50 per premiums.
Paper Politics – Planetary
This allows the politician to grant the ability to browse, buy, sell from vendors on the planetary and galactic maps without the necessary corporate skills. The cost to use this skill is 100 credits, only works on other players and lasts for only 1 hour.
Lot Lease
The merchant can give up personal lots to be rented to other players. The player can rent out lots to make money from other players who want more lot locations to use. Only so many lots can be rented out and the lot can only be rented for the length of the contract before it must be renewed. Lot contracts are 28 days, 42 days, or 56 days. To make a lease it costs 2500 credits for the fees but the merchant can set the rent at 200 – 500 per day. A merchant making the contract with a player can request up to 2000 credits down which will go towards the next few days payment of the lease. The player accepting the contract can cancel at anytime. At the end of the lease the contract must be renewed and it costs the merchant the 2500 credits again. Specifics left to the developers to figure out such as skipped payment days and fees and such, being a renter can be such a pain.
Player Mission – Resource Recon
This mission type is very simple the merchant is allowed to create a mission that requires a player to find a specified type of resource at a certain quantity. This creates special datagram item when completed that is transmitted to the merchant. This item can be used to get a waypoint or sold on the bazaar. It is a one time use item that makes a waypoint after use. The resource type, name, and attributes are listed on the datagram but the waypoint has to be retrieved. Also these items are destroyed upon a resource shift or at least marked as (Dated Information). Costs for this type of mission should be around 100 credits.
Paper Politics – Vender Advertisment
This grants the vender advertisement abilities to players for a specified amount of time. This is an item that is created by the merchant that takes credits to create and may require some maintenance fee’s on the side of the purchaser. It yields the vender advertisement ability to players, mostly useful for low end merchants or people who have access to rented venders and so on. Could be useful in towns as well. There could be two versions one for planetary and one for galactic.
Master Merchant
The master gets a lot of nice bonuses as well. Also focus is on delegation of responsibilities to other players now that they don’t have time for those nit picking details.
Paper Politics – Vender Advertisment +2
Lot Lease +1
Legislative Lot Relaxation +1 lots
Vendor Rental +1
Increased Bazaar Storeroom
Increased Bazaar Stored Item Time
Paper Politics – Tax Relief +2
Paper Poltics – Bazaar Fee’s +2
Reduced Vendor Fees
Hiring +10
Player Mission – People Mover
Player Mission – People Mover
This mission type allows missions to be created to gather resources from harvesters, pay fee’s on harvester’s, and maintain facilities. The merchant can create a mission at his or her vendor terminal or a merchant mission terminal in town. A gather resources mission is an all or nothing delivery that allows all resources from a harvester to be collected and dropped off at the merchants vendor. A pay maintenance fee’s mission is simply a one stop deliver mission that merely means accessing a button to complete mission on the harvester or building in question. The amount paid is specified by the merchant but the player never see’s the bill amount they are delivering. Also power can be delivered to structures in this manner and counts as a one stop delivery mission as well to make it simple. The idea is a stub is given to the player taking the mission that represents the item for delivery. The cost to create such missions should be around 50 credits per mission and of course the resources or credits for the bills as well as the reward to the player taking the missions.
Comments
I think there is a lot to work with here and that this profession would fit better into leading to the politician profession. I hope that this at least generates some ideas as I have mostly seen a lot of frustration and headaches over the merchant profession in general. I don’t think making life more difficult for the other professions is the solution and I do believe these ideas fit into the core of what SWG can be in the near future and what many of us old board posters hoped it to be before it was released.
Keep up the good work everyone, the game is excellent! But it can be great!
Note: Please forgive me for any spelling errors or grammar mistakes as I am unable to edit this and it is sometimes difficult to transfer from a word processor easily.
A lot of this is to remind the developers of what was discussed and planned on the boards several years ago about players driving the missions and economy. This also provides missions that are not faucets of credits andare sinks. If players are doing these missions they are not generating credits they are removing credits from the economy. Though this post was long it also hit some of the popular interests of players such as being a miner one of the lost professions. Also this revised edition of the merchant has cross-profession dependencies such as requiring power droids and other equipment in order to use their skills. This creates player demand for certain items that might otherwise be unused, such as battery droid and mining types of droids.
Many of the current merchant skills I believe lost the feel of what was intended before the developers set out on this journey. We got lost somewhere and it's time to referesh our memories of what was planned.
If you have time please read and respond to this post even if you only read a piece and respond to a piece. There are area’s that are somewhat confusing as I reread it just ask questions and I will attempt to explain things clearly.
Das.
Well I do have another suggestion, though I would rather see the ideas above debated and streamlined making the merchant a wonderful exciting profession to play.
Devs, right now the merchant profession is a catch 22. It is a love hate relationship, only useful if you have extra points. Yet missing most of what it was supposed to be because of the lack of player driven missions and player cities. Many of the ideas before release for this profession were left out as you moved to release the game, it is time to take a look again! I would much rather see you move towards redesigning this profession with the above suggestions instead of adding more content to the game world. If not my suggestions then the one’s discussed on the boards countless times before the game went live! (This goes for all professions in general.)
I am happy with the content but I am flustered by how some of the professions are setup, especially merchant. Image designer is another profession that suffers from this as well. I think all those skills should be moved down to the entertainer as a single discipline and it should be a stubby tree of only a few skill boxes instead of a full blown profession.
As of now all merchant really does is give player’s access to venders! It would make more sense to move these skills to a discipline instead of a profession. If nothing else consider moving the skills down to business in the artisan tree. You could even remove fee reductions and put them in the politician career as tax cuts or something similar for player cities. At least then in Artisan you would have a valuable discipline people would want to take because it offers a lot more use for the skill points invested instead of the current love/hate relationship of the merchant profession. This would also support your sinks you are looking for, because more people would have access to use the venders.
Based on previous plans even before beta the merchant is a broken profession. Not in skills but in implementation and design. It really needs to be totally redesigned or removed and it’s pieces given to other professions. Without player driven missions and mercantile politics there is very little point to keep this profession.
If you are serious about sinks in your economy the merchant revisions suggestions I have written above are a good start for debate. These player driven missions should keep players working for players and away from the faucet generated credit missions. The more player driven missions people are doing the less time they are spending doing credit faucet missions and the more likely you can lower the credit payout’s on those missions and slowing the incoming credits to the economy.
Again! Go back to your design ideas 100’s of us posters have debated on the board several years ago even before beta. I believe you truly had the design idea right! Ask Holocron while he is still around! He talked about all of these ideas of players driving the game over and over again on the forums! Please don’t walk away from this now that the game is live!
Please! Please! Consider redesigning the merchant profession!
Very well written! *(bump)*
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=merchant&message.id=7620
We're getting very upset..please help us. This game could be the most ambitious, awesome, innovative,inspiring MMORPG ever, but the developers must take up the challange to help it reach it's galactic potential.
Thank you
Thanks for the support Csin!
It's really long winded ... Probably to much info... Not sure how to make it simpler but maybe I will try and rewrite it in another manner...
Revised Edition
Corporate Management Discipline (The Corporate Advisor) Defined
The corporation takes manpower and efficiency to make profit. This discipline is focused on the ability to get work done through posting jobs and streamlining the business model.
Skills List:
Reduced Advertisement Fees (moved here)
Reduced Bazaar Fees
Reduced Vendor Fees
Reduced Maintenance Fees
Planetary Vendor Access
Galactic Vendor Access
Player Mission – Vendor Delivery
Player Mission – Harvester Delivery
Player Mission – Resource Gathering
Player Mission – Advanced Resource Gathering
Player Mission – Component Requisition
Player Mission – Advanced Component Requisition
Player Mission – Middle Man Delivery
Player Mission – Priority One Delivery
Increased Bazaar Storeroom
Increased Bazaar Stored Item Time
Planetary Vendor Access
All vendors on the planet are available for this merchant to browse and purchase items from. Even venders that are unregistered on the planetary map have their inventories available.
Galactic Vendor Access
All vendors in the galaxy are available for this merchant to browse and purchase items from. Even venders that are unregistered on the planetary maps have their inventories available.
Player Mission – Vendor Delivery
This is a point to point delivery mission. The merchant picks the item he wants delivered from one destination to another. (50 credit mission posting fee + amount to be paid to deliverer + travel fees.)
Points of Origin and Destination for deliveries.
- Purchased item from bazaar or vender to merchants mission vendor
- Merchants mission vendor to another of their merchants mission vendors
Player Mission – Harvester Delivery
This is a point to point delivery mission. The merchant is able to specify harvesters to collect resources and deliver them. (50 credit mission posting fee + amount to be paid to deliverer)
Points of Origin and Destination for deliveries
- Harvester to merchants mission vendor
Player Mission – Resource Gathering
This is a resource purchase request. The merchant is able to specify the type and amount of a resource they would like to purchase. (100 credit mission posting fee + amount to be paid to deliverer)
Player Mission – Advanced Resource Gathering
This is a resource purchase request. The merchant is able to specify the type, quality of attributes and amount of a resource they would like to purchase. (200 credit mission posting fee + amount to be paid to deliverer.)
Player Mission – Component Requisition
This is a component factory crate purchase request. The merchant is able to specify the type and amount they would like to purchase. (100 credit mission posting fee + amount to be paid to deliverer)
Player Mission – Advanced Component Requisition
This is a component factory crate purchase request. The merchant is able to specify the type, quality of attributes and amount they would like to purchase. (200 credit mission posting fee + amount to be paid to deliverer.)
Player Mission – Middle Man Delivery
This is a point to point delivery mission. The merchant is able to setup a delivery mission for another player as if that player had Player Mission – Vendor Delivery. (50 credit posting fee. Receiving player pays his own expenses as if using the Player Mission – Vendor Delivery ability)
Player Mission – Priority One Delivery
This is a point to point delivery mission. This acts in every way like Player Mission – Vendor Delivery except that there are consequences for failure for the deliverer if they fail to accomplish the mission within a specified amount of time. (500 credit posting fee + amount to be paid to deliverer + travel fees.)
Increased Bazaar Storeroom
The merchant can have 25 items posted on the bazaar while also having 25 items in the Bazaar storeroom.
Increased Bazaar Stored Item Time
A merchant has more time before having to collect items located in the bazaar storeroom as well as the vendor storeroom.
If I may be permitted to stick my oar into the water... :grin:
When we're thinking about a Merchant profession, it's important to look for inspiration to the successful business operators of Earth's past and present. But this is also a game set in the Star Wars universe, which means we need to look there to decide what a "Merchant" is like. And our best example is: Lando Calrissian.
With Lando (as well as real examples) in mind, what are the four main aspects to being a Merchant? I'd propose the following as a tentative short list:
* Supply
* Production
* Sales/Marketing/Advertising
* Management (Employment, Contracts)
The first three are fairly obvious; they just need increasingly powerful skills implementing them.
The fourth aspect is (IMO) the really interesting one. Remember Lando's comment: "I've just made a deal that will keep the Empire out of here forever." Contracts are the absolute heart of being a Merchant -- without *enforceable* contracts within SWG, the Merchant will basically just be a glorified shopkeeper. WITH enforceable contracts, however....
And wouldn't it be interesting to be able to contract with local (or, dare I say, Imperial) representatives to supply various goods? Can you say, "defense contractor?" :grin:
I'd like to see some discussion of these ideas. Anyone else want to help make the Merchant profession everything it should be?
--Flatfingers (Master Artisan, Radiant/Naboo/Keren )
The devs and board posters before beta had chats about this subject day and night. The developershad planned a bond system. Negatives of failures were losing your bond and getting thrown into the bounty hunter mission pool as a target.
Though yes I think we are on similar hopes that we want to see players driving things more. And that the npcmission systems start taking a back seatto player created missions/contracts.
Player requested contracts such as... I want a DH17 pistol with certain stats going up for bid on the bazaar. A crafter takes the bid and makes a weapon and thenagrees to purchase or decline the item after receiving it and so on. Though I am unsure how these more elaborate systems can work. I merely thought of the very simple types I figured could be done with the current system in place.
Right now the merchant is just a vendor farmer. Which over the long run players will probably dump and choose something more useful like weaponsmithing or even weapon skills to do difficult missions. But a redefined merchant class that has some of the ideas in this thread would be something many players would very likely want to play in and of itself.
Also these ideas are not new. The developers had talked about these for ages before this game came out. But so were player cities and they didn't make it in either, though they are moving forward with that plan.
I hear you, Dasyra. I know this is One of Those Subjects -- like the Miner -- that peoplewent round and round on. When the Industrialist (like the Miner)got the hook,I'd hopedthat the Merchant might be an acceptable substitute. Sadly, that hasn't proved to be the case.
It's nice to see that the profession is getting SOME attention (with the recentsignage enhancement), but my concern is that this is just tweaking -- it doesn't directly address the problem that the profession as currently structured just isn't fun.
I think contracts would help a lot... but I see I need to be more clear about what I mean when I use the term. By "contract" I don't mean a single transaction -- those can be handled as "player missions" as you described them, where I agree to provide you with some item X at some price Y as a one-shot deal.
By "contract" I mean a deal thatexecutes repeatedlyover a period oftime. Real Merchants (IMO) don't win by running around making one-shot deals; they win by creating long-term, persistentrevenue streams.
So, for example, I should be able to agree with some in-game entity (PC, NPC, PA, player city, local/Imp government body) to provide X units of product Y every Z time periods in return for A credits payable to me every B time periods. It might also be possible/desirable todefine a minimum quality level per delivered unit as well. And finally, it should allow both parties to agree on a contracttermination point, and possibly on penalties if either party breaks the contract without the other's approval -- perhaps there's a game-controlled escrow account into which both parties to a contract put surety money, which is then given to Party 2 if Party 1 breaks the contract (or vice-versa). (Yes, the game itself would have to monitor the status of the contract, not the players since that could allow griefing -- let's focus on the big picture here, not the details. Not yet, anyway.
)
THATis the kind of contract that a Merchant should be able to make. That's the kind of solid, enforceable deal that can lead to dependable income, and lots of satisfied customers, and a truly vibrantplayer economy, because it can significantlyincrease the number and size oftrustworthy commercial transactions.
I'd like to see the other Merchantactivities (Supply/Distribution, Production,Marketing/Advertising)similarly improved as skills. And there certainly could be other business-related skills in a Corporate Management or similar discipline. But the long-term contract really needs to be at the heart of the Merchant profession, and should be available as an ability to the novice Merchant.
--Flatfingers [Master Artisan, Radiant/Naboo/Keren]