Merchant Archive
Thread: Loot kits at Merchant's Expense?
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Rhalik
Sun Aug 08, 2004 5:11 pm
#1
I want a real answer... I won't get one, but I want it anyway :-)
If the DB is in such a sore state, why were the new loot kits just introduced adding hundreds of thousand of new items to be tracked in (what I assume is)the sameDB?
Who's in charge here?
Does the left hand know what the right hand is doing?
Proposals made using a false premise are always suspect!
Why is the Correspondent telling us we won't get what we want pre-emptively?
I thought Correspondents were implemented to represent our Class issues/desires to the Dev's? Am I the only one who feels like he's bringing us an ultimatum from the dev's?
(No offense Doc, not meant as an attack on you so much as a questioning of the system of which you are a part)
This whole thing just feels wrong to me,
Argo Ditakan-Master Merchant / Master Smuggler
DocSavag
Sun Aug 08, 2004 5:14 pm
#2
Rhalik wrote:I want a real answer... I won't get one, but I want it anyway :-)If the DB is in such a sore state, why were the new loot kits just introduced adding hundreds of thousand of new items to be tracked in (what I assume is)the sameDB?Who's in charge here?Does the left hand know what the right hand is doing?Proposals made using a false premise are always suspect!Why is the Correspondent telling us we won't get what we want pre-emptively?I thought Correspondents were implemented to represent our Class issues/desires to the Dev's? Am I the only one who feels like he's bringing us an ultimatum from the dev's?(No offense Doc, not meant as an attack on you so much as a questioning of the system of which you are a part)This whole thing just feels wrong to me,Argo Ditakan-Master Merchant / Master Smuggler
The problem is that several of your premises are off. First I say that you won't get unlimited becasue they have been telling me for nearly a year that you wont' get it. *Shrug* I take back your requests for unlimited but for me to not tell you that you won't get unlimited would be cruel and unfair. I am sharing my knowledge of it.
Second the database was cited as ONE of the issues requiring item limits the other relates to the economy and the devs attempts to make changes to what they see as an abnormally high amount of business centered around a small group of people. I am not defending that position but it has been stated more than once.
I don't think the loot kites which are fun and enjoyable and a way for merchants to make money should be removed.
Lotussutol
Sun Aug 08, 2004 5:15 pm
#3
If the DB is the problem get rid of the junk we loot and all the crap weapons we loot...who needs them!!!
meaningfull loot is fine...but a pistol that does 8/28 dmg and a broken datapad?? oooooh...sheesh.
Message Edited by Lotussutol on 08-08-2004 05:17 PM
LonelyGhost
Sun Aug 08, 2004 7:33 pm
#4
Heh, we're back to the whole "monopoly" thing, arent we? Iknew we hadn't seen the end of that. If only they would just open up a dialogue about this.
Will the CS Summit be in time to talk over this topic?
temptres
Sun Aug 08, 2004 7:42 pm
#5
give us real loot we can use not knives staffs cdfs old clothing broken junk
we want crystals for our jedis janta blood for docs and ect.
arobus06
Sun Aug 08, 2004 7:43 pm
#6
if they have problems with a monopoly then tell them to create chars and play the game then. On my server, yes, there are some big name vendors that offer +12 point exp products. But even a new vendor still makes good sales, because there is a good demand for stuff. The devs have no right to control our economy. It is playerbased and should stay that way. Eventually people will take time off, or quit, or somebody else will come along. But to force this on the game will kill it. The devs can lick my sack as far as I am concerned. Im not buying JTL, and once my one year account runs out in novemeber Im outta here, they just **edit**ed this game up too much for my tastes.
Ciredor
Sun Aug 08, 2004 7:46 pm
#7
I personally think the loot kits are a great example of a bad idea. As we all know, the adhesives are ridiculously hard to loot and when we finally (if ever) complete one, we have the option of selling it back to a junk dealer for 1000 credits. Does that seem reasonable/proportional to the rate they drop? If one of the reasons the devs want to nerf merchant is because of an unbalanced economy, they are as much to blame for that situation as the next person.
The vendor issues do need to be addressed and it has always bothered me that people who no longer had merchant skills were allowed to keep their vendors. I used to have carbineer skills but I didnt get to keep them after I dropped them for merchant/crafting ones, so that change is a long time coming. But the amounts are ridiculous that have been proposed.
It has also saddened me that this game has allowed fundamental changes to occur because a group cried. Wookies do not wear armor in Star Wars. Players who chose to create wookie toons knew that going into the game, yet decided to stamp their collective feet and...guess what...they got what they wanted x3. We merchants chose the prof, knowing what we were getting into and now the devs want to take that away. What did we do to deserve that?
Unlimited amounts may be unreasonable, but so are the numbers they've proposed. I have a lot of cheaper items for sale as well as expensive ones...what's going to happen to the data base when I and my alts and friends (who i sell things for) start adding +100 items on a regular basis to it?
arobus06
Sun Aug 08, 2004 7:50 pm
#8
It has also saddened me that this game has allowed fundamental changes to occur because a group cried. Wookies do not wear armor in Star Wars. Players who chose to create wookie toons knew that going into the game, yet decided to stamp their collective feet and...guess what...they got what they wanted x3. We merchants chose the prof, knowing what we were getting into and now the devs want to take that away. What did we do to deserve that?
leave wookiees out of this jimbo. We did not knwo what we were getting ourselves into, and its only in the movies they didnt wear armor and guess what, there was only one freakin wookiee in the movies. I read the books to, and guess what, yep, armor is in the books and the books are part of the same galaxy. I think this nerf is gay, but going around bashing other races is a stupid way to get your point across.
Ciredor
Sun Aug 08, 2004 7:55 pm
#9
I'm not bashing, simply pointing out that people who cose to play wookie toons knew going into it that armor was not an option, then they wanted it changed after the fact and were given what they asked for. Folks chose merchant based on what the game promised the prof and are now having that taken away, through no request of theirs. I am simply pointing out another inequity of the game, not "race bashing".
Rhalik
Sun Aug 08, 2004 8:04 pm
#10
Thank you for the clarifications Doc, that makes a bit more sense. I read through many pages of posts but missed that part.
However, the basic premise is correct. They have been telling you for some time that unlimited vendoring is out, while having it in and allowing non full-time Merchants to exploit the hell out of it. Now at the same time they add countless items to a known overloaded or soon to be overloaded DB. Then immediately turn around and use the DB as one of the excuses for why a vendor item limit is required. You can't easily argue that one of these does not fly in the face of the other. It's ludicrous to even make the attempt.
If their concern is a few peoplecornering the market, arguably all they're really doing is rewarding the exploiters by having let them dominate the market for too long with vendors they didn't have the skills to properly run,then screwing the people who are trying to do it the "legal" way. What is my goal as a Merchant if not to help someone sell a lot of items? (dominating a market is arguably a valid goal for a Master Merchant IMHO)
Even that statement makes the (erroneous)assumption that ALL of the people being referred to are exploiting vendorsto corner a market. I hardly think that's the case, so what it really means to me is, some of the people who should be squawking the loudest are those who won their markets fair and sqaure through hard work and time invested. You are telling me that SWG/Devs want to regulatesome details of the ingame economy in which IMHO they have no place meddling. In my perusal of the boards I have not seen that many complaints about how no one can break into a market ingame. Removing the empty and exploited vendors alone will allow newcomers to make a bigger mark on any market by virtue ofpotential customersactually being able to find them for a change. If they feel a very limited subset of people have abnormally high sales numbers, more looking into them and less screwing with the rest of us is in order before this Limit goes in effect for everyone.
I honestly feel a change of that magnitude is premature considering they haven't implemented the more basic and oft requested removal of the (no merchant skills)vendor exploit w/o attaching this type of game changing skill tweak. Everyone knows that one single change alone is going to affect the player-crafted economy all by itself. And to say it will have no credibleeffect on the DB loading would indicate to me they know less about this game from their statistical anylysis than they would like to believe. If they really think that's the case, now is the time for them to pony up some #'s for us to pick over as well. I understand that the feedback process is implented to help provide the information that statistics won't show. But something is wrong with the methodology of the approach when this far into a game's development they feel they can hand down changes like this and tell us to suck it up.
Ifeel that with the profits they have made from the game, the onus is on them to solve it from their end. I will not believe they can't afford to hire some Ace DB prrogrammers and the hardware to backthem up. With the knowledge gained from running this system for this long, I find it hard to believe a redesign of the DB is either beyond their reach financially or detrimental to the long term prospects of the title.
As an aside I disagree with you about the loot kits. In defense of Architects everywhere: non-craftable furniture is already too prevalent. Back to back they released thousands of free paintings (as a veteran award: 30 days active? Veteran of What?) then turned around and added rugs and 3 more non craftable furnitureitems. Hope the devs don't expect any X-mas cards from the folks in that business... I ask you, have you ever jumped through the hoops required to run off a batch of paintings to try and sell as an Architect? Imagine how you would have felt logging in the day after you managed your first factory run of them to find out 90% of the people in the game just got free paintings you can't make...
The entire way this has come about is obviously problematic for more folks than myself, as shown by the thousands of posts generated on the subject across the forums of this board alone. So there is more to this than the face value of their arguments for why this change is required. This is partly about how broken the system appears when changes of this magnitude areshoved down our throats with the things we have been waiting for that ARE on the Merchant Issues List.
This is coming across as: Like it or lump it, but give us some feedback really late in the plan and we might change it but not to what the paying and talking customers are telling you they want. (not you specifically)
This is obviously something that needs a LOT of discussion and give and take tween Devs and Community. Whatever their reasons, the current plan just plain sucks, and we don't like it. If they shove it in anyway, you guys can add your names to the list of companies no longer trusted by an ever growing number ofgamers, like EA. We spend the time, we spend the money. We play and we pay. They reap and we weep...
Anyway, I digress
arobus06
Sun Aug 08, 2004 8:15 pm
#11
Ciredor wrote:
I'm not bashing, simply pointing out that people who cose to play wookie toons knew going into it that armor was not an option, then they wanted it changed after the fact and were given what they asked for. Folks chose merchant based on what the game promised the prof and are now having that taken away, through no request of theirs. I am simply pointing out another inequity of the game, not "race bashing".
I did not know I didnt have access to armor, only found out when I tried to put some bone armor on back in august. The wookiees got screwed in this game for a long time and I wish people would see that. If we got armor like this from the beginning nobody would have cared, but since they did it the way they did, people now have their formed opinions of it. I never knew playing a wookiee would mean I get less clothing (and color) selections than anybody else, no armor for nearly a year, and the only thing we do get ( a bowcaster) sucks beyond belief yet people are still jealous of it. Make the bowcaster a certed weapon for novice rifleman for all I care. Nobody will carry it because it sucks. This merchant nerf is crap though. Go from a year of playing with it the old way, to all of a sudden the devs wnat to control the way a player based economy runs. Last I checked they stated they wanted it to be player run, how can it be though if the devs plan to play g o d with it.
Lotussutol
Sun Aug 08, 2004 8:46 pm
#12
Advertising IV was supposed to be..."At this skill level the merchant can hire NPCs in cities to advertise their wares and vendors."
Anybody remember that???
Advertising IV is now "At this skill level the additional cost of advertising your vendor on the global map is cut in half"
so I knew what I was getting into with merchant but it was changed on me...
hehehe 
polymorphic1
Sun Aug 08, 2004 8:55 pm
#13
Excellent point!
Get rid of the stupid weapons nobody ever uses. Get rid of the clothing attachments that are either blank or give negative enhancements.
Make resources stack in quantities larger than 100k.
Make crates hold more than 25 items.
Reduce spawn rate and only drop items that people will find useful. You're overloading your own system with your own crap. Stop the Insanity!
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