Merchant Archive

In a 'real' economy, employee/employer relationships are governed by rules and customs ranging from the payment contract for work, to specific legal consequences for embezzlement, to systems of reward for good employees.

Now it goes without saying that SWG is a game, but in a growing economy with such depth of complexity it's reasonable to assume that the needs of capitalists in this game are becoming more complex as well.I propose that any newMerchant bag of tricks include tools for working closely with an organization of others.

I am writing this while sipping the umpteenth cup of tea since my recent bout with the flu. During the height of my illness I was unable to even log onto my char and do the hours of negotiation, pricing, stocking, and email answering that is my on-line life. My store lost valuable face-time with my clientele, and I had no way to ask for or recieve help from anyone without violating the EULA or compromising the security of my account.

Now let's take a moment here to understand: I enjoy playing the 'Jabba' character. I have more than enough credits to do whatever I want, but I play for power and fame. I want my store to be profitable and to be a valuable resource to other chars. I hear lots of people complain about inequities in the distribution of wealth. I'd be glad to hire these people as buyers, or stockers, or guides, or enforcers, or anything, but there's no way to make a contract and no way to enforce a deal. I could easily lend a new player 10 heavy harvesters with a guarantee to buy their goods, but I'd never see the harvesters again. I can't have disrespectable competitor knocked off. The NPC's on both sides of the GCW treat me like I was a five-minute newbie, and my relatively ancient Mall and Market has no advantage over one that's constructed ten minutes from now.

In short, we need a paradigm change to bring the CONTRACT into the swg universe. Cooperative interaction can go far beyond getting X people together to kill Y monster. Building a city is one thing, a guild can only go so far. And ORGANIZATION can do far more. Csin Inc., Murder Inc, City-by-The-Sea Inc. ..the possibilities are endless. Employeesshould be able to stock, manage lots and move the organization towards it's goals. Individualism is great, but as level of complexity grows, the need to work in groups grows as well.

Hey man, Player Missions is the last of the pre-launch nerfs they have to fix (after cities, pets, and vehicles). They are working on a grief free system now. Perhaps once they get the initial "Delivery, Destroy, etc etc" out the way, or maybe inthe first batch even (don't hold yer breath) they'll be a system viable to employ and loan money to people. I'm currently dreaming up a system on a shipping business when I'm insanely wealthy, as in, I buy the ship, I lease to you like a trucking company, I give you your jobs, and take my cut (which is enormous until I'm paid off). If you screw up, I"m still admin of the ship and can take it back (the only trouble I'm having is finding it again TO take it back,but perhaps player bounties will have evolved by then, who knows).

My GOD that sounds fun..

When I signed on to be a merchantI NEVER thought I was going to be locked into one big store on one planet...I always dreamed of a universal syndicate like Jabba. Your plan sounds like a great next step.

Hey man, I'm a smuggler. I'm always thinkin' of ways to make money.

Hopefully I'll have the capital, and the means and ways to pull it off. I'm also basing this on the assumption that ships, like buildings, work on an admin system.

I just have to say that sounds fu*kin awsume. That was my dream to when I started Artisan, to own my own buisness and to have emploies. I have like the Tailoring buisness, but at times its stressful to be the accountant, CEO, CFO, Board of Directors, secretary, assembly line operator, lacky, and delivery boy for my company.

I would love to see somthing like this, but I fear SOE will have trouble implementing it.

I have to bump this one more time in the hopes someone sees it

csin

I don't disagree with the concept but I don't know what you envision by "Contract". I agree that you should be able to have assistants, stockers etc. But I have yet to see anyone put forth a "contract" idea that I thought was anything other than a quagmire of exploitable code.

I don't really have a cogent response to that Doc..except to say that in real life a contract is a convenient fiction adhered to by both parties, enforced by law and tradition.

So in effect, if we were able to assign someone to tend a vendor or two, and/or if someone could 'sign away' their player protections making them vunerable to bounties if they failed to honor their word, or if there was a way to add someone to the hoppers remotely, or even if there were a reasonable system of escrow then the realities of 'contracts' between two players might evolve from the tools.