What they did to POK merchants was awful and we hated it because those of us that do trade skills had to go searching and it STILL was not a logical placement of merchants and all the items we need. It would be really cool if a new area off of Sunrise Hills was available, for example, called something like "Trade skill Halls" where buffs don't wear off. Maybe, wagon wheel shaped areas going off at tangents and each connected to each other with the main center area as a portal area to take you back to the guild lobby, for example. All the merchants for one skill in each round room but connected to each other so you can run to other areas if you need items brought from multiple skill merchants. Avenues with all the trade skill quest guys available on one avenue would also be good. Adding a new trade skill quest each expansion and have the NPC placed there so they are easy to find. Trade skill folks would go check there when expansions come out. A small library for trade skill books would be awesome too. Oh yea, and the hall leading to poison making should have a locked door that the rogue needs to pick to open. (yes, some non rogues use those merchants so a little quest to get a key would be necessary too) Anyway, it was just an idea I had when trying to find the things I needed and getting frustrated with POK, gave up and went to Crescent Reach. (but there go those buffs. ::sigh::
Just in case you didn't know, EQ Traders is an excellent tradeskill resource. You can look up a recipe or a specific item you need, and they give you the name and zone of the merchant that carries the item(s) you are looking to buy.
Actually I would have to agree the implementation of the changes to tradeskill vendors was very badly done And moving items on to other toons could have been handled better with more logcial choices made AND a list of which NPC thinkgs were moved to would have made it much much much much better and actually made it the benefit to players that the Devs thought it would be. People really did want to learn all over again where a variety of things were. Simple things like a list of the changes would have been great. Was a comp sci major in uni but ended up in finance.... still I worked with our programmers a lot. One thing any programmer/dev usually hates is documenting things. A changelog on the merchants would have been great. Post it somewhere here and eq traders and wherever else and life would have been good. Well that is my opinion : Of coruse I am sure staffing levels also leave them figuring out what to spend time on.
Not making positive changes to the game because a ten year old, third party shopping list might have to adjust a little would have been stupid. Sony never provided a vendor listing before, so making a changelog ... could have been done? but was understandably non-automatic, since there was no document to log the changes to. As for eqtraders/magelo/etc? The enthusiast communities there had updates rolling within an hour, without developer meddling. Backing off the changes to re-increase the resource demands of PoK was a cowardly response to asinine complaints.
As an aside: I'm not a fan of the Plane of Knowledge zone; never have been, for many reasons. And, imo, the idea splitting trade halls from the Library isn't a bad one. My objection is that the use of the good great idea of consolidating the merchants as a justification makes no sense, and unfairly paints those sensibly in favor of that move with the "stupid whiner" brush
I'd be willing to buy placeable tradeskill vendor NPCs so that I could put them where I wanted in my guild hall or guild neighborhood. Just duplicate the super full vendors you placed around the small bank.
If you're going to add more TS vendors, instead of adding an entire area off of Sunrise Hills, why not just give us a set of tradeskill vendors that are placeable in the GH. Most of us are in guilds. Most guilds already have an area inside the GH for crafting. A set of Guild TS vendors would just simplify it, instead of making things more complicated.
My pie in the sky wish is that some amount of questing/faction/skills would replace vendored tradeskill components for known recipes in the combine container with the appropriate plat/gold/silver/copper cost. Perhaps in a couple tiers per tradeskill for apprentice/journeyman/master materials.
Not sure what the "POK changes" are that people refer to, as I was on a break for a while. The big change I DID notice was the new vendors near the small bank, one per tradeskill, who each carry almost everything needed for that tradeskill. And there is one of every type of TS container nearby. This is an awesome change So I assume the change everybody hates is a different change? One TS change I would LOVE to see (and alt-tabbing to EQTraders doesn't help here) is to put stationary TS containers on alt-F find. I've been in Thurg lately doing the first shawl on two alts, and can never remember where the loom/keg/etc are. It's quicker to port back to PoK and then return than to look for the containers I need, and that's just kinda sad. Tat
Not to be a Debbie Downer but I think PoK is about 90% right. If I was in charge I would set up a building appropriately identified for each TS along the outside wall there by the small bank. Then I would move all those fancy TS merchies (to include cultural guys) and the appropriate containers over there. I like the idea of the TS merchies in the guild halls, but I think it is another step in isolating an already isolated player base from each other.
Trade skills have gotten way too easy over the years. They need to make some changes in line with the original spirit of their difficulty. I think they should remove all the vendors from PoK and scatter them throughout the world.
No kidding! There is a vendor that sells it just inside bazaar though. But would be nice not to have to go to another zone just for that.
I did em that way too. Mino Hero Brews 9 bits pickup put down + combine then place in bags. Some hundreds of times plus vendoring & such. That things were worse in the past doesn't mean they shouldn't be even mo' better in the future.
No, they can't. Unless you consider 150-180 close to max. There's still a LOT of farming to do to max all skills. As far as the UI goes, I did all trade skills to ~200 (which was the max at the time) the old way, and I don't wish that on anyone. I was just plain stupid compared to what we have now. Tat PS - to be more specific, here's what you can do with vendor-sold mats: Baking - 191 Brewing - 248 Jewelry - 282 (Velium Ruby Veil) Fletching - 202 Pottery - 216 Tailoring - 76 (Picnic Basket). Seriously, everything with tailoring requires farming Smithing - 188 So the average is 200.4 (higher than I thought, but still quite a ways from 300). And the points don't get difficult until the 200s, and especially past 270.
