Patch 149 - Sept 24 2012: Shopkeeper accounting

Information on the latest Server Patches
Locked
User avatar
Treasureman
Posts: 219
Joined: Sat Jan 28, 2012 10:31 am
Location: Ocean Springs, MS

Re: Patch 149 - Sept 24 2012: Shopkeeper accounting

Post by Treasureman »

In the short amount of time I have had to test the current status of most npc's used on a daily basis, I feel that npc gold is cranked a little too far down. It's not just the scroll sellers that are impacted with the recent patch but rather most everyone on the shard. I tried to sell gems, scrolls, magic weapons, and magic armor and it was very difficult for me as just one person to liquidate a lucky level 3 message in a bottle. I would really hate to try to liquidate a level 5 tmap with the current npc status.
As far as increasing the amount of time for restocking which was changed to 60 minutes, I don't really see that as an issue as much as I do the gold. As far as I could remember in the t2a era of OSI, I had no problem what so ever on Baja dumping 20 mibs a day into vendors. Granted, I had to wait sometimes for gem npcs to restock gold being they were very widely used on Baja, but I still had very little issue being that npcs restocked with easily 50kg. I guess the point of my argument is that I feel that npc gold should at the very least be cranked up a bit. My experience the last day or two puts the restock range of about 3-4k per vendor that has not been visited by a buyer, which I feel is way too low. Just from experience a lot of new players get their start from level 1 tmapping or even mib's (it's what I did) and I feel that it is pretty obsolete at the moment. I am only one person, and there is much more at stake then just my happiness. I am more interested in the preservation of the shard and keeping new players coming, but I definitely think it should be tweaked a bit.

User avatar
TI_Smithy
Posts: 1150
Joined: Fri Jul 16, 2010 6:19 pm

Re: Patch 149 - Sept 24 2012: Shopkeeper accounting

Post by TI_Smithy »

Where is the supporting research located?

Hoots
UOSA Subscriber!
UOSA Subscriber!
Posts: 1170
Joined: Wed Oct 01, 2008 3:07 pm

Re: Patch 149 - Sept 24 2012: Shopkeeper accounting

Post by Hoots »

TI_Smithy wrote:Where is the supporting research located?
i'd be interested in seeing this too.

The more i think about it... The more i believe it was NPCs would stop buying items once they had too many of them.

FOr example. You sell your bowcraft'ed bows until the vendor didnt want anymore and then you could sell xbox or heavies.

I guess it is possible that a 2nd gold mechanic was also in place... but i dont think it was transparent or limiting if it was.

Unless this gold limit has been confirmed and then scaled down here... I cant imagine our shard with 500-1000 pop is eating up the same gold inventory that OSI had on their 5K+ characters shards???

User avatar
Xandorf
Posts: 187
Joined: Thu Jun 28, 2012 12:54 pm
Location: Lake Superior | Kentucky, USA

Re: Patch 149 - Sept 24 2012: Shopkeeper accounting

Post by Xandorf »

Something definitely isn't right. I never had this much trouble selling stuff on Lake Superior, and there was WAY more people selling stuff then on here.
Image
Swill Bag wrote:no pics, it didnt happen. i know how you roll you prolly cheated with dp vanq weapons
OZZY'S & Old Navy's PvP Supply Shop
Company of the Vigilant C^V

User avatar
RawToxic
UOSA Donor!!
UOSA Donor!!
Posts: 144
Joined: Sun Aug 17, 2008 9:45 pm
Location: Oklahoma

Re: Patch 149 - Sept 24 2012: Shopkeeper accounting

Post by RawToxic »

I rarely say anything in regards to patches, but please give this a gander...

I just have to say that this change from how it is described is actually era accurate. 1. Vendors were set to only buy a maximum amount of any one specific item during a specific inventory refresh phase (functionality we already had). 2. Vendors were setup so that upon spawn, they only had a limited amount of available gold for purchases.

This means that after boot vendors would spawn with a limited amount of gold and that inventory purse would fluctuate as items were bought and sold throughout the day. This purse was completely separate from the gold that spawns on the NPC person. If a vendors available inventory purse reached a certain minimum amount due to many items being sold to the vendor, it would be reset to the default spawn amount at the next inventory refresh (inventory respawn) this allowed the vendor to continue to make new purchases later in the day even if the vendor has not sold anything to increase the vendor purse.

I will also say that I really admire this shard's attention to the depth of detail when attempting to recreate how game mechanics actually functioned during the UO Era that we all came to love so much. Kudos to the staff for all of their efforts.

I've heard many valid concerns already about specific vendor mechanics for cartography, gem buyers, etc so I won't retouch on those. I'm sure those points have been heard.

However, I fear that making this change could end up becoming detrimental to the ongoing health of the shard player count. Any spot on ERA accurate shard already has issues retaining newly attracted players because the game is a whole lot harder to start and become established than it is on many other available free server choices. If a new player starts here and realizes that horses are practically worthless, gets pked and robbed a few times trying to walk around outside of guard protection, goes out and spends hours crafting trying to make starting money then walks around to one or more towns and can't find a vendor that will buy their wares, I guarantee they most likely will log out at that point and not return.

UOSA just does not have the type of vendor economy that would have been encountered on a live OSI server at that time. Also the type of players that frequent this shard are a little smarter at underlying game mechanics and because of that are more self sufficient than many UO players at that point in time. People just don't purchase many items from vendors like they used to. Free shards have changed the vendor mechanics due to these discrepancies but I admit that doing so allows for people to exploit these differences to give themselves an advantage in the game that someone would not have had at that time. Sorry, but it's true. Some change has to be made to make it feel more ERA accurate but what balance will work well here? I can't answer that question but I'm pretty sure that question was rolling around in Derrick's mind before implementing any changes.

Has anyone had a chance to do any testing from a new players perspective like a bowyer, carpenter or such to see if one logged in and started crafting if they would have any issues going around trying to sell their wares and get established on the server?

Gems actually used to be sort of hard to sell in large quantities because jeweler vendors did not really sell much. Back in the day, everyone would refresh their communication crystals first then sell any gems they had left over (if there were any). Now, communications crystals are barely even used due to enhancements in online communication and guild talk functions in game.

I would test it out but all of my characters slots are full now and I'm at the point that... I'm not deleting anybody. LOL

Would love to hear from a newly joined player about how this change is affecting their gaming experience. I know there's a rare chance of that happening though.
[$$$] Syndicate of Successful Salesmen

Seven Elements - GM Alchemist, Blacksmith, Carpenter, Mage, Musician, Tailor, Tinker
Fletch - GM Bowyer, Miner
Samuel Vane - GM Fisherman
Arsenic Annie - GM Poisoner
Grimm McCutty - PVP Hybrid

User avatar
Cindrew
Posts: 218
Joined: Thu Dec 04, 2008 3:05 pm

Re: Patch 149 - Sept 24 2012: Shopkeeper accounting

Post by Cindrew »

Treasureman wrote:In the short amount of time I have had to test the current status of most npc's used on a daily basis, I feel that npc gold is cranked a little too far down. It's not just the scroll sellers that are impacted with the recent patch but rather most everyone on the shard. I tried to sell gems, scrolls, magic weapons, and magic armor and it was very difficult for me as just one person to liquidate a lucky level 3 message in a bottle. I would really hate to try to liquidate a level 5 tmap with the current npc status.
As far as increasing the amount of time for restocking which was changed to 60 minutes, I don't really see that as an issue as much as I do the gold. As far as I could remember in the t2a era of OSI, I had no problem what so ever on Baja dumping 20 mibs a day into vendors. Granted, I had to wait sometimes for gem npcs to restock gold being they were very widely used on Baja, but I still had very little issue being that npcs restocked with easily 50kg. I guess the point of my argument is that I feel that npc gold should at the very least be cranked up a bit. My experience the last day or two puts the restock range of about 3-4k per vendor that has not been visited by a buyer, which I feel is way too low. Just from experience a lot of new players get their start from level 1 tmapping or even mib's (it's what I did) and I feel that it is pretty obsolete at the moment. I am only one person, and there is much more at stake then just my happiness. I am more interested in the preservation of the shard and keeping new players coming, but I definitely think it should be tweaked a bit.
Heres a thought; get out of town and go farm monsters. This isnt "Vendor Online"; do something that generates pvp or risk.
Cindrew of the Wolfpack (TW) - PVP Since 97'

User avatar
Xandorf
Posts: 187
Joined: Thu Jun 28, 2012 12:54 pm
Location: Lake Superior | Kentucky, USA

Re: Patch 149 - Sept 24 2012: Shopkeeper accounting

Post by Xandorf »

Cindrew wrote:Heres a thought; get out of town and go farm monsters. This isnt "Vendor Online"; do something that generates pvp or risk.
Well that sounds like a statement from someone who never played on osi. Some people don't like to kill monsters you ever think about that?

That's like telling a role-player that he can't say hail, ffs.

If I wanted to kill monsters I would go play wow....

I craft and I pvp, that's about it. Pvm on a t2a shard is like shooting fish in a barrel.

I can't wait till I get this rust shook off and get in the field. ^.^

Edit: You guys can also say goodbye to cheap stuff, because the prices of peoples goods are going to skyrocket due to the lost revenue stream.
Image
Swill Bag wrote:no pics, it didnt happen. i know how you roll you prolly cheated with dp vanq weapons
OZZY'S & Old Navy's PvP Supply Shop
Company of the Vigilant C^V

Rammar
UOSA Donor!!
UOSA Donor!!
Posts: 1513
Joined: Thu Jan 07, 2010 4:36 pm

Re: Patch 149 - Sept 24 2012: Shopkeeper accounting

Post by Rammar »

RawToxic wrote:Has anyone had a chance to do any testing from a new players perspective like a bowyer, carpenter or such to see if one logged in and started crafting if they would have any issues going around trying to sell their wares and get established on the server?
I had a bag of ~90-100 random non-magic leather items (20 or so max of any one type). Within an hour of server-up, it took 3 vendors, in 3 towns, to sell them all off for a grand total of ~4k. Also note that none of those vendors had any bought items already in their sell lists, so no one else had sold in the last hour.

As is, the only feasible way to unload items, be they magic, or crafted, seems to be if you sell them as you craft them, or immediately after a pvm run.

Ironically this least effects selling scrolls, since mages are one of the only vendors players actively buy from (thus increasing the purse). Coupled with the longer inventory respawns (meaning they'll be bought up more often), suggests they'll easily have enough gold once someone buys regs that cycle.

Elwood
Posts: 87
Joined: Wed Sep 19, 2012 11:01 am

Re: Patch 149 - Sept 24 2012: Shopkeeper accounting

Post by Elwood »

I started little over a week ago, I used bows to make a little start up money not much though. Not how I like to play. Anyways I was able to make
A couple k rather quickly. And was actually sort of disappointed how quickly I remember playing back then it being a struggle to get that much. So after the patch I logged on my bowyer just to see a few times. I was able to sell 15-20 bows until the vendor ran it of gold. And that's exactly how I remembered It to be. And was pleased with it.

Yes it makes things a bit harder to start up but gold is not supposed to be easily abstained from one vendor source. What I have done during my time so far is what I did back then to make money. Collect and harvest everything in sight. While working skills. I sheer every sheep and harvest every farm I come across I also pick up the junk dropped at banks and run around andsell to various vendors. Yes it's more work but it's not supposed to be easy. If the vendor is out of gold I decide if it's worth saving for later to sell or melt/cut it down into just a resource to use. I've made 40k already just from running around killing low weak monsters and scavanging. Selling to one vendor repeatedly shouldn't be a source of income.

Working fetching back then every use to just throw loads and loads of bows on ground while crafting because wasn't worth the effort of trying to sell to vendors. This did a few things. It helped feed the really
Young player by grabbing them up and selling a few for themselves and gave them weapons and things to actually use instead of struggling to trying and find a semi decent wep to use. Which makes it all a bit easier for new players in the end.

Guess what I am trying to say part of what made UO is you had to do a variety of things to make gold not farm one vendor.

I have rambled a bit here but I in closing as a new player starting up here
I am glad for this change. Now if there were just some more gold sinks
To pull the too much gold out of the economy would be even better

User avatar
Xandorf
Posts: 187
Joined: Thu Jun 28, 2012 12:54 pm
Location: Lake Superior | Kentucky, USA

Re: Patch 149 - Sept 24 2012: Shopkeeper accounting

Post by Xandorf »

Elwood wrote:I started little over a week ago, I used bows to make a little start up money not much though. Not how I like to play. Anyways I was able to make
A couple k rather quickly. And was actually sort of disappointed how quickly I remember playing back then it being a struggle to get that much. So after the patch I logged on my bowyer just to see a few times. I was able to sell 15-20 bows until the vendor ran it of gold. And that's exactly how I remembered It to be. And was pleased with it.

Yes it makes things a bit harder to start up but gold is not supposed to be easily abstained from one vendor source. What I have done during my time so far is what I did back then to make money. Collect and harvest everything in sight. While working skills. I sheer every sheep and harvest every farm I come across I also pick up the junk dropped at banks and run around andsell to various vendors. Yes it's more work but it's not supposed to be easy. If the vendor is out of gold I decide if it's worth saving for later to sell or melt/cut it down into just a resource to use. I've made 40k already just from running around killing low weak monsters and scavanging. Selling to one vendor repeatedly shouldn't be a source of income.

Working fetching back then every use to just throw loads and loads of bows on ground while crafting because wasn't worth the effort of trying to sell to vendors. This did a few things. It helped feed the really
Young player by grabbing them up and selling a few for themselves and gave them weapons and things to actually use instead of struggling to trying and find a semi decent wep to use. Which makes it all a bit easier for new players in the end.

Guess what I am trying to say part of what made UO is you had to do a variety of things to make gold not farm one vendor.

I have rambled a bit here but I in closing as a new player starting up here
I am glad for this change. Now if there were just some more gold sinks
To pull the too much gold out of the economy would be even better
We still had to go to more than one vendor before the patch. Why you guys are not getting is that some vendors now will buy NOTHING due to their purse already being bought out. An npc vendor in uo should not be running out of money that fast.

On osi this setup worked, but you also had thousands of people also buying stuff from the vendors, so the purse didn't run out as easy.

I myself am established, I personally don't care either way. But I am telling you that this is going to run a lot of new players off.

I have never in my history of playing UO had to go to 3-4 different vendors just to unload a bag of stuff. The population here is not enough to sustain this vendor system.
Image
Swill Bag wrote:no pics, it didnt happen. i know how you roll you prolly cheated with dp vanq weapons
OZZY'S & Old Navy's PvP Supply Shop
Company of the Vigilant C^V

Elwood
Posts: 87
Joined: Wed Sep 19, 2012 11:01 am

Re: Patch 149 - Sept 24 2012: Shopkeeper accounting

Post by Elwood »

Xandorf wrote:We still had to go to more than one vendor before the patch. Why you guys are not getting is that some vendors now will buy NOTHING due to their purse already being bought out. An npc vendor in uo should not be running out of money that fast.

On osi this setup worked, but you also had thousands of people also buying stuff from the vendors, so the purse didn't run out as easy.

I myself am established, I personally don't care either way. But I am telling you that this is going to run a lot of new players off.

I have never in my history of playing UO had to go to 3-4 different vendors just to unload a bag of stuff. The population here is not enough to sustain this vendor system.
I always remember vendors running out that's why I said you'd find bows on ground because vendor would stop buying anything and wasnt worth the effort to run around to multiples.

It's also why I said if the vendor wasn't buying I would always make the choice to save to try to sell for later or just smelt it down instead of trying to sell. I always remember traveling to less used towns to sell off stuff so I wouldn't have to mess as much with vendors running out of gold to buy.

Scribes use to have player vendors with every single type of scroll because it was too much work to try and sell off to npcs for gold, because they ran out due to other players. Plus have a player buy one spell at a time to fill their own book would net them more gold then selling a pre filled book.

Npc vendors should be for pocket change not a source of income

Hoots
UOSA Subscriber!
UOSA Subscriber!
Posts: 1170
Joined: Wed Oct 01, 2008 3:07 pm

Re: Patch 149 - Sept 24 2012: Shopkeeper accounting

Post by Hoots »

Elwood wrote:
Xandorf wrote:We still had to go to more than one vendor before the patch. Why you guys are not getting is that some vendors now will buy NOTHING due to their purse already being bought out. An npc vendor in uo should not be running out of money that fast.

On osi this setup worked, but you also had thousands of people also buying stuff from the vendors, so the purse didn't run out as easy.

I myself am established, I personally don't care either way. But I am telling you that this is going to run a lot of new players off.

I have never in my history of playing UO had to go to 3-4 different vendors just to unload a bag of stuff. The population here is not enough to sustain this vendor system.
I always remember vendors running out that's why I said you'd find bows on ground because vendor would stop buying anything and wasnt worth the effort to run around to multiples.

It's also why I said if the vendor wasn't buying I would always make the choice to save to try to sell for later or just smelt it down instead of trying to sell. I always remember traveling to less used towns to sell off stuff so I wouldn't have to mess as much with vendors running out of gold to buy.

Scribes use to have player vendors with every single type of scroll because it was too much work to try and sell off to npcs for gold, because they ran out due to other players. Plus have a player buy one spell at a time to fill their own book would net them more gold then selling a pre filled book.

Npc vendors should be for pocket change not a source of income
Just try to be clear on the difference of an NPC being out of gold vs an NPC having too much of one item.

I also remember not being able to sell bows, but the same vendor who wouldnt buy my bow would by xbows or heavy. The restrictions I remember where based on item count and not gold balance.

User avatar
Derrick
Posts: 9004
Joined: Thu Dec 13, 2007 7:49 pm
Location: Cove
Contact:

Re: Patch 149 - Sept 24 2012: Shopkeeper accounting

Post by Derrick »

Thanks for the feedback, we'll likely be making some adjustments to the restock rate.

As far as basis for this, we know that NPC vendors operated on a available gold account, and we have the code for gold going into that account, and out of that account. The information that's missing currently is the restock code, so we're going to do our best to approximate it on the basis of reasonableness, and on player feedback.

We know that the town economy (and world) on OSI was very complex and resource based; we don't currently have the level of complexity that OSI had. Everything was resource based, from vendor restocks to spawns. We'll get there.

Here's a great article on this for the curious: http://www.mine-control.com/zack/uoecon/uoecon.html
Image
"The text in this article or section may be incoherent or very hard to understand, and should be reworded if the intended meaning can be determined."

Groucho
Posts: 464
Joined: Sun Apr 03, 2011 7:48 pm

Re: Patch 149 - Sept 24 2012: Shopkeeper accounting

Post by Groucho »

Lockpicking just got significantly less profitable.
.... nice!!! that's really great as i only play a lockpicker! gems will be only for deco since now!! am i too good at picking? :D how bugging my gaming now!
Last edited by Groucho on Wed Sep 26, 2012 4:11 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Image

User avatar
Xandorf
Posts: 187
Joined: Thu Jun 28, 2012 12:54 pm
Location: Lake Superior | Kentucky, USA

Re: Patch 149 - Sept 24 2012: Shopkeeper accounting

Post by Xandorf »

Thanks Derrick, glad to hear you guys are working on it. Btw Still love the shard ^.^
Elwood wrote:Npc vendors should be for pocket change not a source of income
That is your opinion and your playstyle. Not everyone plays the game the same, or for the same reasons.

If my only option was to sit in dungeons for hours with a new character to make gold, getting pked over and over by the veteran players. I would quit, it would take a year to get truly established. (Unless you had no life.)
Image
Swill Bag wrote:no pics, it didnt happen. i know how you roll you prolly cheated with dp vanq weapons
OZZY'S & Old Navy's PvP Supply Shop
Company of the Vigilant C^V

Locked