NEWS [UO.Com] Ask & Answer No. 17

[MalagAste]

So October we get Age of Resellers and price hikes

Hehe, folk think Luna is bad now, just wait!

I hope they keep prices out of the search results, but I suspect this is the jackpot publish for resellers, otherwise certain posters will be here moaning they have to visit multiple shops to compare prices lol.

Fingers and toes crossed as I really don't want to be the resellers' dogsbody for daring to have fair prices. It takes much longer to craft items than it does to buy and resell, some merchants will just give up on restocking if there are no safeguards in place.

Wenchy

I'm thinking a way to "safeguard" against that would be to put in some sort of timer.

So say someone wants to buy you out of Recall Scrolls and mark them up 3 or 4x what you were selling them for. But with a timer in place of say..... one week.... it would fix that.

Who would want to buy you out of Recalls and then wait a week to put them on a vendor?

If they put a resale timer on so you can't resell an item from another vendor house (I say another vendor house so if you wanted to move items from one of your vendors to another you could as long as they are on the same house and have the same owner) for a full week. That might be a deterrent.

 

[Tanivar]

Some people would love to see this as a tool to crush the rich Luna people, the resellers and the power gamers but why would you even consider this when in all reality they are just players like you and I.

The motivation is to limit the ability of the Luna people to price gouge other players. While the goal of the Luna Players is to have more & more & more million gold checks stashed in every stray niche in their castles, the goal of the rest of us is to be able to buy what we need in game to play the game without spending ten of hours farming gold to be able to do it. Playng the game is a lot more fun when you can just go out and adventure where you want to without having to spend days hunting only the monsters with the most valuable loot to buy what you need that some gold loving soul has way overpriced.

Market value is what people are willing to pay for an item, not what the seller insists on charging. Of course if the seller has the market cornered on an item, he can tack on all the zeros to the price he wants. Doesn't mean it will sell though.

 

[GalenKnighthawke]

*sighs*

Why do people always say the vendor search is Luna vs the rest of the game? That is such a load of ****.

Will Luna lose a monopoly? Yes, but even then it's only among those who use the vendor searches that are out there now, which only do certain areas (mostly Luna but not exclusively Luna).

Will Luna survive as the commercial center? Yes because it's the shopping mall: Lots of shops all together. You aren't always going to know what you want. Sometimes you want to browse. Also Luna is convenient to get to.

Luna shop folks will be fine, just not as fine. Luna's monopoly on people who do know what they are looking for will end.

I like Luna. But the vendor search is good.

-Galen's player

 

[Tanivar]

Will Luna survive as the commercial center? Yes because it's the shopping mall: Lots of shops all together. You aren't always going to know what you want. Sometimes you want to browse. Also Luna is convenient to get to.

Luna will run into the same problem some RL brick & mortar stores have run into with people checking out products in their stores then ordering it cheaper online. People will browse Luna and run across something they want to buy, and then likely check the search system to see of there are any really lower prices for that item to be found elsewhere.

 

[Picus at the office]

The motivation is to limit the ability of the Luna people to price gouge other players. While the goal of the Luna Players is to have more & more & more million gold checks stashed in every stray niche in their castles, the goal of the rest of us is to be able to buy what we need in game to play the game without spending ten of hours farming gold to be able to do it. Playng the game is a lot more fun when you can just go out and adventure where you want to without having to spend days hunting only the monsters with the most valuable loot to buy what you need that some gold loving soul has way overpriced.

Market value is what people are willing to pay for an item, not what the seller insists on charging. Of course if the seller has the market cornered on an item, he can tack on all the zeros to the price he wants. Doesn't mean it will sell though.

This is insanity. If you can see such a item that commands such a market then, chances are, you could farm it and provide such a market. There are so few players around today that the bigger problem is that no one is selling anything that anyone wants or needs.

There is ONE shard which has a thriving Luna market and a slight handfull of others that have a limited Luna market while the rest have nothing. People play on the asian shards yet some of those places are empty and the same go for a fair amount of N.A./EU shards. Get real people, shard transfers and shields have allowed a great divide of in game wealth not some individual person attempting to corner markets.

The biggest joke is the idea that people want to spend tens of hours farming to get the gold to buy an item when they could just go get the item that they wanted in the first place. What item is it that you wish you could purchase for a cheaper price but these evil Luna gougers have screwed you over? Scrolls, do a spawn. A drop from a boss, do the boss. A shame item, do shame. The only items that a person could screw one over with are the "rare" item which you have to want before they have any real in game value otherwise they are just pixel crack.

I'm sorry but this stuff just smacks of "you arn't playing the game I want to so I'm taking my ball home". That is the talk of people who would rather blame others for thier own short comings.

 

[KLOMP]

I'm thinking a way to "safeguard" against that would be to put in some sort of timer.

What a terrible idea.

Who would want to buy you out of Recalls and then wait a week to put them on a vendor?

Anyone who plans on having a vendor for more than a week.

 

[MalagAste]

What a terrible idea.



Anyone who plans on having a vendor for more than a week.

A TIMER on RESELLING. Not on the initial Sale. I honestly don't think it's that bad of an idea. Would certainly deter people from buying to mark up the price on stuff and monopolize the sales of items.

 

[MalagAste]

This is insanity. If you can see such a item that commands such a market then, chances are, you could farm it and provide such a market. There are so few players around today that the bigger problem is that no one is selling anything that anyone wants or needs.

There is ONE shard which has a thriving Luna market and a slight handfull of others that have a limited Luna market while the rest have nothing. People play on the asian shards yet some of those places are empty and the same go for a fair amount of N.A./EU shards. Get real people, shard transfers and shields have allowed a great divide of in game wealth not some individual person attempting to corner markets.

The biggest joke is the idea that people want to spend tens of hours farming to get the gold to buy an item when they could just go get the item that they wanted in the first place. What item is it that you wish you could purchase for a cheaper price but these evil Luna gougers have screwed you over? Scrolls, do a spawn. A drop from a boss, do the boss. A shame item, do shame. The only items that a person could screw one over with are the "rare" item which you have to want before they have any real in game value otherwise they are just pixel crack.

I'm sorry but this stuff just smacks of "you arn't playing the game I want to so I'm taking my ball home". That is the talk of people who would rather blame others for thier own short comings.

Do a spawn! Ha! Ok I need a 120 scroll of Resisting Spells. You have any clue how long it would take me to get a 120 Resist scroll even if I "could" actually do a spawn to completion on my shard? Years.

You know how long it took me to get an Orny from Doom???? Well it's been taking me YEARS since I've never actually GOTTEN one... despite all the changes to Doom.... and despite the times I've gone there....

Slither.... Same..... still haven't gotten one.... Not for a lack of trying...

I'm glad the game seems so simple to you and obviously the RNG smiles upon you because it takes a dump on me...

 

[KLOMP]

A TIMER on RESELLING. Not on the initial Sale. I honestly don't think it's that bad of an idea. Would certainly deter people from buying to mark up the price on stuff and monopolize the sales of items.

I understood you the first time and it wouldn't deter crap. Oh no so they have to wait a week? Who cares? They'll wait the week. They'll have a chest in their house full of stuff they bought cheap, and throw items up on vendors as the timers wear off.

 

[KLOMP]

Honestly, you people getting off to the fantasy of someone running through the woods for an hour, fighting the occasional troll or harpy along the way, only to find your isolated little shop, buy a table for 100gp, and then proudly take it home while thinking about the splendid adventure they had?

You need to sit down and get out of the way of the real economy. Some of us are tired of it being completely owned and run by search sites belonging to random-ass dupers and hackers, and we are not prepared to leave it in their hands forever just because the thought of players being able to teleport to vendor houses makes you sad in a pathetic busybody "I'm deeply affected by things I never see, done by total strangers" sort of way.

 

[Gheed]

I don't think there is going to be anything revolutionary about an in game item search engine. The same folks who make money from vendors before will be the same folks who make money after.

As far as suggestions go, I hope the search engine allows use to flip to other shards and see what those items sell for. I play on Catskills mainly. It is a smaller shard. When I use 3rd party search engines, I usually just want to see what the price range is on an item that I may not typically sell. Many times that item isn't available on cats. So (ignoring Atlantic when I can), I'll compare prices across other shards and price in that range. I also keep a price guide fo typical items in my stock reserve and peridically reference that across other shards to make sure I'm in the same price range. I do this because item values are so wonky in this game. Cross referencing other shard's values seems to keep things a bit more stable.

 

[Picus of Napa]

Do a spawn! Ha! Ok I need a 120 scroll of Resisting Spells. You have any clue how long it would take me to get a 120 Resist scroll even if I "could" actually do a spawn to completion on my shard? Years.

You know how long it took me to get an Orny from Doom???? Well it's been taking me YEARS since I've never actually GOTTEN one... despite all the changes to Doom.... and despite the times I've gone there....

Slither.... Same..... still haven't gotten one.... Not for a lack of trying...

I'm glad the game seems so simple to you and obviously the RNG smiles upon you because it takes a dump on me...

I've been doing them for years, I'm sorry that which ever group it was that you decided to join can't defend or take a spawn I guess it was a poor choice you made because I've never had that problem since day one.

Orni, bah who doesn't have one or five of those sitting collecting dust. Slither is hard to get and can be used but it's not hard to make the gold to get one just do a spawn or five.

The game doesn't take a dump on you or me but I'm not sitting around hoping that everyone gives me stuff for free.

 

[Picus of Napa]

A TIMER on RESELLING. Not on the initial Sale. I honestly don't think it's that bad of an idea. Would certainly deter people from buying to mark up the price on stuff and monopolize the sales of items.

Get more items and sell them for a higher price. This idea that people are making your life hard when they buy your crap tables is a joke.

 

[Vyric]

Gee, if only they had another MMO the Devs could look at that has an ingame vendor search engine very similar to what they'd need here. One that contained ROG items as well as static items like artifacts as well as thousands of craftables. Perhaps one that was able to search all 10 instances of the housing areas where the vendors are and even tell you which instance it's on. One that is currently able to query all 10 instances containing more items than any UO server including Atlantic. One that will charge the buyer a percentage of the item price if they choose not to hop on a pony and ride to the vendors house and have it appear in their pack instead, kinda like a gold sink. OH WAIT!!! they do, it's called DAoC. Do any of you seriously think they haven't been studying how that games vendor search system works and how to adapt it to UO. It's the perfect solution for them and they already own it. It's gonna take time to adapt it to fit their needs, till Oct apparently, but mark my words, do not be surprised if UO's vendor search ends up strikingly similar to what you see in DAoC.

 

[Spiritless]

I imagine this would tick off the Luna vendors and others with vendors at quick to get to vendor locations. If no one has to spend a fair bit of time and effort to locate the out in the wilds vendor, the Luna vendors & the quick to get to vendors would lose their advantage of quick to get to locations and not still get most of the sales.

I think that's the point, tbh.

 

[Tina Small]

Gee, if only they had another MMO the Devs could look at that has an ingame vendor search engine very similar to what they'd need here. One that contained ROG items as well as static items like artifacts as well as thousands of craftables. Perhaps one that was able to search all 10 instances of the housing areas where the vendors are and even tell you which instance it's on. One that is currently able to query all 10 instances containing more items than any UO server including Atlantic. One that will charge the buyer a percentage of the item price if they choose not to hop on a pony and ride to the vendors house and have it appear in their pack instead, kinda like a gold sink. OH WAIT!!! they do, it's called DAoC. Do any of you seriously think they haven't been studying how that games vendor search system works and how to adapt it to UO. It's the perfect solution for them and they already own it. It's gonna take time to adapt it to fit their needs, till Oct apparently, but mark my words, do not be surprised if UO's vendor search ends up strikingly similar to what you see in DAoC.

That's pretty interesting, Vyric. Any chance you could post a few screen shots to show what it looks like? Do you know if the prices in that system are set by the players, or are they priced automatically when a player puts them up for sale? If you opt to pay to have the item show up in your pack instead of going to get it, can you buy the item from an instance other than the one you're currently in?

 

[Warpig Inc]

Copy of the house sign with the vendor list. Copy sign has a decay timer. Player can hang the copy house sign on the inner walls circleing Luna bank. A Player looks over hanging signs for the vendor shop list. Finds what they are looking for at a glance of a list as long as no cute shop lables. Pick vendor and poof they are standing in front of you. Vendor returns to house like the when an owner pulls a vendor from a house to the yard. A full out vendor castle on Dagger Isle Fel would be in walking distance from the Luna Moongate just like any other vendor shop in Luna.

Purple Bunny invasion. Flying bunnys with a chance at the glass sword hit. Bring on the holy hand grenade! Has an area damage Bunny Slayer. Any non bunny creature damaged by the grenade, that thrower also take the same damage total done by a grenade. Tossing one a large spawn count area like at a champ would be a bad ideal.

 

[DerekL]

Easter is coming. So...

1. Would you consider adding Vorpal Bunnies to the loot system that powers Shame/Covetous/Wrong? Perhaps equivalent to a mid-level monster to recognize how agonizingly slow it is to grow green thorns?
2. Would you consider adding a (very) rare Vorpal Bunny statue drop?
3. Would you consider adding Vorpal Bunnies to the list of sources for the upcoming release of armor system-related ingredients?
4. Would you consider adding various imbuing ingredients to the list of Bunny loot items? (Magister_Returns)

Mesanna: I get the idea you really like Vorpal bunnies. You have to understand Vorpal bunnies are easy to farm in closed in areas so we have to be careful how much we put on them. And with everything for gardening we have put in the game you can produce approx 73 thorns in 2 weeks. As far as the statue, I don’t have an issue with putting in a Vorpal Bunny Statue or maybe a way to catch them during one easter and taming them, who knows =)

73 thorns in two weeks *sounds* impressive, sure. But in the same two weeks I can farm potentially thousands of Earth ellies (or any other mid level critter in multiple locations across the lands) - which don't have a three minute timer on them... so that doesn't sound like much of an argument against revamping bunny loot.

 

[Theo_GL]

A TIMER on RESELLING. Not on the initial Sale. I honestly don't think it's that bad of an idea. Would certainly deter people from buying to mark up the price on stuff and monopolize the sales of items.

This takes the cake for the WORST idea of the month easily, likely the year and top 10 all time.

No one likes timers. Why is reslling bad? Whether the person you buy an item from uses it, resells it or throws it in the trash - what difference is it to you??? You got your gold.
You don't like that someone resold it - raise your price!

I go around on vendors all the time and buy random cheap crap and throw it in the trash assuming the person selling that peiece of junk shield needs the gold. How are you going to stop me from that? A timer on throwing it in the trash? A timer on smelting it? Forcing me to wear it? I mean seriously.

Why in the world is reselling bad? If you have underpriced an item drastically and I can get more for it somewhere else - what do you care if I buy and resell?
The vendor search system would give players the information to PRICE APPROPRIATELY to maximize the value of their sales as well as providing lowest price available to players to buy things and cheaply as possible and NOT get ripped off by Luna vendors. It allows sellers to get the market price for their goods without accidentally giving them away and allows players to PAY THE LEAST for their items by finding the lowest price.

My goodness man...have you gone mad?
The inhabitants of UO need a basic Economics class it seems based on this thread. As a side note, I did major in Finance and took my share of economics classes. However, most of this discussed here is simply common sense....or so I thought.

 

[Theo_GL]

Do a spawn! Ha! Ok I need a 120 scroll of Resisting Spells. You have any clue how long it would take me to get a 120 Resist scroll even if I "could" actually do a spawn to completion on my shard? Years.

So i play GL, I run spawns solo and I got a 120 Resist Spell last week. It takes about 30-45 min tops to solo a rikki or less for a coon on Great Lakes. Maybe its tougher on a few shards, but not impossible. No one watches spawns 24x7. For awhile there I was doing 1-2 spawns a day solo - until I got bored and moved on to other stuff. And no I don't belong to any PVP guild or have anyone watching over me. I'm a guild of 1.

Besides - you don't even need to get a 120 resist scroll - just finish enough spawns to sell your scrolls to buy the 120 scroll. AND you will get the best price by checking a shardwide vendor search engine intead of paying some luna dude 12m for it thus making your work easier.

Edit : And just to prove my point I just solo'd Rikki on GL with no issues, best was 115 tactics but still....

 

[Zosimus]

I love all the speculation on how the vendor search will be and should be. Like reading a mystery novel but its all speculation until the final page.

Vendor search engine should do this. No. It should do that. No. Both are wrong and it should do something else. No. All three are wrong and maybe we should just wait for the devs to say what they are adding. No, it has to do this or it is going to suck.

Can't win and if and when it is put in place, the devs better hope it's a holiday weekend when they have time off for the volcano overflow to settle down.


Not sure how many have actually played other MMO's that do have true auction houses. Only one flaw I have ever seen. One person may sell an item at 100 gold. Other seller sells it at 99 gold to sell their first. Wow you save one gold. UO gold is easier to make since its the only currency in the game besides faction silver. So the systemwill always have one gold difference. Artie for sale and process will be 14,000,000 then the same item from another 13,999,999, and again by another 13,999,998. I so bloody hate that stuff but it does work.



Bazinga!

 

[KLOMP]

So i play GL, I run spawns solo and I got a 120 Resist Spell last week.

Yeah, when someone complains how they can't do champs because evil PKs will get them, it just tells me they haven't done champs in a few years.

I mean, maybe there needs to be a news broadcast: PVP is dead. I know the five people screaming at each other in General Chat all day make it seem otherwise, but really, it's dead. It's nothing like it was even a couple of years ago. I don't know if it was our amazing dev team's attempt to "fix" Factions or what, but Trammies do champs at all hours even on Atlantic these days.

 

[Theo_GL]

I love all the speculation on how the vendor search will be and should be. Like reading a mystery novel but its all speculation until the final page.

Vendor search engine should do this. No. It should do that. No. Both are wrong and it should do something else. No. All three are wrong and maybe we should just wait for the devs to say what they are adding. No, it has to do this or it is going to suck.

Can't win and if and when it is put in place, the devs better hope it's a holiday weekend when they have time off for the volcano overflow to settle down.


Not sure how many have actually played other MMO's that do have true auction houses. Only one flaw I have ever seen. One person may sell an item at 100 gold. Other seller sells it at 99 gold to sell their first. Wow you save one gold. UO gold is easier to make since its the only currency in the game besides faction silver. So the systemwill always have one gold difference. Artie for sale and process will be 14,000,000 then the same item from another 13,999,999, and again by another 13,999,998. I so bloody hate that stuff but it does work.



Bazinga!

Ha ha - look at the guy here who is describing a perfect market with price equalibrium. All things being equal, the prices of exact same objects should all sell within a small range as the actual 'value' of the item. In an non-perfect market prices fluctuate wildly because there isn't perfect information a la current UO. Vendor search allows price transparency so you don't have a range of 100k to 5m gp. The 5m will never sell and the 100k will always sell first. When it settles in at 1m, the true value of an item, there will be very little difference from top to bottom cost of the item and in a perfect market - it would all be priced at 1m. So yes, actually it DOES work. That is the point.

 

[Cetric]

It is funny how much people hate resellers.


Do you also riot against pawn shops and American Pickers?

Grocery stores are resellers basically... i mean, wth.. lol

 

[Petra Fyde]

It is funny how much people hate resellers.


Do you also riot against pawn shops and American Pickers?

Grocery stores are resellers basically... i mean, wth.. lol

Have you ever spent 3 hours marking runebooks and have someone icq you 10 minutes after you stock the vendor with them to ask 'do you have any town books? Your vendor's out.'?
They make crafters feel like slave labour. Additionally, they prevent them providing the service they expect to, and where the crafter has built a reputation for reliability through keeping their vendor diligently stocked, the resellers destroy that reputation.
However, it's not yet proven that this vendor search will be detrimental, so we'll wait and see.

 

[Picus at the office]

Petra you want to offer a service that no one else wants to offer and this is why you sell out to the resellers. When I have started new shards and see rune books for 10K I think wow here is someone who is really undercutting themselves as I would pay 100K or more. If you want to sell these items under the guise of being altuistic then fine do so but don't complain when people take advantage of you, it happens and it's going to happen again.

I'm glad that there are people like yourself who are willing to be so selfless, you are better than I.

 

[Cetric]

Have you ever spent 3 hours marking runebooks and have someone icq you 10 minutes after you stock the vendor with them to ask 'do you have any town books? Your vendor's out.'?
They make crafters feel like slave labour. Additionally, they prevent them providing the service they expect to, and where the crafter has built a reputation for reliability through keeping their vendor diligently stocked, the resellers destroy that reputation.
However, it's not yet proven that this vendor search will be detrimental, so we'll wait and see.

In this example, the crafter puts themselves in the position to be taken advantage of.

Compare this to real economy. Say you were.. i don't know, a picture frame maker. You could never keep them in stock because walmart comes along and buys all of your high quality picture frames, ebcause you sell them at a low price. Now you have to find a way to pump out more picture frames.

You could sell those picture frames at the retail cost, out of your own high quality picture frame retailer shop, where you have a nice consumer base. Or you could sell in bulk to the major retailer, who sells your high quality picture frames for a profit, for more than you sold it to them for.

Could you sell your runebooks for 100k a piece in your little shop, with your loyal customer base? Probably, but you may not sell as many as quickly. But because you put them at a fair price, walmart (the reseller) is buying out all of your stock to make a profit.

What you explain, is the problem every small busines sowner faces every day, just in a virtual economy. Every economy needs those people unfortunately. If you have a massive demand, and your vendor is always empty raise the price. That is how it works in the real world. It raises the price for your loyal customers as well, but you may keep a few more in stock more often, and sicne the reseller would have tor aise his price to keep the profit margin, then you would still sell.




Heck flip it around, if the prices got high enough, the demand would die because people would go around marking their own books instead o buying them (making their own picture frames, so to speak).

 

[Padre Dante]

I don't think re-selling would be as big of an issue with an in-game vendor search. Right now, re-selling is bad, because someone out wandering (for IDOCs, Honesty items, etc. etc.) may come across your little "in the woods" vendor, and realize it is empty. Maybe they never come back, thinking it's an old vendor house. In the future, though, your crafter vendors can get more traffic, and you don't need to worry [as much] about if it has been depleted by re-sellers. Once you re-stock, the in-game search notices, and lists your vendor in a results page for all to see.

I fully respect your mom-and-pop approach to crafter vendoring. Love it. I would have a crafter vendor of my own, if my house wasn't PAST the in-the-woods area. I, for one, am a vendorless player whom would greatly enjoy an in-game vendor search system. I hate using the search sites, but it becomes a necessity when you only have a couple hours, at most, each week to play the game. I like skill gaining more than window shopping. Just my preference.

The only people I can see that would have a huge issue with this system are Luna vendor owners, out-of-game search site owners (this might be one and the same!), and then some who may have RP arguments against specifics of how the search functions, is presented, and does or does not teleport the player automatically (I say co-ordinates and facet are enough). Mom and pop vendor owners should love this proposed system, not be fearful of re-sellers. It actually makes re-selling less effective!

 

[Zosimus]

Ha ha - look at the guy here who is describing a perfect market with price equalibrium. All things being equal, the prices of exact same objects should all sell within a small range as the actual 'value' of the item. In an non-perfect market prices fluctuate wildly because there isn't perfect information a la current UO. Vendor search allows price transparency so you don't have a range of 100k to 5m gp. The 5m will never sell and the 100k will always sell first. When it settles in at 1m, the true value of an item, there will be very little difference from top to bottom cost of the item and in a perfect market - it would all be priced at 1m. So yes, actually it DOES work. That is the point.

I said only flaw. Never said it didnt work. You will always have sellers that sell them lower than the top price even when prices settle down. Some like to make the quick gold while the resllers will buy them up at cheap prices to gain control of the market and sell them higher. Prices will settle down after a while but this will be an interesting b****fest topic to read when it is put in the game. If you all think UO economy is whack now, wait till later lol

The people with the most gold will control the market in the end. I should know. I have done it in other games with auction houses where you buy cheap and resell high. Tis a gamble sometimes but if you buy the right items it's always a win win for the reseller.

 

[hen]

Have you ever spent 3 hours marking runebooks and have someone icq you 10 minutes after you stock the vendor with them to ask 'do you have any town books? Your vendor's out.'?
They make crafters feel like slave labour. Additionally, they prevent them providing the service they expect to, and where the crafter has built a reputation for reliability through keeping their vendor diligently stocked, the resellers destroy that reputation.
However, it's not yet proven that this vendor search will be detrimental, so we'll wait and see.

I really tormented myself liking this as you are such an apologist for poor dev performance. But here you are 100% right. There are many of us across shards that have vendors to serve our shard as a primary goal.

 

[MalagAste]

So i play GL, I run spawns solo and I got a 120 Resist Spell last week. It takes about 30-45 min tops to solo a rikki or less for a coon on Great Lakes. Maybe its tougher on a few shards, but not impossible. No one watches spawns 24x7. For awhile there I was doing 1-2 spawns a day solo - until I got bored and moved on to other stuff. And no I don't belong to any PVP guild or have anyone watching over me. I'm a guild of 1.

Besides - you don't even need to get a 120 resist scroll - just finish enough spawns to sell your scrolls to buy the 120 scroll. AND you will get the best price by checking a shardwide vendor search engine intead of paying some luna dude 12m for it thus making your work easier.

Edit : And just to prove my point I just solo'd Rikki on GL with no issues, best was 115 tactics but still....

Here got you a little something for your backside:

 

[Viper09]

I understand why people hate resellers, but the "sky-is-falling" reaction about how a vendor search will suddenly make all the Luna sellers start buying out all the cheap player-vendors and doom all the smaller businesses is a bit ridiculous. Yeah there will be some reselling, probably just as much as is going on now. But my response to this speculation is that I speculate that it wont be as bad as all the nay-sayers are imagining.

I look forward to a vendor search, mostly so I can find vendors that are in the middle of nowhere and not have to spend hours wandering around or having to pay such a ridiculous price in Luna.

 

[MalagAste]

What folk are concerned about is NOT in the actual "reselling" of goods ..... it is someone who thru such unscrupulous means makes himself the ONLY source of items and creates a monopoly of seriously overpriced items.

Look at it like this... small time person on shard doesn't play often but does do a large number of bods whenever they are on.... but they sell their PoF for only 90k each.....

Meanwhile big time Luna Vendor has been getting rich selling his PoF for 180k a bottle because everyone knows where he is and he has a good stock... no one hardly knows about the other vendor because he's not on the 3rd party search maps.

Search comes out and Big Time Luna Vendor sees the opportunity and begins to buy out everyone else... Now he has ALL the PoF on shard and begins pricing them at 250k a bottle... Why? Because he can....

Now this probably doesn't matter to you but when one person controls the spice.... well you know how that goes...

Next time you want to build a suit and have to buy Big Times over priced PoF you'll know why people HATE resellers.

Now someone else could come along and conceivably go to another shard via their stash of shard transfer shields and bring back cheap PoF but that's not a luxury afforded to everyone... so the majority of the shard either has to get their own PoF from doing bods or they have to pay Big Time's price for it.

 

[Picus of Napa]

The situation described above can be summed up with "big time Luna Vendor has been getting rich selling his PoF for 180k a bottle because everyone knows where he is and he has a good stock".

If you really had such a beef with these people you can:

Do the same and compete.
Do your own bods and not worry.
Buy a supply because gold is easy to get if you kill some stuff.
Trade for other items.
Complain that people are reselling.

At the worst situation you will be out of pocket 2.7 mil gold per suit if you used 15 bottles which you wouldn't. I haven't sold anything on my vendors in 2 years yet I've managed to send people off shard and suit them up all while still having 500 mil on my vendors, I fail to see why you can't do the same(this done on Napa where weeds tumble by).

 

[KLOMP]

What folk are concerned about is NOT in the actual "reselling" of goods ..... it is someone who thru such unscrupulous means makes himself the ONLY source of items and creates a monopoly of seriously overpriced items.

What exactly do you think is stopping this from happening right now? What exactly do you think is stopping someone from hopping on a search site and buying all the PoF in UO or whatever? The fear that the masses will all start wandering the woods at random to buy PoF from tiny unknown vendors in the wilderness? What a joke.

 

[Gheed]

What folk are concerned about is NOT in the actual "reselling" of goods ..... it is someone who thru such unscrupulous means makes himself the ONLY source of items and creates a monopoly of seriously overpriced items.

Look at it like this... small time person on shard doesn't play often but does do a large number of bods whenever they are on.... but they sell their PoF for only 90k each.....

Meanwhile big time Luna Vendor has been getting rich selling his PoF for 180k a bottle because everyone knows where he is and he has a good stock... no one hardly knows about the other vendor because he's not on the 3rd party search maps.

Search comes out and Big Time Luna Vendor sees the opportunity and begins to buy out everyone else... Now he has ALL the PoF on shard and begins pricing them at 250k a bottle... Why? Because he can....

Now this probably doesn't matter to you but when one person controls the spice.... well you know how that goes...

Next time you want to build a suit and have to buy Big Times over priced PoF you'll know why people HATE resellers.

Now someone else could come along and conceivably go to another shard via their stash of shard transfer shields and bring back cheap PoF but that's not a luxury afforded to everyone... so the majority of the shard either has to get their own PoF from doing bods or they have to pay Big Time's price for it.

"Big Time" is an expert vendor. The 90k PoF guy is a novice vendor. If small time knows his PoF's are worth 90k, then he knows they are worth 180k and he was undercutting to sell fast... which he did because big time is the only fella that went through the trouble of finding his vendor shop outside of the popular search engines, and on a particular random day that small time decided to log in and complete PoF BoDs. This is even a contradiction of logic because big time knows that his time is better spent doing his own PoF BoDs rather than wondering the countryside looking for rare secret deals that pop up in shops off the grid (search sites).

Big time also knows a thing or two about vendoring. Big time knows that many folks will pay higher prices to know they can ALWAYS come to his vendor and see it stocked. Because they would rather do that then sift through empty vendors or cross their fingers that small time had the itch to do BoDs that day (and they know where his shop is). Big time knows that PoFs are somewhat easy to come by these days. But folks still dont want to mess with it because they are spending a few million to make several more millions getting scrolls, farming their own goodies for a profit or even billions doing events. Even the smart pure PvP folks who dont want to mess with buying or farming mats, hook up with guilds who's members are more than happy to help supply resources. Also big time knows he cant price too high or other folks will start selling to undercut while still making alot of gold. Finally, if resell timers were in place then big time knows that taking small time's PoFs out of circulation still only leaves big time's PoFs available. All big time has to do is stash the timered PoFs untill the timer expires. Big time knows how to game the system.

Small time also either doesn't know or doesn't care that he can request his shop be added to most 3rd party search sites. Which is one of the many reasons why small time is small time.

I do understand your feelings. I have spent too much time in the past mining stone, crafting stone furniture, carefully organizing on a vendor and pricing it at what (I thought) was fair. Only to see my entire stock pop up on someone else's vendor at 10x my price. I was very annoyed. Lesson learned. I could either continue on at my price list and sell out fast to a reseller, raise my prices or stop selling. Thankfully RNG mining forced me to stop selling. Because I learned that there are much faster ways to make gold.

In fact I sometimes purposely undercut because I know a reseller is going to buy me out. Works for me. I get the white meat and lose very little in fees.

 

[Tjalle]

Have you ever spent 3 hours marking runebooks and have someone icq you 10 minutes after you stock the vendor with them to ask 'do you have any town books? Your vendor's out.'?
They make crafters feel like slave labour. Additionally, they prevent them providing the service they expect to, and where the crafter has built a reputation for reliability through keeping their vendor diligently stocked, the resellers destroy that reputation.

Well, I guess people like you and me just "don´t get it".

It´s all about maximizing the profit these days. Screw offering a service... *sighs*

 

[KLOMP]

Well, I guess people like you and me just "don´t get it".

It´s all about maximizing the profit these days. Screw offering a service... *sighs*

No, you're just the people who refuse to live in reality.

No one can control what people do with your products after they buy them. People might use them, sell them again, or throw them away, and no one can do anything about it. Not you, and not the developers. Quit pretending that asking them to is a sane request.

If you care about who buys your product, then you need to sell it face-to-face. Period.

 

[Cetric]

Blown so far out of proportion....

People could buy up everything of an item now, but it doesn't happen that often...

 

[cdavbar]

Now someone else could come along and conceivably go to another shard via their stash of shard transfer shields and bring back cheap PoF but that's not a luxury afforded to everyone... so the majority of the shard either has to get their own PoF from doing bods or they have to pay Big Time's price for it.

Convenience isn't cheap. If you don't want to pay "re-seller" prices, no one is stopping you or preventing you from getting the item(s) yourself. Re-Selling has become as much as a profession as Tamer's, Sampires, Bard's etc. etc. etc. I for one will never pay "re-seller" prices. If there's something I need for a suit I make it or farm it myself.

 

[Lord Frodo]

What folk are concerned about is NOT in the actual "reselling" of goods ..... it is someone who thru such unscrupulous means makes himself the ONLY source of items and creates a monopoly of seriously overpriced items.

Look at it like this... small time person on shard doesn't play often but does do a large number of bods whenever they are on.... but they sell their PoF for only 90k each.....

Meanwhile big time Luna Vendor has been getting rich selling his PoF for 180k a bottle because everyone knows where he is and he has a good stock... no one hardly knows about the other vendor because he's not on the 3rd party search maps.

Search comes out and Big Time Luna Vendor sees the opportunity and begins to buy out everyone else... Now he has ALL the PoF on shard and begins pricing them at 250k a bottle... Why? Because he can....

Now this probably doesn't matter to you but when one person controls the spice.... well you know how that goes...

Next time you want to build a suit and have to buy Big Times over priced PoF you'll know why people HATE resellers.

Now someone else could come along and conceivably go to another shard via their stash of shard transfer shields and bring back cheap PoF but that's not a luxury afforded to everyone... so the majority of the shard either has to get their own PoF from doing bods or they have to pay Big Time's price for it.

This is really funny to read because I am one of those Luna Vendors that love "Resellers" buying all my PoF to try and corner the market on PoF. I sell the cheapest PoF in Luna and while I am playing I listen to "Chat" and if my vendor is out and people need PoF at a reasonable price I will sell it to them. I easly do 2-3M a day on PoF and resellers stock just sits there collecting Vendor Fees, LOL.

Bring on this search engine, buy all my stock and try to resell it at a profit, I will undercut you till your stock is worthless. You can NEVER corner a market on something that is easly obtained or made.

Mark your items so everyone knows who you are and listen in "Gen Chat" and people will shout out for you. Stop stocking your vendors at the same time everyday, nobody sits there 24/7 watching your vendor just to buy you out to resell and make an extra 100k.

 

[Picus at the office]

This article http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2013/04/why-the-rich-dont-give/309254/ gives a nifty read into some of the ways the have's and have not's think. While certainly not 100% directed towards the conversation here I think that some insight can be drawn.

 

[Aurelius]

People might use them, sell them again, or throw them away, and no one can do anything about it. Not you, and not the developers.

Whilst it's hardly likely to be easy, and I doubt worth doing, it's wrong to say nothing can be done... Would not be impossible to give the vendor owner an option when they put stuff on their vendor, it could be a normal sale item, or it could become 'blessed' on sale so it can't be removed from the buyer's backpack, or attach a tag so it can't be replaced on another vendor for a given number of hours, or even indefinately.

Sure, some potential for grief and confusion in those - but it could be done...

 

[Lord Frodo]

Whilst it's hardly likely to be easy, and I doubt worth doing, it's wrong to say nothing can be done... Would not be impossible to give the vendor owner an option when they put stuff on their vendor, it could be a normal sale item, or it could become 'blessed' on sale so it can't be removed from the buyer's backpack, or attach a tag so it can't be replaced on another vendor for a given number of hours, or even indefinately.

Sure, some potential for grief and confusion in those - but it could be done...

I hope this is ment as a joke. Not being able to resell items is the, IMHO, the stupidest thing I have ever heard.

 

[Lord Frodo]

Have you ever spent 3 hours marking runebooks and have someone icq you 10 minutes after you stock the vendor with them to ask 'do you have any town books? Your vendor's out.'?
They make crafters feel like slave labour. Additionally, they prevent them providing the service they expect to, and where the crafter has built a reputation for reliability through keeping their vendor diligently stocked, the resellers destroy that reputation.
However, it's not yet proven that this vendor search will be detrimental, so we'll wait and see.

How many of these are you stocking? I would need 7 of these per account if I were srtarting on your shard with new players. How much are you selling them for? Do your rune books have your name on them so you can check which Luna Vendor is buying you out? Hide in your house and BAN the reseller so he can't buy from your vendor. I never feal like a "slave labour" because I enjoy what I am doing or I wouldn't do it.

 

[DerekL]

Bring on this search engine, buy all my stock and try to resell it at a profit, I will undercut you till your stock is worthless. You can NEVER corner a market on something that is easly obtained or made.

This, precisely.

 

[MalagAste]

This is really funny to read because I am one of those Luna Vendors that love "Resellers" buying all my PoF to try and corner the market on PoF. I sell the cheapest PoF in Luna and while I am playing I listen to "Chat" and if my vendor is out and people need PoF at a reasonable price I will sell it to them. I easly do 2-3M a day on PoF and resellers stock just sits there collecting Vendor Fees, LOL.

Bring on this search engine, buy all my stock and try to resell it at a profit, I will undercut you till your stock is worthless. You can NEVER corner a market on something that is easly obtained or made.

Mark your items so everyone knows who you are and listen in "Gen Chat" and people will shout out for you. Stop stocking your vendors at the same time everyday, nobody sits there 24/7 watching your vendor just to buy you out to resell and make an extra 100k.

Honestly that's what folk are complaining about and concerned about. I PERSONALLY am not because I do NOT do vendors. I also don't do BoD's. Haven't for years. Why would i the RNG hates me passionately....

And I buy from friends so it doesn't effect me at all ........ I was stating the facts about what others were trying to convey was their problem with the whole Idea..... I don't care if it makes you laugh or you think it's funny since it's NOT my concern... it's theirs and everyone seemed to be so busy with all the banter about everything to really understand what people were complaining about so I made the point more understandable..... Now I'm glad there are all you who think that getting whatever you want is so easy.... but you must have all the time in the world to devote to UO where most folk who by the way never EVER come to Stratics let alone post here don't.... They play when they can which isn't often and more often than not on connections that certainly DO NOT allow them to solo champ spawns or or big bosses like Medusa or Dreadhorn.... they play to relax and have fun... with friends.

They don't play for profit.

And you know one thing I'm getting absolutely fed up with the game catering to those that DO play for Profit. Tired of them putting things in for the rares sellers... At this point I'm so sick of it it's turned me to disliking most everything in game.

So to sum up I'm all for an in-game search that will help me find what I need when I need it..... and I'm sick of hearing about how easy it is for everyone to go out and get whatever because quite frankly unless you have hours on end to spend at it then it is NOT just that easy..... and hooty for you and pin a rose if you can but the rest of us who don't power game Do NOT have those chances. We don't have the 900million dollar suit to do it in either.... and not going to have it. Don't have time to spend all day farming gold and everything to buy the 900million dollar suit and I'm not going to waste all my gametime doing it..... I want to spend my time with friends. Not grinding this or that. If I wanted to do that sort of crap I'd play a game that is all about grinding....

I thought UO was about community.... guess I've been wrong.

 

[Aurelius]

I hope this is ment as a joke. Not being able to resell items is the, IMHO, the stupidest thing I have ever heard.

Read carefully - just pointing out it's not impossible, NOT that it would be a good idea

 

[Lord Frodo]

Honestly that's what folk are complaining about and concerned about. I PERSONALLY am not because I do NOT do vendors. I also don't do BoD's. Haven't for years. Why would i the RNG hates me passionately....

Why would anybody be concerned about this as long as they are having fun?

I thought UO was about community.... guess I've been wrong.

This is why I keep my goods as cheap as possible and you will never buy me out of the items I stock because they are easy to get. I do not sell cheap rune books because the people they are for can't afford them so I give new shard players a rune book for free. Anybody that has played more than 3 months do not need these. These people whinning about this and using the "community" is a joke. New players need city rune books and there is no way they can afford one, much less at Luna prices.

Here is my welcome starter set. 6 piece male leather with each piece having MR1, Mana 7 and %18 LRC. If you are a Garg I will mod the set. 1 rune book (fully charged, 18/20) with some city mints and some basic hunting spots marked and an extra 20 recall / 5 mark scrolls. I will also make a basic warrior sets for those that need them. This is enough to get anyone started in UO and to start earning thier own way.

1. I do this because I enjoy it.
2. I do this because when I started this was what UO was all about and when peps ask me how much I just tell them to help others and have a nice day.

 

[GalenKnighthawke]

Luna will run into the same problem some RL brick & mortar stores have run into with people checking out products in their stores then ordering it cheaper online. People will browse Luna and run across something they want to buy, and then likely check the search system to see of there are any really lower prices for that item to be found elsewhere.

Supply and Demand issues are different in UO. There are only going to be so many Ornaments of the Magician or appropriately priced Dragon Slayer Broadswords available, especially on a shard that is not Atlantic.

Were I a Luna shop owner, I would only be marginally worried. Were I a good enough UO business-person to be in a position to have a Luna shop, I think I would already be slowly developing a slightly altered business model.

-Galen's player