Vendor fee, please devs, it is way to high

[OREOGL]

I get the notion I am debating with someone who thinks multiboxing is AOK. Subterfuge is obviously your best option. Toss the proverbial stick so to say, fetch? I got an idea for you, ask the rares collectors about your assessment and then ask them why inflation hasn't also affected the pricing on rares. If what you were saying held water, the items that sold for 1 billion 5 years ago should be selling for 3 billion now. Yet, strangely, this isn't the case.

Don't change the the subject, you were on the right track when you initially replied to me then took a mean left turn. If you think that's subterfuge then you were buried off the get go, which in that case I have no idea why you replied.

But pretty sure accusing me of cheating is against the Roc.

Again pricing on rares isn't tangible that's why...but to address that too they would have been priced lower and valued higher.

I'm also not sure if events were even regular back when gold was still valued much higher so they are priced around existing values.

 

[railshot]

Having no vendor fees would result the loss of the biggest gold sink in game.

Basic economics will tell you that will result in inflation.

It's a little too late to worry about inflation in UO. And reducing vendor fees is meant to address a much bigger problem - vendor market is almost non-existent on shards other than Atlantic. This primarily hurts the new players who need the supplies and the gold the most and who do not have the networks to get what they need. You want your gold sink? Fine. But don't make it weekly. On most shards it weeks or months for things to sell. Not because they are overpriced but because there are too few players and most of them are veterans who have everything. So you end up with no vendors because it's silly to put anything on the vendor. You will lose money.
This situation hurts the already low population and needs to be addressed. And changing vendor fee to a one time % charge is a simple and easy way to do it.

 

[FrejaSP]

On Siege we don't need vendor fee to work as gold sink.
Our NPC vendors take 3x the price for gems, blank scrolls, bottles, Tax.. kit, boats etc.
With the update to BODs, I know, I pay lots of gold to bribing and others do too. Our customers want CBDs, new dye, POF, runic tools and I'm sure a few more cool BOD rewards would make us use even more gold for bribing.
Also we get less gold from the system as we can't sell to NPC's.

All this do not count for other small shards, I know that but that do not changes the facts, that they also have to few active vendor shops.

I really don't like the idea of one time fee, a small % a day works fine for me but even when 0.6% sounds small, it is 4,2% a week and 18% a month no matter if the item sell or not.

Lets say a fletcher want to sell imbued or reforged bows, he can't just stock a few bows he found great as that may not be the bows his customers are looking for. If vendor fee was lower, he could afford to put a few different kind on the vendor and see what will sell and restock the few that sell fast and let the slow sellers hang to the right customer need them.

Also, what a new Siege crafter know would sell on his old shard, may not sell on Siege as no item insurance effect Siege players build their template. It take time for a new crafter to learn what will sell and find loyal customers, who will come back to his vendor, when they die and get looted.

 

[OREOGL]

It's a little too late to worry about inflation in UO. And reducing vendor fees is meant to address a much bigger problem - vendor market is almost non-existent on shards other than Atlantic. This primarily hurts the new players who need the supplies and the gold the most and who do not have the networks to get what they need. You want your gold sink? Fine. But don't make it weekly. On most shards it weeks or months for things to sell. Not because they are overpriced but because there are too few players and most of them are veterans who have everything. So you end up with no vendors because it's silly to put anything on the vendor. You will lose money.
This situation hurts the already low population and needs to be addressed. And changing vendor fee to a one time % charge is a simple and easy way to do it.

That's an interesting point, but I disagree. If there's so much gold floating around that it won't matter, then vendor fees should be a non issue. On the contrary, gold values can still go down even from some individuals selling at $.10 a mil. So I'd say there is still worry about inflation especially if you're citing new player money issues as your reasoning and item prices go up.

Most of the issue is not vendor fees, it's shard population. But then, already having this same conversation with someone else previously, it goes back to well there's not players because there's nothing to buy or vendors aren't stocked, it's harder for new players, etc. Valid concerns, but again I think this goes further than 441 gold in vendor fees a week for a 500 gold item.

I could see removing the base 60 fee, which would be more effective and keeping the same vendor fee costs (item price/500)*3.

This would resolve issues with low end items and would be 21 gold a week for a 500 gold item.

 

[railshot]

Most of the issue is not vendor fees, it's shard population. But then, already having this same conversation with someone else previously, it goes back to well there's not players because there's nothing to buy or vendors aren't stocked, it's harder for new players, etc. Valid concerns, but again I think this goes further than 441 gold in vendor fees a week for a 500 gold item.

Oh I agree that the root cause is the low population. However there are a few things that make the problem much worse. One is weekly fees and another one is intershard trading. BS is not willing to do anything about intershard trading, and is not able to do anything about low pop. Vendor fees is something they can do something about.
I can think of another solution that would alleviate the problem but keep the fees. Give players from low pop shards free shopping access to Atlantic market. However, to implement something like that would be much more difficult coding wise and would have it's share of opponents.

 

[OREOGL]

Oh I agree that the root cause is the low population. However there are a few things that make the problem much worse. One is weekly fees and another one is intershard trading. BS is not willing to do anything about intershard trading, and is not able to do anything about low pop. Vendor fees is something they can do something about.
I can think of another solution that would alleviate the problem but keep the fees. Give players from low pop shards free shopping access to Atlantic market. However, to implement something like that would be much more difficult coding wise and would have it's share of opponents.

You bring up a good point about cross shard trading, and I wonder how many of the items are bought on other shards and transferred back to ATL.

This isn't a terrible thing though, since it does keep currency in circulation on lower population shards.

It wasn't terrible to introduce cross shards with transfer tokens, but when they made it a vet reward I think it was a mistake.

 

[railshot]

This isn't a terrible thing though, since it does keep currency in circulation on lower population shards.

You bring up a good point about cross shard trading, and I wonder how many of the items are bought on other shards and transferred back to ATL.

This isn't a terrible thing though, since it does keep currency in circulation on lower population shards.

It wasn't terrible to introduce cross shards with transfer tokens, but when they made it a vet reward I think it was a mistake.

To answer your question - anything of value gets shifted to Atl. Currency flow is not a problem on any of the shards (inflation, remember?). Not being able to buy equipment, supplies, powerscrolls, etc is.

 

[OREOGL]

To answer your question - anything of value gets shifted to Atl. Currency flow is not a problem on any of the shards (inflation, remember?). Not being able to buy equipment, supplies, powerscrolls, etc is.

Sure but don't confuse circulation with inflation.