What gives?

[VisionAL]

Last I played, best I can remember, when you went to vendors you could run the vendor up to 999 of each item and purchase in bulk. Now it seems you can only buy 500 of each and the price goes up in increments? What's the deal here? Was this actually a wanted idea? Is there another way to buy in bulk? I'm working on crafting but having to waste time going all over trying to find NPC's that haven't had the prices jacked from 5gp to 18gp is difficult at best. This is one of the worst changes I have come back to and absolutely hate it.

 

[Black Sun]

That's part of the now broken supply and demand economy system. It used to be that a vendor would start out spawing 20 arrows at 5gp each. If you bought all 20 the vendor would restock something like 30 minutes later and raise his price 1 gp. So he would respawn with 40 arrows priced 6 each. The more the vendor was bought from the higher his stock would go (maxing out at 999 of an item) and for every 1k bought the price would rise 1 gp. Now, here comes the broken part. It used to be that for every item you sold to an NPC he would pay you 1gp less than his current selling price, and for every 1k items you sold back, he would lower his payout and selling price by 1 gp. This buy low/sell high method was what kept prices reasonable, and stocks on vendors high. It was actually worth it to sell to vendors. But it was abused by scripters who would buy low in one town, drag their wares to a higher priced vendor and sell back for a profit.

Then it was decided that doing that was an exploit, or being abused, so a "fix" was put in place. (I still to this day fail to see how this is an exploit though. The fix should have stopped the scripting, not cripple the economy.) So this "fix" made it so that vendors would only pay out their lowest price for an item, no matter what their current selling price was.

Just in case I lost anyone (because I've just about lost myself here), here's an example:

Old System-
Vendor A in Luna is selling ingots for 50 per and buying at 49 per. Every time he buys 1k ingots, his sell price drops 1 gp.
Vendor B in Vesper is selling ingots for 10 per and buying at 9 per. Every time he sells out his stock of ingots his sell price raises 1 gp.

You could buy 1000 ingots from Vendor B for 10k gp, and take them to Luna, and Vendor A would buy them back from you for 49,000 gp. Net profit 39,000gp. Vendor A's buying and selling price would both drop 1 gp for every 1k ingots purchased, and vendor B's prices would rise 1 gp for every 1k bought/sold. This method would help keep luna prices down (for the most part), and somewhat competative with other towns.

New System-
Vendor A in Luna is selling for 50 gp per and buying at 8 per. Every time he buys 1k ingots his sell price drops 1gp. Every time he sells out his stock, it raises 1 gp.
Vendor B in Vesper is selling for 10 gp per, and buying at 8 gp per. Every time he sells out his stock, the price raises 1 gp. For every 1k he buys, sale prices drop 1gp.

Now buying 1k ingots in vesper (10k) will only sell back in luna for 8k. No profit there, why waste your money? So nobody sells back to NPC's any more. Selling directly to other players is the only way to turn a profit. But at least scripters had to find a new job.

So now because nobody is selling to NPC's prices only go up... Until they get too high that nobody will buy from them, and they are stuck until the server resets after maintenence and their prices fall back down again.

That change really put a hurt in the commodity market, as well as making it very difficult to gather resources quickly for training a new crafter.



*I realize that is a lot of information, and I hope it answers your questions, because after re-reading everything I just wrote, I'm a little bit confused myself.*

 

[VisionAL]

So typical EA breaks one thing and then breaks 3 others. I knew I quit back then for a good reason. Should have stayed gone.

 

[Black Sun]

No, in this case they only broke one thing.


Unfortunately it was the economy.

 

[Basara]

Actually, there was an exploit that allowed people to buy at significantly less than those amounts, hence the changes.

There are plenty of places to shop other than Luna. The Random Gypsy Camps in Ilshenar, and any city that has recently left invaded status, respawn their NPCs at the base prices (and the gypsies spawn and despawn several times a day across 10 different spots, 3 or 4 locations active at any given time).

And, there are two different types of "NPC items".

1. Most crafting resources, archery ammo, etc. spawn 500 at a time, with the price increasing 1 per 1000 sound

2. Other things (reagents, NPC versions of crafted items, etc.) spawn 20 first, doubling on respawn if bought out (until 999 reached), but NEVER change their price (though other factors, like the Faction price/tax controls can come into play).

 

[wanderer1origin]

wonders when fixing exploits will ever happen over changing systems??
quick fixes is biggest problem this game has!!
never fixes problems the right way just covers up and tells all to move on nothing more to see here!!!!!!!
selling arrows ingots etc was set to help new players make gold!!

wouldnt it have been better to end exploit ??

Actually, there was an exploit that allowed people to buy at significantly less than those amounts, hence the changes.

There are plenty of places to shop other than Luna. The Random Gypsy Camps in Ilshenar, and any city that has recently left invaded status, respawn their NPCs at the base prices (and the gypsies spawn and despawn several times a day across 10 different spots, 3 or 4 locations active at any given time).

And, there are two different types of "NPC items".

1. Most crafting resources, archery ammo, etc. spawn 500 at a time, with the price increasing 1 per 1000 sound

2. Other things (reagents, NPC versions of crafted items, etc.) spawn 20 first, doubling on respawn if bought out (until 999 reached), but NEVER change their price (though other factors, like the Faction price/tax controls can come into play).

 

[VisionAL]

Actually, there was an exploit that allowed people to buy at significantly less than those amounts, hence the changes.

There are plenty of places to shop other than Luna. The Random Gypsy Camps in Ilshenar, and any city that has recently left invaded status, respawn their NPCs at the base prices (and the gypsies spawn and despawn several times a day across 10 different spots, 3 or 4 locations active at any given time).

And, there are two different types of "NPC items".

1. Most crafting resources, archery ammo, etc. spawn 500 at a time, with the price increasing 1 per 1000 sound

2. Other things (reagents, NPC versions of crafted items, etc.) spawn 20 first, doubling on respawn if bought out (until 999 reached), but NEVER change their price (though other factors, like the Faction price/tax controls can come into play).

Luna? I have yet to shop in Luna. I do have a 18x18 just outside the skirts to the West or is it south... but that's just because it's close to a moongate for hauling stuff. I shop in fel at all the faction npc's in skara, vesper, etc. I tried doing it in tram but getting any results is an effort in futility. I don't want to 'waste' more time but I may just switch to fel and find a home there and just work on getting double resources instead. Either way, for me.. they broke the crafting system by breaking the economy. Adding more work than is necessary and not fixing the actual problem. As was said, the scripting and exploiting just moved to a different area of the game because of this 'quick fix' even if I am 5 years after the fact.

I'm very turned off right now

 

[Basara]

One of the best ways to get reagents is have all the mage-related shops in Moonglow (in town and on the island outside the downtown section) marked. There's like 4 or 5 magery/alchemy/herbalist/illusionist shops, plus one of them has the Papua teleporter that arrives in the Papua magic shop.

Even at 20 regs per, one can probably gather 200-300 of each reg per trip, on just Tram or Fel alone, if no one bogarted you out of purchases, without having to hit faction vendors (and if there are faction reg vendors in Fel Glow or Papua, even better). In fact, that's probably where the 60k deeds come from of regs - someone working all the moonglow vendors to 999 - hitting both facets at 999 per seller would put you at about 60k of the ones that are sold by alchemist & herbalist NPCs, 40k for those only sold by mages, in just one trip.

As for Iron Ingots & normal Boards, I do a run-through of Ilshenar. I start at Compassion gate, and check all the random gypsy spawn sites - the path is as follows:
1. NNW to the entrance to the Pass of Karnaugh, to the first random camp site.
2. NNE from there to the spawn site next to the Daemons (by the AW cave mountain's rear)
3. S to the spawn site between the Alexandrella's Bowl permanent camp and the bridge to the undead keep.
4. South along coast, through the mountain pass to the Spirituality area (saves time in the long run, and I occasionally get some horned leather or minor artifacts in the run), through the woods outside the spider cave, to the camp site between the woods and the Inn by Oaks.
5. Run down the road to Mireg/Lakeshire - there are 1 or 2 spots that can have a gypsy camp.
6. Through Mireg, to the spot by the large rock between the Meer town and the Healer Grove.
7. Through the grove, around the mountain, to the docks at Justice - there's a camp spawn there, but it's in the middle of a spawn of 3-4 water elementals. Shopping there is best done with an experienced elemental slayer (weapon, spellbook or bard - or riding a hiryu)
8. Though the woods south, to the empty area south of Mistas. There is a camp site due south of the Mistas bridge, SE of the bridge coming into the open area from the direction of Honesty.
9. Though the Honesty jungle, NW, there is a clearing on a short spur off the right-hand road, that is a gypsy camp. Probably the second most dangerous spot, but tame in comparison to the Justice Docks.
10. North to road end, across a small stretch of jungle, to the clearing between the heavy jungle, Humility Champ Spawn, and Honor.
11. Going up the road, there is supposed to be another camp spawn site near the buildings full of brigands and evil mages, south of Valor champ spawn & Terort Skitas, but I've not managed to catch it active in the last couple years.
12. There might also be undocumented spawn sites across the river, on the road between the Liches and the OTHER side of the Pass of Karnaugh, as well as in the swamp just SE of Humility Moongate, from my distant memories, but if so, they are rare spawns.

Iron workers sell ingots, 8 per to start (I typically by 3k, to average out my expenditure at 9 per ingot), Vagabonds do the same, as well as selling boards at a start of 3 per. One of the NPCs also sells arrows & Bolts, starting at the default price.

All these spots have a banker and healer/mage (fortune teller) NPC, when active; half will also have a forge and anvil. The Iron Worker (smith), Vagabond (tinker/jeweler) and Maiden (Provisioner) NPCs are random - there can be 0-3 of these (1 or each type present, maximum) at each location. So, you can buy the stuff, then immediately bank it. Then, after you're done, go to your favorite bank with pack animals (or buy commodity deeds) and transfer your purchases to your crafting point. The Forge & anvil means that if you are doing the run with a miner/smith (i typically do, since he can drop the water eles in 2-3 hits without even trying), you can loot all the smith type items from stuff killed while shopping, and smelt it at one of the stops along the route. One can also pick up a substantial amount of leather (greater mongbats & swamp dragons), spined leather (ratmen, imps, giant serpents), horned leather (wyverns, drakes) and a few scales, depending how much you have to fight along the way - maybe even arrows from ratman archers or (if evil and they attack you) bolts off meer captains.

I typically bring 9k to 18k iron back from such trips, averaging less than 9 gold per ingot (factoring in the extra ingots from smelting - exactly 9 without smelting junk).