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Otherwise reagents would keep going up in price because there is no other viable way to collect them.
They respawn when the vendor respawns the entire stock. It is supposed to help simulate a real vendor. Otherwise you could go to any NPC and buy everything you want instantly.
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Why does having the spawn of regs start or stay at 999 necessitate making the price of them go up?
And what's wrong with instantly buying the regs you need? It's a gold sink for UO, and a player wouldn't have to spend the whole day working up the stock.
And what's wrong with instantly buying the regs you need? It's a gold sink for UO, and a player wouldn't have to spend the whole day working up the stock.
I absolutely agree Flutter, how hard can it be to hard code the price and have the respawn be set at 999 always, if not on every vendor at least at the major buying points like the Mages hall in Britain, Moonglow, and Luna.
B
Babble
Guest
Because it is an old system, which no one had time to rework?
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I am wondering if there is (was?) a reason behind having it the way it is.
C
Connor_Graham
Guest
I agree completely. I dread the days when I have to restock for my potion & scribe needs. It's an entire day I can look forward to not getting anything else done.
Well the reason is because UO, in the beginning, tried to create a working, virtual economy...
Instead of changing that system, they should just add 1k Bulk Reagent Scrolls to NPC vendors. Make them a gold sink (as in, expensive) and leave the old system working as is.
J
J0KING
Guest
Considering LRC and other options... There really isn't a reason anymore for us to have to work it up... I think the above mentioned idea is a great one.
Oh? I think my alchemist would survive just fine if the reagent vendors disappeared entirely.
S
Sindris
Guest
The original concept was that the prices would go up every so often when buying goods. Higher prices reflected in the demand for the item being bought. If people sold a lot of the same item, then the vendor price would drop. I think it still works that way for just about everything except Gems, which stay the same price all the time. Shame about that, I used to make a LOT of gold working the price differences between jewel vendors.
Anyway, I agree that starting resources at 20 and doubling them every so often is really just a waste of time for players. The only people benefiting from this are the bulk reg vendors.
Anyway, I agree that starting resources at 20 and doubling them every so often is really just a waste of time for players. The only people benefiting from this are the bulk reg vendors.
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Things like LRC don't work well with alchemy and scribe.
Out of curiosity, how much of a markup would you accept if buying 60K commodity deeds? How long would it take you to go through that many? (I'm wondering if there is a market in "working the vendors" ... not that I'm really looking for more time sinks)
Do you use the faction vendors flutter?
I find that the easiest, while doing other things just buy all the 10 vendors regs go play or studdy whatever, 30 mins later do it again rinse and repeat for 3 hours then ya can buy 160'000 every 30 mins after that
(just hide in the bank doing it)
I find that the easiest, while doing other things just buy all the 10 vendors regs go play or studdy whatever, 30 mins later do it again rinse and repeat for 3 hours then ya can buy 160'000 every 30 mins after that
(just hide in the bank doing it)
They should though : (
T
Trash Collector
Guest
Prices on gems stay the same?
When Magincia still had a... well, anything... I used to sell my gems there since diamonds sold for 198 each, compared to 191 - 194 everywhere else I checked. At one point, I'd stored up close to 2,000 diamonds and took them over to the Magincia jeweler. He bought them all (no, not at once --about 13,000gp at a time), but the price dropped from 198 to 196 and stayed there until the jewelry shop 'sploded.
There could be a slight tweaking for vendors, that's for sure, but that's where players have to decide if it's better to buy off NPC vendors or from player-run shops.
F
Flora Green
Guest
Gem prices also vary between jewelers and provisioners.
Its been "fixed" "randomnsidezed" to stop people buying cheep in luna (cos everyone buys everything cheep there) and selling it to fell vendors for *10 in fell to make gold FROM the game not, was a bug/legal gain... but in fell for 1gp sell at luna for 100gp 100% mark up off the game as an opposite to a sink.... sucks cos i cant now start a noob char on any server and work my way up just buying AND SELLING CLOTH BETWEEN TRAM AND FELL FOR 3 DAYS to get enough to buy a LRC suite
I can tell you're new to the game, but that's a good question that many vets have asked.
The reason is simple. Mages are so overpowered that the only way to slow them down is to make them have to take a little time off while their mules run around running up reg vendors.
If Mages could just buy all the regs they want, then they would kill everything in the game before the servers could respawn em. Poor Greater Dragons wouldn't have a chance if they could kill a Mage, loot his reg bag and 5 seconds later the Mage is back with 999x8 regs!
Mage-bots would just vaporize all of Sosaria... then they would "win" the game and EA would have to fire all the Dev's cause... if the Mages win, then there wouldn't be any reason to fix all the bugs for the slower players, right?
I hope this information helps.
Safe Travels, Sam
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Umm... uhhh... ok.
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If only any of it were true Sam... if only even your first sentence was true.... perhaps then I'd not even care about silly reg vendors....
*dreamy eyed sigh*
B
Babble
Guest
The long explanation.
Years ago the developers tried to make an economy of supply and demand where at least for time supplies are limited. Also as many people played normally lots of vendors spawned more than the normal 20 of each reagent. (You must remember that the original design was thought of that each player would only get what they need for some time and no one would hoard things)
After some time when people got richer a playstyle of reagentresellers emerged for people who were rich and lazy enough to buy reagents the long way.
So the system was designed to supply the demand, with no hoarding in mind.
With the advance of an abundance of Vendors (mirrored towns new facets) and lower regent ability and the abundance of useless gold people had hoarded so many reagents that they would not have to shop for years. (one of my chars has 60k of each reagent and never uses any)
Years ago the developers tried to make an economy of supply and demand where at least for time supplies are limited. Also as many people played normally lots of vendors spawned more than the normal 20 of each reagent. (You must remember that the original design was thought of that each player would only get what they need for some time and no one would hoard things)
After some time when people got richer a playstyle of reagentresellers emerged for people who were rich and lazy enough to buy reagents the long way.
So the system was designed to supply the demand, with no hoarding in mind.
With the advance of an abundance of Vendors (mirrored towns new facets) and lower regent ability and the abundance of useless gold people had hoarded so many reagents that they would not have to shop for years. (one of my chars has 60k of each reagent and never uses any)
I'm not getting this... you say "leave the old system working as it is..." which sounds like you want to keep the current system where a vendor starts with say, 20 mandrake and you can build it up. But you also say that expensive bulk deeds should be added.
Well if someone does the math and sees they can get mandrake for 3gp, but they will have to run around getting the vendors up... or they can pay 10gp ea for mandrake on a bulk deed... won't most of the folks just keep buying them the old way anyway? Try putting bulk deeds on your vendor that are 3x the market value and see how well they sell.
Safe Travels, Sam
Vendors starting out at 20 of each reg and having to be worked up only benefit the reg sellers. I'd rather buy 5k of the regs I need from a player vendor and go make my recalls rather than wasting time making 100 scrolls, find more regs, make 100 more, wait for a re-spawn and hope someone doesn't beat me to the regs. Its a huge pain in the posterior.
If they started out at 999 each day It would pretty much put reg sellers out of business (except for those selling in huge amounts), and would make life much easier for everyone. My scribe wastes more time hunting for regs than he does making scrolls.
If they started out at 999 each day It would pretty much put reg sellers out of business (except for those selling in huge amounts), and would make life much easier for everyone. My scribe wastes more time hunting for regs than he does making scrolls.
I believe the reasoning, at least in part, is the same as why, for instance, in World of Warcraft you need resources from extremely limited supplies of items which spawn or drop in the wild (such as herbs or other resources.) To control and limit the speed of your progress in a profession so that you can't accomplish everything you'd like to in a 7 day sitting. (I.e., max everything.)
Oh, it does that alright. It's such a good system that I can't sit down and accomplish everything I'd like to. Usually that thing I want to accomplish is to make 1000k recalls for my vendor.
M
Morgana LeFay (PoV)
Guest
When Reg spawns on NPC vendors were first conceptualized, they went along with a model of a UO economy that has not existed in many years.
The idea behind the UO economy was not one of hording and convenience, but rather one of a community driven economy. Early on, like first few weeks of the game, it was not uncommon to find NO reagents for sale...anywhere. The players were meant to get them as loot off of monsters, and pick them up where they grew wild. Sure, the NPC vendors would restock like 20 of each reg every so often, and large mage shops, like in Ocollo, were always full of people trying to buy regs.
When you killed a player, often, his or her reg sack was a good find in those early days!
Also, back in those really early days, your bank box didn't exist. You handed gold to the banker and that was it. Your storage was limited to what you could carry...or what you could store in your house, if you were fortunate enough to have one that early (I think the first house I saw on Atlantic was on day 2).
The reg spawn on NPCs these days is just silly though. With players running around with hundreds of millions of gold, full LRC suits, etc...there is no reason that this model should still exist.
The idea behind the UO economy was not one of hording and convenience, but rather one of a community driven economy. Early on, like first few weeks of the game, it was not uncommon to find NO reagents for sale...anywhere. The players were meant to get them as loot off of monsters, and pick them up where they grew wild. Sure, the NPC vendors would restock like 20 of each reg every so often, and large mage shops, like in Ocollo, were always full of people trying to buy regs.
When you killed a player, often, his or her reg sack was a good find in those early days!
Also, back in those really early days, your bank box didn't exist. You handed gold to the banker and that was it. Your storage was limited to what you could carry...or what you could store in your house, if you were fortunate enough to have one that early (I think the first house I saw on Atlantic was on day 2).
The reg spawn on NPCs these days is just silly though. With players running around with hundreds of millions of gold, full LRC suits, etc...there is no reason that this model should still exist.
Isn't that all the better reason to keep what few limits we have?
It's not like reagents don't spawn in the world - I don't like the idea of making them easy to bulk purchase off vendors. At least the current system requires some tiny amount of effort, but a better solution would be more low end creatures have a handful of reagents in loot (so starting characters have a way to gather them faster than they use them) and then letting the price rise on vendors to whatever the market will support.
It's not like reagents don't spawn in the world - I don't like the idea of making them easy to bulk purchase off vendors. At least the current system requires some tiny amount of effort, but a better solution would be more low end creatures have a handful of reagents in loot (so starting characters have a way to gather them faster than they use them) and then letting the price rise on vendors to whatever the market will support.
And then they invented 100% LRC suits. I have never had to buy reagents for my mage again.
Maple, I think (I may be presuming) Morgana's point was that when they've basically given up on the idea of creating a realistic economy model by letting everyone have 5/6 character slots, professional mules, LRC suits, players have hoarded wealth and do almost everything in bulk and buy and sell in the millions of gold, the idea of "we're simulating a realistic role play world by making you farm the NPC reagent sellers in order to gain skills and make items" falls a bit flat and becomes just an irksome timesink. It gives nothing to the community that design changes haven't already made moot. We don't need community anymore and most of us seem to spend most of our time doing our best needing other players as little as possible (like trying to have our own smiths, alchemists and tailors and such so we can do our own repairs and make our own equipment.) And the design has enabled all of that.
The idea that a community is going to spring up and revitalize the player trade by vendorhouses stocked with commodity deeds of regs and stuff is kind of pipedreaming. I'm lucky to find a vendorhouse that isn't totally empty. And even when it's not empty, know what it's selling? Stuff over 1 million gold, generally. Mostly arties, dyes or scrolls.
The old reg system Morgana refers to, which I remember, is one of the few things I'm not nostalgic about old UO for. Because all it did was make magery a prohibitive skill for most players, since they couldn't afford the reagents they'd need to tediously cast spells over and over to level up their skill. I am not at all sure that LRC suits were the best way to go, I'm sure that was an idea brought in by the D2 folks they brought in to help "save the game" (heavy quote emphasis.) I would have preferred easing up on mage skill gain overall, while at the same time, making something like 250 the base quantity reg spawn on vendors.
The idea that a community is going to spring up and revitalize the player trade by vendorhouses stocked with commodity deeds of regs and stuff is kind of pipedreaming. I'm lucky to find a vendorhouse that isn't totally empty. And even when it's not empty, know what it's selling? Stuff over 1 million gold, generally. Mostly arties, dyes or scrolls.
The old reg system Morgana refers to, which I remember, is one of the few things I'm not nostalgic about old UO for. Because all it did was make magery a prohibitive skill for most players, since they couldn't afford the reagents they'd need to tediously cast spells over and over to level up their skill. I am not at all sure that LRC suits were the best way to go, I'm sure that was an idea brought in by the D2 folks they brought in to help "save the game" (heavy quote emphasis.) I would have preferred easing up on mage skill gain overall, while at the same time, making something like 250 the base quantity reg spawn on vendors.
Not EVERYONE has the 100mil uber-suit. You've kinda screwed new(er) or returning players if you change the current system. Lotsa mages are busy working Inscription for the spell damage bonus. They leave some pretty nice spellbooks laying around for others to use as a bonus.
Being able to buy enough regs to actually spend a day in the dungeons is a good thing. Young mages loose their reg bags ya know. It shouldn't set them back three days when that happens.
Safe Travels, Sam
M
Morgana LeFay (PoV)
Guest
I suppose I should have specified...
...I am saying that regs should just spawn in bulk all the time.
I think she means it's silly you have to work the amount the vendor will sell you up from 20, and sit around for hours working the respawn up to buy a decent amount.
I can't be reading this right... you think you can actually build a mage by running around and picking up regs on the ground? Maybe you meant the regs that spawn as loot? Even the reagents found on monsters wouldn't be enough to support a serious day of fighting and a new mage isn't going to be able to kill anything that carries regs anyway.
Remember, the mage has to kill something with enough loot reagents to compensate for the reagents they burn killing it...
Personally I'm a little suprised at the things I'm seeing in this post. Hasn't anyone ever heard of faction vendors? Make a trip to Fel and you can buy all the goodies you want. Where do you think the bulk reg vendors get their stock?
Faction vendors move around so you might spend more time looking for them than you would have running up the tram NPC's but once you know where they are you can load up big time. Best thing is they are at banks sometimes and you can deed your regs on the spot.
I don't really see anything wrong with either system so let's not get the Dev's thinking that there is something here they need to fix. There are about 1,000 other things they need to fix first.
Do we really want to have to grow reagents from plants? Trimming mandrake root from mandrake trees, etc?
I think we need to step back and say "This is a game and I want it to be fun!" Let's not make it too realistic... then it would be like life and it would suck.
Safe Travels, Sam
Oh, sorry if I missed that. I didn't see the forrest for the trees in your post.
That won't work because the poor newbs haven't learned yet that regs have mass. You see, they have to learn slooooowly that you can't just buy 999 regs and walk to the bank with it.
Of course, watching them laboriously moving forward one tile at a time while trying to drag their regs along the ground is hilarious. Then watching some other newb run up to snatch the regs... only to get stuck as well.
Priceless...
Safe Travels, Sam
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You've never had to make pots/scrolls for a large guild have you?
"A tiny amount of effort" as you put it, shouldn't cut into a players actual play time. Working up the reg spawn is just that.. work. Most of us play for fun. Spending the bulk of the afternoon working up the reg vendors to usable levels, and then hoping someone else on your shard isn't buying regs too... isn't fun. Why make it more difficult than it has to be? For God's sake we are handing out full points of skill like gravy now... do we really need to "work" a day for regs?
Aren't Faction reg vendors always 999? or are they just cheaper?
By the way, this spawnup process that all of us inscribers/alchemists have to farm the NPC's through for hours in order to get bulk amounts.... encourages another less than attractive phenomenon.
I call it the "I started it, they finish it."
Means I spend an hour getting the reg spawns to double from 20, to 40, to 80, to 160. Maybe two hours, the NPC respawn rates never seem consistent to me as side by side NPC's will respawn 15, 20, 25 minutes apart despite buying them out at the same time. Anyway, once you get regs to spawn at about 160, someone always happens by and goes "ooOooOOh, there's a lot of regs, I better camp my butt here and stock up on bulk when I can."
I then spend the next 2-3 hours checking in every quarter hour or so, and always finding the vendors COMPLETELY depleted of everything (even regs I wasn't buying.)
It turns into a competitive hoard-fest, it actually works against you many times to have been the one to put in the time and work to start the increased vendor respawn on regs because then every person who needed bulk but didn't get around to it yet thinks now's a great time to start buying the vendors out.
It's happening to me as we speak, actually. And not the first time. It starts a chain reaction too because if for instance all the regs are totally out in Luna, then players who just need 20 of this or 20 of that wind up having to hit all my other spots (maybe locations that players don't ordindarily go just to pick up a few items from the mage store).
I call it the "I started it, they finish it."
Means I spend an hour getting the reg spawns to double from 20, to 40, to 80, to 160. Maybe two hours, the NPC respawn rates never seem consistent to me as side by side NPC's will respawn 15, 20, 25 minutes apart despite buying them out at the same time. Anyway, once you get regs to spawn at about 160, someone always happens by and goes "ooOooOOh, there's a lot of regs, I better camp my butt here and stock up on bulk when I can."
I then spend the next 2-3 hours checking in every quarter hour or so, and always finding the vendors COMPLETELY depleted of everything (even regs I wasn't buying.)
It turns into a competitive hoard-fest, it actually works against you many times to have been the one to put in the time and work to start the increased vendor respawn on regs because then every person who needed bulk but didn't get around to it yet thinks now's a great time to start buying the vendors out.
It's happening to me as we speak, actually. And not the first time. It starts a chain reaction too because if for instance all the regs are totally out in Luna, then players who just need 20 of this or 20 of that wind up having to hit all my other spots (maybe locations that players don't ordindarily go just to pick up a few items from the mage store).
I understand that the economy doesn't work in quite the multiplayer was it was originally imagined, there is still an economy. My blacksmith still goes out and mines his own ores, my carpenter still gathers his own wood ... why not have alchemists gather their own resources?
If crafting systems are going to be interesting, there need to be limits on how fast one can craft: either the act of crafting has to take longer or the inputs (tools and raw materials) need to take longer to assemble.
(what I've often wanted is a player vendor system that could buy rather than sell - you set it up with a request for 10,000 bloodmoss and merchants would be able to come by and sell it to your vendor ... alas we likely won't see it because like community collections, it is a system that risks rewarding scripters)
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Faction vendors work the same way as the other reg vendors. The only difference is the prices are set by the finance minister of the city they are placed in.
M
Morgana LeFay (PoV)
Guest
Used to happen all the time with miners and lumberjacks...as well as tailors that bought 5000+ hides from the tanners back in the day.
What a pain in the a$$ it was to have someone come along and snatch up your hides!!
But that made it more interesting!
*suddenly remembers that ingots and hides are available on NPC vendors in large numbers*
*realizes it makes all my arguments go up in smoke*
*realizes it makes all my arguments go up in smoke*
Ok, for the one or two people saying that LRC should mean that regs are no longer needed, not everyone has an "uber" 100 lrc suit with good resists. Not to mention new players....
Hunting for regs on the ground just doesn't work very well considering the average amount needed to go hunting.
Faction vendors do sell tons of regs, except they don't sell necro regs, which is my problem.
I usually buy bulk regs from NPC vendors, but for some reason I always have problems finding bulk necro regs. I don't like using reg suits mainly because I don't exactly have 100+ million to funding a good resistant suit with 100 lrc. I hate trying to build up the vendors but I do manage. I go to every city buying all necro regs and it builds up slowly, but it works. But I am one person trying to get enough necro regs. Now imagine if two people need a lot of necro regs...it would be a race. One person succeeds the other is left regless.
Hunting for regs on the ground just doesn't work very well considering the average amount needed to go hunting.
Faction vendors do sell tons of regs, except they don't sell necro regs, which is my problem.
I usually buy bulk regs from NPC vendors, but for some reason I always have problems finding bulk necro regs. I don't like using reg suits mainly because I don't exactly have 100+ million to funding a good resistant suit with 100 lrc. I hate trying to build up the vendors but I do manage. I go to every city buying all necro regs and it builds up slowly, but it works. But I am one person trying to get enough necro regs. Now imagine if two people need a lot of necro regs...it would be a race. One person succeeds the other is left regless.
M
Morgana LeFay (PoV)
Guest
I don't think anyone is saying that regs are no longer needed. LRC suits don't affect Alchemy and Inscription...so they are at least needed for that.
Also, like you say, not everyone has 100% LRC suits that do everything they want them to do.
Personally, I don't use an LRC suit, because I just haven't been able to find exactly what I want in one...so I still need regs.
Imagine what it would be like if every mage on the shard needed a lot of regs!
Someone that's been around a while please refresh my memory, but sometime before AoS, maybe around 3rd Dawn or Blackthorne's Revenge, didn't they briefly instance NPC vendors?
right but when set at the lowest setting (which is what they always do unless the person is a moron) the regs are cheaper than anywhere else in the game.
N
Nestorius
Guest
To give a sense of 'world' by delaying instant gratification. To require the player to think and plan a little bit in gathering. To add an element of differentiation between what would normally be identical vendors, localizing the environment.
I think we can dream up any number of seemingly plausible explanations as to why the spawn is limited. I think the question that always remains is, does it really do a good job of accomplishing any of those things.
I don't know that waiting around for vendor respawns is really forcing me to "plan anything." It's really just making me timesink, and that's all. I have no control really over when players are going to camp out and totally clean up shop and wipe the vendors of all regs for hours on end. And I think camping out vendors for an entire weekend to stock up 20,000 of each reg to avoid ever running into that is not really a financial or storage option for a lot of players, especially those of us who are newish and not well established with 3 accounts and multiple houses and millions of gold.
N
Nestorius
Guest
I disagree, but I suppose its a matter of preference. I don't want convenience. The most convenient time-saver is to quit playing video games.
I guess you don't only mean Alchemists, but Mages, Scribes, Necromancers and any combination that uses reagents. Lumberjacks can chop trees, miners mine for ore, gems and granite... now how is it that reagents are "harvested?"
I'm missing something here...
Safe Travels, Sam
P.S. Whenever I see an Alchemist running up the reg vendors, I run in before them and buy out the stock so they can't make potions! *traces a pentagram with a finger*