Vendor Fee's

[Capt. Lucky]

Oh here's a little search trick. I like to start high to low. In the search box hit the space bar once and search. It will show you everything on the shard (eventually if you keep clicking). Really nice for finding high end items and such you didn't even know you needed

 

[FrejaSP]

I miss when items below 500gp did not cost fee, maybe we need that back.
Then make it:
1% fee for items between 500 -5000gp
2% fee for items between 5000 - 50000gp
3% fee for items between 50,000 - 500,000gp
5% fee for items with price > 500,000gp

I believe we this way will see alot vendors with diverse tools, plants, resources, cheap suit and weapons, scrolls, diverse books. At least on Siege, we could need more of this vendors.
I'm sure the more expensive stuff will get sold on actions or via chat.

 

[Yadd of Legends]

This is the third thread on this subject that I can remember. I started one of the threads myself, proposing a commission when an item sells instead of a daily fee. I haven't gotten into this discussion not because I don't agree with the need to change this but because I didn't want to fight the same battle a third time.

 

[Assia Penryn]

I pay my share of vendor fees to run my shop on Atlantic. I deal in rares so my items tend to be higher on the cost spectrum, with virtually none outside the clearance/freebie vendor being less than 10k. That being said I would definitely support vendored items under 10k being no fees. This would help out not only low population shards by encouraging basic needs vendors who due to lack of buyers may be loosing gold instead of even breaking even. It would also encourage items that new/returning players have easy access to and help them get funding for armor etc as well as encourage vendors with basic necessities such as potions, etc. Let's face it, even on higher end population shards... it is a love of being a merchant that drives many shops to supply items like potions, scrolls, house-addons, etc. These vendors don't make a high profit and I'd rather have an abundance of those vendors to support the community than worry about people running these vendors not paying fees.

The only problem I foresee with this is that there may be an increase with storage vendors. I think that with the vendor search, it will be countered. We have enough folks who are "passionate" about these that they will strip vendors who do it with priced goods.

The one thing that does need to be addressed is people putting their vendors in their sign. Perhaps a "retrieval" cost to get their vendor back. I don't know if your own vendors that do that in your own house take storage, but I've found a half dozen where search is leading me to a house where the vendor is in the sign and not on display... you can't buy the item that way, but I don't know if it costs them storage or fees when it's in the sign.

 

[Assia Penryn]

An' I just did a quick tally on my vendor fees and across the board I'm paying about 1.2m in vendor fees a day. My clearance vendor is 21k of that. I think that comes to about 438m a year? My coffee hasn't fully infused yet.

An' my vendors need to be stocked more... so that might be a very low estimate.

 

[Morgy123]

i have played many games were the stuff stay on vendor for a week or a month for like setan % if it sells and less fee if it dont dont seem to be a big problem to make some like this in uo

personaly i dont want to use vendor i work for my shop and i pay no fees exsept what vendor sharge wen i auto sell of it
i run an box shop sure its more work for me i sell less but i pay hardly any fee for it

is simple math realy say i sell 90% less but them 10% i make all the money i dont want to sell 90 % more if all i do is fead vendor with gold

so do what i do make box shop and drop runes to your shop with icq works nice and i get many calls on icq wen i am not playing from guys asking to buy stuff
sure only drawback is my stuff count on house slots but i got castle so 7500 items to store there

 

[railshot]

We all know what these topics are really about. You all want no fee on your 100k+ vendors. This isn't helpful to anyone. The gold sinks are necessary. MORE necessary. If anything keep the fees we have now and increase the ones on items that are selling for 500k+.

No, it's not really about that. I play on Pacific - not the deadest shard out there. Yet, the market is completely dead. I need to buy something, I have to start spam genchat or keep annoying guildies. I also have every crafter there is. But I have no vendor, because I will lose money no matter what the price. This situation, believe it or not, hurts the newcomers more than anyone. Because they don't have a bunch of friends to ask for stuff.
There are other ways to remove gold from the game. The way that kills the market (and the game) is not a good one.

 

[Elenni]

I think there are a lot of good points in this thread, and issues that would need to be addressed with any change in the vendor system. But as a returning player coming back to the game with very little, I have to say that I've run up against the issues the OP mentioned.

I can't buy *anything* from vendors on my shard that a new or returning player needs to get established in the game -- and I don't mean boss mobs, either, or high-end crafting fun. I cannot find everyday resources in quantities I can afford. I can't find mid-level gear. I cannot find seeds to start growing plants, or crafted furniture or the add-ons I need for making my own stuff. I can't find potions to feed my plants. And if I want to make my own potions, I have to spend all night building up NPC vendor stock just to buy the regs to do it. All I can say is, thank goodness for the generosity of strangers -- but after a while I just hate asking for stuff I could buy or make IF there were vendors out there selling the basics.

Pretty much the only things I see on vendors these days is high-end loot, the rare (ie expensive) resources, and collectible rares. But new and returning players aren't interested in those, other than thinking about all the shinies they hope they can afford one day (or deciding maybe they should just buy that 100M gold from one of those websites after all...and as long as they're there, maybe they should pick up some of those resources in bulk -- and throw in a few vet rewards too, why not?!) But who wants to encourage that, when we all know it's a good part of the reason there are issues with the economy in the first place.

Storage on vendors *is* an issue, and gold does have to come out of the economy. But when the only things being sold (or worth stocking) cost 150k and up, it's just propagating the issues. The rich get richer and UO has to find ways to drain them down, and the newbies get bored or frustrated and leave.

Not that I'm leaving, mind you...at least I have the "backup" of a few old rares that I could sell if I really get desperate, which could sustain me for quite a while. But then I'm just folding myself into the same broken system. I'd be much happier working my way up the way I did back in 2002 -- stocking vendors with the basics and selling it to others who need it, at a price that's fair and that we can both afford.

 

[Nails Warstein]

The vendor system should be overhauled after this new currency system is in place anyways. In addition to creating an in game auction system, which could potentially supplement the vendor system. Doubt they could do this, but a great gold sink would be the ability to pay extra gold for an item located on another shard's vendor from your own. Would have to be fairly steep fee for this convenience so it doesn't interfere with transfer token sales too much. They need creative ideas to stimulate all the different shards' economies so returning players don't give up when they can't find armor, weapons, and resources to help them survive in these new contemporary and revamped dungeons.

 

[Capt. Lucky]

The vendor system should be overhauled after this new currency system is in place anyways. In addition to creating an in game auction system, which could potentially supplement the vendor system. Doubt they could do this, but a great gold sink would be the ability to pay extra gold for an item located on another shard's vendor from your own. Would have to be fairly steep fee for this convenience so it doesn't interfere with transfer token sales too much. They need creative ideas to stimulate all the different shards' economies so returning players don't give up when they can't find armor, weapons, and resources to help them survive in these new contemporary and revamped dungeons.

I loved the way Star Wars Galaxies had the player auctions.

 

[slippjeem]

Yea it wouldn't help, I have Baja shield and I saw that 10 seeds of renewal were 10 for 850k, total stupid, so I took 2,000 seeds used my young player account to pop a house across from the Fairgrounds and filled 2 vendors with seeds 10 for 150k it sat there a month and I paid fee's no sales, I didn't sell one batch of 10 because they only buy from people that are in the 3 or 4 guilds they know no matter what the discount is, now I have decided not to waste my Young account on shards I just use it to pack transfers much easier then banks bugs ect... I also tried the same on sonoma, I actually bought a Luna house to do it and I under cut the seed and POF price and sold Jack, last week I auctioned the house at MOA for 50m, I can care less about those shards unless they have something I want to buy, I was so ticked I even removed all my gold from both of them, I try to keep 50-100m on every shard never know when something will pop up on search...they can buy from each other and have no economy.

 

[MalagAste]

Having an in-game auction house like many games would RUIN yet another social interaction in-game that has been a tradition for YEARS. I like attending Auctions in-game with real people. Auction houses are non-interactional.... There would be no contact with other players. Yes lets take away even more of the social gathering... and we wonder why this game has gone solo. That would put the nail in the social coffins for sure.

And I'll add that this once again stresses how far this game has gone away from socialism to commercialism and is more about making gold and getting stuff than it is about community and fun...

 

[Nails Warstein]

Yea it wouldn't help, I have Baja shield and I saw that 10 seeds of renewal were 10 for 850k, total stupid, so I took 2,000 seeds used my young player account to pop a house across from the Fairgrounds and filled 2 vendors with seeds 10 for 150k it sat there a month and I paid fee's no sales, I didn't sell one batch of 10 because they only buy from people that are in the 3 or 4 guilds they know no matter what the discount is, now I have decided not to waste my Young account on shards I just use it to pack transfers much easier then banks bugs ect... I also tried the same on sonoma, I actually bought a Luna house to do it and I under cut the seed and POF price and sold Jack, last week I auctioned the house at MOA for 50m, I can care less about those shards unless they have something I want to buy, I was so ticked I even removed all my gold from both of them, I try to keep 50-100m on every shard never know when something will pop up on search...they can buy from each other and have no economy.

The fact is most people move their gold to Atlantic, but they would not need to anymore. So it might not help in the short term, but with no vendor fees its possible some returning players, and xshard traders like yourself over time might leave those vendors up for an entire year with no fees, before long people will start to see the advantages of doing their shopping on their home shards, and leave their gold at home. Eliminating vendor fees is a long term strategy for stimulating the economies. Of course xsharders like yourself might dislike no vendor fees because it means people can actually start selling items at what they are worth instead of discounting prices just to get rid of them with fewer fees. I know xshard traders depend on cheap goods on low populated shards just so they can bring their haul back to resell for profit on Atlantic or another shard. See that happen all the time.

 

[Francis Drake]

I much agree with @MalagAste I love a good player run auction house and try to attend as many as possible. Not always to buy or sell anything, often just to meet people and have a good time.

 

[Elenni]

Just reading some of these posts stresses how immense the gap of needs is. There are two economies in UO: the long-term vets who talk casually about items in millions (and tens of millions,) and the lower-end players or newbies who think in terms of thousands of gold (and by that, I mean under 100K).

Don't get me wrong, I totally get it and I'm not trying to point fingers...I used to be one of the first group back in the day. You can't help being gold-rich when you've been playing so long, and your economy and perspective is going to be different. But if you're interested in expanding the player-base and community at all, you've really got to give some thought to the latter group. If removing or changing the vendor fee structure isn't the answer, there still needs to be *some* adjustment that supports the lower end of the scale, rather than dismissing it (and them) entirely.

 

[OREOGL]

You're missing the point on the storage issue. It is not the items that can currently be put on there unpriced - that is already in effect, removing fees makes no difference to that. The issue is that if you remove the fees then I am going to put all my junk on vendors in bags priced at 50 million, when the contents is clearly worth far far less than that. I know no one will buy it, so it is just extra free storage for me. If someone does buy it, then I am up 50 million. And I will find more junk to store on there. You can't even say "well just charge a fee on items worth more than 1 million", because then I will use it to store my low level treasure maps, tools etc. Again, they will be at prices that no one will buy them. And you can guarantee a lot of people will allow these storage vendors to be searched, thus filling the vendor search with items which are for all intents and purposes not legitimately for sale.

As for the melodrama about it "ruining our shards"... I am almost certain my shard has lower population than yours and I would suffer far worse lag wise moving to one of the populated shards than you would. But having less vendor items is the price I pay for the enjoyment of the shard I am on. If it becomes an issue where I need the perks of a larger shard and it is "ruining" the experience, then I will transfer to one of the shards where there is higher population. That option exists. I am not forced to endure this "game ruining issue".

This seems pretty moot. If I'm not mistaken you can put items on vendors that aren't for sale and don't generate much if any vendor fees.

 

[Gilmour]

The people of Drachenfels, myself included, learned along time ago that keeping any stuff that "might" sell priced over a few mill on a vendor is a bad idea.. And people have also learned that if they search for such things, ask in chats..

Do I want the vendor fees gone because of it? not really, it's sort of needed overall.. And I do not see an alternative solution.

 

[Lady CaT]

Vendor fees created a disincentive for many players to continue running vendors. An element of the game many people enjoyed. And for many players now one less reason to log on.

 

[Morgy123]

just think they shood do like many othere games do make fees have one time price and then let it sit there as long as it takes
i dont mind pay fee but getting changed evry day for stuff that might take a month to sell is just beats the purpose of haveing an vendor
as fare as i see it to have an vendor is to sell stuff to make money and if you arnt doing that and only giveing vendor money for haveing your stuff then you dont want to do it

 

[Lord Arm]

I just wanted to see 5k , 10k, at most 25k items not have a vender charge but not to do away with. Some don't know whats really happening on some shards or don't care. the real high end items are sold here on stratics anyway, they avoid any fees. maybe stratics could be a gold sink lol. I'm sure nothing will happen for venders. ive seen many players leave because they cant even get basic things for their house or player use. this is the only reason I would like to see this small change.