What's up with NPC resources??

[Boogieman]

Ok, I'm a veteran player been gone for 2 years. Come back to UO and starts up a scribe character.

To my horror it seems that ressource respawn doesn't work the good old way. That is: 20, 40, 80, 160 etc. up until 999 ressources would spawn on vendors that were buyed 'dry'.

I see only 20 of each commodity. SO HOW THE %£!!** will I be able to ever buy enough scrolls and regs for my scribe without loosing my mind???

Is it a 'fix' or a bug??

 

[packrat]

Its kind of screwed up. You can still get up to 999. You have to buy up all the lower numbers and wait and wait then it respawns with a bigger amount. then wait and wait for it to respawn again. It will eventually get to 999.. be patient for the moment... I dont understand why they are doing it this way..

Same thing for the regs..

Now, arrows or bolts. You can just keep buying and buying....

 

[Azureal]

Ok, I'm a veteran player been gone for 2 years. Come back to UO and starts up a scribe character.

To my horror it seems that ressource respawn doesn't work the good old way. That is: 20, 40, 80, 160 etc. up until 999 ressources would spawn on vendors that were buyed 'dry'.

I see only 20 of each commodity. SO HOW THE %£!!** will I be able to ever buy enough scrolls and regs for my scribe without loosing my mind???

Is it a 'fix' or a bug??

As packrat said, its sorta screwy at the moment, with no real reason. Started up a month ago myself, and also wanted to kick start my funds with some scribe work.

Its downright painful doing a 32 shop run (tram and fell) for regs and scrolls, only to find on the second run round that the quantities havent increased. Factor in some of the total cat-assery that ensues thanks to factions, and its a complete nightmare.

 

[Fayled Dhreams]

The word "impatience" springs to mind ...

"The Old Way" involved a rune book with multiple spawn points
(Reg's = mage type shops)
That were worked in a cycle ...
built right ...
time as you reached the end ... the begining had respawned.

Yep ... gave you something to do ... hopping from point to point ...
having enough gp for a buy-out, not too over loaded to bank/secure
snagging a packy at the right time ... seldom needed two ...

Sitting at luna and walking back and forth ..
yeah ... that could like ... take forever ...

low on gp stash? build the circuit so theres time to farm some gold ...


"Selective memory"

also springs to mind ...

(talking on the forums is a waste of time ... could be getting gold ... or cycling thru the runnies)

 

[packrat]

Boogieman. what shard are you on?

 

[Azureal]

The word "impatience" springs to mind ...

"The Old Way" involved a rune book with multiple spawn points
(Reg's = mage type shops)
That were worked in a cycle ...
built right ...
time as you reached the end ... the begining had respawned.

Yep ... gave you something to do ... hopping from point to point ...
having enough gp for a buy-out, not too over loaded to bank/secure
snagging a packy at the right time ... seldom needed two ...

Sitting at luna and walking back and forth ..
yeah ... that could like ... take forever ...

low on gp stash? build the circuit so theres time to farm some gold ...


"Selective memory"

also springs to mind ...

(talking on the forums is a waste of time ... could be getting gold ... or cycling thru the runnies)

I doubt...its just me...but your....continual posting...in this manner...is annoying...

Also your post...is mainly gibberish...and doesnt really....adress the OPs...post...Somehow...Strange...lolwut...bbq?

Maybe I read it differently and maybe youre way off base claiming he is impatient, because the way you describe is how it USED to work, but it doesnt nowadays, or atleast not like it used to.

I have 2 or 3 rune books full of Magery and Alchemy shops inside NPC cities. I start my run, recall to each and buyout the stock until Ive finished a complete run. By the time Ive recalled to 40+ NPCs vendors, respawn should have commenced. The way it used to work is the quantity of that item would then double. It just doesnt. Its borked. Hence the OP.

 

[Fayled Dhreams]

I have 2 or 3 rune books full of Magery and Alchemy shops inside NPC cities. I start my run, recall to each and buyout the stock until Ive finished a complete run. By the time Ive recalled to 40+ NPCs vendors, respawn should have commenced. The way it used to work is the quantity of that item would then double. It just doesnt. Its borked. Hence the OP.

Well ... just did a 1 hour run ... 1180 scrolls (8 shops)
not >all< vendors did the double on a lockstep timer ...
but they WERE doubling
and that was just 8 shops ... hardly 40 npc's as you stated

Individualized timers ...
*shrugs*

no biggy ...
oh!
Mages aren't the only ones that spawn scrolls ... btw

 

[Fayled Dhreams]

Second hour (short by 6 mins ...)
2800 scrolls ...

Same path

myth busted

 

[Azureal]

No-one was debating the myth of increased resource spawn, simply stating that it isnt as reliable as it used to. Your post simply proves that the old code...

Resource x 2 upon respawn

...isnt working as it used to. 2 x 1180 (your first run) is 2360. Unless of course youve thrown in new shops, or someone forced a respawn before you. Either way, this should help the OP.

And I'm definitely going on a resource run tonight, as my runebooks need a top up.

 

[hawkeye_pike]

You have to wait 30 minutes before vendor ressources respawn. If you bought a ressource (reagents) clean, the amount being sold by the vendor will be doubled after respawn.

I have no idea, why reagents have been limited in npc vendors. Maybe it has something to do with economy. But then again, if EA would care about UO's economy, they'd take more actions against scripters.

 

[Fayled Dhreams]

...isnt working as it used to. 2 x 1180 (your first run) is 2360. Unless of course youve thrown in new shops, or someone forced a respawn before you. Either way, this should help the OP.

2800 > 2360

'sokay ... math in the hall ...

SAME PATH = same vendors. same locations
MAYBE someone beat me to one ... still got the double on the next pass

 

[Basara]

Several years ago (this isn't a recent change, though some think it is), each individual NPC ended up getting its own unique respawn time. I've had some vendors respawn twice in the time the next vendor over hadn't had its first respawn. I noticed this when they introduced the "Turn in a bod to get one" code, when I started going to some of the multi-NPC tailor shops to buy normal clothes to fill with cloth, rather than fill them with more expensive cloth, but it only confirmed what I'd noticed a few months before, trying to train a scribe and an alchemist at the mage shops (for scrolls AND regs).

So, there's a good chance, after making a round of stops, that not all will have restocked while you were out... And if you wait TOO long, the numbers can decay on some (for some reason, 40 decays to 28, IIRC; and the other numbers have odd decay rates that make it all screwy). And, if someone buys a respawn on you, it can throw your numbers off high or low (high if it respawns yet again by the time you get back).

BTW, you'll also notice that not all mage NPCs are created equal. Some sell only 1st circle scrolls; some sell 1st & 2nd; a few sell 1st-3rd, and a very few sell 1st-4th (cheap way to keep yourself or your scribe shop in Recall scrolls) - and a vendor wipe randomizes it all again. Similarly, some tailors sell shirts, while others don't but sell double amounts of either fancy shirts or doublets...

 

[Boogieman]

To Packrat: I'm on Drachenfels with my newbie scribe.

To Fayled: Your style of language and writing is difficult for me to comprehend. But from what I can decode you seem to be able to find NPCs that doubles their ressources when respawning. In my opinion that just goes to show it's difficult to conclude much on how vendors work these days.

I know that other NPCs than mages sell scrolls (some mapmakers and real estate brokers) - but that doesn't help me much. I'd still have to shop in stacks of 20.

I don't get your 'impatience', 'selective memory' comments- care to explain?
As for the and low 'gold stash' issue: Training a scribe is the only crafting-like skill that'll actually give you a profit just selling to NPCs. Your training pays for itself. Ever tried selling furnitures to NPCs ?? You'll see what I mean, I'm sure.

To Hawkeye_pike: Guess I wasn't clear about my observation. I bought vendors down from 20 to 0. Waited for respawn. Observed respawn: 20.
Last time UO had a sort of healthy economy going was before Trammel. So I don't think they care much.

To Basara: I know I have to wait for a respawn and I don't do it by the clock. I just do a round and check back on the vendors after a while. I also know about the gradual resetting of ressources - and it's not what I saw.

Well - guess I'll have to see if I can find any old school spawning vendors on the shard. *Crosses fingers*

 

[aarons6]

i wish they had fixed prices and inventory.
its stupid to have it set like it is.

right now, if the price is fix, ie regs, then the inventory changes.
if the inventory is fixed, ie bottles, then the price goes up if you buy them

why cant you just have unlimited supply of stuff at a certain price.

 

[Boogieman]

I went and did some shopping this evening.

I cannot say I have made a thourough investigation of this spawn issue, but it seems that vendors in non-faction cities respawn in the 'right' way. That is for every time they respawn the amount of commodities doubles untill a limit is reached at 999.
My experiences with NPCs that didn't double up the amount when respawning were all from faction cities.

I'm only talking about regs and scrolls here - I didn't check with other commodities.

 

[Desperado_SE]

As for the and low 'gold stash' issue: Training a scribe is the only crafting-like skill that'll actually give you a profit just selling to NPCs. Your training pays for itself. Ever tried selling furnitures to NPCs ?? You'll see what I mean, I'm sure.

Actually, this is slightly incorrect. I have financed several newbie characters across the shards by starting them with bowcrafting and lumberjacking. Doesn't take long for the gold to start piling up.

 

[Boogieman]

I have financed several newbie characters across the shards by starting them with bowcrafting and lumberjacking. Doesn't take long for the gold to start piling up.

You are missing the point - any char who collects ressources, trains crafting and sells the produced items to a NPC will naturally earn a profit (a rather poor one, though).
A scribe doesn't collect ressources, he buys them from NPCs, make scrolls and sells back the produced scrolls and still makes a profit.
The parallel to this would be your bowcrafter buying boards from a NPC and selling bows to make a profit. If you can find faction lumber vendors that sells boards at 3-4 gold, you just might be able to actually make a profit otherwise you'd be loosing money. Edited:Did a bit of research and found out you earn on average about 2 gold pr. board when selling bows to NPCs, and that's not including waste. So forget about making a profit from NPC bought wood.

I make another scroll-shopping run. It turns out that some vendors respawn in the expected way: 20-40-80-160 etc. while others reset to 20. There is no real pattern that I can discern, except for seeing no double-up respawn in Felucca faction cities.

 

[T_Amon_from_work]

I have financed several newbie characters across the shards by starting them with bowcrafting and lumberjacking. Doesn't take long for the gold to start piling up.

You are missing the point - any char who collects ressources, trains crafting and sells the produced items to a NPC will naturally earn a profit (a rather poor one, though).
A scribe doesn't collect ressources, he buys them from NPCs, make scrolls and sells back the produced scrolls and still makes a profit.
The parallel to this would be your bowcrafter buying boards from a NPC and selling bows to make a profit. If you can find faction lumber vendors that sells boards at 3-4 gold, you just might be able to actually make a profit otherwise you'd be loosing money.

I make another scroll-shopping run. It turns out that some vendors respawn in the expected way: 20-40-80-160 etc. while others reset to 20. There is no real pattern that I can discern, except for seeing no double-up respawn in Felucca faction cities.

Ummm, you see all the regs on the ground? A good 1/4 of all the stock I used to train my scribe came from any of my characters picking them up. Honest! I grant I did the mage/herbalist rounds like anyone, but rarely did I ever score more than 160 of a reg before I had enough for what I wanted.

New Haven ... go kill Spellbinders ... 10 of a random reg. <shrug> You can do that while training up resist, weapon skills ... a slew of things.

 

[Boogieman]

Ummm, you see all the regs on the ground? A good 1/4 of all the stock I used to train my scribe came from any of my characters picking them up. Honest!

Doh.... what can I say but... I honour thee ! Picking regs from the ground isn't my style though.

I grant I did the mage/herbalist rounds like anyone, but rarely did I ever score more than 160 of a reg before I had enough for what I wanted.

I'm not saying scribing cannot be done in a different way from what I like to do it. My point is that getting 999 scrolls / regs when shopping does go a long way towards letting me spend time on something more interesting in UO than shopping for ressources.

 

[Desperado_SE]

You are missing the point...

Kind of hard to miss an obscure point that you failed to include in the original post that I quoted, which was as follows:

As for the and low 'gold stash' issue: Training a scribe is the only crafting-like skill that'll actually give you a profit just selling to NPCs. Your training pays for itself. Ever tried selling furnitures to NPCs ?? You'll see what I mean, I'm sure.

Pay special attention to the bolded part in the above quote. Now how is anyone supposed to ascertain that your point was the difference between crafters who collect or purchase their resources when all you said was that a scribe was the only crafting-like skill that would actually give you a profit just selling to NPC's?

 

[Basara]

For more regs, more quickly....

Get a bunch of level 1 T-maps. You only need about 35 Cartography to decode them (and you can probably do level 1s that others have decoded, without the skill). Go dig them up, and use Unlock on the chests (only need 50 magery to open the chests with the spell). Each chest will pay out 1000 gold, some scrolls & gems, and 3 stacks of 40-60 regs. The spawn is laughable (toughest pawn from them is a normal ratman), and you can do about 10-20 maps PER HOUR. You can then use the gold (and the gold from selling the gems and scrolls) to buy even MORE regs from NPCs, as well as the scrolls.

It's how I trained my scribe, and it worked REALLY well. It even works with level 2 maps and GM magery (though you MIGHT have to have 75 carto - can't remember if a mage can do already -decoded level 2s like they can the level 1s). 2000 gold, 6 reg stacks, double the scrolls & gems, and spawn that EVs cast before the dig can easily take down. One can do 8-12 level 2s an hour for regs.

Best of all, you can turn in the completed maps next publish, or right now if you just want a few library points...