Is Vending dying on UO?

[Doubleplay]

I play on the Sonoma shard, and although I have GM'd nearly all crafting skills, I never did learn inscription. Consequently I have to buy recall scrolls for my rune books to get around since I cannot make them myself.

It has been harder and harder to find recall scrolls for sale nowdays. I just finished looking at every single vendor in Luna and only found one that had any recall scrolls for sale, and he had only 50. Furthermore, approximately 25% of the vendors were empty.

Are people losing interest in vending? I know you cannot make enough gold selling recall books and such, but it used to be that there was some pride or satisfaction involved in fulfilling a needed service. Is that gone?

Furthermore, if there was someone somewhere other than Luna selling the items I need, how in the heck can I find them? I mean I spend hours roaming the lands. Most homes do not have vendors anymore, and those that do are empty too. Many of the old sources I had for recall scrolls still have vendors, but the owners no longer keep them stocked. Guess I will have to start training inscription and take one further step towards 100% self reliance.

 

[Nine Dark Moons]

you can buy recall scrolls from most magery / necromancy NPC's. that's where i buy them in bulk, since it's easier than vendor searching or even scribing them myself. the umbra necros and the haven mages are where i go.
i don't think vending is dying at all. i think most people are probably still exploring the new lands and skills, etc. that's what has been keeping me away from stocking my napa scribe vendor as often as i should...

 

[JC the Builder]

With the amount of time and effort it takes to fill a full spellbook, they should sell for 500,000 gold. But people only pay 2,000, the amount you get off one dragon.

The economy is in terrible shape and only gets worse over time.

 

[five oclock]

Yes Nine, I have notice

But Nine hit the nail on the head. theres so much new stuff to try out. Give it a month or two..Maybe three this time..and vendors will pick back up big time.

 

[Black Majick]

With the amount of time and effort it takes to fill a full spellbook, they should sell for 500,000 gold. But people only pay 2,000, the amount you get off one dragon.

The economy is in terrible shape and only gets worse over time.

True. I charged 15k a pop on my vendor. Just as a filler item. Would buy off someone elses and mark up 10k. Funny thing across the stree from mine is where i bought mine and I always sold them. Average of 1 a day...go figure right.

Mage shop though is the way too go on the recalls. I should prolly get and start stocking up one of my 4 vendors with just recalls. Atleast have something on it.

 

[Doubleplay]

Duh...

NPCs sell recall scrolls, my dumb. lol. Thanks a lot for the response. Sheesh been playing for 10+ years and still learning.

 

[Kirthag]

There is a definitive loss in vendors - game wide. I got characters on most of the popular shards, and yeah - comparing to when I last logged on (returning vet here) I've noticed a whole lot of my old vendors are gone! More than half my runes are useless - the vendor, the house, the player just... gone.

Too many are becoming self sufficient - 7 character slots, advanced character tokens - taking away from the marketability of in-game products. I've noticed, unless you have uber rares or a vendor in Luna... you're not gonna get much out of being a merchant. Is about money it seems... *sigh*

 

[kittykat]

Vendors on Sonoma seem quite scarce, even in Luna where they should be interesting. I run around looking for cool new deco to buy and mostly haven't found, well, really anything (actually considering a shopping trip to Atlantic just to find some fun stuffs). Maybe it's because of the small shard population, or maybe it's other things, as mentioned by others in the thread here. It's definitely depressing though....

 

[Nine Dark Moons]

ooops, sorry sunrise, restocking my napa vendor as i type...

 

[Connor_Graham]

I play on the Sonoma shard, and although I have GM'd nearly all crafting skills, I never did learn inscription. Consequently I have to buy recall scrolls for my rune books to get around since I cannot make them myself.

It has been harder and harder to find recall scrolls for sale nowdays. I just finished looking at every single vendor in Luna and only found one that had any recall scrolls for sale, and he had only 50. Furthermore, approximately 25% of the vendors were empty.

Part of your trouble is that you're on Sonoma, which is one of the lesser populated shards. If you're looking for a west coast shard that is busier, you should check into Pacific. It's the most populated of the west coast shards, but not so much so that people are packed together fighting over a single spawn spot.

Are people losing interest in vending? I know you cannot make enough gold selling recall books and such, but it used to be that there was some pride or satisfaction involved in fulfilling a needed service. Is that gone?

A lot of people that used to stock resources have either given up due to scripters or moved on to other games. There there are those that don't realize exactly how much effort is required to stock and maintain a vendor house, and end up giving up on it after 6 months to a year or so. I've been running a vendor house on Pacific for about 3 years now, and have had to change up what I stock several times for one reason or another, but I enjoy the playstyle, not to mention the profit, along with the interaction with the community that is hard to come by these days. It gives me a good feeling to know that I'm helping to provide the community of my shard with a well stocked and varied vendor house, and have built a strong list of regular customers that love to shop at my house. This isnt' something that most people are interested in, so you get the fly by night vendor houses that are here one day and gone the next.

Furthermore, if there was someone somewhere other than Luna selling the items I need, how in the heck can I find them? I mean I spend hours roaming the lands. Most homes do not have vendors anymore, and those that do are empty too. Many of the old sources I had for recall scrolls still have vendors, but the owners no longer keep them stocked. Guess I will have to start training inscription and take one further step towards 100% self reliance.

You should check the houses around Zento, and along the Homare-Jima road. The housing along the road just before Umbra is also a popular spot for vendors, as well as the new housing in Ter Mur.

 

[Sarsmi]

Duh...

NPCs sell recall scrolls, my dumb. lol. Thanks a lot for the response. Sheesh been playing for 10+ years and still learning.

I don't think they used to sell recalls. For some reason I am remembering this as something that was added only a few years ago. Maybe I'm just mis-remembering.

I sell recalls on my Baja vendor (along with every type of filled spellbook, though I need to do the spellweaving quests again, YAY kill 50 mongbats, but I digress). I get my full spellbooks from idocs, people usually have a couple kicking around. I would hate to fill them myself, it's bad enough doing the 17 for necro or whatever.

 

[Warpig Inc]

Problem with armor and jewels is you have to price it out of reach of newer players to aviod the unravel shoppers.

 

[Fink]

Problem with armor and jewels is you have to price it out of reach of newer players to aviod the unravel shoppers.

Or avoid this: "..Would buy off someone elses and mark up 10k."

 

[Pawain]

Problem with armor and jewels is you have to price it out of reach of newer players to aviod the unravel shoppers.

*raises hand*

 

[hawkeye_pike]

Too many are becoming self sufficient - 7 character slots, advanced character tokens - taking away from the marketability of in-game products. I've noticed, unless you have uber rares or a vendor in Luna... you're not gonna get much out of being a merchant. Is about money it seems... *sigh*

I try to become self sufficient, because vendor prices (especially in Luna) are insanely high. I rather make an own tailor instead of paying several million on a good suit. I am just learning Imbuing for the same reason.

The funny thing is, I hardly use my crafter to sell items and run a business, but rather to craft things for my own need.

 

[Gheed]

These days it seems not many want to mess with selling anything that doesn't cost millions. I think a big part of that mentality is the difficulty of keeping a good vendor stocked. At least it is for me. I would love to see some better tools put in place for setting up vendors.

I would like to be able to save a configuration of a vendor. I like selling lots of consumables... potions, reagents, furniture, repair deeds, scrolls.. at one time raw materials. I spend a lot of time organizing items in the top layer of the bag. Placing everything neatly. It would be nice to organize a vendor and take a snapshot of the layout. When folks bought certain items, the vendor owner could just drop new items on the vendor and they would auto sort and price them via the config you saved.

If it were a new or different quantity, the vendor would not allow you to drop the items on it. You would have to open the bag and place/price them manually and re-save the config if you wanted to keep stocking the new item.

I sell low and used to catch folks buying me out just to restock on their vendor at a higher price. I don't mind that but when I just spent so much time placing everything neatly... it's kind of frustrating. I would say the hassle of organizing a vendor is the main reason I don't keep those low-end consumable vendors stocked any more.

I'd also like to see scroll binders removed for power scrolls. It would be much better to allow the lower power scrolls to stack to the end-user's cap. If you used a 105, then you could use another and it would increase your cap .5 points past 105. Plus 1 to the cap for 110'a past 110 and 1.5 for 115's. That would force folks doing champs to keep the lower scrolls on their vendor, but still give them value.

 

[jfkeach]

I have a vendor in Luna that in last month-month and a half, pulled about 700 mil off of, and I price my things below normal luna prices. If i keep it stocked, I sell and make good gold off of it.

So I think your problem is because of your shard population.
Sorry. Im on Atlantic, and we keep shops busy for the most part.

 

[Mapper]

Are people losing interest in vending? I know you cannot make enough gold selling recall books and such, but it used to be that there was some pride or satisfaction involved in fulfilling a needed service. Is that gone?

On Europa I started a new shop this April in Zento, Currently my friend who runs scribe/keg vendors is constantly stocking. I am also stocking every day - Loosing interest.. Never! The profit may not be huge, but it's filling a gap I saw in Zento by selling general items at reasonable prices.

 

[FrejaSP]

The problem with vendors is, it's time eating
To stock my vendor I need to get alot of resources now, I have to do mining, lumbering, quests, hunting to get the resources I need.

Vendors need to be able to buy items
I wish I could make a list of items I need and give it to my vendor.

I need:
Barbed leather, 90gp, max 5000 pieces
White seed, 10,000gp, max 50
Void Essence, 5,000gp, max 50
----
----
Then I and other crafters would have easier to buy the item we need and the gatheres/hunterers would have easier with selling their resources.

 

[onthefifty]

It is most difficult to keep a Sundries vendor up and running and stocked at all times. Clearly the need exists however the playstyle to do this is quite time consuming. For me I was running an arrow and bolt stockhouse. However i found that more of my time was spent farming / making the bolts and arrows rather than playing the game. I think many find this out after a short time and give it up.

why sell 1 million things for a buck when u can sell 1 thing for a million bucks.

 

[Black Sun]

I still maintain mostly consumables on my vendors. Recalls, Bandages, and archery ammo. I'm not making myself rich doing this, I do it as a convenience to my customers. I have a vendor in Luna that sells more desirable items when I get them. I get more pleasure from filling a need, or giving someone a good deal on an item that would normally cost an arm and a leg in Luna than I do from gathering up gold for which I have little use.

 

[Sarsmi]

I still maintain mostly consumables on my vendors. Recalls, Bandages, and archery ammo. I'm not making myself rich doing this, I do it as a convenience to my customers. I have a vendor in Luna that sells more desirable items when I get them. I get more pleasure from filling a need, or giving someone a good deal on an item that would normally cost an arm and a leg in Luna than I do from gathering up gold for which I have little use.

Me too. Selling consumables takes a lot of time, but it's nice to know that when people need something they can come to my shop and find it. That's worth more than gold to me.

 

[Sarsmi]

Just to add to this, this morning I was going through an old runebook I got from an idoc labled Baja vendor runes. It had old old runes like skymall, etc. Anyways the last rune in the book took me to this cute little house between wrong/chaos area, really well done I was so impressed. I walked around and went inside, up the stairs and when I moused over a dressform I saw I had made it and the person bought it in my shop! That really tickled me pink.

 

[QueenZen]

Sometimes it is more frustration than anything else in that many customers are creatures of habit and will ONLY shop in Luna.

I have had vendors on two shards Chesapeake and Siege. I have removed ALL of my vendors the past week or so on Chesapeake.

Why ? Cuz some folks will just shop only Luna, where for example one stop shopping is *easier* despite the costs of items thus folks just go there more often. When one sees simple 120 tailoring 100 lore reward bod cloth clothing selling for 5k and up depending on reward bod cloth hues higher end higher priced yet...and yours are sold for 550 gp not 5550 gp yet do not sell cuz your shop is in downtown Zento *easy as heck to find* ...and it sits there ya give it up. Same for inscription alchemy etc. my recalls went for 40gp per some are the same some are higher in Luna...mine sold but slower than Luna. Then they just sat there...so ya take that vendor down, TOO ! etc. etc.

*not for lack of advertising nor droppin runes either* just sometimes folks just all rather go to one place like some mega malls all together than even save lots of gp shoppin elsewhere that may not offer high end items or rewards or pricey pixel gifts....just regular goods at regular prices...but the shopper wants to buy ethereals and dye tubs and tokens and more the same place many a times they buy simple clothing or recalls. That draw of Luna, fancy pricey things is why folks habitually *only* sometimes shop the Luna malls on some shards, where they find regular stuff over priced and the fancy pricey tokens dyetubs and whatever new has come down the pike all in one stop shopping of many mega sized city of player run vendors malls.

My vendors on Siege though seem busy, so I keep that going so long as I feel I am doing some public service somewhere those vendors remain going strong. Although now with the advent of crystall portals even on Siege, my gate scrolls are not selling like they had been...but all the rest of my inscription items go fast there on siege still.

They have LUNA too on Siege, but maybe they look for bargains more OUT of LUNA on Siege, more than they bother to do on Chesapeake. I look at it this way...if ya wish to blow 5k on a plain dress in low end bod cloth, or 60gp on a recall instead of 40 gp at my place, its their gp to throw away...mine were far less, but NOT in Luna ! Whatever folks ! hrmm !

 

[Gheed]

I'm not against Luna. I think there should be a merchant center as opposed to random shops spread out everywhere. The large unfair advantage luna has is the popular search engines that only list Luna shops. I really wish EA would put out their own site or maybe even an in game search engine.

For example I am still looking for a 120 Mysticism scroll. I'm not hell bent on getting one. I have plenty of other stuff to do. But I don't want to run by every house on every continent.... every day looking for one. I'll do champs w/my guild hoping to get a drop... and be the only one that wants it... well before I farm vendors for one. But poping into a site and doing a search takes no time at all. So I can still do the other things I am interested in doing and check daily for the scroll I want. In game money is no object... but I will buy the cheaper one if there are two.... Luna or not.

 

[Sho Hashi]

About a month ago I had the same problem in Sonoma. There was one vendor who had recalls at a higher than regular price. I have a feeling someone went around Luna and bought out all of their competition. Many people have likely not restocked their recalls since. Just a guess.

Finding any commodities in Sonoma is not that easy. One of the downsides of playing on a small shard, but I still think it beats a larger one.

 

[Connor_Graham]

*not for lack of advertising nor droppin runes either*

Sometimes it doesn't matter if you drop runes or not. There are certain Luna vendor owners that pick up the runes of any competition so their overpriced stuff will sell instead of the person's with the non-Luna vendor house.

 

[RavenWinterHawk]

Sometimes it doesn't matter if you drop runes or not. There are certain Luna vendor owners that pick up the runes of any competition so their overpriced stuff will sell instead of the person's with the non-Luna vendor house.

Yeah that happens a lot. Some guy follows me around and takes my runes.
Wont answer you.
Bet its a script. I also think its a form of harrassing.

But what can you do.

 

[Black Majick]

Anyone from Sonoma browswing this thread and would like too see something stocked on vendor on Sonoma go to Sonoma forums and post in thread I made. I got 4 Luna vendors that I will stocked (fairly priced) with basic consumables. Just tell me what you want and Ill see what I can do. I dont so much care about making the money. I got most of the stuff I need already. Get plenty of money from spawning/PvPing so not a big deal if I dont make a dime off them. Just be something too help Sonomans out...

 

[QueenZen]

Sometimes it doesn't matter if you drop runes or not. There are certain Luna vendor owners that pick up the runes of any competition so their overpriced stuff will sell instead of the person's with the non-Luna vendor house.

I found that issue or problem also existed with the assorted low end bod vendors I had put up too. I put these low end small bods tailoring and smithing on the vendors primarily for newer players to buy *for less* to help them maybe get bod parts of larger bods so maybe they could get reward bod cloth or powders of fort. etc. nothing fancy.

In the end I seen some Luna mall owners buying up all my small bods which one would see on THEIR vendors for way more. Kinda defeated the purpose of tryin to help newer players just get missing bod parts for less so maybe they could just get simple reward bod cloth etc.

I did not mind selling em off cuz many of em were triplicates and quadruples which we all get in overdose beat throwing them all out, but I was trying to aim for newer players working up their skills, doing a bod get a shovel or cloth kinda thing or maybe a missing part that they may really have needed for large bods they had all of but maybe one part.

Oh well ! Some days I wonder how more broke newer players even afford LUNA simple basic any things with ..much of it so over priced like some Neiman Marcus 733t stores instead of *walmarts* at least on Chesapeake that is.

 

[Jhym]

Yeah, I think it was that the npc vendor mages weren't high enough level to vend them for a long time (or they would spawn and nobody would notice before they went away.)

I seem to remember getting up to 3rd circle on most but the 4th was definitely added in the past few years.

As for the op, you also could befriend certain folks who would make you some for the materials. Like those training inscription.

 

[ingsmsico]

something really interesting I've seen on vendors is decorating kits. example: a kit to make a toilet with an instruction book, or a themed bag of goodies to build a kitchen, or bedroom, or custom holiday bags that are unique collections of previous years gifts.