Jeremy: NPC vendors price bug...?

[MYUO]

On a side note, since the publish is already out on all shards, can you elaborate what kind of exploit are you trying to fix?
Before this publish, the NPC drain 1000gp on every 1000 units of resources bought and sold. Now he will drain 10000 or 20000 on every 1000 units.
If this fix is to prevent script miners/lumberjackers from selling scripted resources to npc, then after this publish, won't the scripters just sell the resources to players?
Unless the script is so advanced that it can scan the prices of all NPCs and let the cheater automatically recall around to profit from the price diffferences.
I am confused...

 

[Guest]

<blockquote><hr>

No, all the players do is remove the items before the fee is taken. It's taken at the same time, and you can tell what time it's going to happen. Just before the timer expires, you remove your stuff from the vendor. You pay the min, then replace the items.

[/ QUOTE ]
Quite!! You see, THIS is the sort of exploit they ought to be addressing!

 

[Cogniac]

They should add some sort of property to items that keeps track of how long an item has spent on a vendor and charges the vendor fee when that value hits 24 hours (86,400 seconds). That way when someone takes the item off the vendor at the end of the day, they still have 23 hours on the item itself, so when they put it back on the vendor, after an hour, the vendor charges the fee for it.

With the current system of all vendor fees happening server-wide at the same time every day, it's too easy to just avoid it altogether.

On the other hand: I'm really not sure how much strain all those calls to time.h to calculate how long every item has been on a vendor will be. Might crash the server.

 

[Guest]

The problem with UO is that it IS a balanced game. Well, it should be, it COULD be.

Leaving PvP aside for now, (that's a whole new can of worms!) the basis of the game is the hunting and killing of monsters. This involves player-warriors (including samurais and paladins), mages (including necromancers), tamers and bards.

WHY should they hunt? What rewards draw them? Gold, artis and powerscrolls. Well, it's much harder now to collect the gold, since the BoS nerf.
OK, there are back-up skills needed, to support the fighters - tailors and smiths to make, enhance and repair their weps and armour; gardeners, alchemists and chefs to provide extra protection (petals, potions and enchanted fruit).
Then there are the back-up skills for THESE: the resource gatherers (miners and lumberjacks) and tool makers (tinkers).
Treasure hunters and fisherpersons should also be playable.
Player-vendors are a useful way of redistributing goodies, from those that have to those that want.

ALL these activities should be viable, not all for EVERY player, of course, but ANY player should be free to choose which activities to follow, which suit them best.

Over the 7 years I've been playing, I've tried most of these at various times. As the game changes with each expansion/publish etc, I've found some activites more attractive, and some less. But the balance is always changing; some chars get a long sabbatical, only to be recalled to active service with the latest change etc. Great, this is fine!

But some of the recent changes have meant that more of my chars are idle now than ever. In fact, I'm sitting here wondering what I CAN do in UO right now - which char is worth logging in!

I DO hate scripters and cheats, and I'm all for anything that limits their activities, but as in life, it seems that the few will always suffer for the many, and too many of the changes which were targetted at the cheats have caught me in the fallout and so restricted my playing options it's hardly worth the RL cash.

("Doctor, I have a headache".
"OK I'll cut off you head, then you won't feel a thing")

(straw...camel..)

 

[Guest]

<blockquote><hr>

Hell, the last time I did a Doom supply run, I DIDN'T HAVE ENOUGH GOLD FOR INSURANCE for any of my characters! I had literally spent myself broke on insurance in magincia, after the BoS nerf. That was THE SOLE REASON I even did it. Once I had a few checks from Nix in my bank, then I could venture out, and hope the insurance bug didn't hit because all my money was in check form. I still lost about 200k of that money before I left, and guess what - no arty to show for it.
.....
I have to loot even the SCROLLS from my T-maps and sell them to keep in the black.

And, saying that ammo in Doom be a fixed 5 GP, that sounds like greed on your part, not mine, in the lust for a lot of cheap arties and limitless ammo.

While I sold some ammo (enough to knock the prices back to the HIGH 40s, and I got the arrows from rat archers &amp; changelings, the bolts from changelings) the Item I sold the most of was BANDAGES - made from the reward cloth I save, that everyone else tosses to the ground or back to the NPC in disgust.

[/ QUOTE ]

I so totally agree!!!!!

 

[randommatter]

<blockquote><hr>

Randommatter, have you been to a High Council meeting lately? A Community Hunt? Last time I checked, Lake Superior had a pretty active community with a lot of things to do - even without our help.

That's not to say we won't have other things going on - the schedule for the Scavenger Hunt should go up tomorrow - but it's enough for one threadjacking


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
E. Jeremy Dalberg
UO Community Coordinator
EA Mythic
www.uo.com


[/ QUOTE ]

Jeremy:

These events are not adequate to keep the attention of the seasoned players. I don't want to throw stones, I appreciate what those folks are doing, however the draw there is for the new player and while that has merit, meaning, and value... it holds little interest for the rest of us that have been playing forever. I'm sorry if I'm hi-jacking your thread... that was not my intention, and I appreciate you responding to me, however, what I said has real merit, and meaning for not only myself, but several guilds that I have talked to on Lake Superior. When I made my statement I was and am representing over 200 people that don't generally post on Stratics. Could you take me a little more seriously please?

 

[imported_dexdash]

dude start your own thread

 

[Guest]

There was a way to buy resources from a vendor and sell them at a profit to the same vendor, endlessly. I'm sure you can see where this created a problem...

 

[Lemondrops]

<blockquote><hr>

There was a way to buy resources from a vendor and sell them at a profit to the same vendor, endlessly. I'm sure you can see where this created a problem...

[/ QUOTE ]

Endlessly?? Yea I guess I see where that "might" be a small problem =P hehehe =D

Any plans on revamping the system then? I mean I can totally see why ya hit this with a sledge hammer. Just seems to me you are breaking alot of other things in the process of crushing the exploit.

 

[imported_athos_uo]

The price of ingot varies as follows ( at Vesper on Asuka):
at first buyback at 8 sell 16

500 sell no changes
500 sell (sold total 1000) buyback at 8 sell at 15

500 sell no changes
500 sell (sold total 1000) buyback at 8 sell at 14

500 sell no changes
500 sell (sold total 1000) buyback at 8 sell at 13

500 sell no changes
500 sell (sold total 1000) buyback at 8 sell at 12

500 sell no changes
500 sell (sold total 1000) buyback at 8 sell at 11

500 sell no changes
500 sell (sold total 1000) buyback at 8 sell at 10

500 sell no changes
500 sell (sold total 1000) buyback at 8 sell at 9

500 sell no changes
500 sell (sold total 1000) buyback at 7 sell at 8

500 sell no changes
500 sell (sold total 1000) buyback at 7 sell at 8

500 sell no changes
500 sell (sold total 1000) buyback at 6 sell at 8

500 sell no changes
500 sell (sold total 1000) buyback at 5 sell at 8

500 sell no changes
500 sell (sold total 1000) buyback at 4 sell at 8

500 sell no changes
500 sell (sold total 1000) buyback at 3 sell at 8

500 sell no changes
500 sell (sold total 1000) buyback at 2 sell at 8

500 sell no changes
500 sell (sold total 1000) buyback at 1 sell at 8

 

[Cogniac]

<blockquote><hr>

There was a way to buy resources from a vendor and sell them at a profit to the same vendor, endlessly. I'm sure you can see where this created a problem...

[/ QUOTE ]

I am baffled as to how that worked. I can only assume that when you reached the minimum values, the buy back price somehow bottomed out at a higher value than the sell to price. Either that or you could convert what you were buying into something else that you could then sell back to the same vendor for a profit. But even then, the price of the original item that you were buying would eventually eclipse the money you could make off the converted item that you were selling, so that wouldn't be "endlessly".

All I know is I always did my transactions between vendors in different cities or just made my own stuff and sold it straight to Nix or someone and although a.) I didn't do this very often or in large quantities and b.) I am all for knocking out a loophole like that to bring the economy back down, it still makes me sad that a solution could not be arrived at that fixed the loophole without completely eliminating the ability to play with the NPCSE (Non-Player Character Stock Exchange).

 

[Guest]

Forgive me if I don't give any more details - it was effectively a gold dupe, and I really don't want to give anyone ideas

 

[imported_athos_uo]

The border price of some resources is as follows:
cut leather =&gt; 6GP
board =&gt; 3GP
bolt of cloth =&gt; 100GP

I think they are a little low compared with the prices of those resources in the current Britannia.

 

[utilitron]

<blockquote><hr>

<blockquote><hr>

There was a way to buy resources from a vendor and sell them at a profit to the same vendor, endlessly. I'm sure you can see where this created a problem...

[/ QUOTE ]

I am baffled as to how that worked. I can only assume that when you reached the minimum values, the buy back price somehow bottomed out at a higher value than the sell to price. Either that or you could convert what you were buying into something else that you could then sell back to the same vendor for a profit. But even then, the price of the original item that you were buying would eventually eclipse the money you could make off the converted item that you were selling, so that wouldn't be "endlessly".

All I know is I always did my transactions between vendors in different cities or just made my own stuff and sold it straight to Nix or someone and although a.) I didn't do this very often or in large quantities and b.) I am all for knocking out a loophole like that to bring the economy back down, it still makes me sad that a solution could not be arrived at that fixed the loophole without completely eliminating the ability to play with the NPCSE (Non-Player Character Stock Exchange).

[/ QUOTE ]

I know there uded to be a bug with cheese... years and years ago... long since fixed, where you could mess up the buy/sell prices by adding cheese from another vendor (before everything got put to 500, all vendors had was 10 of everyhting, and it would take an hour to restock)

you could trick the system by buying most the stock, and then selling it all back... i wonder if that was part of the new bug... I know the buy/sell price changes after 1000 is either bought or sold... so I am guessing there is probably a way to buy/sell 1000/999 and ping-pong the buy/sell so you gain everytime... most likely with bolts of cloth you could probably manipulate the system (because all the bolt prices are linked to all the different types reguardless)

 

[eolsunder1]

Well I used to love to run about with my marked books and make a little cash finding vendors that had higher prices. Guess thats nixed. Another thing that isn't "fixed" but just smashed.

So, i guess the reason the npcs were made that way in the first place (buy and sell between towns) is now nixed, making them useless for buy/sell. Sell for 3 gold or buy for 20 gold.. Yea right. Time for everyone to hunt for their materials again. You know, if you put npc vendors in the game with the expectation of having this method between towns, and later decide to nix the vendors, mmmmm why did we put them in this way in the first place?

Couldn't we have just "Fixed" the bug or what ever instead of nixing the vendors all together.

 

[Guest]

<blockquote><hr>

Well I used to love to run about with my marked books and MAKE A LITTLE CASH finding vendors that had higher prices. Guess thats nixed. Another thing that isn't "fixed" but just smashed.

[/ QUOTE ]

This is the whole point: MAKE A LITTLE CASH!! Regular players, like eolsunder1 and me and prolly most of the rest of us, this is all we ask. Training skills at lower levels, on a new char, used to be good because you could make a small but steady profit as a trainee tailor - wow, when you could make cloaks and robes, which the NPC's would pay a decent price for! And the same with carto - oooh the NPC buys a world map from me for 20gp!

I'm sure this is how the system was INTENDED to work!

It's a tragedy that, in order to &gt;splat!!&lt; a few exploiters, the vast majority of the player base end up suffering. YES I agree, as I've said many times before, something MUST be done about cheats, but for goodness' sake, THINK about it -

1. exploiters spoil the game for many honest players
2. change the game to stop the exploiters
3. oh dear, the changes have spoilt the game for many honest players

Am I missing something here?

 

[Guest]

<blockquote><hr>

The price of ingot varies as follows ( at Vesper on Asuka):
at first buyback at 8 sell 16

500 sell no changes
500 sell (sold total 1000) buyback at 8 sell at 15

500 sell no changes
500 sell (sold total 1000) buyback at 8 sell at 14

500 sell no changes
500 sell (sold total 1000) buyback at 8 sell at 13

500 sell no changes
500 sell (sold total 1000) buyback at 8 sell at 12

500 sell no changes
500 sell (sold total 1000) buyback at 8 sell at 11

500 sell no changes
500 sell (sold total 1000) buyback at 8 sell at 10

500 sell no changes
500 sell (sold total 1000) buyback at 8 sell at 9

500 sell no changes
500 sell (sold total 1000) buyback at 7 sell at 8

500 sell no changes
500 sell (sold total 1000) buyback at 7 sell at 8

500 sell no changes
500 sell (sold total 1000) buyback at 6 sell at 8

500 sell no changes
500 sell (sold total 1000) buyback at 5 sell at 8

500 sell no changes
500 sell (sold total 1000) buyback at 4 sell at 8

500 sell no changes
500 sell (sold total 1000) buyback at 3 sell at 8

500 sell no changes
500 sell (sold total 1000) buyback at 2 sell at 8

500 sell no changes
500 sell (sold total 1000) buyback at 1 sell at 8

[/ QUOTE ]
WTF? You mean, the NPC prices DROP, the more you buy from them? The price change DIRECTION is now reversed? ???
Lemondrops - panic!!!!

 

[imported_athos_uo]

<blockquote><hr>

500 sell no changes
500 sell (sold total 1000) buyback at 8 sell at 15

[/ QUOTE ]
means
<blockquote><hr>

- After I sold 500 ingots to a smith, the smith displayed that he buys back and sells an ingot at the same price as before.
- After I sold again 500 ingots to the smith, the smith displayed that he buys back an ingot at 8 GP and sells an ingot at 15 GP

[/ QUOTE ]

 

[Guest]

<blockquote><hr>

Actually, what the change specifically is is that the buy price won't go above a certain point, and the sell price won't go below it. It closes a particularly nasty loophole that was causing quite a few problems. The sell price can still drop, and drop all the way to where it's the same as the buy price - just not any further.

[/ QUOTE ]

I have to say this... to Draconi, Jeremy, all devs...

While I never bothered to use the buy/sell method to try to make gold as a 'merchant' this was never an exploit and was not by any means cheating. When those changes were made to the game they were absolutely 100% positively and undenaibley intended to function as a way for players to buy/sell items from various NPCs to make money.

~~~This was supposed to create a "dynamic and player-created" economic environment for the game.~~~

I understand that you (the developers) looked at this aspect and decided that it was a bad idea (yes it was a terrible idea indeed) but how dare you try to say that it was an exploit? You are making players that were playing the game as expressly intended feel like they were cheating or taking advantage of a "bug".

Please check your sources and do some research before you get on a high horse and "catch cheaters" who were doing this... I have to say a phrase that I didn't think I'd ever have stated here: "Do you guys even play the game?".

Seriously, I think an apology is in order, and I'm not even someone that profited from that former game feature.

 

[Lemondrops]

<blockquote><hr>

...
Lemondrops - panic!!!!

[/ QUOTE ]

*shrug* I understand the 'why' of them doing it. Eliminating a gold dupe is a great thing.

But like another poster put up above.. would have been nice to see a fix for whatever the specific problem was... and left the system in place.

Guess that wasn't possible/feasable/timely or whatever.

Like I said earlier.. doesn't effect me though. aside from 'here and there'.

But I have noticed on cats the prices steadly climbing the past few days.

Likely, I'm thinkin the easiest fix without the benifit of a new system being put in.. is to simply respawn the vendors every.. few weeks or month or something.

 

[eolsunder1]

Well it sucked because as a craftsman I didn't go out to hunt for gold because I only had magery on my craftsman (no med, eval, etc).

So, I took the time to mark tailor, ingot, wood, leather, and all the other books so that once every few weeks i could get on my craftsman and run to all the towns cross trading bolts/ingots/arrows, etc. If the prices were average i didn't bother, but once in a while you could find a luna vendor maybe buying ingots for 25-30 gold (someone was using the vendor for something) and you could find another vendor selling them for regular price (about 10 gold) and you could make a nice tidy profit before the vendors averaged out.

Same with bottles. Once in a while the fel faction bottle vendors would be up in a town, buy for 5-10 gold, find some alchemist vendors buying for 20 gold. etc.

A nice way to make cash on a non-warrior once in a while. Couldn't do it alot because the vendors averaged out fast, and it as great if you found a vendor way out somewhere that someone was using and you could cash in.

Again, was there a reason to "fix" this when it wasn't broken. Seems to me the system worked great and had a bug in it. Couldn't we have fixed the bug, and kept the nice system in place. Thats my only complaint. All that work for nothing now, might as well toss the runebooks because no way am I going to sell arrows to the npc vendor for 3 gold when you can sell to players for 10-20, and prices quicky skyrocketing on npcs selling arrows for 30+ because there isn't any way to balance them out anymore.

Oh well, another "fun" thing to do in the game ruined. Mm lets see, choked with cursed arties, now useless as we are choked with doom arties. No more non-warrior cash making by trading (god, wouldn't want actual TRADERS to have fun). MM runics super powerful now, and easier to get. A few months and everyone will have top of the line runic stuff. choked with that now.. No more hunting dragons for fun.. Superdragons stomp on you. twice the loot at 20 times the effort.

Anyone seeing a major problem building up? I was actually sitting here this weekend going.. "maybe i should just have a fel fun day and drop my castle because the few things i actually did in the game are gone".

Thats not good.

 

[randommatter]

<blockquote><hr>

Forgive me if I don't give any more details - it was effectively a gold dupe, and I really don't want to give anyone ideas

[/ QUOTE ]

The last time EA made a statement about NPC ShopKeepers it was this: (This is exactly why this game sucks, you people can't even keep your documentation straight, this is on your website right now, and since it was the last update, it's the way things should be right? To your credit Jeremy you have been doing a lot to fix this and I appreciate the time you spent doing it, I hope you have the time to finish it before you get sick of having a job that is thankless and leave).

We have published an update to all shards to be active following their next scheduled maintenance period. This publish addresses NPC shopkeeper inventory pricing issues and the way house deeds will be bought from and sold to vendors.

These changes include:
estate brokers will now buy house deeds back at 20% below the base price of the deed, or the original price paid when the deed was purchased from a vendor (whichever is lower).
shopkeepers will no longer inflate the prices of their inventory when their stock begins to run low, and prices of items will be consistent on all shopkeepers.

 

[Guest]

<blockquote><hr>

<blockquote><hr>

Actually, what the change specifically is is that the buy price won't go above a certain point, and the sell price won't go below it. It closes a particularly nasty loophole that was causing quite a few problems. The sell price can still drop, and drop all the way to where it's the same as the buy price - just not any further.

[/ QUOTE ]

I have to say this... to Draconi, Jeremy, all devs...

While I never bothered to use the buy/sell method to try to make gold as a 'merchant' this was never an exploit and was not by any means cheating. When those changes were made to the game they were absolutely 100% positively and undenaibley intended to function as a way for players to buy/sell items from various NPCs to make money.

~~~This was supposed to create a "dynamic and player-created" economic environment for the game.~~~

I understand that you (the developers) looked at this aspect and decided that it was a bad idea (yes it was a terrible idea indeed) but how dare you try to say that it was an exploit? You are making players that were playing the game as expressly intended feel like they were cheating or taking advantage of a "bug".

Please check your sources and do some research before you get on a high horse and "catch cheaters" who were doing this... I have to say a phrase that I didn't think I'd ever have stated here: "Do you guys even play the game?".

Seriously, I think an apology is in order, and I'm not even someone that profited from that former game feature.

[/ QUOTE ]

Absolutely correct. I specifically remember that change put into place. It was a deliberate change by the devs. Sounds like someone on the dev team now has soap opera history happening. Change it to suit your own convenience and hope no one remembers what REALLY happened.

 

[Guest]

The problem with this change is the fact that NPC prices will technically just keep rising (barring resets) since people won't want to sell back to them, which is the way to lower prices, yes? I can see two possible solutions to this:

One would be to add a random timer between say.. 30 minutes to an hour... that when it runs out if the vendor has not sold any of a specific item at the current price will automatically drop that item's price slightly... a sort of "supply and demand" effect.. an artificial way for the NPC to realize "Hey, nobody will buy my stuff 'cause i'm charging too much". A seperate, shorter timer would be needed for certain high-use / low sellback vendors, though (like the one in Doom). Also, maybe tie in some sort of check to see the prices being asked on the same items by other NPCs in the area (meaning "Hey.. this guy is charging this much for this item.. maybe I should too").

The second option would be one i've wanted to see for years, but would take an insane bit of work.. that would be changing the buying/selling back to how it was before this publish, but finishing the global resource system. The original system had two major problems.. that being the global resource pool ended up being too small for the playerbase, and the fact that once the cap was met, no new resources would appear until players had burned up some, leading to hoarding. The fixes for these would be adding a scaling system to the base resource pool that adjusts itself on a timed system in reaction to increases and decreases of the player population (and, to some extent, the NPCs / monsters), and putting into place some sort of "rotting" system on resources to make them eventually crumble if not used (only applying to newly created resources.. are a few rares out there made of old ones.. would have to "grandfather" them.. bascially the system would only start keeping track of everything created after it was activated)... of course, thats where the big problem is, as the current item system can't track timing accurately if items are combined into stacks or if they're put into a commodity deed.. such a system would necessitate keeping track of the rot timer on each and every resource within a stack/deed and timing them out appropriately, so I don't expect to ever see this happen.

 

[randommatter]

<blockquote><hr>

The problem with this change is the fact that NPC prices will technically just keep rising (barring resets) since people won't want to sell back to them, which is the way to lower prices, yes? I can see two possible solutions to this:

One would be to add a random timer between say.. 30 minutes to an hour... that when it runs out if the vendor has not sold any of a specific item at the current price will automatically drop that item's price slightly... a sort of "supply and demand" effect.. an artificial way for the NPC to realize "Hey, nobody will buy my stuff 'cause i'm charging too much". A seperate, shorter timer would be needed for certain high-use / low sellback vendors, though (like the one in Doom). Also, maybe tie in some sort of check to see the prices being asked on the same items by other NPCs in the area (meaning "Hey.. this guy is charging this much for this item.. maybe I should too").

The second option would be one i've wanted to see for years, but would take an insane bit of work.. that would be changing the buying/selling back to how it was before this publish, but finishing the global resource system. The original system had two major problems.. that being the global resource pool ended up being too small for the playerbase, and the fact that once the cap was met, no new resources would appear until players had burned up some, leading to hoarding. The fixes for these would be adding a scaling system to the base resource pool that adjusts itself on a timed system in reaction to increases and decreases of the player population (and, to some extent, the NPCs / monsters), and putting into place some sort of "rotting" system on resources to make them eventually crumble if not used (only applying to newly created resources.. are a few rares out there made of old ones.. would have to "grandfather" them.. bascially the system would only start keeping track of everything created after it was activated)... of course, thats where the big problem is, as the current item system can't track timing accurately if items are combined into stacks or if they're put into a commodity deed.. such a system would necessitate keeping track of the rot timer on each and every resource within a stack/deed and timing them out appropriately, so I don't expect to ever see this happen.

[/ QUOTE ]

You my friend have a lot of time on your hands! I like you! Good idea, they should institute a rotting system I like the idea a lot. It would effectively make the resource guys that have 5m wood boards and 5m iron ingots sitting around selling slowly on their vendors lower the prices to get rid of them... No one would buy huge quantities anymore, just what they needed, which means that the resource item count on the global scale would drop, which would decrease server load, and shore up some of the whiners who complain that there are people script mining... I'm sure script mining would still be popular, but only to a point, because they couldn't stockpile... which means they would have to be MUCH more active (i.e. apt to get caught and stockaded if they put my idea into place).

 

[Guest]

<blockquote><hr>

There was a way to buy resources from a vendor and sell them at a profit to the same vendor, endlessly. I'm sure you can see where this created a problem...

[/ QUOTE ]

Unfortunately it's been that way for years, and billions of gold.