Renting out a vendor spot - are there issues I should know about?

[Saphireena]

In all the time I've played UO, I've usually had my own vendors in my own houses and have never rented a vendor spot from anyone. However about a month ago I tried this for the first time, renting a vendor spot in Luna from a guy who has a shop there.

So far everything has been going great. He rented it out for free and we both put the option so that it's automatically renewed by both parties, and for free. A couple days ago I checked my vendor and did some restocking. He had over 8 million on him and something like 150 days work time left. Today I came to check on him and he was gone completely. The spot he used to stand in, empty. I haven't gotten a hold of the guy who owns the shop yet, but would someone be able to tell me what are the technical possibilities here?

Can a shop owner simply delete a vendor without the consent of the renter?
What happened to the money and stuff?
Is there a bug I should know about?

*distressed*

 

[Mapper]

You should be able to get your stuff back by clicking the house sign once and you'll see the option. Baffled as to why it would vanish, unless he deselected the renew option?

 

[Saphireena]

Ooohhhhh thank you so much! You've just completely wiped all the stress away in a matter of a few minutes. I was really upset! (I didn't know about the sign thing and thought I'd lost all my stuff and money for all eternity!)

As for why the vendor ain't around anymore, will have to wait and see what the shop owner says.

The main thing for me though is that I have not lost my valuables and money. *WHEW*!!!!

 

[Thunderz]

What shard and what house?

It sounds like someone who takes vendors and cancels the contract "hoping" you don' check back on your vendor in time so they can steal all your gold and items as after [1 week is it?] it goes into there moving crate so you loose everything.

I found this out the hard way.

Thunderz

 

[Capn Kranky]

If they went into customize mode, the vendor would have dropped into the moving crate I think. Hope you can an answer!

 

[Saphireena]

Thunderz: Shard is Europa, but to give the benefit of the doubt to the guy, I don't want to endanger his rep before I know more. I did have a lot of very valuable rares on my vendor, so who knows!

As for the possible motivation, thanks for explaining that some people do that. How evil! So the owner of the shop gets it all, money and everything if the vendor owner fails to collect from the sign? Maaaan.... that's just not right. It should be so that a (relocation) crate is packed into the owners bank box (even if it goes over 125 items) and as soon as you pick up an item from that crate, it refuses to be put back into the bank if there are over the max amount.

Why it goes into the house sign is beyond me!

Capn Kranky: I have some of my own vendors in New Goldshire to mimic the NPCs found in Goldshire of WoW, and actually it won't let me customize the house as long as it has vendors in it.

 

[Picus at the office]

I own a Luna house on Napa and this has happened often to both myself(the owner on a different account) and two guildmates but I don't know why.

I've also had the sad tale of a person spamming for a vendor so I gave him one for free with no rental cost. Sadly he placed a slither on his guy and didn't carry enough cash to cover the item so the vendor dropped. I, truthfully, didn't give it much thought and believed for months that he had closed the vendor down as I had no IRL conversation nor did I even know his char(s) till the date where a guildmates vendor vanished and I then found this poor guys slither in my moving crate. It's locked down but I'd be hard pressed to know who to even give it back to.

I have heard of people raising the rent to steal your money but I don't know if that triggers a reset of the length of contract or not, this might be a possible reason.

 

[Saphireena]

Picus: Oh thanks for telling us about that and especially important to hear from the renters perspective as well. So most likely there was nothing fishy about this dude's actions, instead this mystifying thing has happened to us as well. If it happens so much without any explanation, it must be a bug.

 

[RavenWinterHawk]

In all the time I've played UO, I've usually had my own vendors in my own houses and have never rented a vendor spot from anyone. However about a month ago I tried this for the first time, renting a vendor spot in Luna from a guy who has a shop there.

So far everything has been going great. He rented it out for free and we both put the option so that it's automatically renewed by both parties, and for free. A couple days ago I checked my vendor and did some restocking. He had over 8 million on him and something like 150 days work time left. Today I came to check on him and he was gone completely. The spot he used to stand in, empty. I haven't gotten a hold of the guy who owns the shop yet, but would someone be able to tell me what are the technical possibilities here?

Can a shop owner simply delete a vendor without the consent of the renter?
What happened to the money and stuff?
Is there a bug I should know about?

*distressed*

The key is, I rent vendors, is to let people know if something happens your vendor to go to house sign and click.

As a renter you have to make sure you check your vendor every 5 days (to be safe) that is within the 144 hours you have to collect your belongings from the house sign.

After the alotted time, the owner gets your stuff.

I give people 1 week free contracts. Why... I don't want non-stocked vendors around. People think it is funny to name vendor THIS PLACES SUCKS.

Or sometimes I need to redecorate.... I don't want to have to wait 30 days.

NOW I THINK it would be great for a vendor owner to get a message that their vendor decayed or that the rental contract was changed.

 

[RavenWinterHawk]

If they went into customize mode, the vendor would have dropped into the moving crate I think. Hope you can an answer!

You cant customize a house if you are renting.
I've tried. As mentions that is why I use short contracts.

ONLY YOUR vendors that you own as the house owner go into moving crates.

 

[Barok]

it would be great for a vendor owner to get a message that their vendor decayed or that the rental contract was changed.

^^ this ^^

Every time I've rented a vendor, sooner or later something happens and the contract doesn't renew. Either the house owner changed it on purpose, or some bug, I'm not sure which in each case. Sometimes I lose stuff, sometimes I catch it in time and empty it.

I got tired of the BS and I don't rent vendors anyplace anymore.

 

[Tanivar]

I've had vendors disappear and the goods wind up in the sign if the vendor passes through the renew cycle when I have it out restocking it. It's happened twice. I had two clients running the second time and was restocking my alchemist's supplies on the first CC client when I saw the vendor vanish from in front of my character on the 2nd client and had assumed it had just returned to where it normally stands. I returned to the 2nd client to get the vendor back and continue restocking it, but there was no vendor. The one next to it showed 6 days 23 hours to the next renew of a 7 day cycle and the missing vendors stuff was in the sign.

I didn't bother with a bug report because there is no support for 2 client problems.

Might it happen if the vendor contract renews even with one client if within a certain time window of tending it?

 

[Melissa Rohan]

I have a vendor at the same place thats still there... maybe the rental option accidently got cancelled or it ran out of money for daily rental if you said there were high end stuff on there. I check my vendors almost daily though so i keep an eye on them.

 

[Ezekiel Zane]

ONLY YOUR vendors that you own as the house owner go into moving crates.

and that's only when/if you build a wall where the vendor is standing. Otherwise, they'll be right where they were when you exit customization mode.

 

[retrorider]

Is there a thread somewhere that spells out the details of vendor use and renting?

I've looked but can't find one that breaks it down.

 

[Serafi]

A very common mistake for new renters is that they fail to check the " Renew" button themselves. I don`t know if that has happened here, but that will take the vendor to the sign after the alloted time is up. I know this , cause I have done it myself and had the same panick attack until I understood what had happened

 

[Saphireena]

Wow, this is quite a hot topic. Seems like I'm not the only one who has been through issues! I hope the devs take note of this and perhaps get some ideas floating about on how to improve usability and stability for this feature. I believe it's quite an important one because it enhances the community aspect of UO, one of the things that makes UO so special.

Tanivar: Ok your experiences clearly prove that there is something fishy with the code for this thing. It's very much possible that I was restocking just as the renew cycle was starting anew since logically, I play around the same time every day.

Serafi: Yeah this would have been a very possible reason in my case since I'm a complete newbie at this vendor rental business. However, it's not this time, because as soon as the vendor was set up, the owner requested me to turn on the auto renew and I saw he had it on for him as well.

Still haven't heard back from him btw.

Decided that I don't want to take any more risks, so I bought a house in Magincia last night and set up my own vendor. Kind of sad that the game forces me to become so paranoid. :-/

 

[RavenWinterHawk]

and that's only when/if you build a wall where the vendor is standing. Otherwise, they'll be right where they were when you exit customization mode.

yes. it is an easy way to move vendors too that you own versus emptying them.

 

[RavenWinterHawk]

Wow, this is quite a hot topic. Seems like I'm not the only one who has been through issues! I hope the devs take note of this and perhaps get some ideas floating about on how to improve usability and stability for this feature. I believe it's quite an important one because it enhances the community aspect of UO, one of the things that makes UO so special.

Tanivar: Ok your experiences clearly prove that there is something fishy with the code for this thing. It's very much possible that I was restocking just as the renew cycle was starting anew since logically, I play around the same time every day.

Serafi: Yeah this would have been a very possible reason in my case since I'm a complete newbie at this vendor rental business. However, it's not this time, because as soon as the vendor was set up, the owner requested me to turn on the auto renew and I saw he had it on for him as well.

Still haven't heard back from him btw.

Decided that I don't want to take any more risks, so I bought a house in Magincia last night and set up my own vendor. Kind of sad that the game forces me to become so paranoid. :-/

what shard are you on?

 

[Warpig Inc]

Other side of the coin as a Luna vendor shop owner. I stopped long ago renting out spots. Get theese people that have an endless supply of museum and library turn-in items. The person that has nonstop 1,000,000+ spread of ingots or boards. You know the vendors. Today it is the vendor that can maintain around 1000 of each crab and or lobster type. The endless corner stack of 100 relic frag com deeds.

 

[Petra Fyde]

I used to have multiple vendors on someone's shop on Siege. I had to put the darn things back 3 times before I gave up. He used to swap the house owner between his accounts and forget to re-do the vendor contracts.
It wasn't done on purpose, I always got everything back and he always apologised, but I lost a full day each time it happened in having to remove all the stuff from the house sign and put it all back on new vendors.

 

[Luvmylace]

There is one more little known occurrence.A bugged vendor will charge the exact amount of gold that your vendor is holding.I have found this a few times and lost millions.I check the vendor chg daily because of that.If you have not looked at the vendor in 2 or more days you would miss it entirely.When I find that he is mis charging ,I take the gold off and drop the vendor and replace him with a new one

 

[Saphireena]

Good GRIEF. Now that sucks

 

[retrorider]

Is there a thread somewhere that spells out the details of vendor use and renting?

I've looked but can't find one that breaks it down.

Anyone?

 

[Petra Fyde]

try this
UO Stratics *New* | Vendors

 

[Saphireena]

Hmmm the guide says:

"Items removed from a vendor by the vendor owner more than 30 minutes after placing and before a 24 hour period has passed will incur a vendor penalty. This penalty will show up on the item when you mouse over it and will stay with the item no matter where it is left or moved or who it’s given to, if the item is placed back on a vendor and priced within 25 hours the penalty is taken out of the gold the vendor is holding. After 25 hours this penalty expires."

I've never noticed this or known about it!! Can anyone fill in the details of why this is so and whether or not some kind of warning is given?

 

[retrorider]

try this
UO Stratics *New* | Vendors

Thank you, Petra!

 

[Uriah Heep]

Hmmm the guide says:

"Items removed from a vendor by the vendor owner more than 30 minutes after placing and before a 24 hour period has passed will incur a vendor penalty. This penalty will show up on the item when you mouse over it and will stay with the item no matter where it is left or moved or who it’s given to, if the item is placed back on a vendor and priced within 25 hours the penalty is taken out of the gold the vendor is holding. After 25 hours this penalty expires."

I've never noticed this or known about it!! Can anyone fill in the details of why this is so and whether or not some kind of warning is given?

It's because a lot of peeps would put their ridiculously priced goods, (server births, rares, whatever) on a vendor in the am and pull it off in the pm before the vendor charged the days fees for holding it. Rinse and repeat. So some peeps were skirting paying the daily charges that way. This was an attempt to stop that and assure that if you put it on a vendor, you paid a days fee.

Or so I am told

 

[Saphireena]

Aaah I see. Yeah makes sense. I wonder how long this feature has been around, never noticed it before. Now I'm wondering how many penalized items I've been selling over the years hehe. Sometimes I would remove something from the vendor just to reorganize or to take a screenshot of it against a black background for advertising the vendor etc.