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NEWS [UO.Com] Ask & Answer No. 17

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From the Devs
2013 Mar 19 09:36 GMT
In this week's Ask and Answer we have some very informative answers from the developers including a holiday appropriate question about bunnies. Enjoy!

UOForums

Easter is coming. So...
  1. Would you consider adding Vorpal Bunnies to the loot system that powers Shame/Covetous/Wrong? Perhaps equivalent to a mid-level monster to recognize how agonizingly slow it is to grow green thorns?
  2. Would you consider adding a (very) rare Vorpal Bunny statue drop?
  3. Would you consider adding Vorpal Bunnies to the list of sources for the upcoming release of armor system-related ingredients?
  4. Would you consider adding various imbuing ingredients to the list of Bunny loot items? (Magister_Returns)

Mesanna: I get the idea you really like Vorpal bunnies. You have to understand Vorpal bunnies are easy to farm in closed in areas so we have to be careful how much we put on them. And with everything for gardening we have put in the game you can produce approx 73 thorns in 2 weeks. As far as the statue, I don’t have an issue with putting in a Vorpal Bunny Statue or maybe a way to catch them during one easter and taming them, who knows =)

My personal bent towards UO skills is that if you put the effort and skill points towards a skill, you should be rewarded with a tangible in-game reward. As it stands, if you train resist spells you get a modest bump to your resists if you are not wearing any armor. Is there any chance the skill could be made more appealing if you offer this bonus even if you were wearing armor? The rewards could be tweaked to better balance the system but I think skill points are very limited (720 max) and should be accorded the proper weight based upon that fact.

My second resist magic question is in regards to pets. I know you guys have mentioned a pet overhaul but to that end, is there any way pets could enjoy the same resist benefits that players get with regards to their resist magic score. I actually have pet tamers for every single tameable out there and even though most of the weaker pets can't handle the higher end bosses in the game, it is still quite enjoyable watching a pack of mongbats take down an ogre lord. I think one of the first things you should look at with weaker pets is to boost resists based on their magic resistance score. The players are putting the effort into training this skill, so reward them with better odds of survivability. (Sablestorm)


Mesanna: I do not have an answer for this question but I can tell you that this question has caused a major discussion among the team. When we settle on an agreement we will let you know…check back with us in the future….*laughs*


Puzzle Timer Adjustment plea...
I really think it's a far better system for the plants, they are on a 23 hour timer. When the puzzle was new, people were cheating so horribly... they had to do something. Making it 24 hours, I think is just too much.
Say you do your puzzle at 8:30am every morning, as you eat your breakfast, before leaving to take care of business for the day. No matter how strict you keep it, you still loose ground every day. If you are late, over sleep, morning tummy issues, breakfast takes a little longer then normal, any tiny delay easily will make the task too inconvenient due to the 24 hour timer. You have to skip a day, start over again to put the task on your time. Even going 10 days will cause a delay waiting to get the token without any extra delay.
The plants, for all the work they offer when doing them by hand and not cheating with a house full of plant beds, you can keep to your time and not risk loosing the lot to illness.
Must it be 24 hours? Wouldn’t the same 23 hour limit be better and more friendlier for our game? Please? I honestly think it's funny you are tired one hour to the next, forget 1 day to the next and can't work the puzzle. It's not like the lamp posts. Just thinking about that one makes me tired. (EvilPixieWork)
UO Stratics Would it be possible to change quests on a 24 hr timer to reset at server up (or a set time daily) instead? This would make it so much easier to do daily quests like tier 3 Zosilem or experimental room puzzle quests without keeping notes when your char did them last. (Gheed)


Mesanna: We agree and a bug will be put into the system for a future publish fix.


UO Japan

Repairing armor pieces one by one is not so fun for me. How about adding "repair service contract books"? Like bulk order books, you can stock various repair service contracts in the book. And if you click "repair all equipments" command of the book in appropriate shop in town, all your appropriate equipments are repaired at once. (Arata)

Mesanna: This is actually an interesting idea.


I think the spyglass is almost meaningless item. It would be nice if I can find my lost pet by double clicking the spyglass. (Feedback)

Mesanna: Lost pets are an issue not sure the spyglass is the solution, its much deeper than this. I understand what your talking about but we do not track pets.


Recently new visual effects for leech effect were introduced to the game. Because of the effect, it's hard to see how much I damaged the target. Could you adjust the effect to more smaller, simpler one? (Feedback)

Kyronix: I just had a look at this in both clients. I can see the little damage numbers above the mob ok, are you possibly talking about the mini health bar at the bottom in the EC? If that’s the case I’m not sure there is much we can do based on the fact that the effects generally originate from the base of the mob in the EC.


UO Stratics

Will the ancient liches ever be returned to Khaldun Dungeon? They were removed for a event and were supposed to be returned. They are unlike any other "ancient lich" in game. They even have their own back story.
From UO Guide:
In ancient times, Kaltivel, Anshu, Maliel, Baratoz, and Almonjin, were formerly the five most dreadful necromancers in the cabal who worshipped in Khaldun. They are now ressurected as fearsomely powerful liches in order to defend their underground temple from archaelogists and other adventurers who seek to claim its riches.
(Jirel of Joiry)


Mesanna: I would love to return them and fix the shadow elementals, right now they are just crazy strong after a buff that a Dev game them for a past event.


When Samurai Empire 1st came out player could recall out of the Yamotsu mines. Well at least at the back where the fire beetles spawn. After sometime that was change and you can no longer recall out of the mine period.
My question is 2 part: Why was change to a no recall area and could it ever go back to being a recall out only area like the Dojo? Thank you (Luc of Legends)


Kyronix: We can adjust this in our upcoming publish so you can recall out of the mines.


Is there any chance we could get a shrine or healer placed permanantly in the Covetous mountain range? It is extrememly frustrating to have to run thru three levels of Cov after dying to overpowered lich casts. (Mentiras)

Mesanna: Putting one outside near the mountains is not unreasonable.


The Dev Team has talked about a vendor search in game, is that still in the works and when can we expect to see it in game?

Mesanna: I hope to have the vendor search in game by October.
en

Continue reading...
 

Cetric

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Also, that would be kind of interesting to reward people who have a real 120 skill in something.. thinking about dexers mainly, since so many cram a bunch of skills and run lower sets of others such as tactics, healing, etc.

How would you do it tho.... while you are brainstorming, try not to make some overpowered crap =(
 

Picus at the office

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Mesanna: I do not have an answer for this question but I can tell you that this question has caused a major discussion among the team. When we settle on an agreement we will let you know…check back with us in the future….*laughs*
I'm sure this wasn't ment to be read the way it comes out but if it said don't hold your breath I think that would have been the same.
 

kittykat

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"Mesanna: We agree and a bug will be put into the system for a future publish fix."

I know this is a typo, but it still made me laugh
I think she meant 'file it as a bug in their bug-tracking system' so that it's in the queue to be fixed :)
(and yay! just started doing the puzzle room/experimental room a couple of weeks ago and the timers are driving me crazy so happy to see they'll be changed sometime)
 

startle

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From the Devs 2013 Mar 19 09:36 GMT...

The Dev Team has talked about a vendor search in game, is that still in the works and when can we expect to see it in game?
Mesanna: I hope to have the vendor search in game by October.
OMG this is GREAT NEWS for everyone! Thank you, thank you, thank you! Ladies and gentlemen, start your vendors!
 

MalagAste

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When Samurai Empire 1st came out player could recall out of the Yamotsu mines. Well at least at the back where the fire beetles spawn. After sometime that was change and you can no longer recall out of the mine period.
My question is 2 part: Why was change to a no recall area and could it ever go back to being a recall out only area like the Dojo? Thank you (Luc of Legends)


Kyronix: We can adjust this in our upcoming publish so you can recall out of the mines.
This makes me happy. Now... I'm wondering when that co-owner thing is coming???

Easter... Hum.. Taming Vorpal Bunnies! Yes please!
 

Adol

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Mesanna: Lost pets are an issue not sure the spyglass is the solution, its much deeper than this. I understand what your talking about but we do not track pets
There's two issues to this; making the spyglass useful again, and lost pets.

The lost pet's issue is, I suspect, that the ghosts of them go legging it away when they die; if you don't want to use the Spyglass for that, why not the Start Tracking mechanism used to locate Pirate Ships? Live animals would be impossible to filter for... but there won't be many dead ones about surely?

As for the wider spyglass question; we have two moons, and a little hole in the lore since the Shadowlords left. In earlier Ultimas you could locate rare herbs (Nightshade, Mandrake) via the waxing and waning of the moons... how about if we must have more resources crammed in for armour (which I'd prefer we didn't, but still) then have some of them located in the wild that way. Use the random treasure map mechanism to generate a location, use the Spyglass at the spot instead of a shovel to confirm moon position, gain herbs when it's the right moment...
 

yars

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There's two issues to this; making the spyglass useful again, and lost pets.

The lost pet's issue is, I suspect, that the ghosts of them go legging it away when they die; if you don't want to use the Spyglass for that, why not the Start Tracking mechanism used to locate Pirate Ships? Live animals would be impossible to filter for... but there won't be many dead ones about surely?

As for the wider spyglass question; we have two moons, and a little hole in the lore since the Shadowlords left. In earlier Ultimas you could locate rare herbs (Nightshade, Mandrake) via the waxing and waning of the moons... how about if we must have more resources crammed in for armour (which I'd prefer we didn't, but still) then have some of them located in the wild that way. Use the random treasure map mechanism to generate a location, use the Spyglass at the spot instead of a shovel to confirm moon position, gain herbs when it's the right moment...
add tracking them to the skill tracking, tag them as well, we already have a mod in skyrim for tagging and tracking followers, prolly to advanced for UO :p
 

SlobberKnocker

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why does everything have to have a purpose. why cant a spyglass be just a spyglass?

the search engine could be really cool. it could really open up where you can put vendors without dropping runes.
 

Theo_GL

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Repairing armor pieces one by one is not so fun for me. How about adding "repair service contract books"? Like bulk order books, you can stock various repair service contracts in the book. And if you click "repair all equipments" command of the book in appropriate shop in town, all your appropriate equipments are repaired at once. (Arata)

Mesanna: This is actually an interesting idea.
No its not unless you are taking away the chance to lose a point of durability each time you repair. The problem with 'repair all' is that I don't want to repair my 220/240 item becuase it might go to 239/239. I'll wait until it gets down to 50-75 to repair.

If you do want to have a 'repair all' then add it as a NPC option and it costs 200gp per item with no loss of durability. Its a gold sink and people will repair all. Otherwise, I don't want to repair everything all the time so this is a useless feature.

It would be nice to be able to see all armor worn in a window though to see the status :

helm 100/234
gorget 75/235
sleeves 23/250
etc.
 

Tanivar

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Repairing armor pieces one by one is not so fun for me. How about adding "repair service contract books"? Like bulk order books, you can stock various repair service contracts in the book. And if you click "repair all equipments" command of the book in appropriate shop in town, all your appropriate equipments are repaired at once. (Arata)

Mesanna: This is actually an interesting idea.
How about making such a thing be a Repair container so we can just put what we want to repair into it and click a 'Repair Contents' context menu item. If the container has the appropiate repair deed charges on it, the items are repaired.
 

hen

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I support Vorpal Buns getting the new loot. Bashing them is the only time my Battle Chickens get to stretch their legs.
 

Adol

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No its not unless you are taking away the chance to lose a point of durability each time you repair. The problem with 'repair all' is that I don't want to repair my 220/240 item becuase it might go to 239/239. I'll wait until it gets down to 50-75 to repair.

If you do want to have a 'repair all' then add it as a NPC option and it costs 200gp per item with no loss of durability. Its a gold sink and people will repair all. Otherwise, I don't want to repair everything all the time so this is a useless feature.

It would be nice to be able to see all armor worn in a window though to see the status :

helm 100/234
gorget 75/235
sleeves 23/250
etc.
You can do that last thing in the Pinco UI for the EC, and set at what level of wear it appears on the icon; so

Regarding Repair All, I'm assuming they mean you'd point it at a target bag like Unravel All does? So you'd put only the stuff you wanted to do in...

To Yars, making tracking more useful would be a good idea, but it would ruin tamer templates just to get pets back; so allow it at either 0 tracking, or below 20 so Jack Of All Trades will allow it, like Animal Lore does for people with 0 taming pets.
 

G.v.P

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The Dev Team has talked about a vendor search in game, is that still in the works and when can we expect to see it in game?

Mesanna: I hope to have the vendor search in game by October.
Well, it took the whole read, but finally, a nugget. :p
 

KLOMP

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That giant blue snotball that appears anytime I hit anything ever is annoying as hell. Did anyone actually ask for a visual component to leech weapons?
 

cdavbar

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Mesanna: you can produce approx 73 thorns in 2 weeks.
I don't want to sound rude, but I can effortlessly produce 438 every two weeks with my current set-up.

Mesanna: We agree and a bug will be put into the system for a future publish fix.
I'm sure I'm not the only one that doesn't seem to enjoy hearing a dev say that you will be putting a "bug" in the system. However, changing the puzzle timers to either refresh after each shards mait or to match that of plants is much needed.

UO Japan

Repairing armor pieces one by one is not so fun for me. How about adding "repair service contract books"? Like bulk order books, you can stock various repair service contracts in the book. And if you click "repair all equipments" command of the book in appropriate shop in town, all your appropriate equipments are repaired at once. (Arata)
This is pure laziness.

I think the spyglass is almost meaningless item.
I love my spyglass.

Mesanna: I would love to return them and fix the shadow elementals, right now they are just crazy strong after a buff that a Dev game them for a past event.
Crazy strong is better than none at all :)

Kyronix: We can adjust this in our upcoming publish so you can recall out of the mines.
I might find myself at the mines more often now.

Is there any chance we could get a shrine or healer placed permanantly in the Covetous mountain range? It is extrememly frustrating to have to run thru three levels of Cov after dying to overpowered lich casts. (Mentiras)

Mesanna: Putting one outside near the mountains is not unreasonable.
I wouldn't blame the lich casts, but thats neither here nor there. However Mesanna has it right, its not unreasonable to put a healer in so you never have to call out for help and build community.

The Dev Team has talked about a vendor search in game, is that still in the works and when can we expect to see it in game?

Mesanna: I hope to have the vendor search in game by October.
Now the big one that has been getting a lot of attention the last couple weeks in UHall. While I am for an in-game vendor search such, I am wondering some things. First, how will this affect our already bad lag, that is still being fixed? Second, I remember reading a past post where it was mentioned by one of the devs that there would be a teleport feature of some sort (I may be wrong). However, if there is a feature that lets you teleport to the vendor I would be very upset. At most it should give facet and coordinates. If there is a "teleport" type feature, the player needs to have the appropriate skill (magery, sacred journey).
 

Tanivar

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However, if there is a feature that lets you teleport to the vendor I would be very upset. At most it should give facet and coordinates. If there is a "teleport" type feature, the player needs to have the appropriate skill (magery, sacred journey).
I imagine this would tick off the Luna vendors and others with vendors at quick to get to vendor locations. If no one has to spend a fair bit of time and effort to locate the out in the wilds vendor, the Luna vendors & the quick to get to vendors would lose their advantage of quick to get to locations and not still get most of the sales.
 

KLOMP

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As far as the statue, I don’t have an issue with putting in a Vorpal Bunny Statue or maybe a way to catch them during one easter and taming them, who knows =)
Will the ancient liches ever be returned to Khaldun Dungeon? They were removed for a event and were supposed to be returned. They are unlike any other "ancient lich" in game. They even have their own back story.

Mesanna: I would love to return them and fix the shadow elementals, right now they are just crazy strong after a buff that a Dev game them for a past event.
Put the Ancient Liches back even though they're crazy strong, and give them a chance to drop vorpal bunny statues.

Two birds, one stone. I rule.
 

Tjalle

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I believe the shadow elementals she mentions are the Shadow fiends.
 

DJAd

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However, if there is a feature that lets you teleport to the vendor I would be very upset. At most it should give facet and coordinates. If there is a "teleport" type feature, the player needs to have the appropriate skill (magery, sacred journey).
I think a teleport option would be good. As you say the character needs a way to teleport, this can be via mage spell, scrolls, or sacred journey.
 

Tanivar

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Not sure if making the vorpal bunny statues the newest bait to draw Trammel players into fel would go over well with most production shard players. That bait routine got old years back. Fel players would likely just have to farm the statues and toss them on vendors in Tram for a million gold or so. The powerscroll routine.
 

Wenchkin

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So October we get Age of Resellers and price hikes :D

Hehe, folk think Luna is bad now, just wait!

I hope they keep prices out of the search results, but I suspect this is the jackpot publish for resellers, otherwise certain posters will be here moaning they have to visit multiple shops to compare prices lol.

Fingers and toes crossed as I really don't want to be the resellers' dogsbody for daring to have fair prices. It takes much longer to craft items than it does to buy and resell, some merchants will just give up on restocking if there are no safeguards in place.

Wenchy
 
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KLOMP

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If your shop isn't already on a search site then your shop doesn't really matter to the economy anyway. Sorry. Reality. What, you think we're all running through the woods looking for little hidden shops to score bargains from? The only people who do that are... you guessed it... resellers.
 
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Petra Fyde

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I'm sorry, Klomp, but you fail to understand the concerns of the crafters.
Most crafter stocked vendors do not exist to make the crafter wealthy - they exist to provide a needed service to players. For the house owner who needs a forge/anvil etc, for the warrior who needs recall scrolls. They don't appreciate being treated as slave labour for re-sellers. The 'economy' is not the main concern.
 

KLOMP

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Yeah I'm totally worried about the big Luna types cornering the anvil market. Again, who do you think is running through the woods to find these little random vendors? Who are all these warriors who decide they need recall scrolls and don't either buy them from an NPC shop or type "recall" into a search site?

Honestly "I want to sell things below their market value but somehow make sure no one resells my things for a profit!" is the most ludicrous demand I've ever heard. If you want to give out charity, do it live in game.
 
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hen

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I don't use search sites either. So pricing can be a bit of trial and error. General chat is great for making things to order.
 

Picus at the office

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I'm sorry, Klomp, but you fail to understand the concerns of the crafters.
Most crafter stocked vendors do not exist to make the crafter wealthy - they exist to provide a needed service to players. For the house owner who needs a forge/anvil etc, for the warrior who needs recall scrolls. They don't appreciate being treated as slave labour for re-sellers. The 'economy' is not the main concern.
I don't want to sound more flipant than normal but are you serious? Do you really think that I, or another player, is going to buy 15 chairs and 10 tables from your vendor just so I can transport them to my luna house and bump the price up 100 gp? Do you really think that there isn't a luna house owner that has a mule for every crafting skill but has overlooked the huge market that is anvils, chairs and dart boards? Come on people, if there was a market for this stuff it would be there and it just isn't because everyone has the mule already.

Vendor search is a huge waste of the limited resources. Make it an external website that can sell me stuff like tokens, gold, game time and all the other stuff that the current sites offer and I'll support it 150% but otherwise this is just another idea that has been rolled over 500 times on stratics thus pretending that the majority of paying players want to have it. I don't support the current sites but I'll milk there services and be happy with true advancment in the game, vendor search does not, IMO, meet that advancement.
 

Wenchkin

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Yeah I'm totally worried about the big Luna types cornering the anvil market. Again, who do you think is running through the woods to find these little random vendors? Who are all these warriors who decide they need recall scrolls and don't either buy them from an NPC shop or type "recall" into a search site?

Honestly "I want to sell things below their market value but somehow make sure no one resells my things for a profit!" is the most ludicrous demand I've ever heard. If you want to give out charity, do it live in game.
Excuse me, but you are not in any position to tell a single merchant how much their shop matters or what price they sell at.

Luna prices are actually market prices + markup, which can include several things. In Luna, shops cost a lot more to buy and rent. Just as in RL where one market charges £10 a week and another £40, you factor that cost into your prices. Your main selling point is convenience which means you need to have stock when players come for it or they go elsewhere. Running out of stock is bad, so you price above market value so you can buy at that price and resell to ensure your vendor is always stocked. Otherwise you spend more time stocking than playing. You can still spend all your time stocking vendors if you don't push the price quite high enough. So even when you allow a % of markup to cover reselling, you need to keep raising prices to slow sales down.

Luna vendors can charge high prices because those shops have a steady supply of passing trade and players in a hurry to just get something fast at any price. You have a captive audience of anxious customers who just want things NOW. . But if you can lure search site addicts beyond Luna don't count on them not realising where they are. If you think they'll pay Luna prices in the middle of Yew, good luck with that. Let us know how you get on, especially when you have a fraction of the passing customers a shop in Luna receives.

As for players running through the woods....Haven't they heard about runes yet?

Wenchy
 

Picus at the office

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Luna = Market plus rent on two shards at best. Stop fooling yourselves at thinking this game has a thriving market place, only ATL has this and only because of shard shields. Take shard shields out of the game and you might see better markets on smaller shards but as it stands everything worth selling is transfered there due to the insane inflationary issues that shard has.
 

Tanivar

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If you think they'll pay Luna prices in the middle of Yew, good luck with that. Let us know how you get on, especially when you have a fraction of the passing customers a shop in Luna receives.
If the search system has a teleport option people shopping outside Luna won't have to pay Luna(tic) prices and shops outside Luna will see a lot more shoppers because they will have more reasonable prices.
 

Cetric

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Its impossible to speculate what it would be or how it would work. They may not even have something in mind yet, she just hopes they do by october.
 
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Adol

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I do not have a Luna House, but I still believe a Teleport is ridiculously dumb if added.
Why? There's only really 2 ways the system could work; indicating where a vendor is and the items are on it, or the vendor merely holds it for a centralized auction house system; in the first people are going to want to go to the vendor.... they're not going to look in other people's houses, they're not going to wander about fighting mongbats on the way... those days are long gone now. And in the second the items effectively will teleport from the vendor to the purchaser. The only reason people would like it the other way, that the purchaser comes to the item is so they may look around the house when they are there. Once the purchase is made, people feel less pressure and often choose to browse, but once they've located a purchase they want to make, they want to complete it first before being distracted by other things.

Now personally I feel an auction house system will take even more soul out of the game; it's already hard enough to keep people interested in the creative, communal places people build... the only time I ever see someone in my Lore Library these days is when it's a vulture who mouses over everything looking for items not locked down, who won't even say hello when you're stood right next to them. So I'd support moving the customer to the item. Drive just a little traffic back out into the wild and away from Luna. But if you're only interested in the trade aspect, you still want to make it as easy as the dubious sites do to locate an item, for simple practical reasons. Moving the customer to the product then makes sense too. But expecting them to search high and low for items that may not even be there simply can't survive as a model in the modern world any more.
 

Gorbs

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Put the Ancient Liches back even though they're crazy strong, and give them a chance to drop vorpal bunny statues.

Two birds, one stone. I rule.
I think to have a shot at these vorpal bunny statues you should need a sextant.
 

Lord Frodo

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Vendor search is a huge waste of the limited resources.
You have no clue what resources this would take.
  1. UO knows where every vendor is
  2. UO knows every item on every vendor
  3. UO knows what every vendor is charging for those items.
  4. How hard do you think it would be to pull all this data out of the Vendor Database.

Make it an external website that can sell me stuff like tokens, gold, game time and all the other stuff that the current sites offer and I'll support it 150% but otherwise this is just another idea that has been rolled over 500 times on stratics thus pretending that the majority of paying players want to have it. I don't support the current sites but I'll milk there services and be happy with true advancment in the game, vendor search does not, IMO, meet that advancement.
Only if this site is run by UO only.
 

Cetric

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I think it would be most sensible, to search for an item, then the system show where those vendors are, and maybe an option to gate/recall to it. the auction house system would probably have a negative effect on players even more than currently, because you would never have to go to the locations. Although, what if the vendor was in fel? Interesting discussion there i'm sure (*places underpriced uninsured item on vendor, waits for victims*)

So buying from a menu might make sense, and giving you the item from where you are, but at that point what is even the point of having vendors on houses anymore?

Might drastically change how commerce works in uo, maybe they can tie something into that where your account has xxx amount of gold, rather than keeping gold in every characters bank box. Gold could still physically exist, but once you "deposit" it into your bank, it could go into your accounts general funds or whatever.
 
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Picus at the office

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You have no clue what resources this would take.
  1. UO knows where every vendor is
  2. UO knows every item on every vendor
  3. UO knows what every vendor is charging for those items.
  4. How hard do you think it would be to pull all this data out of the Vendor Database.
Only if this site is run by UO only.
I can understand what resources this takes and I am not talking about the pull on the actuall servers but the writing of code. Do you have any clue how many lines of code would be needed to write, compile and produce such a data feed? Unless it can compete with the current third party sites in generating revenue it's a waste of time.
 
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Theo_GL

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Yeah I'm totally worried about the big Luna types cornering the anvil market. Again, who do you think is running through the woods to find these little random vendors? Who are all these warriors who decide they need recall scrolls and don't either buy them from an NPC shop or type "recall" into a search site?

Honestly "I want to sell things below their market value but somehow make sure no one resells my things for a profit!" is the most ludicrous demand I've ever heard. If you want to give out charity, do it live in game.
Totally with you KLOMP and good luck arguing with people that don't understand a market economy. As long as people price items below market value - there will be resellers. There is NOTHING in game that you NEED that cannot be acquired with time/effort. There is no 'cornering' the market on anything but rares.
 

Theo_GL

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I can understand what resources this takes and I am not talking about the pull on the actuall servers but the writing of code. Do you any clue how many lines of code would be needed to write, compile and produce such a data feed? Unless it can compete with the current third party sites in generating revenue it's a waste of time.
It depends on how the data is stored. I suspect it is not in RDBMS so that is why it will take longer than you would like. If UO would have gone to a RDBMS for objects a long time ago - this stuff is truely mickey mouse. All you need to do is throw a front end with a SQL based search engine on top of the DB and you would have REAL TIME information which is something the other sites now do not have.

The curent search sites:

1 - May or may not be 'hiding' items for their own profit.
2 - Only hit up the Luna vendors and a select set of vendors they 'know about' on the shard
3 - Have info refreshed from the last time their script character made his rounds. This can be as much as several hours old
4 - Have no automated way to get to that vendor in game besides showing a map or co-ordinates.

A UO search would :
1 -Show all items
2 - Have every single vendor in game
3 - Have up the second information
4 - Easily tie ito recall/sacred journey to travel to the vendor or simply buy the item real time in game.

Pros :
Easier to find items you wish to buy by ALL players.
All vendors with equal value in game. No more gouging players for a 'luna vendor'
Able to find the 'best price' for an item instead of getting ripped off.
Less time spent shopping, more time spent playing

Cons:
Luna houses and luna vendors will not have a market advantage

Thats is folks. You can see from this here the motivation behind anyone complaining about vendor search.

And it is true that with a solid DB behind the game, Vendor search could be implemented nearly overnight. Its really not that much code if the items are stored properly. Whether they are 'stored properly' is another issue.

I guarantee you that the search sites are storing them properly. They use scripts to gather the vendor info one by one and load that info into a DB. From there - the webpages query the DB for information. Every so often they load a new batch of info and wipe the old info to keep it updated.
 

Merus

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It depends on how the data is stored. I suspect it is not in RDBMS so that is why it will take longer than you would like. If UO would have gone to a RDBMS for objects a long time ago - this stuff is truely mickey mouse. All you need to do is throw a front end with a SQL based search engine on top of the DB and you would have REAL TIME information which is something the other sites now do not have.

The curent search sites:

1 - May or may not be 'hiding' items for their own profit.
2 - Only hit up the Luna vendors and a select set of vendors they 'know about' on the shard
3 - Have info refreshed from the last time their script character made his rounds. This can be as much as several hours old
4 - Have no automated way to get to that vendor in game besides showing a map or co-ordinates.

A UO search would :
1 -Show all items
2 - Have every single vendor in game
3 - Have up the second information
4 - Easily tie ito recall/sacred journey to travel to the vendor or simply buy the item real time in game.

Pros :
Easier to find items you wish to buy by ALL players.
All vendors with equal value in game. No more gouging players for a 'luna vendor'
Able to find the 'best price' for an item instead of getting ripped off.
Less time spent shopping, more time spent playing

Cons:
Luna houses and luna vendors will not have a market advantage

Thats is folks. You can see from this here the motivation behind anyone complaining about vendor search.

And it is true that with a solid DB behind the game, Vendor search could be implemented nearly overnight. Its really not that much code if the items are stored properly. Whether they are 'stored properly' is another issue.

I guarantee you that the search sites are storing them properly. They use scripts to gather the vendor info one by one and load that info into a DB. From there - the webpages query the DB for information. Every so often they load a new batch of info and wipe the old info to keep it updated.
I think you have some great insight here. My only concern with tying directly into the system is the potential for hacks into the system. If the DB that the search is tied to is more of a self contained system with a refresh schedule it may limit the potential systems exposure. The downside is the refresh intervals instead of real time.
 

Picus at the office

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I'm not saying that the eventual Pro's don't outweigh the Con's, this is clearly not the case. What I am worried about is the reduction of the already limited efforts that are in place as they are diverted to this project. Does it have benifits to the game, yes it clearly does. Will it be designed in such a fashion that it drives people to use it AND generate buisness/reduce revenue from the other options, this we shall have to wait and see. If there is already a market there and mythic is missing out on the buisness to be done then, IMO, doing this half assed is a waste of time and effort.

Some people would love to see this as a tool to crush the rich Luna people, the resellers and the power gamers but why would you even consider this when in all reality they are just players like you and I.

I can assure you that some Luna owners have the house simply because they do and not because they wanted to be landowners, it cost's to have that account going and 90% of the time nothing goes on. I can't give away vendors on Napa.
 

Tanivar

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I do not have a Luna House, but I still believe a Teleport is ridiculously dumb if added.
I have a Zento shop on Siege which is Siege's main shopping town. I price things pretty much the standard 3x cost of materials so I'm not to worried about loss of customers to other vendors. The teleport option is a good idea because many players have limited playtime due to work, family and other RL obligations. Why make them waste playtime traveling to a distant vendor to save gold which they likely have little of because of limited playtime?
 
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