Hi dear community and shard responsibles, I want to make a suggestion for a possible future of the player vendor system. The player vendor system are in point of view: *The* way for shard gold sink *Stimulate* the shard community by having a wide choice of wares What I see at the moment: - The "big deals" are always made in forum. Clearly, because a deal between player and player does not cost anything + in the forum you can make auctions - In player vendors you usually mostly find basic wares because of that - Player vendors artificially limit their stock because of that (too high costs on daily base) I would wish of a player vendor system 2.0 including: - An alternative way of calculating vendor costs by a "Sell fee" instead of a (high) "Daily fee" - Auction system in player vendors So basically two features I wish for - which could be implemented independent from each other. Sell fee system as an alternative Currently the earth day cost of 1,000,000gp worth of wares is 2,400gp Which means that in just 5 earth days you pay 1% of the ware worth, in 50 earth days already 10% So a vendor is very strong forced to sell wares soon to keep the costs in range. For high value wares or even for a lot of single lower value wares in stock this can very fast rise to daily costs so that the shop owner: - Does not sell high value wares at all - Does not have a high stock of low value wares which do not sell on a daily base (e.g. specific furniture, etc.) The alternative system would give the player vendor the choice to declare a specific ware as "Sell fee based" which: - Drastically lowers the daily fee to e.g. 200gp/earth day per 1,000,000gp worth (less than 1/10 of current daily fee, sums up to just 1% for 50 earth days of ware worth instead of 10%) - On sell removes a fixed fee of 2% of the bought ware worth, so only 98% is added Suggestion how to declare a ware as sell fee based: - On price declaration use the syntax: "price -s description" instead of "price description" - The specific ware will now only take 200gp a earth day as daily fee per million and on sale 2% of the worth is removed before added to vendor money Auction system as an alternative Still, players may use the forums to sell wares the are not sure how much they are worth. And still, players who do auctions must bother with doing the deal. They may get help by an automatic auction system on player vendors How it could work: A vendor owner can declare any good as an auction which leads to a different system how the ware is handled. - On price declaration use the syntax: "price -a startbid bid-increase buyout description" - The auction is won after 24hours without any other bid. - On winning the auction the item is automatically transfered to the winners bank box - The fees of auctions are equal to the "sell fee system", means: Daily fee for current ware worth only 200gp/1,000,000gp worth + 2% on sale - As a vendor owner you can not remove/move any wares from your vendor with bids on it How it could work technically: - On bid there will be a check if sure, you have the money in your bank + you have a free bank slot - On a successfully check the money of your bid is removed from your bank account + a bid token is placed in your bank account with the "bid value + item description" - The "bid token" can not be removed or even moved - it is a place holder for your ware! - If you are overbidden the "bid token" is replaced with a bank check of your bid value - You can overbid your own bid - practically works like a new bid, with the exception that on money in your bank check only the bid increase is removed from your bank account
Much easier to determine costs if the vendor charged the player a straight % only after an item is sold. The in-game auction NPC is something I always liked. However it would be best if this NPC could be globally linked and located near a town crier and have the ability to sell houses and animals. Think Runescape or WoW auction halls style.
Hi Erlkönig, I have thought about the possibity to sell houses and animals too. But I thought about "step for step" Sell houses: A house key in a player vendor is unique like: - On generation of a "house sell" key all other keys of the houses are removed - doors keep their previous locked/unlocked state - The house owner can still refresh the house as long a "house sell key" for this house exists but cant do any other house actions (lock down, secure, etc.) - Players can recall directly to the house by casting the recall spell on the "house sell key" on the player vendor - The "house sell key" shows the location of the house on single click Sell animals: Animals can be moved to a vendor - on buy the animal is directly moved to the stable of the new owner - The buyer needs the minimum taming skill (check on "vendor buy" context - Players can use the "animal lore" skill on the "animal sold at the vendor" something like this. However, like said - step for step selling house keys and animals would be another great step in the right direction but seems to be much harder to code (I am a software developer - and without knowing any source code from UOR, I just assume) I do not like the idea of placing any vendors in cities and also do not like the idea of a global auction system like WoW. The intension of my initial post is to stimulate the player vendor community - not to remove it!
I have two views on the subject of auctions; For: I believe that OSI has introduced a auction box thing into their game, what might work is for these to be placed at the major city banks and for them all to be linked (show the same items) In the same way that other games have. Against: With taking some, if not all auctions back in game it will greatly decrease the activity on the forums and slow the community. With the community being one of the biggest draws to this server If a type of auction was to be introduced, a limited item selection might be the way to go, for example, only player crafted and magical wares.
If the aucioneer would be like a vendor (or like in my suggestion is a vendor) there would still be activity in the forum because people would have to advertise their auctions to be found in "vendor house location and vendor name + item" I do still not like an common accessable auctioneer in the city. It should be in player houses.
This is very true, possibly easier to implement too due to the OSI version and just changing the skin to look like an NPC. https://uo.com/wiki/ultima-online-wiki/items/veteran-rewards/the-auction-safe/ With the auctions being in the forum it makes it easier to be able to sell and buy on the go. Yes most of us will be logged in online 24/7 but have a very limited play time a day / week and so I can bid on something I want while at work or sitting on the toilet.
I suggest an admin run auction house in the larger cities, modeled after WoW. Players use an interface to put up their items for auction, set a min bid and buyout then make the auction active for a deposit "fee". To keep this in the spirit of UO, I would suggest limiting the # of items that can be posted per player and per auction house, and have the items displayed on the vendors in the same manner as they are currently. I feel that player vendors w/ the auctioneer option would be a viable way to go, as well, but feel that it would grow into something of a cumbersome system and not be as convenient as we hope. EDIT: Just had another idea, making a chest that a player can own, placing items into it trigger the auction system. During the duration of the auction, the items are locked in the chest and can not be removed unless removed from the auction listing (pending no bids.) This could be a bit more complicated to implement, but would allow players to move their high end items into/out of auction from the home and limit each player to 1 chest w/ a an item limit.
I see the potential benefit of your first suggestion but as someone who actually runs a full vendor shop I am against it. It benefits a) high dollar items and b) items that sit on a vendor for an extended amount of time. But it would actually be much more expensive for products that move regularly. Many of my product lines like containers, furniture , add-ons, & boats sell out every day (less so on the boats but it does happen). Of course this depends greatly on the flat % charged upon sale, but a vendor like mine that moves a lot of low value products every day would be hurt by this. NO! Auction Houses like WoW ruin the feeling of a UO vendor system. Even when DAoC had the vendor finder NPC it ruined the feeling of browsing a vendor mall looking for what you want. It isn't broke, so don't fix it!
