Vendor Mining...How exactly is it done now?

[Raienya]

I have never really been a vendor miner, but with the lowered frequency in tradeskill component drops, I am giving it serious thought. My question is, how exactly is vendor mining done now? Say today, patch day, all vendors will be empty (except for the things they normally sell). Do I just find an out of the way vendor, sell it one of whatever I want, then buy it back en mass?

That doesn't sound like it would work...but again, since I have never really done it, I have no idea how it works

[Thorvari]

Wait a couple of hours to a day, then check back to vendors in high traffic areas. There is a decent chance that someone who XPed last night in an area with good drops will clear their inventory before adventuring out today by selling to those vendors. If you can find the merchant that they sold to, before someone else spots the items, buy them for a few plat, rather than spending big $ in the /bazaar.

The problem comes when the vendors fill all of the way up, and then anything else sold to that vendor poofs.

You can pursue this strategy even if there isn't a patch. One method is to buy out all of the very cheap 1sp-1gp items from the vendors you want to farm making room and dump them on a single vendor. Another method is to reset the vendor by killing it or causing it to respawn by doing a quest. (failed 10th ring war resets Thurgadin, Ore quest resets certain ore vendors, etc.)

[The Judge, Alchem]

If your mining for yourself check the high traffic and new player areas. Halas vendors, even the guy who sells Shaman spells out in the tundra, all the Wayfarer Camps, SH vendors, PoK, and PoT vendors. I check them all before going to LFG. These are the spots everyone knows, it's up to you ti find the little secret places

[Raienya]

Yes, would be mining for myself. What I had heard was that you could sell something to an npc vendor if it was in the last slot, then buy it back en mass. That was what I was shooting for, for things I found completely by luck, like the three murmite essences I found yesterday.

[Elyssanda]

Not gonna happen... that type of vendor mining was a bug for a VERY short time before it got caught and fixed.
Vendor mining now, just means hitting the vendors and hoping to get LUCKY and find what you're looking for.. Gone are the days of hidden slots that you could "mine" for, buying out cheap trash and having the good stuff move up.

[Thorvari]

The best you could do is to Seed a mostly full vendor with a single item, wait a day or 2, then check back. Any other people that sold that particular item to that vendor would stick, while other items would poof since the vendor is full. You could then buy your original item+ any that have been sold to that vendor.

The risk you take is that someone else will come by and buy your seed item, putting you down 1 item, rather than up.

[Ozadar]

Is this still true? When a vendor is full, you can't buyout an item and see something new pop up that was hidden?

Ozadar of the 70th Corpse
Erudite Tradeskiller of Zek
Member of 1450 Club

Baking - 276
Brewing - 278
Fletching - 268
Jewelry - 284
Pottery - 252
Smithing - 239
Tailoring - 247
Research - 201
Fishing - 200

(+5-8% to all skills) + Salvage 3

[Maevenniia]

correct, NPC merchants no longer have any hidden slots - what you see is what you get. I think they have 80? slots total, some taken up by their permanent merchandise (ex: water, rations, etc) and when the remaining slots fill up, anything else sold to the merchant just *poofs*

If you have a little plat to spare, you can always buy the cheap junk off the popular merchants, to free up some slots, and then destroy or go resell the junk to an out-of-the-way merchant.

[Ozadar]

I wish the merchants in my guild hall didn't poof their supplies when the guild was empty. That is one of my prime spots to buy stuff. Less competition since I'm the only one in my guild who tradeskills regularly.

Ozadar of the 70th Corpse
Erudite Tradeskiller of Zek
Member of 1450 Club

Baking - 276
Brewing - 278
Fletching - 268
Jewelry - 284
Pottery - 252
Smithing - 239
Tailoring - 247
Research - 201
Fishing - 200

(+5-8% to all skills) + Salvage 3

[Maevenniia]

I wish the merchants in my guild hall didn't poof their supplies when the guild was empty. That is one of my prime spots to buy stuff. Less competition since I'm the only one in my guild who tradeskills regularly.

I have teh opposite problem, there is always someone afk in my guild's hall, so the two merchants' inventories fill up with the junk and I just KNOW some good stuff is going *poof* because of it, lol

[paalrh]

if more peopel where fans of vendor seeding the world would be a nicee place.

seeding is purposly putting 1 item in the vendor inventor so that when otherp layers sell that item to that vendor it doesnt go poof. Like insted of cleaning that newbie vendor out of his 5 cinnamon sticks you only buy 4.

Or buy 9 /10 Blue diamonds in pok. Always makin gsure each vendor has 1 Blue diamond left.