Seeding merchants

[dratt]

Does anyone here ever "seed" a merchant with an item...say Words or Runes of some sort and then come back and get more of them later?

I've been doing this for a while now with limited success. The words I seed are not used by others terribly often so they don't always get bought by someone else.

I have had some bad luck with it lately though. I think someone else is doing the same tradeskills as me and has found the same spot and they've just been taking all of them (which is a risk I take I guess). I was just curious if I was the only one insane enough to do this.

[Itek]

Um... search "vendor mining" in any forum (general or primal scream for darn sure) and you will find a few thousand posts relating to doing this.

When it works it's great... when someone buys up your "seeds" it's a serious pain. I generally never do it because I can't be consistent. But those that do it often swear by it.

[Myrron]

Moved from Tailoring to General.

--Myrron Lifewarder

[Maevenniia]

LOL…

I thought the title was “Seedling” Merchants and thought maybe farming was going to be added as a skill for people to grow veggies and stuff.

[Sylphan]

It helps to wait a few days after a patch. Then seed a merchant that's already been farmed and is crammed full of utterly useless stuff. Most of the miners will have already given up on that guy (until the next patch)... also one research page way down the list is less likely to be noticed.

Also location matters... you only want to seed merchants where lazy people sell. Lazy people with research pages tend to sell in Shadowhaven and in PoK near the bank. Ore is sold near druid ports (including PoK), Highpass, and Thurgadin. Spider silks and pelts are found at inns or near town banks (not PoK), but not much at merchants far from the bank. GoD drops usually end up in PoT or Bazaar, not at the wayfarer camps or PoK like you'd expect. Gems tend to end up on Peridot merchants, thanks to clerics.

When I was farming research pages I had the same thing happen: all was going fine for a few weeks then someone else started wanting the same few pages and was buying out my merchants... and competing in bazaar too. I had to stop seeding PoK, but he never checked Shadowhaven. When I was collecting velium I figured out that my competition only bought up ore in the morning. Sometimes I'd harvest mine late at night, and then sell back one seed item.

[Nolrog]

It helps to wait a few days after a patch. Then seed a merchant that's already been farmed and is crammed full of utterly useless stuff. Most of the miners will have already given up on that guy (until the next patch)... also one research page way down the list is less likely to be noticed.

The problem with this approach, though, is that if the merchant is full already, then you're seeded item is destroyed (thanks to a change a while back to prevent vendor mining.) You have to find a merchant that is nearly full, but not completely so.

Your other points are very good though. Seed merchants that lazy people go to. Also consider the Magus in Natimbi. There are tons and tons and tons of words and runes that drop there, though she get's filled up quickly by people selling stuff. I don't recall if words drop in LDoNs, but if they do, then the other Magus and the druid port in BBM are also great places. Groups will run there and sell everything, so they can split the loot.

[Qaladar Bragollach]

I'm sure he meant he buys something out from the merchant to make a hole first. If you make a hole and then sell without closing the window it will go into that hole.

[Dunthor Warsmith]

I'm sure he meant he buys something out from the merchant to make a hole first. If you make a hole and then sell without closing the window it will go into that hole.

Just to clarify, if you make a hole and sell without closing the merchant, your sold item will go in that hole at its current location. If you make a hole and close the merchant, the hole moves to the last slot, but is still present, so you can open the merchant again and sell something and it will fill that (moved) hole.