Vendor Farming

[pennyrose]

Has anyone else noticed that the NPC vendors apparently are no longer being re-set since the LoY expansion? I don't do serious vendor farming, but I do check vendors in certain areas that I think might happen to have something I need (like tea leaves or chitterling barbs or even the occasional iron oxide).

I am not sure what the old schedule was, but it seemed that at least daily vendors would be re-set, removing all the items sold to them by players. At least on The Tribunal server, that no longer seems to be happening. As a result, the vendor's slots fill up with items no one is interested in and those items have remained there well over a week now.

Does anyone have any information about this, like whether it is a bug with the expansion or an intentional change by Verant? I sincerely hope it is the former.

Thanks for any info you can provide.

Pennyrose Mysteller
55 Druid and aspiring tradeskiller (who is awed by the accomplishments of many on this forum)

227 Pottery
226 Baking
208 Brewing
188 Smithing
182 Jewelry
177 Tailoring
175 Tinkering
154 Fletching
(but not all with the same character)

[Greymantle]

As far a i know there was no scheduale to do this. Vender inventories clear after avery zone or server reset and/or patch. If your server has not gone down in a week you are stuck with whats on them till it does.

[Bennan]

I visit 3 to 5 Vendors every 2 days, and I have noticed they are being reset, per patch or system downtime myself ?

[Maevenniia]

Vendors are supposed to reset when they die, or when servers reset after patches.

As far as I know that isn't broken, however since one of the recent patches mentioned that certain Boss mob spawn timers would no longer be reset after patches, might it be conceivable that some (if not all) merchants may have been similarly (if unintentionally) affected?

[Morani]

Might just be that you've gotten use to all the resets from the CONUTLESS patches that have goon through in the last 2-3 months. I’m happy that Sony is on a fixing spree but I'm tired of going to a merch and only seeing the "stock" items on it. I've gotten SO out of habit in my Merchant Mining... :?

[Mendan]

To the best of my knowledge vendors have never reset without being killed or having the zone they reside in reset (due to GMs or server downtime). Sometimes items sold to a vendor appear in their inventory even though they are full, and knocks one of the items they were selling down a slot. That may account for the appearance that they were reset, but I can confirm that after last patch vendors were reset.

[Ariene]

Sometimes items sold to a vendor appear in their inventory even though they are full, and knocks one of the items they were selling down a slot. That may account for the appearance that they were reset, but I can confirm that after last patch vendors were reset.

I did a LOT of vendor farming recently and I noticed a few things. If I bought out all the item x, and went back to that merchant again (after people had time to sell more) the item x would be in the same spot it was in when I bought it all the first time. If I sold back trash to a vendor after mining it would go back to the spot it was in when I first bought it. Vendors must have some sort of memory - the first place an item is is where it goes back when it is restocked...even player sold items not the standard items. I am not 100% positive on this, but it is the only thing I can think of that makes sense with what I repeatedly saw.

[Delfontes]

Ariene I noticed the same thing with spiderling silk... for about 4 hours the day LoY came out it was in the same spot each time I went back to buy it out.

Might be just a memory thing though, because once nobody had sold to it for a while it wasn't in the same spot anymore.

[Cigarskunk]

If the vendors aren't being reset fast enough for your tastes, then it's a simple case of just putting together a newby toon real quick and knocking them out of thier spots with a ranged attack.

That done, since the vendors don't seem to want to come back once they've moved, then simply petition to get a GM/guide to kill them for you.

[kiztent]

Ariene I noticed the same thing with spiderling silk... for about 4 hours the day LoY came out it was in the same spot each time I went back to buy it out.

Might be just a memory thing though, because once nobody had sold to it for a while it wasn't in the same spot anymore.

I've seen the same behavior on the dwarf nearest to the PoK bank and the trader satchel vendor in the bazaar. Haven't done enough work to correlate it yet, but there does seem to be a sort of merchant memory.

[Delandril]

I'm guessing it lists things in its inventory in some kind of sorted order, maybe by its ID#. The fact that it appears in its same slot may be due to the fact that the type of items ahead of it in the list haven't changed.

[Ariene]

I'm guessing it lists things in its inventory in some kind of sorted order, maybe by its ID#. The fact that it appears in its same slot may be due to the fact that the type of items ahead of it in the list haven't changed.

No, because if you sell to an empty vendor, things you sell go into the first empty slot. They don't resort themselves. But if you then buy back something you sold and then resell it to the vendor again, it will go the the first empty slot but when you close then reopen the vendor it will be back up where it was the first time you put it there.

Vendors seem to order thier stock by the order in which they first receive an item. Even if they sell out of that item, they seem to keep track of it somehow and put it back in the original order whenever they receive more.

I think you are partly right though. If all the items above it had sold, it would have moved up the list. Vendor doesn't seem to remember the slot, but it does seem to remember the first order it received items in on server up and that order stays consistant until the next time the vendor is reset (killed or patch).

[Ariene]

I've never done this, but if you happen to have time at server up, you could organize all the vendors you mine. Sell then rebuy everything you want to a merchant and that would ensure that those items always stayed on top visible so you never had to mine. Only problem with that is that they would be on top for everyone else to find too so it might be counterproductive.

[Mendan]

That done, since the vendors don't seem to want to come back once they've moved, then simply petition to get a GM/guide to kill them for you.

Yeah, but be ready to wait about 5 hours for a GM to answer your petition, and then say there's nothing they can do about it. :roll:

[Thicket Tundrabog]

It was almost a year ago that a couple of lengthy threads on vendor mining were on these boards. Some of the key points were,

Vendors have 80 visible slots and another 10 hidden spots. If all these are full and you sell another item (not already in the inventory) it disappears permanently.

The vendor 'remembers' a sold item. If someone sells the same item to the same vendor it will reinsert that item in the inventory in the original spot BUT ONLY IF the vendor has less than 90 inventory slots full. This puts a crimp on most vendor mining schemes that involve going back to the same vendor and finding the same item you bought yesterday.

There is one scheme for seeding vendors. Seed an item in the first 'unseen' vendor slot (i.e. slot #81). You must leave the item there. Come back later, and you can buy yours back, as well as what other players have sold.

Of course, you can seed an item in the visible inventory and leave it there, but there is greater risk that it will be snatched by another player .

Thicket