UO Second Age

I literally cannot get my mage reagents. I've marked a rune at every vendor and every time I log in and check they're completely sold out. I know why too, I saw a player named "June" teleport in and swipe all the reagents in a half second and recall out. I would assume every player run reagent vendor has a bot doing this.

How is it even possible to play on this shard? Do I have to run a provocation swordsman in Shame for hours a day to farm the gold and find a player run vendor to buy the reagents in bulk? That is not how a mage was intended to be played. Sure I remember seeing vendors sold out, but I remember seeing more or less of each reagent available. Not a clean sweep of every single reagent gone and placed into player run vendors.

I'm starting to think it was a huge mistake to try to start a character on this shard with the intention of playing in a conventional sense. If you wonder why player base is low here, look through my posts. I've been living in hell just trying to play this game the way I did in 1999. I feel like a complete fool at this point.

im Thankful for those player reg vendors. Maybe im just too lazy to recall around buying regs myself.

Yes for a veteran player they are awesome. You can stock up on thousands of regs at a time without much trouble.

The problem is for new players who don't have thousands of gold available, it's impossible to start up a mage as a first character.

with the vendor restock mechanics , it would take all day without afk reg buying to get their stock up enough to do anything anyway. youre welcome.

Resol wrote:I literally cannot get my mage reagents. I've marked a rune at every vendor and every time I log in and check they're completely sold out. I know why too, I saw a player named "June" teleport in and swipe all the reagents in a half second and recall out. I would assume every player run reagent vendor has a bot doing this.

How is it even possible to play on this shard? Do I have to run a provocation swordsman in Shame for hours a day to farm the gold and find a player run vendor to buy the reagents in bulk? That is not how a mage was intended to be played. Sure I remember seeing vendors sold out, but I remember seeing more or less of each reagent available. Not a clean sweep of every single reagent gone and placed into player run vendors.

I'm starting to think it was a huge mistake to try to start a character on this shard with the intention of playing in a conventional sense. If you wonder why player base is low here, look through my posts. I've been living in hell just trying to play this game the way I did in 1999. I feel like a complete fool at this point.

I don't think you know what you're talking about. Yes there is unattended buying of reagents but, I have gone to mage shops every time I have played and have always found regs. I think it would help you out a lot to make a rune to a rune library and go to all the mage shops in the lands. The more you buy the higher they stock. There are quite a few vendors and I have always been able to buy what I need if I spend the time to do it. Otherwise it would be worth your time to fight for your gold and just buy them. It's faster that way! If you need help making a rune book to mage shops PM me and I will duplicate one for you.

As an aside to your issue, I think it's amusing that you're so upset about this when even in OSI UO, reagents could be hard to purchase. If you weren't there the MOMENT they refreshed, there were a lot of people there waiting with pack horses to buy that stuff up.

Anyway, back to SA UO. At no point over many years has acquiring reagents from NPC vendors been a problem for me. To date, I have nearly never purchased reagents from a player vendor.

And Resol, before you say it (as you're so fond of doing), this includes before I had any abundance of wealth whatsoever AND without the use of the "buy" agent in Razor. Here's how that went:

• Keep your "mage shops" runebook handy (since you said you already have one).
• Go farm for some gold.
• Buy some recall scrolls.
• Get around with your runebook.
• Buy reagents. If they aren't in stock, come back in like 15-20 minutes, or try to see when the automated person is buying regs and get there a little beforehand.

Later on I did incorporate the use of the buy agent in Razor for expediency.

Sure, there are times when I wouldn't be able to procure reagents in that EXACT moment, but even then it's fairly rare. EVEN NOW if someone is running a reg buying macro I'm still able to swoop in and buy reagents if I really want to.

This is yet another case of you having a memory of something that you want to be PRECISELY as you remember regardless of the actual reality, and when it doesn't meet that expectation, you are unable to cope.

You know what else you could do? Farm as normal and buy some regs from a player vendor. Problem solved and you can continue on your way. If you really want to get in the weeds about it, bust out a spreadsheet and calculate how much more it is and then weigh for yourself how to best maximize your time, which in my opinion is the only true currency you have to figure out.

God, you're a whiny pain in the ass.

How did you Mark any runes at all if you couldn't buy reagents; if you can never buy reagents, what use would any of those Marked runes be to you, anyway; how did you raise your Magery high enough to Mark runes if you could never buy any reagents?

I don't have any problems buying reagents from NPC vendors, and I never have had such a problem. Yes, occasionally, vendors have been sold-out of what I want and, at least some of the time, it's because of someone's reagent-buying bot.

As Ecaj pointed out, on OSI there was often "unbeatable competition" from other players.

I'm getting tired of the "it's impossible to play here" theme you keep pounding out: host your own shard and then bitch all you like. Go away.

If you don't go away, and still want to buy reagents, try Wind: nobody's bots go there.

SS

Wow guys, he made a complaint that almost every makes when they start here. Buying regs doesn't seem the same as it did years ago on OSI.

It's the truth, and for a shard that is supposed to have captured that era I think it's a valid complaint. But when you get into the finer points of how the vendors work you realize that without people buying regs regularly the vendors stock very few of them. You also realize that it's very hard to amass large amounts of reagents without bots.

So go easy on him. It's not fun to run off every new member to the shard.

Drunk'n Disorder wrote:Wow guys, he made a complaint that almost every makes when they start here. Buying regs doesn't seem the same as it did years ago on OSI.

It's the truth, and for a shard that is supposed to have captured that era I think it's a valid complaint. But when you get into the finer points of how the vendors work you realize that without people buying regs regularly the vendors stock very few of them. You also realize that it's very hard to amass large amounts of reagents without bots.

So go easy on him. It's not fun to run off every new member to the shard.

I don't blame you for wanting to "defend/encourage the newbie".

But, holy-crap, this guy might as well be a saboteur, working for a rival shard: specious complaints, delivered as a burst on arrival; he hasn't logged-in to the forums in a week.

Did Ecaj (and I) drive him off? Frankly, I don't care: I don't think that UOSA would benefit from hosting a player of his calibre; too fragile.

I was "on his side" until Ecaj posted screenshots: in particular, his "mouthiness" set me off; just, plain, not sensible; at what point do we stop holding hands?

I'd love to see an increased population, particularly a PvE population, but (and I hate the forthcoming characterization) I see no need at all to 'recruit from the short bus'.

SS