Reagents?

[Ginaweave]

It's 7:30 in the morning. I just recalled to EVERY SINGLE mage shop in Britain and T2A. Not a SINGLE one have a SINGLE reg.


Seriously? I'm just gonna go play on another server if this if how it is.

[Degamra]

I agree that it is very irritating but only because the AFK buyers will never be punished. I would hardly consider this a make or break situation, though, for continuing to play the shard if you enjoy everything else.

I started buying exclusively from player vendors a few months ago.

The time that I lose checking NPC vendors is too significant to justify saving a few thousand gold pieces I could make back in 15 minutes of PvE.

[Aeris]

It's tough to understand, but when people buy out vendors, it actually increases the reagent availability in the world, since the NPC restocks double the next time: as long as they are bought out. If they aren't bought out each 50 minutes, then they restock half as much the next time, until they get back down to 20. The reset is every 50 minutes. I've seen NPCs up at 800 or 900 of each reg just this week.. so that's almost a thousand of each reg, every 50 minutes.. you could stock up for a month just by logging in every 50 minutes for 2 minutes of buying.

So just stick by one vendor shop for 50 minutes, hide in the corner and then work on something else, go on another char or something in the background and check in every 5 minutes. When they restock, buy them out and note the time. Come back in 50 minutes, and they will have an increased stock. If you do this for 4 or 5 hours just on one vendor, you'll be swimming in regs.

[Kaivan]

Actually, the restock algorithm doesn't double if bought out, and halve if it isn't bought out. The stock increases by 9 if bought out, and resets to the base amount if it isn't bought out.

[Ginaweave]

So just stick by one vendor shop for 50 minutes, hide in the corner and then work on something else, go on another char or something in the background and check in every 5 minutes. When they restock, buy them out and note the time. Come back in 50 minutes, and they will have an increased stock. If you do this for 4 or 5 hours just on one vendor, you'll be swimming in regs.

I've already tried this more than once and have been continually beaten out by AFK buyers using Razor macros who recall to every mage shop and insta buy all regs. Unless I start using Razor scripts to buy I have no chance of competing with those people.

[Francois424]

And... the base amount will be nerfed to 10 in the future as it was Era-Accurate.
This is straight from a red name on this forum.
Unless they change their mind, and I hope they will.

Personally, I get lucky maybe 1-2 times a week and manage to stock about 250 each reagents.
Most of the times, I cannot get the reags I need. Thank god for unlimited weight bank boxes to stock-up.

Seriously? I'm just gonna go play on another server if this if how it is.

That's exactly why even if I'm a huge advocate of era accuracy, I beleive some tiny things like amount of reagents or basic prices on some merchant ressources should be adjusted for convenience.

[Aeris]

Hmm, so those 800 reg stocks meant those NPCs were being bought out for 90+ straight hours?? And then one missed hour sent them back down to 20?

Okay, forget everything I just wrote (was what I wrote perhaps true in the past?). It's apparently as bad as you said.

[nubnub]

It's 7:30 in the morning. I just recalled to EVERY SINGLE mage shop in Britain and T2A. Not a SINGLE one have a SINGLE reg.

Yep, woke up this morning around 3am CST and figured I would login and buy root assuming no one was on and I would at least get 20 root from each NPC vendor. Wrong, 3am CST and not a single root and went to every Alchemist/Mage shop. It is rather frustrating... but whatever. It's seems, in my experience, you will get better results going through towns looking for AFK macroers that are loaded up with regs - gate in the purple pot killer and loot them. More fun, better results and less frustrating then recalling from shop to shop with no results... Or, sit around and pot kill the AFK reg buyers, after all, they have a sack full of gold to buy up the regs (I haven't started doing this yet, but plan to).

[BiGGiE]

If You Do Resort To Buying From Player Vendors You Should Hit Up My Shop @ Yew Moongate...The Afk Buyers Are The Reason I Started A Reg Vendor (To Try & Take Away Some Of Their Business) ALL Of My Regs Are Bought Manually "NOT Afk" Guaranteed. Stock Is A Little Slim Atm On Some Regs On Vendor But MOst Have At Least 5K In Stock (Working On A 20K/each Order).
Heres The Location: viewtopic.php?f=75&t=49505

[JBURNS]

I have been on this server for a long time and seen many changes come and go and I can honestly say this is the best UO server out there overall. That being said, I feel like I need to beat a dead horse here again. I agree for the most part on keeping the server era accurate as much as possible, but it should also be understood that no matter how many hours are spent scripting or developing that there is no way the server will ever be 100% accurate. We simply do not play in the same era as it was created. Razor changes how the game is played, and the population/economy is wildly different here than it was back then. It seems like a decision needs to be made -- Does Secondage strive to be mechanically era accurate or does it strive to recreate the "feel" of how UO Second Age was played?
It has already been established that the vendor re-stocking mechanics are closer to how they were actually scripted back in 97-98. But that does not mean that they perform the same. Back in 1997-1998, the average server population for UO was closer to 5,000 compared to our population of 800 (high end). Since there were so many more players on each server, this reagent restocking mechanic worked a lot better. You could almost guarantee that the regs would be bought out to 0 each restock, and therefore have more regs to buy. Also, Razor changes how people buy regs. You can now say 1 word and buy out every single type of reg instantly. Back in 1997-98, you would have to say vendor buy and select the type and amount of each manually. That created an atmosphere of competitiveness and fairness. If you were faster or bought less you got the regs. With the way it is now, the only competition is who has the restock timer figured out better.
In my opinion reagents were too easy to get a few months ago but now I feel they are too hard. Admittedly, I am a veteran player and therefore these changes to reagent restocking affects me very little. I am sure you already know getting new players on the server, and staying to play, is critical to maintaining a healthy and active shard. Besides, just because its era accurate mechanically, does not mean its era accurate in practice.

[Menkaure]

I started reg shopping instead of buying from player vendors and I recall to each one in alphabetical order. In ONE day I was able to get 5k each reg and it was less than 6 hours. So I no longer will complain about this.

[The oOo]

Meh...

I've got to go with JBURNS with the caveat that Era accuracy does not mean a particular system was working properly at the time either.

Given that their actual server load/pop. far exceeded their initial expectations AND build...yea, the restocking wasn't really an issue back then...Population compensated for the deficiencies inherent within that system at the time, had it been operating at their expected capacity.

I see the regent restocking system here as functioning [deficiently] as it would have had their server load only met expectations at the time. In which case, it would have been adjusted accordingly given the time.

That all being said [and IMHO of course]...it is one thing to have the regent stocks high from regent buyers camping them...and anyone else having an equal chance to purchase them [as JBURNS said...whoever was fastest back in the day...] it is an entirely different matter with RAZOR as it is all too common to be clicking in reg lists raising your order and someone appears, says "vendor buy" and before you have any time to react all of the regents are gone along with the other player...it seems to only take a few seconds...

Very Frustrating...

oOo

[Pac]

Don't complain. Dozens of AFK harvester-bots systematically buying out every reg on the server while the actual player isn't even home is super-super-era-accurate. Don't anyone here tell me you played T2A and don't remember AFK reg bots being the cornerstone of the UO experience back then.

[Menkaure]

Don't complain. Dozens of AFK harvester-bots systematically buying out every reg on the server while the actual player isn't even home is super-super-era-accurate. Don't anyone here tell me you played T2A and don't remember AFK reg bots being the cornerstone of the UO experience back then.

There was like 1 per shard. Here there's 20

[corruption42]

Meh...

I've got to go with JBURNS with the caveat that Era accuracy does not mean a particular system was working properly at the time either.

Given that their actual server load/pop. far exceeded their initial expectations AND build...yea, the restocking wasn't really an issue back then...Population compensated for the deficiencies inherent within that system at the time, had it been operating at their expected capacity.

I see the regent restocking system here as functioning [deficiently] as it would have had their server load only met expectations at the time. In which case, it would have been adjusted accordingly given the time.

That all being said [and IMHO of course]...it is one thing to have the regent stocks high from regent buyers camping them...and anyone else having an equal chance to purchase them [as JBURNS said...whoever was fastest back in the day...] it is an entirely different matter with RAZOR as it is all too common to be clicking in reg lists raising your order and someone appears, says "vendor buy" and before you have any time to react all of the regents are gone along with the other player...it seems to only take a few seconds...

Very Frustrating...

oOo

....So set up a buy agent as well. Use the same tools available to you. It requires making no macro, nor automation. Add the items to a buy agent, set the amount you want to buy, and go. You'll buy them just as fast as they do; and using the tools available to you to do things more efficiently is absolutely era accurate. Quit nerfing your own ability to buy them and its easy to get them.

I started reg shopping instead of buying from player vendors and I recall to each one in alphabetical order. In ONE day I was able to get 5k each reg and it was less than 6 hours. So I no longer will complain about this.

^ this. Its really not as difficult as people make it out to be; I find them consistently. Usually in Brit and Moonglow too; they should always be sold out 24/7 by this logic, no?