Development Cycle Archive
Thread: Vendor and Stockroom Issues
This is a very big problem. Two days ago I probably went to about 20 vendors and to my surprise a good deal of them were completely empty. I hope this gets fixed. For my sanity at least, so I don't have to spend so much time trying to find stocked vendors again. 
This is similar but I don't think related...however, Ithought I would post it here just in case. I have an issue of vanishing inventory as well.
I am a master weaponsmith. I have weapons I store in one house in backpacks that I periodically take to my vendor which is in another house. Everyday since the patch, when I do this, the items vanish. I put them in inventory from a pack in one house, when I walk into the shop south of kaadara at 5669 6290, the items vanish. If I walk back into the original shop the re-appear. It will happen taking inventory from several houses. It doesn't happen everytime, but very very often it does to myself and my business partner (although his act in another way). Sometimes a logout for 30 minutes helps...sometimes it takes a few hours of being logged out before they come back. It does come back but causes no end of frustration. Once it happens I am out of luck. It makes me want to not play (and I really enjoy the game). I'd love to just have a "We are fixing it". It is really a show stopper as I can't stock vendors 80% of the time. Someone suggested it could be related to a server boundry?
If I trade an item that is in this state, it happens to the person I traded too.
Jim
Thunderheart -
I don't think what you are describing is what is happening in many cases.
It appears that when you place an item from your pack in the vendor, it goes POOF after 14 days, without a stop to the stockroom first.
The only known real work around is to take the items completely out of the vendor and then put them back in every 2 weeks minus minus.
This problem needs to be hotfixed - waiting for the big patch is going to destroy many a merchant.
Realize that a merchant's stock and inventory is often more important to him than his experience. Often, there are months of effort involved in building up stock - for example, the collection of the rare resources in quanity and quality is monumental.
I am a master weaponsmith. I have weapons I store in one house in backpacks that I periodically take to my vendor which is in another house. Everyday since the patch, when I do this, the items vanish. I put them in inventory from a pack in one house, when I walk into the shop south of kaadara at 5669 6290, the items vanish. If I walk back into the original shop the re-appear. It will happen taking inventory from several houses. It doesn't happen everytime, but very very often it does to myself and my business partner (although his act in another way). Sometimes a logout for 30 minutes helps...sometimes it takes a few hours of being logged out before they come back. It does come back but causes no end of frustration. Once it happens I am out of luck. It makes me want to not play (and I really enjoy the game). I'd love to just have a "We are fixing it". It is really a show stopper as I can't stock vendors 80% of the time. Someone suggested it could be related to a server boundry?
If I trade an item that is in this state, it happens to the person I traded too.
Jim
TH, my question is will the stuff that has disappeared automatically come back when/if you get this fixed? Or am I just screwed?
Thunderheart, this is NOT the merhcant issue we've been posting about. That's a minor bug/inconveniece we've all been aware of since patch.
The bug is this:
From inventory, sell an item to your vendor.
It has 30 days on it's timer. Good.
After 14 days, the item vanishes! Gone. It was never in the stockroom. No messages about it, it's just gone. That's the bug.
eleetness wrote:
The items that disappeared from my vendor where straight put from my inventory into the vendor and disappeared after no more than 14 days, they never touched the store room
Right, from what I have read TH has it wrong. That may be another bug, but there is a more important one - basically items aren't even getting to the 30 day limit and going to the storeroom - they are disappearing about 14 days after being placed on the vendor.
And the first post I ever read of this bug, said she had made a vendor post patch, put items on it post-patch and 14 days later they were gone.
This is not in fact what's happening.
Most notably the proof of this is in the fact that the items are not disappearing after 30 days, but are in fact disappearing after *14* days, without ever having hit the stockroom, without ever having been an 'Auction Unsuccesful' without ever having been reauthored for sale.
What is in fact happening (as has been stated in both of the main threads and on the Merchant board):
1: Items are being put on the vendor for 30 days.
2: 14 days later items are disappearing completely.
3: No messages are being generated, no notice is being given, the items simply disappear as if never having been offered.
There is more first hand information on this on both of the threads on the main board, that is both valid and accurate. One of those threads was closed, in favor of this thread.
Note: One of the side-effects of this particular bug, in my experience is that if you pull an item that's on the threshold off deletion off sale and attempt to pull it out of the stockroom, you might 'see' it in the vendor inventory even though it's deleted when it enters the stockroom. In those instances when you attempt to retrieve the item you get a 'this item cannot be retrieved, because it no long exists' error message.
----
Note: This is a seperate issue from the other vendor issues such as:
1: Not getting exp from our vendor unless in the room with it.
2: Not getting exp from sales of items on the vendor.
3: Items bought from or offered to the Vendor disappearing for varying amount of times before appearing in inventory, on vendor etc.
4: Items being purchased from the vendor, and the credits not being given.
----
Hope this accurate information is helpful.
Shadyr wrote:
Thunderheart, this is NOT the merhcant issue we've been posting about. That's a minor bug/inconveniece we've all been aware of since patch.
The bug is this:
From inventory, sell an item to your vendor.
It has 30 days on it's timer. Good.
After 14 days, the item vanishes! Gone. It was never in the stockroom. No messages about it, it's just gone. That's the bug.
Hmmm... it seems like TH's original post doesn't address this issue, which is the big one...
After reading the warnings yesterday, last night I went to re-list all my items. Out of curiosity, I left one item in that listed "16 days 3 hours" to go on its auction.
Four hours later I checked back, and that item was gone. Not sold, not pulled off the shelf, just gone.
That, for me, confirms the "14 days" timeframe others had already cited. After being listed for 14 days, the item vanishes without a trace.
And, as Ewach pointed out, it has not been 30 days since the patch. So while TH's listed bug might have become a problem, it is not the problem that has merchants worried right now.
Old System: Off-Shelf after 7 days, deleted after 14.
New System: Off-Shelf after 30 days, deleted after 14.
Recommendation (as game programmer):
Deletion clock should only be SET when an item comes off the shelf, so whether someone pulls it off manually, buys it, or it comes off after 7 days or after 30 days, it always gets eactly 7 days in the stockroom before being deleted.
One other thing. There is one glaring flaw with this bug you listed.
The ability to put items on the vendor for 30 days has NOT been around for 30 days yet. It was added with the last big patch. So there is NO way anyone could even have seen this bug you describe here!!!!!
TH, you missed the issue! You actually told people to do exactly what causes them to lose items!
If you sell your items from inventory, it has a 30 day timer. After 14 days, with no warning, your items disappear from the vendor. You told players to do exactly what will cause them to lose all their stuff!!
No wonder the dev's didn't understand last night how important this was, they were only looking at the silly 7 day stockroom limit. That's nothing compared to the real issue that needs a hotfix yesterday.
There are several post on correcting this issue. I lay it out again anyways to clarify the issue. Here is what I did and what happened:
- After patch I set-up new venders. (This was to fix the relist problem and to reorganize my shop)
- Withdrew all items from old vendor and added to new vender.
- This made all items listed for 30 days (If you just Sell the items from the Stockroom the items woud only list for 7 day, you need to retrieve the items)
- 14 days after I listed them the disapear. (The items never dropped to stockroom and they were available for purchase upto a minute before that 14 days.)
Originally items would sell for 7 days, drop to stockroom and be deleted after another 7 days in the stockroom. I do not know if these 14 days are related, but I would recomend looking into this.