Development Cycle Archive
Thread: Vendor and Stockroom Issues
AudioOrgana wrote:
And it's not the only problem, and if this is all they know about the issue - time to empty your vendors, everyone.
And just where do you suggest storing the stuff from the vendors, Audio?
I love the work you've been doing TH, but you're nuts here! The outstanding Merchant Correspondent, DocSavage, has collected a lot of information and hard data about the various bugs that have been existent for a long time and the ones that have popped up recently. Please view the information available to you through the correspondent process, posted on this thread, or at the very least look at the sticky topics in the Merchant forum before commenting.
I'm afraid that this time you are uninformed of the issues, but thank you for addressing our concerns! 
Sketh wrote:
AudioOrgana wrote:
And it's not the only problem, and if this is all they know about the issue - time to empty your vendors, everyone.
And just where do you suggest storing the stuff from the vendors, Audio?
Very true.
I don't keep huge amounts of stuff on my vendor - I specialize in certain types of droids, and coupled with the recent changes/bugs/coming fixes, I haven't stocked my vendor with hundreds of droids.
But you are right - I regularly see people, especially tailors, with 700-800 items on their vendor.
What a nightmare.
I guess I'm a lucky one.
It's interesting TH hasn't checked in here again, since just about everyone has pointed out the flaws in his original posting - that what he's saying is happening simply isn't possible. I really, really wish TH would stop doing stuff like that - I really do want to like him, but I see more misinformation from him than I do good information every time I look.
Audio
Just to add my voice...
The problem is NOT to do with the 30/7 day timers, instead, its to do with the items disappearing from the vendors (deleted from the game) after 14 days of being on the vendor after placing them directly from your backpack to enable the 30 day timer.
Its been said a few times already I know, but it seems TH got the completely wrong end of the stick.
I have PM'ed Thunderheart (who is offline) and GarVa (who is online) trying to get Thunderheart's post changed.
What TH has posted will actually cause massive amounts of loss for people who don't read the thread through, and just glance at his post.
Apparently what's happened here is that although the 30 day timer shows for items, the server is still forcing a 14 day vendor database purge, similar to before the patch.
Before the patch, 7 days of being posted on a vendor + 7 days of lounging in the stockroom = your stuff sent to /dev/null. Poof in 14 days, and that code is still serverside because of sloppy programming.
I just can't believe it is going to take until the next publish to fix. And yes, AudioOrgana is correct: if this bug affected combatants it would be fixed in a matter of hours, not weeks.
Amazing how this little bug slipped by SOE's internal testing. Or maybe it's not, considering all the old bugs that were squashed in beta raising their ugly little heads again. Ghost town, anyone?
Look to DocSavage for a full description of the truly catastrophic, economy-breaking bug that has just now been discovered.
The thing is, if this isnt going to be fixed before the next major patch (I assume our problem will be patched earlier since the problem TH posted is a minor one) all those merchants who don't read the boards will still lose thousands of units worth of their stock before anything is done about it.
Patch it TODAY.
Thunderheart, The information you posted is not applicable to the bug I am seeing. When the patch that allowed vendors to have 30 day sales become available, I removed all sales from my vendors, retrieved all of the items into my inventory, and put them back up for sale from my inventory (I had already heard about the issue with selling items from the stockroom). All of the items that were put up for sale when the patch first was released are now missing. They are not in the stockroom. They never made it to the stockroom. They were never sold from the stockroom.
I rely on my vendors for more then95% of my sales in 3 different stores on 3 different planets. Recrafting and stocking all of my vendors (2 per store) is an nightmare.
-anruan
Wow, SOE Hire this person, he got it right on the nose (as a programmer myself). This makes total sense, they forgot to take out the Delete step after 14 days, and just set the Off-Shelf life to 30. Brilliant.
ideas wrote:
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.
RebelKnight wrote:
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!!!!!
Yeah, I was going to give TH the benefit of the doubt on that and assume that they had found a bug in the code - but now that I reread it - it is clear that TH just doesn't understand the real bug that is the problem.
Also, I would just like to remind TH and the devs of their official reimbursement policy. They will reimburse you for all lost items - if they don't they are committing fraud. I am having an issue with CSRs on an old lost house deed at the moment. I got inconsistent answers regarding their logging capabilities and retention. So I think they are most likely just BSing me. Don't let them BS you. If you keep ticketing it and bugging them, eventually they will reimburse you.
If they don't then maybe it is class-action time....
Chucksta68 wrote:Apparently what's happened here is that although the 30 day timer shows for items, the server is still forcing a 14 day vendor database purge, similar to before the patch.
Before the patch, 7 days of being posted on a vendor + 7 days of lounging in the stockroom = your stuff sent to /dev/null. Poof in 14 days, and that code is still serverside because of sloppy programming.
I just can't believe it is going to take until the next publish to fix. And yes, AudioOrgana is correct: if this bug affected combatants it would be fixed in a matter of hours, not weeks.
Amazing how this little bug slipped by SOE's internal testing. Or maybe it's not, considering all the old bugs that were squashed in beta raising their ugly little heads again. Ghost town, anyone?
Probably because neither TH nor the devs are crafters/merchants. That’s why we constantly get the raw deal. Lets face it, they are only going to put a lot of effort into what THEY can see happening in the game and most of the other stuff goes to the back burner (and eventually the trash). We crafters/merchants have seen it time and again.....