Merchant Archive
Thread: Paying Absent Employees?
AllyaEcati wrote:I understand the whole vendors loading into the game and planetary map connection. I was just wondering if nobody visits my shop to load my vendors, am I still paying the increased fee to advertise on the global map?
More than likely yes.
You told me that you would look into it. You never got back to me. Big shock there.
For those that don't recall the thread, here it is:
AlphaMaldorian wrote:
DocSavag wrote:This isn't, strictly speaking, a bug. It is an unintended effect of a change they made several months ago to increase server performance. The change was to have items inside houses not load into the world until someone comes near them. It theory it is an excellent decision because server resources aren't wasted loading or holding these items in memory until such time as they are really needed because someone is there. The problem with the theory is vendors. Vendors actually are supposed to be doing several things even when people aren't around to watch them.
The first thing they are supposed to do is give us XP...they stopped doing that when this fix went in months ago and the fix for that was to have them calculate how much XP we were supposed to have since they were last loaded and to give it to us when they were next loaded into the world.
The second thing they are supposed to be doing is checking to make sure they are properly registered on the global map (if in fact they have been told to do so). So far the devs haven't found a way to fix this one. The routines to put the vendor on the global map reside in the vendor initialization code which isn't getting called until the first time someone comes into the room where they are in and gets them on the map.
I have pointed out to the devs that this is a bit of a Catch 22 because in order to get your customers to your shop you have to have advertising which you can't get started until one of your customers goes into your shop....hmmmmAs you have noticed it will eventually get back on the map as soon as you or someone else goes to the shop and the vendor loads up. You don't even have to interact with the vendor, just watching it pop into existance is enough. I realize this isn't a solution, but for now it is all we have.
I have a solution then. Since the vendors aren't loaded on the global map 24/7, then only have the INCREASED maintenance costs apply WHILE they are on the map. If I'm paying a premium for Global Advertising yet not having that service provide, then I want the normal maintenance costs to apply.
If I paid for a service with my credit card and was only getting 1/3 of the amount of service that I was suppose to get for my money ou can bet I'd be on the phone with my CC company to dispute the charges.
So in a nut shell "Until they figure out how to fix this, DO NOT charge for global advertising; just use normal vendor maintenance costs"
DocSavag wrote:
As has been pointed out numerous times here the difference is hardly staggering to begin wtih and I doubt you will be able to tell the difference but I understand the principle involved. I"ll bring it up.
Message Edited by AlphaMaldorian on 09-30-2004 08:26 PM
