Idle vendors

Soltown
I just visited Soltown in onlineplay for the first time and noticed the large number of player vendors standing around there. A few of them have run out of orders for both sale and purchase but are still standing around as if waiting for customers.

If a vendor has nothing to sell and no wish to buy anyting then that vendor should take a break, hang up a "Be right back." sign and go having lunch or going to bed or at least sit down somewhere and munch a sandwich.

 

Hello @ConjurerDragon . Things have changed a bit regarding player vendors. When you enter a town look at your upper right hand part of your screen. You will see something called 'window selector' click on that and at the bottom there is an option that says 'vendor listings in zone'. If you click on that you can see all items listed for sale in that town. You can then click on an item and at the bottom of the window it says 'get directions'. If you select to get directions an icon will show on your compass for you to follow to that particular vendor. You may know of this already but just in case you did not now you have access to it. It is especially useful in towns such as crafters town, novia market, silverdale market just to name a few. Many towns have some player vendors. If you point at a town sign name before entering it will list whats in the town. For example it would say vendors then player venders x24 and of course other useful information of what the town has.

If you are new to the game be sure to learn about teleport to zone scrolls which mark down each location you have visited and by using the control key while moussing over a location you can see a description of each location listed on your scroll. It doesn't work if encumbered though. our vendors use to sit down if they weren't in use for a certain amount of time but I for one did not appreciate that. I think this is a much better solution. You can now just search all vendors to decide on the one that may have an item you are looking for. If you don't yet know and enjoy going from vendor to vendor that is good too. Anyway if I can help I'm Majoria in the game. Take care

 

Yes, that got awkward depending on what the vendor was wearing, plus it added a small amount of deco delay on the GPU.

 

Which is still a thing with e.g. some refugees lying down in their tents.

Well, I have had trouble running SotA at the start and shelfed it for some years, when I bought my current PC which runs it quite well on maximum settings. It adds to the immersion in the game that a vendor, regardless if player or public vendor, would have a life of it´s own and if no orders remain (neither buy nor sell) it would sit down if it is standing.
Not only to notify that no goods are availble (as opposed to simply a change in text colour if the offers are older) but as part of that NPC´s life. They ought to be no slaves or dolls who could be ordered to keep standing 24/7 without even a reason for it. Some merchant streets or marketplaces of POT´s with player vendors look practically dead and a bit of life, if only a player vendor moving from his post to the next available sitting opportunity (or even a bed) would give the world a bit of a look to be more alive like Ultima VI with day and nightcycles for NPC´s.

In an utopian world they should even go to the pub for a beer once in a while and eat something as was suggested here
https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/forum/index.php?threads/feed-the-bea-vendors.161405/#post-1274254

 

This is as far as I can remember about this vendor system:

A long time ago, vendors DID actually sit down if they had no buy or sell orders. However another issue came up, on the the sitting pose of the female merchants has them in a pose which makes then look like they are exposing their undress underneath. Which really looked.....awkward.

Where we are now, as of Release 106, that behavior was removed, so now they will forever stand. To actually fix, and address the actual issue (I assume), would then require that all female vendors use a different sitting pose. However it is unknown if such an alternate sitting pose animation may or may not currently exist. However if such an alternate animation is not currently available, would require Damon to actually spend time, creating a new model and all the rigging. That is a lot of work (from my basic understanding). This would then be a Wishlist request. And possibly Catnip Games could consider doing, if feasible.

The other part of the Player Vendor system is I believe, the "grey overhead text" nameplate. I believe this system works like this: If a player does not have any buy or sell items available, the vendor npc's name is displayed in grey text. However, I am not seeing this actually happening as of build 1588 (have a blue female merchant, place npc on a lot you own. Ensure npc has nothing at all for sell or buy. Observe bright white text for npc name. Exit scene and return to scene with npc. Observe bright white text displayed for npc name). Does this system even work?

So that's where we currently are, I believe. I personally do agree the "sitting down" animation for vendors who have nothing for sale, should be a functioning system currently in the game at some point.

 

Well if it´s only the female vendors that are a graphical problem then the male vendors could still sit down. The females, well they could go to the inn for a cup of tea until their graphics are remedied.

Nothing for sale and nothing to purchase.

 

Back then I was nice and put a chair behind my vendor. He sat down on it just fine.

 

Well it did take forever to get the devs to stop making the vendors sit down when no activity happened on a particular vendor. I do not want my vendors to sit well unless I tell them to. I don't want to be forced to update what is on the vendors regularly. That is work not play to me. I do sometimes put a chair behind them for visual imagination that they might get tired of standing though. Whether they sit or not should still be my choice. Since we now have vendor listing in zones it is much of a more moot point unless players are going from vendor to vendor which could state nothing for sale below vendor name.

 

The sitting was useful as a shopper, but I feel the same effect could have been achieved through color coding the vendor names. Though, given that the whole grayed out thing doesn't work properly, that might have never worked right anyway.

 

How would you be forced to update them regularily? As far as I undertstand it the rule was that a vendor would only sit down if it had *nothing* to sell AND *nothing* to purchase. So as long as a vendor had even 1 order to sell or buy it would keep standing and some of the vendors I have looked up ingame had orders that were years old.

Well in a world where most critizise the Faun´s slavery forcing your employees (they are characters after all, even if only NPC) to stand 24/7 on your sales booth, not eating, not sleeping, despite nothing to do would at least be an evil act and should lower your love score as an Avatar... In an immersive, living world an employer would be expected to provide a place to sit, sleep and food - or a salary that can buy all that elsewhere for it´s employees. If not - Vendors of Novia unite, all you have to lose are your chains!

I tried that listing - it is not a vendor listing. Meaning if a vendor has nothing to sell it is not mentioned. It lists offers and mentions which vendors makes that offer but does not include vendors without offers. And it does not mention vendors purchase orders if you try to sell something as far as I see.

 

Well it wasn't set up like that. They sat down after a few days. It was a pain because while you still had things to sell players would not look at your vendor because it was sitting. Anyway the 'nothing for sale' sign would help best still imo. and see vendor listing negates a lot of the issues now anyway.

 

It works for me


Female Vendor, nothing to buy, nothing to sell: grey text overhead

 

@Anpu

I just found that place in Nauvoo with vendors, some grey text, some white text. It appears that vendors with OLD offers get grey text above them. Vendors with NOTHING to buy or sell remain in white text, just like vendors with recent offers, while it would make more sense that they become grey too.

11/12/2022 14:51
Title:
Reproduction Rate:
Blocker?
Details:
Steps to Reproduce:
User Specs:
OS: Windows 10 (10.0.0) 64bit
CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 5600G with Radeon Graphics (12) System RAM: 15742
GPU: AMD Radeon(TM) Graphics GPU RAM: 4431
SotA.Win.64.1595.Date.11.07.22
Area: POT_swamp_metropolis_01_template/Nauvoo
Area Display Name: Nauvoo
Loc: (-246.5, 74.9, 247.3)
Debug: UE9UX3N3YW1wX21ldHJvcG9saXNfMDFfdGVtcGxhdGV8TmF1dm9vfCgtMjQ2LjU0MiwgNzQuOTE0LCAyNDcuMjU5KXwoMCwgLTAuODQ4LCAwLCAtMC41MjkpfC0yNDguOTQyNnwyMS44NTY2N3wxLjI1

 

Thats a great suggestion but old to one person is new to another and with option to select vendor listings it just shows all available to buy in a zone. I do agree though if nothing is being sold on a vendor that they say nothing for sale on them. I don't refresh my vendors to suit others. I keep it however I do and I don't want to be penalized for that like we were when our vendors had to sit if we didn't upgrade them weekly or whatever it was. I understand what you are asking and I think it's fantastic but with our town search method it matters mostly to players who go from vendor to vendor and want to know if they have new things or not but other wise a zone search is easier to tell us where to get what we like but if we don't know or want to browse vendors one by one then I can see it may matter to those players.