Vendors
Whether you enjoy playing a merchant or just want to get rid of some excess inventory, the ability to sell items to other players is an important aspect of the game. However, in a persistent world like UO, it's necessary to have a means by which players can sell their wares without having to actually be online (we all need to sleep sometime!).
Vendors are NPCs in-game that allow players to do just that. By setting a vendor up and stocking it with items, a player can sell his/her wares without actually being there. This also allows buyers to browse someone's stock at their convenience.
- Hiring a Vendor
- Creating the Vendor
- Vendor Rental Contracts
- Interacting with Vendors
- Maintaining Your Vendor
- Stocking Your Vendor
- Customizing Your Vendor
- Accessing Vendors from the House Sign
- Demolishing Houses with Vendors
HIRING A VENDOR
Tavern keepers and innkeepers sell a document called "a contract of employment." To hire a vendor, you need to purchase one of these contracts and take it to a house that you own. The house must be set as "public" or you won't be able to place any vendors.
The number of vendors your house will be able to have will depend on the size of the house. See the following chart for how many vendors can be placed in the various types of houses within UO.
| Number of Vendors per House Size/Type | |
| Small-sized prefabricated houses | Vendors |
| Wooden house | 10 |
| Field stone house | 10 |
| Small brick house | 10 |
| Stone and plaster house | 10 |
| Thatched roof cottage | 10 |
| Wood and plaster house | 10 |
| Small stone workshop | 10 |
| Small marble workshop | 10 |
| Small stone tower | 14 |
| Medium-sized prefabricated houses | Vendors |
| Sandstone house with patio | 24 |
| Two-story log cabin | 24 |
| Two-story villa | 24 |
| Brick house | 28 |
| Large house with patio | 28 |
| Marble house with patio | 28 |
| Two-story stone and plaster house | 28 |
| Two-story wood and plaster house | 28 |
| Large-sized prefabricated houses | Vendors |
| Tower | 42 |
| Keep | 52 |
| Castle | 78 |
| Customizable houses | Vendors |
| If width+depth= | �then vendor count is� |
| 14 (Ex. 7x7) | 10 |
| 15 | 14 |
| 16 | 16 |
| 17 | 16 |
| 18 | 16 |
| 19 | 18 |
| 20 (Ex. 10x10 or 8x12) | 24 |
| 21 | 24 |
| 22 | 24 |
| 23 | 24 |
| 24 | 26 |
| 25 (Ex. 10x15 or 12x13) | 26 |
| 26 | 28 |
| 27 | 28 |
| 28 | 28 |
| 29 | 28 |
| 30 (Ex. 15x15 or 17x13) | 42 |
| 31 | 42 |
| 32 | 42 |
| 33 | 42 |
| 34 | 42 |
| 35 | 42 |
| 36 (Ex. 18x18) | 42 |
(Barkeeps also will not take up lockdowns, although all house types will continue to be limited to up to two barkeeps per house.)
CREATING THE VENDOR
- To create the vendor, take the contract to a building you own and use it (double-click).
- The vendor is created at the exact spot you are standing when you double-click the contract of employment.
- A vendor cannot be moved once he is placed, although the direction the vendor is facing may be changed by standing in the direction you want the vendor to face and saying the vendor's name.
VENDOR RENTAL CONTRACTS
If you would like to rent out space in your home to other merchants who are in need of a place to sell their wares then the Vendor Rental Contract system is what you'll need to use. These contracts will allow public house owners to rent out vendor locations for limited periods of time. The only person that can place a vendor without using the vendor rental contract system is the house owner. Everyone else, friends and co-owners of the house included, will need to use a rental contract. The terms of the contract will be available for reference at any time, to both renter and house owner, by choosing an option on the vendor's context menu. Just like normal vendor contract, you can purchase a vendor rental contract from an NPC innkeeper.
Terms of the contract
Before a rental contract can be offered to another player, the house owner will need to set the terms of the contract. First, they need to double-click on the deed. Their mouse pointer will turn into a targeting cursor, and they'll be asked to click on the location that they'd like to reserve for the vendor rental. Once on the ground, the house owner can access the terms of the contract by selecting "Contract Options" from the deed's context menu. Through this menu, the house owner can set the:
- Duration of the contract period (1, 2, 3, or 4 weeks).
- The price per rental.
- The possibility of allowing automatic rental renewal at the end of the contract period (Both the tenant and the landlord must agree for auto-renewal for it to happen. If one or the other rejects this option, the auto-renewal will not occur.).
Setting up a vendor
Once the terms have been set, the house owner ("landlord") can then rent the spot to another player. The player does not need to be friended to the house, or have any kind of secure access to the house in order to run a vendor. To setup a rental contract, the landlord and the vendor-renter ("tenant") need to meet within the house. The landlord needs to bring up the deed's Contract Options menu, select the "Offer Contract to Someone" option, and then target the tenant.
(Note: At this time, both the owner and renter must be online at the same time in order to setup the contract. We may consider changing this in the future.)
The tenant will then get a menu detailing the terms of the contract (the price, the duration, and the amount of storage space allotted to the vendor). If the terms are acceptable, the tenant will need to choose "I accept!" to activate the vendor. If the tenant does not agree to the terms, then the contract will not go into effect and no vendor will be created.
Once both the landlord and tenant accept the contract terms, the vendor will appear in place of the contract. The landlord may update the terms of the contract at any time through the vendor's Contract Options menu. Any changes made will take affect as of the next contract period.
Contract renewal
The landlord and tenant can opt to have the rental contract automatically renew. In order for this to happen, the "Renew on Expiration" option must be set to "Yes" by both the landlord and tenant. This can be set through the vendor's Contract Options menu.
When the renewal occurs, the fee will be taken from the vendor�s account and the landlord will be able to come by at anytime afterwards and collect the rent by selecting the "Collect Rent" option from the vendor's context menu. If the vendor's account can't cover the rental price, the contract will not be renewed.
If at anytime the renewal price is changed, the tenant�s renewal choice will automatically be set to "No." Both the landlord and the tenant will need to accept this new renewal cost in order for the renewal to occur.
Removing vendors
There may come a time when both parties of a rental agreement will choose to terminate the rental contract. As such, there are a couple methods available to end a contract:
- Expiring contracts: One way to terminate a contract is to not renew it. Vendors will disappear at the end of a non-renewing contract period. If either party of the contract agreement has the "Renew on Expiration" option set to "No," then the contract will simply not renew.
Once a contract expires, the vendor will immediately vanish and its inventory and funds will move to a special "vendor crate" (This is more like a virtual container, rather than an actual object.). The tenant will be able to collect any funds remaining on the vendor, as well as any items remaining in the vendor�s inventory, by using a context-sensitive menu option on the house sign.
- Dismissing vendors: Another option, available only to the tenant, is to dismiss the vendor. If the tenant dismisses a vendor early (before the contract expires), the contract will be terminated with no refund of the rental fees. Tenants will be able to terminate a rental contract in this fashion at anytime.
- Refunding a contract: Both parties can also make a joint decision to terminate the contract before it expires, which would allow the tenant to receive a refund of the rental fees they have paid to the landlord. The landlord will be the one to determine the exact amount of the refund.
The tenant and landlord must both be within two tiles of the vendor in order to jointly terminate the contract. The landlord will be able to select an option from the vendor's context menu called "Terminate Contract." If the vendor is not empty, the tenant will be warned that the vendor�s inventory will be placed in the "vendor crate," and that they will have a 9-day grace period to collect the items. The landlord will be prompted to enter a refund amount. That amount will be displayed to the tenant, who may agree or disagree to the termination. If the tenant agrees, the refund amount will be subtracted from the landlord�s banked gold and deposited in the tenant's bank box, and then the vendor will be moved to the "vendor crate." If the tenant disagrees, the rental contract will continue on without change.
INTERACTING WITH VENDORS
There are two ways to use a vendor: You can either use spoken commands, or use the vendor's context menu.
When using a spoken command, the vendor's name (or just "vendor") should be used in conjunction with one of the following actions:
- Browse, view, look:The vendor displays his inventory, so you can browse his goods. Double-clicking on a vendor acts the same as "browse."
- Buy, purchase: The vendor asks you to target the item to buy. The gold is removed from your inventory if you are carrying it, or from the bank if you're not. If you are the owner, he tells you that you don't need to buy the items.
- Status, info: This will bring up a menu that lists all commands available to the owner of the vendor.
Since vendors don't volunteer their time to sell your trinkets and doodads, you'll need to pay them to keep them happy. As such, upkeep charges will be withdrawn on a daily basis from the vendor's account. The account consists of gold collected by the vendor through sales, in addition to gold given to the vendor from that vendor's owner.
The basic maintenance fee for a vendor starts with 20 to 24 gp per UO day. There are 12 UO days in one real day. The minimum fee per real day is therefore 240 to 288 gp.
The first 500 gp worth that you have for sale are covered by the base fee the Vendor charges.
For each additional 500 gp worth of merchandise, the vendor charges 1 gp maintenance fee per UO day.
Example: With a base fee of 20 gp and 5500 gp of merchandise for sale, the vendor charges 20 + ((5500-500)/500) gp per UO day. This works out to a total of 20 + 10 gp, or 30 gp.
You can find out the status of your vendor buy saying the vendor's name and the word status (or you can use the vendor's context menu). Example: "Natalia status."
Natalia will respond by displaying a menu of the following details and options:
Details:
- # of days Vendor salary is paid for - This is the amount of days that Natalia can work on the current pay that she has. This amount is listed in real world days.
- My charge per real world day is - This is the amount of gold that your vendor currently charges you per day in real world days.
- Gold held in my account - This is the amount of unused gold that you have given your vendor to pay for his/her services.
- Shop Name - This is the name of your shop.
- See goods - This option will open your vendor's backpack, allowing you to stock them with the items you wish to sell.
- Customize - This will bring up the customization menu, which allows you to change your vendor's appearance.
- Rename Shop - This will allow you to change the name of your shop.
- Rename Vendor - This will allow you to change the name of your vendor.
- Open Paperdoll - Opens your vendor's paperdoll, so that you can change their clothing.
- Collect Gold - Allows you to collect the gold your vendor is holding for you.
- Dismiss Vendor - Dismisses the vendor. The vendor will disappear and all the gold that was in its account will be placed in your bank box.
- Cancel - This option will close the Vendor Status menu.
STOCKING A VENDOR
When you double-click a vendor that you own, you will be given a menu of options. If you are not the owner of the vendor, double-clicking it will open the vendor's backpack. To stock your vendor, select the "See Goods" option. This will open your vendor's pack.
To add an item to your vendor's stock, you simply drag it into your vendor's inventory. You will then be prompted to "enter a price, description." All items held by a vendor must be priced for sale (the only exception is containers which contain items that are for sale, and books which can be used to describe the contents on your vendor).
If you wanted to sell a full set of plate armor for 1000 gold, you could enter "1000, Quality plate: a full set at a GREAT price!" "1000, plate," or simply "1000."
If you do not choose an amount to price an item with the vendor will automatically price the item at what it considers to be a fair value. Pricing of this nature may not accurately reflect the economy of your playing shard, so be careful with its use.
Owners can drag items around in a vendor's inventory at will. Since all players can open containers in a vendor for browsing purposes, the owner can use containers to categorize a vendor's inventory.
Insured items cannot be placed on a vendor. Owners will need to uninsure the item before it can be sold.
CUSTOMIZING YOUR VENDOR
Customizing your vendors will become a whole lot easier. Instead of having to flip through a series of menu pages to change your vendor's outfit, you'll be able to drag any wearable item off and on to your vendor's paperdoll by using your mouse pointer. All characters on the account that placed a vendor can fully customize it.
Anything you can equip yourself, you can equip on your vendor-that means clothing, armor, jewelry, and weapons are all fair game! Keep in mind that any clothing items that have charges will be used if placed on your vendor.
Customizing your vendor's hair type, hair color and gender can be done through a customization menu that you canaccess through the vendor control menu.
You can also customize and restock from outside the house, as long as you are within 5 tiles of the house sign. Your vendor will be moved to where you are standing and a placeholder will appear in its rented location. Once you are finished customizing or stocking your vendor, you can select the option to "Return Vendor" from its context menu and it will pop back to its previous location.
ACCESSING VENDORS FROM THE HOUSE SIGN
No need to trudge through a house packed wall-to-wall with vendors, or get lost in someone's rooftop garden while looking for a vendor who's selling what you need. Vendor owners, house tenants, and shoppers can access vendors located anywhere within a house through the house sign's context menu; however, players banned from a house will not be able to access the vendors in this manner.
Clicking on the "Vendor" option in the context menu will bring up a menu that lists all the vendors in the house. Vendor owners have the option of naming their vendors, so that patrons will be able to easily distinguish their vendors from others.
This is a great way to let people know what kind of wares they can expect to find on your vendor. For example, if your vendor sells nothing but boots and bandages, you could simply name it: "Boots and Bandages Galore."
DEMOLISHING HOUSES WITH VENDORS
If there are any contract vendors still within a house, the house owner will not be able to demolish that house (This does not apply to normal vendors or barkeeps.) And a house that becomes condemned will not fully decay until all vendor contracts have expired.
Condemned Houses with Contracted Vendors
After the five-day decay period ends, the condemned house's name will automatically change to "Demolition Pending," and the house owner will be listed as "Owned by OSI." Any rental contracts in a "Demolition Pending" house will no longer be able to auto-renew. The house will then be eligible to fall once the contracts expire. The house will remain standing until the expired shop inventory and funds are claimed by the former renter, or the nine-day inventory reclamation period passes. Once there are no more contract vendors in the house and no more expired shop inventory or funds being held for any former tenants, the house will begin to visibly decay. From that point, it could take appromixately 5-7 days before the house will actually collapse.
Please note that once a house reaches the "Demolition Pending" point, it cannot be reclaimed. Game Masters will not return the home to its previous owner under any circumstances, so please do not page into the Help Queue requesting this. Once that five-day period is up, your chance to reclaim a condemned house is gone, even if the house is still standing due to contracted vendors.
