vendors.uoex.net broken?

[Tacityl]

At least, the advanced search appears to be.

A few days ago, I noticed the serverside code inserting backslashes (\), presumably to escape things. For example:

props contains "artifact" and props contains "weapon"

used to work fine. But now, the server responds with no results, and does this to the query string:

props contains \"artifact\" and props contains \"weapon\"

The regular "Name" search works fine. For example, searching for Frostbringer currently returns results, which should have returned results for the above advanced query.

Did something explode!?

[Dramoor]

He should just remove it entirely. Is the worst thing to hit UO since the Headless Hideout.

[Locke]

+1 dramoor!!

[Jazper]

Try using advanced search without quotes.... example: Name Contains bracelet, or props contains animal lore. This has been working for me...

[Tacityl]

He should just remove it entirely. Is the worst thing to hit UO since the Headless Hideout.

Oh Dramoor, you so silly!

Seriously though, the vendors site is doing a fantastic job. Best. Feature. Ever.

The quotes seem to be working again, which is great. Single word constraints work fine, but doing something like props notcontains "mage weapon" is much more painful without a grouping operator.

[Yoda]

I disagree completely.. its one of the worst features to hit the shard ever next to the powerscroll bag..

all it does is speed up people's ability to undercut, and remove people's exploration for items.. it used to be a thing to do.. id spend days traveling the worldmap looking at vendors, and often in the process sink and spread gold on things I never intended to buy just because I saw it.. (impulse buying) it removes that entirely.. makes it like shopping on amazon at xmas time..

kinda a 'good ol days' of uo thing I miss to be quite honest.

[+Nyx]

I too feel that the vendors site harms the economy, and eliminates one of the best aspects of ultima online. I have so many great nostalgic memories of hunting through hundreds of vendors all over the map looking for the item I wanted for a good price, finding other great things along the way. Since the vendors site has gone live, pricing has decreased on all sorts of items at a consistent rate, and I personally do not feel that is good for the shard. Laziness should not be the deciding factor in things that effect the economy, IMO.

[Mystery Man]

I took a short break from playing the game and came back to find this was now possible to use here on the shard, and along with this find ive seen how the prices on items have dropped cuz of it forcing me to lower some of my prices just to get things to hopefully sell and now is making me wanna just stop trying to sell items because of what it is doing to the economy

[Yoda]

its taken the magic out of the game slightly.. I remember great days going on a hunt for this or that.. only to have a freak out session when I would find it randomly on a little house in the woods.. whats great is here you can put a vendor on your house or anywhere else.. I have been on shards where they force all vendors to be in a little area or town, and the result is always the same.. rampant undercutting.. geographical separation is a good thing, means exploration and it also means people aren't in competition with every other person, probably would have avoided several pricing wars..

side effects include finding monster spawns you never knew existed while searching for new places to shop and fun...

i agree burn it.. burn it with fire.. bury it and bury the shovel you dug the hole with..

[heyyo]

I like not having to spend hours looking for that one thing you're looking for, but I agree with some of the points people brought up. Maybe alter the search so prices are not included, so you've got to go to each shop to find the price.

The time saved not having to search every vendor is worth it though imo. It's actually shown me vendors I'd never found before the website, and I ended up doing some browsing at the other vendors nearby

[Tacityl]

I guess the hunting for days and days for an item has always been a huge negative for me. I'm a big E on the Bartle Test, but I'd rather spend my E-time exploring the game world instead of trying not to be ripped off for hours on end. Amazon is a fantastic analogy: Like most males, I don't want to shop just to shop. If I want a particular book, dangit, I just want that book. Impulse buys waste resources, most especially when you're a new player.

MUDflation is one of the biggest killers for MMOs that don't have the ridiculous resources (e.g. WoW) to combat it. It becomes harder and harder for new people to start out, especially when mobs don't drop any more gold to compensate for the (artificially) higher prices. The vendors site is combating that in a way that I'm not sure our current staff can, given the constraints of available time and energy.

The one thing I can agree with is the globalization problem. The vendors site makes Britannia one big world, instead of smaller communities. I do miss the little player cities that sprung up, together with their reputations as places to acquire certain items or to avoid for some purchases. I suppose I'm just willing to give that up in favor of convenience.

[+Nyx]

The idea of having the vendor site not show prices is a happy-medium, I think. This way folks can still see where to go to find the item they're after (enabling you impulse-buyers and anti-shopping males ); but it should help stop the constant price lowering that has been happening ever since the site went live.

[Tacityl]

The idea of having the vendor site not show prices is a happy-medium, I think.

I could live with that. I actually don't mind if I'm not paying the absolute rock-bottom ZOMG LOWEST price. Just knowing where to go is about 90% of why I like the vendors site.

Also, some irony: After buying a maxed cu sidhe from him, I frequent Yoda's vendor now. I found him through a vendors search initially

[Rhodry]

Well I guess the players with 15 relayers will be happy again.

[Ilsanor]

It's kinda funny to see the hypocrisy - everyone's content with ExEx being there, but ExList is baaaad. I mean - it's the same thing, only on a bigger scale. People always say that we should add this or that to ExEx, well - there you have it.
Yeah, it has more benefits for the new players, since they are the ones that constantly need to buy something (PSs, gear, pets) and are not yet familiar with pricing. For a relayered vet who basically has everything ExList is indeed only a nuisance, since it offers nothing (if you don't need anything then you don't really use it) and yet serves to bring down the selling prices on many items that vets sell.
While vendor hopping can be fun and sometimes profitable, likely at the expense of someone who doesn't know the pricing, it can also be time consuming and tedious. Especially for those need to buy a lot of items pretty often. For some of you compulsive shoppers out there spending 3 hours running around "exploring" may be fun, but when those 3 hours are all the playtime you have for a week - I'd rather do something else.
I do see the "no price displayed" option as a compromise between the lovers and the haters of ExList. Heck, I'd like to see a poll on the matter - just 3 options: "Leave as it is", "Compromise", "Remove entirely".

ps. "Nostalgia - the feeling that things in the past were much cooler than they actually were."