Updated by kittykat July 2009

Introduction:

So you have a lot of wonderful items you need to sell, or you need to make a little extra money, but you’re getting tired of standing around the bank all day hawking your wares?  Perhaps a vendor would be for you.  Imagine a person that could stand around in one spot happily showing your items to any passerby that is interested, 24/7, without you there.  It certainly can make your life easier if you’re up to taking care of a vendor so that he’ll hang around and make you money.  If this sounds like something for you, then read on….

Vendor Contracts:

There are two kinds of vendor contracts that can be purchased from a minter/banker or an innkeeper/tavernkeeper for 1252gp

Contract of Employment:
This is the contract you would purchase for your own home if you’re placing the vendor yourself.  It’s color is (default) off-white.  Once purchased, take it to your home and double click it.  You’ll receive a cursor which you use to target the spot you wish to place the vendor.  Click to place.  A vendor, randomly female or male, human or elf, will appear in the spot.

Vendor Rental Contract:
Use this contract in your home to place a vendor for another person.  Either person can buy the contract and the vendor owner does not even need to be friended to the house, but the house owner must be the one to place the vendor contract.  This contract is reddish in color.  While the contract is in your backpack (the house owner’s), double click to get a targeting cursor.  Target the spot you wish the vendor to be placed and click.  The contract will appear in the spot, locked down; you will now be able access the contract options.  Single click on the contract to get a context menu; from the menu, pick contract options.  The menu that appears will allow you several options to customize the rental contract before you offer it to the other person.  Each option is accessed by clicking on the triangle to the left of that option.

• The first rental option for the vendor contract is length of contract. When you click on the triangle for length of contract, you will be able to choose one of the following lengths: 1, 2, 3, or 4 weeks.  Click on your choice and the contract will then show the length of time.
• The second rental option is the rental price.  You can choose any price you wish to charge the vendor owner in rent.  Whatever you choose, you will be paid from the vendor owner’s bank account every time the contract is renewed.  The house owner collects this rent by single clicking the vendor and choosing “collect rent” from the context menu.
• The third option on the contract is auto-renew.  Clicking the triangle by this option will change the choice for the landlord to “yes” (clicking again will change it to no.  When the vendor owner is able to access the contract options after the vendor is placed, he will also be able to click yes on the renter auto-renew; when both are clicked to yes, the contract will automatically renew each time the time (set in the first option) is up.  Otherwise the vendor will pack his bags and move to the house sign at the end of his rental time.

When you have set all the options to your liking, then you are ready to offer the contract to the person renting the spot.  They should be close to the vendor spot.  Click the triangle by “offer contract to someone”.  You will get a targeting cursor; target the other player and click.  The other player will be shown the terms of the contract and asked if they would like to accept it; when they click yes, a vendor, randomly female or male, human or elf, will appear in the spot where the contract was locked down.  The vendor owner (renter) will now need to single click on the vendor and choose contract options from the context menu then choose auto-renew if he wishes for this option to activated.

Housing Rules:

Besides the difference in vendor contracts for house owners, and rental contracts for anyone not a house owner, there are also limits to vendors by house type. Houses must be public in order to be able to place a vendor; a house owner would need to change the house to public before trying to place a vendor. The number of vendors are dictated by the house type and size in the following manner:

House Type	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
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
Tower	42
Keep	52
Castle	78

If width+depth=	then vendor count is
14 (Ex. 7×7)	10
15	14
16	16
17	16
18	16
19	18
20 (Ex. 10×10 or 8×12)	24
21	24
22	24
23	24
24	26
25 (Ex. 10×15 or 12×13)	26
26	28
27	28
28	28
29	28
30 (Ex. 15×15 or 17×13)	42
31	42
32	42
33	42
34	42
35	42
36 (Ex. 18×18)	42

Setting Your Vendor Up To Sell Items:

Paying your vendor:
The first thing you will want to do is pay your vendor.  If your vendor ever runs out of money, he will pack up your belongings and move to the house sign (a place you will be able to access him from, but no one else will be able to buy your goods from).  To pay your vendor, take a pile of gold and drop it on his head; he will thank you for the pay and stick around for a while longer.  If the vendor runs out of funds, the player has a one-hour grace period before the vendor packs up. Vendors start out with only 1000 gold in pay so it’s important to pay them before you start putting anything in their packs.

Vendor Charges:
Once you start putting items on your vendor, the prices you put on those items will determine how much you will have to pay your vendor to stand around and sell your goods.
The basic vendor fees are 20 to 24 gold per UO day; since there are 12 days per real world day, your vendor will charge 240 to 288 gold per real world day.
The first 500 gold worth of an item is covered by the basic fee; each additional 500 gold worth is charged 1 gold per UO day. To see what your vendor is charging you and how many days he has left because of the gold you’ve given him you can either double click your vendor or say “<vendor name> status”.  A menu will open that will list the number of days the vendor will stick around, the amount of gold he is charging you per real world day, and the amount of gold he is holding for you.  He always takes his charge out of the amount of gold he is holding for you, so if he is not holding enough gold, he will shortly pack his bags and move to the house sign.  If your vendor is in danger of doing so, his charge will be listed in red, to alert you that you need to pay him or he will soon leave. Vendors now charge their fees incrementally over time

Customization:
Your vendor can be male or female, human or elf, with any hairstyle that you wish.  You can dress him any way you wish, and name him anything you wish (although it should be noted that the censor filter will not allow some words to be used).  You can also name your shop anything you wish; the shop name will be listed any time someone accesses vendors through the house sign by the context menu. Changing the looks:  Double click your vendor; from the menu that pops up, pick Customize.  You will be presented with a menu where you can pick hair type and an option to color that hair; male vendors are also given the option of facial hair.  You also may change your vendor from male to female (and vice versa) and from human to elf (and vice versa).  If you do not like the skin tone of your vendor, just choose the opposite race and then choose the original race again; as you cycle back and forth the vendor will change in looks each time, which can be especially helpful when you are trying to get a particularly pleasing elf skin tone.  If you’re going to play with skin tone, you should wait to change the hair until you are done since each time you change race, the hair changes as well.  When you are satisfied with the looks of your vendor, as well as it’s gender and race, click okay.

Changing clothes:
Single click your vendor and pick open paperdoll from the context menu, or double click the vendor and pick open paperdoll from the menu that pops up.  Once your vendor’s paper doll is open, you will be able to drag items off the body in the same way you can on your own paper doll.  When you take an item off the vendor body, it will hop to the backpack in a random location.  To dress your vendor just place items on the body in the same way you would dress yourself in your own paperdoll.  Your vendor can wear anything you can, including weapons and other hand held items.

Changing vendor and shop name:
Double click your vendor and from the menu pick Name Vendor.  Your vendor may be named anything you wish as long as the censor filter allows, but does have a length restriction of 20 spaces.  When you pick Name Vendor, text in the lower left corner of the screen will ask you for the new name; type it in and enter; if the name is too long, the system will inform you of it and you must pick Name Vendor to try again.  Your vendor name will show over the head of your vendor to other players as they come into view, or show when they mouse over your vendor. Shop name works exactly the same, with the same space restriction.  Shop names show in the menu accessed from the house menu, or under vendor name when someone mouses over your vendor.  (To access a vendor through the house menu, you must be within 5 tiles of the house sign.  Single click to get the context menu and pick view vendors; a menu listing shop names will pop up.  Choosing any shop name will allow you to look at that vendor, bringing the vendor to you if they are too far away, allowing you access to any vendor in the house.)

Changing direction:
When your vendor first spawns, he will might well not be facing the direction you wish him to face.  This is easily remedied.  Any time you customize your vendor or collect gold from him, he will turn to face you (which is important to remember should you carelessly stand the wrong way when you’re doing so).  You can use either of these options to turn your vendor.  Stand in front of the vendor in the direction you wish for him to face.  Open the customization menu (or collect gold from him) and then pick okay.  He will swing around to face you. If your vendor is on the front steps and you wish for him to face out, you’ll have a bit more of a tricky time getting him to face your direction but it is possible.  Stand in front of him on the ground in front of the steps he is on.  Open the customization menu which will cause him to pop out on the ground with you, standing in the same spot as you.  Now step one space in the direction you wish him to face and then pick okay in the customization menu.  He will turn around to face you and then you can let him move back to the steps (which he will do in time, or by picking Return Vendor from the context menu that you can get to by single clicking on him).  An even easier way to get him to turn your direction is to stand in front of him and collect gold which will cause him to turn to you; use this option if you have extra gold to spare to take from him.

Vendor Stocking:

You can sell anything you want on your vendor for any price that you want as well.  Vendors make a good way to get gold without having to hawk your wares at the bank all day long.

Placing items in your vendor:
Double click your vendor to open his menu, then choose View Goods.  The vendor’s backpack will open.  The backpack has a 125 item restriction, but otherwise is like your backpack in how items can be placed in it.  Take an item you want to place on the vendor and put it in the backpack.  You will then be prompted by a message in the lower left hand corner asking for the price you wish to charge.  Type in the amount you wish to charge and then enter.  Your item is now priced as you desired; if you mouse over the item, you will see that the price has changed from the vendor default price to what you put in.

Adding a description to your item:
If you wish to add in some kind of description (such as “hot item” or “really good ring!”) on any item you price, you will need to type it in on the same line as you’ve typed in your price before you enter the price.  For example, you might want to charge 5000 for a really hot item.  You would type in “5000 Really hot item!!” and then enter.  Mousing over the item will now not only show it’s price, but your extra description as well.  Just remember, always put a space between the price and the description.  Also never use a number as the very first space of the description; it just confuses the vendor; instead spell it out (such as “5000 three more left! act now!” or such).

Containers and organization:
You can place your items in the backpack of your vendor as you wish or you might want to further organize it by placing containers on your vendor and then placing the items in the containers.  Containers can be marked “not for sale” by entering a description only with no price.  If you price the container than anything inside will be available as a group for the price of the container.  You can also use books and keyrings with a “not for sale tag”, again by placing them on the vendor and entering a description only with no price.
Remember that the better you organize your vendor, the higher the chance that people will want to buy from it.  Try not to be excessive with the containers on the vendor, and try to keep some goods in the top level backpack to give a clue to what’s in your containers.  Some people use small objects such as a single gold coin to help highlight items or draw lines in the backpack.  There are very few restrictions to what you can do; mostly you are limited by the 125 space limit and how much you can afford to pay your vendor.

Restrictions:
There are a few restrictions on vendored items and how vendors behave.

• Insured items can not be placed on a vendor.  You must first remove the insurance before placing the item.
• Containers with items in them can not be moved about the backpack.  Make sure you have it where you wish before you start placing items inside.  If you need to move it afterwards, you’ll have to move the items out before you can do so.
• Items can not be moved directly from one vendor to another; they must first go into your backpack.
• Items removed from a vendor by the vendor owner more than 30 minutes after placing and before a 24 hour period has passed will incur a vendor penalty.  This penalty will show up on the item when you mouse over it and will stay with the item no matter where it is left or moved or who it’s given to, if the item is placed back on a vendor and priced within 25 hours the penalty is taken out of the gold the vendor is holding. After 25 hours this penalty expires.
• Anyone banned from the house can not access any vendors either directly, or through the house sign.

Collecting Gold:

There are two ways to collect gold from your vendor.  The first is to stand by the vendor (making sure you stand in front of the way you wish it to face since that does turn the vendor) and call it by name and collect (“<vendor name> collect”).  The vendor will ask you in a message in the lower left corner of the screen of how much of your gold you wish to take.  Put in the amount you wish to take from the vendor and enter.  A check for that amount will be sent to your bank box.
The other way to collect gold is to double click the vendor to open the vendor menu.  From there you can choose to collect gold.  Again, the vendor will ask with a message in the lower left on how much you wish to collect; choose the amount and a check is sent to your bank box.

Dismissing and Quitting

Dismissing your vendor:
If at any time you wish to dismiss your vendor, you can do so by double clicking your vendor and then choosing dismiss vendor from the menu.  Your vendor will leave only if there is nothing in the vendor and you have collected all the gold from him.  Once empty of both gold and goods, he can be dismissed.  He will leave a backpack behind of the items he was wearing (although it would be prudent to remove anything of value beforehand).

Vendors running out of money:
If your vendor charges ever eat up all your money, your vendor will pack his bags and leave, tired of working for you.  If you had anything on the vendor or any clothing on the paperdoll, you can find these by accessing the house sign.  Single click on the house sign and you should have the option to reclaim the inventory of your vendor; all vendors currently available to reclaim inventory will be listed.  A vendor will stay in the house sign for 168 hours; after that time the house owner will be able to access any of the belongings, even if the vendor belongs to someone else.

Contracts expiring:
If the contract is not marked to auto-renew by both the vendor owner and the house owner, it will expire at the set time of the contract.  As before, all the items will move to the house sign where the vendor owner must claim the inventory before time expires.

Refunded contracts:
If both the house owner and the vendor owner decide to terminate the contract, they can do so.  The house owner initiates the termintion by single clicking the vendor and choosing “terminate contract”.  He must then choose how much rent to refund the vendor owner.  The vendor owner will then be presented with a choice to accept or reject the termination of the contract; if he rejects it, the contract will continue to run it’s course up to the time it expires naturally.  If the termination is accepted, any items in the vendor backpack or on the paperdoll will move to the house sign where it can be retrieved by the vendor owner in the same time frame as before.