Merchant Inventory Refresh

Great. Thanks for the quick reply and I will look to see if the Fongster will have any new goodies I had not seen before.

 

I've encountered the eastern door phenomenon with Nira Melubb too (eastern door causes respawn, western prevents respawn).


Hommlet

Burne - refreshes
Calmert - doesn't refresh
Jinnerth (tailor) - refreshes
Jakk Borton (leatherworker) - refreshes
Nira Melubb (moneychanger) -refreshes on Eastern Door only!
Bing - does not refresh
Brother Smyth - refreshes
Gremag - does not refresh
Rannos Davl - does not refresh
Glora Gundigoot (inn) - does not refresh
Armario (cabinet maker) -refreshes on Eastern Door only!

Nulb

Otis - refreshes
Mother Screng - does not refresh
Lodriss -
Skole -
Ah Fong - does not refresh

Verbobonc

Gregor (Archer's Eye)
Victor (Archer's Eye)
Maurice (Silver Consortium)
Senshock (Bazaar)
Jenna (inn)
Ariel (Bazaar)
Bella (Bazaar)
Cleric Rastes (Church of Pelor)

Other

Lareth (Tower)
Mother (Moathouse)
Gnarley Witch

 

Where is the gnarley witch stationed as a vendor? She either offers the ring of resonance or one of 4 or 5 other item rewards but then disappears. How do you get her to stay there? Do you refruse to take a reward? Also, once you use the letter to get the gnarley encounter, it disappears.

 

I do not think she will ever stay, but if you tell her that you do not have enough money, she will buy stuff from you, at a huge discount, so you can buy the ring. After that transaction she is off to lurer kids into her cave for dinner. (the kids are the delicacy you know)

 

Oh, ok, now I get it. Wild. I always have about 70 or 80k when I get there.

 

I have figured out what was causing the inconsistencies in merchant's inventory refresh from the original game, and after exhaustive testing I'm pretty damn sure I have it right. These comments are all based on the original vanilla version of the game, so the Co8 Inventory Respawn system is not being discussed here, only how it originally worked. The short answer is:

A merchant's inventory will only refresh if you enter his map at a distance of 20 tiles or more from his chest.​

Yep, it's that simple. At this point the modded-in respawn system is far superior, in that you can dictate the time of refreshing among other things, but I thought it would be nice to know the strange reason behind this, for historical curiosity. I'll ramble on a bit about details, and some other interesting observations which might be of interest.

CLUES
=====

There were two things that led me to discover this. One was mentioned above about how Armario would refresh thru one door and not the other. This led me to the Boatman's Tavern in Nulb where Lodriss was refreshing, and Skole was not. Comparing their mobs and their chest's mobs, there was no indication at all how they may have differed. So I teleported into the Boatman's tavern in a corner over where the pirates hang out, and strangely Skole resfreshed, but Lodirss did not.

Well after many hours of setting up tons of merchants with their chests at various distances from doors, and at both indoor and outdoor locations, it was a very consistant "greater than 20 tile distance" when you arrive where the refresh would occur. This is why the outdoor merchants were refreshing, but most of the indoor ones were not.

The few indoor merchants that DID refresh occasionally, are ones that are far enough from your jump point as you enter the door of your choice:

Calmert - His chest is actually way over by the stairs that go up, so as you enter the front door to the church you are far from it.

Lodriss - Depends on your party size. If playing solo she will be more than 20 tiles away as you enter the tavern, and so refresh.

Armario - Depends on a combination of the door you enter and his day or night standpoint. If you are too close, he won't refresh.

Moneychanger - Same as Armario, above.

Glora - Same as Armario.​

The others that didn't refresh could never fall outside the 20 tile range since their rooms are too small: Jinnerth, Leatherworker, Traders, Burne, Skole, Mother Screng.

RANDOM OBSERVATIONS
===================

1) Sleeping or Resting seems to make no difference, as long as 24 hours pass since you last open trade with that merchant.

2) Outdoor merchants won't refresh either, if you arrive too close to them. You can try this with Brother Sythe who still uses the original system: Buy something, then go rest in Nulb for 2 years. If you teleport back within 20 tiles of him, he won't have refreshed.

3) You can actually refresh a merchant on the same map, if you walk into a another sector and rest/pass for 24 hours. Again try it with Brother Smythe: Buy something, then walk up the road to around Jinerth's wagon and pass time for 24 hours. You can the walk back to Smythe and he will be refreshed.

4) Calmert's chest is over by the stairs which is thru a wall and a good 10 tiles away from him, and it still works. Nice to know! I'm thinking his original position was over there by the stairs, since one of his first purposes is to block the stairs up until you donate something. But they must have moved him over to the altar at the last minute for a more dramatic positioning, and then forgot to move his chest too.


EDIT: I forgot to mention that all the testing done above, based on the dates, seems to have been done with 5.5 which I believe already contained the Inventory Respawn system. That's why many of them say above that Jinnerth and Burne always refresh. With the vanilla system, they never will at all.