Quote - I've also heard a rumour that there have been some revisions to the clearance section and that vendors can now opt out of their products going into clearance. However, if they opt out and their products don't sell within a 3 month period the item is booted from the store.

That's not a rumor. We can opt out of clearance and choose to have items deleted if they don't sell within the clearance period if we choose. Until now, people normally just requested to have clearance items removed from the store when they went into clearance and it was done for them by the admins. The only real change here is that the process is automated from what I can tell, instead of a vendor noticing something with a little red C and asking the MP admins to remove it manually. Realistically, you can argue that people agree to the clearance terms now when they submit an item to be brokered here, but bear in mind that the clearance system is removing many older items that predate the clearance system, so I can easily imagine why their creators may not wish to have them selling for a clearance price without their direct consent. Also, a handful of months ago, it was mentioned that the count of active vendors was around the mid 1400s. Some have come and gone since then. While high, it's still well under 2000 unless something much more dramatic has changed.

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It's all fun and games until someone loses an eye texture.