20 Oct, 2010, Atolmasoff wrote in the 1st comment:
Votes: 0
Howdy all. Not really a problem (Yet, I hope, haha), however….

I'd be curious how some of you thing the best approach to a player owned shop, that is assigned a room in the world. (Just like any other shop), but if things are purchased from there, you still accumulate gold.

Obviously, I got several ideas on how to do this, whether or not they are the most efficient or effective ways to do it, I dunno, but that's why I'm askin' you cats. :)

I haven't done much planning on how it's going to work…but just thinking about it, it seems I may be best off using File I/O. I guess for the sake of, if the MUD crashed, I wouldn't want someone losing the items they put up for sale, and not getting the money for them. Maybe the laziest way I can think of, to avoid having to do a bunch of crap with I/O….'ploading' a player, updating their gold, save em, 'punload' em. (or just directly modify the player file itself, just how would I make it inform a player of HOW MUCH they have made in their time off?)

Again, not looking for any answers. Maybe just suggestions. I get kind of linear with some of my systems sometimes, so a second opinion is always a good thing.
20 Oct, 2010, Rudha wrote in the 2nd comment:
Votes: 0
IRE muds have it be two rooms - a 'stockroom' and an actual shop room, though Im not sure of the code details. For my own mud, I'll probably just put it in a chest or vault or similar other appropriate container that only the shopowner would have a key to. An alternative to that which some MUDs do is just toss the proceeds into the player's bank account.

I personally like gold being a tangiable object just the same as anything else, so thats the train of thought behind my own design choice.

Maya/Rudha
20 Oct, 2010, Tavish wrote in the 3rd comment:
Votes: 0
Probably the simplest thing to do would store the sales amount directly to the shop along with the owner. When the player logs in either have them go to the shop and collect the profit or automatically credit them with the profit.
21 Oct, 2010, Kaz wrote in the 4th comment:
Votes: 0
I always found the Star Wars: Galaxies shop model to be the most inspirational (or at least how it was when I played it years ago before the revamp).

A sales machine – this could be a hired NPC in a mud – can be loaded with items, each with a price attached to them. Other players visit the machine and buy what they want. Vendors would usually arrange displays of equipment for sale nearby, but a mud could do this by having the machine automatically identify or whatever you had.

The machine would collect the gold spent on items purchased from it, which the vendor could pick up at his or her leisure.

In SW:G, you could do it the other way around as well and leave items on vendors' machines with a purchase price attached to them, although you had to come pick it up later if it was rejected.
21 Oct, 2010, JohnnyStarr wrote in the 5th comment:
Votes: 0
I guess it wouldn't have the same warm cozy feeling, but a "market" or "auction house" with the ability to straight up
sell items would be much easier. Also, consider that on a small mud, if you set up your shop in a more remote area,
the chances of a player going to that shop, to buy your items would be rare.

The "market" would be accessible from any major town, and perhaps when you are in your ship (EVE style)
21 Oct, 2010, Runter wrote in the 6th comment:
Votes: 0
It depends on how a game plays but I could see some interesting gameplay around vendors that can be set up anywhere and persist. It could certainly be a welcome service to players wishing vendors existed in remote places.
21 Oct, 2010, Quarlash wrote in the 7th comment:
Votes: 0
You may consider (From a code perspective) simply mirroring the player file approach and creating a "shop_transactions" folder where you save a flat file of a player's transactions if they're not online to have it updated immediately (i.e. auction sold, append "Gold:50~" to the file, or whatever other fields you'd like).

Each time someone logs in, run a quick check for a new flat file in your shop_transactions folder with that player's name on it (Or another signifier unique to a player). This avoids having to unnecessarily "pload" a player when they're offline just to modify one value, while at the same time ensuring crashes won't bork your setup.

Of course.. You could also just change over to a Database and then it could potentially become much easier from there. :biggrin: Er, depending on your setup of course. (This idea, again from a code perspective, could easily be adapted to a persistent vendor idea, loaded on mud startup after areas are loaded)
22 Oct, 2010, Bobo the bee wrote in the 8th comment:
Votes: 0
What I'm personally planning on doing is making it where a shopowner hires a space and vendor, gives items to the vendor, and proceeds are given to the vendor for the owner to collect at a later date, much like a game like Ultima Online does it. Vendors will be able to have their gold stolen from them, though, by a capable thief (I probably won't make the items themselves stealable, to be fair to those who sell the items. PCs can rob NPC Vendors, which I think is good enough for them).
22 Oct, 2010, bbailey wrote in the 9th comment:
Votes: 0
Bobo the bee said:
What I'm personally planning on doing is making it where a shopowner hires a space and vendor, gives items to the vendor, and proceeds are given to the vendor for the owner to collect at a later date, much like a game like Ultima Online does it. Vendors will be able to have their gold stolen from them, though, by a capable thief (I probably won't make the items themselves stealable, to be fair to those who sell the items. PCs can rob NPC Vendors, which I think is good enough for them).


How does thievery work in general for other situations? Are PCs able to rob items directly from other PCs? Is there anywhere 'safe' to store items that cannot be stolen from by other PCs? I ask because having vendors able to lose wealth due to PC actions (either by stealing items directly, or stealing proceeds of sales, or whatever else) seems like a pretty big incentive to NOT use the vendors. Aren't these type of vendors typically used when you want to set-and-forget when you're unable to otherwise hang around and directly handle transactions (and, apparently, defend them from thieves)?
22 Oct, 2010, Bobo the bee wrote in the 10th comment:
Votes: 0
bbailey said:
How does thievery work in general for other situations? Are PCs able to rob items directly from other PCs? Is there anywhere 'safe' to store items that cannot be stolen from by other PCs? I ask because having vendors able to lose wealth due to PC actions (either by stealing items directly, or stealing proceeds of sales, or whatever else) seems like a pretty big incentive to NOT use the vendors. Aren't these type of vendors typically used when you want to set-and-forget when you're unable to otherwise hang around and directly handle transactions (and, apparently, defend them from thieves)?


There's nowhere that's undeniably completely and utterly completely safe, or I'm hoping for there not to be, or at the very least make a major limit. Though, with that approach I might make player vendors stealable from too, just to make sure things aren't abused. Basic thief classes won't be good enough to steal from a Vendor, but I do have some remort-thief ideas in mind that specialize in theft at the cost of most combat-related skills. That, plus competent guard AI, will keep people from abusing stealing too much. Unless there's an item they really want (though, as per the norm, certain special items won't be stealable.

And I think shops can matter entirely with the economy of the MUD. Having shops that sell basic components for crafting, for example, could be really nice, as well as having shops to sell some of the nicer, but unwanted, items a player has. I should note that I'm going to have a system much like Diablo II in spawning random treasures for people to take as lewts, I'm not a fan of "the goblin warrior always drops the plain, old, goldin spear" and even less a fan of "the big magical dragon always has the same magical horde."
22 Oct, 2010, Rudha wrote in the 11th comment:
Votes: 0
Be forewarned: Competent guard AI is a very, very tricky beast to do right.

Personally, it makes more sense to me to be looting things a creature would actually have one it. This makes the risk/reward fairly easy to balance, because the critters with Gods Own Hammer are going to be a pain to take out, whilst the ones with dinky equipment and rusty armour are going to be easier.

As far as shops go, Im kind of undecided about it. On one hand I really strongly want to let players have a strong hand in shaping the economy, on the other hand I don't want one of the three sides in the world conflict becoming unduly powerful (or inversely weak) because of it. I'm not sure yet how I want to go about approaching it, as there's a variety of methods.

Maya/Rudha
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