[crossfire] specialised shops

[Brendan Lally]

On 8/13/05, Mark Wedel <
     
     mwedel at sonic.net
     
     > wrote:
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        If memory serves, garbled actually put in code that did sort of the supply and
     
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      demand thing.  IIRC, prices to buy stuff were basically nothing.
     
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        The most basic is that there is little stuff that players buy in stores.
     
     
Yeah, this is why I haven't tried to deal with macroeconomic supply
and demand. I doubt I ever shall.
 
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        Also, I think the crossfire approach goes back to a long line of RPG games,
     
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      where you go back and sell your stuff in the shop.
     
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        Looking over the patch, a few quick thoughts:
     
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      1) Why not put shop_greed as its own field to make it easier to pull that data out?
     
     
well, the thing is that if I start doing that, it can lead to a stupid
number of map headers. I have been writing in a prefered race to the
things it can parse for, I suspect other things may be added with
time.

Also with a single line to parse, it is easier to write a simple bash
script to find the best place to sell any given item, not that anyone
would do that of course.... :)

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      2) Another thought would be to add a shop_cap value or the like.  Right now, in
     
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      the sell function, there is a point where objects higher than a value become
     
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      worth quite a bit less (lines 155-160 in shop.c).  Having these adjustable based
     
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      on shop could also be interesting (high level players wouldn't find scorn shops
     
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      very useful, but places like lake county or brest could be more useful).
     
     
And there we have another thing :)
actually that is an idea I really rather like, I don't know if there
is a nice way tell a player that they are up against the cap though,
(maybe in the description in c_object?)
 
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        Likewise, havinga shop_min_value which is the cheapest items shops will buy
     
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      from players could be interesting (shops have a minimum standard to uphold) -
     
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      selling junk at the brest shop is not likely to be welcomed.
     
     
yes, this also would work quite nicely
 
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        One could see having 'membership' shops - have to pay to be able to use it,
     
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      but also get better prices.
     
      
this can be done by setting the greed to a value less than 1, and
having a key of some kind in the map.
(obviously maintaining balance in such a situation would be a problem
for the map makers, but that is always the case.)

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      3) From a player perspective, depending on the difference you get in the
     
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      specialized shop, I think it will still be convenient to have general shops -
     
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      maybe get .75 value or something - I just don't really want to have to wander to
     
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      5 shops to sell my loot, and am willing to pay something for the convenience factor.
     
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Yeah, I have the penalty for being a general store at 50% at the
moment, that is trivial to change though if that is too harsh