[crossfire] specialised shops

[Mark Wedel]

Brendan Lally wrote:

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       One thought, if not already done, is that when the players use the shop map to
     
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     enter the shop, pull the info from the map header and tell the player, eg:
     
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     This shop specializes in weapons, bows, and arrows.
     
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     They generally do not buy things above 500 pp.
     
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     They will not buy things worth less than 3 pp.
     
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       (better phrasing may be necessary, but you get the idea).  Thus very clear to
     
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     the player what they are and are not getting.
     
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      I am unsure about this one, what I have done so far is give a cue to a
     
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      player leaving a shop as to the shopkeepers mood, instead of saying
     
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      'thank you for visiting our shop' all the time, it now has things like
     
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      "The shopkeeper gives you a friendly wave." or "The shopkeeper glares
     
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      at you with contempt."
     
     
  the problem here is that in some sense, it is too late.

  I really should be getting clues while selling objects.  One issue is the way 
selling works - you drop the item, get the money, and sale is done - no going back.

  As a player, it'd suck to sell something worth 5000 pp and only get 500 pp 
because its a cheap shop.  The problem is, if I don't find out I'll only get 500 
pp until I sell it, I'm a bit out of luck.

  In real life, there'd be more give an take.  You'd say 'how much for this 
widget', and shop keeper would say '500 pp', and you'd go and take your business 
elsewhere.

  I'm also concerned as this is a change in how things currently work.  Players 
are currently used to going into whatever shop and getting a fair price.  If 
they don't get any warning that they won't be getting fair prices, that is a bit 
  of an issue.  This was another reason why having the shop maps tell info on 
entry would be good - players may ignore the message, but at least they got fair 
warning - it is their fault they didn't read it.

  One thought, which I'm not sure if its done, is that examining an item _in the 
shop_ should reveal precisely how much the shopkeeper will give, and any other 
relevant information (beyond what he'd normally pay, below what he'd pay, etc).

  The stuff below value is easy - shopkeeper doesn't buy it, so player can pick 
it up and take it elsewhere, no worse for wear.

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      likewise I was going to have a cue in the description for the max
     
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      price (something like 'the shopkeeper says, 'this is more valuable
     
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      than most things I would trade in, I can offer you FOO but no more
     
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      than that', I would have an equivilent thing for things that are worth
     
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      too little.
     
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      getting the item types isn't possible as far as I can tell, the
     
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      correspondance between description and  number is in a series of
     
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      defines, and is stripped out by the pre-proccesser.
     
     
  It wouldn't be hard to set up a table of that mapping.  The defines aren't 
really good names anyway.

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      In any event I was thinking more of using some of the spare people in
     
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      taverns to give hints to the player (eg someone in a pub says, 'I got
     
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      a new pair of gloves from $FOO in $BAR yesterday, he ripped me off)
     
     
  That's nice, but comment about change of behaviour relative to experienced 
player still apply.

  Maybe put in the messages for transition purposes, and then down the road, 
they could be disabled.