Shops

[Yolan]

JTG > wtf dude, why did you have to go on a big freaking rant because somebody made a suggestion you didn't like? This isn't a thread about you and how much you hate bottleneck, and why they suck, etc. To go straight to all-caps writing when a post wasn't even directed at you/about you.. makes me think of this..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBVmfIUR1DA

[Adam-]

About these NPCs, I'm with the group of people that says have as little as possible. However having guards and merchants is nothing to be afraid of. What I don't want to see happening is random NPC's named something like Jaitras Windstorm running around with quest markers over their heads. That would be the day I leave . However this idea I agree with.

On a more serious note...

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You know JTG I'm almost fairly certain most of the people here have a life. From playing sports to high time demanding jobs, we can't really spend 10 hours a day waiting for someone on the forums to buy our items. I have work, I'm at my work place almost every day (except right now due to summer time off). Usually for 8 hours. Then when I get home I'm off to the gym, sports and then when I get home I have some time to spend on this game.

Probably unnecessary for you to know, but I think you have received the point. Unless your a 13 year old kid that is in elementary school, that's fat and lazy, you can't really devote this much time to a game. Or unless you play the game professionally, which I doubt a lot of people here do.

I'm not going to go ramble on about how you hate Bottleneck blablabla and everyone in it. That's good and fine, everyone has their opinions. But I think just about everyone on this forum opinion of you is that they in turn hate you. Me? I don't really hate you, I just am shocked that I'd find a person worst behaved then the biggest griefer I ever met gaming.

[Erik_the_Blue]

I'm against NPCs in games like this on the principle that they don't add to the social aspect of the game; i.e., they don't care about their shelter or health, they (usually) aren't reflected in a community's values, they don't contribute to the economy, they can't be affected emotionally, etc. Basically, they're robotic automatons that will only ever do the one thing they're programmed to do. Unless there exists appropriate technology or magic within the game to explain the presence of such beings, they shouldn't exist.

That said, the problem as described by the OP is that it is impossible for business transactions to occur when one of the two parties is absent. Having a full-fledged shopkeeper goes beyond what is required to solve this problem. Instead, allowing for a PC to be represented in game when the player is offline would be minimally sufficient: It provides for both parties to technically be present so that the transaction can occur given that it was arranged in advance so the offline player doesn't have to (re)negotiate.

Modifying the OP's example, a player can build and interact with a shop as described, and then log off at the shop to allow it to operate as described. Should the player be online, or logged off at a location other than the shop, then the shop would be closed to customers (though it would still be possible to interact with it for purposes of thievery, etc.). Of course, should the player be online and in the vicinity of the shop, he could still engage in trade manually.

This would be more advantageous to the social aspect of the game since no true NPCs would be created, yet players could still engage in pre-negotiated trade with each other with only the buying player needing to be online. Furthermore, it would be realistic as the shop could not operate when the shopkeeper PC is physically away from the shop, and those players that choose to produce and sell their own goods in this way will have to balance their time between producing and selling the goods. It would also be practical for determined players to have multiple shops since there would be additional and realistic costs to having more than one shop (i.e. having to manage time between multiple shops and/or having to hire other players to act as shopkeepers). Finally, it would negate the need to pay an NPC's wages, which is a potential barrier to operating a shop since a relatively new player might not have the coins necessary to start up the shop without first engaging in trade manually in order to acquire the initial coins.

[niltrias]

I like Erics basic idea, in that you could continue on with some basic task while offline, without risking your character due to their absence. Although nothing is coming to mind at the moment, maybe there could be several structures, including shops, and you could choose to "work" at one of them while offline, to represent your character still having some presence in the game world, even though it would be more of a passive presence. This could possibly relate to guard duty (but without your character actually showing up under computer control) as well

[Ferinex]

Erik: That sounds even more difficult to program than a shopkeep who just stands there looking pretty while the shop building does all of the work.

Besides, a thief/griefer could then save his character from being force summoned (a game mechanic I actually extremely dislike) by sitting in a shop during all of his offline time.
Or, if you want players to be killable while operating a shop offline, well, that's a whole other can of worms.

I do not support Erik's ideas, I still like the OP's thoughts.

[Potjeh]

I'm against NPCs in games like this on the principle that they don't add to the social aspect of the game;... they don't contribute to the economy

Oh, but they do. I didn't really expand on my last point in OP, but there's some emergent gameplay hidden there.

It's easiest for me to explain through example, so let's construct a hypothetical scenario. Let's say there's a shop in Bottleneck that buys bread for 15cic and sells it for 20cic, and a shop in Laketown that buys bread for 25cic and sells it for 30cic. Let's say that the Laketown shop also sells perch for 15cic. Now add a third hypothetical shop at Pine Valley that buys perch for 25cic and sells leather for 20cic. Leather fetches 30cic back at the Bottleneck shop. So what we have here is a viable trade route.

What we get from here is a whole new playing style - that of a merchant. Buy low, sell high, and all that jazz. Of course, in reality these trade routes would be much more convoluted, and prices will constantly change in shops according to supply and demand. This means that a successful merchant will need to scout out villages for prices, which will greatly increase travel between villages and thus bring them closer together. Many people will want to cut out the middleman and go straight to where the goods they're after are cheapest, which will further increase interaction between people from different villages.

And let's not forget other wonderful things this could bring. For example, somebody might sell a product at loss to ensure that he has the lowest prices. Once he drives the competition out of business and gains monopoly, he could increase his price. Of course, the competition won't like this very much. And a third party might try to take a cut out of the first player's monopoly, which he wouldn't like very much. In the end, we get legitimate reasons for hostility between players or even whole villages, and a nice war always spices things up nicely.

[niltrias]

Thanks Potjeh. You clearly laid out what I was kind of assuming.
Ferinex -- I probably was not clear enough in my description. The character is not sitting safe in a shop; the character chooses the settings for the shop and then leaves the game. They can still be force summoned if there is a clue, but they cannot be attacked at the shop just for buying and selling. Tying this back into Potjeh --
The player must set a price before they go offline. While they are offline, and while stocks remain, the price cannot change. This would naturally spawn a lot of opportunism with people trying to race from shop to shop to find valuable prices, before the shopkeepers can realize the price difference and adjust. It would almost be a minigame in and of itself, betting which way the market will go just before you log off and leave the shop automated. And another minigame, trying to find all the shops and their current prices, and calculate how to make a profit.
The more I think about it, the more I think this would add to the game. And it isnt really NPC; its just player decisions continuing after they log off, no different that allowing kin onto your claim after you log off.

[Erik_the_Blue]

Besides, a thief/griefer could then save his character from being force summoned (a game mechanic I actually extremely dislike) by sitting in a shop during all of his offline time.
Or, if you want players to be killable while operating a shop offline, well, that's a whole other can of worms.

Personally, I don't care for the criminal aspects of this game, but the devs have made clear that those skills will remain. As far as how vulnerable a PC should be when the player is offline, be it out-of-game but summonable at a hearth fire, or in-game and at a shop, is entirely up to the devs. However, this does beg the question: How vulnerable should NPC shopkeeps be? There seems to be a consensus here that shops, whatever form they take, should be vulnerable to theft, so should it be possible to attack NPC shopkeeps? Murder them?

I'm against NPCs in games like this on the principle that they don't add to the social aspect of the game;... they don't contribute to the economy

Oh, but they do. I didn't really expand on my last point in OP, but there's some emergent gameplay hidden there.

It's easiest for me to explain through example ...snip...

By "contribute to the economy", I mean that NPCs neither produce nor consume, and therefore have no direct impact on the economy. They may enable players to engage in new economic activities, or make old ones more efficient, and thus have an indirect impact, but NPCs are no more responsible for, say, a trade between players than the cart one of the players uses to move their goods.

Regarding your example, such activity is already possible within the game, but is extremely impractical for the reasons you have already stated. Adding shops would not provide players with a uniquely new ability, but would make an ability we already possess more practical.

As far as increasing the complexity of the in-game economy, there are many ways of approaching the matter: arbitrage, labor markets, bargaining, supply chains, mass production, specialization, etc. Many, if not all of these are already possible in-game, but impractical due to a lack of beneficial technologies in-game accessible to the player (not the PC). However, all of this is beyond the scope of the original problem: easing trade between players in-game. While it might be nice to consider the secondary benefits of an implementation to fix the primary problem, if an aspect those secondary benefits touch upon is significant enough to be recognized as another primary problem, it would be better to take a holistic approach towards this new problem rather than pecking at it through a myriad of related problems.

[Ferinex]

In response to murdering shopkeeps - no. I don't think this would in any way add to the game, and would serve no purpose other than another venue for griefers to attack.

This thread really isn't about NPCs, by the way, it's about shops. If there were an 'NPC' shopkeeper, it would most practically be a static part of the shop sprite/graphic. You don't actually need to interact with the shopkeep any more than you do the shop building as a whole.

Lastly, Erik, I'm not sure why you are arguing against the idea. As you can see, a lot of players like and support the idea, and think it would add to the game. Would you stop playing, or consider it a game-ruining feature if this was implemented?

[sami1337]

I have nothing to add to this discussion. Just saying i support this idea. It would really allow for a much more stable global market and allows us to just buy and sell stuff without having to worry about the prices anyway. If the price is wrong you won't be selling much or just too much.