Shops

[Gauteamus]

Want a shop? Man it with your character while he's offline. Don't drag in NPCs to artificially bring up "coin" demands with the black-hole that is NPCs requiring payment or devalue player interaction and risk through an un-manned meat-puppet as a medium.

I like this, and Erik has raised good points on the cic feeding mechanism and deflation.
But somewhat important: what is the downside of putting your char in a shop on logout?
Will force summoning work the same way as before?
Is the downside, that by putting him in a shop for the "night", you cannot put him in one of the other locations that has been suggested (e.g. a bed, for (really slow) hhp heal, or an archery tower/wall guard to act as a city patrol)?
Why would one not allways put the char in a shop?

[Potjeh]

You would get killed on your first day of work?

Anyway, I don't see what's so horrible about shops being an iron sink. We *need* iron sinks, or else iron will just keep devaluing and industry characters will get screwed.

[jorb]

If we implemented NPCs they would have to be a lot more integrated into the economy than simply requiring arbitrary payments in arbitrary goods to fill arbitrary needs. NPCs with coinslots on their backs is out.

[Potjeh]

I mostly suggested that because I don't really want NPCs in H&H. The game works fine without them. This shop "NPC" isn't really an NPC at all, just a building that happens to have a human figure in it's sprite. It'd work the same if it was just a market stand in the sprite. Coin-fuelling is a bit arbitrary, I agree, but I think something like that is needed to make trading in person better choice from the efficiency perspective. Shops would basically just trade efficiency for convenience.

[jorb]

I do agree that the problem you're pointing at is real. It should be fixed, and I have some ideas on the back burner. They just need to crystallize a bit more. The coming implementation of item and object quality is doubtlessly going to make this a higher priority.

[ArPharazon]

What do you mean by "buy and sell shops"?
And what problems do you see with alt-based shopping malls?
Do you mean the potential problem of shops beeing used as a cheap and possibly quite safe way of storage?

Oh, um... Thanks!

I meant that shops shouldn't be only for selling or only for buying (in exchange for coins, presumably) goods. Although that's irrelevant since jorb says we won't have arbitrary currency, and my post assumed coins as the arbitrary currency (since I imagined NPCs arbitrary demanding coins and only coins).

As for the problems, first off is the grief-potential. Say you can build a "shop", a 2x2 building. It is indestructible. What happens when someone makes 10 alts and walls of RoB, or something like that? (Although then again, no one's walled off RoB with huts yet)

Second is more debatable. I'm not really leaning much one way or the other on this, but if I had to make a choice I'd say we should have limitations regarding shops (number of shops per character, shop capacity, etc.) in interest of balance, and for the same reason those limitations should not be trivial to bypass with alts. (I mean, if you can just make 10 alts and have each build a shop, why have a limitation in the first place?)

I dunno. Maybe if you made shop number unlimited, or just allow alt-malls, it would work just as well or even better in practice.

The coming implementation of item and object quality is doubtlessly going to make this a higher priority.

Wait, we're getting item quality with the reset?

[PhaedrothSP]

A way to protect from 'shop griefs' would be sort of a combination of the claim and wall way.

The shop should have a high cost, considering that if you're reallying planning to sell something, and a lot of things where you would even need a shop, you would probably be able to gather the materials to build the stall/building.
The second piece is a minimum distance between any shops. I'd say probably 2~3 Squares. Maybe make it so there also can't be any structures in that range.

[Erik_the_Blue]

I think the shop should be destructable, and when destroyed the character pops out (though they could still be summoned by scents). This would encourage players to build shops in village centers and other areas with high traffic since I'd think the townies would come running if they hear the chopping sound in case someone is vandalizing town. Players could still build shops in the boonies, but they'd be at risk of having no one come to their aid should a vandal attack the shop.

As for alt-shops, there could be a skill that counters thievery at shops; thus alt-shops would be targeted by thieves, discouraging their use (by alt, I mean throwaway alt).

[sabinati]

if cabins are indestructible shops should be too.

[Erik_the_Blue]

The destroy action under the adventure menu can now be used on... well... anything.

Except log cabins. We're working on those.

They're working on it.