Partially Used: Merchant Out of Money....

It seems Sal's Sundries has been tweaked to have limited cash.

This is really not the best way to limit players making money.  It would be far better to cap his buying prices.

I sold 1 dragon book, and a couple other misc. items, all under 5K each to Sal, and he was out of money.  That wasn't even a 5th of the loot I had picked up in just under 20 minutes.

Now while yes that might stop me from making a load of gold, it has the bad side effect of NOBODY else can sell to Sal after that.

Changing it to him having a buying cap of 50 or 100k would be far better.  If the goal is to limit player's making money (which imo isn't a good idea either... they fought the baddies for the loot, they should gain the profit from it), putting a buying cap works better.  It doesn't limit the merchant to "able to service one or two players once", which can annoy all the OTHER players who happen to not be on right at reset to rush around like they do with the 1 per reset items.... only with this, it'd be run around to sell off all your loot before other players break the merchants.

Sal's is a favorite stop for many players, with characters of all level ranges.  One reason being yes he has good prices, the second.... it's fun to go there and see what other players have found and sold off... perhaps pick up that item they think isn't worth keeping.

Limited his money kills both reasons to use that merchant, and it makes the game rather annoying if we have to run around trying to find a merchant who another player hasn't already wiped clean.  Please, no limited merchant money tweaks.  It can work for singleplayer, but it's not good for online multiplayer gameplay.

On that note as well... another suggestion about merchants:

1 per reset items can be kind of annoying, if not encouraging realistically what's unfair gameplay.

Example, the gem merchant in macedone. His stock doesn't rotate, so he has only 1 blood of magic, acid crystal, and high quality diamond per reset. Yes, that makes those three things a rare find in a shop, but it also means that if you're not on when the server resets, you're unlikely to get them because many players like to run around and grab up those 1 per reset items rather quickly.

Entrom's on the other hand.... yes, he's only got say, 1 BoM, 1 statuebreaker, 1 of this or 1 of that... BUT, his stock rotates every so often, so players not online at the time of a reset aren't completely screwed out of getting one of those items. Will they get it every time? No, they might have to wait or that particular rotation doesn't have the item they're looking for, but it won't be an whole real life day of waiting, or hoping someone crashes the server.

So yeah.... no limited cash, and no 1 per reset inventories. Buying caps and rotating inventories makes for much better gameplay overall for both the addict players and for the casual players who only log on for an hour or two.

Crap. Didn't realized I'd put a cap on the amount of gold he had. Probably some code leak from a script for other merchants. I did adjust his pricing down slightly (since he's a small town merchant), but never intended to cap the total he could pay out. I'll get it fixed (and remove any links for him to other merchants) during the next module update.

Just checked the toolset, and it looks like there's a script that's capping Sal out at a quarter million gold before he needs to sell something. I recompiled several scripts a day or so ago, and his must have gotten the new code update. You must have gotten there after someone else dumped a bunch of loot on him.

As far as various gems only being in limited supply from certain merchants, it's because some gems, particularly magical ones like blood of magic or crystals of dissolving, are rare (and coveted)...and are found in random loot drops as well as from merchants.

For rotating merchant stock, I can expand on that. The current ones that do so (Entrom, Smitty, Lady Shea, Bob, and Philonius) were test cases (to see if the system would work), and I just hadn't expanded it to other shops yet.

That could be, he had a power golem amulet in his inventory, and with a semi-decent appraise score, that can sell for quarter of a million or more alone.

And yeah, I can understand them being limited... that's why I pointed out the contrast between Entrom's and the gem dealer just around the corner from him.

Entrom's got 1 BoM as well, but it's per rotation... it's still limited that way, just not limited to the first player on after reset, and only that player. It gives all players that chance to catch the opportunity without making the item "unlimited quanitity".

And yes... the variety is FAR more interesting as well

Going to update Sal a bit with the next module update...

I'm removing the cap on the total he can spend, but capping what he can spend on a single item (and exempting him from the code that was changing it in the first place). I'm also adding some code so he will get rid of more valuable items sold to him, to make him less of a target for robbery. Christie's Collections in Tradeholm will start getting valuable merchandise from several suppliers across the lands.

What *does* Cristie buy, btw? She's turned her nose up to everything I've tried selling her

A good question, Manny. I've only ever seen her with one item in stock, a Dragonslayer's Ring, the same variety that Bob often carries. As far as the rotating stock goes, I'm all for it! it's been a really cool addition, and I tend to mostly ignore merchants with static inventories, unless something specific is needed.

Christie was originally supposed to just buy things worth 50k+ via VC command (because you can't set a minimum price for something for a shop), but something was wrong with the scripting.

After the next module update, she won't buy anything (on purpose). But she will sell valuable things that have found their way to various other merchants around the lands.

Will she purchase items in the future if the scripting can be fixed for it?

MannyJabrielle wrote:Will she purchase items in the future if the scripting can be fixed for it?

I can give you a definite "maybe".

Cristie seems to have misplaced her inventory now when you try to buy something from her.

Thanks. Forgot to change a variable on her when I changed the tag of her shop.

Since "small town" merchants are intended not to be mercantile power houses that can shell out loads of loot for high end treasures... could we get the big city merchants to have higher buying caps?

Entrom's for example has a 10 or 25k cap. Lady Shae also has a very low cap. A major ring of fire resistance sells for a little over 10k, and there's plenty of items that sell for much more than that. Big city merchants like them definitely need to have their high end buying power set much higher... otherwise, players are just NOT going to use them to offload their hard won high value loot.

Yup.

woot!

Oh nice!

That would make the Grocer in Tradeholm gets some competition--as it should be.

Angel of Death wrote:Oh nice!

That would make the Grocer in Tradeholm gets some competition--as it should be.

Those vendors are part of the McJagger Merchants Alliance; guarded happily in exchange for some of the best eats in Aenea.

*Aargyle discovered some of the food merchants had deep pockets many years ago, and the Clan have been faithful customers since*