Re: CF: Skills of the merchant class

[David Andrew Michael Noelle <dave@Straylight.org>]

Mark Wedel wrote:
> 
>  I think we can agree that in crossfire, the merchant should/does have
> knowledge of exactly what he is buying.  Player can also get an incredibly
> accurate estimate all by himself (which probably isn't right).

    Given that merchants sell scrolls of identification skills, it is
reasonable to assume that they have those skills themselves, and the
infallible nature of those skills at present explains the fact that
everything sold is instantly identified.  There's no need for merchants to
pay for identification spells if they can recognize everything in the game
automatically.  If those skills were less reliable, they might occasionally
have to resort to magic for the rarer items.
    The fact that they buy things based on what the character thinks it is
represents their eagerness to buy a magical sword for less than they'd sell
a normal sword for.  Nothing wrong there.  That shouldn't work for cursed
items, though.  Cursed items sold in a store should simply be revealed as
cursed and not bought.

> 
>  Of course, this completely ignores the point that merchants don't exist in
> crossfire - just shops where people can buy/sell stuff and mystically get
> payed or have the money removed from them.
> 

    A good number of shops do have someone standing around, behind a counter
or something, pretending to be a merchant.  I suppose the rest could be
updated, but that's a cosmetic change until there's a reason to actually
interact with the shopkeeper instead of just using the magic mat.
    The anti-magic nature of shops and the peculiar magic of the mats could
be explained quite easily by the addition of a god of merchants and
capitalism.  Shops are his temples.  That could also be stretched to explain
the infinite supply of wealth merchants have to buy an infinite amount of
junk.  That's pushing it, though.

>  Arguably, merchants should pay based on the supply they have and what they
> are being sold.  A merchant is not likely to find a home to 100 long swords,
> so probably should not pay very much.

    Demand for an item should probably be based on its value.  Nobody in his
right mind would buy more than a couple boulders, but a player who shows up
with dozens of amulets of shielding should have no problem selling them all
for a good price.  Arrows and bolts are a notable exception.  They are
individually quite cheap, even the magical ones, but they're only useful in
quantities.

    A solution to having too many piles of junk and no reason for the
infinite cash reserves would be to simulate selling items to other
merchants.  Anything sold by a player could be marked with a timer based on
its value.  When a timer expires, the item looks for a space in the store
that it belongs in.  If it finds one, it puts itself there.  (Or summons the
shopkeeper to move it if anyone really wants to get into coding that.)  If
there is no suitable tile in the shop that is not already occupied, the item
is sold to some "other merchant".  It vanishes and adds its actual value to
the merchant's funds.  The merchant gets back more money than he paid the
player for that item, which would help offset the delay between buying and
selling.  Since items could only be kept by the merchant if items are sold
to players, the merchants might actually make money this way.  It would also
help explain why the inventory changes completely every so often.
    Then you just have to explain the mysterious "other merchants."


> ...
>  Shops should also be a bit more specialized - that mage shop is not likely
> to be interested in the piles of armor - take it to the armor shop.  And at
> the same time, the armor shop is not likely to be interested in a pile of
> spell books.  At current time, all shops are equal - the only difference is
> what stuff gets created in them.  That should change, with perhaps even a
> global field of shop generosity (ie, this shop has great selection but
> terrible prices)

    Maybe shopkeepers should consider items less valuable (zero or less
being possible - it can't be sold there) if their shop has no tiles
appropriate to that item.  You /can/ just drop everything in one store, if
you're in a hurry, but you won't get nearly as much money for it.
    Default "generosity" (determines how close to actual value your Charisma
and Bargaining can get you) could be calculated from the variety of the
tiles.  A shop with only one kind of tile, like Oldie's Jewelery, might have
particularly good prices on gems and jewelery, while a general purpose
general store, with an equal number of tiles of every type, wouldn't pay
nearly as much for anything, and would sell everything at higher prices than
the specialist shops.  It would make sense to also apply this number to the
default difficulty of the map, so the specialist shops are stocked with the
better merchandise.

-- 
            -Dave Noelle,                 dave@Straylight.org
            -the Villa Straylight,  http://www.straylight.org
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