Set merchants

Croplin · Post by **Croplin** » Mon Feb 10, 2003 9:53 am

I've been thinking of a little addition to the mud, if possible it would enhance the gameplay and work sorta lika a quest-o-mat. I also think it will raise the exploring-rate for mortals.

I call them set merchants. These should be a new kind of merchant, different for different level-ranges and they should also pay more or less compared to where you find them and what race they like most. (An Avian merchant pays best to avians). They should not be buying items in the tradisional way.

When you go to the set merchant he gives you a bag and a list of items that he wants. The bag and list should be timed and the merchant tells you what (mud)time you must be back. Within this time you have to find as many of the items on the list as you can and return them to the set merchant. If you are to late the list, bag and all the items inside dissapears. You will get paid depending of how many items you have recieved and what difficult-level the items are.

Before you get the list and the bag you should have to choose from different difficulties:
Like...
Short-, long-list.
Basic-, hard- or exotic-items.
Much-, less-time.
The harder and longer list, the better chance of good payoff, if you find all items. And how fast you return the items should not matter, because you must choose how much time you want, from 15 minutes up to 2 hours.

The lists should be randomized from case to case, so that you can't stack up with 'the items he usually wants'. The list should also give a clue or say what area to find the item in. Everyone doesn't have an elf that can locate the items.

The pay should be GREAT if you find all items in a exotic, long, short of time list. If you miss just one item you should get much less money.
It should also be balanced how much money you get depending on the level-range and so on. The level ranges could be 1-10, 11-20... , and you should not be able to do "lists" from a set merchant outside you level-range, but the payoff is the same for a level 1 and a level 10. (If the merchant likes them both

)

This is probably very hard to code, but I think it would be worth the time. It would be FUN to earn money, and everyone can be able to get money for enhaces. Not only those with high level mortals or mort-demons.

___________
-Croplin, more Jet!, more Jet!

disaster · Post by **disaster** » Mon Feb 10, 2003 8:22 pm

i'm generally against questmaster-style mobs, but this idea looks interesting, since it's just gold being considered anyways, and not anything overpowerful. i'd like to see it be considered.

Slart · Post by **Slart** » Mon Feb 10, 2003 10:34 pm

Everybody · Post by **Everybody** » Tue Feb 11, 2003 12:32 am

Sorry, but I have to ask: how would you expect someone to be able to set up a decent bot against a randomized list of items to find, considering (from what I inferred) that they'd be taken from the mud as a whole?

Croplin · Post by **Croplin** » Tue Feb 11, 2003 8:19 am

To bad, it cannot be done

About the lists...
I was thinking that each merchant should have a long lists of all possible items the he/she could want, and from that list somehow randomize shorter lists. In this way we could add or remove items to make it more challenging. And have different merchants randomize different items, depending on the level and/or difficulty.

/crop

Slart · Post by **Slart** » Wed Feb 12, 2003 4:01 pm

Quick work break!

You're right, of course, about the inherent difficulty in scripting out a bot for a list of randomly chosen items from throughout the game. That is not quite, however, what was suggested. The suggestion allowed a player to choose from different difficulties, like short or long lists, or basic, hard, or exotic items. This makes sense to me; it's almost always a good idea to allow people to choose their own level of involvement. So far, so good.

One thing you might suppose, based on those categories, is that the exotic items would garner the largest rewards. Even at level 50, how many items do you suppose would be in the exotic category? Twenty? Fifty? A hundred, even? Even if you called it two hundred, I bet you could make a nice living by just repeatedly grabbing the twenty-five or fifty easiest items to find, and cycling through the merchant until you got one you had all the items for.

I honestly believe somebody would do this; we've had dozens of people who thought it was fun to bot every single gold pile in the Realms.

In addition to the botting issue, there is the ungodly effort needed to amass and maintain these categorized lists of items. Finally, Kiri and I have both been largely opposed to automated questing in the past for philosophical reasons I don't care to rehash here. It was just easier to just say "Bot," but you had to go and ruin it.

Everybody · Post by **Everybody** » Thu Feb 13, 2003 12:38 am

I wasn't debating that this was an idea that would likely not hit implementation (primarily from the difficulty in setting it up, and our known opposition to automatic questing) - I was just curious how you figured the "Bot" answer applied. And I did apologize ahead of time to asking (aside from that, you said you'd provide explanations of that answer when asked, too

).

Divebomb · Post by **Divebomb** » Thu Feb 13, 2003 7:41 am

*munches on some popcorn*

FIGHT FIGHT!!

disaster · Post by **disaster** » Thu Feb 13, 2003 12:25 pm

50 mil on slart in the 2nd round

RadicalEd · Post by **RadicalEd** » Thu Feb 13, 2003 3:11 pm

Yeah but Eb's got that whole shapeshitfting ability

\
I'm thinking Eb

Slart · Post by **Slart** » Thu Feb 13, 2003 5:19 pm

I was just teasing EB...I did, after all, say I'd explain if anyone asked.

Rad, on the other hand, I would not need a second round for...

Everybody · Post by **Everybody** » Fri Feb 14, 2003 3:03 am

I could go for a Handicap match... you and me vs. Rad. I just hope there'd be enough left of him for me to kick around the ring for a bit. And I know... I was just explaining myself somewhat more fully.

disaster · Post by **disaster** » Fri Feb 14, 2003 8:54 pm

i'll take you on any time you feel up to it Slart, it'd be like old times, except with more limbs on the one hand, and phenominal cosmic power on the other *grin* i don't have any 154 parts yet, and i'd love a shot at one sometime

Slart · Post by **Slart** » Mon Feb 17, 2003 10:56 am

Before you offer, you should keep in mind that I have given up my curiously outdated attachment to fighting "fair." It might have something to do with a certain avatar back in the day using an alias to do more than forty thousand hit points of damage in one round, or I might finally be turning evil after all.

Either way, I doubt my newfound attitude would be very good for your health...

disaster · Post by **disaster** » Thu Feb 20, 2003 5:46 pm

hehehe well, i'm always up for a challenge. might take some convincing, but i could probably convince SOMEONE out there to give me a killer flag and trans me to you, just for the hell of it. of course, a "fair" fight would be alot more fun, but unfair fights can be entertaining too.