So.... I'm playing with a new character i created before all the fancy optimization work started (Ps. Thank you CMJ for making II even better.) and being around some of the major centers (ie. Newhome/IC) It made me see something. Shops. People have dwellings which they have called shops. they supposedly have things being sold at these shops. And obviously, you can't buy anything....

I'm no programmer and i have no idea how hard it might be to program into the system a user based shop of sorts.... but is it a plausible idea? And if so, Whats the feedback on this idea? Would we want user based stores, Req and cigs flying around like paper? Would it hurt or help gameplay?

Or is the whole damn thing much to complicated to worry about?

Personally.... i think it might be fun. have people selling custom items and stuff (Though it occurs to me you'd have to program that to wouldn't you?(also occurs that any submission for a custom item would have to go through a mod or admin as to not have "god-items")) or like coffee and other things. Business on the island. I think it might give people with extra req, or too much time something interesting to do. As for hurting or helping II.... not sure. I can't quite make up my mind.

It's a nice idea, and certainly one that I can safely say has crossed my mind, but with so many possibilities for items/levels/number of DKs/etc/etc/etc in the game, it'd be difficult to set up personal shops without some (or a lot) of restrictions.

I could see harmless "custom" items (for example, an erotic book...raaawr ;3 ) being sold as novelties, however... And maybe even allowing players to set up their own "hospital tents" across the world map, but even then, we run into the problem of every square having one, and reducing the risk and thrill that travelling previously held.

In the end... Yeah, it would be nice. But it'd require work to keep the system balanced, and keep the game challenging.

I think the game has done an excellent job in allowing players as many options as it does. There is a lot of places where players have set up goods and services that can be used in RP without having actual transactions take place.

Shameless Plug: Crescent Beach Titan Fightin' Lodge--14/38

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If it cant be done, should I stop doing it?

Every time I walk into a place with a kitchen, or cafeteria, my mouth starts watering looking at all the delicious things I can eat, and smelling the aromas wafting past. Arouses me more than a kittymorph in heat. That is, I get hungry. The staff tell you to look at the menu, and order something.

And then... disappointment. I can buy nothing. Nothing to eat except menus. And they give me no stamina. And I need stamina if I want to keep that kittymorph happy.

Of course I can always cook up some tasty (or crappy) monster corpse, but the blood all over my arms puts a bit of a damper on my flirting. Would be lovely to actually sit down with some amorous hottie and eat something not only tasty and nutritious, but something that makes us salivate just hearing the description.

Shops generally would be hard to program, so many different items with so many different effects on gameplay. But a straightforward food system for cafeterias and restaurants would not be that hard to do. Each landowner that wanted to sell food could enter several item names, and their descriptions, and how it effects stamina and weight (how healthy it was), and the game could via a formula generate the req cost (with a little bit of randomness thrown in for variety), to keep the game balanced.

The trick is to keep the mechanics simple, to make it easy to program, and leave the flourishes in the item name and description text. Food could sound gross or delicious, simple or complex, alien or familiar.

Around this people could build themed restaurants, of all varieties. I bet your mind is wandering just thinking of the possibilities.

So it seems like a good idea?

Cause yes, it would make the game a little more complicated... but i mean... Surely there is a way to write a simple enough code, that doesn't get bogged down with anything to complex.

Maybe the code just needs to be written in parts. like...

User Shop
>User set prices
>>user currency (That way people can charge cig's or req)
>User set names
>>user set descriptions
>Mod approval

That should be enough to get started. then if there's anything CMJ or the mods feel need to be added, then they can add them as a seperate module?
(for those wondering, i took a first year university programming course but failed miserably cause 1 my prof sucked and 2, it went wayy to fast for someone who thought it was cool to keep up with.)

Well, that begs the question:

Where does the money you spend go?

Does it go to the owner of the Dwelling? If so, would they have to pay a fee to keep their pantries stocked? Because otherwise, they could just start buying food at their own house, and get free stamina as the money just came back to them.


Food for thought, I suppose?


Yeah, so I may have done this all to make that joke, I'm sorry.

Yeah, I actually kinda hinted that in my post (there actually is an erotic bookstore on the island. Probably one of my top 5 player-created places so far). But that's where the disconnect between actual play and RP comes in... Like, say I'm RPing, and my character is a terribly lonely pervert. Of course he WOULD buy an erotic book. But if that character is actually new or poor, than they wouldn't be able to afford it, or maybe they'd prefer to save instead.

In the RP however, you can completely ignore how much money you have though. You could SAY you bought it, completely disregarding on how dire of a situation that would actually leave you. Perhaps I'm just thinking about this too much.

I also just like the idea of the harmless custom items. Again, using an erotic book example, imagine how fun it would be to actually look through a player-run store's stock of smut. It'd be fun to come up with names, descriptions, even pictures (work-safe, of course), that would add to the experience of shopping at an erotic bookstore. And, at the end of the day, you could look in your backpack and say "Yeah, I bought some midget porn," and feel really proud that you spent actual requisition on it.

... you bring up a good point Aldred. Maybe no stamina increase then? Or maybe only a certain percentage actually goes to the owner? like say... 25%. That way when someone buys a 80 req drink or something, have only 20 go to the player.

OR. just thought of this, Have perhaps a gradual menu system? kinda like how you add more logs or stone to a dwelling before you can construct a room? Well change that and place it terms a req. The store has to gain some obscene amount of req before another item can be added to the menu. or cigs. or something like that.

You could maybe have to add pieces of meat to keep your larder stocked? Kinda like adding logs and stones to the stockpile.

As long as there is enough meat for a menu item, it can be bought. And the req would go to the owner, for their work.

And if you want to make it more in-depth, you could have certain menu items require certain types of meat, and therefore be either healthier for you, or more likely to make you fat.

OK, I see where I missed the point.

There should be a fairly simple way for a player to spend SP on a Business License, permit or whatever to provide things that do not directly compete with eBoy's or Sheila's.

I can see where it would be very hard to keep track of what happens after set up. At best, we'd need lots more Mods.

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If it cant be done, should I stop doing it?

We have just the thing. Users are allowed to create their own 'modules' which can then hook into dwellings. The trains are a fine example of this, but a module can do what you want. Though if it upsets game-balance, it won't be accepted.

If you want to set up a shop that sells food, you can code it yourself. If you use the available source code, a restaurant isn't too hard - you have 4 examples on hand.

Join us on labs.improbableisland.com.

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http://maniak.cu.cc/

One sad fact about the Island, if there's anything that smells of req transfer between players, then there will be people who use it to avoid losing all their req when they DK. This will lead to far too much req sloshing about the Island, screw the economy, and ultimately screw the game. It's happened before.

That puts some strong limits on what can happen in these shops, which would otherwise be rather nice.

Dex has thought about this, and blames the Network. She feels the Network keeps tight control on the economy which forces the contestants to continue to fight the war in order to gather req to spend at its shops and restaurants.

(Equally as frustrating is having to pay for medical care to fight their war. She's unwelcome in quite a few medtents for ranting and such (she may also be known to steal supplies on occasion).)

So, she rarely frequents these places.

There's nothing stopping anyone from RPing a barter of economy, and people like Eben and Marly do this successfully with their shop in common ground and their Warehouse in 404. Dex strongly believes in such an 'off-grid' system.

Unfortunately the game mechanics don't support such roleplay, really.
If they did, I can see it becoming a bit more complicated than just the req problem HM mentions. If I open a bakery, say, where and how did I get my raw goods? When did I work there? Could a joker just 'create' items from Improbability, for eg?

(And even Ebs and Marly's barter shop has its limitations -- while they insist on 'fair' trades, there's no question where you got your trading item from.)

RPer-wise I try to be pretty strict about what possessions Dex has. For eg., she has a skateboard. She traded with Tyr, an established carpenter char, for the deck. Went to calliaphone (an established engineer) to talk trucks n wheels, got instructions and then went to 404 scrapyard for bits. Brought 'em back to callia and waited. This was all RP'd, and there was a real time wait between wanting an item and having it.

dex

Let me just... quote... a couple... things... here...

Right, why don't we have user-fillable and customizable books yet? That seems relatively straightforward -- pick up a blank book from an NPC shop, choose from a number of preselected covers (like you pick a giftbox when sending a gift to another player), then the weight of the book is determined by the number of words in the corresponding text box. Maybe if it were particularly fancy, there could be text boxes per chapter, and the weight of the book is simply calculated from the total text box word count. Every thousand words is .25 kg or somma.



This is the only way I can see something like this happening on a broadscale basis for the future -- something like customizable furniture, where we have several pre-set options for player purchase (whether by stam, cig, SP, or a combination of all three) which give you predetermined advantages, disadvantages, and Improbable effects. Your job would, indeed, then be to name and describe the item. This is on the other hand disadvantageous because it'd require custom image creation if it were an item that could be carried with the player (like a loaf of bread). Game images fall squarely in CMJ's lap; he likes makin' 'em, and has dibs on the process for basically any image that goes onto the Island.



Ding-ding-ding-ding-ding. Excellent question. Because of



that little conundrum, I can't imagine players would be allowed to keep the imaginary money they earned selling things in their shops. It would have to fall to roleplay.

However, the fastest way to make something like this come to fruition is as Maniak points out:



And as Dex points out, there are lots of good and useful ways that this would support in-game storytelling -- but yeah, it complicates in-game storytelling, too, for those of us who have a habit of hounddogging after details.

Here's my pressing question: If someone can run a bakery, say, why can't someone else run the grist mill that supplies that bakery with its flour? If we're to have a community run imaginary economy, why can't we have a proper one instead of one where we play Shop? Seems to me a little like how we played House last Season with the LoGD-standard dwellings system, and this season we're properly building and doing things with construction. Done right, that seems really appealing on both the gameplay and storytelling levels (WHERE DOES ALL OF THE SHIT ON THE ISLAND COME FROM?!), and it's conceivably something that could happen under the S3 system... but it's not a reality anytime soon, given priorities and time constraints, I don't think.

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BARK BARK BARK.

Yeah, my point too. Annnd this raises issues of land-- if there's a mill there's wheat growing somewhere.
And labour.
And what to do about jokers.

Ashtu, with a stern look on his face, and idly tossing his dice in the air:
"And just what are you implying about Jokers, madam?"

*tongue firmly in cheek*

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Thank you.

Oh please, you can't just start saying 'What to do about jokers'! You'll get everyone in a fit, and before you know it, we're banned from everything except dealing out cake and hypodermic needles!

Which would be rather frustrating.

Quite frustrating ideed..

I'd even say, a lot of us would, from pure frustration..

go bad.



(Oh gods, the derailment tag-team strikes again! I didn't even see Ashtu's post untill AFTER the fact, and they still match up!)

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"Censure acquits the Raven, but pursues the Dove." "So, that means i'm -always- innocent, right?"

Let me take this opportunity to put on my moderation cap, as opposed to my moderation goggles.



PLEASE DO NOT BE PROUD OF THREAD DERAILMENT.

(it was cute the first 20 - 30 times. maybe.)

rabl rabl rabl rabl rabl

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BARK BARK BARK.

OH MY GOD THE TEMPTATION TO DERAIL THIS THREAD WITH CATS.

:: puts on his own admin hat, to help him battle the urge

DID SOMEONE SAY CAT DERAILMENT?!



Or would this be more relevant?

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I make the many models of a mutant individual. To make them I use vegetables, animals, and minerals. From robot bugs to zombie bears to many singing barnacles.