Adding merchants

rakannittin · May 2013

Does anyone know how to make an NPC a merchant, or if it is possible to add merchants to maps?

crok2 · May 2013

Nope, can't add merchants yet.

boydzinj · May 2013

You can not add resource nodes, merchants, vendors, or make the enemy drop specific loot. Likewise, you can not alter the enemy by changing their hit points, loot table, their combat spells, their attacks, their abilities, or their weapons.

For you to be good at making a foundry mission/quest that is different than the normal bland stuff - you will need to learn the art of subterfuge. The ability to trick the player into thinking one way when in reality it is something else - normal game mechanics. You could have a merchant looking NPC tell the player that a "goblin" stole all his or her loot. Even give a quest to get back that loot. However, you can not make the NPC turn into the vender. You need to use subterfuge to explain that why the merchant NPC looks like a vendor type NPC but not be a vendor.

ishvarina · May 2013

Thanks (this was my question BTW, I had to post it under my partner's account as mine is too new). I was mostly just looking to add them for aesthetics, I have some in the game but thought it would be nice if they really were functional merchants.

v0273x · May 2013

Functional merchants would be nice, even if they sold potions. The sell tab would be a godsend for overburdened junk.

boydzinj · May 2013

v0273x wrote: »

Functional merchants would be nice, even if they sold potions. The sell tab would be a godsend for overburdened junk.

I believe the reason that is not done is to try to make people (real people) buy large bags and use real life money in purchase. Think about it... if foundrys had the ability to put functional merchants/vendors - then most foundry quests would have functional merchant/vendors in their adventures and few people would feel the need to use real life money since they can sell their loot easily. I spent 10 bucks to buy a large slot bag and I rarely run into loot problems now.

samuraikings · May 2013

boydzinj wrote: »

I believe the reason that is not done is to try to make people (real people) buy large bags and use real life money in purchase. Think about it... if foundrys had the ability to put functional merchants/vendors - then most foundry quests would have functional merchant/vendors in their adventures and few people would feel the need to use real life money since they can sell their loot easily. I spent 10 bucks to buy a large slot bag and I rarely run into loot problems now.

Not everyone feels bag space is something that should be sold. Most think only aesthetics should be sold in the shop. There is a difference from supporting a company and being forced to pay them for something you should already have by default.

boydzinj · May 2013

samuraikings wrote: »

Not everyone feels bag space is something that should be sold. Most think only aesthetics should be sold in the shop. There is a difference from supporting a company and being forced to pay them for something you should already have by default.

Are you the a person who will tell Cryptic that? And if bag space is no longer sold... I WANT A REFUND... and i am sure I will not be alone for asking for a refund... I believe its a done deal, no?

samuraikings · May 2013

boydzinj wrote: »

Are you the a person who will tell Cryptic that? And if bag space is no longer sold... I WANT A REFUND... and i am sure I will not be alone for asking for a refund... I believe its a done deal, no?

Honestly? There isn't a point in going on about it, they won't change it.

For the sake of argument they could easily give you a refund in cash shop currency. It's also not Cryptic doing this. It's PWI that decides on what gets ripped out and what price is set on it. All Cryptic does is the actual game, which is amazing. I have played plenty of PWI games, and I haven't given them any money because they have horrible, intrusive cash shops. I used to be a sub fee payer as well as casual aesthetics buyer on DDO. I was hoping it would be the same situation here but should have known better.

Anyway, I am not complaining, we all knew what we were getting when PWI was publishing them. It sucks for us and Cryptic but all we can do is not pay those ridiculous prices and maybe they will learn, if not, I'm just going to enjoy the game until I hit one of the walls and get tired of dealing with it like every other PWI game.

medullan · May 2013

It really depends on how much work you are willing to put into your quest. No you can not place a traditional vendor, but if you put in the hours and have the creativity necessary you can create a custom currency spendable for custom items at a custom npc vendor. In my quest I am already beginning to implement just that. You will be able to earn currency which you will be able to spend on spells that have a real effect on the world. I'll tell you what though it is going to be way over complicated to write and most likely under appreciated by the majority of quest takers.

coanunn · May 2013

samuraikings wrote: »

Not everyone feels bag space is something that should be sold. Most think only aesthetics should be sold in the shop. There is a difference from supporting a company and being forced to pay them for something you should already have by default.

Not to hijack the thread but you sir need to reign in your sense of entitlement. Perhaps you forgot you have PAID for nothing when you get the game and being asked to pay for a few things for your convenience when in fact you can play the game without need of ANYTHING from the real money store puts you anywhere from thirty (base price of a game) to hundreds of dollars (subscriptions fees, expansion) ahead?

As to the OP - Currently you can not do that but it is a feature that has been put forward as a feature for the Foundry and Cryptic has not as of yet said no. If they hold to their initial stance they will do everything in their power to empower the UGC Authors via the foundry as it removes the need to spend as much of their own time on development by providing endless content.

thewatcheruatu · May 2013

medullan wrote: »

It really depends on how much work you are willing to put into your quest. No you can not place a traditional vendor, but if you put in the hours and have the creativity necessary you can create a custom currency spendable for custom items at a custom npc vendor. In my quest I am already beginning to implement just that. You will be able to earn currency which you will be able to spend on spells that have a real effect on the world. I'll tell you what though it is going to be way over complicated to write and most likely under appreciated by the majority of quest takers.

That sounds pretty interesting. I'd be interested to hear more about how something like that can be pulled off.

medullan · May 2013

So the idea is so far I have a mob drop or side quest completion award a custom item, most likely a gem bag. Then I create an interact object which requires said gem bag before it is possible to interact with it. Upon interact it drops a scroll containing a specific spell for example sleep. I then have another interact object near a mob that could be affected by a sleep spell if the player chooses to they can interact with this object and "cast sleep" This action would then cause the npc to disappear and then a sleeping version of the npc would appear in it's place. It is going to take a whole lot of creativity way more work creating dialog trees and interact objects then should ever be necessary. I am however confident in my ability to accomplish this goal and fingers crossed expect to be able to publish a fully functional alignment based quest complete with spell shop and vancian magic before full release.
especially if they continue to improve the foundry during open beta.

kamaliicious · May 2013

medullan wrote: »

So the idea is so far I have a mob drop or side quest completion award a custom item, most likely a gem bag. Then I create an interact object which requires said gem bag before it is possible to interact with it. Upon interact it drops a scroll containing a specific spell for example sleep. I then have another interact object near a mob that could be affected by a sleep spell if the player chooses to they can interact with this object and "cast sleep" This action would then cause the npc to disappear and then a sleeping version of the npc would appear in it's place. It is going to take a whole lot of creativity way more work creating dialog trees and interact objects then should ever be necessary. I am however confident in my ability to accomplish this goal and fingers crossed expect to be able to publish a fully functional alignment based quest complete with spell shop and vancian magic before full release.
especially if they continue to improve the foundry during open beta.

Foundry can't do mob drops.

coanunn · May 2013

kamaliicious wrote: »

Foundry can't do mob drops.

What he's talking about doesn't require a mob drop, but rather an interaction with the "corpse" that results in adding an item to the players inventory. It's actually quite ingenious work around but ONE METRIC BUTTLOAD of work to accomplish immersion.

samuraikings · May 2013

coanunn wrote: »

Not to hijack the thread but you sir need to reign in your sense of entitlement. Perhaps you forgot you have PAID for nothing when you get the game and being asked to pay for a few things for your convenience when in fact you can play the game without need of ANYTHING from the real money store puts you anywhere from thirty (base price of a game) to hundreds of dollars (subscriptions fees, expansion) ahead?

As to the OP - Currently you can not do that but it is a feature that has been put forward as a feature for the Foundry and Cryptic has not as of yet said no. If they hold to their initial stance they will do everything in their power to empower the UGC Authors via the foundry as it removes the need to spend as much of their own time on development by providing endless content.

No entitlement here. If the prices in the shop were reasonable I would have purchased a bunch of items. If the mounts were around $10 I would have got one for each of my characters. As it stands, out of principle, I am not going to pay $35-40 per mount. I prefer my games with sub fees and feel that everyone should be on equal ground. It really alters the game and community in a negative way to have everyone on different scales, even if that negative is half the people complaining and the other half fanboying. Also, if it makes you feel any better, I think they did a "good job" on giving you the absolute, extreme bare minimum of bag space needed to get to 60, at which point you no longer pick up greens. I never "needed" to buy more bag space at any point.

If there is something I hate more than horribly constructed F2P cash shop models, PWI being the worst of the worst, maybe EA giving them a huge competition in the running for that title with SWTOR, it's people who defend a company without reason. I love Cryptic, they made an amazing game. There are a ton of bugs, but it's still fun as hell even in this state. My problem is with the cash shop which falls into PWI's doing. I don't think anyone disagrees almost everything in the shop is 2-3 times what most other shops have and what they are valued at.

P.S. I have spent around $500 each on both League of Legends and Guild Wars 2. I have 7 years of sub fee payments to FFXI, 2 years to WoW and about a year to DDO not even counting the cash shop and mount/expansions expenses in the last 3 games. I WANT to throw all of this money at Cryptic that is in my pocket atm as I currently have nothing to spend it on, but if PWI is going to sit there with their hands held out intercepting it, I won't spend any money on the game. Until they mark the prices to even slightly reasonable, they won't get anything from me.

You call me entitled yet it seems more like you are. Just because we spend money on mmorpgs that other people don't have or won't spend doesn't make us any better for supporting the company. If all of the pure F2Pers quit this game, it would fall dead in a month from a collapsed economy and lack of players. They are just as important to keep the game stable, build the community and and test the bugs as we are for supporting them. If they are doing something wrong they should be told so, I am not entitled for disliking something about their cash shop and I feel sad for you if you can't see reason with that.

Adding merchants

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