shop window

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Chaos-Shaman
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Location: The Gates of Hell

shop window

Post by Chaos-Shaman »

I've been fooling around with the shop and its control. I am puzzled by how to check the shop windows item reference. what I am trying to do is tie in an info button that can read the item in the shop window to help the party pick which item is best for them to buy. i can already do this via program, but it's a lot of work to plug it all in. if i could read the item in the shop window it would greatly speed up the npc shop, currently the party can run into npcs and do trade, so this would really really help if i could perform a check on the item in the shop window.

may the RTC gods have mercy on me.

cross my fingers
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lbk
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Re: shop window

Post by lbk »

Before reading on, I have never used the shop before so I am not really a good person to ask for this particular question.

Overview of how it works:
That being said, I have a really bad way of doing this for you (and I am even worse at explaining what I did)... So you can set up a system that will buy an item (the one that you want information on), place that item on a series of triggers (each specific to one shop item), have the trigger display the desired information (via wall text or character speech), and then sell the item back to the shop.

Set up:
I kinda set up an RTC file that does this (but don't know how to upload it, maybe I could e-mail it if it would be helpful). My file has a 3-tile area that the player cannot access. The first tile has a stash of coins and a teleporter (to tile 2). The second tile has a shop_counter (buy) floor mechanic, a bunch of item specific triggers, and a teleporter (to tile 3). The third tile has a shop_counter (sell) floor mechanic and a teleporter (to tile 1).

Step-by-step:
The player will have pan through the items until they find the one they want in the shop window. Then they will have to activate a trigger of some sort, I use a button with a wall text that says something like "pressing this will provide additional information on the item you are looking at". Once the button is pressed, it will activate a relay that does:
1) Activates the teleporter on tile 1 (the one with the coin stash). Make sure that there is a lot of coins in your stash, since you will be buying an item to get information on it and then selling it back to the store at a loss.
2) Activates the shop_counter (buy) on the second tile (which now has a lot of money on it). This purchases an item, which is placed on the second tile. The second tile should have a bunch of triggers that are each activated by only 1 item. Each of these triggers needs to activate something to relay your item information (I use game speech).
3) Activates the teleporter on tile 2 (which now has an item and the coin stash).
4) Activates the shop_counter (sell) on the third tile (this will sell the item and put the coins from the sale on tile 3 with the coin stash).
5) Activates the teleporter on tile 3 to send the coin stash back to tile 1.
**Note that these teleporters will have to be un-activated at some point or else your dungeon will just send the coin stash around and around.

I know this is pretty cumbersome, but it is the best I can think of right now... Hope that it works for you, send me a PM if this all is unclear and I will try and get you my test file.
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Chaos-Shaman
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Re: shop window

Post by Chaos-Shaman »

Overview of how it works:
That being said, I have a really bad way of doing this for you (and I am even worse at explaining what I did)... So you can set up a system that will buy an item (the one that you want information on), place that item on a series of triggers (each specific to one shop item), have the trigger display the desired information (via wall text or character speech), and then sell the item back to the shop.
thanks, lbk

well, I have set up a shop already, created a way to view all items in the dungeon but the item has to be bought first. what I'd like to do is get the information before the item is bought.
Image

this is what I have come up with so far, when the party clicks on an NPC, the above shows up. the player can click buy or sell the item and then can view it on the right. what I'd like to see is a description before buying, that will override the haggle feature. otherwise the party will lose a little money. now I can't target the windows identity, it has one ref only. I don't think it can be done, I was hoping there was a way. basically I reused the shop, removed all the stepping so the party stays on one tile only. the shop performs as it should by switching back and forth from buy to sell. it works with no problems. it is much like your setup. now the shop is not just a shop, any button with any feature can be added, things like:

Bribe
Map
Treasure
Quests
Posts
Wanted
Rumors
Hire
ETC

these action buttons can be brought up by clicking on npcs with each having their own abilities. the info window can also be brought up by anything, anywhere, anytime. this is my first attempt at the shop and I still don't know all its mechanics. picking away at it, experimenting on what I can do with the shop. being able to read the shop item would make it that much smoother. there is already a system in place.

I did most of what you explained lbk, you're thinking is logical. the shop was always a challenge for me, but I'm getting the hang of it. thanks for the explanation, I hope it helps others, too.
what has been done is all items can be identified by the mouse, around 480 items. I am sure in much the way GG did it with the view item.

what I could use help with is the shop design. it was just thrown together with things roughly placed.

It would be great to have someone help design it. I'm not good at that stuff, my graphics skills are slowly improving but my art work sucks.

lbk, if you'd like I can show you the shop, maybe you can find something I could do to improve it. everything works, it just looks like hell.

thanks
keep your gor coin handy
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Chaos-Shaman
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Re: shop window

Post by Chaos-Shaman »

well, this is where I am at right now. I REALLY REALLY could use some help with the layout. Is there anyone that could help me here. I am not very good at setting it up. I do not play very many games so I don't know what is best for the layout. this is the best I can do. I bet there is somebody that can make this look good.

Image

any help would be greatly appreciated
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lbk
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Re: shop window

Post by lbk »

Sorry, I don't check back every day... Also, I suck at graphics; but I think you might have too much going on for just one screen? I would break it up to like a trade screen and an "other" screen, if that makes sense? This is what I came up with:

Image
(apparently imageshack has changed, so you have to deal with a small picture =/)

But I feel that you should use whatever you are most comfortable with, it is your game and design after all.

Good luck!
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Chaos-Shaman
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Posts: 2642
Joined: Wed May 03, 2006 7:26 pm
Location: The Gates of Hell

Re: shop window

Post by Chaos-Shaman »

oh, thanks, that's an interesting answer. problem I find is buy and sell would bleed into each other when green blue and red gems get mixz being that close. what I found consistent asking around is using an iconic representation as the other services shows. should the selections be alt? should I bold text, like there is so many options, I'm not that kind a artistico. I think but can't draw well... .. . .. ... . . . .
keep your gor coin handy
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