Barren Realms MUD

Let builders have the option to set prices for all objects sold at a shopkeeper.

Kind of like modify the value of an item when it is sold to that certain shop? I thought it is like this already... I heard some people say "Sell in <area name> because they buy items there with more value."

I believe Stars is talking about when you load an item into a shopkeeper's inventory... he wants to be able to set the price the shopkeeper then sells it for. The problem is that we're running out of numbers in the area format that the mud could possibly read to determine this.

Well, it already works like this for potions and pills. Would it require some nasty work to add all kinds of objects?

I'm going to have to look back over how potions/pills work, but I think it would... there's some numbers in the area file that we have overloaded several times (they do different things depending on what kind of object it is).

Merc 1 allowed builders to do this, because it was descended from Diku, which also allowed builders to do this. Ultimately, what happened was that inconsistencies crept in over time, to the point where things were getting pretty out of hand, and restricted efforts to extend the level range of the game. For Merc 2.2, from which BR is descended, a LARGE number of things that were formerly builder-specified were normalized to the level of the item or mob in an effort to restore some sanity and balance to the game. If you've ever wondered about the peculiar 0d0+0+0 line in objects, that's a vestige from that era. In fact, there is already a space -- one of those other reserved zeroes -- in the area file for specifying item cost. Merc 2.2 ignores this for backward compatibility with old Merc 1 and Diku mud area files, like Haon Dor, and thus so do we.

Potions are not valued this way because the level of the potion is inherently meaningless -- the combination of the spells and the level of those spells more accurately reflects the potion's value. I guess they were too lazy to draw up a level/spell value table at the time, so they added the odd backdoor for specifying a potion's value by hand. I don't much care for it, but it mostly works and is only really abused by Olympus, so there's never been a big push to remove it.

I know that these measures can be frustrating and seem kind of vanilla, but in my opinion they have gone a long way toward enforcing a certain amount of balance and common sense. I would be extraordinarly loath to return to the old chaos.

On the bright side, there are some little-known flags that are used to adjust item values, as in Travik's shop in Calathar. I don't know if the builder supports them yet or not; I have been sadly delinquent in getting Alicia the official list of flags and values he asked of me a while ago. If you need something like that for your area, please let me know.