Shattered Kingdoms

This is my main argument as well.


Grep, if you honestly think that because I corrected one stat max on one race (Something that can be easily figured out in minutes by anyone that cares, so I decided to save them the time) that I'm a complete hypocrite, then you're just looking, way too hard I might add, for reasons to discredit me personally because I disagree with what you think is right.

Just to start with, I'm not saying I'm going to implement this suggestion. But if I were going to do something like it, my first idea would be along the lines of making a command to allow you to basically cast identify for store items.

If you used it on an item that was regularly stocked in the store, it would be free, because the merchant obviously knows what he's got. But if you used it on something that had been pawned, there would be a cost, because the merchant had to pay and get the merchandise identified himself.

But implementing this would devalue the identify ability for those people who have it. That's not a deal breaker, but something to consider carefully.

Implementing this would not devalue identify for classes that have it. Any item you found exploring would not be able to be identified by a vendor unless you sold it to the vendor and then bought it back (costing you extra money), for one.

It's like suggesting resize spells are useless because there are vendors who can size. Sure. There are tailors and blacksmiths. But there are also gemstone armors, and other materials that can't be sized without access to the spell.

And really, making it so that casters are less . . . "relied upon" is not necessarily bad. OMG is it sometimes absolutely maddening to not hear the end of requests for such things.

I would be happy if it went with just in shop items getting identified and nothing pawned, myself. I know that people will, in the future, be asking why pawned items would not be identified as well. And with the way the economy tends, it is true that you will make some money off selling the item, which will go back into having the item identified, plus spending even more to buy the item back. One of the few times I see this happening is for people who want to hoard all those special items that they do not already have a text file already filled out with it and to keep the rest of the player base from knowing they have it for a little while longer. Otherwise, people will tend towards the cheap side and ask someone to identify things for them.

No kidding.

- Would the shopkeepers have identify, lore, or something I would think a bit different. I can't see the shopkeepers being completely all knowing. They should know nice things though like:
-where this thing can be worn/if it can be worn.
-if it has a story and perhaps an inkling of its lore (lowest level)
-that an item has magical properties, and perhaps its overall magical strength. PS - if for Yigmass the following terms could be applied specifically in the identify spell, I'd be one happy happy player
1 - slightly enchanted
2 - moderately enchanted
3 - somewhat enchanted
4 - well enchanted
5 - greatly enchanted
6 - powerfully enchanted
7+ extremely enchanted

There's two schools of thought in this thread:
First, give any shopkeeper this feature, open all shop information.
Second, protect all exploration by keeping it closed.

There is a happy balance here, and one that doesn't involve devaluing identify: That is a specific flag that allows you to use the command you've suggested. (Let's call it "browse" for efficiency's sake). This means that not all shopkeepers will necessarily do this for you. As in my previous reply, there's going to be shopkeepers who have no reason to provide you this information. They're mysterious, they're shady, they're evil or they just expect you to know what you're buying before buying it. Or quite frankly, you just don't want the players to be able to have a certain piece of information easily for good OOC/builder reasons.

Also, remember that identify is is still extremely valuable as a tool of actual zone-based exploration, identifying those items that players find in zones or through roleplay.

Actual implementation:

1. Code flag 'browse'. This mob-flag will enable the PC to use the 'browse' command on a shopkeeper that has this flag.

2. Code flag 'pawn'. This object-flag is set to an item that is sold to a shop, and will add a token cost to any use of 'browse' on an object with that flag.

3. 'Browse' flag will provide all details an identify spell would provide. You can make this roleplay'ish, sure, but that's the basic form. I would suggest lore, but most shop items don't have it.
(Note: 'Browse' will not provide any deeper insight. For example, you might learn that a smoky potion has a darkness spell, but you're not going to get the details of the darkness spell. That flaming scroll might have magma spray, but you aren't going to know what that spell does unless you've made the effort to find out.)

4. 'Browse' flag will be set on any NPCs are the staff feels are appropriate. I would recommend that "Town" shops be the general rule for those that have the browse. It might be a challenge to find all the shopkeepers in 8 different cities, not to mention villages. Enlist players that actually want this change put in if there's no easy way for staff to take care of these NPCs en masse.