Merchant Archive
Thread: Merchant Barker module (also on DE board)
SWG-Runesabre wrote:
Message Edited by SWG-Runesabre on 03-04-2004 02:09 PM
Hmm... he sounds a bit irritated. The DE forum has rather ignored the specifics that were posted, and focused on hurt feelings about the weakoverall content andlikely nerf that Publish 7 has turned out to be. Apparently, everyone was supposed to be very excited by the 5 fixes and 4 modules that were identified for Pub 8. Actually there is, for me, one big item: the "Merchant Barker module." This is finally an implementation of something that appeared in the original documentation at release, though subsequently withdrawn, whose absence left a huge hole in the Merchant Profession.
I am concerned, though, that the actual delivery will prove useless. The description only says:"This would give droids the ability to bark advertisements, give waypoints to shops, have additional information available so players could list prices, services, etc through a radial menu command."
Now, to be of real value to a merchant, the droid would have to persist in a city, and continue barking, for some significant amount of time (as long as the batteries lasted?) when the merchant wasn't there. For best value, this would mean after the Merchant logged out, but at least it has to persist after leaving town on a shuttle. I seem to have had mixed results with this when using my "marching moron" droid that had an ad in its name, it certainly didn't last long after I logged.
Also, for reasonable coverage, the droid should be able to patrol over a good distance and still have the new radial features functional. The potential customer should not have to keep within a short range to keep a dialog window open that would deliver the optional information. The droid will continue on its way, and I don't want the customer to have to chase it. Ticket terminal windows stay open even after a shuttle ride, so this should not be impossible to implement.
It would be really great if the listing of prices were drawn from the actual vendor in real time. I would hate to see many of these droids with bait-and-switch ads, or worse yet pointing to empty vendors. That would soon make them almost useless as customers could not depend on the accuracy of their information.
Related to this is the persistance and ease of entry of the information delivered. If it took me too long to program one to start barking, I would tend not to use it. Either the contents has to persist in the droid between stores and logoffs (like commands), or has to be programmable via command lines so I can make a macro. The big thing that kept me from using the marching moron more (besides the limited ad space), was the time required to program a reasonable patrol pattern for it.
I think, too, it is important that the droid give real waypoints, not just text that the user has to convert to one. I have done it myself, and don't want a customer's typo to make him think the shop was gone when he arrived. The waypoint should also be named.
This module should be usable in many kinds of droids, a BLL would be a good platform in town since it is visible and easy to click on, but a Protocol Droid would be more sophisticated looking. It would seem really strange on an R2 or other beeping droid, since that would suddenly become a talking droid.
There isn't any mention of a cert for this droid (as there was on the entertainer droid). Since this had been the primary content of the Ad 4 box in merchant, which is now effectively empty, that would be the appropriate placement. I suspect, however, that the devs are going to make this a feature available to anyone who owns one. Poor Merchants!
You drag it into Coronet or somewhere, put an example of your wares on it, and then it lets players know the location of your shop for more products.
Yea the minute it has items to sell it has to become furniture and not move any more.
I'll see if we can get more information about the module.
Merchant Barker module: This would give droids the ability to bark advertisements, give waypoints to shops, have additional information available so players could list prices, services, etc through a radial menu command.
then it can be mobile and sell items, too
The whole "Players have to select an option from a radial menu" thing wouldn't hamper it? And then of couse, the "vendor listing" seems to imply a static menu you open and view
I don't know. I DO know that vendors can't walk.
Players have a radial menu. They move a lot. Patrolling NPC's have radial menus. So I don't see why a barking droid couldn't. So that much seems reasonable.
Currently it is a fact that vendors cannot be moved once they are initialized and linked into the vendor database. It is part of the way the system is designed. I doubt that mobile vendors will be possible any time soon. There was some talk about it being possible to link a mobile interface to an existing vendor somewhere but my impression is that would be considerable work and not likely to happen quickly.
TH's posting didn't say it would act like a vendor, probably too much to even hope for now.
I am hoping though, that the radial doesn't just display a blank edit control to be filled in, like an item description. Well acutually I would like that as an option, but not for showing stock and prices. Ideal would be if it showed all your vendors and the current contents on them, with the view promptly updated when something was added or sold. Only takes read-only access to the DB.
Someone on the DE board said droids last until the reset. Is it ok that we have to reset them every morning like we used to have to do with planetary ads? I am a little worried about battery life too, if the batteries must be good for them to show info.
These things could be really good if they work right. Hopefully they won't prove a big dissapointment.
I didn't get the impression from reading the post that TH made a few weeks ago that it would have any linkage to vendors but that it would have space for you to put in text for your price lists and such.
Linking to the database is probably not a quick thing if it is ever going to be possible.
Are there skills required to use this droid? Like advertising 4 or something?
Message Edited by torgo23 on 03-05-2004 12:15 PM