[Dev] Shop Manager - enhancing shop plugins

The Shop Manager is a core plugin I am working on. The purpose is to enhance all shop processing functionality to make it easier for developers to write advanced shop-related plugins.


While I am building the shop manager, I am implementing separate shop-related functionality as plugins in order to test how flexible the shop manager


I cannot guarantee that all plugins will be compatible with each other, but the goal is to find ways to maximize compatibility.


The first thing that the shop manager does is change the way shop goods are handled.


You can customize each and every shop good to your hearts content.




If that isn't interesting, let's move on to some actual plugins.


First, I have written a plugin that will allow you to implement shop stock.




The second is something I'm currently designing as a way to test the shop manager's selling functionality: a way to sell items to shops, and to be able to buy them back. You can see a little dev video here illustrating the proof of concept.




Of course, it's still quirky and needs to have some logic figured out.


Anyways...


Interested in shop manager?


Have any shop ideas you want to see?


Would you like to build scenes on top of it?


Let me know!

I vaguely remember doing something similar for a YANTH (sure it was for yanth) back in the historical days of ace  :D

I always liked the whole idea of stock and 'replenishing' it. I actually made the items that you sell to the store become buyable, like, it became their stock. Additionally, each shop had its own stock. :)

I am definitely interested in this. Is it possible to implement a function where you purchase a consumable item and use it immediately by selecting an actor from inside the shop scene?

Possibly. I will have to see how it works out with other, "regular" items that will just go straight to the inventory.

Interesting Plugin. I have one Question about it. Does it auto-refill the Shop after random time or specified time? Or it is possible that you can expand the Plugin with this function?

The shop stock plugin provides stock functionality.


It provides the following functions


1. Initializing stock


2. Adding/removing stock


3. Checking if the shop has it in stock


You can use other plugins or event systems to control when and how it should be refilled.

Instead of saying OUT OF STOCK perhaps show the item grayed out that is now out of stock, soyou  know what the shop used to sell there before it went out.

I think that this (along with your Hidden Shop Goods plugin) would really help make shops more functional. Looks great so far! :)

I regret announcing this, but I will be requiring users to update their shop events if they want to use the shop manager.


Here are the changes that are required in order for shop manager plugins to function properly.





You will need to pick unique names for all your shops.

Currently I have three plugins that are ready for shop manager


1. Disabled Goods


2. Hidden Goods


3. Shop stock


I'm thinking of writing a few more before releasing it so that I can make more changes to the core if I need to.

An update!


I've been testing the input format and trying to eliminate as much extra input as possible. I've also been trying to make plugin development as easy as possible, creating standard API's for accessing shops and shop goods.


There are two issues that I've been trying to work out


1. Shops do not exist until you open it


2. Shop goods do not exist until you open the shop.


Both are similar issues, but have two different consequences for add-on plugins.


Recall (just look at the previous post) that when you open a shop, you will give a name for the shop. For example "Kitty_Item_Shop" or something.


The game will then load the shop up in preparation for the player to interact with it.


If the shop does not exist, it will be created dynamically.


The next problem is that shop goods do not exist even after the shop has been created.


The way I've set it up is that shop goods are loaded into the shop when you actually start the "shop processing" command.


And that's the problem: determining when to load the shops.


This would directly affect how plugins would be written.


Case in point


Let's say you wanted to set the shop stock for good #5.


Well, good #5 doesn't exist until you actually open the shop, and therefore the game will crash.


The way I had solved the problem originally was to store this data somewhere, and once the shop was fully loaded, it would then go and see if there's any extra things that it needs to do.


This doesn't seem like a very intuitive thing to do: shouldn't all shops exist at the beginning of the game anyways? When you access "Kitty_Item_Shop", you should be able to get a list of all of the goods they sell, all of the stock for those goods, any price changes, the sales log for the shop, how many items the player has bought from or sold to the shop, etc.

That seems like a rather big problem... couldn't we make a Shop.json file with lists of shops and their products or something like that? Would that work?

It would work, but it would require you to do extra work rather than simply setting up shops in your events.


Now, I could provide a tool that will scan for shop data and you would just run it and populate such a data file, which the shop manager will use to initialize data.


There would still be a problem for shops that are generated dynamically during the game, but that's a different issue.

Yeah... shops that are generated dynamically during the game seems like the way to go! 

How is this coming along? I am currently using your "hidden shops goods" plugin, but I am very interested in the limited stock options shown in that video.

Very interested in this.

The base functionality is there for managing shops...but I'm not sure how useful it would be without extra shop functionality.

If it gives us any more control over shops than the defaults, I'll take anything. The default system is just way too limited.

This is actually exactly what I've been looking for! Very much interested in this, as I need a way to make sure the vendors only sell one of a key item, instead of as many as you can afford.

Hoping you'll add over the item sold tracking variables I commissioned you for in ACE.


Basically, it was like limited stock, but instead of running out, you could use a formula to force the price up if too many of an item were bought, or force the price down if too many of an item were sold at a certain shop.

I'd be interested in having a rotating stock. What i mean is that, along with the shop's standard inventory, there is random chance that rare item A (and or B, C, ad naseum) will be available when you come into the shop. This rotating stock could also vary from shop to shop so that an item shop in one town might have the ten common items and a chance of bringing out its specialty items that only it sells every once in a while. I hate going into shops and always seeing the same things, and I know that for my game there will be lots of ingredient items for synthesis.