Heroes of Sansibar and Tilog

[Tom]

What I noticed is that so many parties fail their early quests because they have almost no equipment.

What's going on there? Nobody selling them weapons and armour?

[Zakilevo]

When they first visited our shops, our ordered items were still coming in. I sold knives and other cheap items for very small 1~2 gold profit but I couldn't really sell anything to help those parties with like armors and such since my ordered items had not arrived at the time.

[Vita`]

In my experience, I got a customer the first day, before any shop sections were bought.

I got another customer 2015/07/19 04:30. Sold them plenty of armour. They went questing. They haven't finished their quest since. Several groups have finished/failed their quests, come back to town, shopped, went questining again, and finished/failed their quest again. My group? Still questing. Also, I've had no other customers.

EDIT: All your new parties showed up in the other shops again. Am I doing something wrong that they don't like my shop? I thought a shop sign at the beginning would attract more folks to my shop, but it doesn't seem to have done anything. I've got leather armour, scale armour, chainmail, torches, oil lamps etc.

[Tom]

I've given every shop 200 gold to kickstart the game more.

The starting phase is tricky, I will have to manage it somehow differently.

[Tom]

I got another customer 2015/07/19 04:30. Sold them plenty of armour. They went questing. They haven't finished their quest since. Several groups have finished/failed their quests, come back to town, shopped, went questining again, and finished/failed their quest again. My group? Still questing. Also, I've had no other customers.

Maybe it's stuck? Which party is this?

[Tom]

Why are parties failing so many quests:

   
• It is dark and the party does not have enough light, making the challenge more difficult.

Nobody selling them any torches?

[Tom]

Everyone has fallen very much silent. Summertime or some other reason?

[Vita`]

I might be wrong, but I don't think Geminus or Crayne have been keeping up. The startup phase is slow, which is discouraging; I understand thats natural in an alpha, but others may not. And yeah, summer, I think some folks may be vacationing like James mentioned he would be earlier. And I think Zakky too from something mentioned on IRC?

I also think I'm the only one who has been selling torches and oil lamps.

I've started to get more parties, so yay.

If there's any type of feedback you'd like most, just ask.

[De-Legro]

Everyone has fallen very much silent. Summertime or some other reason?

I am semi inactive and will be for another week. That said I can't sell torches but have sold quite a bit of armour and weapons. I still maintain that the parties shopping strategy sets them up for entering quests under prepared.

[James]

I am semi inactive and will be for another week. That said I can't sell torches but have sold quite a bit of armour and weapons. I still maintain that the parties shopping strategy sets them up for entering quests under prepared.

Most of the things my shops sells are of very little use to start up parties. So if I do sell anything to the newer parties my reputation then flows downwards. I'm sure this will change once they start doing the harder quests though.

Perhaps shop layouts (or shop sections existing within a shop) should limit the experience level of parties that visit you?

[Vita`]

Are parties 14(Provision Division) & 15(Corrupted Exterminators) stuck again? They haven't moved for 3 and 5 turns, respectively, now. Also parties 20, 22, 5, and 7 might be stuck after failing/finishing their quests? They haven't come back to either town yet and they usually return the next turn.

Edit: Also parties 3, 10, and 2 might be stuck on their quests? They left to quest 2 turns ago and haven't had a quest result while others who left at same time have finished, returned, shopped, and left on another quest.

[Tom]

Yes, there was a turn bug that I just fixed.


I also see that the shop layouts and resulting limitation of sellable items might be detrimental to gameplay. I'll re-think it. Maybe I should limit not which sections you can buy, but how many of them?

[James]

I also see that the shop layouts and resulting limitation of sellable items might be detrimental to gameplay. I'll re-think it. Maybe I should limit not which sections you can buy, but how many of them?

I think once there is a mix of parties from new to experienced then it will work. As it is, the layout I have is not good for new parties (although I can occasionally sell them items, they are generally not of use in the lower level quests those parties can do so my reputation with them suffers).

Maybe allow all shops a 'basic' table or such that allows items that can be bought for 5/10 gold to be sold on?

[Tom]

I'm thinking about changing shop layouts so that most corners can have more than one section. So with a basic shop, for example, you could have 3 corners. One can have an assorted items table or a weapons section, two can have a weapons or an armour section, three can have a library or an alchemy lab.

This way, you can have 6 or so different layouts (you can't have two weapons sections). It would also add gameplay by giving you the option of selling sections and building a different one instead. I think it would be a good move, but it adds a lot of additional work to the 3D client.

But that said, maybe I need to make that step back, put the 3D client on the backburner and focus on the core gameplay first.

[Zakilevo]

There should also be more shop sections for later games. Only a couple layouts can have magic weapon or armor shop while corner shops can't have either of them meaning later on, they won't have much to sell.