Organization and Design of Shops

[Kupotepo]

I don't know how to explain this, but please bear with me. I take in general from what I see. The town/city often has different stores like a potion store, a weapon store, a magic store, and an armor store. The question is how do you design your stores. I know many of you're genius will create stores which is amazing and should be copyright.

Let's talk about a potion store first. I don't know what your design was. A potion store sells potions for recovery hp and mp. It also sells potion for buffs and cure for different states.

Secondly, the weapon store sells swords, bow, ward, and etc. An armor store sells armors, accessories, and cloaks. Did you do that or something different?

Third, a magic store usually sells to learn basic magic. So do you specialize magic store into a different type of magic with each store?

How much is too much to for items in the store? People like freedom of choice, but too much choice might give players a headache I think. How did you base your pricing on items formula maybe?

I am just asking because I am still surprise know much I do not know. Thank you for helping.

 

[TheoAllen]

I'm currently not designing a game with a various stores. But I like it when it grouped this way
> General store: You find potions and other consumables here.
> Apparel store: Armors and other stuff
> Weapon store: Weapon, duh
> Magic store: Books, magical stuff, enchantment, etc

Each category doesn't need to sell the same thing, but at least they should have the same sign so that I can guess what they're selling.

 

[Aesica]

Pretty basic setup really:

• Weapon Shop (swords, guns, bows, arrows, etc)
  
• Armor Shop (all armor types
• Magic Shop (accessories and materia*)
  
• Bar/Tavern (items and drinks)

*Materia in my game are similar to accessories, but instead of offering stats/resistances/etc, they give the user temporary spells.

Basically, just group like things together I guess.

 

[Kes]

This is not a mechanic as such.

[move]General Discussion[/move]

 

[Engr. Adiktuzmiko]

My current game is small and short so I only have

1) Item Shop - Sells potions
2) Weapon and Armor shop - Sells Weapons and Armors. They use the same "NPC" but the weapons/armors are separated by a choice command.

Also, since its those same two shops throughout the whole game, I made their contents to change depending on which part of the game the player is.

 

[fallenlorelei]

I've got a crafting game right now, but the crafting stations are blocked by what chapter of the story the character is currently in. So at the beginning, when users don't have access to a forge to make weapons, they'll instead the NPC who acts as the Weapon Merchant.

I'm using Yanfly's more currencies to make the "cost" of the weapon each of the crafting materials, and then I add a gold cost that the Weaponsmith takes as commission. Then you're free to sell the item at your shop when you're done with it, at a price increase so you can make some profit, but not as much profit as if you made the item yourself.

The cost of his commission is based off 20% of the sum of the crafting materials. I track all of this in Excel and put it into RPG Maker manually, although I could probably do it with some javascript custom costs. This method works fine for me in the meantime.

The Weaponsmith and Armorsmith NPC shops are split up by the "Choices" command.

• Weaponsmith: Weapons, Tools
• Armorsmith: Armor, Accessories
• And then they both have an "Ingredients" option (changing ores to bars, trading in a surplus of something for a rare ingredient, etc.)

There's also the Innkeeper that makes food with your ingredients, similar to above.

And then the General Shop doesn't craft for you but instead sells knick/knacks you need for crafting.

Note that you can't sell to NPCs in this game except when a "Wandering Merchant" appears (random chance every day). Otherwise you have to sell stuff at your shop.

No magic or potion shops at the moment for story reasons, but also because the user can make those items themselves.

 

[DJK1NG_Gaming]

I've made it easy for me. By reducing to only.
- Item Shop - Where Items such as potion and healing items can be used Battle & Menu use
- Food - These can only be used in the Menu
- Weapon Shop - 4 Weapons per party members.
- Accessory - 16 of them
- Monster Drops (Of course not sold in stores.)
---------
Now I have about 10 towns but only half of them will have the stores.
And of those 5 towns. Only 2 of them will have all shops. With one of them having all items, foods, weapons and accessory.

I took out head, armor and shield gear because they are pretty pointless if I can't show the character actually wearing them. Less equipment is better.
As for item. The usual status healing, 4-5 types of potion, 1-2 potion for MP and reviving and maybe some other stuff like stats boosting and Key items.
--
If you don't want players spending so much time in shop menus. Give each towns different option and inventory. Have the player visit other towns later in the game.

 

[Kes]

I have used shops as a way of maintaining a degree of resource management in my last and my current projects.

Why should a small shop in a village in the middle of nowhere have an infinite number of potions? It doesn't make sense. Mine don't. Every shop has a specific number of items in stock, and once those are sold, that's it. Of course, bigger shops in bigger towns have a larger stock, but still not infinite. This encourages exploration to find additional items, and the player who does that has a more than adequate supply. If you don't go in for exploration, then you have to manage your resources carefully. So you have the challenge of exploration and a smaller degree of resource management, or the challenge of a larger degree of resource management. The choice is yours as the player.

Of course, this means that I have to be careful about how money is acquired, so that the player has enough to buy at least most of what's available to get them through to the next shop, but not so much that not having anything to spend it on reduces the point of getting it to triviality.

 

[Kupotepo]

*Materia in my game are similar to accessories, but instead of offering stats/resistances/etc, they give the user temporary spells.

Please explain more about materia. Is like a magic stone or a magic shard? Am I understand correctly?

This is not a mechanic as such.

I've moved this thread to General Discussion. Please be sure to post your threads in the correct forum next time. Thank you.

Thank you for moving this thread to the correct place.

since its those same two shops throughout the whole game, I made their contents to change depending on which part of the game the player is.

Haha, is that simple?

If you don't want players spending so much time in shop menus. Give each towns different option and inventory. Have the player visit other towns later in the game.

That is a great idea. Do you use localization of resources? For example, in the desert, there is no wood for sale. Do you sell key items too?

 

[DJK1NG_Gaming]

That is a great idea. Do you use localization of resources? For example, in the desert, there is no wood for sale. Do you sell key items too?

When it comes to the Food items yeah. I have them base on location.
One of my continent have a Farm so every nearby towns have pretty much all the types of food you can buy that sells them.

When it comes to Key Item such as in my game. You will need to take a Train to the other continent.
To access the Train you need a ticket of course.
So I have both station offer 4 Free Tickets so you can go back in forth. After running out of both. You are ask to buy them. for 1000 Gin(My game currency).
Getting on the train consumes one.

 

[Engr. Adiktuzmiko]

Haha, is that simple?

Hmmm. Yes it's pretty simple, I scripted it though because I like to write them xD

 

[Aesica]

Please explain more about materia. Is like a magic stone or a magic shard? Am I understand correctly?

It's an idea borrowed from FF7 that morphed into something barely recognizable as my project progressed. In particular, you equip them to gain new spells as long as the materia is equipped. Originally, I was going to have the spells learned by acquiring X amount of points at the end of battles just like in FF7, but I don't really want to force grinding. And while you socket them into weapons in FF7, I hate that kind of **** so they're just "alternate accessories" so to speak.

 

[Kupotepo]

Thank you for your insights: @TheoAllen, @Aesica, @Kes, @Engr. Adiktuzmiko, @fallenlorelei, and @DJK1NG_Gaming, @Marquise*

I'm using Yanfly's more currencies to make the "cost" of the weapon each of the crafting materials, and then I add a gold cost that the Weaponsmith takes as commission. Then you're free to sell the item at your shop when you're done with it, at a price increase so you can make some profit, but not as much profit as if you made the item yourself.

That is an interesting concept of commission works.

 

[Marquise*]

First thing that came to my mind was... Barbershop! Where you can get gossips!

(In medieval or far west setting bath house and laundry place could also be there)

 

[Onism]

Generally I follow the basic idea of:
General Store - misc items, potions, etc
Weapons - Weapons
Armoury Store - Armour
Library/Bookstore - Skill books
Wizard's House/Store - Spells, magic (In my game these are 'traded' for, a wizard will teach you magic in return for various items, and he can only be visited during midnight hours)


I also try and match the stores to the town/area I'm in:
A small forest town has limited space, so maybe the inn (which most travellers would visit) also has a small counter inside where you can buy general items?
A peaceful mountain village may not have an armoury or weapons shop in hopes of decreasing fighting.
A bustling port would likely have separate shop buildings: a general items store, a weapons store, armour, etc etc.
A smaller town might have a market place, where stalls are set up by various vendors selling different things.

You may also want to think about travelling merchants- Will you have people who have things to sell dotted over areas that aren't town and villages?

In one of my current project experiments, I'm looking into not having any shop type buildings, and instead implementing a system where every NPC has some items that the player can buy if they wish. While of course also using chests etc. I'm not sure what i think of the idea yet, though.

 

[watermark]

I think it would be interesting if shops implemented fashion trends like in reality.

"Chains are all the rage now! So they're double price. We've got a huge variety! Want something lighter? We've got mithril. And this new design here will accentuate your figure (charm+1). Nobody likes leather anymore so you can find them all in the bargain bin over there on sale. But we've only got Ogre size left. What? You want fire element buffed equipment? That's so last season! If I may recommend the new..."

 

[lianderson]

As someone with over a thousand purchasable items in their game, you can never have too many stores. (just don't make too many of them sell the exact same stuff)

As for prices, this is a balancing question. For that you simply establish a standard, and then base everything off of that standard.

For equipment prices, I follow the guideline of, if it's twice as good as something, then it should cost five times as much. But that's not written in stone, nor is it worth following for every game and every item. It's just a mental note I use when coming up with costs.

 

[Kupotepo]

Thank you for your innovative ideas: @Onism, @watermark, @lianderson

You may also want to think about travelling merchants- Will you have people who have things to sell dotted over areas that aren't town and villages?

I am kind of thinking for a traveling merchant sells super rare items. That was you are thinking about.

In one of my current project experiments, I'm looking into not having any shop type buildings, and instead implementing a system where every NPC has some items that the player can buy if they wish. While of course also using chests etc. I'm not sure what I think of the idea yet, though.

Sound like a great idea like an open-air market.

@lianderson, what software do you used to track your items ( Access, Excel, or Google Product)?