It would be very nice have a command that allows the players to compare items in a shop (weapons and armor specifically) before buying them. We can do a "compare " on weapons and armor in our inventory so why shouldn't we be able to look at an item from a shop and see if it would be worth our gold to buy it.
Some muds already have a system like this in place using commands separate from the "compare" command.

Interesting idea, but here are a few things to consider:

1) What will be the basis for comparison?
2) Will you allow comparing an item in a shop to what you have, or two items in a shop? Or both?

Now, the other things are how would the MUD define the value of an item? For instance, comparing an item that's supieror to another is one thing. But it's not a great deal if the better item's price tag is outrageous.

My only concern was comparing one thing in a shop to one of your equipped items just like the regular "compare" command. If you would want it extended to where 2 items from the shop could be compared then that is another thing altogether and probably a little harder to code/implement.
The problem I wanted to address was the fact that we currently have to buy a piece of equipment from a shop before we find out if it is better or worse than what we currently.
As for prices of objects, those should be based on some sort of formula that takes into account such things as base damage or AC, magic effects, item condition, rarity of the item, and if the item was produced locally or shipped in. The price is what it is and if you can't pay it then you will have to either raise the gold or find the item on a mob or in a room somewhere. Of course some shop owners might not think that raising a price by 50% or so is highway robbery.
But, as I stated earlier, the main problem I was addressing with this suggestion is the comparison of superiority of items without being forced to buy them first.

I could see an alternate solution here:

A way to 'try on' an item. You 'try ' and the item is 'given' to you. Do what you will, but once you leave the room it's 'gone'. In reality the item can have a flag on it, which is checked for upon calling the char_to_room or equiv function. The item could then be unequip'd and destroyed.

The only time this wouldn't work is in the case of items not flagged 'inventory' on a merchant. Those items are in limited quantity.

-- Xorith

Yes, I like the idea of being able to "try on" a piece of equipment before buying. Stores in real life allow it, why not here? Just need to make sure the person trying something on is not able to run off with the goods in question.

Putting a check in char_from_room or char_to_room isn't something you want to do lightly though. You'd want to make sure that this check is only performed in certain conditions otherwise it becomes an extra burdern on the code. So this might require a room flag to trigger checking this, say, ROOM_SHOP, which wouldn't be a bad plan anyway, and probably an extra item flag, say, ITEM_TRYON so that only items which have been handled this way will be affected. Then if someone tries to leave a room while wearing such an item, it gets checked, and they can't leave unless they return the goods. This of course also opens up some interesting possibilities for rogues and their theft skills.....

Gods, Samson! We should work on a codebase together...

Oh wait...

If you're going to talk about extra item flags then maybe you could also implement a ITEM_STOLEN flag that has a chance of being set dependant upon the rogue's thieving skill. The flag would trigger certain police-type mobs to attack the player if they are in the possession of an item with the ITEM_STOLEN flag.
Turn up the heat a little for those rogue characters.

Oh boy. Don't get me started on a justice system...

My idea is to go away from flatfiles for certain data types that don't have to be modified. THat way you can create a sort of database to store details such as crimes committed.

In a sense, the GAME knows you were bad, but unless someone, PC or NPC, witnessed and brings it to a 'police' type NPC (or even a PC with that sort of job), the game doesn't do anything to you and it eventually 'expires'. Now, going further... imagine what you could store?

-- X

That is exactly what I was talking about using the ITEM_STOLEN flag. Your thieving skills would determine if the flag got set or not. If the flag gets set then the shop owner or any other PC in the store with you saw you take the item and we assume that they immediately yell for a local authority.
I like your idea of the crime eventually expiring. That has the added bonus of clearing up older crimes so that the system isn't bogged down keeping track of hundreds of crimes committed over the course of time.
As for databases instead of flatfiles... doens't it take more system resources and time to process/read through databases than flatfiles? I honestly don't know but that is what I always thought. I guess with the proper indexing of the records...
More work for Samson! WOOHOO!

Well, it's more like this..

I have a general understanding of byte read/writes. Flatfiles take resource to read in the text, and process it into something the program can use. Instead, if you keep track of the locations in memory of your data and dump it to a file, you can simply read it back in, byte for byte, which takes less resources.

Internally, it'll look the same once the file has been read.

Database wasn't the right word to use I think.

Another thought about crime:
With a big game, you might have many different cities, towns, villages, and so on. I highly doubt every place in your game world will have the same laws or punishments, or even ways to judge criminals or handle them. It would be interesting to see a system like this implemented with diversity.

-- X

This is something that I have thought about off and on. I think that in order to implement a justice system that is diverse across areas (be they cities, towns, cantrevs, tribal camps, whatever) there will have to be additional information stored in the area files that tells the area and its mobs, how they are expected to behave, in a general sense, of course.
I have thought about using something like the AD&D system of setting up such a system where we would have a var set with 9 members being CHOAS_EVIL, CHAOS_GOOD, CHAOS_NEUTRAL, LAW_EVIL, LAW_GOOD, LAW_NEUTRAL, NEUTRAL, NEUTRAL_EVIL, NEUTRAL_GOOD.
The LAW - NEUTRAL - CHAOS line determines how crime is seen from a general moral standpoint by the general populace of the area. In a Lawful area crime is not looked kindly upon at all and prosecution is pretty much a guarantee. In a Chaotic area crime is a way of life and people do what they think they have to in order to survive. Neutral areas lie somewhere in the middle.
The GOOD - NEUTRAL - EVIL line determines the degree of punishment (if any). I can see Good areas as having proper punishments that fit the crime and quick deaths if such is warranted. At the Evil end you could run the gamut from public humiliation in the worst ways possible to slow, lingering deaths to please the local ruler. The punishments at the Evil end would not necessarily fit the crime and could be based on a random percentage that reflects the whim of the judge/jury/executioner. Again, the Neutral areas would fall somewhere in between with maybe a percentage chance of leaning either way or maybe even a different set of punishments altogether that allows them to "preserve the balance".
Such a system as this would be a drastic change for any codebase that doesn't have a justice system. My thoughts don't give each area a unique system but at least each area isn't controlled by the same rules as all of the others when it comes to crime and punishment.

Now, this can be taken a step further with bounties for PCs in certain areas while others treat them with distain or indifference. Imagine, walking into a town that has wanted posters up for the arrest of a PC that bears their description. By forcing players to create a description of themselves this could be coded fairly easily to have items display the description of the "most wanted" PC on the mud at the time by looking into the pfiles and comparing their alignments.

Insane idea...

Behavior matrix.

Take where you were going, but lets make it a table:

Good Neutral Evil
Law

Passive

Chaotic

Each field would be a char field, so we're only using -127 to 128 (or whatever the range is)

This allows for things to be a bit more dynamic. Lets say an NPC witnessed a mob commit theft.

If they had more row points in Passive, they won't say anything. However, lets take good - neutral - evil into consideration Good/Passive, the mob might make a small attempt. It would have 'morals' in a sense. Neutral/Passive, the mob probably wouldn't care. Evil/Passive, the mob might do something on the evil side.

This idea could grow possibly, but the idea is to give the game enough data to really make things dynamic.

Of course, I wouldn't want to be the poor sod trying to make it work right, and make all the dynamic text.

Two separate and very intereseting ideas here.

With the first, since the code is already present to do a compare of two items (initiated by a player), it would seem to be fairly straight-forward to compare each item for sale against the item (in the same wear slot) being worn by the player. Then simply have an indicator such as >, <, or - if its better, worse or the same.

As for the thieving, the behavior is much better and more realistic. But why limit it to thieves? Any person could walk out of a store with equipment. The guards should chase you.

Of course, that leads to a potential problem.... what happens if the player is stronger than every NPC in the town? He or she could walk in, steal every piece of equipment, slaughter the entire population, and then leave. Suppose that might not be such a bad thing for an evil character to do... Just have to make sure alignment is adjusted properly.

- Gwareth

I didn't mean to limit the justice system to thieves although I did sort of point them out as my prime example.
The biggest problem with having this kind of a system is the implementation. Now we are talking about a system where every player character has a whole set of skills that need to be tracked. Let's face it, if everyone can steal then soon everyone will want to be able to attempt assassinations, make weapons and armor, craft other items, hunt food, etc. That is a whole different type of mud. In fact we are now talking about Diskworld Mud which has this exact implementation.
As for the player being stronger than every NPC in the game; the NPC's will have to be upgraded. I am sure that there could be semi-retired adventures that take up the duties of keeping peace in towns and laww enforcement would likely keep some magic-user types on staff to deal with other magic-user types who cause trouble. If the player still rampages a town then maybe there is some sort of bounty that gets placed on their head for *anybody* to collect.
So many ideas and not enough time to even get them on paper (or disk as the case may be)!