ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

Don't you hate it when you come out of the dungeon and the *thanc that you were using just gained the earthquake flag? Well, you have two options, but the vast majority only think of one. 1) Stick it in your home or the Mathom house, or 2) Sell it.

Now, the last option doesn't occur to most of us for one simple reason: No matter how good it is, you will only get a maximum of 30,000 for it. Always. Hands-down, it always happens.

This is what I propose: Some sort of shop where you are able to sell artifacts for a decent price. Yes, this means that you will be able to get far more than 30,000 au for it. Call it the 'Artifact Shop' or something easy like that. But, as with all really good things in ToME, there are a few things that are required for a shop such as this:

1) There can be only one, and it's in Kazad-Dum, or some other equally hard-to-get-to town.

2) There has to be some sort of an insane quest that you have to embark on before you can use the shop, something having to do with building trust with the shop owner.

3) Once you are actually able to use the shop, you (obviously) don't get the exact price of what it's worth. It would work kind of like the Midas Touch, but you get a little less au out of it.

Any ideas?

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And it was such a good idea...

You shouldn't be able to sell legendary artifacts.

"Holy - I... I cannot accept. That sword is the sword of Fingolfin - it belongs in a museum, not a shop!"

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WWBD - What Would Bozo Do?

I agree in theory, Xandor: it'd be nice to get more AU from artifacts. But at the same time I'm not wild about such an addition to the game. By the time you can get into Khazad-Dum (and I've not gotten there yet!), you should have oodles of AU already, and selling an artifact, even if you got 200,000 AU for it, should be only a drop in the pot. And that's a lot of coding and questing for just a drop in the pot.

OTOH, in the same vein as some people have suggested for adding color to the game, how about a JUNKART (and/or RandArt) shop.... with these aspects:

1) No selling anything, or if you do, cap at up to 30,000 AU like every other shop.

2) Nothing you sell can be rebought. Stock rotates, also. (So it won't fill up like the Mathom House and you can't use it as one.)

3) For sale: junkarts and/or randarts. At Expensive Black Market prices. The hitch: *NO DESCRIPTIONS OF THEIR POWERS*. You take a wild chance on buying something that will activate for something nasty, just plain dumb, or nifty. You can *ID* them after purchase, of course.

The reasons I like this idea are:
- Tempts all you folks with zillions of AU to blow your wad on emptying the store inventory to refill it,
- It seems "in theme"... your typical back alley place where you take your chances on the quality of whatever it is you buy.

Or, you could maybe make this a wandering salesperson who roams around the game with a pack animal and if you run into him/her/it, it offers you a chance at the wares....

Hmm, looking at it now, I think I agree with you.

Maybe this would be a good idea, but couldn't there be a partial identify done on the rand/junkarts in question?

But I do think that a Black Market where you can buy and sell rand/junkarts is a good idea.

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And it was such a good idea...

Make this the wandering merchant. Whenever you enter a level, there's a 1% chance that you encounter a travelling merchant. The merchant can sell randarts and junkarts. The price is usually an indicator of quality, but not always -- sometimes they will price down a good item because they don't understand it, or price up a lousy one to rip you off!

For color, the merchant should have a description that fits the level. In the Barrow-downs, s/he might be a kobold or a yeek; in Mirkwood, an Avari; in Angband, a half-demon.

Some kind of partial identification would be necessary... Maybe like this? a) it's a weapon, and it's a sword or a polearm (ahem, I'm not going there! ) or whatever, b) it's armor, gloves, or helm, etc, c) a wand, d) a Red Book (e.g. a junkart), or whatever....

Re: the wandering salesman, I was thinking of a fantastic (imho) and very, very twisted series of games called Exile. (reference: http://www.spiderwebsoftware.com, and no, I don't work for them. Just look out for the cute spiders and the slappy monks, is all I have to say!) Among many other things, at least one those games does have a travelling salesman (I forget his name) who pops up from time to time, and for that matter there are caravan routes as well. The routes work somewhat like a quest, where you have to deliver a cargo, intact, within a certain time limit...and sometimes you don't know where the destination is located yet!

That game does have a certain amount of randomness but is underlain with fixed quests, as well, though you play a group of characters rather than just the one.

Before someone jumps on me, I certainly don't want ToME or any other Roguelike to become an echo of Exile, but there are some good features in that game that would make perfect sense in a Tolkien-themed world, once properly adapted.

Anyway.... FWIW.

So, if I'm reading you right, you're talking about the level of knowledge one would have of an item on the floor of a level. ie, a longsword (4d6).

I'm just feeling my way along, here, but that sounds about right. If you start putting in (-30, -41) or (E:0, L:1) then it's a dead giveaway....(mostly).

Another thing the merchants I'm thinking of had was basic stuff like food rations and the equivalents of lamp oil and CCWs. They were often far more valuable, in terms of immediate need, than the fancy items!

The merchants showed up most often on roads (so if those ever get implemented, here's something for them!) but also almost anywhere else, less often. (That game didn't have dungeons, persay, just a huge, huge, huge map and localized towns/etc. I'm not sure how likely a typical merchant would be down in Angband, but as Fubar said, something appropriate might work: "An Old Mage (or whatever!) beckons to you out of the darkness....")

While reading all this I got an other new idea what to do with artifacts:
I liked the idea from old ToME where you was able to sacrifice items to you deity. Instead of gold we get something else that helps our hero. We have enough gold later in the game anyway. Maybe not piety because then we got too much of it like in old ToME. But how about some temporary effect that depends on the stuff we sacrifice and our god. Like 5000 turns of fire-resistanc, bless or special ability things like that.

Any thoughts on this?

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One game to rule them all, one game to find them
One game to bring them all and at the keyboard bind them

gold is easy enough to come by as it is.

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My te4.org characters

I fully believe in this. I always feel a little guilt, even when selling a more useless artifact that only goes for 8000au. Like playing a sorcerer, most weapons are useless to you, so sell 'em...{guilt}

The Mathom House only holds 24 items though. Should there be other museums in other towns? Is this a way, maybe, to use those useless 'colorful' merchant guilds (then we can stop people's questions as to what they are)? And have pseudo-quests where you can return items to the appropriate place of origin...and get some reward?

With my current character, I already had 2,500,000au by the time I reached Khazad-Dum. Money shortage is definately not an issue. I would like to able to donate Artifacts...giving me more Brownie points...err, points in general.

The system of a blind purchase of an item for different amounts of money sounds very similar to an idea proposed (module? Already used?) in Angband. This was proposed for useage of 'excess' money. You get to select from a number of a items with a % chance you'll get a *good* item, with the % chance going up with level.

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"If looks could *kill*, I would stare *forever*..."

If you liked Exile, then you'll love Avernum (basically exile, but with a new character generation system and in 3D). And I loved those monks and their fiesty slaps of pain!!!

No, I don't work for them either, but it's still a really cool game.

In LotR, there was the 'Road' which went on and on, yadda yadda blah blah. There must have been merchants on the Road selling their wares and such. I think that Merchants in the dungeons should also be about as common as the Dungeon Markets, which isn't very common.

I will also agree that there are some obscure elements of Exile and Avernum that can be realistically implemented in ToME. For instance, there is a man in a town that desperately needs to give or get supplies from another town, but the caravans that are being sent keep on getting ambushed. Your job is to either toast the guys that ambush the caravans, or get the supplies yourself, and then you get ambushed by a bunch of levelled bandits and such.

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And it was such a good idea...

Didn't see that proposed idea, sorry. I'm not sure I like it (no offense to the presenter of the idea) since it benefits leveled characters, whereas I can see it being potentionally the most *good* (or perhaps the most painful ) for a lower level char that's managed to scrape together his or her first 200,000 AU..... (says me, who blew something like that on a @#$!@!#%#@!% Portable Hole in a black market!!!)

Xandor, I got your message but I'm having trouble *sending* email right now. I'll try to get another account active, but in the meantime: Not yet. Yes, 3.

I agree! Where are the major roads?


Hey!! I'm working on some quests like that right now!!

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Expect more than others think possible; dream more than others think practical; risk more than others think safe.

Sweet!

So, you're putting these quests into modules, right? Are these modules (or any of the other ones, for that matter) work with Mac Classic?

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And it was such a good idea...