let's talk (starter) shop

[Lotion]

There is a great deal of inconsistency in the starter shops on many levels and they could be better. The purpose of this thread is to inspire people to talk about the starter shops.

Layout/Navigation:
* Luir's, Allanak, and Rinth all have "point x" and then "enter arch" with a chance to go back
* Red Storm has you navigate through directional exits to reach the different shops and then "enter arch" with a chance to go back
* Morin's Village has two rooms and going "west" from one of them just puts you in the Gibbet with no chance to go back.

Variety of items (more opinion-y):
* Morin's Village has multiple duplicate items in its shops and also lacks most weapon types. Last time I made a character there I remember only being able to find a spear and no shields. Then I went around Morin's Village and couldn't find a single shield for sale. Couldn't fight north style without a ride to Luir's.
* Luir's has a lot of cool and also useful items. Dice, Kruth Deck, cheap bandages. There's also a good variety and clothes and it has weapons and shields.
* Rinth has all of the weapon types and my favorite shield in the game (<3 that chair cushion). It has the gang patches as well which have a unique problem. More on that later.
* Red Storm has a lot of expensive items that players really seem to like using in addition to useful tools such as the sifter. My only real gripe with it is the directional exits are used instead of "point x" which I think is simply better.
* Allanak has a bunch of useful tools and some good container clothes and is overall a solid shop but to me is nothing special.

Wow this post is all rambly...

Something else about the starter shops is that many of the items in them are unique and cannot be found elsewhere in the game which oocly "marks" a character as new. This can be good or bad but getting back to those cool rinth gang patches... if you buy some rinth gang patches eventually you will run out because they are a finite resource and you can't craft more of them. Would be cool if you could do something like [monospace]craft patch scrap.cloth scrap.leather into more patches[/monospace] and then not have to worry about not buying enough gang patches in the starter shop.

tl;dr
I think the exit from every starter shop into zalanthas should be "enter arch" with a chance to go back to the shops.
I think every starter shop should sell at least one of every type of weapon (stab, chop, pierce, slash, bludgeon) and more variety would be better.
I think every starter shop should have the "point x" layout that the Rinth and Luir's ones have.

[TheBardicCircle]

To be fair, a lot of people kind of avoid the starter shops and save their starter coin for the fuller shops in game. I don't think it's a necessity for the shops to be full, even. They are cheaper... I guess. But cheap coin gets you cheap gear.

But, I'm also a shopaholic and love seeing a variety so I'm for it, just so I can look at everything.

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

I support the standardization of the shops in terms of how you proceed through them.

There could be some tweaking of the inventory therein, of course, but at least in Allanak, you get a pretty decent variety of stuff to putter over. I tend to buy some things in the shop, and some in game.

[Veselka]

I think they were all developed at different time by different people, which is likely why they aren't consistent in either inventory or exit/finality of exit. I think when the Tuluk starter shop was made, Tuluk was still open, and Tuluk had hella shops and things to get for all types. Morin's is much more sparse, which makes the starting equipment perhaps more essential to out-the-gates survival. I think the most recent ones added are Red Storm and the Labyrinth, which may be why they are more fleshed out than Tuluk/Luirs. *shrug*

I'd love more variety, or even rotating variety, but it's honestly OK as it is now. As with many things in Arm, a good thing can possibly be made great, but the list is long, and it would take a Staff member who's interested in volunteering the time to tackle it.

[creeper386]

I think my biggest complaint is the uniqueness of what tends to be in the starter shops. If they aren't available or going to be used, it can really mark out a new player. I don't think you should have to run around once your in the game to get outfitted to not immediately look like your character is fresh from the aether. They are a good start, way better then everyone entering with the same exact clothes, but would be nice to flesh them out a little.

I'd love to see a good variety, and yeah rotation would be really cool. It'd be nice if there were tags for clothing and items to indicate location for the starter area to pull from.

I agree that there should be consistency in the starting areas in terms of navigation. I'm kind of glad this post brought it up as if I started else where i might have gotten confused otherwise(I'll still probably forget and do something dumb though.)

[Barsook]

Agreed on rotations and consistency for navigation.

[gotdamnmiracle]

The above is a cool idea, but there simply aren't enough Rinth-safe armors
and weapons in the game for that. The stuff you buy in the starter shops will likely be your bread-and-butter in the alleys, short of a small list of some specific things you can get that are pretty arbitrary, or alternatively gith gear. If you don't stock up at the beginner shop immediately you'd better hope you find a deader who has the stuff you didn't buy!

The item shop for the rinth is probably going to be the majority of the things you wear in the alley if you're trying to be fully armed and armored and not constantly harassed by muggers. So either, there should be a way to "rent" protection from certain groups but then you have the opposite problem of guys running around in full horror plate in the alleys before long.

I sincerely wish there would be a call for low quality and rinth style armor, weapons, and general items, along with the addition of two or three shops north of Hathors that sell armor and weapons that won't get you stabbed in the rinth.

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

One way to supply numerous looks without adding too many new items would be by using the dye code and the condition flags on items. Using the same jerkin, you could end up with a tattered version, a red version, a blue version, a soup stained version, excetera. You could thus populate the shop with a lot of varied items, without having to add actual new items.

[creeper386]

Or even a way to apply those effects in the starter area?

[Brokkr]

What, specifically, is missing in Morins between the starter shops and the shops in the village?

[Lotion]

What, specifically, is missing in Morins between the starter shops and the shops in the village?

If I were allowed to jump between the starter shops and take them in with all the detail that a player making a fresh toon could then I could give a very good answer to this question and am absolutely willing to do so if it can be made easy.

Just off the top of my head:
* bad weapon variety (very few weapon choices, not all four "main" categories are represented and no shields)
* uninteresting clothing choices (few or no cloaks, there were duplicate items in shops, there were items in shops that the player starts out wearing)
* multiple merchant npcs per room (every other starter shop has at most one merchant npc in ech room)