Hello folks,

Today I bring you a pretty big back end change to how shops work. A big goal of these changes is to target newer (or forgetful) players and make it a little more easy to find the wares they want and purchase them. It also includes some back end shopkeeping changes, so if you're a shopkeeper make sure to read on.


Browsing
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First of all, the WARES search command has been changed. Instead of running a pattern search on item descriptions, it now works based upon the aliases you might use to manipulate an item. So for example WARES SWORD will drag up any item considered a sword, even if the description does not possess the word sword. If you preferred the old method of searching shops, you can still do so using WARES SEARCH <pattern> if that is what you need.

Along with this is a bunch of unique keywords added that'll grab an assortment of grouped items, here's the list below:
WARES CACHE [keyword] - Search the shop cache + keyword.
WARES ITEMS [keyword] - Search for items only + keyword.
WARES DESIGNS [keyword] - Search for designs only + keyword.
WARES EMPTY - Search for empty containers.
WARES CLEAN - Search for clean rags or bandanges.
WARES EMPTYVIAL - Search for empty vials.
WARES CLEANBANDAGE - Search for clean bandages.
WARES CLEANRAG - Search for clean rags.
WARES REFILL - Search for refills.
WARES <fluid type> - Search for a fluid type like elixir or alcohol.
WARES <fluid> - Search for a specific fluid.
WARES RECHARGE - Search for enchantment racks.
WARES ENCHANT[MENT] - Search for enchanted items.
WARES <enchantment> - Search for a specific enchantment upon an item.
WARES MINIPET - Search for minipets.
WARES WEAPON - Search for usable weapons.
WARES PROTECTION - Search for armour and shields.
WARES DYEABLE - Search for dyeable designs.

The other thing to know with the WARES command is that it will now wrap item descriptions rather then cutting them off, allowing you see what an item is in full before purchase. If that's not enough, then you can make use of the CONFIG WIDESCREEN option to receive a widened display.

There's also an assortment of DIRECTORY changes to go along with this. Along with all the above search functions, you'll notice that the shop vnum when searching is now colour coded. These colours match the same colours within WARES to help you differentiate between cached items, actual items, and designs at a glance. Please note that pattern searching no longer works with the DIRECTORY command as string searching across large quantities of items can be costly upon server overhead.

Buying
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Buying has been heavily streamlined by shifting all verbs required to make a purchase under the BUY verb. You no longer need to remember REFILL or ENCHANT to make a purchase, all you need to do is type BUY while standing in a shop to see a syntax listing. If that's not enough, if you have MXP enabled simply click on the item number and you'll either make the purchase or be reminded of how to do so.

List of syntaxes to make a purchase:
BUY [#] <item>
BUY [#] <item> FROM <denizen>
BUY [#] DESIGN<#>
BUY REFILL OF <fluid>
BUY REFILL OF <fluid> IN <item>
BUY REFILL OF <fluid> FOR FLUIDCACHE
BUY RECHARGE OF <enchantment>
BUY RECHARGE OF <enchantment> FOR <item>

Please note that in order to buy a design now, you must specify DESIGN<#> as your item (for example, BUY DESIGN1234). This is to avoid purchasing a design that could otherwise be an item in the shop with a matching ID.

Shopkeeping
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Shopkeeping has gone through some pretty big changes. The main one is that most of the basic shopkeeping commands are now streamlined under the SHOP verb. If you forget what command you are after, you can type SHOP inside a stockroom to see a list of commands available to you.

SHOP PRICE:
The days of having to deal with SINGLE or ALL when pricing up an item are now gone. Items are now grouped together based upon if they will have a different display description within WARES. If they share pricing, description, shelfing etc then you will automatically price them all together. If you have a bunch of items that would be grouped together, but you want to specifically price/shelf them differently, then you need to price them using the ID number.

You can also now price items for free if you like, simply price them for 0 gold.

SHOP SHELF:
You can now choose the alignment of your shelving title. You can pick from left, center, and right.

SHOP POLICY:
Policies have gone through the most drastic change. You can now add mulitple people and organizations to a policy, and then you can attach multiple policies to your shelves. Each discount (or premium) applied is additive, that means if two policies provide a 40% discount and the customer is covered by both, then they will receive an 80% discount, so keep this in mind. Discounts will not lower a price below 1 gold sovereign.

** IMPORTANT ** If you had any kind of policy previously, your shop will be closed from purchases until you enter your stockroom and type SHOP by itself. This is because we had to remove all previous policies so the new system could take its place. You will need to setup new policies going forward.

SHOP SORT:
This is a new command that'll let you sort your goods by either price, quantity, or type. Please note that casks, kegs, and racks are intentionally listed last on a shelf, so they will not be sorted, and it will only affect items.

Designs
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There are a lot of designs in some shops due to an oversight where designs weren't being added to the stockroom maximum for items. Rather then attach them to this limit, I've simply imposed a 30 design limit per shelf. If you are over this limit, then your designs won't show on WARES and you will need to trim back.


This about sums up the changes to shopkeeping. If you encounter any bugs, please let me know asap through either a message or you can BUG it. I'll be keeping an eye on things over the coming week.

Enjoy!

Penned by my hand on Tisday, the 3rd of Lleian, in the year 466 MA.