Accessible props on a timer

[Illysia]

What if there were some NPCs outside of the winch who sold items (like the tents,table, and other general furniture that are used for areas like camp banished or the tents and wagons for some npc merchants) that were on a timer. I.E. if left out they would disappear after x amount of time. This would be separate from the furniture sold in the winch which would remain timerless.

This would allow people to set up clearly defined "areas" without being limited to having a guild house, being in Kada's, etc.... or having to make apple borders for their area. And to prevent clutter, the items would disappear if left out too long. So you might be able to arrange a stall like set up with a tent, a table, and your goods. Or maybe make a stage in the wilderness or in the secret garden out of low tables.

Basically the point is to find a way to give the feel of being in a room wherever without having to completely RP it. (it helps keep everybody on the same page if it is not completely RPed) It would also be nice for say those empty buildings in Ojaveda were you could set up a food counter or bistro, or a puppet theater for the little inhabitants of Yliakum or whatever.

I imagine there is a reason it hasn't already been done but if lag is the issue, maybe those items could be made to only be droppable in the wilderness maps and would thus force people to use them out there. It would be funny to have little temporary towns since there aren't any official towns outside of the main cities right now. Maybe you could have a little "town" next to the plat mines that buys up platinum from the miners and employs smelters, then the money from the platinum could go to the manufacture of other things.

[Caarrie]

And to prevent clutter, the items would disappear if left out too long.

http://www.hydlaaplaza.com/flyspray/index.php?do=details&task_id=2249

[Akkaido Kivikar]

Reading that flyspray article saddened me.

I like the fact that items don't disappear automatically. It means we can make campsites out of Ulbie skins and so on.

On a negative note, I understand why it's implemented (or meant to be). Too many times have I seen a string of apples through the plaza leading to a stall, Slags left around the furnace, and other 'litter' such as books left as advertising.

What should instead be done is a 'who dropped this' tag added to the item in it's examine window so either players or GMs can inform the dropper that littering is not acceptable. NPCs buy Slag already for 0 Tria, so you can dispose of it there, apples shouldn't be put across the plaza anyway, when a simple Auction message suffices, and books, well, if placed as well as the Klyros Junction Party invitations, they aren't a problem.... but take them down when the event advertised is done.

I like the idea of buyable stalls, wagons etc, but...

1) There are plenty in Ojaveda. If people used them that'd be just as fun as popping yourself a new stall in Hydlaa (imagine if someone organised Saturday morning markets in Ojaveda) But overall I like the idea, so long as the owner cannot leave the stall without packing it up (so dropping the stall effectively turns your character into an NPC shopkeeper, but you manually speak and trade (Don't add code in the future so people can completely turn their char into an NPC shopkeeper... not good for RP))

2) Tents... easy answer... WHO NEEDS A TENT WHEN IT NEVER RAINS??

3) Wagons. Are they of any use? I support them if they're useable, but not if its just so players can dump them anywhere they please.

4) 'little towns' well yes and no. Does this mean you want a portable furnace? (Hey, that's a cool idea!) I think the fact Miners have to move to sell their stuff is a good thing, but at the same time, a mini-economy of merchants could be formed who buy Plat for 800ish Tria and sell it on to smelters for 1000Tria. this would make a little RP economy, and start opening peoples minds to more than just the Miner-smelter-NPC Platinum train we have going on... it would make people start thinking of other areas that can be merchanted at a little sacrifice to the greedy manufacturer class...

[Caarrie]

On a negative note, I understand why it's implemented (or meant to be). Too many times have I seen a string of apples through the plaza leading to a stall, Slags left around the furnace, and other 'litter' such as books left as advertising.

this is a BUG it will be fixed, there is nothing sad about it, it went forgotten for years and no one noticed it was broken, now it is being fixed and we hope will be fixed very soon so that there are no issues, but it takes a lot of time for major bugs like this to be fixed in the correct way. The person that is working on this is very busy atm as well most of the team so the fixes on this will have to wait a bit longer. I dont see a reason to apply a work-around to add an OOC tag of who dropped each item, that would have to then be coded to remove that tag on pickup of all items, which would take a lot of work.

[Bamko]

without going into too much depth about the code aspect of this....

If  you want to prevent people from littering, put a deposit on items.  we do that here in Michigan with soda bottles and cans.

so, make the apples a bit rarer, (maybe 2-4 most of the time?) and have pple be able to sell them for I dunno, 2 tria?  Still worthwhile to pick herbs, but if someone drops 300 apples, some newb would be willing to pick them up for them.  Bigger items, left unattended without them being chained down (yeah, no idea how to implement that, how about for now, just have that means "placed by devteam") then someone can come along and pick them up and sell them. 

Slag? well, IRL they are used to make roads and such.  2 tria each again?

Oh noes, people are leaving too many ulber furs?  wait until they wander away and are no longer guarding them... they never seem to stay there too long... 

and if some group keeps causing lag due to excessive dropping of items (one thing to make a carpet of furs in the wilderness, another doing it in town...) then that can be treated like any other OOC griefing issue.

[enderandrew]

As far as I understand, the only way to dispose of unwanted items to leave it in the furnace (not necessarily handy, nor does it make great RP sense) or to sell it to an NPC who will buy it (also not very handy).

Should trash cans be implemented, with similar code to a furnace that will destroy the items in the can after a while?

[Caarrie]

there has been a lot discussion about trash cans and they will not be ingame, due to the fact that people have enough issues with loosing quest items we dont need a trash can they can put them and that would be yet another way.
a few threads that talk about trash cans:
http://www.hydlaaplaza.com/smf/index.php?topic=24956.msg276047;topicseen#msg276047
http://www.hydlaaplaza.com/smf/index.php?topic=23319.msg255683;topicseen#msg255683
http://www.hydlaaplaza.com/smf/index.php?topic=20743.msg227659;topicseen#msg227659
http://www.hydlaaplaza.com/smf/index.php?topic=7728.msg125159;topicseen#msg125159

[Lanarel]

The bug(s) Caarrie mentioned will be fixed some time, after it is decided how things should work. Gms would be helped by not having to pickup everything left behind (and slowing down the game). And players should be able to put things on the ground safely. Waste bins are one solution (but have to fit settings and people might put in items they later need). Making them go away automatically may make items disappear that are not meant to. The transient flag that is bugged would allow for some to disappear and others not. But this will only work if also a lot of time is spend setting this flag on items. Until all those issues are discussed among devs (and other teams) and solved, items will not be made to disappear automatically. Even if the bug can be solved soon, I do not see items disappearing in the very near future.

About apples: I thought there was someone buying them, but maybe you do not get money?

[enderandrew]

One possible solution is to place a flag on quest items specifically, and code the wastebin to check for this place and warn the player specifically when they throw away a quest item, or not allow them to put a quest item in a wastebin at all.  Or, since Planeshift seems to favor UK English (at least in spelling that I've noticed) it might be called a rubbish bin.

[Illysia]

About apples: I thought there was someone buying them, but maybe you do not get money?

You can sell apples to any NPC that sells food but I don't think you can get 1 tria for each apple anymore.

[Akkaido Kivikar]

If you want to get rid of an apple, eat it.

DUH.

And Caarrie, I am saddened, that it was because of a bug, and not an actual intended coding for objects to stay *forever*.

I've made a few campsites in far off places where no one goes in my time, and appreciated it a few hours later when I come back and my Ulbie furs and stuff is there.

[Mordraugion]

2) Tents... easy answer... WHO NEEDS A TENT WHEN IT NEVER RAINS??

Rain? who said it never rains? Rain, Snow, Fog are all possible and all have happened in game, maybe not in the month you've been playing but unfortunately it requires a dev to trigger it at the moment.