View source for Post:POC's on 05/31/2013 15:26

{{Post
|a=DR-ZADRAES
|t=Re: POC's
|d=05/31/2013 03:26 PM CDT
|n=721
|f=The Traders \ Caravans and Beasts Of Burden
|c=m
|p={{wikify}}
''>We're still going to be able to customize our caravans though, right?''

When the new bit is finished, yes. Mechs have cleared QC (MANY thanks to [[Abasha]] for the last-minute covering), and the shop is almost ready. {{PRel|Primp My Ride (2)|Primp My Ride}} won't be open initially when the fest opens. The goal is to have it released by the end of the fest, though.

TLDR For What's Below:<br />
24/7 POC shops are coming. Instead of buying fully furnished interior rooms at a fest, you can ask any trader minister about INTERIOR to buy one for 750 platinum local currency. You can ASK MINISTER ABOUT FURNITURE for a list of what you have (maybe tied into RECALL CARAVAN in the future). Primp My Ride and similar shops will stop selling interiors, for now, because they're complicated on the staff side. POCs will be more like homes in that you can buy individual pieces of furniture, you can TAP furniture to hide or unhide it, and you can ask a trader minister about REMOVAL to take something out of the inside and put it in a slip that can be traded/swapped/sold/whatever. POCs are limited to 10 furniture items (1 door, 2 large, 3 medium, 4 small pieces). Existing POCs need to be converted to new system; a guild representative will be available during fest to do this. No changes to existing level restrictions. This is primarily focused on the interior customizations, for now. More to come.


In a nutshell, we've reinvented the wheel, but made improvements. The new shop system will be easier for staff to work with, which means more shops and more options in the long run. It also opens the door for 24/7 POC shops. The old mechanics resulted in a LOT of unused interiors. Each fest, we'd release new designs. Any that didn't sell were left, potentially to be re-released at the next fest though not always. As an example from Prime:

70 claimed rooms.
103 unclaimed rooms.

When the new bits are released, you'll be able to purchase your FIRST interior room at level 50 (same as now) from almost any trade minister at the trading outposts for 750 platinum of the local currency -- you won't need to wait on a fest to get your POC interior. However, it's going to pull (in order) from those unclaimed rooms. This means that some folks will get those rooms cheaper than they were offered at fests. There's a drawback, though, and I'll get to that in a bit.

The new shops are based on the home shop system. They are primarily designed for buying furniture for your interior. Primp My Ride's mechanics for choosing exterior customizations will stay in play, just not its handling of interiors. Each interior is limited to one door, two large items, three medium items and four small items: a total of 10 furniture items. The 'size' is ultimately up to the GM making the shop and how they envision the item. In general, a bed or a dining table would be a large item, a floor rug or chairs would be medium, and portraits or flower vases would be small. There's room for overlap, and the shop will tell you what they are before you buy.

The drawback I mentioned before is that ALL existing POC interiors will not recognize the existing furniture. There's no easy way to auto-convert anything besides the doors (which will happen). A merchant will be available at points throughout the fest to update for those available. He will NOT provide alterations -- only document the furniture you have with the guild so they're aware of the sizes and types. You'll be able to ask the trade ministers about FURNITURE to get a list of what they recognize. Unconverted/unrecognized furniture DOES count against your 10-item limit, they just lack proper size info until converted.

Some other home features will be available at release as well: You'll be able to ASK MINISTER ABOUT REMOVAL to have a piece of furniture in your caravan removed and turned into a furniture slip. This will let you reorganize and redecorate as you like. You can sell/trade/gift/trash/whatever the slips to others. You can ASK MINISTER ABOUT FURNITURE to get a list of the furniture in your caravan -- it only recognizes converted furniture. At some point, I'd like to get that utility built into RECALL CARAVAN. You can TAP converted (new system) furniture to hide or unhide it. Any hidden furniture will be like ships at a dock:

Placed around the interior, you see: some furniture.
>l furni
Among the furniture, you notice a mud-stained mat with layers of grime stomped into it and a towering open entryway.



This is a phase 1 release of these new tools. I wanted enough to make the system functional for new folks buying an interior but also have options for existing owners to do some customizing. In the future, we'll have shops that sell interior descriptions so you can change those out and maybe your room's name too (X's Caravan, Interior). Initial support for LTB-style furniture vouchers (HOME vouchers will NOT work in POC shops) is in the system, though we're not releasing that until I'm sure the shop mechs work properly on a large scale (yay fests!). Scents and pets shouldn't be too hard to add. After guild fest, staff will have a green light to make as many of these shops as they like, wherever they like (fest or 24/7 access). I also have NO doubt at all that you all will have a flood of ideas for new features once you get a chance to play with things.

For the Premium home crowd, don't fret much about these stepping on the toes of homes. Homes still have many more options available (and allow for good amounts of storage). The home shop system was the best model to base this on, as most staff are already familiar with setting up those types of shops which makes troubleshooting issues that arise easier behind-the-scenes. This may also open the doors for some new toys for homes in the future.

We'll get a NEWS article up and another post here on the forums once the shop is released. It won't happen over the weekend; I'll save you some camping time for that. :)

SGM [[Zadraes]]<br />
Logistics Lead<br />
Premium Lead<br />
Trader Guild Advocate
|sub=Primp My Ride,POC
}}