Magic Store of Vergadain: Visit any store anywhere and anytime!

[argent77]

Magic Store of Vergadain

 

Download from GitHub

Readme

 

Introduction

The games contain a great number of stores for your shopping needs. However, finding or returning to a store can take a lot of time or is sometimes not even possible.

This mod allows you to acquire a magical artifact that provides the means to visit any store you have visited in the past. Getting your hands on this unique artifact involves a small quest of one kind or another.

The mod supports the following games and game variants:

• Original BG2
• Tutu/EasyTutu
• BGT
• BG:EE (with or without SoD)
• BG2:EE
• EET
• IWD:EE

It is currently available in English, German, Polish and Russian.

 

Components

1. Magic Store of Vergadain (for BG2, Tutu, BGT, BG:EE, SoD, BG2:EE, EET and IWD:EE)

This is the main component. It installs the artifact "Magic Store of Vergadain" and associates it with a small quest.

The Magic Store keeps track of the stores you visit throughout the game, so you can visit them later at any time and place even if the original store becomes unavailable. Activating the artifact summons a ghostly merchant who offers a list of available stores for your shopping needs.

Each game campaign provides their own small quest to get access to the Magic Store of Vergadain. The quest usually starts by acquiring a book about forgotten artifacts. It can be found in:

• BG1: Somewhere in Beregost.
• SoD: In the opening dungeon.
• BG2:SoA: Somewhere at Waukeen's Promenade in Athkatla.
• BG2:ToB: Somewhere in Saradush.
• IWD:EE: Somewhere in Kuldahar.

Only one Magic Store can be acquired in the whole game. For example, if you acquired the Magic Store in EET during the BG1 campaign you can't get another one during the SoD, BG2:SoA or BG2:ToB campaigns.

2. Alternate portrait for Ghostly Merchant (requires the main component)

This optional component installs an alternate portrait version of the Ghostly Merchant without ghostly features.

Edited June 4, 2021 by argent77

[jastey]

This sounds like another must-have mod. I don't even dare to think about the technical solution necessary to achieve this ingame functionality! Congrats on the release!

[argent77]

Thank you!

Yes, it was a coding challenge (which was the main reason I actually created this mod in the first place.  )

[Greenhorn]

I see that you are still in shape argent. Congratulations on another brilliant idea. 

[temnix]

This is an attractive mod, and it sounds like you have already finished it and put in the work to realize the concept. But there is always room for improvement. In this case, I think, less magic about it all would be healthier. There is already too much whizz and bang in these games. Instead of a ghostly merchant why not make the item simply a catalogue? Catalogues appeared in the 1870s in France, I believe, and then, until the Internet appeared, they were all the rage and essential for ordering from a wide selection of products and makers. I imagine they would make a revolution in the life of a Nashkel housewife, if a clever merchant introduced them. (Glory, as Humpty Dumpty would say.) Here is how I began to implement the idea once: a merchant at the Nashkel fair offers courier delivery service for products from any visited store. When the option for a store is clicked, a sound of galloping hooves plays (lightning-fast horseback delivery).

The purchases made and the screens exited, you could have the catalogue as a book to carry. Instead of ghosts this item could summon a real merchant, perhaps a ways off from the character using the item, with the CreateCreatureObjectOffset action (at something like [70.70], not too far to avoid getting stuck behind walls etc., but for an impression of having come from somewhere, then proceeding to walk up). It would also make sense to make the catalogue unusable in dungeons and places like Avernus, or you might add a second option, with gating to anywhere, for a separate charge. Although this would make the item less broadly useful, the catalogue would make more of an impression and be more believable for players, whereas reaching out to shop across the multiverse is too much like a cheat. And they can wait until they exit the dungeon, anyway.

You could also implement a surcharge for buying through the catalogue. Late versions of the Enhanced Edition have a working ChangeStoreMarkup action. Knowing the original mark-up and mark-down values for stores, you could insert this action into their dialogue lines to worsen the buy/sell prices. It's more tricky to set them back to normal afterwards, for when the characters might decide to visit the store normally, but you could do this through globals in the script of the merchant NPC: G("bernard03-cat",1), setting it to 0 and the price ratio to normal, before the merchant walks away.

It's all up to you, of course, but in my opinion magic should be mysterious and original, reserved for something wondrous, and banal conveniences should not be an excuse for laziness or diminish playing experience. Walking into different shops with hard-won plunder, boasting before different imaginary NPC is one of the pleasures of dungeoneering. If you simply cut this out with your instant buying, you'll be doing what Internet commerce has done to shopping malls - killed an exciting aspect of life. Sure, it's saved time, but what are people supposed to do with that freed time? Work some more? They were freed from themselves, oh joy. This is why in games also there should be limitations to usability of such appliances, places where they don't work, worse, not better, prices, maybe quirks in the characters of the sellers themselves for players to learn and so on. Nobody really cares about cash, people want a new adventure. Expand the world with this alternative, don't shrink it.

[argent77]

Your line of thought would be more fitting for a delivery service kind of mod. But that's not what I had in mind. The 'ghostly merchant' is certainly arguable (I initially thought about making it a conversable item), but I think the way it's currently implemented fits well into a high level magic world like the Forgotten Realms. I could have just as well used a djinni instead.

There are still several aspects that have to be tweaked in future releases though. In its current state the artifact is quite powerful.

[Endarire]

Does this work with mod-added vendors?

[argent77]

1 minute ago, Endarire said:

Does this work with mod-added vendors?

Yes, it does. See the readme for more details (linked in first post).

[Endarire]

Thanks for making an even better version of Ribald's Genie mod!  Alleluia!

Edited January 16, 2021 by Endarire

[Lauriel]

I didn't even realize I needed this until just now.  Brilliant!  Kudos and thank you!

[argent77]

New release: Magic Store of Vergadain 2.0

This version offers two options how to install the magic store:
1. Fee required: The ghostly merchant will only allow you to access stores when you pay him a fee. The fee amount depends on the current game or campaign. This option has been included for balance reasons, since the magic store can make life of an adventurer much easier (e.g. having the opportunity to resurrect your companions, identify items or restock with consumables even in the most remote places of the world).

2. Free of charge: This is the same option as provided by the previous mod version. You can access any shop offered by the magic store free of charge.

This release also takes care of special stores where you would have to pay an additional fee for access (e.g. Ribald's special store in BG2). Currently only two shops are considered (Ribald's special store and a store offered by the Golem Construction mod). Please let me know if there are more mods with stores that require some kind of "access conditions", so I can add them to the mod.

Moreover, this version adds Russian translation to the mod.
 

Changes:

• Added new install option: Ghostly Merchant may charge a fee whenever you want to visit a store
• Added special treatment of stores where the original merchant demands a fee for access
• Added Russian translation (thanks yota13)
• Added German readme

 

[Endarire]

Do the Waukeen's Promenade store that can only be accessed as part of Neera's SoA quest and the Black Pits II shops accessed only as part of Neera's ToB quest count as special access conditions?

[argent77]

Since you can only visit stores through the magic store you have visited before at least once this condition is met automatically.

Special access could mean a monetary fee or some other kind of "donation", or only party members of certain races, gender or alignment can access the store. Basically everything that is specifically checked every time you want to visit a store from the regular merchant.

[Guest Morgan]

Hello, would it be possible for the ghost to also offer upgrades for stuff? e.G Thalantyr item upgrade or Item upgrade mod by Weimer

[Endarire]

+1 to upgrade services as Morgan proposed!