How to manipulate shop prices through rumors/scripts.

[Guest DoubleBrew]

I had the idea for a mod which closes the loop on two Baldur's Gate features I think are under-utilized.  The first is rumors - the tavern rumors you unlock by buying beer.  I always thought this was cool but its use is very limited.  The other is gems, they are everywhere and used for very little other than buying and selling.

My idea is to add rumors which are code for price slash and price gouge events.  When you get a certain rumor like "The cowled ones are buying up black opals like potato cakes... Must be up to something" or "I hear the shadow thieves heisted many star Sapphires but that the heat is on.  It could be a chance to get some for cheap."  The idea is this triggers a shop in this area, either a fence or maybe a custom shop to greatly increase the price of black opals or slash the price of star sapphires, making an opportunity for the player to sell/buy them at a higher/lower than normal price.  My hope is to essentially create a mini-game -ala dope wars for those who are familiar- within Baldur's Gate.

 

Problem is I have very little idea of how to manipulate prices within a store, or if it's even possible to do that.  I suppose it would also be possible to do it entirely with dialog scripts, but probably to cumbersome to be practical.

Any ideas/tips on how to execute something like this?  I have some experience making small item, quest, and npc mods, but that's pretty much the extent of my modding experience.

Thanks,

DoubleBrew

[temnix]

Rumors can't have any in-game effects. Dead in the water. You can give real information in them to the player, though: go there and there, talk to such and such to get this or that. Replayability is the main issue here. The next time people play the mod, they will already know all of the secrets without having to drink them up. As for stores, there is a script action ChangeStoreMarkup, but it was only made to work in the Enhanced Edition engine, and not in the first few patches either. If you are going to build a mod around this mechanic, know you that you will be making it only for the EEs, and for updated EEs at that. That's not a problem, but it's a limitation. And all that action does is change all prices in a given store. There is no way to tweak prices for particular items or for a selection of stores.

This is a very primitive engine. The artists and composer did such an attractive job that it feels like more should be possible, but underneath there is a rusty robot. Powered by wooden logs. So don't get too invested in this, that's my advice. Tweaking this or that is fine, you can push a few limits, make a quest, but nothing sophisticated. There are modern games out there, made or being made, where your ideas would survive better.