Magical Boutique

[musical74]

Pom looks like he's about to stab someone!

*Wonders who Nadja is*

Question on excessive stock: Let's say you have 15 Breath of the Just, and they are just sitting there because no one is buying them...could you sell, say 10 potions of Breath of the Just to the commodities store, or is there some way to get rid of them because they are just keeping you from making more potions of things that the customers are buying?

[monele]

Lol, I don't think Pom is *that* violent ^^;... He looks more lost to me than agressive.

Nadja would be a merchant. She shouldn't appear before late in the game but hey, I thought she'd look better than the other ones

I thought about the possibility to either destroy or sell what you don't need anymore. At a very low price, obviously ;p. So yes, I guess what you say will be possible. It'll also be possible to expand the shelves but it would obviously cost you.

[musical74]

Maybe Pom's lost and that's why he's got the knives out?

Spotted what MAY be a tpyo. When you are deciding on a name for the Boutique and decide to keep it as it, it says *This shop was popular in it's time and I'm sure the old name of HERS....* was wondering if that was supposed to be HIS. Maybe not, but the player doesn't mention anyone besides his grandfather so...

Also, regarding the knives...is it possible to have the gatherers defend themselves for minor things? For example, give Framboise a small knife and she's able to fend off a nasty spider on her own, but for a bunch of trolls, she'd still need a bodyguard...is this possible or is this too difficult to implement?

[monele]

Well, really, the picture of Pom is mostly a sketch to give him an appearance. It's not final and his character isn't perfectly defined yet, so it might show things I didn't intend or not show things that will be true later on .

Well it *could* be possible but was not intended this way at first. But I realize Pom is both a guard *and* a gatherer, so yes, he should be able to defend himself ô_o... The idea is that anyone with the "guard" talent will add to the group defense value or something. It would be kinda silly if Fram and Pom went gathering and only Pom defended. Actually it would be silly if only Fram gathered too @_@... Buh, I guess I won't make groups the way I thought . It'll be more of a "group for better defense" thingie, but members keep doing the usual stuff, unless you tell them not to.
In any case, Framboise isn't a fighter, so I don't think I'll give her guarding talents (but it *might* be possible to teach her through schools... I'll see if I allow *adding* talents through school or only upgrading current ones)

EDIT : oops, about the typo : yeah, I made the shop into a female object... french reflex ^^;... I just don't know if one could say "this name of its" o_ô...

[Jake]

EDIT : oops, about the typo : yeah, I made the shop into a female object... french reflex ^^;... I just don't know if one could say "this name of its" o_ô...

For what it's worth, I just read over that without noticing anything wrong; cars and boats and so on are commonly referred to as females in English, I don't know of any reason a family-owned shop shouldn't be...

[monele]

Alrighty. Will keep it then.

Btw, not many reactions on the chara design :/...

[musical74]

Regardings the Artwork: I have the drawing ability of a dumb rock. My best friend is an artist, though, and he used to do sketches and ask for my opinion, because even though I can't DRAW worth a darn, I have a good eye for what looks good.

One thing that intrigued me was this: Framboise and Pom are both wearing lomh sleeve shirts and something that covers most of the lower half <a long skirt for Fram, pants for Pom> but Nadja's wearing a halter top and shorts. Does this imply she's from a hot area? Or is this just *this is a sketch so don't take too much into this*?

[monele]

You'd be actually right about this ^^. I didn't particularly intend it, but it's part of those unconscious things you'll put on a character when designing it I guess ô_o.
(and you already commented, thank you ^.^... it's the others... where have they gone ? ... the thread has become so quiet lately... is there a need for a new version? >.>...)


Question for the math people out there :

Let's say you would by A or B proportionally to their price. If A costs twice B, there's twice the chances you'll get B (I hope I'm right on this or the rest won't work XD).

Example, A costs $2 and B costs $1. How would you find out the probability that one would buy A or B ?
I found something quite long that gives me 33% for A and 66% for B :

1/(cost/totalcost) for each item. Then a percentage of each result compared to the total :

1/(2/3) = 1.5 for A ; 1/(1/3) = 3 for B....
1.5/4.5 = 33% for A ; 3/4.5 = 66% for B.

I'm pretty sure there's a more efficient way to get these results ^^; (and I'm not even sure it works properly with more than 2 items involved...)

========== EDIT ===========

New thoughts for the sale system and reputation :

There is a global reputation (shop reputation). There is reputation per recipe/potion. Potion reputation goes from 1 to 100. Global reputation is technically infinite.

GLOBAL REPUTATION EVOLUTION :
Each turn, the difference between the global rep and the total of all potion reps is calculated. 50% of this is added/subtracted to the global rep with a minimum of "1".
Ex : Global rep is at 2.0, potions rep is 20+10+4 = 34. We divide this last total by 10 to make it "compatible" with the global rep, so "3.4".
3.4 - 2.0 = 1.4. 50% of this with a minimum of 1 is... 1. We get one global rep point (hence, one more potential client).

That's for the very beginning of the game, without doing anything. The shop is new, people are at least curious.
For later, say you've reached a rep of 20. You could get something around 20 clients a day. If you give them all what they asked for, it's 20x0.2=4 more rep points for your potions (shared between them). If we were in a stable situation, then the potions rep has become 20+4 = 24. There's a difference of 4... divided by 2... 2 more global rep points, with a remaining difference of 2 between global rep and potions rep. If the potions rep stayed identical during the next turn, you would still get one more client (2/2). And still one more, and one more, etc... until the difference is 0 (which might never happen unless I round some numbers ô_o).
The idea is that there is a "momentum" of reputation. Making a big move (either selling everything you were asked or having a potion rep boosted by a quest) would not suddenly make dozens of new customers arrive. There *would* be a slight sudden boost but it would be quickly dampened (even more if you can't even deal with that first boost).

On the other hand, when you *can't* give enough potions and your rep goes down fast, your global rep will also move slowly in comparison.

Eh, I'm not sure if this is anything good... I'll need opinions ^^;


==== Potions prices ====

And this is another idea that isn't directly related to the previous one but complementary.

So far, potions prices are fixed (and I forgot to show them in the interface...). Basically, I gave arbitrary prices depending on the ingredients needed.
The current system decides what potions are asked for based on reputation. This can lead to the following situation : you kept offering Breath of the Just and not anything else and have it at 20 rep points while everything else is at 1. This means it's asked a *lot* more than any other potion. It's possible that the player can deal with this by focusing on the only ingredients required for this potion, but I think it can't last long given the growth in reputation anyway. But mostly, it's not realistic. The potion is quite expensive and I'm not sure *all* your clients would suddenly buy this.

Hence the new idea : basing demand on prices. In a rather logical way, Weak Heal which is easier to do (common ingredients) is sold at a cheap price... but is asked for more often. While Breath of the Just is a quite expensive potion which means only a few rich people from your clients will be able to afford it. The demand won't be big on this one.
Growing your global reputation just means that you get more clients... hence a bigger number of rich people to buy these expensive potions (and even more to buy the cheap ones ;p). It stays proportional.

If I stop at this point, though, each recipe will attract the very same proportion of clients everytime. Boring~. And what about potion reputation ? It's no fun if it doesn't change anything except global rep.
The solution is to have reputation decide on a price bonus. Having 50% rep could mean you get the normal price. 100% rep would mean you get 1.5x the normal price. (and while you can't get 0 rep, 1 rep would be about 0.5x the normal price).
To help things at the start, the rep might be 50% for new recipes ? But maybe not, since it also impacts on global rep. Will have to see ^^;

Conclusion : having Weak Heal at 20% and Breath at 100% doesn't mean they'll ask for Breath 5 times more. They'll still ask for Breath rarely. But when they do, it'll bring you mucho money. Weak heal, though, will still be asked many times but is only giving you a part of what you should normally earn.
Interesting point : for rarely asked potions, the reputation won't grow very quickly (It's +0.2 each time it's asked and sold... If asked only one every 5 turns, ouch...), hence, taking quests that allow you to boost such a potion reputation will be a good thing.
Bad point : I'm wary of what will happen in the future of the game... Even when you reach higher levels, you will still have to sell a big part of Weak Heal, given its price @_@... Even though it'll slowly shrink as new recipes are discovered, it'll still be a big part of what you sell. I wonder if it's okay or not :/. Maybe I should make some cheap recipes disappear after a while to let the player concentrate on the fun big potions that demand lots of hard searching/gathering.

[Jake]

it's the others... where have they gone ? ... the thread has become so quiet lately... is there a need for a new version? >.>...

Yes! We need a new version!

I mean... uh... I've been ill, of late, and thus not doing a lot of stuff. :/

Anyway:

Example, A costs $2 and B costs $1. How would you find out the probability that one would buy A or B ?
I found something quite long that gives me 33% for A and 66% for B :

1/(cost/totalcost) for each item. Then a percentage of each result compared to the total :

1/(2/3) = 1.5 for A ; 1/(1/3) = 3 for B....
1.5/4.5 = 33% for A ; 3/4.5 = 66% for B.

I'm pretty sure there's a more efficient way to get these results ^^; (and I'm not even sure it works properly with more than 2 items involved...)

Well, this always produces figures that total 100% no matter how many items you're calculating for, because in the second step you're normalising them to a percentage of each other.


Maths bit:

Firstly, you can simplify your first step: (1/(item cost/total of item costs)) is the same as (total of item costs/item cost), the latter costs one less divide, and divides are 'expensive'.

Secondly, because the top half of the divide (total of item costs) is the same for all of the calculations, and you're normalising it in the second step, it literally doesn't matter what number you use, you'll still end up with the same results - so you may as well use '1' or '100' and not bother summing the total item costs in the first place.

Basically, if you're going to normalise as a second step, then how you perform the first step is entirely up to you, it just weights the values differently.

Personally, what I think produces the 'nicest' results for the problem is to have the first step calculation, before normalisation, as (total cost of other items/this item cost). This essentially gives you popularity in inverse ratio to the cost of the item amongst its peers; for example, with costs ratio 1:2:3 the items get 'selling' ratios of 5:2:1. Your original method gave the same items selling ratios of 6:3:2, which is more of a bias towards the expensive items. Of course, it would mean more calculations 'cause you couldn't skip the summing for the 'total cost of other items' like you could with your method.


However, this brings me to probably the most important point. It's really something that I'd leave tweakable for game balance at a later date if necessary, and modern processors are not going to be taxed in the least for this scale of computation. IMO it would be far better to leave the code taking twenty steps to calculate so it's easy to follow and change later than drastically simplifying it to be 'efficient'. You can change your (1/(cost/totalcost)) to (totalcost/cost), but it's probably better to leave it the way you already had it, inefficient as it is, so you can recognise what it's doing later.

New thoughts for the sale system and reputation :

There is a global reputation (shop reputation). There is reputation per recipe/potion. Potion reputation goes from 1 to 100. Global reputation is technically infinite.

...
The idea is that there is a "momentum" of reputation. Making a big move (either selling everything you were asked or having a potion rep boosted by a quest) would not suddenly make dozens of new customers arrive.
...
The current system decides what potions are asked for based on reputation.
...
Hence the new idea : basing demand on prices.
...
Conclusion : having Weak Heal at 20% and Breath at 100% doesn't mean they'll ask for Breath 5 times more. They'll still ask for Breath rarely. But when they do, it'll bring you mucho money. Weak heal, though, will still be asked many times but is only giving you a part of what you should normally earn.
...
Bad point : I'm wary of what will happen in the future of the game... Even when you reach higher levels, you will still have to sell a big part of Weak Heal, given its price @_@...

OK... I'm going to outline what I'd do, which I think more or less keeps the good points of your ideas above and addresses the bad ones, and isn't really that much trickier to code. It's perhaps more of a simulationist approach. Of course, this is just my runaway imagination which I'm typing up in case you think there's any worth in it, but I'm pretty sure it would be quite feasible to code and also work relatively well.

Instead of 'reputation', consider it in terms of 'market share'. You have a total market share of all magical products being sold, and a market share of any given magical product - your global and potion reps. These are expressed in percentages of the available shoppers, and the total available shoppers never varies by very much.

As well as simple 'current market share', your shop also has a price-point reputation, which can be maintained similarly to your current rep mechanic, but based on the average price of all items in stock each turn - so if I have lots of Weak Heals and no Breaths of the Just, my average price point is very low and my price-point-reputation goes down toward the price of Weak Heal. If I stock up on the rarer, more expensive potions and start to let Weak Heals sell out, my price-point-rep goes up toward the price of Breath of the Just.

When you open shop and try and work out what potions get sold, you first use the global market share to determine how many potential sales enter the shop, then use the individual potion market shares to divvy up sales to potions, as you probably do already.

Finally, when adjusting values for the next run, modify the global market share based on how many people went away satisfied (again, as you do already), then modify the individual potion market shares based on the price-point-reputation, so potions close to the price-point-rep go up and potions far from the price-point-rep go down. I'd use a normal distribution for this, but it's probably harder to implement than it's worth. Then, work out the shop's current price-point-rep ready for the next go around.

I'd also probably want to keep market shares from getting to the ends of the scale. If the share of any potion drops below 1-5% or so, raise it a bit, because you'll always get people wandering into your high-price-point shop asking for weak heals every now and again; if the global share gets above 80% or so, drop it a bit, because you don't want the player to capture a monopoly anywhere in the market.


The idea is that if your shop starts to stock more expensive items, you'll get more rich people coming to you for specialist stuff and the poorer clients will drift away to the discount-heals shop down the road. Stock a lot of cheap potions, the richer clients will abandon you because you're not exclusive enough. Like this, the player can effectively choose to move away from Weak Heals and the other cheaper potions as the game progresses, and while their global market share will take a temporary hit as the poor folk stop coming but the rich folk haven't noticed yet, they'll eventually realign themselves to their new market and pick up again without getting pestered all the time for low-profit stuff they don't want to have to sell.

The cap on total number of shoppers means that you don't have a spiralling top end where the player can be totally overcome by, or run away with, their own success, but this also naturally places a cap on the maximum profits per turn. Add a few extras, such as workers demanding more pay as the shop turns more profit or a global-price-tolerance that means your global-market-share goes down if your price-point-rep is too high or too low for the market to bear, and tweak them to balance the game.

If you wanted to extend the idea further for extra hidden-complexity, you could consider categories for each potion, say 'healing' or 'enhancements' or whatever, and maintain an extra level of market-share on that axis. Filter your potion-demand by this extra category, and you allow people to specialise in healing magic or forget healing magic entirely and specialise in enhancement magic... but that's obviously also even more work.

[monele]

Ah, I've been sick too ^^;... Getting better though.

Firstly, you can simplify your first step: (1/(item cost/total of item costs)) is the same as (total of item costs/item cost), the latter costs one less divide, and divides are 'expensive'.

So true ô_o... I knew this too, but it didn't strike me as possible XD...

This essentially gives you popularity in inverse ratio to the cost of the item amongst its peers;

After posting, I searched a bit and implemented all these new features. I did use the concept of inverse ratio, so I think it's okay. I might post the actual code so it can be checked for mathematical inconsistencies. I don't want the game to be impaired by bad algorithms ^^;

IMO it would be far better to leave the code taking twenty steps to calculate so it's easy to follow and change later than drastically simplifying it to be 'efficient'.

I'm thinking that way too. We're not talking about routines that run a 1000 times per second. It's done once when you reach each resolve screen and there's no way you could detect any slow down coming from this. Just displaying a single frame of graphics is probably a million times slower .


Now for the whole market share thing, I'll need an example with a few numbers I think ^^;... It sounds like it's very similar to what I have, except with other words and that part about prices. I'll give you the actual values of a few things so you can get an example running ^^

Weak Heal : 6po (base price)
Weak Cure : 10po
Bull's Strength : 20po
Breath of the Just : 50po

All starting reputations for these are 10%

I'd also probably want to keep market shares from getting to the ends of the scale. If the share of any potion drops below 1-5% or so, raise it a bit

There's a minimum of 1% of reputation. So nothing can ever get totally impopular to the point of never being asked.
The only exception to this is when you get a new recipe. Except at the beginning where I'll probably start them at 10% anyway, you will have to solve quests to give recipes some popularity.
Let's say you discover how to make the Levitation potion. Cool... Except no one knows you have any... and maybe people don't even know what it is ? In any case, while you can make some, it starts at reputation 0. No one will ever ask for it.
Then would come a quest from someone who needs this type of potion. If you accept the quest and succeed, they'll talk about you, and about that potion in particular, making it more popular. That's when it might get up to 10% reputation.
From now on, the reputation will grow as long as you provide it (with 10% it won't be asked very often) or if another quest helps you boost its popularity again.
I think that's how it will work in the end : each "big" potion should have 2 or 3 quests that let you boost its popularity. You'll need to at least succeed in one of them to start selling it.

The idea is that if your shop starts to stock more expensive items, you'll get more rich people coming to you for specialist stuff and the poorer clients will drift away to the discount-heals shop down the road.

One important thing, which is not the case in the current version, is that when going for big potions, they should be asked a lot less often...
Ohh... an idea : I could have something similar to what I do with gathering... instead of deciding "we have 20 clients", each client buying any potion, be it cheap or expensive, we could have a money pool. The clients coming today (whatever their quantity) are willing to put 100po on the table (total). Then, potions are given a popularity proportion (based on price and reputation, most likely) and the game loops, randomly picks a potion, and tries to sell it, removing its price from the pool. This means that in one turn, you could sell 5 bull's strength as well as 10 Weak Cure, as well as 16 Weak Heal. Of course it would be a bit of everything but based on price.
The difference is that there wouldn't be low or high days anymore (20 clients buying Weak Heal and 20 clients buying Bull's Strength makes quite a difference of revenue ô_o). There would be a difference because the money pool would be slightly randomized (more or less 20% for example).

[musical74]

Hmmmm....I've read the money pool idea over a few times and I'm not sure whether I like it or not. It seems rather randomized the way it is in the demo - but I still sell more weak heal and weak cure than anything else, possibly because they are the easiest to make?

Something I noticed when playing the demo for a long period of time (day 172)...I intentionally ran out of potions, which plummeted my reputation back to 1. But within a few weeks I was able to get the reputation back up and was selling a ton of potions (404 gold coins, anyone?). Again, I let the potions run out intentionally, and the reputation plummeted back to 1. Again, I was able to get the reputation back up after a few weeks...would it be better to do what I did in this experiment, which was intentionally scare away customers for a few days to build up my potions again, or to shut down the store for a week? When I quit I was around 4000 gold in the coffers...*goes to visit Nadja and see what she's selling*

[monele]

172 days... you guys amaze me XD... I can't bear more than a month usually ^^;... (which is a sad thing to say for the author of the game).

The money pool would have a similar result. You'd still have people asking mostly for Weak Heal. Just as you have more chance to gather fennel and clovers than cinnamon and blue berries.

Actually *that's* the problem. Once you've played a few in-game months... actually maybe a year, the game should shift to new things (remember I still have this ritual idea which would be a whole other side of the game, while retaining the same concepts). I think what Jake suggests would lead to a *possible* shift towards expensive potions... with the added bonus that the player can trick the clients into this shift. I like this more than anything else because it means you could have two sides to the coin : sell *lots* of cheap potions, or sell *few* of expensive potions. Two different paths for the same economic result, but a different gathering/brewing strategy, and most important, a different story result (I'd like a few paths that are all about specializing in some types of potions... remember poisons).

Actually I see two possibilities :

- The game lets you choose (or trick it into) which potions to sell. You can specialize in types of potions or prices of potions (cheap/expensive/average). Cheap means easy to gather+brew. Expensive is the opposite. It's balanced, so it should be possible as of now.

- The game forces you to follow a growth if you want to reach the next parts of the game. You'd start with cheap potions and then slowly start making more of the expensive ones, abandoning the cheap ones. You wouldn't make *as many* per se, but it would be longer to make them and bring in more money. The story paths would follow this by making better quests only available when your start providing new potions. Something like a healer path would start with Weak Heal and go up with Mild Heal, Heal, Strong Heal and Extreme Heal for example. With the addition of special potions such as Regeneration. And when you reach the ritual part, you would make things such as Rod of Resurrection.

There might be an alternative solution but it doesn't come to mind right now ^^;

404 gold coins, anyone?

Look at all these coins ! - Hero


Actually, what happens to you is something I'd like to avoid as it's not very realistic. It could work once or twice, but after that, your utterly global reputation is "this guy is so instable, we never know if we'll get what we want, let's go to another place". Ok, you might still get the visit of some crazy sorcerer, but uh... that's one client for ya ^^;
So yes, I'd like the closing of the shop to be the solution for these overwhelming parts. And it's even better if I can make the overwhelming parts become as rare as possible (which is slowly becoming reality).
If everything works out, I'll allow the global rep to go down to a certain value after which I'll declare a game over of sorts... Maybe... I don't like the idea of a game over, but I don't like the idea of being able to bounce up and down and not be scared of any consequences.


I'm testing the last version and if everything works out, I'll post it. You really need to see how the game plays with the new system I think (it's not that different but it's slower paced at the beginning)

*goes to visit Nadja and see what she's selling*

Nadja : "Aaah, a customer! Look, look, look! I have *just* what you need here... It's a very rare item, sought by many but found only by one... me . This looks like an ordinary lamp ? But this is no ordinary lamp! It's said to be inhabited by a genie... yes, a genie! You know what they say about genies, uh?... Yes, yes... wishes come true my friend!"
She takes a breath.
"Well, well... I happened to hear that you have 4000 golds on your hands... it happens to be *exactly* the price of this magnificent object! So, what say ya? "

[musical74]

I'm leaning towards choice one of those two choices, but there's some charm to choice two as well...I actually am against abandoning the *weaker* potions altogether. The reason? Let's say you have upgraded from weak heal to mild heal (cures minor bruises and paper cuts) to heal (cures minor cuts as well). You do not have any weak heals or mild heals because heal is better (but costs more) and...you get a rush of requests for mild heal. They don't have the $$$ for the regular heal so they leave and go to a competitor because you didn't have anything but the latest stuff. You don't want to overload the stocks with weak heal and mild heal but you might want to keep a few around in case someone comes in wanting a lesser healing item.

*Looks at Nadja* Wow, a real genie? Ummmm....I don't know...it took awhile to GET the 4000 gold coins (wonders who blabbed about that...will check with Framboise and Pimimi as they were the only ones who knew I had that much...) *looks at Nadja again* (geeeez I hate it when lovely women give me that sad puppy dog look...if I don't buy it, Nadja will be upset, and if I DO buy it, I'll have some explaining to do on how I could spend 4000 coins like that...) *DEEP breath* OK Nadja, I'll take the bottle!

*Goes home, rubs the bottle, and what do you know, Nadja was right! There is a genie...pretty nice lady genie too... and she said I could ask for more than 3 wishes, so long as I don't abuse it...wow...*

On the subject of closing the shop VS letting the potions run out: suppose after getting a huge sale (the 404 coins!) I tell customers that the store will be closed for a week. They had 1 day's notice that the store will be closed...how would you treat this? Would you treat this as *suprise! the store's closed! (because there wasn't MUCH notice) or would you treat this as *there was advance notice, so it is treated as such*?

[monele]

Okay guys, there isn't anything very new but the sales system has changed... and it's quite a big part of the game.

-- NEW STUFF --

* New Sales and Reputation system based on previous discussions. In my opinion, the way it is now, it's a lot slower and I don't think you'll feel overwhelmed. I counted at least 1,5 month to get to reputation 15... and it's rather quiet even then.
* New worker. Sorry but I didn't have time to make the event scene. Just know that the guy is more of a hunter than anything. You'll tell me but I didn't find him that needed this time around... Oh and sorry again, he's efficient at things that are not very useful for now (animal parts). Gomen.
* Saturday Shop BETA. Added quickly... I'm not sure why... >.>... Everyday Saturday, you get a "go to town" option. There's only one shop, and only one thing to buy : new shelves. They cost 1000gp (I'm telling cuz you can't click on it if you don't have the money XD). I hope it'll be useful to someone
* New ingredients. But they don't have associated recipes so uh.... again, sorry ^^;


>> Magical Boutique v0.00003 <<

*Goes home, rubs the bottle, and what do you know, Nadja was right! There is a genie...pretty nice lady genie too... and she said I could ask for more than 3 wishes, so long as I don't abuse it...wow...*

And that's when it stops following the original story ^.^

On the subject of closing the shop VS letting the potions run out: suppose after getting a huge sale (the 404 coins!) I tell customers that the store will be closed for a week. They had 1 day's notice that the store will be closed...how would you treat this? Would you treat this as *suprise! the store's closed! (because there wasn't MUCH notice) or would you treat this as *there was advance notice, so it is treated as such*?

I think it was mentionned already : you'll need a one week notice to avoid reputation penalties. I might make a difference between 6 days and 1 day but there will be a penalty.

[musical74]

Loved the latest version!

Pom joined the group when reputation hit 15 - and it took a LOT longer to get to 15, which made things easier. Instead of hitting reputation of 15 in two weeks or so, it took 45 days. That makes things so much easier, because it means you won't run into the *ACK!!!! I've run out of everything!!!!* anywhere near like I used to. In fact, I only had one unfullfilled request: a unfullfilled fox's cunning, and that was because I only had 2 and they wanted 3, right at the beginning. Still sell more weak heal and weak cure than anything else though....when I quit at day 75 (wanted to let you know what I thought of the new changes!) sales went in order from highest to lowest: weak heal, weak cure, bull's strength, breath of the just, fox's cunning. Yep...was a slightly higher sale of Breath of the Just than Fox's cunning...

One thing that was very interesting is Pom goes after different things than Fram does. Fish scales at the Lake? Bird's feathers at the forest? Hmmmm...didn't send him to the plains, wonder what he would have found there?

I like the updated version a lot...it starts off slower so you don't feel rushed when the store opens, and it's interesting to see how many of what I have sold. And it was VERY useful to go to the furniture guy and grab a set of shelves...it made keeping up with demand a lot easier.

All said, a very good update!