The shop system in Shanty
For a while now, ensuring that Shanty will feature a tight and well-paced economy has been a subject of concern to us. Although the project is a ways off from release, it’s still come far enough from where it started that these surface-level gameplay matters are becoming a slightly more pressing concern than before.
In our resolve to work on this matter, we have decided to address the subject of shops to change the way they will affect Shanty’s economy compared to your usual “economy” server. Thus we’ve devised the addition of premium stock, a measure that will bring about the separation of shops’ contents into two assortments: The traditional Global stock, and the new Premium stock.
Premium stock
Premium stock features a selection of items separate from a shop’s usual goods. Where global stock will feature mostly basic to mid-tier stuff, premium stock will be where players get to purchase the higher-end goods. Beyond that, premium stock works differently from global stock in two ways:
- Premium goods do not restock over time. Players must restock these shops by means detailed further below.
- Also, item quantities are player-sided. Hence our decision to refer to regular stock as ‘Global’.
Maybe you think that sounds like a rough time, but don’t fret! There is a key component at play that makes this system way less of a hassle than you might think.
The recycling bag
We mentioned that premium goods do not restock automatically, which begs the question of how you DO restock these shops. Let’s get to the bottom of it, shall we?
The key to solving that little mystery lies with the recycling bag! This is a new storage item that holds equipment obtained via PvM and skilling (two methods of acquiring items which we mention very intentionally, as the bag won’t hold items obtained through other means). Every time the recycling bag accumulates a certain amount of value, the bag produces a provision ticket; in turn, these tickets can be expended to replenish the premium stock in a given shop, enabling you to purchase premium goods.
In the end, players will see themselves rewarded for having the bag accumulate all sorts of otherwise worthless items, be they from PvM or skilling, which results in both activities gaining more value in Shanty than they would possess in your run-of-the-mill server.
By the way, there’s a number of mechanics to the recycling bag which might be worth noting for anyone intrigued enough to care:
- In case it wasn’t clear, the bag only ever picks up items automatically. We coined a term for this; we call it merit-based storage (or MBS for short).
- In addition to items needing to meet the condition of being either dropped as loot or made out of materials via skilling, there is an item value limit which, if exceeded by a given item, will prevent said item from going into the bag. This is meant to prevent monsters that drop higher-end alchemy fodder from also being the go-to for obtaining provision tickets.
- Items also need to meet the condition of being non-stackable, for a similar reason as the above.
The recycling bin
As a complementary addition to the premium stock system, we have devised a facility where players can trade in the contents of their recycling bags in exchange for loot from among a few categories (Ammo, Food, Runes, Potions, Herbs, and Spices). This serves to double down on the way this whole thing empowers playstyles beyond the worn-out “steal some crap, sell for gold” gameplay loop most of us have gone through enough times by now.
Of course, if it suits you to indulge that old Thieving habit, go for it! It won’t be the end-all-be-all way to do things in Shanty, though, and that’s a good thing for anyone who might want to not spend so much time at the stalls for once.
The Bezalis Desert
For the other major update in this month’s blog, it’s time for some sightseeing! A great deal of work has gone into the environments of the Bezalis Desert, which is the western region of Shanty Island that features all the content detailed further below.
Bezalis Desert - The Oasis
Just outside the walls of the Town of Luce, a serene oasis makes for a nice setpiece that’s mostly there just for flavor. It looks nice, and that’s about all it does for now.
Bezalis Desert - Mining Haven
We have mentioned previously that we’re set on providing convenient training locations for certain skills you might be used to training at centralized hubs. Our skilling havens are not unlike traditional ‘skill zones’ you see elsewhere, except they’re way on the higher-effort end of things as far as visuals go!
The Mining Haven is actually the first of Maximax’s major forays into creating an environment from scratch. A bunch of barren sand turned into all of this stuff along the course of a few days, and the end result really does set the tone for the way Shanty Island might turn out when future map work efforts take place.
Bezalis Desert - Smoke Devil Dungeon
And now for the dungeons! Keeping a desert biome from turning out bland is tough, so we’ve taken every opportunity to make a setpiece of each dungeon entrance.
Bezalis Desert - The Catacombs
Speaking of dungeon entrances, this is probably one of the higher-effort ones in Shanty as of yet.
Bezalis Desert - Dragons’ Keep
If you recognize the architecture here, you probably realize this place contains the access point to the Lithkren Vault.
Bezalis Desert - Crash Site Cavern
On the southern end of the Bezalis is where the Crash Site Cavern can be accessed.
Bezalis Desert - TzHaar Volcano
The southern side of the desert also features this big ol’ volcano, where the TzHaar City as well as the Volcanic Mine minigame will be accessible as soon as they have been implemented into the game.
Bezalis Desert - Agility Pyramid
It really wouldn’t be a desert without a huge pyramid, would it now? Since there’s gotta be more to Agility than our custom rooftop courses, we thought the Agility Pyramid would be a neat course to have available as an option.
Bezalis Desert - Soul Altar
The Soul Altar exists in the desert, which is pretty thematically appropriate if you know what the deal is with this altar. As usual, it takes quite a sprint to get there since you’ll have to make your way around the Agility Pyramid, but there is a level 88 shortcut in place to ensure that training Agility will reward you here just like it would at the Soul Altar in Zeah.
Skillcape perks
Skillcapes have had their special perks implemented. As you may or may not expect, however, some of them have changed, mostly by necessity. Notably…
- Obviously, there is no Cooking Guild for the Cooking cape to allow you entry to. Maybe in the future…?
- There is also no Farming Guild for the Farming cape to teleport to. However, there are going to be a few small greenhouses containing patches from the guild. In the future, the Farming cape will provide teleports to these greenhouses.
- There isn’t a Fishing Guild either! We do have the Fishing Haven, though, so that’s where the Fishing cape will teleport to.
- The Herblore cape’s ability to bypass diary requirements for Zahur’s unfinished potion service kinda doesn’t work when there are no such requirements in Shanty. That service isn’t to be offered by Zahur at all, actually; Kaqemeex will be covering for her.
- Since red chinchompas are not hunted in Feldip Hills, but rather at Shanty Island’s Hunter Haven, that Hunter cape teleport has been relocated accordingly.
- For consistency with the Fishing and Hunter capes, the Mining cape will provide unlimited teleports to the Mining Haven.
- With the Warriors’ Guild having a parallel in Shanty Island, the Strength cape’s teleport has been relocated accordingly.
- With the Rogues’ Den having a parallel in Shanty Island, the Thieving cape’s teleport has been relocated accordingly.
- Again, for consistency’s sake, the Woodcutting cape will provide unlimited teleports to the Woodcutting Haven.
Max capes
With the skillcape perks being in the game, of course the max cape has been taken care of as well. Including all of its variants!
Barrows armour set effects
Along with Barrows itself, we have implemented the five iconic set effects:
- Blighted Aura: Successful magical attacks have a 25% chance of lowering a foe’s Strength by 5 levels.
- Wretched Strength: Attacks deal additional damage for every Hitpoint that the wearer is missing.
- Infestation: Attacks have a 25% chance of replenishing the wearer’s health equal to the damage dealt.
- Tainted Shot: Successful ranged attacks have a 25% chance of lowering a foe’s Agility level by 20%.
- Corruption: Successful melee attacks have a 25% chance of lowering a foe’s run energy by 20%.
Thanks for reading our sixth update post! The SOMA Lookout (formerly known as Silesse Town), features on the world map, the trading post, and work on various weapon effects and special attacks were also worked on and are still a work-in-progress.
Our Rune-Server thread can be found here, and you can join our Discord here!
