Merchants not keeping items...

[Aerewen]

good luck with that lol

remember... merchants won't resell items that you sell to them because of this bug :p

im just saying the code that needs changed is the code that actually executes when a player right clicks a merchant to browse, not the code i posted earlier in this thread

[John Adams]

This all works on EQLive, right? Selling something, then buying it back?

Screw it. I'm testing this.

Ok, to end this senseless speculating... I am on Live right now, 2 chars, same merchant. I sold a Meat to the merchant, and without doing anything, it appeared magically on the second toons open merchant window - no closing, no reopening. That's what I expected to see.

The guy who sold it can buy it back immediately. And, it vanishes from the second guys merchant window - dynamically, like I said. Furthermore, the second guy could buy it if he wanted, and it also vanishes from the first guys window immediately. So, no risk of dupe items - on LIVE.

Now, Emu...
This does NOT work this way. If player 1 sells something, it does not appear on the merchant immediately. Hmm. Actually, ever. I left the zone, restarted it, the item is still in the temp table, but the merchant does not show the Meat - on EMU.

So, Aerewen, you are vindicated. Now, fix it. ~grin~

[Aerewen]

lol wish i knew how :p

even if i did find a way to fix it... i dont have a clue how to make those little add/subtract files that i see people posting... im not a cbase programmer... i do php/mysql/perl etc all the web based crap but never learned any actual programming :(

[Aerewen]

GRRRRRRR i wish i learned c++ lol

i've been staring at the code now for like well... since i made the last post on here so an hour?

as far as i can tell it should work

from client_process.cpp... looks like it is pulling the items from the tmpmerchanttable[] array properly and sending them to the client when the merchant is browsed...

void Client::BulkSendMerchantInventory(int merchant_id, int16 npcid) {
	const Item_Struct* handyitem = NULL;
	int32 numItemSlots=80;  //The max number of items passed in the transaction.
	const Item_Struct *item;
	std::list<MerchantList> merlist = zone->merchanttable[merchant_id];
	std::list<MerchantList>::const_iterator itr;
	if(merlist.size()==0){ //Attempt to load the data, it might have been missed if someone spawned the merchant after the zone was loaded
		zone->LoadNewMerchantData(merchant_id);
		merlist = zone->merchanttable[merchant_id];
		if(merlist.size()==0)
			return;
	}
	std::list<TempMerchantList> tmp_merlist = zone->tmpmerchanttable[npcid];
	std::list<TempMerchantList>::iterator tmp_itr;

	int32 i=1;
	int8 handychance = 0;
	for(itr = merlist.begin();itr != merlist.end() && i<numItemSlots;itr++){
		MerchantList ml = *itr;
		handychance = MakeRandomInt(0, merlist.size() + tmp_merlist.size() - 1 );
		
		item = database.GetItem(ml.item);
		if(item) {
			if(handychance==0)
				handyitem=item;
			else
				handychance--;
			int charges=1;
			if(item->ItemClass==ItemClassCommon)
				charges=item->MaxCharges;
			ItemInst* inst = database.CreateItem(item, charges);
			if (inst) {
				inst->SetPrice(item->Price*127/100);
				inst->SetMerchantSlot(ml.slot);
				inst->SetMerchantCount(-1);		//unlimited
				if(charges > 0)
					inst->SetCharges(charges);
				else
					inst->SetCharges(1);
				SendItemPacket(ml.slot-1, inst, ItemPacketMerchant);
				safe_delete(inst);
			}
		}
		i++;
	}
	std::list<TempMerchantList> origtmp_merlist = zone->tmpmerchanttable[npcid];
	tmp_merlist.clear();
	for(tmp_itr = origtmp_merlist.begin();tmp_itr != origtmp_merlist.end() && i<numItemSlots;tmp_itr++){
		TempMerchantList ml = *tmp_itr;
		item=database.GetItem(ml.item);
		ml.slot=i;
		if (item) {
			if(handychance==0)
				handyitem=item;
			else
				handychance--;
			int charges=1;
			if(item->ItemClass==ItemClassCommon && (sint16)ml.charges <= item->MaxCharges)
				charges=ml.charges;
			else
				charges = item->MaxCharges;
			ItemInst* inst = database.CreateItem(item, charges);
			if (inst) {
				inst->SetPrice(item->Price*127/100);
				inst->SetMerchantSlot(ml.slot);
				inst->SetMerchantCount(1);
				if(charges > 0)
					inst->SetCharges(charges);
				else
					inst->SetCharges(1);
				SendItemPacket(ml.slot-1, inst, ItemPacketMerchant);
				safe_delete(inst);
			}
		}
		tmp_merlist.push_back(ml);
		i++;
	}
	//this resets the slot
	zone->tmpmerchanttable[npcid] = tmp_merlist;
	Mob* merch = entity_list.GetMobByNpcTypeID(npcid);
	if(merch != NULL && handyitem){
		char handy_id[8]={0};
		int greeting=rand()%5;
		int greet_id=0;
		switch(greeting){
			case 1:
				greet_id=MERCHANT_GREETING;
				break;
			case 2:
				greet_id=MERCHANT_HANDY_ITEM1;
				break;
			case 3:
				greet_id=MERCHANT_HANDY_ITEM2;
				break;
			case 4:
				greet_id=MERCHANT_HANDY_ITEM3;
				break;
			default:
				greet_id=MERCHANT_HANDY_ITEM4;
        }
		sprintf(handy_id,"%i",greet_id);
		char merchantname[64]={0};
		strncpy(merchantname,merch->GetName(),strlen(merch->GetName())-2);
		if(greet_id!=MERCHANT_GREETING){
			Message_StringID(10,GENERIC_STRINGID_SAY,merchantname,handy_id,this->GetName(),handyitem->Name);
		
        }
        else
			Message_StringID(10,GENERIC_STRINGID_SAY,merchantname,handy_id,this->GetName());
		
		merch->CastToNPC()->FaceTarget(this->CastToMob());
    }
		
//		safe_delete_array(cpi);
}

and the code for when a player sells an item to the npc... is below... and it also looks as if it is adding the item to both the database and the tmpmerchanttable[] array properly...

from zone.cpp

int Zone::SaveTempItem(int32 merchantid, int32 npcid, int32 item, sint32 charges, bool sold){
	int freeslot = 0;
	
	std::list<MerchantList> merlist = merchanttable[merchantid];
	std::list<MerchantList>::const_iterator itr;
	int32 i = 1;
	for(itr = merlist.begin();itr != merlist.end();itr++){
		MerchantList ml = *itr;
		if(ml.item == item)
			return 0;
		else
			i++;
	}
	std::list<TempMerchantList> tmp_merlist = tmpmerchanttable[npcid];
	std::list<TempMerchantList>::const_iterator tmp_itr;
	bool update_charges = false;
	TempMerchantList ml;
	while(freeslot == 0 && !update_charges){
		freeslot = i;
		for(tmp_itr = tmp_merlist.begin();tmp_itr != tmp_merlist.end();tmp_itr++){
			ml = *tmp_itr;
			if(ml.item == item){
				update_charges = true;
				freeslot = 0;
				break;
			}
			if(ml.origslot==i)
				freeslot=0;
		}
		i++;
	}
	if(update_charges){
		tmp_merlist.clear();
		std::list<TempMerchantList> oldtmp_merlist = tmpmerchanttable[npcid];
		for(tmp_itr = oldtmp_merlist.begin();tmp_itr != oldtmp_merlist.end();tmp_itr++){
			TempMerchantList ml2 = *tmp_itr;
			if(ml2.item != item)
				tmp_merlist.push_back(ml2);
		}
		if(sold)
			ml.charges = ml.charges + charges;
		else
			ml.charges = charges;
		if(!ml.origslot)
			ml.origslot = ml.slot;
		if(charges>0){
			database.SaveMerchantTemp(npcid, ml.origslot, item, ml.charges);
			tmp_merlist.push_back(ml);
		}
		else{
			database.DeleteMerchantTemp(npcid,ml.origslot);
		}
		tmpmerchanttable[npcid] = tmp_merlist;
		
	}
	if(freeslot){
		if(charges<0) //sanity check only, shouldnt happen
			charges = 255;
		database.SaveMerchantTemp(npcid, freeslot, item, charges);
		tmp_merlist = tmpmerchanttable[npcid];
		TempMerchantList ml2;
		ml2.charges = charges;
		ml2.item = item;
		ml2.npcid = npcid;
		ml2.slot = freeslot;
		ml2.origslot = ml2.slot;
		tmp_merlist.push_back(ml2);
		tmpmerchanttable[npcid] = tmp_merlist;
	}
	return freeslot;
}

so as far as i can tell it should be displaying the items that were sold to the merchant unless im missing something somewhere...

[ArChron]

In response to:

"Ok, to end this senseless speculating... I am on Live right now, 2 chars, same merchant. I sold a Meat to the merchant, and without doing anything, it appeared magically on the second toons open merchant window - no closing, no reopening. That's what I expected to see.

The guy who sold it can buy it back immediately. And, it vanishes from the second guys merchant window - dynamically, like I said. Furthermore, the second guy could buy it if he wanted, and it also vanishes from the first guys window immediately. So, no risk of dupe items - on LIVE."

-------------------------------------------------------------

What this seems to infer in Live is that each NPC 'knows' which clients are looking at its inventory, and can push state changes in its inventory list out to those clients. Coupled with some rudimentary semaphore logic (a vendor handles only 1 transaction at a time), this prevents the possibility of a duplicated item. NOTE: This is all conjecture as I'm sitting at work, eating my lunch, browsing the forums...

Can the Emu do this? I have no idea, as I haven't started delving into the emulator code yet... I'm still trying to make sense out of the database and the field definitions... but that's another forum...

[John Adams]

Welcome aboard, ArChron

It is my best guess that the Live servers do more of a polling cycle that updates the clients as things are added or subtracted. I am confident the Emulator does not do this for various reasons; one being bandwidth. Not sure the original designers wanted their servers spewing tons of updates per second for merchants. I also haven't looked directly at merchant code, but I am sure it could be done. There are plenty of other things in the Emu that send updates to the client when things happen (like your buddy dying).

Maybe it's something we just haven't gotten to yet.

[Aerewen]

Could be done fairly easy considering the opcodes...

theres an opcode for adding an item to a merchant, subtracting one, opening a merchant window and closing a merchant window.

so the basic framework needed to track what clients are browsing what merchants is there.