Shop Signs Changed

Discussion in 'Empire Help & Support' started by azoundria, Oct 1, 2015.

  1. At some point the way that chest shop signs worked was modified. If a sign is above and in front of a chest, it now applies to the chest it is in front of instead of the chest it is on top of.

    Unfortunately this breaks multiple shops including mine. (I know of fairshop and sgt_pepper4 should also be affected and there are likely dozens more.) Nobody can buy from the bottom chest except using signs in front of them.



    I'm not sure if the change was deliberate. This is the first I've heard of it.
  2. Hmm. I wonder if this has anything to do with the recent changes to allow you to lock two side by side beacons. That's the only recent change to signs that I'm aware of. That along with the other changes to make you able to lock different things in the wild like heads.
    We3_Nub_ likes this.
  3. If I may stress the urgency of this issue.

    I understand very few shops are affected, but for me it means nobody can buy any bulk item with stock less than a DC (most of my items, with specific target to the most popular items). In addition, items are being resold to the higher chest, at the lower chest 'panic' price, the rate I'm willing to pay only to prevent the item from going out of stock completely, which is often above the market rate. These two effects have resulted in my accounts being almost completely drained of rupees. As a result, nobody can sell me anything either. My reputation for being always in stock and a reliable place to sell things for a fair price is being permanently damaged, and it will take a long time to build that back up.

    I'm reviewing my options at the moment and all of them suck:

    Closing the shops temporarily would be fast and may protect my reputation. It really wouldn't help anything else though.

    I could add signs near the spawn point to explain the issue to players curious enough to read them.

    Adding new signs to the bottom chest in the correct area would allow purchase of items, and only take several hours for all shops. However, it still wouldn't prevent selling items to me for the higher price. It looks strange and tacky to have two identical signs and customers will still have to try both. Finally, this limits me to being able to sell each item in only 1 or 2 quantities, which is inconvenient for customers.

    Changing the signs entirely would be less confusing for customers, but it will take about 3 times as long and would also mean that the shops will not work properly when this bug is fixed.

    I could move the items to the middle chest, effectively lowering the capacity to 2 DCs, and leave the bottom hoppers/chest filled with dirt. This would also take several hours, and make the shops usable until the bug was fixed. However, as soon as the bug was fixed, the signs would activate on the bottom chest again and nobody would be able to buy anything until the items were moved back down.

    Anything larger or more complex (for example, restructuring all the bulk chests) would take weeks and not look nearly as clean or organized. In addition, most solutions require additional hoppers and have less storage room. All of that effort would be wasted if this is fixed soon.

    As at present, I don't even know if this is going to be fixed or not, let alone when. From what I understand, it shouldn't be too complicated of a fix. The chest shop system already looks for signs in both places, and the priority just needs to be switched back to what it was. My fear is that by delaying this fix, some other shops may be built based on the new priority, and changing it back in that case would potentially cause them to break. I'd really appreciate some sort of answer even if it's not a fix.
    We3_Nub_ likes this.
  4. Sorry I had a reply pending to you in PM but forgot to send it.

    Its cause the code shares the same method all the feature signs use to find a chest.

    We will change it back to previous behavior soon, maybe tomorrow night (special casing shop signs to not favor attached face) in tonights auto reboot
    We3_Nub_ and ShelLuser like this.
  5. ... Isp decided to go down before I could get updates scheduled, I'll try in morning, going to bed

    nvm came up, upgrade scheduled.
    We3_Nub_ and ShelLuser like this.