LE Courier Between Steam Friends?

[IronMannequinMrkXXI]

This could potentially be used as a cross-game trading system. You make a request to anyone using the mod via a Forum area in the mod-page, befriend them on Steam, and then send them the septims via the mod, and they'd send you the (oh, let's say) alchemy ingredients you requested.

[Xander9009]

This could potentially be used as a cross-game trading system. You make a request to anyone using the mod via a Forum area in the mod-page, befriend them on Steam, and then send them the septims via the mod, and they'd send you the (oh, let's say) alchemy ingredients you requested.

Indeed it could. And it could also be fairly easy to adapt it to have an in-game menu so you don't even have to use the forums.

[DragonDude1029]

Once I complete the network frameworks and all that its features are limitless. Trading, messaging, gifts, maybe even player given quests!!! So I could be like an NPC and assign a quest to one of my friends! Honestly there's lots of opportunities :D

[Xander9009]

Good to know you're still actively working on it. If you were to give up on it, I'd probably have to take it up, and that would be a lot more work that I'd like.

[ArchangelZero7]

Looking forward to this

[Xander9009]

A question; how are you planning to handle the trading? I was thinking it might have two sections, depending on how you do the interactions. One section could work like bartering; you have a list of items that people are seeking to buy, sell, or trade, and you can offer potential trades. The other person could counter offer. This can be repeated until both agree it's a good trade and the transaction is completed. The other section would be for buying/selling exclusively, no trades. So, there wouldn't need to be any kind of back forth interaction. You list an item to buy or sell for a certain price, and someone else that sees the listing can agree to it and the transaction is completed without offers and counteroffers. This is of course only if you're planning to implement some kind of public trading system. And of course, if so, each listing needs either public, or a list of users who can see it. I'm not sure how complicated you're willing to make it. But at worst you could get it working, and then I or someone else could help get the other features going.

[Xander9009]

Just curious if you've made any progress on this. I know you've probably been busy with some of your other numerous mods in progress lol. I was thinking, if you manage to get it all set up, even though Skyrim is becoming a bit older, if it doesn't rely too heavily upon papyrus, you might be able to easily adapt it to whatever game comes after it so everyone could start off with it while the game was new. I just wish we could manage a multiplayer system. Not massively multiplayer, but like how fable did it. The other player is just kind of treated like a follower that someone else happens to be controlling. Wouldn't work for Skyrim, I imagine. Too much lag. That game wouldn't work well like that. Especially because the games would have to be kept in sync. I'm hoping it's possible in the next installment, though.

[DragonDude1029]

There has been a little progress, but I've mainly been working on Equipping Overhaul. Here's something exciting: I've developed a way that should make the mod work without an external program or executable. It is all done on-runtime in the game! I'm now looking into a bunch of ways to make it save/character specific, which is going well. Here's how the mod operates (note: bunches of this stuff is proofed-concepts and not-yet-functional code, it is all doable though):

 

After installing the mod, starting Skyrim (via SKSE), and entering your save, a man runs up to you. He tells you a number, which is your character's user ID. You can then go to a location (post office basically) and send messages to other people using their user ID. Alternatively, you can initialize two types of trade: Fixed or Barter. When starting a fixed trade you place the item you are trading in a chest. You then enter the FormID of the item you want. The player with the user ID that you started the trade with will be approached by a courier and presented with the message. They can accept if they have the requested item and get the item you sent, or they can deny the trade. When the trade is denied/accepted you are approached by a courier who gives you the traded item or your original item. A barter works similarly, but additionally to accepting/denying the receiver can give any item to the courier to start a new barter trade where they want the item you originally sent and they are offering the item they gave the courier.

 

The things that still need to be designed are:

1. Amounts of items. This is simple but I haven't bothered designing it yet.

2. A different method of specifying the requested item instead of using Form IDs. This will be designed along with item amounts. I may end up having to fallback to you only being able to request an amount of gold, not items (items can be sent for the trade, just not requested). Now that I think about it I almost certainly will go back to money, because it will simplify stuff for when I make an auction house and it will simplify the barter process too.

3. A method of pausing the courier dialogue, so you could go get the trade item. I may end up removing my courier entirely and making it so they have to go to the post office instead of being approached.

4. A method of cancelling the trade from the sender's end. Currently, if you start a trade with someone and the other person never goes on that save/never replies to the trade, you can never get your item back.

5. A method of keeping user ID cleanliness when saves are deleted. The database currently will remember the IDs of every user ever ID'd, even once that save is deleted. Not really an issue, because the ID's are a stack basis and take no server space. The actual issue is that people can still send messages/stuff to dead IDs/deleted users. I have no clue how I will fix this. In the end it probably won't matter at all anyways.

6. Enter your username rather than being given a number. This is last on the list of stuff to do.

 

After that I'm going to need to spend a while adding security, as well as fallback procedures to prevent data loss or corruption in the server.

Edited March 3, 2014 by DragonDude1029

[Xander9009]

That sounds great. For requesting items/gold, going with only being able to request gold makes sense. However, including a short message would allow for requesting different items and the other user has to provide the gold amount is specified or make a counter-offer, which would include the item the sender requested. When choosing the amount of gold to request, you could have it default to 0 for giving items for free, be able to give it a positive value for an amount to request, or -1 to signify they can't simply accept, they must make a counter-offer.

[DragonDude1029]

Here's the new way it operates:

 

All players are assigned a user ID via a courier like NPC. Players can go to a 'post office' to send mail and check received mail. To receive mail the player must speak to a certain NPC. To send mail the player must speak with a different NPC, who through dialogue will allow the player to send different types of mail. There are three types of mail, each requiring a user ID to be sent to:

 

1. Messages. Simple text based messages in which the player enters the message into a text field (which I can make look like a letter, fancy GUI, similar to Take Notes' GUI).

2. Fixed trades. The player gives the NPC an item to trade and also specifies an amount of gold. They can also attach a message (type 1) to the fixed trade. The user specified by the user ID can accept or deny this trade. Accepting will give them the item sent and remove the amount of gold, followed by sending the gold to the first player. Denying will cause the item to be returned to the first player.

3. Barters. They operate the exact same as fixed trade, but in addition to accepting and denying, the second player can specify a new amount of gold. Specifying a new amount that is higher or equal to the original amount of gold will immediately accept the trade and send the first player the newly specified amount of gold. Specifying a lower amount will send the first player a counter-barter message stating the item and new amount of gold. The first player then restarts the barter process by accepting, denying, or specifying a new amount of gold for the counter-barter. Notably, the first player's counter-counter-barter will be the exact same (code wise) as an original barter.

 

Sending a fixed trade with a gold value of 0 would be a gift. Sending a barter with a gold value of 0 would be a 'choose your price' trade. Negative numbers cannot be inputted.

 

In the future there will be possibility to construct an auction house. This will be more difficult to do, but still possible. I won't work on the auction house until after a stable release of the other stuff.

Edited March 13, 2014 by DragonDude1029