How exactly do you make a merchant?

[Barlas]

How do you go about making a merchant? I made an npc, gave them a chest, linked the two, but the npc doesn't let me talk with them. I click on them and they say the normal "Hello" stuff.

 

Is there going to be a tutorial on this soon? maybe?

[kromey]

I suspect there's a faction you have to put your NPC into to give him/her the merchant dialog options. Randomly looking up Belethor (okay, not really random, his was just the first name I could recall when I tried to think of a merchant) on UESP, JobMerchantFaction jumps out at me as being a really good possibility -- try adding your NPC to that faction and see what happens.

 

I'd also suggest looking up a few different merchants in the CK and seeing how they're set up, look for a common thread (e.g. the JobMerchantFaction) that's common to them but lacking for your creation.

[Barlas]

Tried that. Mine is basically a Lucan from Riverwood Trader, but is a female Breton that is linked to my custom chest.

 

I'll check again.

[anuther1]

I would just pick an existing one - right click copy - change character name, attributes (race, face, voice, etc.) and place them in the world at their shop/cart/kiosk/whatever.

[Barlas]

I would just pick an existing one - right click copy - change character name, attributes (race, face, voice, etc.) and place them in the world at their shop/cart/kiosk/whatever.

 

 

Thats what I did. He just keeps yammering on about "Hey" "Got something to say?" "How are ya?"

 

No options about "What do you got to sell" or anything.

[Sepultaris]

Been trying to figure this one out myself for over an hour.

[chimechu]

in the Objects window, under Character/Quest there is a quest called DialogueGeneric.

That quest contains the lines and scripts of the buy/sell function of merchants.

Open the quest. Under the Dialogue Views tab, click on the DialogueGenericView in the left panel and you're going to see a square with the title OfferServicesTopic: What have you got for sale?

Double click that and you'll see the lines of dialogue; to change or see the conditions, double click one of the strings.

 

Now, I can't guarantee it'll work by changing factions or w/e to correspond with the dialogue conditions. I've yet to make any custom character work with any dialogue, even custom dialogue that's NPC-specific.

[Barlas]

I'll try that and get back to you.

 

Thanks.

[Bismarck]

In the older TES games, you had to check a special box called offers services. You also could specify which kind of merchandise the trader offered.

Oblivion introduced the workday, so you might have to specify via AI packages at which time your trader offers his services.

[Susurruss]

Your vendor has to be a member of a faction that has a vendor. Um, not so clear. Ok.

 

On the FACTIONS tab, check for a faction starting with "services..." (if you copied a vendor, it should be here, if you don't want to use that specific faction, you will have to make your own - just copy an existing services faction and rename it, add your NPC to that faction, then edit the faction).

 

Double-click the services faction, and go to the vendor tab. You should have Vendor checked off, and there should be a container associated (if there isn't, you will have to associate it - search and find the chest you have for them and designate it).

 

Next, click on the LOCATION -> EDIT button (still on the vendor tab). Now here's where you might have to cheat a bit, until you get things working at least. Just select 'Near self' for now, and save everything and check in-game to see if your merchant is giving the correct dialogue now.

 

If your merchant is giving you the correct dialogue, you can go back to the Location and set it for a specific area (wherever your vendor will be doing business - you don't want the guy to pull out his inventory when he's at the Inn drinking his mead, do you?)

 

I hope this helps.

Edited February 9, 2012 by Susurruss