Kingmaker - The Art of the Deal

The latest update for Pathfinder: Kingmaker tells us about the vendor interface.

The Art of the Deal - Our Vendor UI

Hi Pathfinders,

Ahh yes, to be an adventurer! Exploring the Stolen Lands, battling hordes of of bandits, trolls and other baddies, fighting for the cause and never forgetting what's most important in life: fat loot! But since you have a finite amount of sword-swinging arms and you can only wear so much armor - what are you going to do with the tons upon tons of extra gear you collect on your travels? The hint is in the title of this update!

Today we're telling you all about how we're designing the interface you'll be using to interact with the merchants of Pathfinder: Kingmaker.

No cRPG is complete without a merchant. Whether you need to replenish your rations, stack up on potions or purchase a rare magical blade, this classic character is always there for you. Of course, the merchant is also more than willing to help you unburden your bags of all the unwanted loot, and will reward you handsomely for your trouble.

It should be noted that when we speak of "merchants", what we mean is not a special kind of NPC, not an honorary title and not even a separate occupation - many characters can be considered merchants simply by virtue of having goods to sell. Thus, when we talk about merchants we mean exactly them, the characters of our game, and they are much more than just a list of items to buy and sell. Whether it's a hermit mage trying to fund his arcane research by selling scrolls and wands or an actual professional merchant from the capital, you will interact with both of them through the vendor interface.

Many ways to implement a trade interface have been developed to this day, and we are no innovators in this area. Drawing on the principles of convenience and immersion, we have decided not to go down the path of invention and to steer clear of exotic solutions. We wanted to make sure that once you saw the vendor interface, you would quickly understand how it works based on your experience with other games. Apart from that we tried to preserve the immersiveness of the Pathfinder universe, which meant we had to stick to certain technical frameworks and develop a vision of the future artistic layout.

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More information.

That was a great article. So much goes into building a game and was neat to see their process for coming up with the inventory and trading. Like the idea of items being displayed on a table from just a fun immersion level.

These guys take UI design very seriously, you can tell. Sick and tired of console UI.

Does this guy get paid by the word?

As usual they're spot on in my book. I hated the inventory in D:OS, glad to see they're not going that route. The table sobs like a nice idea, we'll see if they manage to implement it in a meaningful way or if it gets cut.

Seriously?
Inventory in D:OS was IMO one the best designed inventory systems I've seen on PC in past decade.

But okay, it could be different tastes example, I mean… Just can't stand wasting time on scrolling up/down through consoley lists instead of having it all condensed as icons/tiles.

Originally Posted by joxer
Seriously?
Inventory in D:OS was IMO one the best designed inventory systems I've seen on PC in past decade.

But okay, it could be different tastes example, I mean… Just can't stand wasting time on scrolling up/down through consoley lists instead of having it all condensed as icons/tiles.

Haha, yeah I've seen you say that several times and it always amazes me. It just got so damn cluttered to me. There were some great things about it though, like the easy transfer between characters and such. My dislike for it might have also been because of the less than stellar loot system and the crafting system leading to me hoarding everything just in case it was needed for crafting. Also, lists are easier to navigate to me.

If you're interested in UI design, I found this video useful - showing how to do rapid prototyping with Balsamic and Unity.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0Csgx2gCok

If only different developers would hire new staff only if they watched that.

Great article!!

Standard stuff for any conventional cRPG. Nothing particularly innovative.

The listed items mostly look like boring, stock D&D magic items. I hope they're going to mix it up with some unique items and interesting lore.