Stores without signs, and stores that aren't orange

[SeaGtGruff]

This is just a short "fun fact" post or FYI.

Most of the stores in Daggerfall have signs, which helps you find them while you're running around town. But occasionally there are stores which don't have signs. For instance, my go-to alchemy shop in Ykalon (the town I currently call home) doesn't have a sign; it looks just like a small house, although it's shown as an orange building on the town map. I don't remember how many alchemy shops are in Ykalon, but this is the one in the SE corner of town.

Also, it appears that stores are not always shown as orange buildings on the town maps. I don't think it was in the town of Ykalon, but in one of the other towns in Ykalon county I was supposed to go talk to someone in a particular store for some quest I had. The first thing I like to do when entering a new town is run around town "looking" at every store (orange), tavern (green), or guild (blue) building to add its name on the town map. I don't always look at every such building in the larger towns, but I do for the smaller towns. Anyway, I checked every orange, green, and blue building on the town map but couldn't find the store I had been directed to. Thinking that perhaps the quest was bugged and I was destined to fail it, I made a last-ditch attempt to find the store-- I spoke with the towns people and looked at their dialogue options to see if the store was listed among the town's shops. Lo and behold, it was! So I started asking for directions to that specific shop, and was able to find it that way. "Looking" at the building added the name of the shop to my town map, but the building looked just like a regular home (brown) on the map. I'm not sure, but I think it did at least have a sign near the door.

Since there are a set number of town "neighborhood" blocks in the game, I'm guessing the specific block where the shop was located always has a shop in that building, regardless of which town it's in, although I haven't verified that and don't know whether that building is always brown rather than orange.

Come to think of it, the Thieves Guild is also just a brown building on the town maps, although in this case the shop I was looking for had no connection with the Thieves Guild.

[MrFlibble]

But occasionally there are stores which don't have signs. For instance, my go-to alchemy shop in Ykalon (the town I currently call home) doesn't have a sign

I noticed that too, specifically with Alchemists as well. This might also be true for bookstores/libraries but I'm not sure. But at least the interior of those corresponds to a store, they just don't have a sign.

Lo and behold, it was! So I started asking for directions to that specific shop, and was able to find it that way. "Looking" at the building added the name of the shop to my town map, but the building looked just like a regular home (brown) on the map. I'm not sure, but I think it did at least have a sign near the door.

Did it at least provide any services? I. e., could you buy or sell anything?

I do remember running into a tavern that actually was a residence, so you could not rent a room there and the innkeep only provided basic NPC dialogue options. In fact, I think there's one such "tavern" in Gothway Garden. Other places seem to have these too, I believe there's one in Ephesus as well. The building is marked as gray on the map and is not listed among taverns in the dialogue (since it does not have a name either).

I also remember an opposite situation, where a stock residential building was mistakenly designated as a store by the game. The owner/resident NPC had the merchant dialogue (and I guess I could also get a random merchant quest from him), but the house had no shelves whatsoever to buy anything from -- a real pity as I remember there not being other shops of this kind in that town. And yes, it was marked orange on the map IIRC.

The first thing I like to do when entering a new town is run around town "looking" at every store (orange), tavern (green), or guild (blue) building to add its name on the town map. I don't always look at every such building in the larger towns, but I do for the smaller towns.

Interesting, I usually try to avoid using the map as guidance and prefer to ask passers-by for directions, which also trains my speech skills. If I come across any business/guild building, I try to only "look" when the sign (if available) is in sight, as if my character was reading that sign (instead of using telepathic powers to learn the name and business hours).

I even get a bit annoyed if any of the "speechcraft" skills works too well and the townspeople will say, oh, I just marked it on your map. It was cool in Arena when they do it only in close proximity to the building in question, but it seems that in DF you can get a building identified across the town/city if you get a "favourable" response from the townsperson. I mean, I still don't know where to go and sometimes I need to scroll the entire map (which might be big) to find what I'm looking for.

[SeaGtGruff]

Lo and behold, it was! So I started asking for directions to that specific shop, and was able to find it that way. "Looking" at the building added the name of the shop to my town map, but the building looked just like a regular home (brown) on the map. I'm not sure, but I think it did at least have a sign near the door.

Did it at least provide any services? I. e., could you buy or sell anything?

I honestly don't recall. I didn't note the name of the town in my post, otherwise I could go back now and check.

I do remember running into a tavern that actually was a residence, so you could not rent a room there and the innkeep only provided basic NPC dialogue options. In fact, I think there's one such "tavern" in Gothway Garden. Other places seem to have these too, I believe there's one in Ephesus as well. The building is marked as gray on the map and is not listed among taverns in the dialogue (since it does not have a name either).

I'll be sure to revisit Gothway Garden sometime to see that! I rarely use inns for sleeping, since I like to sleep for free as much as possible, so I join the Fighters Guild as soon as possible to have a free bed available. Most towns seem to have a Fighters Guild-- the ones that are of any decent size, at least-- and the tiny towns without a Fighters Guild are small enough that you can easily walk out of the city limits to camp if need be. But now that I've accumulated a lot of gold (my current balance is a 9-digit sum), I just buy the most expensive house in town whenever I pick up my roots and move to a new county seat, so I have a place to sleep and store any loot I want to keep for future use. I also bought a ship (for "completionism" and curiosity), so I can also board my ship to sleep, but to be honest I never use my ship for anything-- not for travel, sleeping, or storing loot.

Anyway, I rarely talk to merchants unless I need to sell something or am on a quest that requires it. I don't like talking to someone and being offered a random quest, because I can't bear to tell them "no thanls," and then I end up with multiple side quests that are active at the same time, each with a time limit for completing them. So I rarely visit inns/taverns or talk to the innkeepers/barkeeps unless required to. If it's dark and I need to ask for directions but no one is out walking the streets, I visit an inn for directions but talk to everyone except the proprietor.

I also remember an opposite situation, where a stock residential building was mistakenly designated as a store by the game. The owner/resident NPC had the merchant dialogue (and I guess I could also get a random merchant quest from him), but the house had no shelves whatsoever to buy anything from -- a real pity as I remember there not being other shops of this kind in that town. And yes, it was marked orange on the map IIRC.

I wonder if it was a potential quest location? It's odd that a particular kind of store wouldn't have any shelves that you could buy from, although to be honest I almost never buy anything from merchants, other than occasional arrows if I'm running low or for a particular piece of chain armor that is difficult to find as loot-- in particular, chain gauntlets or the chain helm with a blue feather crest. It seems like chain gauntlets are rarely used by enemies, and most of the time if I find a helm with the blue feather on a dead enemy it is actually leather (AR 1) rather than chain (AR 3). But as far as stores that don't have any shelves to buy from, I suppose the only thing that saves them from being completely useless in the game is the fact that you can sell that particular kind of loot to the proprietors. Although each type of store has only certain types of items that they'll buy from you, I find that only 3 types of stores are needed for selling everything-- alchemy shops, general stores, and pawn shops. I try to find the "best" shop of each type as far as getting good prices, meaning the shops which are the most run-down. If I walk into a shop that has incense and soft music, I just turn around and leave, unless it's the only shop in town that will buy a specific type of item.

The first thing I like to do when entering a new town is run around town "looking" at every store (orange), tavern (green), or guild (blue) building to add its name on the town map. I don't always look at every such building in the larger towns, but I do for the smaller towns.

Interesting, I usually try to avoid using the map as guidance and prefer to ask passers-by for directions, which also trains my speech skills. If I come across any business/guild building, I try to only "look" when the sign (if available) is in sight, as if my character was reading that sign (instead of using telepathic powers to learn the name and business hours).

I even get a bit annoyed if any of the "speechcraft" skills works too well and the townspeople will say, oh, I just marked it on your map. It was cool in Arena when they do it only in close proximity to the building in question, but it seems that in DF you can get a building identified across the town/city if you get a "favourable" response from the townsperson. I mean, I still don't know where to go and sometimes I need to scroll the entire map (which might be big) to find what I'm looking for.

I hear you! Arena and Daggerfall-- especially Arena-- seem to bring out my "playful" or silly side more that any of the other Elder Scrolls games, just because there can be amusing inconsistencies or gameplay details that seem to defy logic, such as how you can open up a map that shows a building floorplan, town layout, or wilderness area you've never been to. I guess Daggerfall tried to "fix" that by not allowing us to view a map of wilderness areas--which actually kind of bugs me about Daggerfall, since I think Arena's wilderness map helps make the wilderness more "useful" in the game as far as being somewhere we can explore and find places to kill enemies, grab loot, and gain XP. In contrast, Daggerfall's wilderness seems like a large wasteland where you can walk around for days without discovering any places to explore. In fact, even if you already know where something is from having found a map to it, but then "lost" it because you died or fell into the void without haviong saved and had to restore from before you'd found a map of that location, it can be just about impossible to discover it by walking to that general area on the county map and then walking all around the area looking for it, especially with smaller locations such as graveyards (many of which do not exist on your map until you find a map to them).

Anyway, a long time ago I decided to headcanon that there are little "visitor's guide" boxes at the town gates where visitors can grab a map of the town as they enter, and it has a convenient listing of all the available shops, temples, and other services (so you can ask the townspeople where a particular inn, temple, or equipment store is), but whoever designed the pamphlet didn't label the buildings on the map. Instead, they included a pencil with the pamphlet so you can write on the map or let other people write on it, to give visitors something "fun" to do, like a paper placemat with a cute drawing and a small box of crayons that some family restaurants used to provide for parents to help keep their small children happy.

Likewise, there are floorplans convenienly left on a table near a building's entrance, or just beside the top or bottom of a stairway on each floor, to help anyone entering a palace, store, inn, temple, mages guild, or residence find their way around. I know it's silly, but how else are we to explain the fact that we can inspect a building's floorplan as soon as we walk inside or change floors?