Sunday, 27th March 2011, 05:39 by mageykun
What I liked about using color codes, or even marking items with pips, is that you immediately know, in one glance, which items are un-ID-ed. If you put an adjective in the middle of the description it's less obvious. You have to read through the whole shop. While I know that's a lazy complaint, my point is right now you already have to read through the shop carefully to see if there's an item you haven't met yet this game. Hunting for a word in each line is about the same level of difficulty- it doesn't simplify anything.
Saving the column for space reasons seems silly, you're only adding one character to each line in the menu. Unless this is a complaint about code necessary.
Alternate suggestion: add a key that toggles away from the default color coding to an ID one, where say ID-ed items are grayed out and unknowns are marked in a priory color, say yellow. It's not like we don't have a whole row of toggles and options at the bottom of the shop screen already.
How do shop color codes work right now, anyways? There seem to be conflicting standards- potion shops seem to color code by type, the letters are coded green/red according to affordability, weapon and armor shops color code artefacts white, and some scrolls are coded yellow, red and purple for good, bad, and weird, I think. Honestly- right now, aside from the artefacts, I don't think shop inventory color coding provides useful information. Except that red (bad) items are the cheap nasty things you probably want to shop ID (providing you haven't ID-ed them already, of course).