Hey,

I was thinking last night whilst reading up on New Vegas. Ever since those first multiplayer attempt threads popped up in the Fallout 3 section, I've always imagined walking into Moriarty's Saloon, then meeting some random traveller and trading some ammo for stimpaks or something like that. I remembered this and then it hit me. There are programs out there that you can use to modify your save games, to add/remove/modify your items. So what if there was a program that allowed to trade items with other players (out of the game) and have the changes made via the program manipulating the save game? Picture it. You open up the program, load a save and connect to the (or a) server and you are presented with a list of peers and a chat. Your list of items is taken from your save game file and displayed, you can select a player to trade with and then offer items. They do the same, and when you're happy with the deal, you both accept. Then the save games on both sides are modified, and when they next go ingame the changes to their inventory are made. There's also the potential for stuff like gambling by manipulating the amount of caps the player has on the save games.

Maybe you could even check the location of the save game, and only allow them to see other people in the same location. I really think my idea has potential, though I only have experience in non-desktop languages. If anyone could make this happen, I'm sure it'd be very well recieved and I for one would appreciate it greatly.

Anyway, I just wanted to get this idea out there in case it was an actual brainwave.

Thanks,
Fox

That would be really cool, although im sure people would be kind of nervous letting something tamper with their savegames in that kind of manner.

...implementing item trading in a single-player game? At least it wouldn't necessarily be that difficult, but I'd really question why anyone would bother.

I think there was a mod for Morrowind that allowed you to trade items between saves.