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Though each city having a sub market could be kind of cool, kind of like the old achaean subdivision for housing but small stalls, like a flea market. Each could be themed for the different cities, like Enorian have a souk, bloodloch an emporium, Duiran a...thing, spines a more different thing.
Edit: More thoughts - stalls could be 2 shelves each so you could sprawl out and create little districts, easy to set up and take down and to provide smaller shop opportunities, or you lease out more spaces, and help encourage specialized places. I know I've furniture and food I'd love to sell, but really don't need a whole shop for them, just a shelf or two, that don't fit into the armoury or guild shop.
As for the bigger issue, I can see both sides about this. I've done shopkeeping before and I know in Imperian it can be very hard to even make enough for your taxes and adding more shops does push down the price of the wares. But so many organizations own shops which means those shops will not go back into rotation.
I think adding five more new shops or so per city and then putting together something like what Areka says, tiny shops with just a shelf or two, perhaps purchasable with credits, or rentable as a gold sink. (Aka the money doesn't go to the city for shop taxes, you rent it up front from the artifact guy or whatever.) It would be a nice way for those who think they want to do shopkeeping but have never done it before and don't have to pay out millions just to find out they hate the finniky details of it.
I think there is definitely room for improvement and innovation when it comes to this side of the game.
Utility stuff like cures and enchants basically already sell at only a little above cost with cures going for 1 gold. We've already reached equilibrium there and adding more shops isn't going to change those prices. Making the merchant skills accessible to everyone already drove the prices down years ago.
People in aetolia can and will go buy stuff for rp and aesthetics which makes our economy different from other ire games which I mentioned in my first post. Having more crafting choices to pick from just means that people will be able to customize and play pretend more easily either as a merchant and crafter getting to design and sell or as a shopper finding the perfect outfit and accessories and props to fit their character and rp. That's a good and desirable thing.
I love designing but Kendri as a character isn't much of a crafter and I have no desire to hold up a huge shop for the small amount of RP items that I may sell on her. The idea of a cheaper, tiny, specialized shop appeals because I do have some ideas that I would love to expand on eventually.
Obviously just opening up more shops is the easier coding option, but it doesn't hurt to voice things that would be neat to see and I think beneficial to the atmosphere of the game.
On lower levelled alt I have, which I played for a couple of months early last year, I had to watch what I spent. Food in particular was frustrating - for that I bought the cheapest rations I could find.
For the clothes/armour/weapons I still chose stuff that suited the character though, even though I had to bash naked for a while before I could afford it. Because part of playing this game is having a picture of your character in your head. Or at least, in my head. Maybe not everyone is the same.
The short term 2 shelf market stall idea is something I've been suggesting about once a year in each IRE mud since early Achaean days - but hey. Let's suggest it again. Maybe Oleis/Raz will like it more than the other producers have.
For a new spin on the idea, consider cities being able to host fairs. Spinesreach might choose, once a game year for a full game month, to host a fair outside the city walls. People pay for a market stall, stock it with their best goods and other people turn up to shop.
Also I don't think profit necessarily needs to be a factor. Vanity shops can be fun and desired simply because its another activity to do. Look at gwenith paltrow and gloop or whatever it's called.
Profit does need to be a factor of the discussion if you're going to quote a success rate?
Your idea of minishops isnt what I was referring to. If you scan back in this forum section you'll find a thread I made months back asking for that exact thing as house upgrades.
And profit is a eh sort of factor imo. Fun and engagement are basically the overarching goals shop stuff provides - profit fits under that umbrella but so does enjoyment from creative creation or entertainment from the rp it opens up or satisfaction from organization/scripting. People find a wide range of factors about shop ownership and management fun and engaging. Profit is only part of that and to some people it doesn't even factor in at all.
That's what I'd love best if I could have anything. That got turned down. Market stalls continue to remain only a special artifact auction item. Shop wings have been shot down. Etc.
Increasing shop limits seems the easiest solution with least work for admin since all the other things we've proposed have been nixed which is why I suggested it, as a scaled down attempt to get us something to help the crappy shop situation . Its a bit frustrating that this is being objected to loudly since it makes it even easier to be denied along with all the others.
If you are going to claim that profit is an eh factor, then you need to not use that 'most shops are profitable on RP items' as part of an argument. That's all. It either is relevant or it isn't, can't have it both ways. If profit is NOT the focus - then these smaller shop ideas are all the more meaningful and would be helpful as they would ease accessibility with less -losses-. We need to view things from new up and comers and people getting their toes wet, not just from established resources-a-plenty.
That stated, I don't think anyone has completely objected to adding more shops to the game - the issue under disagreement is the volume. As it's all up in Admin's hands anyway, it is nice to brainstorm blue-sky ideas that might get picked up and reworked, especially with newer faces to the game who are interested in contributing and exploring.
Sorry I'm on my phone so it's somewhat hard to post and I can't quote.
Stalls on their own could be very fun for sure and I could imagine fun things to do with them. I just don't think they would really alleviate the problem of there being far fewer shops than people who want them. They would be a fun secondary idea though and the ability to test drive shopkeeping could probably generate more credit purchases if we had tons of shops available to buy
doll1234 a Paladin doll with real slashing action
doll5567 a cute little Bahkatu doll
People used to buy the shit out of them. Probably mostly RPers, and I never charged an arm and a leg for them(didn't have to!), but damn. I was always making new ones.
...I really wish I still had those old designs
I remember, involve me and I
learn.
-Benjamin Franklin
But seir-iously, I've always had the idea that if you opened and ran shops to make some sort of profit, you were wrong. Most people I know actually just use them for an RP point, right?
I'd throw out again the idea of if we do get more shops, to make them out of city shops as it's only one shop area that needs to be recoded. You can feed them in in multiples of 1 instead of 4. Refugee area needs more love.
Politics
Also, thanks to @Kerryn, I will soon be opening a tailor's "shop" in Delos. With some creative thinking it is possible to work around the issue of there being no shops for sale.
Do you believe that there are any issues with shop keeping currently, in regards to both the difficulty to acquire a shop, and the ways in which they're currently utilized?
Should shops be something relatively easy to get, or should it be a privilege that's understandably hard to weasel your way into as such?
Would more shops actually hurt the economy? If so, how do you think? You'll find in the thread thus far there have been some reasons as to how it would help it, but little besides over-saturation mentioned as something that'd hurt it.
Is approaching this issue (if it is even viewed as one by the administration) something of interest to you?
I remember, involve me and I
learn.
-Benjamin Franklin
10-20 shops is way too many, because as often as it comes up about people wanting more shops, it's not actually something 10-20 more people per city want - and, I suspect, if that many did open, people would just gobble up more shops and we'd get not as many new shopkeepers as intended. The profit debate is really hit or miss, and I doubt that profit should be a main reason anyone gets into business in Aetolia, as mentioned above.
I'd be all for another 3-5 per city OR re-vamping the refugee camp area to make those higher value OR market stalls being made available more frequently. They all sound like pretty decent ideas to help alleviate the stress of finding a shop or space to sell your wares.
Despite the fact that the value of the shops there is currently low, they're still quite in use. If anything, increasing the value of them would make it more difficult to find a shop by means of those people wishing to keep a stronger hold on them.
After messaging the three people that seem to have the lowest amount of stock in said shops, I received two responses having no interest in parting with them, and one response expecting a gold amount that would rival that of a current, more expensive city shop.
Even refugee shops as they stand are difficult to acquire.
EDIT: That said, my favorite solution of them all that you proposed would certainly be the idea of making the market stall artifact a regular one.
I'm not sure making the market stall a regular artifact would be the best, which is why I just said 'more frequently'. I was thinking it could be rolled into either an existing promo or put into the artifact packages that are sometimes sold through the website, if they plan on using those more(or at all) in the coming months. Just some thoughts : )
For this ingenious idea to make Matt mucho dinero and give folks what they want, just give me a 10% kickback on credit sales for that month... I prefer credits over cold hard cash. Enough cold as it is.
Re: Profit argument. Two of three of mine are regularly 'profitable', in that they make more than they have to pay out in profit, and they usually cover any losses for the third--but not by much. Profit for the year was 2337 gold across all three shops. And frankly, while my shops have covered their base credit cost, they're only profitable because I have 2500 credits worth of shiny that make selling jewelcrafts with real shinies at reasonable prices possible for me. Which probably won't ever be made up.
Not saying zomg, absolutely no more shops. I just think 10-20 per city is ridiculous, and like Parker said, not really -necessary-.
Think the following things would help:
1) Three-Five more full shops per city.
2) I really like all of Areka's mini-shop/temp-shop/flavour shop/smaller shop ideas.
3) Also fairs. I think fairs would be awesome, especially for like, seasonal stuff. Themed fairs/festivals. Etcetera. Though, maybe make some of them consistent, with renewal of fees? So like. Annual Spirean Harvest Festival, or something, and you stock a shop with related-stuff, and it's there for a month or two in autumn--and at festival end, you can just pay a little fee for the next year and have it store your stockroom till the next one? Or...something.
4) Also think upping shop capacity, or at least let the artifacts that allow you to expand space stack, would help the
'zomg, so and so has 50 shops thing'. I was renting a fourth shop from Genocide for a long while for extra space.
5) Really do think a use-it or lose-it policy would be helpful in keeping shops in circulation. In response to the person who said you can't always see shelves, maybe give chancellor/aides the ability to -see- all of the shelves?
6) Give the refugee camp a directory.
You can use templates to bypass stock limits. Stock limits are based on physical items in the store room. This is why I explicitly only design stuff with materials that can be cached. That's part of the design shopkeeping metagame.
5 shops, 10 shops, 20 shops, I don't think it'd be a huge difference in how I play as a merchant. I do think it would open up this gameplay to a lot more people and make things more fun, so I support it. Zero shops works too. Either way, I'm not really affected, but as a player, I do wish others could try their hand at shopkeeping.
ETA: To be clear, I only addressed that point because I feel like we're circling the other arguments repetitively, because you keep insisting we're anti-adding new shops when we're not, we just think 80 is asinine and unnecessary.
Adding 3-5 per city, watching how it goes for a couple of months, then considering adding more - would be smarter.
@erzsebet
During the year when you made 2k profit, what was the total turnover?