Shops and Commodities

Minarael

The argument that somehow it's going to drive down prices is sort of silly to me. Herbs and refills are already ridiculously low. Designed goods have a built-in cost based on commodities. Most shops don't seem to be stocking at a price point very far above the cost of the necessary commodities. 

What it would do is reduce the strain on those concoctions and increase the -variety- of designed goods available. Honestly, I find when I'm running around looking for stuff that half the shops are selling the exact same designs. I think making shops competitive will become more about quality than about price. Prices are already set pretty dang low. 

I still see absolutely no reason to limit shops. 

@Areka - Why have multiple room shops with only one stockroom? Just to make life easier for the shopkeeper? Having multiple room shops with multiple stock rooms seems like it might be better for security and make sorting wares a tad easier. 

Areka

Yeah, purely a quality of life thing.

Price 5 13235 500 shelf 4 room35235

Rather than having to run up and over and back down again. If each room had its own stockroom, would then need a balance point for shop size, mayhaps additional rooms having less space.

Phoenecia

@Toz's statement about having unlimited shops oversaturating the market still stands. Shops are a desirable commodity for the simple fact that there's a finite number of them; there's prestige and (ideally) profit in owning one. If shops are in unlimited supply, it suddenly becomes less special, and the huge number of shops makes it harder to earn a profit unless you're really good and really manage to make yourself stand out to the point where people want to visit your shop and buy your stuff instead of the other guy next door to you. As it is, of the 80 or so shops currently in existence, how many do you think see regular business and make really good profit? If you expand the shop pool too much, it becomes increasingly likely that many new startups will end up being overlooked.

Minarael

I think your statement actually showcases the opposite fact to my mind. There are a lot of people hanging on to shops for the prestige, plus not wanting to lose their investment, but aren't actually managing them well. So they aren't turning a great profit. 

The fact is that a large part of the playerbase has no interest in shop keeping, it's a pain. Managing one appropriately so it turns a profit is not straightforward and can take a fair amount of time. I don't think we are going to see a ton more shops, but the people who are already invested in and interested in merchantry for their character are going to have the opportunity to get their wares to the public. 

We have ways to advertise as well, so active shops can get their name out amidst a sea of unloved shops. 

Commodity items that don't get any customization (herbs, slices, etc) are generally going to sell well and the price point can't drop too much further without just giving them away as it is. Custom items are going to be to a player taste, and having more options for custom designed things is not a -bad- thing at all.

Alexina

It sort of feels like it'd be a good idea splitting off the shops discussion from the rage thread since a lot of people have a lot of different ideas and opinions.

It just seems a bit contradictory when people want more shops because there's not enough shops, but at the same time there's not enough shops that're making good enough profits. In order to make shopkeeping profitable, you might want to look into the supply/demand ratio of various items. Just to draw a comparison: people paid 20-30 gold (and sometimes more) per herb in Achaea for the longest time because they were not as readily available as they are in Aetolia. Concoctionists would not sell as many herbs, but they made a lot more money. I am sure there are other examples in other IRE games as well.

There are other ways to manage the exchange of goods between players. Some MMOs use auction houses and similar locations to get all of the wares out to all the players from a single place. We could have a virtual buy-and-sell system that is not even tied to a specific room. A lot of players offer their services as designers, and a rare few actually seem to be able to charge a fair sum for their designs. Generally speaking, the more expensive an item is, the more profit the manufacturer can make; if a chair costs 10,000 gold to make, you might sell it for 12,000 or even 15,000 without people really complaining; if the same item costs 50 gold to make, you probably couldn't sell it for even 1,000 gold (unless you have a monopoly, that is).

My personal opinions:

• Get rid of the refugee camp. It is a left-over since Ashtan got destroyed and it no longer serves a purpose. If we want more shops in neutral locations, find some other place that just is not so far out of the way.
• People that go inactive forfeit their shop. Does not matter if they have someone to pay their taxes or not.
• No limit on the amount of shops a person can own; if they are able to maintain more than one shop, why would they not be allowed to? Additionally, such a limit could easily be circumvented by placeholder owners, making the potential benefit of such a limit non-existent.
  
• Consider overhauling the entire crafting/commodity system (huge project). It always seemed weird to me that a rugged wool vest cost exactly as much as an exquisite silken vest with golden embroideries. Rare materials (wood, metals, fabric, bone, furs, gems) should be expensive. Right now, a throne of pure gold costs much, much less to make than one of pure steel.
  

Xavin

Re: the price of commodities - that comes down to how commodities are priced by cities and village. It certainly is strange that you only need a single piece of whatever commodity it is to make certain things, especially if that commodity is described as being the primary component in the design. However, we have commodities priced based on how much use or how dangerous the commodity is in general. So your gold isn't as expensive as steel because gold really isn't that useful a metal in aetolia where as steel is used in basically every piece of armor and weapon in the game and is a component for training guards.

Areka

While the commodity issue may seem a bit odd, I quite like that it proposes a reconsideration of what is a valuable material, and in Aetolia, where there is plenty of strife and violence, that there is a higher value upon practical/martial materials rather than finery (although this is often overlooked IC by most). 

I would rather the neutral/non-player-run shop areas have a limit upon shop ownership by person, and leave the cities alone to manage by their own values. 

Sessizlik

Alexina said:

• No limit on the amount of shops a person can own; if they are able to maintain more than one shop, why would they not be allowed to? Additionally, such a limit could easily be circumvented by placeholder owners, making the potential benefit of such a limit non-existent.

 

(Stuck in quote box)

The issue with this, as has been mentioned Before, is that there are people who simply keep shops for storage/sentimental value, without even using the shop as a shop. If there is a way to work around this, I'm all for it!

Daskalos

Havens should get the ability to have a non-decay room for 10 havens points. Limit 50 items. Go.

Moirean

Display cabinets store items to not decay.

Daskalos

I've never even heard or seen of a display cabinet. What?!

Jensen

Commodities are set at a player determined market value. Gold is relatively plentifully and not terribly useful to players. Most players don't set high value on luxury goods so their price is low. Steel is currently more value able than gold because of its usefulness in crafting armor, weapons, traps, and some commercial goods. (It used to be worth more when creating troops was a thing) so based on that, it isn't surprising that a steel throne is worth more than a golden one. If you wanted to make commodity prices change, I would lower the default com gain significantly, then make all npc villages have a trade agreement system where once every x years all cities can bid for their production of resources. Bid winners could be determined by gold bid x modifiers (modifiers being attitude towards alignment, number of town enemies a city has, and relations from previous events). This would vary the commodity amount to each city and create a more interesting marketplace. I would then have the MoT be able to vary comms prices based on affiliation. Lastly I would increase the usefulness of some materials (maybe allow cities to have a mint, turning gold into actual coin), and that should give/vary the values we see

Moirean

Furniture item.

A delicate cabinet in the corner displays a collection of trophies and trinkets.

Sheets of silver have been carefully folded into an elongated box to form a delicate display cabinet. Strung with a matching metal cord for easy hanging on a wall, the elegant shelf features two plate-glass doors which open outwards to allow access to the content's interiors, with folds of plush velvet ensuring the items rest in padded luxury. Refined and blown to a perfect clarity, the face of the cabinet offers an unobstructed view of the trinkets and treasures within. The planed glass is polished and bevelled to reflect back light in a brilliant glitter, framing the proudly displayed contents, while delicate shards of amber have been inset in the silver frame. Carved in swirling representation of blooming roses and climbing vines, the gems add to the dazzling sparkle surrounding the heart of the case.

It weighs about 15 pound(s).

It bears the distinctive mark of Moirean Seirath.

The following items are displayed within an amber-inlaid display cabinet:

"medal104667"             the badge of the Commander

"medal198689"             a medal of the iron hammer

"medal239130"             a weaponmaster's medal

"medal239913"             a houndmaster's medal

"medal273539"             a Carnifex officer's medal

"medal276599"             a badgering badger badge

"medal276625"             an insignia of the Tainted

You can then EXAMINE the individual items inside. Sadly, they only hold like 7 items, so using varnish to permanence it doesn't preserve a LOT of items. Still, varnish is only like 25 credits, so it's a pretty cheap way to store stuff - sadly, you'll need a fully secure room, unless you can't shroom varnished items anymore. I had a permanenced cabinet in my house in Eno and some awesome lifers blew it up and took all my heirloom trinkets and letters and stuff. So. Unless varnish has been changed to not be vulnerable to a freaking 100g sigil, use with caution. Yes, I'm maybe still a bit bitter.

Slyphe

For the record, the Medina shops have now been moved to be arranged near the other shops within Enorian. I've always considered it kind of odd that they were placed in the middle of nowhere like that.

Areka

There were originally more shops over there - another five or six, but Enorian pretty significantly exceeded its shop limit so they were deleted. 

Xavin

What @Areka said. At one point it was decided that there should be a limit on how many shops were in cities and some of the cities exceeded this amount. Thus, the shops couldn't be moved or anything like that until other shops were deleted.

Ciarelle

Just a comment re: the refugee camp - that place has been there for decades. Logically, something should have happened to it by now - either the people would have dispersed (Ashtan's gone, long gone, let it go) or it would have become a more permanent settlement of some variety. It would actually be nice to see something of interest happen there.

Daskalos

(now the medina has even less reason to exist)

Haven

@Daskalos: To be fair, the reason is almost entirely in the players' hands. I'm sure someone can think up another use for that section of the city.

Missari

Nuke it. Eno's too damn big anyway.

Moirean

To get back to the original topic, what's the harm in adding some more shops (not unlimited shops, just some more shops) to the cities/Delos?

Edit: Also, an Auction House? I mentioned it to Severn as a potential idea when talking about the upcoming Spinesreach changes, but I dunno what the verdict is. An AH would be a nice way for crafters to sell stuff and for people to sell more one-off items like chest items.

Daskalos

We've wanted to remove the medina for a while. When we were forced to go down to 20 shops, it got very empty, very fast, and more or less just became a place to raid from.  Eno needs changes!

Moirean

The development system makes that really easy to be done from the player side of things. You don't need to wait for admin to create awesome new stuff for your city. Just be creative with how you place and add stuff and poke a divine to help with cleaning things up or tweaking once that's all done.

Alternatively, make projects listing clearly what you want changed and direct your patron there. I've been doing that in Spinesreach and Severn has been great about doing new stuff very quickly. I obviously can't speak from the admin angle, but as a player leader, I try to make it easy for them to see what I want done and compile the info so it's easy to make changes and takes up less of their time.

Slyphe

Daskalos said:

We've wanted to remove the medina for a while. When we were forced to go down to 20 shops, it got very empty, very fast, and more or less just became a place to raid from.  Eno needs changes!

If you guys would make up a project like Moirean noted above I will personally make it a point to at least take a look at the ideas. I can't guarantee that all or any of it will be implemented, but I can assure you that it will at least be looked at.

While we do enjoy planning events for cities and doing fun activities, most of the building-type/layout changes happen as a result of player initiative. As much as I'd love to throw in hundreds of fun new buildings, it can't really be done without input from you guys as typically room additions carry with them a gold cost.

Phoenecia

Slyphe said:

If you guys would make up a project like Moirean noted above I will personally make it a point to at least take a look at the ideas. I can't guarantee that all or any of it will be implemented, but I can assure you that it will at least be looked at.

While we do enjoy planning events for cities and doing fun activities, most of the building-type/layout changes happen as a result of player initiative. As much as I'd love to throw in hundreds of fun new buildings, it can't really be done without input from you guys as typically room additions carry with them a gold cost.

If I didn't already you before, I you so hard now. Although, I'd feel kind of bad since once we get a project like that going, I'll be swarming it with ideas. >_>

Slyphe

That's a good thing!

Moirean

It should be noted that the project I was referring to wasn't just ideas. It's stuff that's ready to go in, to make it easy for a divine to just look and see what's ready for inclusion/changes. Here's a paste:

--[Project #1077]-------------------------------------------------------------

                                 Group:  Secretariat

                                 Leader: Moirean

Name:

   Severn's Master Plan

Status:

   -

Info:

Stuff for Severn

----------------

Moi is so demanding OMGGGG

- Bath-house upgrades. PROJECT 973

- Arbor rewrite. PROJECT 934

- Music box/feature for the ballroom, ideally with a few different messages which cycle fairly slowly (Moi can write the echoes for this if needed!)

- Conclave guys in Ayhesa? What's their story?

- Skating pond. PROJECT 846

- Syssin guard redesign. PROJECT 117

Last Modified:

   2013/10/26 02:31

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Irruel

Moirean said:

Edit: Also, an Auction House? I mentioned it to Severn as a potential idea

I've been saying this since the first time I ever tried wow.

Aetolia needs an auction house. Then shops can remain elite, while crafters can stick stuff up for auction and still have a chance at selling stuff without needing to fork out for a shop.

I don't think that the MMO model auction house is a perfect example for Aetolia though. We'd need a variant that suits our crafted items as well, which is mostly aesthetics. We also don't want it to make shops redundant.

One off forged items, perfect for AH.
Herbs, inks and any other 'gathered' commodities, perfect for AH.

Clothing, furniture, woodcrafting, brewing etc - not so suitable.
Venom/elixirs/salves - not so suitable as people want to refill from casks.

Perhaps if permanent auction space could be rented, working like a tiny shop front or an ebay store, with a low limit on items. 20 item types for example, just enough to allow a clothier to start making a name for themself, but not so much that no one wants a shop anymore.

Teani

To spin off @Irruel's post:

These locations (Makes me think of the shops at a small train station) should be rented in one character's name without any way of transferring it to someone else, bypassing ways of being inactive and holding up the place.

Another possibility is to make the lease limited. You can rent the location for a term (somewhere between 1-5 years), with the option of extending the lease 1 or 2 times befoe you are set on a cooldown. This would open up for others to step in and use the space.

If you happen to not be around when your lease is up, your unsold things get transferred to your inventory or some form of storage facility where you can come and claim your things (getting a receipt in a message with a number or something to verify)

Alexina

I sort of think the current system is pretty great. Much better than most other systems I've seen in other muds. I don't think I agree with all the perceived problems, or all of the solutions for that matter. Establishing a small store space (limited to 20 wares or such) only to have it taken away after a few months would just be awful; all of a sudden, the customers going there would not find the goods they were trying to find and the shopkeeper would just have to start all over again trying to build up a business once their 'cooldown' period had expired. It seems a bit convoluted and counter-intuitive and I can not help but wonder if it will actually solve the issues that was raised in this thread. Shopowners will still be shopowners and people with a limited selection of items will most likely not generate enough sales to be able to afford taxes, meaning that there is no incentive for the city to protect these rooms (and stockrooms) with guards. Perhaps I am focusing too much on the negative aspects and not seeing the obvious benefits. So. I just see more problems cropping up as a result of this approach. I digress.

An auction house, now that would be interesting for several reasons (everyone having instant access to everyone else's wares just is so tantalizing). Perhaps it is the future for Aetolian commerce?