Shop Ideas

[mk59apr]

Hello fellow Addicts,
As you may be aware, our shop plugin is getting old. I think at this point alien has patched it and massaged it to make it work, but we are not able to add the new blocks.
Chatting with Jexter ingame today about changing the shop and wanted to throw the question out to the community.

What should we replace /shop with?

Personally, I like the idea of player run shops, with a limited /shop option.
Ideally for this to work we would have a plugin to allow people to sell even when they are not ingame, like a chest shop of some kind.

 

[Jexter]

Continuing a few points mk and I discussed, a more player-based shop approach would certainly add some interesting versatility to our economy. It does make sense to continue offering some of the most basic blocks like cobblestone, dirt, sand etc, for the sake of those of us who mine regularly. But it'd add more variety when players dictate prices, as everything would then be based off supply and demand. What may be worth garbage one day could be the jackpot the next, depending on what's available. If there is such an option to keep a small command shop for basic blocks, I think it's best if they are sell low, buy high. That way this is more or less a secondary option, not the ideal place for a great price. The better incentive would be to purchase or sell to players for better pricing.

A more player-driven economy could be accomplished in many ways, and chest shops are a good option (I've used these on other servers before and they made for a far more interesting economy). Or, simply selling and buying your wares through chat and / or forums is another good option. Many servers that utilize a player-run economy incorporate a marketplace forum and it's a great way to do shopping or get your name out there as a seller.

 

[wweasel]

The only problem I see with a player-driven economy is that it's very easy to corner the market. If there's only a handful of people on and you need a certain item for use in your build or what have you, a player that has it can demand any price (s)he wants. If you don't want to pay that price then you have to halt your progress until someone else comes on that has it, and that might be awhile. I have always had a special place in my heart for /shop. I think that checks and balances would need to be put into place (which I don't know the feasibility of anyways), because a totally free market economy is great in its own ways but the potential for abuse is high. It's driven by capitalism, after all.

 

[Jexter]

I see your point weasel. That will always be a possibility in any player economy (personally, I love the capitalistic approach - the harder you work, the more it pays off!). I suppose the reason why I personally like more player driven is that I've seen it work well on other servers, and suddenly makes me realize how dull our market is here on MCA. There could always be certain checks and balances put into play, such as the possibility of having the majority of items still available in a command shop. I've seen one such server that had nearly all items available via a command shop, but all prices were sell low and buy high. This was a driving factor of the economy because if you wanted the best prices, you shopped and sold to players. This was also a protective boundary in preventing certain prices getting too out of hand.

The main reason I've always disliked a command-only server shop is that it makes the game too simplistic for me. Some players like them because it provides easy access to certain items. But in my opinion, if people want easy access, they should just build in Creative.

 

[Spubbles]

dph already controls the market doe

 

[Jexter]

dph already controls the market doe

Lolz

 

[dph]

dph already controls the market doe

When I started reading this thread I thought that might come up. To be totally honest my opinion would be to try to get some sort of chest plugin if possible and let players make shops. And although if someone corners the market it would be hard to get around I would think it would increase competition and make the prices competative. I for one if it did happen would keep the prices fair for what the market looks like. Although prices would go up for example if there was a sudden great demand for iron but still it wouldn't be a great increase. However as jexter said it would be beneficial to have a shop that sells high and buys low to put a cap on the prices of things.

It is interesting to me to see how the prices change and how you have to modify what you buy and sell at from day to day with the staples remaining constant.

Also then with regards to what players currently have I wouldn't want to devalue what players have in the initial change if/when it happens. So the prices of items if a /shop still exists will need to be thought about quite hard to make it fair for all new and old.

 

[Jexter]

Chest shops not only have the benefit of creating more player investment into the server economy, but another added element is that they don't require players to be online to sell their goods either. So there shouldn't be concern about relying on certain people to be online to acquire goods. There's always the chance that the rare, specific item someone is looking for isn't available from any player, but this can be a good thing. It creates great demand for said item and people will pay good money to have it. This is currently the case for certain items we don't have available in our shop, such as enchantments, beacons or god weapons, tools etc. The driving factor for the top dollar value of these items is that they are not easily accessible or available.

Another thing to consider is that with our current shop plug aging and the difficulty of finding one that precisely mirrors, or similarly functions to it, that we don't necessarily have to have a command-based shop to keep the economy balanced. A few servers I've visited accomplish price balancing using chest shops only. These servers will use a master market at their spawn area or marketplace to sell items via a large chest shop (and usually with very high prices). I believe they also stay permanently stocked through some kind of plug. This master server shop was not used often by players, but it served two purposes. It was a fallback option for anyone desperate for a particular item(s), and it was a way for the server staff to maintain proper price balancing.

I wouldn't see any reason for many of our current shop prices to need huge changes. Sell could go lower, buy could go higher, but when you meet in the middle it averages out to similar pricing. We wouldn't want our caps suddenly getting devalued or over-inflated due to a crazy drastic price overhaul.

Another thought is that with a buy high server shop / market, the value of any server currency will increase with time. With our current shop format where sell and buy prices are in relatively close proximity, its favored as the go-to source for items rather than as a last resort option. When a server shop is the more widely-used option for resources, larger amounts of currency tend to get injected into the economy. Sell prices are attractive enough where players will frequently sell to the shop, and receive money from the server rather than the player. Obviously caps will also leave the economy whenever a player purchases from server shop, but in my own experience the shop tends to get used far more for selling than buying. Over time this inflates the currency. The more widespread and common caps are, the less value it holds. If shop sell prices are low, there is more motive to get a better price from players and keep caps within the player market. When shop buy prices are high, players will favor seeking a more competitive price from another player, which also keeps the caps within the player market. The idea is to keep the available caps in the market constantly circulating within the server economy. Caps will continue to get irregularly injected into the economy through rewards such as contest winnings etc., but this is sometimes necessary. Caps can leave the economy when wealthier players go inactive.

 

[Cpt.Carnage]

Old timer chiming in, the only time I usually use the shop is when I'm mid build and don't feel like going out mining for lapis/redstone and other annoying block types. I want the block that moment, not after a trip to the 'market' which is essentially the same thing as going mining.

I'd prefer if we'd stick to a command based shop if at all possible for the sake of convenience especially in build and historic where your physical interactions with other players are limited.

 

[cooliojulio]

Just a thought, we could up the prices just a little for the rarer blocks or blocks in current high demand, and then add a chest system under that so players can make money off of that as well.

 

[Jexter]

A good point Carn, which is why the command shop has been popular before. But the more I think about ease of access to resources, the more I realize that people who want such an option should just build in Creative. In the older days creative didn't even exist. I think it'd make more sense for our worlds to have more contrast between them... for example a Build / Historic world containing builds with not-so-easily attained resources really says something about the accomplishment of said builds. My point more-or-less is I see no problem with the build worlds requiring more work to reach a goal. One world requires you put extra effort into your builds, our other world (creative) is for people who don't want to spend time harvesting resources or items. Heck, you don't even have to worry about currency in creative for that matter. Major plus for people who might be limited in their mining or Minecraft playing time.

I wouldn't be opposed to keeping the command shop either. As stated before, we can achieve wider price gaps using either a command shop, chest shops, or a combination of both. My main gripe has been that the command shop has been our primary market, rather than the player driving the market. We could continue to sponsor a command shop with modified offerings and pricings, while still giving players the option to run their own, localized chest shops if they so prefer (to coolio's point).

At the end of the day, the main problem will remain that our current shop is outdated, and needs replacing eventually. This will become more prevalent as more block types and items are added to Minecraft, and won't be available due to limitations of the current shop. Even if a command shop is kept in play in the future, there's a good chance it'd be quite different from the shop we've known for so long.

 

[mk59apr]

A central shop could be on /warp, which could be almost as fast as /buy or /sell
A central shop would also give players a place to hang out, and meet those people you are not necessarily expecting.

Also good to remember that sometimes plugins are not compatible with each other.

Some good ideas on this thread so far, keep em coming

 

[bobafettacheese]

I agree with Cpt., I don't even want to know how many times I've used /buy dirt while working on Chernobyl. It does speed the process along and drastically reduces the time I use collecting the needed materials. I also see what you're saying Jex, that Creative might be the better option if you don't have time to go to PvE or whatever to mine for a while, and I might have to invest in a Creative plot myself. However, I do think we should try to keep at least a small command shop for items (like dirt, cobble, etc.) that aren't too valuable, just to help Build World dudes save some time on their projects.

On player-operated chest shops... I've been on servers with them before, I don't mind them but they really don't appeal to me. The ones I've used before have not been great. I don't think I would mind adding them in if a small /shop still was around, but I don't think I would like the idea of having them be the sole economy on the server. I like how we have it right now, but obviously the good ol' shop plugin has seen better days

 

[Jexter]

As it currently stands, you already have to type a command to use our shop. Like mk said, I really don't see any drastic time saving if we did have some sort of central hub for a chest-based server shop. I'm not saying I have a preference for if a master shop was chest or command-based, but I suppose the defining factor may be the compatibility of such plugs with one another. Tbh if I didn't want to type a command to go get a load of dirt, and another to return to my location, I would consider myself incredibly lazy. We have private warps, not to mention fly now, so getting around is easier than its ever been. But by whatever means we run an economy, I do agree that the fundamental blocks (cobble, dirt etc) be available from the server.

I too have seen some poorly implemented chest shops boba. In fact I've seen a good number of servers doing it that flat-out suck. But I've also seen them used extremely well on others, whether they were the sole economy or an addition to it (the more I study servers, it's more frequent that the plug's implementation / execution / staff are the culprit, rather than the plug itself). If it's possible to keep a command-based shop plug of some sorts for basic blocks, and make it work with players having the option to run their own chest shops, I think this would be ideal. But easier said than done, I'm sure!

 

[kiomf]

EVERYONE!! How about I run a market called "Kio's Trading Pavilion" or "The MCA Trading Hub" and it's where we can trade our items! 'So what?' you're thinking, well [if both people aren't on at the same time] you throw and item into a hopper, then a dispenser shoots out the item you want! Best idea I've ever had right?

EDIT:
Or Mk and Alien can run it if it's "The MCA Trading Hub"

 

[dph]

EVERYONE!! How about I run a market called "Kio's Trading Pavilion" or "The MCA Trading Hub" and it's where we can trade our items! 'So what?' you're thinking, well [if both people aren't on at the same time] you throw and item into a hopper, then a dispenser shoots out the item you want! Best idea I've ever had right?

EDIT:
Or Mk and Alien can run it if it's "The MCA Trading Hub"

Kio if you actually read any of the context of this thread you would notice that we have been discussing a shop chest plugin. What you are describing is a way that will just cause staff grief due to the probably chance of things going missing.

 

[kiomf]

Kio if you actually read any of the context of this thread you would notice that we have been discussing a shop chest plugin. What you are describing is a way that will just cause staff grief due to the probably chance of things going missing.

Lol I only read a tiny bit

 

[CheezyMarsBar14]

Hey, sorry to bring this post back up, but here are my two cents.
If we are to do player shops, I think we'd need to make a /warp shop and then people have to claim little sections where they can set up their shops. Personally, I don't really like player shops as players you're selling to can run out of money, people have empty shop chests, etc. But if that's the route you guys think is best, I won't complain.

What I want is to still have a /shop plugin, albeit a different one than what we have. One where you can still configure what is sellable, and what is not, so that if you're mining away, you can quickly sell all your goodies. Also, instead of needing to sell blocks of iron, gold, diamonds, etc, we should be able to just sell the ingots and gems by themselves.

If we are unable to get a /shop plugin, then I think we should have a /warp shop, but not have player shops. Have a sign shop where you can buy and sell everything you need, similar to what is on many other servers. For this, you'd have 3 signs for each item; one so you can sell 1 of an item, one so you can sell a stack of an item, and one so you can buy a stack of the item.

Lastly, regardless of what shop route we take, I think we should have more things be sellable, for example we should be able to sell cactus, zombie flesh, stone, etc.
Hope this all made sense...

 

[dph]

Its still an actively talked about topic Cheezy so it doesn't matter posting here. I think the thing with the chest shops is we would have the main players who sell things and who are able to keep shops stocked nearer the center and as you go out players who just want to set up a small shop doing one thing or another.

A comment on your last point - "More things to be sellable for example cactus, zombie flesh, stone" I believe the things like cactus were taken out of the sell shop as it encouraged players to make automatic farms which will cause strain on the server. Zombie flesh, again would encourage people to make afk farms at spawners but I think I would agree on the stone front but I wouldn't say it should sell for any more than cobble.

 

[CheezyMarsBar14]

If we were to do chest shops we'd surely have to have a server run shop as well, whether it be command or sign, because the main players won't be able to sell everything other players may need. Like if I need a quartz, and no one is selling, I'm kinda screwed. Or if I need a megaton of stone, same thing could happen. I guess I'm trying to say chest shops could work as long as we've also got a server shop.

Also, good shout on the autofarming thing, didn't really think of that. But there are plenty of other things that could or should be sellable that you cannot AFK farm, and I think it'd be worth it to look into what's currently not sellable, and determine what are good items that we could make sellable, and what we should keep un-sellable.