This issue has been brought up quite a few times recently in countless forum posts, so I figured I'd settle it once and for all. Excuse my bluntness. Shops are shops. There are no two ways around it. When one makes a shop they should be prepared for any traffic that comes their way -- be it some bro who joined five minutes ago or some other shopowner spearheading the server's economy. If that shopowner comes and outstocks everything, that's not on anyone other than the player who set the price low enough to provide a window of profit for said shopowner. People have been complaining about them big-league entrepreneurs coming along and buying everything out, and to combat such have been proposing some somewhat outlandish solutions that won't do much other than worsen an already p2w economy. Here are a few that have been suggested, and here's what I think of them. Supplier Warps. This has been brought up a few times, no? It's quite the idea, that's for sure. The idea is that there are specific shops meant for other shopowners to keep their own shops stocked. As such these warps would only be available to anyone who owns a shop themselves. The problem with this is that nobody would want to make a supplier shop when they could make their own front-line shop and make more money for the same resource / amount of resource. Though a good idea presented by a select innovative few, this idea should either undergo some serious re-thinking or be scrapped entirely. Shop Blocking. Many shopowners buy from other shops to stock their own, yes. I may or may not have tried this last map, just a little bit. There are a certain number of us, however, who choose not to go against every unsaid moral rule and to instead resort to sell chests or collecting a resource ourselves to keep our shops from going down under. When we do buy from other shops, it's not so much to stock our own shop as it is to perhaps prepare for a large build project without plucking resources out of our own stockpiles. If there were some sort of command that allows shopowners to block specific players from buying from them, almost all shopowners would be on each others' lists, without a doubt. Shopowners would have to start pulling materials out of their own stock instead of supporting each others' establishments, which might lead to a bit of economic... fallback? Shopowners ≠ Buying From Other Shops Entirely (Rule). Essentially just a repeat of suggestion/point #2, but I'll go over it again for those who may not have understood my previous explanation. I'll make it simpler this time, however. Not all of us want to pull stock out of our own shops, and so buy resources from other shops for our own personal projects. It's better for the economy, and helps us maintain stock. Now to a solution. Instead of trying to introduce some sort of complicated plugin modification or hard-to-enforce rule, why don't shopowners just keep their prices at market value? If other shopowners aren't given the opportunity to make a profit by reselling off other shops, they won't, plain and simple. Whenever I go into a discussion wielding this final argument, it only seems to stick around in people's mind for a short while, before they go on another rant about how some walrus came along and bought everything they had in stock, whilst failing to understand that if they had kept their product's price at market value, that wouldn't have happened. Next time someone complains about this, I'll look no further than to paste a link to this thread in my response. It's a simple solution to a simple problem, yet it still seems so impossible for so many to grasp. /rant. And again, excuse my bluntness. TL;DR? Nah fam. Everyone who cares even a little bit about the server's shop presence should read through this thoroughly. Have a good evening, ConspiracyCraft.
I agree the three solutions are probably not the best ways to go. And to your solution, I say what is market value? All current shops have very varied prices, so there is no specific set price for anything. And if your saying not to make your shops prices cheaper than any currently available, this renders the entire point of making a shop useless. If you make a shop that has no USPs (unique selling points, thanks ener) there is no reason for people to shop there. Im not going to shop somewhere just because it looks nice, it needs something over the other stores. Let me give some examples: Murica has good grinders and enchant books for newer players to easily access, its also the most talked about. Retro sells LOTS of banners. Maple sells bulk concrete blocks. Styx has map arts and rare items. PmL sells spawn eggs. Alrath sold almost everything that other shops didnt. These stores all have things they mainly provide and are known for, but theres only a certain amount of items in game to be sold. Now that there is a store for almost every item, there is nothing people can really make unique to their store other than the prices of items. If someone were to make a new store now I would have no reason to shop there unless it was cheaper than others. Even if a store did have something original now, like aquamarts grinder was, that is on /cc and doesnt actually add anything to the store itself. To conclude The servers requirements for making a store mean that there will only ever be a few stores available, and most of those stores will just be in a constant fight of buying from each other. Nothing will change this other than a major rethink of the system, there is no simple solution.
Sup, Elliott. When I say market value I'm not referring to a set-in-stone price, as all shops are different. That's one matter I'm able to understand quite well. I meant more of a reasonable price. If most shops sold emeralds, for example, for say, 10-12 coins each, then some smart guy comes along and starts selling them for 8, that's way below the reasonable price range, and this very smart person will be outstocked in minutes of opening that shop. If he had sold his emeralds for 10 coins each like everybody else, he wouldn't have been outstocked quite so quickly, while still providing a reasonable price for your average consumer. I've provided a bit of a better explanation in Cheekizms' thread about shops and the economy, which I'll repeat here for explanation's sake. If, say, Dan came along and bought out all of my concrete powder ( which I don't have an issue with btw, shops exist for a reason ) after I list it for $100 a stack, he's most likely to sell it for, say, $120 a stack. Right? Mirlexa's statement about not being able to raise the price due to astronomically high in-game currency was assuming players would buy their product anyways, no matter what. If I had raised the price to $120 a stack, Dan probably wouldn't have bought all of it out, because it was at a reasonable price, meaning if he did buy it out with the intention of re-selling it, he'd have to list it for at least $140 a stack or so in order to make a steady profit ( Thank you, sales tax! ). By cutting out the opportunity for opposing shopowners' profits, I greatly lower the risk of some walrus or avenger coming along and buying everything out. Ez. Have a good day.
There is still a fault in this though. Its all well and good saying don't put too cheap prices, but people are still buying out stores completely even with matching prices or prices that are higher. One example is of when PmL was selling golden apples for around 800 per 16, and then cp bought them all out and started selling 750 for 16. The way the economy works on this server is that people can have enough money to buy anything without worrying about loss, they just want to resell at their store because it gets their store more attention when they are the main providor of things. This is because the current system promotes this kind of behaviour. I also make prices on things lower at my store than the avg market value, specifically because I want people to buy it out. If I can produce an item fast enough to keep it stocked I am fine with it being bought out regularly, and therefore sacraficing a bit less profit for more often sales is a good way to actually increase profit. Sum up again People arent buying out stores because shop owners are pricing too low, they are buying other stores out because they are infinitely rich and putting other stores out of business means they get more attention to their store. This is obvious by the fact everyone is annoyed at mainly dan and cp, 2 of the most notoriously rich players at the moment. cp more than dan, because dan funds his bal mostly with irl cash.
Also i'd just like to say im not accusing every shop owner who buys from other stores of being malicous and wanting to destroy their business, thats just what could happen.
Interesting. Thank you for the clarification. In suggesting that players bring their prices back up to a reasonable amount, I expected it to work most of the time. I'm aware that there'll be some immature shop owner who just goes around outstocking everything because he's got a problem with whoever owns that specific shop. I'm basing my suggestion off of pure past experience ( and a little bit of common sense. ). At the beginning of this map when I started selling concrete at Maple, I had it listed for $100 a stack, as in my example I'd provided earlier. Dan bought it all, then sold it for more as far as I'm aware. I cranked the price up to $110 a stack and that was enough to keep him from buying anything more. Same with Algol. If she weren't selling her mob heads for $1000 each, and instead sold them for maybe $5000, cp probably wouldn't have bought an entire stack. It's illogical to simply assume people will buy from other shops just because they've got the capital to do so. These instances are rare, and put a bad enough name on those who try it. Just price your goods evenly, and you'll be more likely to distribute them more evenly. Not %100 protection, but it's better than being outstocked fully, IMO. Plain and simple.
Yes, I see your point. In the case of people being bought out due to low prices, raising the prices is definetely the common sense thing to do. But I still believe the servers shop system is flawed in the sense that it is rather over capitalistic, the rich only get richer and disregard of other players is rewarded, and I think something should be done about that at some point in the future as it does not promote the friendly, thriving economy this server could have.
lol. If I wanted to put every shop out of business, I could. And still have 40M left over. But I don't, because I'm not an asshole. Rex, I sincerely hope you weren't suggesting that *I* bought out a complete shop. If I see something being sold below market value, and it's a reasonably high volume item, I'll buy what I can. I only EVER do this if there is profit to be made, and rarely more than 1-2 items at a time. That's called business. The rich do get richer, but everybody that gives a shit about it also gets richer. There are days Murica barely breaks even, we buy so much from any player willing to sell to us. We've made more millionaires in the history of this server than anyone, by a large margin. The economy works, and works well. And I'm not doing anything untoward to any shop owner that would threaten the viability of their shop. That anyone would suggest otherwise is insulting. I deal with the same stock issues everyone else does, Dimi and Metu alone bought over 20 dubs of stone in a week. Ppl buy dubs of sand a day. If that annoys me, I raise the price. Which is what happens when demand begins to outstrip supply. And I also raise the price ppl can sell to me, so they get richer, too. Rising tide lifts all boats. You know what we don't do? We don't provide gambling machines (that rip people off with insane odds). We don't sell "bonds". We don't do anything but provide items people want at fair prices, and unparalleled public services: multiple OP mob grinders, optimally engineered Acro grinder, and easy access to the End & Nether.
Would like to reiterate, im not accusing anyone of purposely buying out peoples shops out of spite or hatred. Only saying that this is a thing that is allowed on the server and can happen. Im also not saying that the rich getting richer is a bad thing. I just think the server should be more new player friendly, considering over 50% of the players on at a time are usually ranked players who are regulars. Only having a few shops available isnt the best way the economy could be in my opinion. When a new player joins and asks how to make money, they are told to farm carrots. No one wants to farm mass carrots day in day out for a living, its boring. The process to make a shop requires you to have played the server for a long while and definetely turns off new players, considering the excessive amount of effort it takes to make one. Thats why no one says "make a shop" when a new player asks, because its just unreasonable to do when your new. I just believe the buying out people unnecessarily thing shouldnt be allowed, and the server would do a lot better if it was more new player friendly.
Also because shops don't make that much money. Factor in the 75 spawners, the End Portal b4 you could get frames from crates, and time invested, i'll never break even.
Well thats if you buy 75 spawners and an end portal. Even if I havent really broken even the shop definetely provides good income considering people buy out my chests worth 20k every time I restock. They would be good at making money if you didn't have to invest so much into them.
Elliott, there are more shops now than ever before. At least, more actively maintained than at any point previously.
What would you do to make it player-friendly? Dropping standards for opening a shop would mean you'd see hundreds of shit shops that are never even in stock. me and wheelchair made a shop and got rejected and i'm not surprised im not even mad, that place was hideous and didn't have much to sell except for low prices for pots, wheelchair may have put all his effort into making it but it doesn't come close to most of the shops that exist right now I'm gonna say it most shop owners don't have a problem with other shop owners buying out their stuff it's the fact that the people they hate run them out of stock. Other shop keepers buying stuff from other shops to sell at their own shops (lmao) happens in real life aswell there's no problem with it my dad used to own a bakery literally everyone does it so you either raise your prices or just shut up and be happy that at least you are earning money
Don't worry Dan. Wasn't aiming anything at you specifically. Dan, I sincerely hope you weren't suggesting that *I* sell bonds and rip people off with gambling machines carrying insane odds.
Elliott, I started building Maple before I even had a donor rank last map. The way I see it, the shop requirements should be even more strict because those who aren't serious about making a shop will be deterred from doing so, and the ones that are will work even harder, further boosting the economy and adding to the server's playtime. If someone's going to make a shop, they better be ready to give it their all because if they're not, they simply don't deserve a warp of their own. For those of you who have been worried about Dan specifically coming along and buying out your whole shop, there's confirmation that he won't unless your shop sells at an unreasonably low price. I'm sure Dan speaks on the behalf of most other shop owners as well, thus strengthening my main argument for this thread: If you sell at an average price, not nearly as many other shopowners will outstock you.
