As jkrmnj said this is no cartel group. This is a conglomerate of shops and malls that determine the average market prices of all goods sold and traded on all 10 EMC servers at the moment. We only give estimates like the example I gave above with price ranges as to not have price fixing which after i did research because of jkrmnj earlier post found out was illegal under the Warsaw pact in 1955. The prices are to make it harder for said greedy player to sell his 1000r wood to new players just coming to the empire.
If that's what you're doing, I wish you luck. If you're acting as a consumer information group, I don't think you're going to get that much support from shops, so I think you should run on donations and maybe have a tree farm or something on your residence which you can make use of for quick cash. I think you should highlight the lowest price on the market, not the average price, so consumers get the best deal, and form a ratings system to rank shop owners in order of how good their service is. This service will likely become unnecessary once Aikar implements the new shop system.
Problem is with quantity. A player may well sell diamonds for 35r per, but they may only have 3. A mall may sell for 58, but have double chests of it. Keeping track of stock and removing badly stocked or derelict shops is very difficult to do, it requires manpower and time, rather hard to come by when everyone is looking for a profit.
The point of this is to show what price they usually go for to help newbies not to show all the possible places you can buy them.
Your proposal was not clear. You should clarify it a LOT better. There are two ways to read this: 1. All shops are required to sell items at a fixed price which is the same everywhere. which btw is a completely bad idea for the many reasons i'm sure people have already posted anove me, because it's all been talked about before on every economy game everywhere, and in real life for the last few 100 years. 2. Shop owners can volunteer to join the organisation, and must sell all items for their decided value. Again, also a bad idea. Well, if the shop owners want to, then go ahead. But freedom to set your own competative market price based on your own circumstances will allow much greater profit potential than pricing according to what the majority believe their market will pay. Having some experience in real life market and sales, I'm well aware of how prices can very wildly, and all are fair value for that market. Advertising, location, target market, conditions of sale, all affect a price in a huge way. And price fixing by large organisation doesn't work unless you control like a 99% share of that commodity. Just my opinion though.
Suggestion: Do not try to enforce a price on all shop keepers. But instead, set up one place with INFORMATION on all values and things that can affect those values. So newbies and veterans alike have a clear idea of worth. I do want to do this at some point but first i need to get my own shop up and running. Also, the information you provide MUST be unbiased, and accurate, or you will get bombarded with negative feedback from people strongly disagreeing with your values. So you'll need an excellent reputation to be taken seriously
People buy from shops mostly looking to turn for profit else where, therefore smaller shops have a hard time keeping stock and go out of business. Without the smaller shops selling for cheaper, prices go up or you are forced to buy from the more expensive shop.
Well know that I see most peoples point of view on this topic im starting to think its not as good of an idea as I thought it would be. Thank you all for your contribution to this topic and your ideas that you suggested I hope you all had a good holiday season and a happy new year
it say there woking on server matinence and marketing now I guess thats what they mean by new shop system
This is the shop update everyone was talking about. Fairly old. http://empireminecraft.com/threads/feature-discussion-empire-shop-update-v2.11757/
No, I don't believe the shop system is being worked on now, that means they're fixing bugs, doing regular stuff, and setting up things which will increase traffic and monies. The shop update shall come after Dragon Tombs.
