[ Feature Discussion ] Empire Shop Management System

Discussion in 'Empire News' started by IcecreamCow, Jul 2, 2012.

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  1. Hey everyone! As you may or may not know, some of our moderators are taking some extra roles in the Empire and helping Justin out with some of the programming duties around here. This is something that is now needed as we continue to grow and dominate the Minecraft world. Aikar is one of those people and one of his first projects is a revamp of the shop system. After he described it to me, I was very excited about it and it seems like it not only will solve a lot of the current issues, but will be very easy to manage and will bring the Empire up to the next step when it comes to economy mnagement when compared to any other server.

    It's in it's very beginning stages right now, so no word on a release date expectation, but we wanted to give you some of the basic ideas of what he is going for so you can have an idea, and maybe throw some ideas around to it as well.

    You'll be able to search for the item you want, look at catagories, and see who all is selling/buying that item for what prices. If you don't like the prices listed, you can put in a buy/sell order.

    So say you require 50 stacks of light blue wool, but only 3 people are selling wool, and there is only 4 stacks total on the market for 2r each. You could set up your buy order for the 50 stacks for 1r each, and anyone who sells light blue wool for 1r each could sell directly to you.

    You may wonder how your items in your inventory would end up on the market. Aikar has thought about that. You know how the vault system works? It'd be like a second vault, but instead, you'd type a second command after you've put in all the items you want to sell, and it sends it off on it's digital way to the website, making it now listable.

    Now to retrieve the items, it would automatically send to your vault, unless it's full. It would be stuck in que, and let you know "Hey, you're vault is full, you need to clear it to get this item!"

    We've had a few of our active market players talk about how they're worried our economy is starting to become inflated with prices. While we're still ahead of the game with that, we're working out a way we can add some reasonable rupee fees to using the market system to keep the economy in check a bit more. We're not 100% sure how this will work out yet, but will update as we come up with ideas.

    The core of this idea was inspired by the game EVE Online, who's market has won awards for their economy system.

    http://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/Market_guide

    EDIT 1: We currently plan to leave in the current shop system as well for those that wish to keep using it (based on community discussion)
    IcecreamCow, Jul 2, 2012
    #1
    gollark8, mba2012, _Stads_ and 21 others like this.
  2. For anyone interested in seeing what it could look like, the EVE UI is very close to what itll be...

    But it will all be on the website, so the possibilities are endless :)
    Aikar, Jul 2, 2012
    #2
    chickeneer, LZBZ_DW and Tehwafflez like this.
  3. Basically its very similiar to the current system, in that players can buy and sell items, but with the caveat that you can set specific caps on how much you want to buy.

    Also, you can have multiple orders of the same item.

    So major shop owners may want to buy only 100 pieces of obsidian, and buy at 5r price, so they arnt overloaded, but say you have a project that needs 500 obsidian, you can setup another for 4r prices, and once that orders filled it will automatically be closed and no more can be bought for 4r, and then people will go back to your 5r order.

    As for the current "EMC Shop", there will be sell orders (IE: Shop selling to you, so you can buy items) from the empire that will be unlimited supply, with the same high caps as we currently got to "cap the market" (but prices could be tweaked a bit). However we would not want Empire "Buy" orders as that brings even more money into the economy.

    EMC has very little money sinks atm is why i'm bringing up the idea of fees, we need a way to balance the economy to keep it top notch and never REACH a problem :) But if we do go with the fees, I assure you it would not be a big deal... it won't be like real life lol.
    Aikar, Jul 2, 2012
    #3
    TheSpyPie likes this.
  4. I beg to differ. There's some interesting chat on my profile about people trying to find me.

    Back to the topic at hand, I've played a few games that have market systems like this. Runescape has the search feature that I like, World of Warcraft has addons that can tell you what the price mean is on an item, and lets you undercut other players by a percentage, or number based on your preference.. Then there is Diablo 3, which allows you to search for an item based off of certain things you're looking for, example: looking for protection 3, as one filter, chest as second filter, and diamond as third, it'd show you all diamond chest plates that have protection 3. It also would show other enchants as well.
    The downside to the d3 market is you have to click on top how you want it to list (low to high, or high to low), or it just displays all the random prices, which is more confusing then anything.

    My personal favorite is how Runescape has their market set up.
    Maxarias, Jul 2, 2012
    #4
  5. Heh I don't even see any screenshots of its UI... But the basic principle of this would not be an auction, but a market... but maybe that plugin is just incorrectly using the word auction.

    But the bulk of this systems code will be on the site, and no offense to that author, but I don't trust alot of peoples code :p

    Would much rather write it our selves with a nice polish and ability to update and improve.

    I've been doing this kind of work for about 8 years now... so yeah i'd rather do it :)
    Aikar, Jul 2, 2012
    #5
  6. I've used this plugin before. Not sure why it has auction in the name, as it's simply what your describing with the orders and such. I haven't used the plus version, but I have used the original which this author used as a base and it was quite lovely. But yeah, its not really an auction, just an online shop.
    roblikescake, Jul 2, 2012
    #6
    mogrimoogle likes this.
  7. Oh, this would be on-site, so like the EMC shop database, but with the ability to buy/sell?

    Yeah, it won't be as good for the minority with big shops, but it sounds like it'll improve the system a lot for the majority, which has to be a good thing.
    will_iamd, Jul 2, 2012
    #7
  8. It sounds interesting, but it's a massive change.

    At the moment, the economy works pretty well. And "shopping around" is a significant portion of the game, for some people. Shops can do well by helping their customers in all kinds of ways. They can also ensure that they have many items in stock - not necessarily at the cheapest price, but saving a lot of time hunting through "out of stock" shops. So I'm concerned this would take the "personal service" aspect away from the art of shop-keeping.

    However, I'd like to see it in action.

    I suggest the best approach would be, rig it up on a test-server that we can actually play on, and try it out.
    Herbrin3, Jul 2, 2012
    #8
  9. So, old style can stay in place for a while (or perma if justin wants to maintain it...), and run independantly from the new.

    Now, there is an idea i've thought of to BRIDGE the systems... but it honestly restricts us with things we can do, and blocks the ability to have "time limited orders" which I believe will be a huge help in keeping the economy in balance.
    Except that it automatically will be tied to actual stock etc... It really is going to be a near clone of EVE online, but with extra spice and usability improvements (to make it simpler for children)....

    I've already got an idea established to make it super easy to get people on the website w/o any worry of "whats my site password?!" so the forums should get more active too :)

    I fully understand deprecating old style will hurt a lot of the major malls... but honestly we have to think of the future.
    If we deprecate it, we keep ourselves open for even more improvement.
    There is other stuff in play that I will be helping out on too...

    Jeremy already announced in another thread I'm working on building a PVP Server for EMC. I've already got the gameplay design established, but now its to actually develop it and polish and balance it.

    I also am working on improving our Square moderation tool, to give us even more power and features, and make it smarter to find even more rule breakers :)

    And of course, you should all know I stand as the advocate for improving EMC's Wilderness gameplay. Well now that I'm helping out, I've got ideas I've been suggesting for a while i may be able to just do myself now, so hopefully in time some of those ideas can see some light too. Overall, major improvements to EMC are coming :)

    So there's def stuff coming outside of the economy area, for those who don't care about economy.
    Aikar, Jul 2, 2012
    #9
    matthew12hydro, Tehwafflez and HylianNinja like this.
  10. Just because I chose to play in the wild on EMC doesn't mean I don't know economics ;) I usually am always playing economics in other games, but I chose a different style on EMC.

    You can not deny this would make it easier for players to buy and sell items...
    My main reason for not wanting to bridge them is to counter some of the things that WILL happen from having a united market thats bridged between all servers and every shop in existance is in everyones view: Undercut wars and market crashing.

    The main people it will be upsetting is the mega mall owners, because yes we understand it makes the creations near useless.

    But jeremy did offer some ideas, such as listing prices..

    This system will help 95+% of our players, are we to abort that idea solely based on the few major shop owners who will be negatively affected? Even if we bridge the systems, the major shop owners are still going to majorly affected because the small shops will now have equal exposure to every player.

    Actually you can still play the market, just in a different way, in the same ways as everyone does WoW...

    Shops are meant to be a place to buy and sell items. The idea behind this system is to make that process simpler..

    I've also got some ideas for how to keep the prices from not being so stale, one of which Jeremy didnt want to do at first but I think well discuss it more... but trust me we can make "shopping around" SORT of still live, but at the same time keeping it simple to just buy the item you want quickly.

    He will have to work with me on it to fully integrate into EMC, but i'm doing most of the work to "get it working" "standalone".

    Justins got a lot on his plate (well so do I :p) is the reason for me stepping up to help out, to split up the workload :)
    As stated above I have ideas to try to make it not as stale. but really... The idea behind economy is to make money..

    This system will make it easier to offload your items, and when you want to buy items, it makes it easier.

    People who are after money will enjoy this system.

    The main ones who wont are the ones who are losing the effort put into the major malls/shops.
    We understand this is a great hit to those players, but what matters is the majority and the future of EMC.. Making it easier to make and spend money is a great benefit to new players, and letting them know they are getting a good price for their purchase is a good thing to them too.

    It will require people to adapt...its part of any big update. You can never please everyone.
    Aikar, Jul 2, 2012
    #10
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  11. Then why are we messing with it? It is already extremely realistic, and adding this would take away from the current system, if not, disable it completely. The market system is the entire reason I joined EMC, and I would hate to see the economy crash, like many other servers who have made similar changes in the past.
    Beaverbeliever, Jul 2, 2012
    #11
  12. In terms of this point, that would be another plus to this system. More players visiting the website is always a better thing. More community discussions, more community interaction, etc.
    IcecreamCow, Jul 2, 2012
    #12
    oidgod, hayleycolgan and Curundu like this.
  13. 1. I still want a house :p
    2. Aikar says he has ideas, I say give him a chance, but it's up to you I suppose.
    3. But it would be replaced by a new system.
    4. Well this will probably change that
    will_iamd, Jul 2, 2012
    #13
  14. That statement is saying that the one we're talking about adding won awards, not what we have now. Things the new system will put into place will HELP prevent an economy crash over helping it. :)
    IcecreamCow, Jul 2, 2012
    #14
  15. The economy that we're moving to. :)
    Malicaii12, Jul 2, 2012
    #15
  16. EVE's economy is def #1 of all games.. Just do some research on it.. It's doing very well.
    You would have to be in town to do market operations... still the same. Except that you can stay on your own res and manage it.

    The shop systems core purpose is to let you buy and sell items... This system expands that principles usability.
    I assure you, you will be able to "play the market" in this new system 300x better. I did it all the time in WoW :)

    Yep, but we can't block innovation because it makes a 3rd party website redundant...
    I've already stated I got ideas to make it easier. There will be a link in game that you can click and immediately be in the market, logged in and ready to go.

    It will bring more people to the forums.
    Aikar, Jul 2, 2012
    #16
    Curundu likes this.
  17. These are honest questions because I have never played EVE or WoW.

    1) Wont prices just eventually become static?
    2) Doesn't this kill the idea of a fully stocked shop being more appealing than a specialty/small shop, or is that the idea here?
    3) Are we able to access this (new shop vault/shopping cart) from the wild?
    4) Is the idea here that small shops with less supply will sell slightly cheaper, as to sell out first, and once all the small shops are out of stock, people buy at normal/slightly higher prices from the large stock shops? (don't know if this question makes sense)

    Hmm, that's a very large pro for the pro/con list.
    LZBZ_DW, Jul 2, 2012
    #17
    hayleycolgan likes this.
  18. The economy is far from crashing. We plan on making sure it stays that way. We've already stated 1,000 times (I know you've seen them) that we're slow due to many reasons (Summer being one of the major ones).

    We're having a great discussion so far. Nothing has been put into place yet. However, we're not going to respond to things like "This idea sucks." with anything you might like as an answer. Those talking about ideas and solutions are the ones that will get the attention here.
    IcecreamCow, Jul 2, 2012
    #18
  19. How about this compromise:

    The new system will be a quick and convenient way of shopping, but with costs to use, like the vault does. This was a feature of the original proposal, as it will be a money drain.

    Also, the old system will be as hard to use well as it is now, but with no charges.

    I think that the combination of both systems in this way would keep most people happy, presuming that the new system's charge was at an appropriate level to leave at least some incentive for use of the old system.
    will_iamd, Jul 2, 2012
    #19
    DogsRNice likes this.
  20. Sorry to backtrack on my last statement.

    Aikar / ICC

    You both mentioned it will act like a additional vault. what will the limit be on this vault?

    Surely to keep all party's happy it should at the very least be able to accommodate 2x stack of each item as this would kill the super mall owners dead in the water if its size was the same as the current vault..

    Here is my Suggestion/solution to the problem (My understanding is that you are doing this to sink some of the rupees and keep the economy in check) Here is what I would do

    1. Keep the current Chest shop system but minus %0.5-2 of the proceeds as "Empire Tax"
    2. Make setting up a chest shop cost rupees for instance 500r per chest shop, But giving every one an Allowance of 10 "Free" chest shops...
    Thanks for reading... Irate-Shopper out. :)
    Happyshopper, Jul 2, 2012
    #20
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