Your plots could be your main stores. The small shop world would only allow for tiny plots with a few items. Think of it more as advertising space, where you also showcase a few of your main items. For example, I've been to numerous conferences. We don't sell there. We take our product, and potential clients contact us later....
I see, well then yes they could be useful, I thought you meant getting rid of shop signs on reses and using your strip shop idea.
Nah. No way. I just thought it would be very similar to the old "shop database" that existed. Only we would have a very small residence plugin world, where you could browse visually. We would have some pretty sweet creations in that world I think. Creations that entice people to check out their shops.... Probably some crazy redstone contraptions, some fancy residence tps that do some neat things, etc....
Also, I figured it would be super easy to do. Perhaps a few minutes of settings, and it'd be ready to go.
What about an official area located in the EMC Shop with teleports to player shops? It could be added to the list of residential services that are currently offered here: http://empireminecraft.com/threads/residence-senior-staff-services.25709/ Maybe set a base price for a sign showing the owner name/lot number and a tp plate. Then have additional costs for signs advertising products or services, special names, or colors. The advantage to any of these solutions is that it gives someone a central place to go when they want to use a shop that doesn't rely on chat or previous experience.
The problem with this is, the teleports doesnt tell the teleportee what shop has what so they could be walking in on a shop without stock on an item they want. Whereas the chat command tells both the stock and item they are looking for. Bonz's idea is a good one as well cause people wouldnt have to ask if anyone has this, this or this they can just type for example: /v strip and it'll take them to the strip shop. That way they just have to walk down a row of nothing but shops. Out of these 3 ideas I like the chat command better cause it's easy and you don't waste time searching for what you need it's literally in a list for you, but to add on to this idea you could have a new section on the forums called the shop section and it'll search automatically on the forums for the item you are looking for the stock number and the res address, using the search option or a thread section.
I mostly like the chat version better as well. Bonzd's comments made me think of this other idea so I thought I'd throw it out. One scenario that the chat version doesn't cover that I think the other two would is when someone is exploring or looking for bargains. The chat version inherently requires that you choose something specific to look for. Sometimes I go randomly exploring shops looking for something I can pick up cheap or for someone who is buying items I can sell.
But what if your random search turns up nothing? Then you would've wasted time, but the chat searches for the best prices, with stock. What I'm saying is it would give smaller shops a chance and for people selling diamonds at 25r a peice aren't really getting their monies worth meanwhile their diamonds would be sold out they made 1k and malls selling at 50r a peice made twice that. So as for the mall issue (off topic kinda) mall owners wouldnt be getting less buisness cause people still continually look for diamonds, they either lose their tools in lava or way out in the wild or just want more tools.
I like smp3. There's hardly any drama over there and it's always been my main server :3 I do hang around sometimes on smp1, though.
I love my Smp3! Yes there is no good shops or malls, but that has encouraged me to start my own mega mall. Now only time will tell if I can finish it.
It would indeed be a much better idea to have an automated and centralized search, now that EMC has ten 60 player servers: word of mouth used to be okay, but it just honestly is not as simple today (for instance when the original smp1 had 45 slots, you still had a sign board for advertisment. Imagine that today ). It could give small specialist shops (ex: only sells bricks/netherbrick/pots) a greater weight vs the traditional megamalls. Both are always stocked, but the former tend to stay more in the shade than the latter, either because of their specialty, or because of they are not online when someone is asking for an item they sell, and so on. In the towns' market-styled "economy", information is often THE problem (about shops, products, services and availability), and the new feature aims at fixing just that, at least in theory. One last point, to JZH1000 and co.: Supply and demand is anything but simple, and in reality only has very limited applications because it has so many prerequisites and "et ceteris paribus" stuff. Like Pab said: if I don't want to pay 50r for a diamond, I will play Minecraft and dig a couple in the wasteland/frontier (which in the end is better, since I'll also get coal, stone, iron, gold,etc). Supply and demand theory is just that, a theory and a tool. The example of the person selling a diamond 20r shows that it's not S&D that sets prices, but people acting on their own accord, for their own motives.
