Thoughts on Player Stalls

[tafkas]

For a long time MMORPGs have implemented a stupid idea in players minds: a bank is where you store objects. WRONG! Try renting a value box at your local bank and then go store some roots in it and see if it makes any commercial sense.

A bank ingame should be what a bank is in RL - a place to deposit/borrow cash.

Clearly there should be a way to store items for a trader. But at higher costs. And with SOME higher security. To steal things from Boston you would need a highly trained criminal, but on the other hand you should have a fat bounty on your head set automatically by the city and be arrested as soon as you step foot in the zone. And thrown in prison for a considerable amount of time. Maybe make a jury out of randomly selected players and have a sentence picked (from min to max). Imagine the fun of public trials, once in a while ending a fun public hanging. Now that's colony life for you...

And alt storage sux as game mechanic.

[ElCapitan1701]

Not everyone is going to be selling iron bars. If they do, you can expect the price to be much, much less than 100 per bar (maybe 20 per bar, and that might be high). If that's the case, it better be purity a grade or two higher than I can get anywhere else for 100s.

Pretty much: if you're basing your price on "a few iron bars," you should really reanalyze your argument, as it has no basis in the reality of the game.

Checked right now: 8 bars@150 - 18 bars @ 160. I think YOU should really reanalyze your argument, as it has no basis in the reality of the game.

[ElCapitan1701]

Easy fix: anything in the stall more than 12 hrs without a price has it set automatically to 1s.

Alternately: you can't add something to the stall without setting a price.

Of course, this means that if someone doesn't want to sell a thing, they'll just set the price to 9999s or whatever the max value is, which is why I mention just auto-pricing after 12 hrs.

The timing for that seems pretty short. I'd actually be worried about legitimately trying to sell anything in a stall with that kind of mechanic.

That`s no market mechanism. Salem should use market mechanism as they are more self regulating.

So just increase rent by 150% after one week, if the stall has been bought for the old price..if stall isn`t bought to that high price it should be reduced by 10%/day. This will even out at the real market value of a store and make sure only those, who are willing to trade things buy that stall. This will work forever, it won`t need to be balanced and it works with a fix number of stalls. It doesn`t need any maintance, solves our problems and puts some market logic into the game.

[MagicManICT]

So just increase rent by 150% after one week, if the stall has been bought for the old price..if stall isn`t bought to that high price it should be reduced by 10%/day. This will even out at the real market value of a store and make sure only those, who are willing to trade things buy that stall. This will work forever, it won`t need to be balanced and it works with a fix number of stalls. It doesn`t need any maintance, solves our problems and puts some market logic into the game.

Why should the game dictate prices to players? That's so wrongheaded it's not even funny. I understand you want to fix this problem, but you're coming up with all the wrong ways to do it. The idea should be to discourage players from just using it as storage and not manipulating market prices based on the whim of the devs.

[ElCapitan1701]

So just increase rent by 150% after one week, if the stall has been bought for the old price..if stall isn`t bought to that high price it should be reduced by 10%/day. This will even out at the real market value of a store and make sure only those, who are willing to trade things buy that stall. This will work forever, it won`t need to be balanced and it works with a fix number of stalls. It doesn`t need any maintance, solves our problems and puts some market logic into the game.

Why should the game dictate prices to players? That's so wrongheaded it's not even funny. I understand you want to fix this problem, but you're coming up with all the wrong ways to do it. The idea should be to discourage players from just using it as storage and not manipulating market prices based on the whim of the devs.

No. You need to read my posts before answering to it.

Atm there are fixed prices (300/week). Your own suggestion was to set prices to 1s after 12h! My suggestion is to increase old price by 150% so and then drop it by 10%/day. So it is totally open on which price this will even out. Price will rise, if there is demand. Price will drop if price is to high to fit demand. So noone dictates prices - even more - I`m liberating prices.

[MagicManICT]

Only if they didn't set a price on it... honestly, I've not touched one of the stalls so I can't say what the exact mechanic is. I can only infer from how the stalls in HnH worked, and, based on discussion here, that it works the same way.

And you're right. I misread your post. For some reason I was reading price of goods, not price of stall. My apologies.

I'm just going to leave one last thought here: This isn't a finished product. One should probably avoid making assumptions that the current mechanics are the final mechanics. After all, the entire argument here might be completely trivial.

[staxjax]

I'm pretty sure some of those stalls were bought by people that paid $100 for 5000s. Adding daily rent, or raising the price on the stalls will cause items that are being sold on the stalls to be much more expensive. A player would be more likely to get their wares from a merchant that does not own a stall and doesnt have to pay the upkeep every day/week.

[JeffGV]

Imho, the whole mechanic behind stalls is wrong. The only good profitable enough to sell is iron due to the prices involved (seriously, who would make 5000 silvers by selling cakes and foods? Not to talk about the rent). And due to being in Boston - the only teleportable location - and untouchable by crimes - unlike the H&H ones, they're also the best storage the game can offer. The only way to make them used at a storage would be to implement a proper storage, yet it wouldn't solve the other problems.

Imho, they could make some commercial districts in Boston.The farther they are from the center (the teleport point), the lower is the initial cost of the stalls placed there (maybe also a small reduction on the rent, dunno). On the other side, being farther from the teleport point, there will also be fewer people going there to visit the shops (since people are generally lazy).
The stalls near the teleport would be those more visited anyway, and that would justify their price. The goods there are the ones more in sight (think of it like the shops at the center of a town and those in the suburbs).

[lekanr]

Couple random thoughts

I am sure some of the people who put 5K in and are paying each week but not making their money back would be happy to sell their stalls if there was an option to do it. (a Sell my stall button maybe and you get x% back?)

I would be more than happy to buy hay, lime, coal, etc in bulk, but at 200 item limit is is not viable to use in its current form.

Something should be done to limit their use as storage if the item limit increases, but is this any different than using a windmill as storage?

All in all I like the stalls, sure they could be better but less risk than barrels and supply/demand will win over time.

[Tonkyhonk]

allow players to take over an inactive stall longer than a week with a doubled price or something.
allow players to give the stall back to the Company, with half or no refunds.