Suggestion Town Markets

[Ht123]

Loka Town Market System
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Introduction

Recently, one of the most prominent recurring issues on Loka has been the growth and decay of towns, and the resultant high turnover rate of the server population. As the population of a town grows, they eventually reach a critical mass at which they will often start to decay. That critical mass is not some constant universal to every town, but is dependent on factors both related to leader-member operations and member-member interactions. Proper town planning and morale upkeep by town leaders can allow the town to sustain growth, as can the culture of the town caused by interaction between players. Towns with poor leaders or few interactions between members will very quickly have high levels of inactivity, even if they previously had twenty or more members.

In the conquest system, leaders often forego stringent internal development as they seek glory on their way to capital, causing them to lack active members. As large towns dissolve, this leaves a high number of small one or two person towns. This, combined with the most recent update regarding the dissolution of inactive towns, causes Loka to lose players, as they are often unwilling to join another town.

So what?

To sustain a stable player base on the server, focus could be placed on the microeconomic level: features that develop interactions within individual towns, rather than macroeconomic features, which focus on always negative interactions between towns. By developing further capabilities for meaningful member to member interactions, towns would have an increased ability to prosper, and we would see a higher server retention rate. I hope to brainstorm further ideas that would encourage interaction among town members; however, I will currently introduce my idea for town markets.

Town Markets

Towns should have the ability to create market chests within the town at which town members can buy and sell items. By doing so, this would create a degree of reliance among town members; this would also allow interaction (trading) between town members during periods in which the two members are not simultaneously logged on.

An obvious counterargument to this suggestion is the fact that town members can simply make a trade at spawn. Yes, I am aware of the fact that we do have markets at spawn; however, this only encourages interactions between the foremost members of each town, rather than among members within towns. We can assume that markets within towns will have a discounted price, as it strikes a compromise between communal style living most towns experience and the hardcore capitalism struck between towns.

A possible consequence of these discounted prices is the attractiveness to foreign buyers. Because of the discounted prices, players from other towns would have a financial incentive to travel to foreign towns. The opportunity cost of travel would be offset by the discounts, keeping the market at sustainable equilibrium. Currently, the only real incentives players have for traveling to foreign towns are raiding and sightseeing. Markets would give players a tangible reason to travel to other towns, and the commerce would give the towns a tangible reason to open the gates of their high walls.

This, in turn, would create an instrument of positive diplomatic relations between towns. Writs of passage could be issued to players who want to do business in the town, and once the system strengthens, we might begin to see roads being created between towns. Considering there are currently few consequences of being a warmonger within the conquest system, and this would provide balance to the problem. Declaring war on your enemies would cut trade relations with that town, making war a less arbitrary and more strategic decision. Many ideas are shot down under the presumption that it would hurt the conquest system that Loka holds dear; however, it's important to realize that making war less arbitrary does not diminish the value of the system as a whole.

Conclusion

There are benefits from the town market system on both the town-to-town and member-to-member level. By allowing towns to create markets at which their members can buy and sell locally, town members would gain positive interactions with their town members. In addition, towns would finally have an outlet for positive interactions with other towns, and it could lead to development within the town and within the continent.

 

[Robrilion]

It would add a lot of new interactions between towns, especially with the large influx of new members to towns. +1

 

[Grubul]

but wouldnt that take the already few players of the spawn market away?

 

[Cryptite]

Certainly not a new idea, but with the sizes that some towns (mainly yours) are growing, the concept of intra-town commerce is becoming more realistic.

This is an interesting idea. Some expansion required though; would you have to make chests equivalent to each of the categories of the Market at Spawn? Or would you have a single chest that could, perhaps, list any item?

Another idea that's been at times bandied about is the ability for towns to create jobs. Some way to define a job requiring fetching X blocks or mining X blocks (within town protection, etc) could be handed out with payments already defined. This would allow for real and honest Job boards. There're frequently times when new players join but don't know what to do but are willing to help. Having a jobs board where they can literally go mine 10 diamonds for some rewards (set of diamond gear held in an internal town escrow, for example) would be great and would give towns that recruit a lot of internal structure and growth.

 

[Lazuli73]

Since I am more of a passive, form over function player I would love to see a multi-town community not based on throat slashing. It's so diffcult to implement features like trade routes because of everyone's trust issues. We all build giant walls with the intent on keeping everyone out. Not the most friendly welcome if I say so myself.

I think there has been a move in Loka recently where towns have stopped building walls and keep what's important in secure bunkers. Since walls take so much time and so many resources to build, and with the current raiding system, it seems almost pointless to build massive fortresses around your cluster of shacks.

If we think of Loka as country, not as three continents, our towns are very isolated and very unwelcoming. We keep to ourselves, don't share anything with our neighbours. Shake our fists like cranky old men when those kids touch our territory. It's an honest shame, but I think finding peaceful reasons to visit other towns is important.

Maybe town owners would have to meet in person to sign war/peace/trade agreements. Perhaps we start a community project of building said above ground roads and ban underground horse paths and rail road tracks. I'd love to see other NPC villages and new quests, it would be awesome if they involves going to other towns. Ah, if only things were so ideal.

 

[Cryptite]

if only things were so ideal.

Unfortunately, ideal means different things to many people.

 

[Ht123]

but wouldnt that take the already few players of the spawn market away?

This is a very good question, and I partially addressed it in paragraph five. My answer to that is: perhaps, but not necessarily. As I state in paragraph five, we can assume that town markets would often offer discounted prices as their primary users are their fellow town members. This provides any seller a duel incentive: support the town, or support themselves. The latter is not a bad thing, and I do not mean to imply that. Many items have much lower demand, and would need to reach a wider playerbase to sell, so these items would still be sold in spawn; whereas, items with high supply such as building materials and food would often be sold in town markets.

However, removing emphasis from the spawn market could be advantageous: whereas trade has been an instrument of positive diplomatic relations historically, the spawn market renders it into a neutral instrument. This encourages an abundance of tiny, low-population towns, as there are no incentives to build both inter-town and intra-town infrastructure. Under the town market system, towns would have a positive economic incentive to focus on infrastructure. In addition, this would cause a disincentive for players to settle as far away as possible from everyone else. This second paragraph only entails my musings, and is not directly relevant to the idea at hand.

This is an interesting idea. Some expansion required though; would you have to make chests equivalent to each of the categories of the Market at Spawn? Or would you have a single chest that could, perhaps, list any item?

This is one thing I was thinking about last night, but failed to include in my post. In my opinion, the best way to do it would be to make chests that can list any item, and leave the process of organization (via signs, or otherwise) to the owners of the towns. This would allow more freedom to owners for the organization structure, and would allow more ease of access to shop-based systems. Currently, we have multiple commercial stores in Flower Village, but they have no use as of yet. Being able to place a shop chest in the town bookstore, bakery, or armory could lead to greater structure for the town, as well as enhancing lore.

Another idea that's been at times bandied about is the ability for towns to create jobs. Some way to define a job requiring fetching X blocks or mining X blocks (within town protection, etc) could be handed out with payments already defined. This would allow for real and honest Job boards. There're frequently times when new players join but don't know what to do but are willing to help. Having a jobs board where they can literally go mine 10 diamonds for some rewards (set of diamond gear held in an internal town escrow, for example) would be great and would give towns that recruit a lot of internal structure and growth.

Job boards are something that myself and a couple of my sub-owners were discussing last night. As our town grows, we feel the need to create a system for our new members that guide them into jobs, but the way to handle this is tricky. Notice boards work, but lack the financial motivation of a job system that you propose.

I'm happy you brought that up, however, because it led me to thinking of the way it ties into the market system. If a town created a chest that bought - yes, buying, and not selling - say, six stacks of oak logs for a diamond, this would be nearly identical in function to a job system. This discussion leads me to believe that "buying" chests within towns, able to be created by anyone, would have a ton of merit, as they would indicate to new town members what they can do to gain money.