Loka Town Market System
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.
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