Shop bidding system

[msterswrdsmn]

Yes! Exactly like that. Sorry. I had a hard time putting that vague feeling into words.

[BiglySmalls]

Not sure if it's been suggested, but I always thought a shorter timer on the shop being for sale could be useful, reward those who make a habit of checking shops often, which typically are the people who are in-tune with the goings on of the markets anyway. Significantly less rando's would end up bidding on shops if they're only up for 24-36 hours rather than 4 days simply because they don't check them as often as, say, a commoner.

Also, speaking as someone who had a level 30 commoner once upon a time, raising the price on buying shops just rewards people who already have stupid amounts of money, and punishes new players who would WANT to get involved and focus their efforts on a shop, but don't have the gold on hand to do so. Maybe a slight bump, but nothing major.

[Rei_Jin]

No system is perfect, every system has challenges that may or may not be overcome, and every system has built-in flaws.

The current system is fair in the same way that random chance is fair. It doesn't play favourites, it doesn't care how much coin you have (to a point), and it doesn't pay attention to your connections and relational power.

It doesn't take into account roleplay, which to me is a weakness, but not one that can be resolved IMO without gutting the system as it is, and bringing in other problems.

As someone who plays merchants, it's a frustration, but it does reward perseverance.

[BlueRadish]

These are good arguments from Grumpy and master and others. I too love to see the years-old useless shops finally go to fresh shopowners. I can get on board with the new system. Two things though:

Surely some way of notifying the winner is possible and appropriate, like notifications for faction messages. I get the argument that they should be checking if they bid, but if they're not, we all have to suffer 7 days of the shop being down plus the new bidding process plus potentially the same all over again. That doesn't improve the shop situation at all. This is pretty basic quality of life.

And, which specific shops are not subject to the bidding system? Is there a way to tell which is which?

[Guerra]

Surely some way of notifying the winner is possible and appropriate, like notifications for faction messages. I get the argument that they should be checking if they bid, but if they're not, we all have to suffer 7 days of the shop being down plus the new bidding process plus potentially the same all over again. That doesn't improve the shop situation at all. This is pretty basic quality of life.

Yeah that's a good point. I bid on shops all the time then forget to check. I try but if I am busy out of the game for a couple of days it's not always easy to remember to add that to do the to do list when I come back. Just seems like QoL.

[msheeler]

There should be a word for that.

There is. . . "Life"

Anyways we did extend temporary shops out to three real life hour refresh intervals to help make them more acctractive. You can easily open one up and go do things then just check back in every 3 hours until you log for the day.

It's not as easy as leaving everything in a permanent shop, but if you are after merchant rp it certainly can fill in till you get one.

[Skibbles]

I want to tack on to BlueRadish's suggestion that it would be pretty neat if you got a notification that a bid ended and you got the shop. It would be cool if this extended to any property too.

I've definitely bid on stuff, got caught up in interesting RP for a day or two, and kind of forgot I booped a quarter sign a few days ago only to find I ended up getting it. Big goldfish energy right there.

It's an okay system and I don't dislike it as much as I used to, but it does encourage people less interested in quarters or shops to bid on them anyway, to maximize the chances their faction gets it overall, if they're connected to multiple PCs eager to get into a business together.

Maybe it might be nice that, within the first 24-48 hours of a bid closing with a new owner, that person could transfer it to anyone they want in that window before it closes. Of course that comes with a whole host of obvious issues on its own too, but I think this is kind of what's going on when it comes to groups bidding on stuff anyway.

Could be a sort of middle of both worlds. Random chance plays its part in distributing out of the 'in-crowd', but within that short window there's rp wiggle room.

I'm not sure if there's mechanics in place, similar to voting, to prevent multiple bids from the same CD-key, so if that's not the case then this idea would definitely not work.

Edit to add: Yeah maybe not. I just remembered that people used to swipe property just to sell it to the highest bidder, and no doubt this would be the end result. I'll still leave the idea here in case it inspires something similar, and less abusable.

[Guerra]

Yeah if you really want a shop you need to keep putting down bids and most don't win so it can be easy to lose track after weeks of that.

Wonder what the average is how many times someone typically puts down bids before they win one.