Neutral Shops in the Hub: [All the advantages, none of the weaknesses]

[Blood on my Lips]

I agree with everything TimeAdept said.

In addition, you don't need a higher tax rate for non-settlement shops. You need better shops in the settlements. It's all a bunch of overpriced garage sales. Sell things people need and want. Price reasonably. The customers will throw money at you. You don't even need a great location. You need a quality shop. People will go the extra distance to buy from you.

[BegoneThoth]

I agree with everything TimeAdept said.

In addition, you don't need a higher tax rate for non-settlement shops. You need better shops in the settlements. It's all a bunch of overpriced garage sales. Sell things people need and want. Price reasonably. The customers will throw money at you. You don't even need a great location. You need a quality shop. People will go the extra distance to buy from you.

There's what, a pikers ring going for 50k in one of the settlement shops. Now why won't that sell

If you just have an actually GOOD shop stuff moves as fast as you can make it. Use settlement powers to remove trash shops and get good merchants and watch the money flow in. If you have enough of a faction to win an election you can handle a few quality shops yourselves, then just prune the rest.

[Seekeepeek]

*shrugs* why the Caps lock?
A high tax worked for me when i ran a settlement once, it's not like iam telling you a fairy tail...

[dominantdrowess]

You're all talking about defending your own shops and shitting on other people's shops, and I'm talking about the damage done to the political system because all the other settlements make 3x times more money -- Cordor literally cannot fail or go bankrupt -- due to their property values and lack of neutral rentals surrounding their settlements.

Stop defending your 0% tax shops for a moment. I own one too and I'm not defending it.

Anyone in this conversation that thinks it's okay for Cordor to be able to drive the prices on the auctions up to 8 million in two auction periods on the dime of Devil's Table's councilors isn't paying attention to the historical GDP of Andunor's two settlements (in relation to other settlements) or the details of this conversation and they're flipping out about the title, which is only one cause of the problem I'm -actually- trying to address.

I'm not trying to add eviction to neutral shops-- or force neutral housing into district authority.

I'm trying to look at alternative ways to fix the Government GDP to be enough to actually -handle- it's responsibilities and to make it's district competition -actually- about the relations of the districts.

[Nitro]

You're all talking about defending your own shops and shitting on other people's shops, and I'm talking about the damage done to the political system because all the other settlements make 3x times more money -- Cordor literally cannot fail or go bankrupt -- due to their property values and lack of neutral rentals surrounding their settlements.

It's not the lack of neutral competition that makes Cordor filthy rich. It's that they're the biggest hub on the server, and has what, 40 different shops all generating taxes? The only other city that even comes close to having as many shops is Andunor, but they're split up over two districts and a bevy of neutral ones.

I'll admit though that I don't see the problem in ultra wealthy ancap Cordorians blowing 8 millions on an auction that purely benefits one of the two evil underdark factions in Andunor. I mean, that's direct financing of evil forces. (Although I am curious as to how you're so certain it's Cordor that's directly blowing cash on the auctions).

And I do agree the neutral shops should have the tax percentage they have listed in the tooltip, just not for as dramatic reasons as you list.

[BegoneThoth]

There's no need to go all underline bold italic here. If the Ud settlements focused on stability and profitability then quality shops would come. Again, use eviction powers to get rid of terrible shops and give incentives to prospective shop owners who have inventory to sell.

I don't know if even this will help thougj as current optics have the two UD factions evicting on a whim just to install friends of the council/administration. Which isn't how you keep quality shop owners who value stability.

If you turn this perspective around, and attract the good merchant characters, and lower taxes significantly, then the zero tax will not matter as the quality of the businesses in the settlements will create income.

[Astegard]

Like the constructive discussions going on here so far, some good ideas.

I also agree it is quite bothersome you need like 1 hour to visit all the shops in UD.
I was mid lvl 20 before i found out about the port district and all the shops there by misclicking the gondola.
I highly dislike all the advertising in the hub, its crowded enough with signs already. Maybe set up a single shop registry and what their intended market is?

Not sure about the 50-50 split though as neather district is able to influence their 50% unless there are some suggestions here?
But better than nothing I suppose?

Speaking from my experience:
I dont have any experience with the district system/income.
I've owned a shop in the upper tradepost, had no trouble selling there just lower prices daily untill it sells. Better than 500 you get from npc shops.

[Durvayas]

I've owned a shop in the upper tradepost, had no trouble selling there just lower prices daily untill it sells. Better than 500 you get from npc shops.

I specifically didn't mention the upper trade post(ogre trade post) because its actually in a good location. It is at the junction of the path to the surface and a series of good dungeons that high teens early epic PCs go to, and it having a portal means that it gets enough foot traffic to be fairly profitable.

Additionally, it wasn't mentioned because it is not part of Andunor any more than Sencliff is. It is purpose built to be its own place where people not welcome in Andunor at all can go, moreso even than treadstone is.

[WinkinBlinkin]

What about a 10% rate on the shops, split in proportion between the districts in the same ratio as the other biddable resources? So currently, with the Sharps owning 3 out of 4 biddable properties, they would get 75% of neutral tax revenues? Including properties in the neutral areas.

No eviction rights given.

[BegoneThoth]

I still don't understand why any change is needed at all.

[Rooshi49]

I still don't understand why any change is needed at all.

Because money is just being thrown into the void, which mind you isn't a bad thing overall, but in the case of funding settlements, it most definately is.

Noone is saying that there arnt things that merchants can do. Gouging needs to be countered by eviction, and if eviction is so rampant that people are doing it just to get their friends shops, then perhaps it needs to be looked at. But honestly that could also be dealt with IC partially too.

I still think that one of the best ways to deal with (shameless plug is shameless) this situation is to have some sort of ledger that shows what shops are selling what.

[MissEvelyn]

I personally hate settlement shops and having someone look me over the shoulder. Most of the time they have no clue if stuff is selling or not in the shop and as long as people in power can't check the weekly income of a shop by speaking with the shop sign, i don't think it's the way to go.

I'm 100% in agreement with this.

Furthermore, not all neutral shops are tax-free. The ones on Skal have a flat 10% tax rate.

[Rooshi49]

I've asked for Metadata to be recorded so that one could know the ins and outs of the economy. It was denied because of memory storage reasons.

[Blood on my Lips]

Because money is just being thrown into the void, which mind you isn't a bad thing overall, but in the case of funding settlements, it most definately is.

What money is being thrown into the void?

[Rooshi49]

Because money is just being thrown into the void, which mind you isn't a bad thing overall, but in the case of funding settlements, it most definately is.

What money is being thrown into the void?

Well if there exists any shop in the vicinity that ARE being taxed but arn't being taxed for a settlement, then that money that is being taxed is just being thrown away.

But now that I think about it, there probably arn't any neutral shops that have taxes

[ActionReplay]

We've added a new Nation of Andunor, which is a NPC/Dev/DM controlled Nation. Taxes should be a thing now on Hub Shops. Boreal Keep is unaffected by this atm, not sure if we are gonna cover that one too.

[Rooshi49]

We've added a new Nation of Andunor, which is a NPC/Dev/DM controlled Nation. Taxes should be a thing now on Hub Shops. Boreal Keep is unaffected by this atm, not sure if we are gonna cover that one too.

So does this mean that the hub has taxes that arn't being contributed to any PC controlled settlement?

[TimeAdept]

What a terrible decision. Money into the void that doesn't even address any of Andunor's issues, and does nothing but punish the city's hardest working merchant PCs without incentivizing them to actually go to another district.

Worse, it's not even applied fairly across the entire city, like the Treadstone, wheels, or Boreal. Absolutel ridiculous. Straight up punishment for no reason.

[Rooshi49]

Well as I've mentioned before, money sinks arn't exactly a bad thing. Its actually healthy for the economy.
Though it should be everywhere for it to be far.

[BegoneThoth]

Well I guess 10% of every purchase now goes into the Aether if you're buying in the hub, so mission accomplished for this topic I guess.

[Blood on my Lips]

We've added a new Nation of Andunor, which is a NPC/Dev/DM controlled Nation. Taxes should be a thing now on Hub Shops. Boreal Keep is unaffected by this atm, not sure if we are gonna cover that one too.

If you are going to tax the Hub shops you should tax the Boreal Keep shops too.

[BegoneThoth]

Tax havens are unbalanced.

[Nitro]

It does make sense that the hubmaster wants his share of the gold flowing through the hub. And let's not pretend 10% is a crippling tax for some of the most lucratively positioned shops on the server. If a shop in the hub doesn't have trash goods and the prices aren't terrible, it's going to shift a lot of wares based on its convenient location alone.

[CosmicOrderV]

It does make sense that the hubmaster wants his share of the gold flowing through the hub. And let's not pretend 10% is a crippling tax for some of the most lucratively positioned shops on the server. If a shop in the hub doesn't have trash goods and the prices aren't terrible, it's going to shift a lot of wares based on its convenient location alone.

Exactly this

[ActionReplay]

The hub is a test for now. The money won't go wasted, they'll go to the city of Andunor and pile up. I'm looking into being able to split revenue of that to the two districts.

I want the Andunor wealth to actually mean something as allowing more dynamic features. If the city is wealthy perhaps goods sold by NPC merchants can go down a little. This also opens up some features for the future backgrounds we have in store like The Merchant one to allow for lower taxes or further income for player-owned shops.

I can turn it off by now (though no more gold to Andunor) just need confirmation PC sold wares in the Hub are taxed since this change.