Future of Merchants & Marketplace HUB

Ideas & Suggestions
1

Hi All,

I’ve been thinking much about what I wish to do with the merchant profession and the marketplace hubs.

As you all know, the merchant profession is rather broken, and the marketplace hubs are not getting the use we expected.

Most sims now have their economies and use their vendors for their communities.

While some marketplace hubs have items listed, their traffic is minimal. Here is what I am planning to have come about of the merchant class and what I envision the marketplace hubs to become.

  1. Regular Marketplace HUBs will be linked to a ‘colony’. And will no longer list buy and sell orders.

  2. A new station called a ‘Merchant Stall’ will be created. A merchant member of a ‘colony’ will be able to sit on this stall, and every few minutes, at random, you will get a mini-game pop-up that checks you are not AFK. In addition, the merchant will earn ‘CXP’ every few minutes on this station. As the merchant gains CXP, the ‘colony’ they are a member of will also earn an item called ‘Crafting Supplies’ or something similar.

  3. A merchant of the same colony will be able to bring a barrel or large bag to the merchant stall to load up with ‘Supplies’ into this barrel or bag from the colony’s stockpile.

  4. The merchant has to visit other sims with a marketplace HUB on land and can unload ‘supplies’ into that marketplace HUB.
    a. They can only visit each market once every 24 hours,
    b. They can only supply each market x amount of supplies,

  5. As they supply other colonies’ markets, merchants will earn ‘SLC Coin’ in return.

  6. The main market in the main store will be repurposed to be automatically seeded with every crafted item in the game, where a merchant (or anyone the merchant has transferred SLC Coin to) can purchase any of the game’s items for SLC Coin.
    a. As certain products are purchased, the system will automatically increase the price of certain items and lower them depending on how much trade is going on with that item.

  7. Merchants then will bring items they have purchased in the main marketplace to their own sims vendors and make those items available to their community.
    a. The main market would not be restricted to just the merchant profession; anyone with SLC Coin will be able to use it.

Ok, so that’s most of the idea at this stage. We are repurposing the marketplace hubs to become something the merchants transfer supplies to earn CXP and SLC Coin to purchase any item in our game for their community.

The markets would no longer have a buy/sell feature, as you’ll be able to buy anything you need, but the only way to earn SLC Coin to buy what you need is to have merchants in your colony generating ‘supplies’ and visiting other sims.

Now, because ‘supplies’ are tracked, we can gamify the system slightly by displaying which colonies have been generating the most supplies, which colonies have been supplying other sims the most, and which colonies are receiving the least supplies and need support.

We can then include a bonus to a merchant by visiting sims with lower supply and higher demand, but providing the merchant with a 1.25x bonus to SLC Coin generated and so on. We could list this supply-demand on the website. This would encourage people to visit sims with fewer members and encourage interaction.

At the end of each month, the supplies a colony has generated would be wiped out. The objective would be to generate as much as possible during the month and supply them to the other sims to generate income. There will be no stockpiling of supplies.

Supplying another market would require time sitting at the market - generating traffic for a marketplace owner on their sim.

Merchants levelling up would gain bonuses, such as holding more supplies in their bag/barrel and being permitted to supply a market with more supplies than a lower level, therefore earning more SLC Coins to purchase needed items for their sim.

The idea is for each sim to have its economies flowing and for merchants to be the link between each sim. They can buy from the main market using SLC Coin and visit others sims to sell all their items to other sims vendors to earn different coins.

Someone will eventually start up a bank exchange for various sims economies, I am sure :wink:

2

I’m not fully understanding this I think, but… if the marketplace HUB can’t list buy/sell orders, what’s the point of it at all? What are “supplies”? Why force the merchant to sit there if people can’t buy/sell things there? and how can they earn SLC coins if they can’t buy/sell things?

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3

Supplies will be a unique game item of no value except for other people’s markets.

The merchant earns the SLC Coin by going to the markets, which initiates a ‘transfer’ of supplies as they stand near it.

For example, if they load a barrel with 100 x ‘Supplies’ and go to a market and transfer supplies, the merchant will earn SLC Coin per supply transferred over.

The transfer rate will have a certain speed, though the rate of SLC Coin could be bonused by visiting sims with low supply/activity.

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4

so the merchant would no longer actually trade useable items between colonies?

5

Yes, they will. They will also go sell those items in other sims vendors and earn the different economies.

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6

I’ve planned for further changes to the Merchant profession and the Marketplace Hubs.

The above is still relative, however, with some changes.

There will be no need for a new Merchant Stall; the existing Marketplace HUBS will be transformed.

This will not be the case.

This is how it will work:

  1. Marketplace HUBS will be repurposed. They will no longer work to place buy and sell orders. Instead, a marketplace hub will be linked to a specific colony and have one action, which is called ‘Barter’. This action will only be able to be performed by a Merchant.

  2. A marketplace will have a new hover text displayed when recently clicked on. This display will show ‘Supplies’, followed by a number between 0 to 1,000. This will show you how many supplies are in a market’s stockpile.

    a. Markets will automatically regenerate its supplies over a 24-hour period, generating approximately 60 supplies per hour, up to its maximum of 1,000.

  3. A merchant from the same colony can go to their own market and click on ‘Barter’, which will initiate a bartering animation where the merchant must remain within range. While in range, a Level 1 merchant will receive one supply from the marketplace per minute of bartering and earn some CXP.

    a. As a merchant levels up, they will receive more supplies per minute, e.g., a Level 2 merchant will receive two supplies per minute while a Level 3 will receive three.

    b. Once the supplies in a market are depleted, you cannot receive more; you will need to wait for it to regenerate over time.

  4. A merchant from a different colony can visit other markets owned by other colonies. When such a merchant clicks on ‘Barter’ - they will again have to remain in range with the animation playing. Instead of receiving supplies, they will give supplies they have collected to that Market at one supply per minute for a Level 1 merchant and increase as they level up. In return for the supply, you will receive SLC Coin per supply at a value dependent on the demand of that market.

    a. A market of 1,000 supplies will only give a merchant 1 SLC Coin. An empty market in need of supplies will give more. It should look something like this:

Supplies Coins per Supply
0-10% 10 SLC Coins
11-20% 9 SLC Coins
21-30% 8 SLC Coins
31-40% 7 SLC Coins
41-50% 6 SLC Coins
51-60% 5 SLC Coins
61-70% 4 SLC Coins
71-80% 3 SLC Coins
81-90% 2 SLC Coins
91-100% 1 SLC Coin

I hope this makes sense. The objective of being a Merchant, then, is to go around looking for Markets that are in most need of supplies to generate the most SLC coins for your use.

Other Important Changes

With this change, some other important things will occur.

  1. The main marketplace in-store will be the only market hub that will somewhat function like the old ones, that is, where you can purchase items using your SLC Coin, though, it will function a lot differently.

    a. It will automatically seed itself with all items created by developers, that is, all tools, all animals, and all ingredients.

    b. Pricing will automatically fluctuate up and down based on supply & demand. The more people purchase a certain product; the higher its base price will go up. This may affect the end cost of other products that require that ingredient.

    c. You will still be able to sell items directly to the market, and again, the price you will get will fluctuate based on how often the market is purchasing that item from players. You will not be able to seed the market or place ‘sell’ orders as before unless, as below, in the next point.

    d. Players will only be able to ‘seed’ items into the market, i.e., place sales orders, for items they are the creator of. The market will not automatically seed items created by the community, and it will be up to the recipe’s creator to list their item and control its pricing. Other players will still be able to sell to that order if it exists.

    e. Players will still be able to place buy orders and requests for things they need, but only for player-created items. We will make it so that a creator of an item will receive occasional IMs in-game to remind them that someone is seeking to purchase their product.

  2. The ATM in-store will be disabled completely. You will no longer be able to purchase and sell SLC coins using L$, and another system will be put in place using the Platinum Store and Platinum membership for those players that wish to have more SLC Coins. This will be discussed further in another post.

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7

I’m writing this after only 4hrs sleep so pardon me if i got the wrong XD this is too many words for my brain right now XD

From what i try to read and absorb here the Market stall will now become a stall once ‘supplied’ you can spend SLC coins on everything ‘default-ish’ that is a completely controlled market by the system and that we will no longer be able to upload our produces into the ‘main general market’ and set our own prices? So if that’s the case that means we have to purchase those individual vendors and open our own shops etc on our own place etc etc and that’s a lot of vendors, too expensive. Suggestion is make them copyable coz if there is no more main market everyone can share then there has to be a cheaper option for us to do our own thing. Also the whole concept will hinder on having a merchant, so if no merchant show up the stall is practically crippled? We have to consider how popular this merchant job is too, how many people likes to sit on the same place and wait for pop up games for long period of time?

Not having the ATM is basically cutting off all the players from chances to convert SLC into Linden. And new players who perhaps don’t have enough coins to start or we happen to just ran out of coins we can’t even get more unless we work like mad. And its not like we can do multiple jobs to make our own coins alone. I really don’t think it should be removed.

8

The plan at the moment is that you will be able to sell your Items that you make to the Main Market and they will be listed there for coin, and the Market itself will set a Sell and Buy price based of the Items used to create what you are selling, so you will no longer have to wait for someone to buy the Item before you get your money, and you wont have to worry about somone undercutting you on the market, The vendors will still be used so Creators can set their own prices, because the Market will Price things at a much higher price to buy and a much lower sell price than the Created Items are actualy worth. We are still in development stage of these new changes so Feedback is much appreciated.

9

Those are some valuable comments you have raised, and we have looked into this and thought about how we can improve. In particular to do with the merchant having to sit there all bored.

Firstly, we’ve decided that all markets will still function as markets in your colonies. There won’t be buy and sell orders. The market will be considered a global market, and all system items will be seeded and priced automatically by the system. So you can buy anything you need when you need it, and you can sell anything you have excess of, whenever you like to, in return for SLC coin. So a poor player with nothing can still gain SLC coins without the ATM by gathering things that do not require tools - reed, water, compass items and so forth.

The merchant bartering mechanic will change. Instead of standing in range, the merchant will initiate a mini-game with over 160 levels. The merchant can complete any number of levels he wishes. In one game, they can attempt to finish 19 levels. Completing all 19 levels for the day earns you 1,000 coins. They can only earn 1,000 supplies once a day.

If they start the game at their colony, they will earn supplies, up to 1,000 of them. If they start the game at someone else’s colony, they will sell supplies they have in their personal stock. To encourage community interaction and visiting other lands, Merchants will receive a bonus for visiting markets that have not had much interaction in a certain time period.

The way that might be tracked, and it would be shown on the meter website to advise you where it is best to sell, would be:

  • Every market starts at a 20% bonus.
  • Every time a merchant comes to that market to play levels and earn SLC Coin, the market bonus will drop by 5%.
  • A merchant can only play at another market once a day.
  • Once a market reaches 0%, Merchants will receive a base rate of SLC Coin.
  • Every 6 hours, the market will increase by a 5% bonus up to a maximum of 20%.

This is the game we are basing on, and it includes moving supplies around in a warehouse. It is called Shove-It:

Let us know your thoughts on that :slight_smile:

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10

We are also adding bonuses based on a player’s profession and charisma level to the general market. This effects how much you save on buying and selling items to and from the markets.

The higher your charisma level, the higher the bonus you will receive on prices. You will also receive a bonus based on the level of Merchant you currently are.

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11

  1. So only the system stuff can be bought and sold anytime right? It doesn’t apply to say the secret food recipes or stuff we invented?

  2. Does this include stuff like what we can get from the compass?

  3. Requesting certain orders in certain amounts are still available or no?

  4. Ok so it solves getting SLC coins, what about turning it back to Linden?

  5. How many tries can the merchant do to achieve this 19 level clear? And assuming the merchant is a gaming genius, he potentially can become a billionaire really quickly by playing every single day and clear 19 levels without fail? Not saying your game will be easy but of course it can’t be too tough that no one can pass or do it either.

  6. So just want to be clear, in their own colony they can earn 1000 supplies, in someone else’s colony they can only sell?

  7. So let’s say i pick Cypress as the ‘other market’ i play on, after that i can’t go play somewhere else am i right? So i can literally play all [5%] x 4 rounds and exhaust it completely on my own? And then comes the next question, how many merchants are there currently vs the markets that is available? Like is it enough? Are there going to be empty handed merchants?

  8. So this bonus of profession and charisma thing, any job can have this bonus except different effect when we sell our products? Is it random or fix rate for each type of jobs? And eg, i’m a farmer, i don’t need to be charming for my job, but because i’m ugly so i won’t get paid better? XD

18

Only The system Ingredients and tools, and possibly other Items that we see as essential will seed constantly on the Market, any other Items that appear on the market will be those Items that a Player sells to the market and will only be available in a limited quantity, once someone else buys all the Items it will be gone from the market until someone else sells it to the market again

If you mean will the Market have Ingredients that can olny be found with the Compas, Yes it will, but using trhe compass you get the Items for free and can then sell them to the market for coin, but if you have the coin and just want a bunch of mushrooms, instead of having to use your compass you can now just go to the market

Right now I do not see a reason to leave the request system in place because almost 100% of want is being requested are basic ingredients that will be there anyway

We will look into and discuss that, but This system has never been about making Linden from the system, it is a RP framework for communities.

There is no Time limit, and there are no lives, the Game will have a button to restart the current level if you get stuck. Some people will like it and some will hate it, but that is the nature of any game.

Correct in your Own Colony you can only earn 1000 Supplies per day from the market, and you can visit each market in other colonies 1 time a day to “sell” you suplies as long as you have supplies left to sell

That is the whole purpose of the Merchant role, you as a farmer have low Charisma, but the Merchant in your Colony probibbly has High Charisme, so the Farmer produces the goods, and then gives them to the merchant to sell and since the merchant is getting a much higher payout for the goods he can Give the farmer a much better price than the farmer would get on hos own, and then the merchant can take a percentage for himself, Or in a community all the farmers would put their goods into a Community Chest and then the Merchant would sell Everything and deposit the profits so the pay can go out to the Workers

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19

No, you can only go play once at that market and reduce it by 5%. Once you’ve had that attempt, you will need to find another market. You cannot exhaust a market on your own single character.

In terms of how many merchants, that’s the same as asking how many enchanters. Both these professions have never been developed, and we are now working on those.

This change incentivises new and existing players to become merchants. And the bonuses it gives you, such as actually earning SLC Coin to use in the markets are enough of a reason to want to play it, especially with the ATM gone and no need to invest any L$ into the game to get what you need.

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20

Thanks for answering the questions guys it clears up a lot. Just one more thing which is when will this be out and will the stall finally be customizable?

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21

I am working on it now, and yes it will be customizable

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A post was split to a new topic: Charisma & Merchant Bonuses