Housing Upgrade - Shop

Kez

Might be a terrible idea, might be a good idea, might be meh. I don't know. Please discuss.

This housing upgrade would be able to be used in the main room of an out-of-subs house, or in the cabin of a ship.

It wouldn't have to cost a whole lot since out-of-subs plots and ships already have a significant cost associated with them. It also wouldn't detract from existing shops because these tend to be in out-of-the-way places.

Gold sink explanation: ships would be kept out of drydock so people would have access to the shop. If the crew was unhappy (unpaid) they would ransack the joint, resulting in it being closed until the crew is happy again. Plot-based shops would have taxes that automatically close the shop whenever left unpaid, and continue to accumulate but cap after 10 years or something.

Of course these shops can not be seized by anyone, but they close automatically if not properly maintained and require a bit of work to get it back up to working order if you let it get bad.

I left subdivision housing out of this because that seems like a pain in the ass for cities to deal with.

Shred at will.

Khaibit

Uh... no

Kez

Uh... do say more.

Achimrst

Maybe in an out of subs house, make one of those denizens for your house and than have it be upgraded to a shop denizen for the WARES thing. No wares unless you actually have the storeroom as an upgrade. Of course it's likely no one will find your shop so idk.

Melodie

While I would love to have a stockroom in my home and would thoroughly approve of that idea (I have been dreaming up root cellar ideas for a while now), I highly doubt shops would ever exist just in a home/ship. Not that I think it wouldn't be cool, I just don't see it being approved as a workaround for buying a shop.

Morthif

When I read the title I thought this was going to be a proposal for Houses being able to buy a shop upgrade that would install a shop near the house estate. The HL would have owner assignment powers over the shop and the shop would fall under CITY SHOPS like normal.

Kresslack

Maybe have your house steward able to receive and set prices for items to sell that you give them, like Yenien in Meropis.

[Deleted User]

I wish you'd put this in the housing upgrades thread so we'd get a little bump there too but done's done.

While I think it'd be interesting if out of subs houses actually had a 'store front' option for their front entrance or something (shop houses are cool!), my general feeling is that admin response will be 'housing is housing and shops are shops'.

Halos

Mixed feelings.

One of my favorite parts of owning subdivision plots is you can express your personal creativity in a relatively inexpensive, accessible, and enduring way.

The creative ability to run and open subdivision shops would need to be handled very, very carefully. Does an entire economy spring up in subdivisions, away from city centers, and if so, is this good or bad (it might actually limit itself, due to customers having to ENTER SUBDIVISION then find a specific plot in a sprawling subdivision with SURVEY, then actually arranging access to the house if it isn't restricted)? Since shops would be on player property, would the home city have any say in it (taxes, security, etc)? That's probably something governments would figure out, rather than a mechanical or economic problem though. 

Also, some (a lot of) people would have no intention of selling goods, but just want a personal stockroom to keep things in. Fair enough. But the ability to keep stuff from decaying is obviously extremely valuable. So valuable, in fact, that Great Houses themselves (which are shared by many people) are only allowed one non-decay stockroom, and 15 items total sold by any House denizen. The cost of adding shop capabilities to subdivision housing should be considered with that.

I think a better idea to consider is giving Housing servants the ability to sell your items, as in the manner of Yenien, the Orillan merchant.

Edit: like what Achimrst suggested

Trey

I really want something like this for my eventual palatial estate, if for nothing else than to keep a bar stocked (what self-respecting rake wouldn't?). However, there are definitely things that would have to be put into place to make it balanced and worthwhile:

- Out of Subs only: Given the nature of out of subs plots and what they can potentially become, starting a small colony or community on one is entirely feasible. It would stand to reason to have a shop there, but much like housing in real life, you don't see many open-to-public businesses in residential homes.

- Half capacity: It goes without saying that with as much influence and clout that Houses and Cities have, it stands to reason that a single person would be hard pressed to maintain a full-sized shop. 75 items seems entirely sufficient for almost any purpose you might have (like my bar concept, for example). 

- One per player only: As awesome as it would be to have multiple shops in plots around the continent, this would clearly defeat the purpose of limiting the amount of storage one would have.

- Taxes: You'd still pay a yearly fee, but consider it wages for the attendant of your shop. 10k would seem like a reasonable salary for a non-adventuring denizen. 

I'm not entirely sure what the cost of a non-decay room for a House is, but in my mind the price should be at least 15 room credits out of subs given the utility available. I realize that puts it at the same price as a Box of Stasis, but you can buy as many of those as you want, they don't have an upkeep cost, and this would be limited to at most the number of out of subs plots in existence, less considering I know of a few people who own two or more plots.

Aerek

The real advantage of an out-of-sub-house shop wouldn't be the shop itself, it would be the non-decay stockroom.

Trey

Aerek said:

The real advantage of an out-of-sub-house shop wouldn't be the shop itself, it would be the non-decay stockroom.

Which, combined with a fairly large initial cost and a maintenance cost of just under 2cr per Achaean year, it'd be no different than if you bought or rented a shop in a city. I do agree that that would be probably the most valued perk of owning one for more than a few people, I just think that it would be reasonable.

Ognog

There are probably massive knock on effects to consider, such as impact on value of existing shops, adventurers returning to cities less often, lower overheads and investment for the new shops impacting viability of city shops. It could be a race to the bottom in terms of profit margins. My head hurts just thinking about it. This problem needs an economist!

Aerek

The difference being that, no matter how rich you are, there are a limited number of shops in the world, which is why they're expensive. If this went in, I would demolish my fancy roleplay house and build Uncle Aerek's Shop and Safe-Deposit Box Factory. Everyone playing Achaea could have their own shop or personal stasis room for 850 credits plus my modest markup. I don't think that's something the Admin would be interested in turning loose.

Jules

They probably won't, but with forged goods no longer a factor, this isn't as big a deal as people are making it out to be.  I can buy a shop I can put anywhere I damned please in Imperian (and not for eleventy billion credits either) and the world didn't end. 

Trey

Aerek said:

The difference being that, no matter how rich you are, there are a limited number of shops in the world, which is why they're expensive. If this went in, I would demolish my fancy roleplay house and build Uncle Aerek's Shop and Safe-Deposit Box Factory. Everyone playing Achaea could have their own shop or personal stasis room for 850 credits plus my modest markup. I don't think that's something the Admin would be interested in turning loose.

The bolded is incorrect. Either I wasn't clear enough in what I said or you may have misinterpreted. My idea was that by treating them like a house upgrade, and the limitation of only one per -PERSON-, that at absolute maximum you could only have up to as many new 'mini shops' as there are out of subs plots. I would assume that we'd make them owner non-transferable to avoid such a situation, and if unless I'm mistaken, only the owner of a house may place an upgrade there.

Halos

lol'd at "Uncle Aerek's Shop and Safe-Deposit Box Factory".

Kez

Yeah and I said it would go in the main room of an out-of-subs house, not all the rooms.

Kez

Trey said:

Aerek said:

The real advantage of an out-of-sub-house shop wouldn't be the shop itself, it would be the non-decay stockroom.

Which, combined with a fairly large initial cost and a maintenance cost of just under 2cr per Achaean year, it'd be no different than if you bought or rented a shop in a city. I do agree that that would be probably the most valued perk of owning one for more than a few people, I just think that it would be reasonable.

Who says the stockroom has to be non-decay?

Trey

Kez said:

Trey said:

Aerek said:

The real advantage of an out-of-sub-house shop wouldn't be the shop itself, it would be the non-decay stockroom.

Which, combined with a fairly large initial cost and a maintenance cost of just under 2cr per Achaean year, it'd be no different than if you bought or rented a shop in a city. I do agree that that would be probably the most valued perk of owning one for more than a few people, I just think that it would be reasonable.

Who says the stockroom has to be non-decay?

I do, otherwise keeping a stocked bar would be tedious.

Halos

...is this not the definition of a stockroom? Barring herbs and things like that, this is how goods keep their value while waiting to be purchased. Consider: vials, sigils, enchanted items, food and drink. Without non-decay, things that you want to buy or sell quickly quickly degrade, which drastically lowers their value, which means you would need to constantly lower the price (or worse, have them decay on your entirely). 

edit: what Trey said.

Melodie

Aerek said:

The difference being that, no matter how rich you are, there are a limited number of shops in the world, which is why they're expensive. If this went in, I would demolish my fancy roleplay house and build Uncle Aerek's Shop and Safe-Deposit Box Factory. Everyone playing Achaea could have their own shop or personal stasis room for 850 credits plus my modest markup. I don't think that's something the Admin would be interested in turning loose.

In the austere likeness of Lorielan, "No".

That said, if it's limited to one stockroom per player, and more or less followed Trey's idea of somewhat diminished awesomeness that full shops provide, but still plenty of awesome... I admit it looks more feasible, and I would totally throw myself behind this idea. I don't know if we'd just have a bar (with tea included) or actually try to sell things or...

Damn. So many ideas. Halp.

Jurixe

I'd love a limited time thing ala Yenien (is that right?) in Meropis, where you get to price items for sale for a limited amount of time, and if it doesn't get sold it reverts back to your inventory. That would be excellent for foodstuffs, in my view.

I would also lobby for this to be made a perk for out of subdivision housing to encourage people to put their out of subs plots to more public use. The privilege of owning an out of sub plot is that anyone can access it and it is part of the world in a way subdivision plots aren't - sub plots seem like a minigame to me, which I've always found rather weird. I hope that makes sense.

But anyway. Definitely think out of sub plots could use more love and obviously I have a vested interest in this, but I'd love to employ a full time waiter in the Asterian Athenaeum and have him walk around serving drinks and stuff, or a librarian that sells maps, quills, books and what other nonsense. Unfortunately, I think something like this would very much be a pipe dream, but I guess dreaming never hurt anyone!

Kyrra

Do people forget that carts exist? Those things are epic as an alternative to owning a shop, except for the fact that when they decay, all the items stocked disappear with them. If that got fixed and they were added to the Shop of Wonders or something, it would be brilliant.

Trey

Kyrra said:

Do people forget that carts exist? Those things are epic as an alternative to owning a shop, except for the fact that when they decay, all the items stocked disappear with them. If that got fixed and they were added to the Shop of Wonders or something, it would be brilliant.

We don't forget that the carts exist, but it's not exactly an optimal solution. Plus, I don't know anyone that would pay even a crown for something that decays that quickly.

EDIT: Something with permanence would be nice, hence the in-house shop. Hell I could probably even make do with 50 slots. That'd be enough for variety for a bar.

Santar

Could have a house denizen that can sell like 5-10 items.

Halos

Kyrra said:

Do people forget that carts exist? 

Yes. They're forgettable and kind've suck in their current form/availability.

Khaibit

I'm not sure how something that takes even more credits to make will lower credit prices?

Ognog

Carts? What are carts, and how does one acquire one?

Kyrra

Ognog said:

Carts? What are carts, and how does one acquire one?

They were globe items that you could assemble to have a travelling cart. It allowed you to store and price quantities of 10 different types of items, and you could move them around to whatever locations that you wanted. Every time someone bought something from a cart, the gold was delivered right to you. 

I've bought a couple from a few player shops when I've seen them around, usually around 80k gold. Been given a few from random people as well. For someone that loves playing shopkeeper and has never bothered to save up the 20m for my own shop, these things are an awesome compromise. Except for the bad quirks where they decay after so many months and eat your items.

I really wish that they were more accessible in game and not just from globes. Like.. what if they were stocked in Delos, and bought with gold? I thought 80k was a pretty reasonable price and that's a gold sink in itself. If they were fixed to return your items when they decayed, they'd be a really good introduction for those that want to learn about shopkeeping and can't find a shop to rent/buy. Plus it's really nifty when walking around to seeing carts set up in random places. I usually stop to see what they are selling.

Jules

The cart things could be fun/perfect if they lasted a bit longer than they currently do.  How much longer?  I dunno, exactly.  I don't even want a shop, but I'm getting one in Imperian so I can create my own random strip mall in the middle of nowhere because awesomeness, and it would almost be better if those were something more like the carts, because lets face it, I'm not going to be a good or permanent stock keeper.  I'm also glad that people are having a much more open mind about this than I'd have expected.