Peoples Shops

[prsm]

A few days ago Villain said that we seem to be over run with shops in hurnscald. I would have to agree.

There is a rather large building beside the general store. when you first enter it Airlia is to the right and to the left is a rather large room with a huge table in it. I would like to suggest that we take the table out and allow people to set up shops here and only here.

We could put a small sign outside the building that says "flea market".

Prsm

[gumi]

IMO those shops are not annoying or anything (it's not as if they're spamming messages) and some players use their shop both to sell and to talk so for them it's a way to stay in touch while AFK (most shops aren't bots like MM but are in fact chat clients, such as ManaPlus, Manachat, tmwchat).

If we really must move all shops somewhere else then I would say let's not use the mayor's house for this. We could use one of the 3 unused houses on the bottom row or we could move the GM Lounge someplace else and use that house. Tulimshar would also be a good choice as there's plenty of room there and no one ever goes to tulim anymore so it would give them another incentive to go.

[prsm]

I really don't mind which house we put the stores in, I think by placing them all together we would see better more competitive prices. Who wants to pay 10,000 gp for item a when the store beside him is selling item a for 5,000 gp.

[Travolta]

Short answer: no.

If the shops are annoying you, simply rightclick => Erase, which makes them invisible. I did it to some afkers as well, im not suggesting to move them to any house. Besides, if a shop is not in a crowded place, it has business disadvantage. Okurwieniec is an afk player/shop, so is mr. Snarfles, you suggest moving them as well? And before trying to limit the presence of shops, think bigger: travelling merchants! Shops walking around TMW offering their service. And players might write other types of bots, not only shops. For example helper bots giving advices for newbies in Candor. There is a problem of TMW becoming overpopulated by bot programs, but isolating them is not a solution.

[omatt]

No, i love bot, useful, near to me because in town. I'm more happy to see bots than a lot of players.

(Justcare, i love you)

[DragonStar]

In my opinion, Hurnscald is currently hardly overpopulated with shops, and along with that they can be removed from the player's screen if they wish, along with their nicks (if along with setting them to the Erased relation, Setup -> Players -> Hide erased players nicks, is checked), as shops are also characters, their presence can actually make Hurnscald a more visually appealing place due to the variety of outfits they can be equipped with.

[Micksha]

I am of the same opinion - who cares if there are a couple of shops standing around. Of course it would be nice to put them into a market surrounding so it doesnt look like they could be drug dealers on the street, but this is not a must.
The idea of travelling shops is also great! Can they then use a Moboo as carrying mule? This would look awesome and bring alot of movement into the game.

[SriNitayanda]

As long as they aren't spammy i really don't mind, if we want to make sure all the shops are in the same place to encourage price competition, maybe we should restrict it to hurns only.

[gumi]

Even restricting them to hurnscald imo is not a good ideas because shops can trade even when dead, so you could put a shop in the crypt that sells krukan items for example

[Amarynthus]

Heh, I didn't know about "erase", that'll be handy (Erase the GMs! )

I've been surprised by the number of shops in the middle of town a couple times. It ends up looking like a shopping mall rather than a town commons.

I'm not sure how I feel about restricting shop locations, but I think a designated flea market would still be great. Shop characters could be put there and players can go there when they need to buy. It just simplifies finding the items you need. I remember buying a couple items once from a shop in the center of town only to walk out the west entrace and find another shop that was selling it cheaper.

The single flea market location would facilitate customers finding shops and shops finding customers. But we could still allow shops with potentially location-specific target markets (e.g., the krukan item example above) to go where they'd be most needed.