Market stall - to buy and sell like we've always wanted to.

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catpurr
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Postby catpurr » Wed Sep 02, 2009 4:14 am

Elros wrote:The difference has been metioned already, but to summarize it, players can trade the resources instantly and not have to wait for the other player to wake up and pass stuff back and forth, as well as barter prices. The player selling the items already has prices and all items listed and available. The player buying walks up to the booth, looks through the list, and instantly trades with the player. People passing through towns can do this and keep going. This makes trades quicker and simpler then having to wait for the other player to wake up and disscuss the trade then go to sleep, then the buyer wake up and disscuss the trade and hand him the items and go to sleep, then the seller waker up again and hand him the items in exchange.

See, it is way easier and simpler than having a regular building with items and notes in it...


Well Okay I get that. However you make the traditional way sound much more complicated than it can be possible. To have a list on the ground with barter prices is possible without market stalls. Player A walks up to shopkeeper, reads through the node, says "I get a sword for this 10000g of iron please". Player A hands the shopkeeper 10000g iron. Shopkeeper wakes up. Shopkeeper hands the player the sword. Only 1 exchange needed.

Most towns are trusting enough to have a ressource pile lying on the ground. Or at least they are trusting enough to be able to hunt down any thiefes. So why not a note on the ground. "Feel free to exchange 1000g carrots for 10g of iron". Player comes up says, "I buy 100g of irion for this 10000g of carrots". Player drops 10000g of carrots. Player 100g of iron. Everyone is happy.

I do stay on this point, and its likely the last post I do on this topic. With things like market stalls you go down a very dangerous route as you *do* code in cultural and social structural and values.

First of all it does discriminate other ways of organizing a society. As I said, there is one that uses signed envelopes from "BigHeadBuddy" as currency. Will the market stall be able to allow to set this as pricing item? What about societies that use centrally written depts as way of organizing? Discriminated by the new market stall. What about the wonderfull culture of haggling? Discriminated.

What kind of values are coded within? First of all "universalism", it may sound so usual to us in the western world we are not thinking about it. But selling to everyone at the same price is not to be taken as granted. Also to trade with everyone regardless of his person.

Also consider following scene:
A man in his thirties enters town coming from town hall.
SoldierGuy enters town coming from town hall.
SoldierGuy says "Stop this scoundrel".
You see SoldierGuy hitting A man in his thirties.
You see a man in his thirties picking up 100000g carrots from ground.
You see a man in his thirties picking up 30000g iron from ground.
You see a man in his thirties picking up 700000g limestone from ground.
A man in his thirties runs about to market stall.
He says "Quick! Give me a sword, a shield and in case they throw me in prison a crowbar".
You see a man in his thirties exchange carrots for iron.
You see a man in his thirties exchange limestone for iron.
You see a man in his thirties exchange iron for a sword, shield and a crowbar.
Soldier runs up to the shopkeeper.
"How dare you to sell to a scoundrel I shouted out".
"Especially to trade stuff you *saw* that was stolen".
Shopkeeper awakes. Sorry I cannot stop this. Its automatic.
Soldier: ?????

I mean just try to forecast if market stalls are enabled what next people are going to ask for. "I want to have a blacklist of people who not to sell to". "I want to have a whitelist of people who to sell to. We want to make two stalls one for townpeople one for strangers". "I had one costumer taking it all! Thats not fair, I want to set a maximum amount of stuff to sell to a single person."

Or the other scene.
Player A and B in town scenter.
Player A: Can you sell me that shield?
Player B: Well I don't need it anymore. But I'd need that screwdriver you got anyway. Lets exchange. Deal?
Player A: Deal. Give the shield then I give you the screwdriver.
Player B: Wait I got a booth, I will set up a trade, this way the exchange is secure.
Player A: Why do we suddendly need a market stall?????
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*Wiro
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Postby *Wiro » Wed Sep 02, 2009 9:35 am

I'm with catpurr. This needs more looking into.
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Elros
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Postby Elros » Wed Sep 02, 2009 12:39 pm

First of all it does discriminate other ways of organizing a society. As I said, there is one that uses signed envelopes from "BigHeadBuddy" as currency. Will the market stall be able to allow to set this as pricing item? What about societies that use centrally written depts as way of organizing? Discriminated by the new market stall. What about the wonderfull culture of haggling? Discriminated.
\

If the town has their own system that they want to keep then they can ban people from using market stalls in their town. This is not something that will be forced on anyone, but rather it is something that will be available to those who want to use it. Why keep players that want it from having it because you are worried that others players will not like it? Just ban it in your town if your characters think it will mess up their trade. All towns have bans on certain things.

I have been playing Cantr for 3 years and I know how time consuming and frustrating the current trading can be at times. Especially when you have certain players that can sleep a lot. All I am saying is these stalls will be nice for those characters that like them. If you don't like them then you don't have to use them.
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catpurr
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Postby catpurr » Wed Sep 02, 2009 12:54 pm

Elros wrote:If the town has their own system that they want to keep then they can ban people from using market stalls in their town. This is not something that will be forced on anyone, but rather it is something that will be available to those who want to use it. Why keep players that want it from having it because you are worried that others players will not like it? Just ban it in your town if your characters think it will mess up their trade. All towns have bans on certain things.

I have been playing Cantr for 3 years and I know how time consuming and frustrating the current trading can be at times. Especially when you have certain players that can sleep a lot. All I am saying is these stalls will be nice for those characters that like them. If you don't like them then you don't have to use them.


I expected that argument, but the post was long enough already so not to counterargument it at first.

Well yes of course you can say "its strictly optional", but I have said, it is an unfair advantage of the game that then makes some social ways of organizing a town economy more efficient by supporting it by the game core than others. Therefore I said it "discriminates", which is still true.

If you go that route, you can as well introduce a global curreny like any other game has. Lets call it "cantr credits". It will make trading so much simpler. And those towns that do not want it, can just ban credits....
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*Wiro
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Postby *Wiro » Wed Sep 02, 2009 1:21 pm

I like trading. One of my characters sails with a trader on a ship and even though trading takes a lot longer especially if both the trader and my character are doing seperate tasks, the roleplay is really fun.

I really don't want to see a half-assed implementation of this. I don't even like the idea that much but since I know that it's not going to help trying to stop it, I'll at least try to make sure it won't be added in broken right off the start. It's got plenty of faults and those need to be ironed out to form the final idea of this first.
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Marian
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Postby Marian » Wed Sep 02, 2009 2:31 pm

Yeah guys we can't have market stalls, it'll obviously make traditional trading obsolete and force a standard OOC economy on the entire world.

You know, just like coins did.

Wait. Um...
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Money
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Postby Money » Wed Sep 02, 2009 5:39 pm

wow never thought of it that way, nice point Marian.
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Marian
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Postby Marian » Wed Sep 02, 2009 6:35 pm

Not that it's exactly the same thing, but as far as 'global currencies' or 'universal social OOC whatever standards' go you can't get much more blatant then the addition of coins, yet they've had almost zero impact.

All I see market stalls doing is taking the exact kind of trading we already do and making it a little less tedious.
catpurr
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Postby catpurr » Wed Sep 02, 2009 7:58 pm

I kindly disagree. Coins did not make trading with coins really easier in contrast to what market stalls will do. Actually they made stuff more complicated as they needed to be produced, therefore no OOC relevance.
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theguy
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Postby theguy » Wed Sep 02, 2009 8:29 pm

catpurr wrote:I kindly disagree. Coins did not make trading with coins really easier in contrast to what market stalls will do. Actually they made stuff more complicated as they needed to be produced, therefore no OOC relevance.


Market stall will need to be produced :?
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bobbogum
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Postby bobbogum » Wed Sep 02, 2009 11:48 pm

catpurr wrote:

You see a man in his thirties picking up 100000g carrots from ground.
You see a man in his thirties picking up 30000g iron from ground.
You see a man in his thirties picking up 700000g limestone from ground.


Strong Man.

Just found it amusing.
Cogliostro
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Postby Cogliostro » Thu Sep 03, 2009 4:41 am

You guys need to come again with an explanation of the problem you can see with the market stall. The scenario that was given where some scoundrel steals a bunch of iron and uses it to purchase a sword, crowbar and shield from a local stall seems perfectly normal to me.

That is why in real life arms are not sold to the general public (in most countries), and it's done at a legislative level. Have a draconian arms law of your own: you can't sell crowbars in our town. You can't sell steel weapons in our town. Do it and go to jail. What is the problem with the market stall in all that?

It's wrong to think that the stall eliminates normal trading. On the contrary, it just boosts it with a new opportunity/possibility that didn't exist before - by making it so you do not need to be online at exactly the same time as other players. Just as Marian already said, I also forsee the stalls being used mostly in well-trafficked areas and by "professional" traders. Remember, you have to invest time and resources to build a stall, it's not just a magic"buy/sell" button at all. This way, we are supplementing the existing trade methods with a sorely needed additional way that is convenient, reasonable, and doesn't involve automation.

PS: I am having a laugh imagining that scoundrel guy who buys all the gear with stolen iron. What's he gonna do with it? Answer: nothin'. He's still as harmless to our all-important townleader types as before. If they're awake they can imprison, kill, do anything they want to him. What can he do? Can't even run away, they will run you down in their jeeps and vans. Oh, you can swing the sword you bought at them. But what happens then we all know by now, namely, nothin'. There's no point hitting anyone as you will never as a lone gunman kill even a single one of your enemies.
catpurr
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Postby catpurr » Thu Sep 03, 2009 6:47 am

A point was trying to make there. As long as you got any town owned stuff on the ground (and most towns have) you can just as well put the market stall stuff along with it. Since a scoundrel could pick up that stuff and exchange at the stall. Just put the stall stuff on the ground, gets to be the same. Put a note along with it with what exchange rates you can deal. You are done.
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BZR
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Postby BZR » Thu Sep 03, 2009 10:53 am

catpurr wrote:
Elros wrote:The difference has been metioned already, but to summarize it, players can trade the resources instantly and not have to wait for the other player to wake up and pass stuff back and forth, as well as barter prices.
....


.....
Player A: Why do we suddendly need a market stall?????


This is pointless. Using examples, you can negate everything.

Or the other scene.
Player A and B in town scenter.
Player A: Can you sell me that shield?
Player B: Well I don't need it anymore. But I'd need that screwdriver you got anyway. Lets exchange. Deal?
Player A: Deal. Give the shield then I give you the screwdriver.
Player B: Wait I got a booth, I will set up a trade, this way the exchange is secure.
Player A: Why do we suddendly need a market stall?????

To be honest, I have never seen a situation like these. Usually town leaders have everything and newspawns nothing. They work, townleaders give them better equipment and clothes. Tools are borrowed or received for free.
catpurr
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Postby catpurr » Thu Sep 03, 2009 11:45 am

BZR wrote:This is pointless. Using examples, you can negate everything.


Picking a quote apart so two sentences are left with had nothing directly to do with each other can negate any coomment.

To be honest, I have never seen a situation like these. Usually town leaders have everything and newspawns nothing. They work, townleaders give them better equipment and clothes. Tools are borrowed or received for free.


Good. Yet another point why market stalls aren't a good idea.

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