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

[dominantdrowess]

Neutral shops to me, have a significant advantage over other district and settlement shops. And this is most significant to me, in Andunor:

Neutral shops carry two major advantages over normal shops~
1) There is no one to evict you from a neutral shop.
2) There is no TAX on a neutral shop. (SEE EDIT)

Edit:
Proof there is no hub-tax of a 100 gold purchase:
Before purchase:
After purchase:

But in Andunor? Even worse:
3) They have an advertising advantage.

This puts districts at a significant disadvantage to normal shops, and even at a significant disadvantage economically compared to OTHER SETTLEMENTS. Given that other settlements frequently seek to gain an advantage by interfering in Andunorian politics... (including bidding millions of gold in Andunorian property auctions to try to get them to accuse each other of breaking alliances and agreements they did not) ... I think that aside from the ability to ouster groups from significant guild halls, the districts (the settlements) themselves have largely lost economic relevance in Andunor.

To correct this, I would like to provide some feedback:
1) While I understand that the current system works fine for settlements such as Cordor and Brogenstien, that has so many shops and quarters that their economy is booming.. a large majority of Andunor's economy does not PASS through the settlement systems... which makes the large effort of managing these settlements often more about subsidizing their needs with your own wallet rather than about managing the resources of a settlement.
2) This gets even more difficult with The Devil's Table, because the Devil's Table requires -additional- politicking that cannot be avoided because it is inherent in The Council System... the devil's table, even worse does not produce enough gold to provide a wage for the headache of managing the district, let alone for any corruption or evil-style embezzlement of funds.... Frankly: My neutral shop produces more gold than the entire GDP of the Devil's Table with all of it's shops, houses and guild-halls full, and I suspect this is the same for The Sharps... and this is NOT good ... when you realize there are /three/ councilors. This does not spread out the stress across three individuals. This amplifies it.
3) Even if both The Sharps and The Devil's Table were pushed together to create a single settlement north of the hub: I suspect that the Neutral Trade Hub would -still- harm its economy and ability to defend itself economically against interference by other settlements because of other settlements abilities to interfere in its auctions... and I suspect it STILL would not produce enough gold to be worth the headache.
4) Because of the size of the gold pile... it is STILL enough to encourage individuals to run for office SIMPLY to steal the treasury if there is no competition ... but it is NOT economically viable to /run/ for Andorian office with intent to run the district: Unless you produce a LOT of gold independently of the district... you will never succeed in subsidizing the millions of gold required to bid on properties ... and even making alliances with the other district to try to lower these costs does not prevent outsiders from inserting ridiculous amounts of gold into the auctions that they are incapable of benefitting from (since you can't bid for Cordor to 'steal the property'... they can only bid for The Sharps or the Devil's Table, even though the option visibly exists to select Cordor, Brogenstien, etc)... with the sole intention of screwing with the politicians wallets.
5) My suggestion? 1) I'd like to see a 10 - 20% tax put on neutral shops to encourage in-settlement trading.. which would allow settlements to lower their taxes so that their prices can be competitive with neutral shops and possibly split down the middle between the districts -- specifically those in the trade hub that people cannot be evicted from.... and? Alternatively to this? A system put in place to prevent those who are NOT elected officials... from bidding on the city property so that it is possible to actually honor alliances without some merchant from Cordor dropping 5 million gold onto a property he cannot benefit from, on "behalf" of a faction he is not apart of, which will not produce 5 million gold in the time it is owned by the district. Preventing non-outcasts from bidding does not accomplish this... they simply give it to one of their friends Outcast alts and bid that way with a substantial or non-substantial "bribe" in gold that they don't value, and that they trust their friend not to use against them.
6) I have yet to see an election cycle where this is not relevant. Most of these ecconomic issues would be fine ... if outsiders couldn't bid in ways contrary to the elected officials interests.
7) Additional idea: What if we automatically attributed the taxation of the shop to a place you're a citizen of if the shop is outside of a settlement?

[Seekeepeek]

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.

Unlike cordor, Andunor is ruled by evil characters that just want to grab your shop and hand it over to their friend if they can get away with it. Having the districts limited to their own little section of Andunor make people able to ignore them. Something that's good since the Underdark monsters don't have anywhere else to go, if exiled or forced out of shop. the current setup is a product of the environment and past experiences with Pit town, Udos Dro'xun and Grond.

[dominantdrowess]

I agree with that, but it doesn't address any of the problems that cause Andunorian's politics and government to break down.

[Seekeepeek]

Raise the tax and stop resource thief?

[dominantdrowess]

One sentence, snippy explanations without integrated examples, and not referencing or using any of the terms involved doesn't exactly constitute a workable solution.

[Seekeepeek]

Iam sorry if it came across like that to you... I can't really give you a workable solution, as i don't currently have my fingers down and dirty in a settlement system, so i just outlined what i'd do in a simple manner.

basically what iam saying is to stop the leak of gold into extended warehouse and food, wood resources ect. and then raise the tax to like 30 to 40%. i wouldn't raise the tax before i sealed the holes in the system. sure you'd get a push back in character from that.. but eh.. roleplay.

if that dosn't work, good luck finding an alternative.

[dominantdrowess]

The settlement resource system was not even addressed. I am talking -purely- about gold values, and outside interference into Andunorian politics being subsidized entirely by elected officials because the GDP of the two settlements cannot compete with that of other settlements BECAUSE of the trade hub being untaxed.

[Seekeepeek]

hmm Andunor rarely trade with other settlements given it's mark as the black sheep or have that changed?
Iam just curious... don't get mad at me this time please. -.-'

I might remember wrong.. but i think the settlements get ½ of the betting coins back from betting at the landlord (shipyard, spore farm). but i think that update was on the old forums. can't seam to find it... meh

[Hazard]

It's weird to learn no one is taxing those shops. They're right in the middle of Andunor. If the hub master or whoever isn't benefiting from them, someone really should be. Maybe split the tax between the two districts? So that each get 5% of sales. IDUNNO. Something.

OP!

[Nitro]

IIRC the shop signs state they have a 10% tax, so the fact that they don't is probably a bug that should be fixed.

[BegoneThoth]

I, for one, like the system the way it is.

Remember settlement leaders can set the tax rate. If you want to make the 'Sharps' or whatever competitive, lower the tax rate and find a way to incentivize business and draw people to the district shops. Not drawing IC businesses into a settlement is the fault of the IC governments and not the lack of a 'tax' in some shops.

But in Andunor? Even worse:
3) They have an advertising advantage.

You can advertise. People do, I've done it and it increased traffic to my shop in the Treadstone, a very out of the way shop, tremendously. It was so effective I could tell when my sign in the Hub had been bashed because my items hadn't sold.

Solutions are available IC and IG. There's no need to over-haul the UD economy because of them.

[Durvayas]

Begonethoth popping in to argue in bad faith, as usual.

Taxes in the hub and wheels are 10%, at best. Trickle down economics doesn't work in Andunor. Lowering taxes in the districts is not going to incentivize people to buy shops there, or FROM shops there. Almost all shops are full continuously, and lowering the tax a few percentile points is not going to affect the price of an item enough to draw people out of buying from shops that have a banker five feet away vs shops a few areas away. The hub and treadstone are impossible to draw people away from to other shops in other locations if those shops are selling the same thing because the convenience of having a banker there is too strong, and gold too plentiful to bother to take a few minutes and go through a few transitions to save a few hundred gold.


Dominantdrowess is not even mentioning by name the six, SIX, shops in the treadstone district that don't benefit either of the districts either. None of that plentiful housing contributes to any district either. The same goes for the housing above the hub.

While its okay that these properties are all outside of anyone's control, that is a LOT of taxes that is just vanishing into the ether, when both districts are in dire need, especially given the degree of outside interferance and, dare I say, almost certain metagaming.

Treadstone, by itself, probably has more housing than Sibayad, Sencliff, and the banite temple combined. Possibly more housing than both the districts combined as well.
When you take the hub and wheels(including the arcanum) into account, Its not a stretch by any means to say that there are more quarters and shops OUTSIDE of the tax system than within it. I'd estimate fully half, if not more, of Andunor's economy does absolutely nothing for any settlement.
For a trade city with a booming economy, its kind of crazy that the districts are nearly broke constantly, and both being kept afloat almost solely by players who grind incessantly to donate to them.

Would it be that difficult to put in two to four lines of code to split the tax between the districts 50-50?

[Cerk Evermoore]

Better off bidding for tax rights / eviction powers over central hub shops.

[BegoneThoth]

Begonethoth popping in to argue in bad faith, as usual.

Taxes in the hub and wheels are 10%, at best. Trickle down economics doesn't work in Andunor. Lowering taxes in the districts is not going to incentivize people to buy shops there, or FROM shops there. Almost all shops are full continuously, and lowering the tax a few percentile points is not going to affect the price of an item enough to draw people out of buying from shops that have a banker five feet away vs shops a few areas away. The hub and treadstone are impossible to draw people away from to other shops in other locations if those shops are selling the same thing because the convenience of having a banker there is too strong, and gold too plentiful to bother to take a few minutes and go through a few transitions to save a few hundred gold.


Dominantdrowess is not even mentioning by name the six, SIX, shops in the treadstone district that don't benefit either of the districts either. None of that plentiful housing contributes to any district either. The same goes for the housing above the hub.

While its okay that these properties are all outside of anyone's control, that is a LOT of taxes that is just vanishing into the ether, when both districts are in dire need, especially given the degree of outside interferance and, dare I say, almost certain metagaming.

Treadstone, by itself, probably has more housing than Sibayad, Sencliff, and the banite temple combined. Possibly more housing than both the districts combined as well.
When you take the hub and wheels(including the arcanum) into account, Its not a stretch by any means to say that there are more quarters and shops OUTSIDE of the tax system than within it. I'd estimate fully half, if not more, of Andunor's economy does absolutely nothing for any settlement.
For a trade city with a booming economy, its kind of crazy that the districts are nearly broke constantly, and both being kept afloat almost solely by players who grind incessantly to donate to them.

Would it be that difficult to put in two to four lines of code to split the tax between the districts 50-50?

I'm not arguing in bad faith. I'm saying more could be done to make those other shops worth while. The big advantage district shops have is that they are policed, but this is now only seen as a negative. The general population would be pleased if eviction power was used to keep shops above quality. Higher quality shops means more is being bought and sold, more foot traffic, bigger sellers arrive, all in all meaning more income for the city.

Enforcing store quality standards, paying merchants actual, tangible incentives (move your store and ill pay for the move and give you some adamantine ore to sell) and then run ads all over to contrast that vs some of the lousy uncurated 'public' stores, you'd have a real thing going. People would want to come to an actually curated merchant district with quality stores, and rules enforcing that quality.

Instead that's not happening and people simply trend to an area with absolutely nothing because at the moment the district shops arn't better then literally nothing.

[magistrasa]

I'm an adult, I'm busy, I'm doing something with a party or I'm working on writis, and sometimes, yes, I'm lazy. I don't want to spend a ton of time wandering around 6 or 7 transitions, back and forth, to look for something specific, and definitely not to just generally browse. The Hub is convenient. Moreover, Andunor's design is inconvenient. I don't even go to the damn port district most of the time, no matter how desperate I am for whatever I'm looking for, because it's a pain to walk to and God knows I'm not walking around with any money in andunor of all places, so I can't take the gondola and I'm not gonna walk back to the bank to withdraw 10 gold coins because I have better things to do!!! (Sidenote: the gondola point for the Sharps is so out of the way of everything, it's really a lot faster and easier to just go to the east wheel and walk there - which I only mention to highlight the point that navigating Andunor is just so exhausting and feels almost like it was purposefully designed to be so)

So I guess what I'm saying is, the Hub is by far the most convenient shopping venue, and the rest of the city is flagrantly INconvenient. So no, lower prices and better stock aren't going to end the problem of the districts not getting enough foot traffic or income from their shops. The fact of the matter is, no one wants to spend 20-30 minutes of their life going out of their way to browse shops that might not even have anything they want. I think splitting taxes 50/50 is a perfect solution to the district funding issue, even if it doesn't solve the issue of location and foot traffic for the district shops.

[Rooshi49]

I don't think that there could be enough IC ways to compensate for what seems to be a mechanical oversight. And I dare say that there shouldn't need to be such compensation for it either.

I'd also like to point out that most times I've asked about advertisement, people HATE it. I'd be willing to wager that the sign bashing is from people who hate the advertisements too.

This is an RP server yes, and RP should be done. But I think that mechanics are imporant too. There's not enough you can do or should have to do to overcome the massive economic gap.

[Rooshi49]

On a completely different note, I've made a suggestion in the suggestion forum before about potentially adding in an npc book keeper that keeps a ledger of what's being sold in all the shops in an area and by who do what prices. It would help facilitate trade, especially trade in less trafficked areas.

[Durvayas]

A suggestion to help some of the foot traffic problem could be to take certain shops from certain locations controlled by the districts and and move them to other markets or to the hub(while still ensuring that taxes from them go to the districts that own the areas).

I'm talking specifically about shops that get virtually no foot traffic, and have never, in my memory, ever made a decent profit because they're just out of the way enough so that the average person is not going to bother checking them.

So here's my assessment of the shops on the periphery that struggle to the point of being nearly traps to invest in and get low traffic. Most of these feed into the districts, so their poor performance does the district that taxes them no favors.

• Silver mine shop:
  • Gondola: No
  • Portal: No (Exit portal behind locked door,useless to the public)
  • Transitions from nearest lender: 5
  • Fastest route: Hub-> west wheel->shipyard(gondola required)->flood plains east->flood plains west->silver mine
  • Time on foot at full sprint: 3-4 minutes(without counting time spent to kill weak mobs)
  • Shops in area: 1
  • Prognosis: Worst location ever; Dead weight to owner. No foot traffic whatsoever, easy to forget it exists.
  • Recommendation: Move to the hub.
• Devil's table colloseum shops(two of them)
  • Gondola: No
  • Portal: No
  • Transitions from nearest lender: 3
  • Fastest route: Hub->west wheel->Devil's table-> colloseum district.
  • Prognosis: Dead weight to owner, almost no foot traffic due to low housing, easy to forget they exist.
  • Recommendation: move to Devil's Table market.
• Outpost Shop
  • Gondola: No
  • Portal: Nearby
  • Transitions from nearest lender: 2
  • Fastest route: Hub->outpost->enter building
  • Time on foot at full sprint: 1 minute
  • Shops in area: 1
  • Prognosis: Low foot traffic due to lack of other shops nearby and transition. Some potential to be a resupply depot for lowbies killing driders/slavers/stingers. Struggling.
  • Recommendation: Move the shop outside of the building to make it more visible and convenient
• Shipyard Shop
  • Gondola: Yes
  • Portal: No
  • Transitions from nearest lender: 1
  • Fastest route: treadstone locks->shipyard(server transition required)
  • Time on foot at full sprint: 1 minute
  • Shops in area: 1
  • Prognosis: Very low foot traffic due to treadstone portal making passing through the area optional at best; Needs help badly. Struggling.
  • Recommendation: move to treadstone or hub market
• Spore Farm Shop
  • Gondola: Nearby
  • Portal: No
  • Transitions from nearest lender: 3
  • Fastest route: Hub-west wheel->rothe fields(gondola required)->Spore farm
  • Time on foot at full sprint: 2 minutes
  • Shops in area: 1
  • Prognosis: Mediocre foot traffic, only ever really used to sell healing supplies or produce to people from the devil's table. Profitable, but only because it sells a commodity to people who can't otherwise get in. Not exactly struggling, but not making tons of gold either.
  • Recommendation: Move to the hub.
• Port district shops(Outside the tax system)
  • Gondola: Yes
  • Portal: No
  • Transitions from nearest lender: 1(duergar embassy)
  • Fastest route: Hub->west wheel->port(gondola required).
  • Time on foot at full sprint: 2 minutes(distance between the shops makes it take much longer to actually canvas the shops)
  • Shops in area: 4-6?
  • Prognosis: Almost nonexistant foot traffic. Really easy to forget it exists, only on-foot path is through the slums. Inconvenience is high, due to multitude of transitions entering individual shop buildings and lack of a lender. Struggling.
  • Recommendation: Move the entire district to have a walkable transition to the west wheel and add a delivery quest to the area so that newbies know it even exists.
• Spider's Web shops(outside the tax system)
  • Gondola: No
  • Portal: No
  • Transitions from nearest lender: 2
  • Fastest route: Hub->west wheel->Spider's web
  • Time on foot at full sprint: 1-2 min
  • Shops in area: 2
  • Prognosis: mediocre foot traffic. Lack of additional shops in the area means few people go out of their way to check whats for sale. Writ system has all but removed any point of ever killing rats, so low newbie traffic.
  • Recommendation: Give bartender a rotating stock of drinks similar to the nomad and clover to draw people in more often for RP reasons.
  -------------------------------------------
  
  • Assessment of districts:
    
    Devil's table: Market doing alright. Less convenient than the hub, but plenty of housing around it. Better gondola access than the sharps.
    
    Sharps: Market doing well. Less convenient than the hub, signifigantly more convenient than the Table by dint of nearby bank.
    Sharps district house: 2 shops, less convenient than the rest. Recommend moving them outside into the market proper.
  • Treadstone(outside the tax system):
    6 shops Doing very, very well. Lender is 10 feet from the shops. UD ship 15 feet from shops. Surface portal makes it an ideal place to ward before deploying to 60% of the server's dungeons due to nonpersistance of spell effects across server transitions.
    More housing than the table and sharps combined means high foot traffic from residents. Can portal directly from the hub and back.
    Prognosis: Ideal, near perfect market conditions, better location than the hub almost.
  • The Hub proper(outside the tax system):
    Its the hub. Has a lender and a portal in the same area, and is the fastest means to anywhere in andunor. Perfect market conditions, all the foot traffic.
  • Upper hub shops(outside the tax system):
    Pretty good location. Being right next to the employment office means lots of foot traffic. Ideal location if advertizing is used in the hub itself.
  My overall recommendation remains that tax revenue should be split between the two districts, fixing the overall problem with the district shortfalls that are unique only to Andunor.
  
  Alternatively, help out the district markets in terms of merchant draw by SHARPLY raising the taxes in the hub, treadstone, and the wheel, to 40%. This might make anyone who wants to REALLY make profit more eager to get a district shop, boosting RP, and ensuring that the most active, profitable shops are in the districts.

[TimeAdept]

I won't own property in an area I can be evicted from. It's as simple as that. I try to run enterprises and long spanning RP. I can't guarantee RP when I can be evicted every time the government changes.

The only way to own a long term shop in an area that can be evicted from is to be so inoffensively a-political that you essentially don't interact with anyone. That's not fun. I understand that no one is "guaranteed" to shop space or the RP or watever, but I consider merchants to be providing a valuable service to the server.

In the last 2 RL weeks I have sold over ten thousand barkskin potions and fifteen hundred spell components. Over five hundred of each skleen and about a thousand temporary essences of every kind. Steel gear will literally sell out of my shops within hours, and mithril within a few days. My curated random magic gear barely lasts two days. I take so many commissions I have to outsource my steel gear half the time to keep the shops full.

If other shops followed suit and actually stocked things worth a damn, I wouldn't be so covetous over the shop I own, and the shops I help curate. Because the bar is very low, and without dedicated merchants available to keep the shop running, every store becomes... trash. Sorry, no one wants to buy the Spider Queen or Lalaskra whips for 200k. Try 25 to 50k. No one is paying 25k for Lirarcor. Try 6k. It's just a Damask Greatsword. Halve the prices on your Gruumsh helms. Stop putting Piker's Rings for sale for 30k. No one wants them. Try 5k. All these Nomad and Wanderer's Rings for 20-30k. Drop them to 4k. they're niche. No one wants them. mages wear int/cha + con + saves + disc + SC. If people sold good items at competitive prices, then the merch would sell.

Turning the DT into a single leader settlement would help the DT a lot because then they could just evict bad shops without all the hassle of a writ, like the Sharps can right now, with the bank as a bonus. The DT in general is in a bad spot, and really, I think that should be what this is about, not the Hub shops.

PS: If other out of settlement shops don't have tax, the Hub shops shouldn't either. If you're going to pull the rug out from under non settlement shopkeeps and add taxes, then at least send Andunor's Treadstone, Hub, and Port district shops evenly between the districts so the money goes *somewhere*, and not just into the void.

[TimeAdept]

Alternatively, help out the district markets in terms of merchant draw by SHARPLY raising the taxes in the hub, treadstone, and the wheel, to 40%. This might make anyone who wants to REALLY make profit more eager to get a district shop, boosting RP, and ensuring that the most active, profitable shops are in the districts.

Are you trying to make sure people never use those shops? That's what this would do. 40%? That's ABSURD.

[Durvayas]

Alternatively, help out the district markets in terms of merchant draw by SHARPLY raising the taxes in the hub, treadstone, and the wheel, to 40%. This might make anyone who wants to REALLY make profit more eager to get a district shop, boosting RP, and ensuring that the most active, profitable shops are in the districts.

Are you trying to make sure people never use those shops? That's what this would do. 40%? That's ABSURD.

The point is that high tax would turn the ideal shops that everyone is fighting over because of perfect location and low taxes, into shops where the tradeoff is you still have perfect location, but your profit margin has to either be lower, or your prices have to be higher.

Its an opportunity cost.

Higher prices would drive people to the district markets to shop around, helping them. The shops in the hub and such will still make profit, easily, but they'd no longer be the paradise that they are.

[dominantdrowess]

I agree 40% is absurd. I think that ALL neutral shops should automatically tax to the place a person is a citizen of, frankly as part of being able to influence the political system -- BUT NOT be evictable if the shop is not inside settlement authority -- and if they aren't a citizen of anywhere? 10% tax straight into the void -- not a 0% tax.

I think that this solution would solve everyone's concerns, and probably be the simplest to script as well.

[Miskol]

Have to agree with TimeAdept on the issue with shop owners and how to fix the problem in the DT. It's definitely more than a few individuals thinking "muh loots is worth more, look at these good stats!" that's causing items to go stagnant in shops. I personally adjust my prices on a regular basis - set for what I think is fair, and if it doesn't go in a few days, I will incrementally decrease the price. If its clear people aren't interested in the item, I just vendor it. Helps move the goods along.

As for the 40% tax proposal on the hub, treadstone and wheel shops, it's a rather ridiculous amount. It would be better to find a poorer shop location and sell your goods for 25% under standard market prices and having your lower prices spread by word of mouth than taking a 40% loss. Given how difficult it can be to mass produce any consumables in Arelith, no one would be able to keep these shops stocked well enough at a low enough price to make it worth the effort. A rate lower than 40%? Perhaps.

[Durvayas]

Everyone saying 40% tax is absurd is somewhat missing the point. The actual number doesn't matter, it just has to be substancially higher than the district taxes enough to encourage merchants to set up in the districts and advertise.

It could be 20%. So long as it much more than the tax of a district. Hell, you could code it like this:

Nonaligned tax= {Table tax}+{Sharps tax}

So if the Table is taxing at 5% and the sharps at 8%

The tax in the nonaligned sections is 13%

[TimeAdept]

Alternatively, help out the district markets in terms of merchant draw by SHARPLY raising the taxes in the hub, treadstone, and the wheel, to 40%. This might make anyone who wants to REALLY make profit more eager to get a district shop, boosting RP, and ensuring that the most active, profitable shops are in the districts.

Are you trying to make sure people never use those shops? That's what this would do. 40%? That's ABSURD.

The point is that high tax would turn the ideal shops that everyone is fighting over because of perfect location and low taxes, into shops where the tradeoff is you still have perfect location, but your profit margin has to either be lower, or your prices have to be higher.

Its an opportunity cost.

Higher prices would drive people to the district markets to shop around, helping them. The shops in the hub and such will still make profit, easily, but they'd no longer be the paradise that they are.

You wouldn't make profit at 40%, because you'd need to raise your prices so high just to cover the cost that you couldn't compete with anywhere at all.

20% is still too much.

The actual number doesn't matter, it just has to be substancially higher than the district taxes enough to encourage merchants to set up in the districts and advertise.

No, because then this just gives the same problem in reverse: the Hub stores are no longer worth it because it's literally impossible to compete with other shops.

The solution isn't to sit and nerf the good shops, it's to buff the poorly performing ones. Good neutral shops are oftne the only decent player economy the entire server has, please don't neuter them into the garbage or make them so uneconomical that no one wants to own one.