I think its imperative in next gen mmo's that player owned shops. Yes i know thats nothing new but im pretty sure it can be expanded on and made more interesting. Honestly, im not even sure how games with player run shops work, and i will check it out in the future but.....
My ideal player run shops wouldnt be just selling items that have been farmed, but also trade skills. For example a player could learn blacksmithing and that wouldnt just allow him to make equipment but also to repair it too. As long as he sets up the anvil and has the necessary tools. Another example being a 'magic' shop that doesnt just sell farmed ingredients to sell but can train other players with spells using the 'new skill system idea by the in-game games' post i made at http://mmorpg.com/blogs/Artermis/072007/235_A-new-skill-system
Im aware that a player may not want to stand in his shop all day giving this service and for the simple selling of items/ingredients they wont have to, they can employ an npc to do this, or even another player! However to learn other players of new skills, then perhaps they do have to be present, so they could give some time to do this.
My game, i really want to have some kind of community feel to it, far too many times i see games that simply have too many towns/cities/areas that are ghost places. I want people to go to a particular town to do things and make a vibrant community, so that in those circumstances players will want to manage their shops properly, and not rely on 'npcs' to do things for them!!
Thanks for the comment. Yes, what im thinking is something more advanced, indepth if you will, and also to provide 'training' services to other players. This is all part of the community 'feeling' i want to create.
Thu Jul 12 2007 8:52AM Reportyeah I like the idea of a training service I was thinking that would be a neat thing to have in an MMO
Tue Jul 17 2007 1:03AM ReportBack in the day when I played SWG (pre-NGE), they had "vendors". These are the more superficial stores that you described, where the owner of a vendor was usually a crafter who was selling his wares. Guilds with player cities had their crafters set up shop in their player city so that people would have a reason to go. In this way both benefit because the vendor got the city enough money to get a shuttleport (fast transport from any city with one) which then gets even more business for the vendor.
I was just so impressed by this system. Your system is much different but so many lessons can be learned by the fantastic game SWG before the NGE. The crafting system was amazing, though it did have its problems.
What impressed me most about SWG is that you don't have to be in combat. Do be a crafter, you do crafting stuff.
To get a bit more on subject, I think it would be really cool if these "markets" you speak of were player-cities. Imho, the more player-run/controlled things the better.
Tue Aug 14 2007 10:55AM ReportWas thinking a bit more about this and, it would be good that if there was NO npcs in the game (i know a tall order) then the player would either have to man the store themselves, pay someone to do it, or be closed.
Thu Nov 15 2007 7:56AM ReportMMORPG.com writes:
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