As you are no doubt aware, Kreios, Dennycrane and others have been making an effort to provide lower-level equipment on the shops, for the benefit of hominlings fresh off Silan. This is a much-needed effort, as it can be hard for the younger of us, sometimes, to find what they need.
Additionally, several of us have been thinking that it would be a nice social activity to stage regular marketplace events. There are multiple benefits to that:
- Make customers free of guild pressure, as many newcomers feel indebted to guilds for crafting them equipment for free.
- Provide the stage for a social event, with the possibility for other activities/events to take place on the side.
- Be an opportunity to create a new caste of pure crafters, who'd spend Atys weeks collecting mats to have them ready for orders on market day.
- Let intermediate crafters have an opportunity to craft for lower rates, and meet professional crafters.
- Provide an opportunity for harvesters to be present and provide materials, creating a professional relationship between crafters and harvesters.
- Due to the presence of many crafters, provide customers with greater choice and the possibility for customized equipment (choice of armor types and color, etc.).
- Let homins bring their own materials to crafters if they want to (or purchase them from harvesters).
- In the end, foster the development of a thriving economy.
Some rules should be established as well, to make the marketplace lively and fair:
- Chat locally as much as possible, especially when establishing crafting needs and prices (be that Dappers or materials). Create chatter.
- Be respectful of all others at all times. Let competition between crafters be real, but not disdainful.
- Crafters may shout to advertise their services, within reasonable limits so everymin still has time to follow what's going on.
- Crafters must wear their crafting titles at all times. Rotate titles if necessary.
- Crafters of all levels above 50 are welcome. Diggers of all levels above 50 are welcome.
- To prevent wasting materials, higher-level crafters should leave orders too low for them to lower-level crafters (when applicable).
- Crafters and harvesters are encouraged to bring full Packer(s) along, so no porting around or running back to apartment is necessary. If a crafter is low on mats, harvesters should be able to provide it for Dappers or mutually beneficial exchanges.
- No exchange should be made without a counterpart, so the recipient does not feel in any way bound to the crafter or harvester.
- Crafters are invited to stand within a reasonably short distance of one another, in a clear and visible area.
- The market event will be open for business for a little less than two Atysian days (~2 RL hours). Crafters are invited to stay during the full duration of the market activity, if possible.
(invaluable input from Inifuss, Dennycrane, Gilgameesh, Lexsi, Amian and a few others)
[ The first market event will take place in Fairhaven, south of the Stables, on Saturday, August 8, 2009, between 20:00GMT and 22:00GMT. It will become a weekly event. We should discuss whether it would be useful to stage marketplaces in other capital cities eventually, either simultaneously, or as a rotation. ]
If you have comments/ideas to make, please post them here. Thanks!
