Something I have noticed is that from the time i joined back in May of 2014, the player market has really decreased in popularity. To recap for newer players, the player market used to be booked. I remember waiting til the exact second to apply for a market shop because i wanted to get it before anyone else did. There were never any empty shop plots, unless it was empty because someone applied for it but just hadn't built yet. I think the market could be better. I used to rely on market for everything. Maybe market could be remodeled or made smaller since our player number has severely decreased (I remember there being anywhere from 100 to 400 back in the day)? Anyways, I feel like player market has really gone down hill. What do y'all think? edit: I went through market an kept tally of some things Green - 12 shops, 7 full, 5 shopless Blue - 12 shops, 8 full, 4 shopless Red - 12 shops, 9 full, 3 shopless Yellow - 12 shops, 7 full, 5 shopless
Im new at server, but Im almost sure than personal shops killed market, veteran users already know where to buy X item so they avoid market as much as possible, this make it really hard for new players who want to set a shop and get to know.
It seems like it's mostly infrastructure imo. With the original market, hunting around for deals seemed less tedious - even fun at times - maybe from the amount of shops available or the smaller space. People don't really have the patience now to go through the whole huge market area, mostly relying on select top tier shops. This makes it harder for mid tier shops to get a foothold while top shops continue raking in money, creating a cycle that ultimately drives mid and low tier shops out of the market. Part of it could also be credited to the diminishing player count which stems from the decreasing popularity in online Minecraft servers in general If we want to fix this, I think the first step would be with a new market design that levels the playing field a little more and allows specialty shops rather than dozens of shops selling the same goods at the same price.
Here are my thoughts: 1. The administration should create a system to artificially drive down the supply of most in game items. The long-term players, such as myself, have more items, materials, and ores than we will ever use. In general, the people with the big money do not need to purchase things. In other words, the rich people are saving their money. Whenever people save money to buy things from the server, such as ranks and other extremely expensive luxuries, they are removing money from the economy. Money removed from the economy cannot be used to support another player's business, it cannot be used to employ the new players, whose continuation on our server is highly influenced by whether they can get jobs and participate in the economy, and -- worst of all -- money removed from the economy cannot cause a demand for goods. That is ECC's big problem: deflation. When large amounts of people save their money -- when demand plummets -- businesses scale back and cut jobs. The lost wages, which were once paid to the people formerly employed by the aforementioned businesses, contribute to the problem even more because now there are more people out of jobs and with no money to spend. This further decreases the demand for goods and services since less and less people have the money to afford them. This is called a deflationary spiral. 2. The administration should eliminate the useless ranks and expensive nonsense to stop the flow of money out of the economy. Tycoon should be the highest rank achievable and only because the town claim perk needs rationed. 3. The administration should enact policies that limit the ability of star tool users to saturate the market. Star tools allow the wealthy class to acquire ridiculously large amounts of materials with ease. Each time a star tool is used to gather building materials, such as stones, bricks, sand, sandstone, glass, wooden logs, clays, etc., another potential shop goes out of business and another new player loses an opportunity to participate in the economy. Star tools reduce the demand for almost every conceivable commodity and service on ECC. They killed the labor market. Star tools replaced the demand for excavators, miners, and lumberjacks. No one is hiring new players to help develop towns when they could instead use star tools and finish the job themselves for a fraction of the cost and in short time. Star tools ruined mining as a business venture for new and intermediate players. Unless you have star tools, you will never be able to compete with even the laziest of star tool miners. Perhaps the server could automatically sell/destroy a certain percentage of all materials gathered using star tools (excluding ore blocks). We need to bring back real demand for goods and services on ECC. 4. The community should construct an independent business/market-centric city. 5. The wealthiest 1% should come together to form a reserve banking system and expand its balance sheet by purchasing atypical treasuries from normal players. This would at least be a step in the right direction. Spoiler: Attributed Passage, The Right Honorable The Lord John Maynard Keynes CD FBA 1st Baron Keynes of Tilton "For Keynes unemployment could never be a "natural" disaster, like an earthquake or a flood. He knew that it is a failure of social and economic organization, a failure by society and social institutions to achieve a desirable goal. Quite simply, when millions of people are out of work, we have failed to organize our society so that full employment is secured. And being a problem of social organization, there must be a solution if only society is willing to take the steps necessary. This doesn't mean that either finding or implementing a solution will be easy. Our society and our economy are complicated institutions, linking a multitude of firms and people at home and abroad, each with their own goals and their ways of doing things. Moreover, achieving full employment may conflict with other goals we consider to be important. But it is irrational simply to accept unemployment, as if it were a fact of nature. Unemployment is our failure." Freeman Dyson, The Scientist as Rebel (2006)
Star tools destroyed the player economy. That is all that needs to be said... created too much supply and drove prices down. Add in the elimination of PvP and pure freedom to run through mining unchallenged with star tools and there you have it. The ranks have just made it worse. Oh... and ext cmnds+ as well. The minute you remove a cost to repair and breakability. Remove star tools (can never happen) reallow eff5 axe to break melons. Tweak farming mining prices PvP or harder pve in mining word to create risk (likely will never happen) Reinstate enchanting tables and remove ext (most important donation feature for running server) and you fix the issue. Of course all of this is already known, however will never happen due to the costs of running the server. There has to be a balance.
These all seem decent ideas until they are implemented which uncovers there massive flaws. About Point 1. The rich you say who are saving there stuff will simply make even more money selling stuff when the demand of items becomes higher. I see a lot of richer users looking to pay other users to do jobs like excavating and tree planting because its easier for them to pay someone to help then to do it themselves. If they do not have that cash, then they do it themselves. About point 2. The rank idea again is a decent idea but it is unfortunately too far gone. You have nearing 200 players who have ranked to EcoLeader+ Just like with SG kits, there is no viable way to remove them without fallout on the server. You may not feel tis a big deal, but maybe that because you aren't in the bracket that would be effected by the change. And like point 1, just because they are a money sink doesn't mean its taking that money from other users. Theres as good a chance they will store it or buy something benefitial for themselves then to put it back into the economy. About point 5. You don't have to group together with anyone to do this. I have seen @AdmiralD buy stone dirt and sand for about 3 years+. Im sure not just for his projects, but to let someone know that they can sell there goods to someone at above market price. Ive seen others also do this including myself. So that point it mute imo, youd do it if you wanted to, you dont have to band together with others. --- The problem with the Market is the fact you don't need the market anymore to sell stuff. There is 16-20 areas in the actual spawn that you can sell stuff in. Thats is almost 50% of the stalls in the market. You can also purchase a warp at one of your towns and sell out of there. If you use Macro-mod you can run a trade ad just like a market owner and get as much notice. And in the long term, would actually be cheaper. A warp costs 50k for your town. that means in 10 weeks, your spawn shop would cost as much as your warp yet you have your warp forever. Yes you might get natural traffic at the market. But imo its not a huge amount, what really affects your footfall in your shop is your advertising.
I have to agree with you. Since the market layout changed it has steadily lost momentum and customers. In my row, (yellow) Only the first 3 rows still remain. I used to enjoy shopping the old market. It was fun, and seemed like a village square. The new layout is rather tedious to shop and you have to go back to the hub to get to another row, if you don't use the warps. About a year ago, New scenic gardens were added between the shops. Very nice! But lots of vendors have left because it is now very difficult to make a profit with a shop. Personally I wasn't happy with the fact that now someone can have a shop just about anywhere. No rent, and so what you sell is all profit, so prices can be lower than those of us who have overhead. (like Rent). I support free enterprise, but don't think it should come at a price to those who pay for their space. Not sure what the answer is, but I would certainly love to see a revitalization of the Market.
One of the reasons for new people to leave. Too darn difficult to work towards prosperity. I hope you will give us a chance. There are some very great people on ECC.
Yeah Im staying, I've really enjoy this server even if player based economy isnt as active as I thought I've playing like 12 hours+ per day and now Im at almost $60k, I really would like to set a market shop but dosnt seem worthly right now
I almost only use the player market to sell nether stars. If I want to buy things I find a town, or more commonly ask in trade.
Admins made the player netherstar market competitive from the get-go by keeping the server price absurdly low. I don't even know what they go for now because it's not worth it to even check
It's tough to mimic a realistic economy entirely as the real things are complex and convoluted as heck and Minecraft is mostly played by children, plus the overall decline in Minecraft popularity as a whole has kind of diminished the markets the past couple of years. Back in like 2011 diamonds were worth like $400 each and buying 40k from the server shop made you one of the richest people on the server and it still wasn't enough to get you mayor.
Go back to the market designs from 2012 back when everything was perfect that market made it easy to compare shops
Guys. I totally agree with... Most of your posts. But Isn't this just like a real economy? We all go and complain about how bad it is. Lol!!!! Its never gonna be perfect. Its not supposed to be. Also i'm just starting as a builder and i'm already working my way up the ladder.
