[Main Server Suggestion] Blockshop

+1 to chests and barrels
-1 to shulkers

I like the idea for storage blocks being bought in mass to those who are lazy, but not for shulkers because that will decrease the price of shulker spawners & devalue the shulker spawner grinding

 

Id rather block shop be removed to create more of a player market personally.
Takes away just grinding to make money and gives an incentive and shops a way to be niche and valuable.

 

-1 blockshop should be removed or massively curtailed. I could understand selling chainmail armor, wither skulls, bells for me to /lock, and the "light" blocks, but selling a bunch of actually useful blocks at prices way below market prices just kills the genuine player economy.

The only concern would be that this makes it impossible to make cool builds. I get that. I have some giant buils myself that need niche blocks. But the solution is to make those blocks easier to farm for players. Maybe add more boosted items drop buffs or a new magic tool for dyes and light blocks.

Also, chests is kind of silly. You can already buy 8 stacks of logs in 5 seconds and spend another 10 seconds crafting them into 4 stacks of chests.

 

I disagree with this more than I agree for three main reasons:
1.) There will always be one person who will buy out every player shop (for really any given item). Blockshop is great to ensure there are building blocks available for those who are building (albeit a steep price). Plus, with Blockshop, it helps keep the flow of building going instead of discouraging people to stop to grind more materials.
2.) Blockshop creates a price ceiling, which will heavily discourage users from price gauging.
3.) It’s essentially an ECD sink as it takes money out of the market. Most, if not all items, aren’t valuable blocks and are mostly blocks that are commonly used for building.

 

No offence, but I disagree with your view, it doesn't in my opinion look at the bigger picture.
The 'price ceiling' that isn't really a steep price nowadays, you mention, essentially negates any effort needed to obtain blocks, leading to their being no incentive to actually get said blocks.
This then leads to:
A: No player market, for example whats the point in making say a sheep farm when your price is already capped at the block shop and you can make money by simply keeping to yourself and grinding?
B: No interaction within chat as people simply grind the same money-making methods, which require no interaction with anyone.
C: Artificial supply, which makes real blocks worth less.

Spoiler: A Block Example

I'll give you 1 example. Shroomlights
Shroomlights are very good to making an efficient wood farm. Shroomlights are in the block shop. If they were not in the block shop, a few things might happen:
>Trade Chat for buying Shroomlights increase.
>This suddenly shows physical proof that there is a demand, which people can go and get.
>This incentivises people to potentially go to the nether (Money Sink for Rank)
>People then might think Oh, maybe I'll make a nether market shop to create a constant supply (Active activity in the market/economy)
>They then deserve the right to price the block at whatever the market feels is the block's value because they have done the hard work.


For this one block, trade chat has increased, still potential for money sinks with rank ups, people might even make more money then the block shop does and get Towns and Mayor/President Ranks, more money sink.
Creates activity in the chat which gives more people the chance to stay instead of logging on and seeing nothing because everyone is monotonously doing the same thing on there own. It also diversifies the economy. Ask everyone what they are currently doing to make money atm. I bet the list is less than 10 things, and even less if you tell me if they are early/mid/late game. Because at the minute, whats the point of collecting blocks for others? You make massively less than the 'meta'.

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Everyone complains that there is no active economy and no retention in players who come here.
Maybe it's time to actually change; there's no demand for stuff that has infinite supply and can be obtained by grinding the same few methods.
Lets diversify the economy. I make massive builds, and it will make it harder to obtain blocks, I admit. But for the global picture of the server, it creates avenues for other money methods and interaction within the economy that are sorely missed right now.

 

@Mission001 I can basically sum up a solution to all of your paragraph with one alternative change: increase the blockshop prices.

I for one HATE unregulated markets, both in ECC and irl. This is how we gotten insane prices such as features for 300k/USD, singular jobs apparel for a couple million, etc. I understand some items shouldn't be regulated and both of those examples are ones that shouldn't, but we are talking about hundreds of common-type blocks.

To use your shroomlight example again, let's say someone wants to get them to use for their town build and needs 500 of them. Guess what? There is only two shops selling them: one selling for 1k per block and another selling for 10k per block. Besides getting them yourself, those are your only two options. For me personally, I don't have the time to grind for 500 shroomlights in addition to placing them. The only option is to buy them for those prices since nobody else sells them (or the cheaper shops are sold out with no guessing if/when they would be replaced).

And the problem if I buy them for that price: it gives incentive for people to sell at that price continuously, with the inevitable option that the price will naturally keep increasing over time if unchecked.

Again, I like blockshop from a builder perspective. I personally have bought out every single glass/sand shop, and will continue to do so. If we increase blockshop prices, it will still give the people who build (and don't have time to grind) an option (albeit an expensive one). Something like $100 per block for the ones that are currently $5 (as an example) gives a fair ceiling to make sure block price don't go unchecked, but also gives a fairly decent ECD sink for those too lazy and/or too busy irl to have building materials

 

If you don't have time to get them.
Then not being funny tough? You spend time either getting them yourself, advertise in trade (which will increase potential shops rather than just the two you stated currently)

There no market for blocks because right now, there is no market lol.

 

FTR, I've been asking for blocks for months, even before the decrease in player count. Everyone would rather grind high-ECD items to sell rather than common blocks, even when people are asking for higher prices.

Trust me, I experimented with this in the past. I bought glowstone for more than blockshop was selling, advertising in trade for multiple days during peak & offpeak. Only had a single person even sell.

Even when I casually buy at blockshop prices, nobody will even attempt to grind for them; like I said, people would rather grind high-ECD makers or stuff that would benefit jobs/quests. That's the meta of the server, and it's been that way even before the blockshop price decreases (hell, I'd even argue that it was this way for many, many years prior to that meta)

 

Jdawger, if no one wants to sell blocks to you at your prices, then raise your prices. For real. I will grind infinite quantities of whatever you want if you pay me what Cike pays for my labor ($320,000 ECD/hour). Heck, maybe you could start by paying what Waz pays for labor ($180,000 ECD/hour).

If you want to cheap out and not pay me that much, then you can either get a builder/noob that will accept less pay, find the blocks yourself, find a better block/more efficient farm design, or not build your farm.

This is only true because you are paying people less per hour to sell blocks to you than they can make using these methods. If it paid more to sell to you than it makes to grind, then people would do that.

Now, there is a good argument that its structurally impossible for a pleyer to get as much blocks as needed for building demand without blockshop. The answer to that is to add items and tools that make it easier to get decorative blocks for the player market, so that grinding isn't the only economical option.