Market and Mall owners treated unfairly - contracts should be allowed

Suggestions
21

Personally I do not like it. It still lets one player decide for another if they get to stay or not and it is totally arbitrary as to why they can do it. So lets say you let a player have a market stall and then a friend of yours joins the game, you can kick the other player out and they have no recourse. I think this can create a lot of dissatisfaction for players. You still have the player that was kicked out loosing all the effort they went into running a store as well as everything they built into the stall.

I understand the frustration in having someone not do what they said they would and how this can impact other players in the game. But in the end it is a game and an MMO we are not going to like everything other players do.

So we want to make players not only refuel their own beacons, but also if they are part of a group build they have to make sure they actually log in every so often or they loose their stuff? And this does nothing to make sure that a shop is actually stocked. All it means is they visit. How is an empty shop any better for a mall than one where an owner never visits? I am not sure there is really any difference. Or are you now going to have to introduce a mechanic that says they have to keep items on stands. I guess I see this as a cycle that never ends. The mall owners are never going to be happy when an individual does not do what they said they would.

Of course it can be abused. You and both know that players in this game have worked every angle to ā€œget aheadā€ and even if the mall runner does develop a bad rep, how can you communicate that? It is against the CoC to name and shame and even if they could how does that help the player that lost everything? It does not, so another player quits the game because they were taken advantage of due to a mechanic that is really not needed in the game.

Ok so because one person (@the-moebius) can be trusted, we should trust every other player in the game? I do not think that is really a good argument to make. We both know from personal experience that players will lie and not do what they said. I guess it still comes down to why are we shifting the trust from the mall owner to the player that wants to have a stall in the mall? .

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22

You would then end up having to add rules about how much inventory is in the stands and the prices. If somebody gets mad about having to stock their store when they donā€™t want to they could put one grass seed on each stand for 99999999. I think James and the team would end up with a lot more complaints. A lot of the negative comments in regards to the game are directed at expiring beacons and fueling beacons as it is. To add an extra layer to that which involves someoneā€™s money/shop would just be gasoline on the fire in my opinion

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23

There are no footfall traps in Gyosha Mall. I will gladly stick up for every single merchant that is in the mall - including you & your shop. I hope you recā€™d extra sales/footfall from the free 7 day portal that we put in front of your shop recently.

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I know that I go past shops that have the same empty stands, or have one or two items. That items are at the back of the shop and you Have to enter to see what is there and it may be just one item.

It is just my personal opinion, and has nothing to do with you, shop, mall, market and other owners have NO Control over what is done in a shop, how the player treats it or even if they every come back.

@majorvex You canā€™t control anyone who sets up a footfall trap, it isnā€™t on you. It is on the shop owner, not the malls or markets owners for the footfall traps. Reserved shop plots have sat empty for months, which is unfair, in my opinion, to a player who wants to be closer to the front. I can sound harsh, but to me a spade is a spade and someone who uses shops to just get footfall are in the wrong and it should not be allowed. Something needs to be done, but what and how are the most important questions.

Maybe I am being too harsh, but I feel that many of such shops that donā€™t restock, that visit just to pick up footfall, are using it for a footfall trap and that should not be allowed, those who want a spot lose out. And the mall and market owners and others have shopping area are and will deal with this, those who are greedy and care only about themselves will continue to do what they can to get coins.

I have taken my shop down, After starting this topic I feel I am one of those players, I am lucky to sell anything, most days I get no footfall, or just a few coins, less than 100 coins. My son, he never checks his shop, has no interest in playing the game as he feels it was false in the advertisement of what was in the game, the new content has not been anything he wants, he is not a builder and feels that many of the recipes have become complex to, well, be busy work, not of value. I agree somewhat, but I enjoy the game enough to overlook most of it.

At G. Mall, many days zilch, at the most on a good week close to 1k coins, usually less. At NL Market I was making from 3k to 6k coins a Day. At NG Market, it is 10k to 15k coins a day many days, some less, but that is when I have been unable to restock due to health issues.

I want to see mall, market and other such type of setups be protected from those who are using them as a footfall trap. And to me, that is what those type are, traps to get coins and not work.

That hurts the malls, market and other owners and shop owners in many ways, loss of coin from players who stop going as they canā€™t find what they want. Negative remarks from them to others of how that place doesnā€™t have anything any more and so why go there.

I donā€™t have time to run around a business that has empty shops, shops that I see as footfall traps, sell very few items and donā€™t restock just so they can get coins, And I have seen them eventually close.

Iā€™m not saying players who have a legitimate reason should lose out, but neither should the mall, market and other owners lose out.

I started this topic to get feedback on should contracts be allowed, what are other suggestions to protect these mall, market and other places from such treatment.

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25

the thing with a contract system i cant work out tho is how much des the game deal with and how much is dealt with on a player level has it has been mentioned before if a term of the contract is too just have ā€œstockedā€ stands then its easy to have a few shop stands filled with 9,000,000 a piace dirt blocks and im a little hesitant to give to much power to the shop or mall keep cuz then you run the risk of someone losing there shop and everything they got in it over drama or out of game things.

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I see your point, and others such as @ginabean but I am thinking of them of how it can and does hurt them.

Iā€™m not going give them two day, two weeks, but at the least three months for them to contact you. If you take down their shop and put their items into storage and they can get it back that is fair.

Yes, they can take a chance that the mall, market and other owners will use their not being in contact as a excuse to steal their items, but the also take the chance that the shop owner is using them for free footfall.

There needs to be a security system, and I am hoping that those who read this topic can offer some. A video recording of them agreeing to keep it restocked maybe to a certain percentage, Example 25% restocked once a week, to informed them after three months if something has happened so the owner can make a decision on what to do.

As I stated one time, I am in a few other discords, and they are in some ways gaming discords in that there are several games that they can play with the Content Creator, GameEdged is one of them, he has several games in areas for members to play, sometimes even with him.

Just about everyone is nice to each other, many who have had a crisis, and it isnā€™t required, have come on and stated, such and such has happened, canā€™t play, canā€™t post, canā€™t help out. They donā€™t have to and some donā€™t. But many do take the time, wife was in accident, on life-support, may not live. It was months before we heard anything, but she did live and almost full recovery. Son came on, mom fell down the stairs, broke her leg, found some damage to her back, surgery, she wanted me to let you all know.

They took the time in a crisis to say I canā€™t be there. Players can make the time at some point. Ones who have quit probably wonā€™t and if they have GC it can be really hard to know if it was a crisis or they just quit and donā€™t plan on coming back.

Protect the mall, market, and other owners of the place so they can store the items. A contract that is binding to both, to protect both. Iā€™m hoping for suggestions, not outrage at what is seen as trying to destroy the game.

Three months, five months, six months, what would be a good time to set as a limit, how often should they be required to visit and restock, and not just visit once a week to get footfall, if they can do that, they can bring some items to put on the stands in my opinion. They have created a footfall trap and deserve to be tossed out, harsh, but that is what I see it as.

If I were to have a heart attack and my hubby or son didnā€™t contact @AeneaGames and let her know that Iā€™m not able to play (and they wouldnā€™t both wonā€™t talk to others on the phone unless they have no choice, I have to do it all ā€“ social phobic), she can take my shop down, store my stuff so another player can have that spot, that is only fair to her and those who want that site.

Suggestions on how can mall, market and other owners be protected from being used by players, if a contract, how and what should be in it, if not one, what do you think could be done to help them.

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27

Itā€™s not a perfect solution, but I am hoping others can have a idea of what can be done, how it can be set up.

I donā€™t like it in a way, but in another way I hate seeing the mall, market and others being take advantage of and nothing can be done to protect them.

There are plenty of threads of griefing, hunts are having problems, discussions are in what can be done to help with it. The damage here isnā€™t as obvious, but it is there.

It is possible nothing can be done, the mall, market and others owners will have to just suffer from the players taking advantage of them, and Iā€™m not talking about a legitimate situation, but the abuses that have and do happen.

Anyone who wants to find a way to trick the system will, but there will be some who will understand and have no problem with it. We canā€™t stop all the griefing, the abuse of the freedom of this game, but can we create something to help with the problems, to some extent? Is it even possible? I donā€™t know,

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28

Firstly, one thing I would like to say to others is that thereā€™s no point fear-mongering about a system like this being added to the game. In the way @Janna55 describes the system, I would take it as a system that is
optional and that would actually need to be willingly setup by the market/mall owners and willingly used by the people that wanted to use that same economic area.

With a system like this, malls and markets as they exist now wouldnā€™t suddenly disappear as a result of an optional contract/rent system for shopsā€¦ They would simply exist alongside any new malls/markets that did decide to use the contract system.

The contract system should certainly, like @Janna55 puts it, hold both sides accountable and protected from each other, as much as possible. And on that pointā€¦

I think youā€™re right, it canā€™t ever be fully stopped, but a contract system would definitely be helpful in curbing a few things and making certain areas less ā€œdeadā€ (in some sense of the word), I believe.

And it should be possible to implement a new system to handle these things; as a reminder to everyone reading this thread, it is not really up to us, as players, to figure out the technical details of how such a system would work. We should definitely discuss the nuances of a potential system however.

Heck, as a reminder for everyone, please see this post on how the responsibility of technical detail does not fall on us:

On the point of discussing the nuances of a potential, new, system:

I donā€™t know what I personally would feel is a good time. Maybe two to three months sounds ok to me, based on my own experience of wanting to take breaks or having real-life interruptions and the like.

I do know Iā€™d want the system to protect my actual assets from the mall/market owner at all times and vice versa, for the sake of being fair to everyone; if the contract expired, the items should simply somehow be returned to the renter/shop owner.

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I think the problem is this assumes that the players are always the ones taking advantage and not the ones being taken advantage of. That is not always going to be the case. The mall owner can pack up and leave anytime then want stranding all the store players without portals or other infrastructure. What protection do they have to prevent this? You mentioned the players with stores in the mall running them for footfall. . what about a mall owner doing the same? Why is one bad and the other not bad?

I think putting in some complicated contract system that will likely require constant interaction on the part of the developers to mediate is not good for the game. I do not have any suggestions because I think in the end this is part of being in a game with other people. It is like what happened to you before you changed settlements. No one has to run a mall. It is like starting a settlement. You only have so much control and if that is not enough control for you as an individual then maybe it is not worth the frustration.

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30

I can see both sides, and I think there should be protection for the shop owners, not just the mall, market and other owners. We are trusting them to not bail out on us.

That unfortunately happened when Aenea had to shut down her market. She gave notice for quite some time, but there were still some who lost out because of personal events in their lives and they werenā€™t on and saw them. Portals were shut down, but she gave notice and for plenty of time, but again, there were some who didnā€™t see it I guess. I think I read of one or two who found out later.

I donā€™t know what she did, I would guess, knowing her, that she did the best she could to contact them all, and most likely took what she could with her although the plots were in our names so they would have probably been left standing. I trust that she will have tried to contacted them so they could get them later. That was in some ways a choice forced on her when she was going through a very difficult time in real life. I can feel for both sides in such a situation; the owners and the shop owners, both lost out.

A contract on both sides that is by choice, as I should have mentioned, is only fair. Forcing someone to do something isnā€™t my idea of right, I just want them to have the option. A player can go, no I donā€™t want to and they can make the choice to let them set up or not. There are lots of malls, markets and other shopping type of setups that players should be able to find another location.

I had been offered a plot at a few after NLM was shut down, so I am sure that others would have found some place. It was a inconvenience, but that happens in games when you are dealing with people and a game that is really still in early access.

It is trying our best to find a way to work out solutions that can be helpful. Maybe someone in brainstorming can come up with a method that will work for all. Maybe Wonderstruck will get on the ball and hire someone to take on the task of dealing with problems in the game and on the forum.

And I can agree that for some a contractual set up may not appeal to both sides, and they see it as too much trouble and if something like that were to be implemented they may go this isnā€™t for me. I know that I personally would not want the headache of having a market. Saw enough of real life problems my dad dealt with his businesses, dealing with renters was at times a nightmare.

The thing is, it should be a choice and I can see in the future others having the same problem that @AeneaGames had in her market, so we need someone to over see these problems and nip them in the bud when it starts up, right now the devs are so overwhelmed in other areas they canā€™t keep a eye on what is happening in the game and take care of problems.

Iā€™m not advocating for a dictatorship of the mall, market or other owners, just something that will protect them all from being griefted by someone who wants to create trouble.

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31

While I can fully understand the reasons behind this and the pain felt I do not think people should be able to take plots away from others and that we need to protect malls. I feel each side needs protection based on their side of the situation. Due to this, I feel we need more fundamental change that would make these scenarios not happen or be very extreme occurances.

I donā€™t think we should fault people for trying to have a shop but maybe not doing it well or find that they have other responsibilities or builds in the way. I know I sometimes overcommit to things and it takes a while to get back on track. I also know that I get burned out on parts of the game and need to step back and focus somewhere else for a while so that I keep playing. Those type of scenarios could make some think a person wants FF when in fact it is for a whole different set of reasons.

To me the overall issue here is the result of a bad system (footfall) and a completely lacking game ecosystem (economy/shops). I feel that if we spend time fixing those issues a lot of these other problems would go away.

I have no issue with discussions around a contract between mall owner and shop owners but think we need a more robust design and it should be linked to other true contract type technology where people can negotiate things and hold others accountable. Until we have those things in place I donā€™t see a simple solution beyond just focusing on fixing core game failures and maturing them into better game play.

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32

This thread has gotten pretty crazy.

To be honest, I just skimmed the last couple of posts. I got to the part about video recorded contracts and couldnā€™t take any more.

What you will push for, if you keep pushing in this direction, is an end to players bothering with these arrangements IMO. Malls and shopping centers arenā€™t part of the game. Theyā€™re player constructs for convenience and when theyā€™re not convenient any more theyā€™ll go away.

I canā€™t imagine how many hours of MajorVexā€™s time you would want devoted to recording contracts, monitoring shop levels, managing closed shops, taking 90 day player activity checks, etcā€¦

Any other mall/market owner of course, but just as a prominent example.

EVERY mall shop is a player beacon and that player is responsible for it. If you want a better spot you have to watch fro it. I got my first shop from another player and had it for a couple months before I ever even met majorvex.

I have two there now and the second one was also me randomly catching an expired beacon that was on my way to my own shop. Several beacons expired there that week in fact, krasniy might still be selling a couple.

I keep wondering if I can get you to write a letter to safeway for me. The one near me burned down last year and now they used the fire to get out of their lease theyā€™re not rebuilding. This is super unfair to me now I have to travel twice as far to get my groceries.

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33

I donā€™t think that there should be restrictions on players around this.

Players also have to do irl things, so there will be shops slow to restock, and plots that look semi-empty. You canā€™t force everyone to play how you want.

@MajorVex does so much for the mall already, with building the mall, updating the map, monitoring, helping current and new players, saving plots that go out, etc. Contracts would add more work. It would be difficult to make a contract for every single player, hundreds, and have all of them agree and follow it.

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:face_vomiting: No way. This is a game, not a prison or a job. No one would pay employees to watch gameplay video contracts & play moderator to deal with all of the issues it would create.

I nor my friends feel taken advantage of.

Playing Boundless makes me happy ā€¦ definitely not suffering in any way or being taken advantage of. If a game stressed me out that much I would go play something else.

Reference quote? Otherwise, I would disagree with this statement. Neither of us can speak for a business that we donā€™t work for. I see lots of communication from the devs & them patching/updating/resolving things quite often when compared to other games.

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35

but they are when the devs leave it purely to the playerbase to make something work then whatever they find that works becomes part of the game if we where to say ā€œall Malls and shopping centers are bannedā€ then you would see even less shopping then whats going on now they make participating in the economy at least somewhat bearable

no less then what a mall owner would be doing now keep in mind this is a computer game and alot of the parts of the contract can be automated for instance if a onwer wanted to say have a condition where your shop needed to be stocked for 40% of the contract term you could set all that on the beacon level when placing a ā€œshop beaconā€ for someone to ā€œrentā€ then the ā€œrenterā€ would just walk up read the terms and conditionā€™s then agree and boom they have control of the plot failure of the conditionā€™s could then either revert the plot back to the owner or auto DM them saying x was broken. the thing is 9/10 if this is done i feel it would made 100% optional anyway and if a mall or hopping centers owner did not feel it was worth it then they could just stick to ā€œnormal beaconsā€

the recording to see there is no voice ingame can be done server side i have not read the full game ToS but im sure data recording is in there already

any stuff the contract system would not cover can be done via ingame or discord and it would just be a Gentlemanā€™s Agreement like how its handled now i have seen mails where they ask you do to this or that in order to keep a shop in there.

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37

I think what Nightstar was trying to get at was that Malls, etc are emergent game play and not a directly created asset in the game. Just like with Portal Hubs. The direct assets allow players to do what they want in the sandbox that this game is.

People should be very careful about trying to make them a direct asset and developer controlled with things like contracts, etc. If you do this then I would expect you start having to pay taxes on income and other things you create and things like land tax and other business related charges. Additionally Malls have a contract in real life but actually charge rent. So are Malls in Boundless going to charge rent for their location and then follow more along those lines of companies going out of business, etcā€¦

That is why fundamental solutions is probably better than trying to solve a specific issue around ā€œrestockā€ especially when how are you expecting to hold a person responsible for a lack of ā€œdemandā€ in this game?

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38

i get that its just i dont think doing anything to FF would change anything around malls and tbh unless we all band together and start kicking and stomping i dont think any changes will happen anytime soon anyway and the only change i could think with the ecosystem bit would make malls/shopping centers obsolete and more of a vanity then a needed thing

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Iā€™m not singling out just one mall, how many are there? How many have shut down? What is the reason for them shutting down? I donā€™t know positively, but Aenea canā€™t be the only player who had problems with a shop owner.

@majorvex References? I would think that seeing how many problems have cropped up lately and it has taken a while for someone to respond says it all. They are focused right now on the farming, there are only so many developers, and they are human in that they can only do so many thing in so many hours.

Iā€™m not putting down, just stating a fact, they donā€™t have enough time to ride herd on the players and fix all the problems, let alone do their job, which is developing the game. It can take a while for them to even learn of them and in a way, both suffer, we have to wait in some instances for them to learn of the problem and then try to find out what is going on and this takes away from their time to work on the game.

Shortly after I bought the game and joined the forum some person who job was to keep an eye on problems in the forum and in the game left for a better job. No one has replaced him. Several have remarked that we need someone to step in to take his place when there is a problem and see what has happened.

The ā€œgriefingā€ in the hunts is a perfect example, how long has it ben going on that there have been some players throwing bombs to grief others, and Iā€™m not talking about the hunts where it is announced but others. Where the meteorite has had regen bombs tossed to cause the loot to be lost?

One very well respected and cared for hunt leader has stopped, reason is to the constant harassment from another player. Others have stopped in hunts I am sure for similar reasons. Devs havenā€™t had time to check on them, find out what is going on because their job is to Develop the game, not take care of problems between players. That is not their fault, but the Wonderstruckā€™s really, they need to hire someone to handle the forum, plain and simple, not dump it onto the devs and take time away from developing the game.

The devs are human, not perfect and they have a lot to do, Iā€™m not putting them down, just accepting facts that they can not take care of developing the game, fix problems between players, step in immediately when there is a problem and fix it. It doesnā€™t make them bad people, bad developers, just overworked people who need help and are not getting it from the employers. Plain and simple.

I am not picking on you when I say mall, but all malls, all markets, all shopping centers, all small shop areas where small settlements let players set up a shop in a general area then have problems that we never hear about.

You are taking this as a attack on you. I used G. Mall as a example because I have seen shops that are empty, you are busy, you have a life outside of this game, you donā€™t have time like I do because I am disabled, homebound and canā€™t get out except on rare occasions so am online sometimes as much as 6 or 8 hours in a day/night. Sometimes less on a bad day, that can have me on just one hour, very little time to run around. But when I can, I donā€™t sit in my base and do nothing, Iā€™m out exploring, looking at a lot of different malls, shops sometimes for fun, sometimes for stuff I need.

The problems that malls, markets and other shop centers have are NOT the fault of the their owners, but the shop owners, so Iā€™m not blaming them, unless there is evidence of them being unfair to the shop owners, and it can happen and the shop owner just up and leave.

Iā€™m not saying it is just on one side, and should have made that clear at the start, but my focus has been on the owners of the plots, the shopping area that they created for players to set up a shop. And I do feel that most of the time they are getting the short end of the stick.

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Even tho @Janna55 keeps pulling my name in, hehe, I do not support what she suggests.

What I solely want is a level of support for one single thing that can go wrong:
When people leave the game or are taking a long break but still having many months of time on their Gleam Club.

Sure, I rather also have shopkeepers that keep their store stocked, but if they bother to stop by every xx week(s) to make sure their beacon doesnā€™t revert back to the mall/market owner I will already be satisfied with the idea that they want to keep the shop around .

Also please note, Nova Golda Market is rather small compared to many malls out there where one can get lost in, itā€™s much more noticeable that a shop is not being attended to then in one of the bigger malls.

But again, I just want protection from people forgetting they have a shop, or stopping to play without giving plots back. Nothing more, nothing less.

Itā€™s also why Iā€™ve decided that new shop owners at my market will not get the plots, they get the perms, they receive the footfall every week (or whenever they ask for it) and I want them to apply for the Nova Golda Merchants faction (no need to set primary) so I can see if they are actually still playing.

If prospective shopkeepers donā€™t like that there are plenty of other markets and malls who donā€™t have this set upā€¦

1 Like