Sky Diamond Outlets - 25,000c for new shop builds!

[grayhaze]

Two years in the making, Sky Diamond Mall on Cephonex Merika was a solo build with the aim to create a mall that was visually pleasing both inside and out. The idea was to build the structure around plots that shop owners could rent out for the price of their footfall, which would go toward expanding further and continual improvements to the decor and infrastructure, while allowing me to retain control over the way the mall looked from the outside (i.e. the ground). A payment of 40,000c would be made up front to the shop owner to go some way toward offsetting this loss, and the lack of footfall would give more of an incentive to price products in a way that sales were likely in order to make profit.

Unfortunately that experiment failed, at least for now. While we have a couple of shops set up inside the mall, the message I was getting from players was that they weren’t happy about forfeiting their footfall to be a part of the mall and wanted to own their plots outright like in other malls.

We therefore started work on Sky Diamond Outlets, an extension outside the main mall which is set up as a more traditional mall with free plots for people to claim and build their shop.

The first phase of this build is now complete, and we’re looking for people to set up shops and get things going. We’re currently offering 25,000c for completed shop builds, and as current spaces fill up we’ll be building additional phases to make more available. The project is no longer a solo effort, with the Sky Diamond guild set up to bring in extra help. As a result building has been much quicker and things are really starting to take shape.

We already have a few shops up and running, and more on the way. But we’d like you to join us and make this one of the best malls in the game.

Sky Diamond Mall has a full portal hub, with connections from Portal Seekers Biitula, Ultima US East, Guardian, Fortune Biitula, Compass Hub Cephonex Merika, TNT Fantasy Tree, Show Room, Gyosha Mall, DK Mall, and others. Player portals are also available to purchase for a low price.

We look forward to welcoming you to the mall, and we’re excited to see what you build. In addition to the current build completion payment of 25,000c, we plan to have contests for the best builds every month with exciting prizes.

Welcome to Sky Diamond Mall!

Edit: Our initial approach of leaving units unplotted has resulted in some issues with people “reserving” plots and not coming back to build. We’ve therefore made some changes and now if you want to open a shop you’ll need to contact us via the post box in front of the vacant unit you want. We’ll then arrange a time when the unit will be unplotted for you to grab for yourself and start building. Thank you to those of you who have actually started building your shops and we look forward to welcoming more of you!

[Spoodle]

I never understand the whole renting mall space thing. So basically, does it mean I wouldn’t own the plots that my shop is in? I’d just have permissions on the plot? I’d have to have a LOT of trust in the owner haha

[DragonTamer]

What are the shop sizes?

[grayhaze]

Just to be clear, you wouldn’t be renting the plots in the outlets, only if you chose to open a shop inside the original mall. You’d own the plots outright in the outlets.

Consider this though. Why would someone spend two years building a mall like this, only to steal from the people who rented a plot? Word spreads fast in this game, so the whole project would fail instantly, and there’s a good chance I would get banned for such toxic behaviour. The fact that I would have been using the footfall as rent also would have made it in my best interest to not screw over my tenants. I realise that trust is a hard thing to come by though, which is why I moved onto building a more traditional mall for the less trusting folks. As I said, the original mall was a failed experiment, but the build makes an awesome backdrop for the new project.

[grayhaze]

All units are currently 1x2 plots, with room to build above and below. Note that in order to build you’ll need a minimum of four spare plots due to the way the floor level is orientated. This does mean that there’s enough room within those plots to have a complete two-level shop though.

[DragonTamer]

Let me look at my inventory and building supplies. I will get back to you tonight when I get on! Interested for sure!

[Spoodle]

Haha, that makes sense. To be clear, I’m not saying anyone would ever steal from me, ever. I just have trust issues

I just really wondered how it works because I’ve now seen a couple of places that operate this way. Thanks for the clarification

[Gerentt]

And the other benefit of a mall operating this way is to avoid dead mall issues. If a player quits or just disappeared for a month or 2, that shop is essentially dead. The shop stands don’t get stocked, prices don’t get adjusted for market prices, etc. The mall owner can pull the shop and let someone new move in, keeping the mall an active place to be rather than having a bunch of empty stores around from people who have GC so the stores just stay for months on end empty

[DKPuncherello]

Me and major and probably all mall owners wish there was a way to rent shop spaces where the renter is protected from us stealing their stuff.

We wouldn’t steal it anyway, but the protection would be nice

[grayhaze]

Yes, that would be wonderful. Currently you either rent out plots and need to gain a high level of mutual trust, or you let people plot their own shops and run the risk of dead shops, people grabbing plots and not even building shops, or people grabbing more plots than you’d like. I’m not sure the economy is a main priority for the devs though, especially with a slowly shrinking playerbase.

[Kal-El]

If you want that level of control then rent a survival planet. You can let only who you want plot there. You can remove their beacons if they fail to keep their shop stocked.

So the developers are offering a solution for players that might want this much control.

[Spoodle]

I for one can not wait to be God of my own planet

[grayhaze]

How is that any different though? People won’t want to plot on your planet if you can remove their plots at will and take their stuff, just the same as they don’t want to rent a plot currently. Sovereign worlds are a great idea, but I don’t see them solving any trust issues.

[Ratchel]

When you remove their beacon/plots from your private planet you don’t get their stuff. It goes back to them.

[grayhaze]

Oh I wasn’t aware of that. That certainly makes things better, but I’m still not sure someone would be any more likely to spend the time building a shop if it could just be removed at will. I guess we’ll see what happens when they’re released.

[DKPuncherello]

I also don’t think too many people will want to build shops on a planet that can disappear if someone stops paying. We’ll see though.

[Spoodle]

DK - are you gonna be making Planet DK?

[DKPuncherello]

Probably just a planet for farming mats, tbd

[Ratchel]

But but…

[DKPuncherello]

Come build a treehouse for the contest