[Suggestion] Shops in maps

[Wimali]

Shops in maps
As always, I’d like to remind you this is a suggestion. That means I would mostly just like to hear your opinion on it, see if people would want it to get implemented, if the directors want it, if it would even be realistic- The fact that I’m suggesting an idea doesn’t mean I particularly like it. Suddenly thought of this idea a few days ago. I thought it could be something fun to have on RoF!

What’s this idea all about, Bram?
I basically feel like this would be a nice addition to RoF (similar to my “randomized chests idea) that could give more re-play value to the game and would just in general be a useful thing to have. Let me explain it a little more in detail, though.

What could be sold in these “map shops”?
Well, let’s say an enderchest costs 250 cookies, right? (I don’t believe it actually does, but I’m too lazy to look that up right now okay. Just pretend it’s 250 cookies, just an example.) A shop could be put in Ender which sells an enderchest for 230 cookies. Yeah, sure, it’s a minor difference, but it could still make people buy it (and would allow people that aren’t Master to buy an enderchest) and hey, it fits the map theme.

Similarly to this nether quartz & blaze rods could be sold in Tenebrae (nether quartz maybe 13 cookies a quartz, yes this is a lot more than in the Master shop, but as lower-ranked players would be able to buy it the item should be a little more expensive, right?).

Other nice things to be sold in maps could be things that aren’t currently sold in the lobby: Smooth sandstone slab, smooth stone slab, and maybe even ‘normal’ blocks. For example, cobblestone could be sold in Trench, as it is a damming map. Sand in Sanctuary because it’s a desert. Stained clay in Alien_Planet because it has a lot of stained clay, and the list goes on and on.

Where would these shops be?
The shops could be in the map itself: a no-cookies, no-lava area (with signs clarifying that, of course) which is nicely hidden in maybe a mountain, a building or something else, just have it kind of ‘hidden’. Another possibility could be to have map shops “unlocked” at a certain rank (let’s go with journeyman for this example) and then having a warp sign in the JMF which will teleport you to a map-specific shop.

This might be a little hard to code however. But all in all I think this could be a great addition to RoF, as long as it’s balanced and can’t be abused. I’d like to hear your opinions on it, as always!

 

[OldAcctSnapFlash]

Not, a bad idea, but I think it needs to be polished and the items need to be limited.
dirtcake

 

[Jivvi]

Niiiice

 

[Undefined User 7]

Going to firstly take a second to agree with you, people suggest things because they're curious about what others think. It doesn't exactly mean they endorse the idea, hence it's a suggestion, not an endorsement. Let's not make stuff like this personal, it's a waste of time.

Now on to your suggestion. It's a creative idea, I had to sit down for a bit and think about it. Personally, I think that allowing the sale of certain items like enderchests would be undesirable, as gaining access to these items via rank is an incentive to save up and get promoted. If Apprentices or Experts are able to buy Master level items, they're not going to work as hard to get to Master, at least in theory. The counterargument here would be that map rarity keeps this from being a problem, but I would disagree. RoF currently has around 55 maps, so Ender has a 1/55 chance of cropping up (≈2%). Assuming that at least 4 other maps would sell Expert or Master-level items (there are a lot of them.) That's a ≈9% chance of lower-ranking players having access to higher-level items, which isn't exactly a desirable scenario.

Now, you offer a solution to this with rank-specific shops. While this would solve one problem, it would unfortunately create another. As a former staff member, I'm sure you understand the annoyance of having to stop what you're doing to tp to a player who found an ore, but couldn't get to it because it was under the spawn area. Normally you have to move the ore, or just tell the player you're busy and can't do it. Either way, it's quite the hassle. I know very little about coding, but this would probably work similar to how spawn protection works, otherwise we'd have people breaking the shops so nobody could use them. Given this, I think it'd create a really big hassle for the staff, along with poor dirtcake, who I'm pretty sure has had to stop sleeping due to all the coding work he's been doing. (Nobody can have that much ontime and still sleep. I've ran the numbers.)

Finally, and this is more personal opinion than technical critique, I think that the maps are already shops, in a sense. If we go to Ender we go to harvest the endstone and take in the scenery. If we go to Nightmare we're all blind and kinda pissed off at Butamou. We go to Mizu for sugar cane, or Waterpit to go down the falls in boats. (And yes, we go to Babylon to turn all the glass at spawn into bedrock because all these new players never know not to break the damn glass and I just warned them for the 9 millionth time and-)

*Ahem*

These maps tell stories, and part of the replay value is getting to reinvent those stories with your own imagination. I truly believe that a good map is never fully explored. Even if you've seen everything, you've got context and background and influence to consider as well. Maps are wonderful things, you would know that of all people. And I'm not saying you're trying to cheapen maps with a gimmick by suggesting this. After all, it's just an idea put forward. But still, I just feel like we need to keep the game within the game, and the shop within the shop. I know there's no logical argument, but that's really just how I feel.

Overall, I think it's an interesting and creative suggestion, but I don't think it'd be a good idea for the server currently. Once again, sorry for suffocating you with yet another wall of text. I start writing and I blink, suddenly it's been 30 minutes and my fingers hurt. Thanks for reading, regardless.