I'm not sure if that rule (no double/tripleplots) would prevent a monopoly:
1. You can still fit a lot of chests on one single plot, so they would simply have to switch to a more compact storelayout.
2. They can still build 2 or 3 independent stores next to each other (different onwers and different designs) e.g. one for ores and stones, one for wood and buildingmaterials, one for the rest of the items. They would still have their monopoly, only divided into 3 different stores.

Even a rule that would only allow one shopowner per plot could be circumvented by adding a middleman, making one partner the seller and the other the sole supplier of the items he formerly sold.

There also is another factor that might help these departmentstores. At the beginning of the marketdistrict people went through through all the stores comparing the prices. But now that very many stores always seem to be out of stock with 80% of their product range for more than a week, people mostly stick to those shops they have learned to be reliable. So new shopwoners will face the problem that their shop is hardly noticed as only few customers will still check other stores than their favourites (they won't even notice a new shop). A huge department store will of course be noticed, so it doesn't face this problem.



I only buy from townsfolk (basically Twist, Tidal and Duelcon) where I know that the profits will benefit the town, so I haven't even seen that shop you mean yet. But the problem you are describing sounds like the same as in the real world. Small corner shops are going out of business because they can't withstand the pressure of the big department stores. It is an unfortunate sideeffect of a free economy and the only way to prevent that is a planned economy where every store gets his prices dictated by the admins. Unfortunately that is not really an acceptable solution as it would take away the competition amongst the shopowners and the success of a shop would mostly be decided by personal loyalty of a customer and the location of the store.
Enforcing a planned economy among playershops would also be kind of useless as this is actually already covered by the servershop.
So, the current mixture of a planned economy (the more expensive servershop) and a more competitive (and therefore cheaper and more lucrative) free economy still seems to be the best option.

If I had a shop myself (which I never wanted as it would cost me to much precious building time ) I would see two way to survive this:
"Specialize"
Pick one - three areas of business you really like (e.g. wood and bricks, stones, ores, food, mobparts ...) and specialize on those. With the time you save by not having to gather the other goods anymore you can concentrate on getting way more suplies of these chosen products. If you do it effectively you can then offer lower or equal prices than the department stores and also specialize on being able to very quickly meet even the biggest orders for that product; e.g. being able to supply 10 doublechests of sand almost immediately thanks to a full storage.

"Divide and conquer"
That's basically what these big department stores do, they split the productrange into smaller portions assigning one part to each member who then can concentrate only on that area (basicaly the same as the specialisation mentioned above). If they can do it who says that others can't do the same. Find partners who you can trust, divide the products into shares each one is comfortable with and sell them together.
That doesn't mean you have to share one plot if you don't like that. Instead of a huge department store you can also build it like a retail chain. Split it into several shops, all sharing a quite similar design (the same logo and basic design so the customer immediately feels familiar with it no matter which of the shops he's in), only differing in a small element that shows the shops product specialisation (like using ores, bricks, wood, leafes for the entrance area).


Basically having a successful shop is suppossed to be a challenge and keeping up with a quite dynamic economy isn't everyone taste (and I think it is ok if shops are allowed to fail, it's a game and a learning experience after all; and even towns are not "too big too fail" here). But owning a shop is not the only option to make money (for some it even isn't the best options as there might be other areas more suited to their talents). You can always make a lot of money as a hunter/miner/gatherer that supplies these shops. Or turn towards farming and selling the products to shops like Twisteds produce store.
There are even quite a few possibilities for entrepreneurs out there that have rarely been tried. If you have earned the peoples trust and find a huge group of pvp-players you could even try to arrange pvp-tourney-fights with 10% of the prizemoney going to you; although I doubt you would find enough people to make that really profitable so it's just an example for markets rarely or never tried yet.
As a vip you could even build a sugarplantation or wheatfarm and then hire trusted! people to work there. They can harvest, replant and then sell the harvested goods to your own produce store on the plantation for slightly more than the regular serverstore prize (which is their payment for the job). Then you take the goods to the VIP-chestshop and sell it for the higher price there. The bigger your farm and staff is the higher your profit will be.

Hm, maybe the mainworld should be reset sometime too? Would be nice to start over again in a completely new world.

I see, so you can't say the word "sell" atm? Thanks for that info

It needs some patience and hunting to find them. Next time I see one and you are on I'll give you a shot.

They do exist on the server. They are just rare (1-3 for a whole fortress) and seem to respawn very slowly (seemed to be about 10 minutes). They also seem to share their respawn with regular skeletons (archers) which now appear in suitable fortresses.

You might have lost your house because in most towns a plot costs about 10 nbz a day (which is automatically paid via the towny-plugin). If you can't pay anymore Towny automtically takes the plot away from you. It is basically a feature to prevent towns from being full of abandonned ghosthouses of inactive users.
In most towns you can easily reclaim your house by contacting the mayor or one of the townassistants.

/sell didn't work for you because the servershop was deactivated for a while after the last patch. The plugin that controls it had to be updated. As an alternative there is a marketdistrict at /spawn where you can sell items (often for a better price than the servershop).

Some towns also offer their residents ways to earn easy money, like wheatshops (or sugar) at the towns farms, so you can harvest and sell wheat easily. In most cases the only rule for them is that you need to replant.
If your town doesn't have one you could always ask TwistedLover (DragonFire) or BuckieUK09(Glasgow) to use theirs.

- The ability to open all doors, lift/bridge/door signs, switches and trapdoors.

This one point raises 2 questions for me.
What does the green part mean?
Does this include the ability to remove unwanted signs?

I actually love that update to the ranksystem, it's what we always wanted for our town.

I don't think this one will work on the server as lavabuckets are not placeable (neither directly nor with a dispenser) to prevent lavagriefing.

The bankbuilding in Noobtown itself is not really a bank, it' s just an enderchest with decorations around it.
And you keep your money when you die, you only lose items (unless you fall to your death; not sure if you still keep them when you die in pvp).

1. Google only translates the words (and often not in the right meaning) but does not correct the structure of the sentence. With some languages that can turn a sentence from harmless to akward at best and unwillingly insulting at worst (german, chinese and japanese are such examples).
So whatever you do, do not use google translate to claim you are able to spaek that language, you will only make a fool of yourself if someone really speaks that language.
2. You can't really expect the mods to check every sentence of a chatcannel with google.

Quote from: 3rdlairskate on 23 Sep 2012, 23:38:51

Do it at 10 BST because that's when I get home from school. Most people in America will be in school at 8 BST. Thanks

No, most people in America are home at 8 PM BST. These events are scheduled for the best times for both the admins and the bulk of our community.

Yes, unfortunatley that often means it' s at 3am on weekdays for Australia/Asia (which are often 1 day ahead of the US, therefore US sunday afternon = EU sunday evening = Asia Monday morning).
It' s not that bad when it is just the small events (I can live without the cube).
But if some of the bigger events like the 25000party or Halloween are also scheduled for 8pm BST maybe they could be put on a Friday or Saturday (Saturday and Sunday for us due to the dateline). That way our region would have a chance to participate by getting up at 3am (which is not really possible for most people over here during work-/schooldays; but might be possible during the weekend).

That answers partly point 2 & 5, but not the rest.

Point 2:
Judges and courts simply do not appoint themselfes (if emperors do that it is called "seizure of power"; which is nothing a judge should ever try to achieve). The appointment of a court or judge by a higher authority is the one thing that give them the authority to make verdicts; without such an authority there would be no reason for anyone to even care about the judges verdicts (see point 1).
So this only broadens the theoretical questions behind point 2:
2a. How does a selfappointed judge get all people on the server to accept his authority (including towns and mayors)?
2b. How is the community protected from a selfappointed judge turning to despotism? Personal guaratees and promises are NOT a good enough security to ensure the people' s rights.


"Delievering justice" is not just a fancy phrase. It needs to be really understood so it can be used for good- it needs laws so the court can not just pass out verdicts after its own taste. The court has to enforce the law, not making their own verdicts by themselfes, but by exactly following the laws.
A court can not be above the law unless it also holds the governmental power - which would turn the judge into a leader (like a king or despot), which is certainly not acceptable for all the towns out there as it would be an usurpation of power (and I can assure you that no one in DragonFire will ever follow a higher leader than Twisted, (except for the pantheon of admins - maybe - if her grace allows it).

So if you want real support from players like me, you would have to show that there is more behind all this than the promise "I plan to have a fair court and deliver justice". You would have to show that you actually understand what a system of Justice and a constitution are all about. You' d have to create failsafe mechanisms to prevent this authority from ever been used injustly or to gain power. And you'd have to convince as that this is not just about your problems with Seaside.

I would bring an enderchest. Of course I would also leave behind a full enderchest so I could get all this stuff throught the enderchest I took with me.

The other enderchest wouldn' t be filled with Diamonds though. I' d fill it with things like blazepowder, endstone, redstoneore, endereyes, ghasttears, netherwarts ...; stuff that doesn't exist in the real world and therefore would be worth billions for laboratories, companies and probably goverments (way more worth than casual diamonds).