“So?” Hekla smiled.  “He took you to Burger King and Dairy Queen?”

As you are no doubt aware, Kreios, Dennycrane and others have been making an effort to provide lower-level equipment on the shops, for the benefit of hominlings fresh off Silan. This is a much-needed effort, as it can be hard for the younger of us, sometimes, to find what they need.

Additionally, several of us have been thinking that it would be a nice social activity to stage regular marketplace events. There are multiple benefits to that:

• Make customers free of guild pressure, as many newcomers feel indebted to guilds for crafting them equipment for free.
• Provide the stage for a social event, with the possibility for other activities/events to take place on the side.
• Be an opportunity to create a new caste of pure crafters, who’d spend Atys weeks collecting mats to have them ready for orders on market day.
• Let intermediate crafters have an opportunity to craft for lower rates, and meet professional crafters.
• Provide an opportunity for harvesters to be present and provide materials, creating a professional relationship between crafters and harvesters.
• Due to the presence of many crafters, provide customers with greater choice and the possibility for customized equipment (choice of armor types and color, etc.).
• Let homins bring their own materials to crafters if they want to (or purchase them from harvesters).
• In the end, foster the development of a thriving economy.

Obviously, the buy/sell rates will have to be determined according to workable standards, but that should develop of its own, over time. For information, the “breakeven” point for NPC mats are currently set at 300%.

Some rules should be established as well, to make the marketplace lively and fair:

• Chat locally as much as possible, especially when establishing crafting needs and prices (be that Dappers or materials). Create chatter.
• Be respectful of all others at all times. Let competition between crafters be real, but not disdainful.
• Crafters may shout to advertise their services, within reasonable limits so everymin still has time to follow what’s going on.
• Crafters must wear their crafting titles at all times. Rotate titles if necessary.
• Crafters of all levels above 50 are welcome. Diggers of all levels above 50 are welcome.
• To prevent wasting materials, higher-level crafters should leave orders too low for them to lower-level crafters (when applicable).
• Crafters and harvesters are encouraged to bring full Packer(s) along, so no porting around or running back to apartment is necessary. If a crafter is low on one material, harvesters should be able to provide it for Dappers or mutually beneficial exchanges.
• No exchange should be made without a counterpart, so the recipient does not feel in any way bound to the crafter or harvester.
• Crafters are invited to stand within a reasonably short distance of one another, in a clear and visible area.
• The market event will be open for business for a little less than two Atysian days (~2 RL hours). Crafters are invited to stay during the full duration of the market activity, if possible.

Yours, Hekla
(invaluable input from Inifuss, Dennycrane, Gilgameesh, Lexsi, Amian and a few others)

[ The first market event will take place in Fairhaven, south of the Stables, on Saturday, August 8, 2009, between 20:00GMT and 22:00GMT. It will become a weekly event. We should discuss whether it would be useful to stage marketplaces in other capital cities eventually, either simultaneously, or as a rotation. ]

[ Cross-posted on the roleplay forums and main forums. ]