Your View: Monk Market!

[tilly 5115]

Hail friends of Malinor! Lately I’ve been toying with the idea of reviving the once-magnificent ‘monk market’. I do not know how many of us were around during the Anthos map, but I remember the highlight of my weekend once or twice a month would be getting to go to the monk market. There would be all kinds of stalls: a fortune telling tent, a stand selling puppies, and even a dang kissing booth. Not to mention all the creative ideas for recreation, such as a sword-in-stone, a throwing-darts area, and a wicked dank dunk tank. I remember the markets always having a great turnout, and it was very enjoyable RP. Casual, fun, lighthearted. I would like to introduce this jocund event to the Cloud Temple docks once again to add to the amount of RP that already goes on there; I’ve inquired about this in several chats and spoken to a handful of moderators concerning the concept! All of the parties had a positive reaction to the idea, which encouraged me to make this post, to ask your view!

I will be adding a poll to fill out above, but there are also a few questions that I need to ask that can't be answered through a poll:

• How many stalls set up at the market do you think would be a good number?
• What kinds of activities would you like to see happening at the markets?
• What day/time do you think would be a good to get a large amount of server-goers involved?

Anything that I haven't thought of, don't hesitate to post it below!

[Yuln 265]

These are excellent events that can be hosted by individual nations to bring activity to them. I don't think this should be a thing that draws even more activity away from main cities.

[luv 3469]

I like this a lot! 

[Nummy 413]

Its a wonderful idea but I am sort of with Yuln on this. Instead of drawing away from the activity of main cities, why not make it a travelling market that is hosted by a different city each time? This would bring each city some activity, and you could work in the hosting cities culture within the market. 

[tilly 5115]

Just now, Nummy said:

a travelling market

 

I was thinking that at first, though the idea of setting it at the Cloud Temple would be so that there could be no PvP or interruptions by the latest antag groups.

[Nummy 413]

You could always work with the people to find ways to avoid these interruptions. We had such a thing in sanctuary a few weeks ago, that went flawlessly. Its possible, and worth a try to work within the current rp cities. 

[tilly 5115]

That's a good suggestion. I'll keep note of it.

[Heff 2460]

Yaya, I agree do a traveling one

[DISCOLIQUID 2728]

This is an excellent idea, and it would be relatively easy to implement. I'll keep an eye on this.

[TeaLulu 1783]

There's already a market at the Docks selling special items. And the majority of the special things you're mentioning as "part of the market" are not part of a typical market at all; They're more of a festival type deal.

 

Sanctuary already did a festival using...basically everything you just described! Fortune telling booth, kissing booth, dunk tank, etc. The problem is most of those types of stalls (especially fortune, etc) need to be physically manned by someone. That's not going to be possible all of the time, and the interest of the area will quickly die out after the first few times people go there. You'll be hard-pressed to find people who want to handle all of that even 1 weekend out of every month.

 

I also do not think we need to be trying to drag more people to the Docks and away from the city centers, especially on weekends which are the busiest days for LotC usually. As for the 'don't want combat or bandits to interrupt it!' That's unfortunately part of life when you're an ET. You have to be willing and able to work around those sorts of things. People are going to RP what they want to RP and we shouldn't actively be trying to keep them from doing that.

 

We already have the auction house at the docks for people to put things up for sale; Putting multiple stalls for people to rent and sell things at would take more commerce away from the major city centers, which was a major complaint concerning the Cloud Temple Stalls that we already had and got rid of. Plus, setting up each of those stalls for only a weekend would just be annoying, and we don't need another market area sitting around the docks useless. Can you imagine all the PMs? "When is the carnival open?" "When can I go to the festival?" "What are all these stalls and why is nothing in them?"

 

So what exactly does this add? More reason for people to linger at the dock and not go to the cities? More excuse for people to never have to go to a major city center, because they can just buy everything at the Docks on festival days and then go back to their private roleplay areas with their friends? The majority of people who come to this are going to be the same types of people every time it happens. It's not going to, in my eyes, add anything to roleplay. 

 

There is no reason this can't be a travelling festival type thing and you can go get permission from the different settlements/nations to set it up on certain days in their areas. I don't think the docks should be further crowded with this. Each race will want to have the festival done in a matter which most befits them; And honestly? That's perfectly fine. That's ideal. As ET, we should be shaping our events to serve the different groups around the server and make it more enjoyable for them.

 

The Orcs, for example, (Generally speaking, ICly) would have no interest in going to a festival at the docks with "dunking booths" and "kissing booths". But if you, say, held a festival catered more towards their tastes in the deserts, with a hunt and the selling of fresh-roasted food, trinkets carved from bone, a story teller at an open fire, an open klomp? That's more the Orc's taste. Dwarves, Humans, Elves, all have different specialized preferences based off their culture. That's the beauty of LotC now is that all the different group have created their own unique culture and not everyone enjoys the same thing anymore.

 

I don't think the docks need to be further crowded with anything else drawing attention away from the cities. I think a travelling market that customized itself to the tastes of the people/area that it was in would be excellent, however. I can say from my experience as an ET, different groups enjoy events more if the event takes into consideration their tastes and is customized to serve them. Will everyone be able to go to the market every time it changes places, in that case? No, probably not. But we do far too many cookie-cutter events as it is that don't take into account the audience they're for. If you want to do a repeating festival, I think it would be far more interesting if it changed locations periodically (Sometimes it could even be out in the middle of nowhere for people to find, or maybe a wagon from the docks could take people out to it), and was customized at times for the culture of the place it is currently situated it.

[Free The Hobbits 859]

I think this is a wonderful idea. It was always well done and brought lots of roleplay to people who would otherwise never meet each other. I always found it fun to roleplay as the fortune teller or stick the Halfling in the kissing booth.

 

So what if it draws attention from main cities? It was once a week, everybody can live with that for a little bit. We aren't a hidden village and spawn is easy to get to for most players anyway. 

[AGP 3169]

Cloud Temple is a bit of a bland non-factor. Events that take place there won't be talked about afterwards or before. If a market is scheduled in an actual city it will lead to more Rp so I am in favor of having it visit cities.

[Mehl 25]

I think it's a wonderful idea. It gives people something to look forward to! There could be items available at the Monk Market that you can't get anywhere else (not sure if this feature was previously added or not). Furthermore, it will always be a surprise wherever it turns up next! 

 

[tilly 5115]

Thank you, everyone, for your input. I've been piecing the details of this market together little by little with the help of twenty-some-odd people in a group chat. Without everyones' input, this surely wouldn't have come along how it has.

 

A thread will be put up sometime this weekend to reveal what's to come!

[TheJollyPear 128]

A big fat

 

amazingly

 

honest

 

YES