What's Good and Bad About A Shop In A RP Forum?

[Former Member]

I'm considering adding a shop to my RP forum, but I'm not sure if I should or not.

What are the pros and cons of a shop in a RP forum? And what are some good items to "sell" if I do use a shop?

I thought the monetary system wasn't working anymore, but I could still work out a way to do it, I'm sure. I think.

Thank you for all the help!!

[Reya]

What's your roleplay about? How is currency determined?

[Former Member]

Aug 27, 2019 4:42:59 GMT -8 Reya said:

What's your roleplay about? How is currency determined?

It's about rats and mice, and currency would probably be determined by how much you post or things you accomplish. At the  moment there is no currency

[bigballofyarn]

I don't have an RP forum, but my members LOVE the shop. I allow them to suggest shop items and then make them in Photoshop so they can buy items that they actually want. I have categories like: animals, weapons, support icons, holiday badges, and more. I think it encourages people to post because they are earning money to buy items they want displayed in their mini profiles.

[Reya]

The way my roleplay forum works is that it's somewhat stat and currency based (we call them stat points and credits respectively) which is earned based on how good each person's posts are. You can use credits to buy new items (swords, guns, etc) that are higher classes or have magical effects. That being said, it's a space fantasy roleplay with humans and humanoids functioning as the player characters, so definitely a lot different then rats and mice. Were you thinking about IC rewards, or more OOC things like custom titles or colors?

[Former Member]

bigballofyarn
That's a really cool idea!! I like that your members can suggest their own ideas. I don't think I would have thought of it that way LOL

Reya
Oh that's really interesting! I was thinking more of OOC than IC, but I'd like to try both. Like perhaps things like different animals to RP as, or as you said, custom titles. Did you say that the MORE a member posts they get more stat/credits, or the LONGER/DETAILED posts they get more stats/credits? For example, how would it work that every word gets them a point - for example, 187 words in a post would earn them $1.87 ?

Sorry for not replying in so long or my messy unorganized post D: I really really appreciate your help!! I'm leaning more now towards having a shop.

[Reya]

It’s a bit of both. Basically, a member gets 1 stat point and 2,000 credits per every page they write (forum is set up so this is five posts) however the people that grade the thread give out bonuses between 25-75% based on the quality of writing, so it's a bit of math to calculate what each person gets. This is based on quality over sheer length, because honestly people who just write fluff without contributing to a thread can be hard to write with and the grading system reflects this, however you do have to have some length to a post to make it quality writing in general. We don't check word counts however.

[Ghost]

Sept 14, 2019 4:07:42 GMT -8 Reya said:

It’s a bit of both. Basically, a member gets 1 stat point and 2,000 credits per every page they write (forum is set up so this is five posts) however the people that grade the thread give out bonuses between 25-75% based on the quality of writing, so it's a bit of math to calculate what each person gets. This is based on quality over sheer length, because honestly people who just write fluff without contributing to a thread can be hard to write with and the grading system reflects this, however you do have to have some length to a post to make it quality writing in general. We don't check word counts however.

I know this reply is really late, please feel free to ignore if you want, but are you using a pluggin to do this? How's that been working out? Is it a lot of work for staff to be adding those quality bonuses? I'm not super experienced with pluggins and I know there's things like the monetary system plugin and whatnot, but Iwas just wondering how much work it is on the back end to use that sort of thing with amounts conditional on staff input (like post quality).

I want to make things easy for my members, but I also dont want to make too much work for my mods either.

[Reya]

No it is not a plug-in, we calculate them and do modifications. Admittedly it is a bit of work on both ends, but it helps provide progression for members, without relying on simply spamming posts or the like.

[Ghost]

Aug 21, 2020 18:53:44 GMT -8 Reya said:

No it is not a plug-in, we calculate them and do modifications. Admittedly it is a bit of work on both ends, but it helps provide progression for members, without relying on simply spamming posts or the like.

Ah cool that makes sense. Thank you for the response. I think your method sounds really interesting.