New shop would like to open...

[freemen2]

Me and my partners (Seteece, Ahndar and Brutus) would like to open a shop, how do we go about it?

[ZeroVega]

  The Orcbashers did the same thing. First they formed a guild to support each other in crafting. Then they ran a shop right out of Gloin's house Ie: people place orders on the forum and whenever and Orcbasher was around they'd pull it out and sell it. Eventually Gloin was allowed to buy the Orcbasher shop in Hlint, however they still haven't gotten the shifts down on the shop yet so it's not open a whole lot. I'd suggest you make sure you have a solid plan, make out a floor plan of what the shop will look like, you know make it a really impressive presentation, give a few reasons that you need a shop instead of just running it out of a house or selling from your character like a vender.

[freemen2]

We don't really need a guild or is it a requirement?  We've been fonctioning fairly well these past 2 months and since we'll be able to finally pop-out iron and plat weapons as well as armor and mahagony ranged weapons by the end of the month we thought a shop would be better then one of the houses *shrugs* that way we could actually have furniture other then crates in them, heh heh :p  But also we need to start storing a lot of raw supplies and we can't as long as the house is full of stuff to sell.

Fer the floor plan thought it be a square room like orcbashers' but with a smaller front part fer customers and a cut-off area where the seller and the crates will be, like a counter or something *shrugs* I honestly doubt we'll let customer open-up our crates in the shop, we don't let them at the house so don't see that changing lol.  And nope t'isn't a trust thing, t'is a:  If I'm going to loose a crate full of stuff due to CP crashing then I want it to be my CP and not a customers, thing

Fer the location we thought of Krandor since there is either room to pop in a shop (right across frem the pub) or doors with a lock on them but aren't houses fer sale and there is a Bank as well as it's safe to get to frem Hlint if ye stick to the road...at least usually heh heh

I mean I don't see how a bio fer a store is...well is...it's a store, we're not going to kill blood with marketing strategies or weekly sales, here ye know :p  We just would like to have a shop to uncluter the house in Krandor, have a place customer can go to as well as our saler and is well a store and not our house lol
Fer that when one of us is on would it be possible to give access to the same CP fer all the partners.  That way someone want's to buy something, he PMs us, we log out and back in as Bailor Bob² our dedicated sales staff person, which is always by the shop.  No more running around fer the customers or ourselves to make a sell and that way once it's done we can go back to what's serious...playing

²: Little *wink* to the server I started to learn and play NWN, on the internet, first that finds which I give them a 1k discount heh heh

[OOwitch]

i dont think you need to be a guild, but its still gonna cost you the same as a guild house to buy it.

[Leanthar]

If you plan to do it out of your house then no you do not need to be a guild.  If you plan to open a shop I would like it to be guild driven.  Why you ask?  Because I want there to be a commitment to it over a long duration.  People come and go and their desires to do things come and go.  But if a guild is behind it then things tend to last at least a little longer--though in the end they always seem to fade away--sadly.
  If I am going to put in a new building somewhere then it must be guild driven, just like it had to be for the Orc Bashers.  And it is Expensive.

[freemen2]

Heh heh we didn't figure t'would be handed to us on a silver plater L  Ok so Guild it is, dung, studying time heh heh
Well time to talk to the partners apart frem his bishopness, him being on a, hmmmm, religious retreat shall we say
Since it'll be a guild does that mean we'll be able to open up up more then one shop threw it?

[Leanthar]

Yes, but only after showing me you can run the first shop reliably (for a few months). Then we can open up more yes.

[freemen2]

K, just getting all the infos I can fer the others, ty

Oh and we absolutely have to be 5 or 4 is good enough?

[Leanthar]

At least 5 and the leader must be at least 12th level and all others must be at least 6th level.

[freemen2]

Heh heh funny how answers bring on more questions

So do these 5 founding members have to be different players or different PCs?

[Leanthar]

They can not be characters on the same accounts or played by the same player.  IE 5 RL people playing different characters is what we are looking for here.
  http://www.layonaraonline.com/player_info/guild_rules.asp

[freemen2]

Cool, thanks fer the link L.  Heh heh, the only one I missed with the forum search thing and it was only the most important lol

[Etinfall]

And you need to know, what ZV said, took alot of time. The Orc Bashers had to prove that we would be around. And ALOT of gold too. The Chamber of Çommerce is very expensive to join. Start a guild, get it going strong by selling items, then move on from there.

[freemen2]

yeah read somwhere t'was 75k to start the guild, if that hasn't changed we have the gold already, actually.  Thing is we've busted our asses, crafting, selling as well as playing and so far we've been doing a pretty good job of it lol.
Why we started thinking about the shop actually  We're talking right now about just what kind of guild it will be exactly and if we really want to go that way or not.
Thanks fer yer inputs all, keep em coming

[Etinfall]

75 to start a guild...but we also had to buy the store and pay for the location. that was much much more than the guild start up. And I think it is a rule that only one players characters can be in specific guild. Is that right? you can have different chars in different guilds but not the same guild. I might be getting that rule mixed up though.

Etin

[Etinfall]

freemen2 - 5/12/2005  11:06 AM

That way someone want's to buy something, he PMs us, we log out and back in as Bailor Bob² our dedicated sales staff person, which is always by the shop. No more running around fer the customers or ourselves to make a sell and that way once it's done we can go back to what's serious...playing  

This happens to me alot. People will pm me in game. It gets very hard not to metagame this way. If I am on Rilara and someone pm's me about something I can't just log out and and back on with a new char to sell something. I even try not to answer unless it is rp'd somehow. ie...*a racoon brings you a note* or whatever. It is pretty regular to get a message that says "hey, you have iron mail for sale? how much?". kinda knocks to rp out the window. I try not to be rude but sometimes it will be repeated till I answer. So to have a char to always hang around the shop just to pop into to sell something seems to really be metagaming. Should have to be a actual character you play that is in the guild to sell the items. That is why it is hard to get one of us at the orc bashers store, we have to go and gather our materiels and also play.

Etin

[freemen2]

Don't know about that, if one has a shop t'would be logical to have it open by a sales person rather regularly.  Why the PC accessable to all members, next to the shop.   I mean the shop is there to make gold but also give items people want or need on a regular basis.  We're all here to play and have fun, selling isn't it but it does get us gold fer better equipment and so forth.  Plus having a "Baylor Bob" type PC keeps things impersonals, honestly as much as I'm happy to help someone out by selling them something they've been wanting fer a while I do not enjoy the act itself.  Hells man one of the reasons I started going into business fer myself was because Orc-basher shop was nearly never open, when I first came to Layo lol  I mean I've had people PM me hey got X, so sure I setup a meeting and have them run right up to me and start bartering heh heh no hello, greetings or what not, even told one since he kept going on with is rudeness to not bother coming back to me I won't be selling to him any longer :s
But hey we started a business of selling things so now we have a responsibility to get PMed swamped as soon as we get on the server lol
Of course if Baylor Bob wont be possible s'ok, we find another solution

2- We figured we'd have 2 sides fer the guild, 1 selling; why the shop(s) the other whatever we come-up as non-business reasons.  Fer the business side, not everyone at first will be trusted to have the key to Shangrala, so fer those that will do the actual selling will it be possible to have access to a common guild bank account?

[Talan Va'lash]

acctually gloin is doing something like this, with a char thats always in the shop.  And it works out pretty well.  Its not metagaming, since the persumption is that that person is always in the shop.

Its not meta-gaming if you base your actions on what you know, its metagaming if you base your characters actions on what you know (and not him.)  Grabbing another character for a moment is an action of the player, not the character.

[freemen2]

How I see having a clerk ready to log in next to the shop Talan *shrugs*

[freemen2]

Ok so seeing the PC we could all have access to was never answered am thinking wont happen so we figured that each of us will open the shop fer 10-15minutes when we log-in and out when it's possible.
So we're hoping that shops will have the permission to use the shout channel, just a simple: FreeLancers shop is open and then Freelancer shop is closed, nothing else...so would that be possible?
This would also be fer the Orc Basher shop and any other guilds to inform other players that their door is open.
Also if anyone was wondering about the common bank account we were told it can't be done.