[Kraetos]

Okay, I think there's an important part of this which I haven't made clear. (And for the record, I'm not arguing for a "closed" economy.) An important part of this economy is a centralized store where you buy goods. When you get a slimeball grant from Brad, you don't go back to Brad for whatever you need, you go to the store.

If your grant is big enough then yes, take it directly. But what if it's "I'm going to need some colored dyes and I don't yet know how much or what colors?" Or, "I need a splash of glowstone here." Then the slimeball store comes in handy since you can go pick up a small amount of dye without hassling Brad/turtle.

I don't care about simulating an economy. I don't care if some players decide to "make a living" off selling goods instead of mining themselves. I would most certainly sell lapis and diamond tools in Bridgeport because I have a small surplus (very small diamond surplus, decent sized lapis surplus... my mine is HUGE) and everyone wants them. In turn I'd want to buy black ink from the store, or, other players. I just think there should be a dye/rare ore/nether material shop in the center of town, and I also want individual players to have stores to efficiently deal with our surpluses.

I actually like mining. It's monotonous and repetitive but I like exploring underground and building big cave networks. So I have a good deal of valuable ores and no way to unload them. I suppose I could just stand on the skyway in Bridgeport and make it rain, but I'd rather trade/sell them for things I need.

Example: through this thread I've learned that robo has lots of wool. I have lots of lapis. He needed lapis for his project but he got it from Brad. He could have "bought" it from me and in turn I would have been able to "buy" wool from his store. This is an improvement for 2 reasons:

1) If everyone has a store, everyone else can check other player's stores for stuff they need.
2) If everyone has a store, and we use slimeball currencies, transactions can occur between players even if one of the players is logged off.

This is all heavily reliant on the honor system, but except for the Great Sword Heist, we haven't had any problems, and even that might have been a bug. You guys are clearly thinking about this in more detail than I am, and whether or not that's good or bad, I'm not sure. Robo raises some excellent points about potential snags.

But in my mind, this reduces the amount of effort Brad has to put in. Maybe I'm wrong but I think that the presence of a store would limit the amount of material requests. He'll have to keep the store stocked, as well as put slimeballs into the economy as he sees fit. But once that's in place I don't have to pester him for glowstone or whatever.

Honestly, I just want shops and casinos. We need money to make that happen. That's what this is about, not limiting admin magic or simulating an economy. If we end up doing both in the process, then it's just an added bonus.