The Bazaar

The Bazaar is a safe square set aside for trade between players, holding seventy stalls for rent.

The rules of the square

The area is safe: nobody can attack anybody, nobody can snoop through a pack, and nothing can be built. The square is entirely without magic — that covers recall, gate, teleport and the buffs you cast on yourself as much as it covers attack spells.

You come and go by moongate. A gate is an item rather than a spell, so the square's ban does not touch it. Bankers stand inside the square, because takings go to the bank.

Rent

Each stall has a sign, and everything is done from the window that opens when you double-click it. The colour of the sign tells you the state: green free, blue rented, yellow last day.

Renewing early costs you nothing; what you pay is added to the time you have left.

The last-day warning

A day before your time runs out the sign turns yellow, and you are told if you are online. When it truly runs out your goods and your takings drop into your bank in a single bag, and the stall is free again at once.

Nothing is ever deleted. Double-click the bag in your bank and it empties itself into your bank box and disappears.

Stalls used to sit suspended for a week after expiry. That way failed twice over: the stall looked occupied and could not be rented by anyone, and the owner only learned their time was up after it had passed.

The vendor and selling

When you take a stall you are given a vendor. You dress them, name them and choose their looks; who they work for is written above their head.

Put what you want to sell on their display and set a price. Goods without a price are not for sale. Stacked goods are priced per unit; the buyer takes as many as they want and sees the total before confirming.

Anything you take off the display comes off sale and needs a new price. Moving it about within the display leaves the price alone.

The market's share

Money from sales collects in the stall's till. Five percent is taken when you withdraw it. The rate is the same wherever you withdraw from: from the panel, when you give the stall up, or when your time runs out and the money goes to the bank.

What changed from the old market

The old market sold a fifteen-minute pass for twenty thousand gold, and threw you somewhere random when it expired. On top of that it took a thousand gold from your pack every two minutes, so even browsing cost money. All of that is gone; today only the player holding a stall pays anything.