100k Reached! Next Stretch Goal: Traveling Vendors

We reached a large milestone today while crossing into the six figure range in our ongoing Kickstarter Campaign. With that milestone we reached a stretch goal that will bring Cooperative Structure Placement into the game. Decorators and city builders should enjoy this feature, which is documented in our most recent update.

It also means that all backers with Closed Beta Round 2 or earlier access will receive the opportunity to invite one of their friends into Closed Beta Round 3. The invited player will also gain access to one preview weekend of access at some point during during Closed Beta Round 2. This was our way of saying thanks to our backers for all their support.

Our sights are now set on our $115k stretch goal: Traveling Vendors, which has been one of our most requested features. This goal allows players to mark themselves as a vendor at any time. They can do this from anywhere in the world, even when out adventuring. While this flag is enabled other players will be able to interact with them to browse and purchase goods which they have marked for sale, without any player interaction necessary.

It doesn’t end there though. Your goods will also appear in the auction system. Players can elect to purchase your goods automatically through this system, provided they are willing to pay the shipping fee. Or they can elect to travel to purchase the items from you in person, avoiding the auction fee.

If you wish to sell items while you are sleeping or AFK, you will be able to flag yourself as an AFK Vendor. This will cause an icon to appear over your head, denoting to other players that you are open for business. This is an easy way to attract the attention of others if you are in a crowded location, such as a city. It will also allow players to gain a tracking arrow to your location if they found one of your goods in the auction system, and would like to find you to avoid the auction fee.

Player Created Cities will be able to specify which players are allowed to create traveling vendors within their cities, and be able to collect an optional tax on any item sold in their city. For example, you could only allow your nation’s members to place these vendors to avoid crowding, or to disallow them entirely, if you so wish. You could also aim to create a bustling trade market, by allowing any allied player or any non-hostile player to set up shop in the city. NPC controlled cities will apply a flat fee for goods sold to avoid overcrowding in cities. But you will be able to set up vendors for free in PvE Housing Areas.

Needless to say we’re pretty excited about this feature. We hope that it will provide PvE only players with an opportunity to create their own vendors and shops, without forcing them to brave contested territories. We also envision the taxation options in Player Created Cities to create an interesting market dynamic, which allows towns to differentiate themselves from one another.