There's no mention of signs in the initial EP list Caspian compiled many months ago, but I think it will be safe to assume signs will exist, at a minimum, for your storefront. Those buildings will probably come with signage but I like the billboard idea.

Posted By Hieronymus at 09:40 AM - Tue Mar 13 2018

There's no mention of signs in the initial EP list Caspian compiled many months ago, but I think it will be safe to assume signs will exist, at a minimum, for your storefront. Those buildings will probably come with signage but I like the billboard idea.

It would be a neat little addition. But I stress small designated areas to the roadsides aren't absolutely letter in them.

Perhaps put a limit on the time you can rent a sign, or make the price to rent it a bit higher to counter advertisement hoarding?

Well, if everything fails, the settlement can still serve as a mean for advertisement.

If your shop is shown on the settlement map held by visitors, sure your business will be visited more often. The question would then become how will those maps be distributed 0.0

Another way is through, kingdom / settlement website. I guess this will take away immersion, but it can hardly be kept out.

How about drawing and distributing fliers? There will need to be something for scribes do to in the game besides writing contracts...

Billboards are fine but maybe more of a community directory type thing, could imagine a town posting a listing of businesses and services available, maybe even charging a premium for a prominent position on the board...

You can certainly also advertise outside the game, like on these forums and kingdom websites/wikis. Eventually, I think SBS plans to actually give us better tools in this regard.

Fliers is a good idea. So is a town guide sign, like what they have in malls showing business locations ( if the player doesn't have access to a personal map.)

Posted By Nino76 at 09:16 AM - Tue Mar 13 2018

Fliers is a good idea. So is a town guide sign, like what they have in malls showing business locations ( if the player doesn't have access to a personal map.)

Now that you mention it, players will be making maps and things which would normally cost money, but it would be better for the town to have their maps freely available. Could incorporate some advertisements, like when you go to the county fair and get the map of what's there, and the food trucks and local businesses have an ad on the corner of the page, get something useful and get the word out at the same time.

I'm sure taverns will have boards that you can post ads on being that they are meant to be social spaces. You could get pay a bard to drop your company name before a song lol .if someone makes a newspaper submit an ad.

Since we'll have cartographers maybe they can make merchants maps with the location of businesses.

Posted By Dekul at 10:35 AM - Tue Mar 13 2018

Posted By Nino76 at 09:16 AM - Tue Mar 13 2018

Fliers is a good idea. So is a town guide sign, like what they have in malls showing business locations ( if the player doesn't have access to a personal map.)

Now that you mention it, players will be making maps and things which would normally cost money, but it would be better for the town to have their maps freely available. Could incorporate some advertisements, like when you go to the county fair and get the map of what's there, and the food trucks and local businesses have an ad on the corner of the page, get something useful and get the word out at the same time.

I'm imaging town fairs would even allow for merchants from all over Elyria to come with their wares in wagons and setup. Rent a space at the fair to vend.

I believe you will have plenty of customers in the early game. Horses will be needed and since nobody except for you in your town or barony will breed them, you can sell people new horses over and over and over again. Since horses grow old and die as well.

Posted By Galliad at 11:19 AM - Tue Mar 13 2018

I believe you will have plenty of customers in the early game. Horses will be needed and since nobody except for you in your town or barony will breed them, you can sell people new horses over and over and over again. Since horses grow old and die as well.

Yeah. Well we all know that to be the case for the start. I'm talking 6 months to a year down the road after launch maybe.

I'm imaging town fairs would even allow for merchants from all over Elyria to come with their wares in wagons and setup. Rent a space at the fair to vend.

Nice idea. Maybe the wagon will come with its own "merchant table" that you can setup to sell items via your OPC.

Though I can’t find a good citation, it’s been eatablisbed that fliers and such will be able to spread the word of your business, and not just to players either. We know information is a tradable commodity in CoE, so it wouldn’t be a stretch to think it’s possible to make signs or postings to actually give real direction to your business.

But what an interesting idea, having town fairs to promote local businesses. I’d be willing to bet you could make a big event out of it.

Posted By En at 3:14 PM - Tue Mar 13 2018

But what an interesting idea, having town fairs to promote local businesses. I’d be willing to bet you could make a big event out of it.

Thanks! Think of all the things that could also come with such events. Examples....

1. The sheer number of businesses and events that could be held at such fairs. Including some hosted by the Dev team are possible!

2. Networking between merchants.

3. Bandits and thieves could have fun trying to pick off merchant wagons enroute to such fairs. Would make them reading fliers and the such worth wild.

4. Feeding off of #3.... Mercenaries and/or guards needed to escort merchant caravans to and from such fairs for protection. Could end up having epic battles.

The list could go on.

as with many businesses in r/l the success of most enterprises is going to be based upon a varying amount of factors that will include, but not be solely limited to:

*location

*quality of product

*price

*reputation

*supply and demand of similar products in the general area the business has influence over

*personality of the vendor