Achaea Help Files


3.7.2 The Market Channel


The market channel is a venue for sellers to quickly find buyers and vice
versa. If you have something to sell or need to buy something in a hurry, this
is the channel to use!

Command         What it does
MARKETON      - turns the market channel on.
MARKETOFF     - turns the market channel off.
MARKET <text> - sends your message to the market channel. At a cost of 50gp 
                per message.

The Basic Idea
Market use should be:
- explicit buying or selling, and
- legitimate goods and services only.

 1 Explicit:
   Make it clear you are buying something, or selling. Use words
   like 'buying' or 'paying for' or 'offering gold for' or something
   equally explicit for buying; for selling, use words like 'selling'
   or 'offering for sale' or other equally explicit terms.

 2 Valid:
   Whatever you are offering to buy, or offering to sell, it should
   exist and be reasonable to buy or sell it. It can be an item (like
   a bomb or sword) or a service (like resurrection, or a hunting partner).

Marketeer License
For those frequent users of the market channel that do not wish to have the
inconvenience of getting 50 gold from your pack every time there is an
alternative. For sale at the Master Shopkeepers office in Delos you can
purchase a Marketeer License for 20k gold. With this license all market tells
will not cost you anything additional. 

     WARNING: If you violate the below rules and your privileges to use the
              market channel are revoked you will lose your Marketeer License 
              with no refund.

Market messages have a limit of 120 characters. You may only send one
message at a time. If you find this limit to be too restrictive, place
an advertisement (see HELP ADS).

The market channel is not a social channel (*: see note at end). It is strictly
for buying and selling of legitimate goods and services. You may also mention
public events such as festivals and tournaments which are accessible to a
substantial portion of Achaea's adventurers.

Borrowing or Lending are Forbidden:
- Asking to borrow or lend just about anything (esp. gold or credits).
  Yes, that includes renting, using, temporarily transferring, or
  any other arrangement which has similar results to borrowing or lending.

Also Not Allowed:
- Counter-offers (e.g. "Paying more not to have so-and-so rezzed.").
- Responding to someone else's ad (use tells instead: see HELP TELLS).
- Trying to buy/sell for others. Example: (Market) blah says, "Buttinsky
  needs goldenseal! Send tells." - Let Buttinsky do his own marketing.
- Criticising or vouching for another person's products or services.
- Mocking another person using "valid" market offers.
- Market as free service - just asking for information, or the
  whereabouts of a person, or contact with an order or clan.
- Buying or selling persons or people, or offering for sale, lease,
  renting, loan, temporary or permanent use, etc. Services is fine,
  but you'd better be painfully clear that this is services, not a
  person, and painfully and explicitly clear _every_ time you mention
  the services being offered. (See also HELP SELLING, because this
  sort of transaction shouldn't happen at all).
- Asking for a resurrection, unless you CLEARLY offer to pay.
- Anything that would violate HELP LANGUAGE RULES.
- Anything that would violate HELP OOC (you may also lose credibility: 
- Blatantly ridiculous offers (e.g., asking to buy credits for 1 gold).
- Tacking a valid offer on the back of any of the above. Example:
  (Market) blah says, "He is lying! Don't believe him. Selling elm."
- Using a market ad to insult others. Example:
  (Market) blah says, "Don't be an idiot like X, buy my goldenseal."
- NO accepting contracts for a specific person or specific 
- Reminding others of the rules, unless you are an admin or immortal
  HELP META MONITORS for further explanation).
- 'Selling information' but giving it away in the same message.
  For example: "Selling the info that so-and-so is in city x."
- Anything else that is not clearly buying or selling legitimate
  goods or services. (**)

Since it is one of the few worldwide channels, the market channel is closely
monitored for abuse. If you send a message that violates the above guidelines,
you may lose the ability to send market messages for a time.

Typically, the first offence will result in the loss of market privileges for
one Achaean month, with each additional offence adding more and more time. If
you violate the rules often enough, or the offences are great, it is possible
for you to lose your market privileges permanently.

Who can Use Market?
Anybody level 11 or over may use the market channel, unless that person has had
his privileges revoked.

Other Restrictions
A delay of a few seconds is required between uses of the channel.

* Other channels that may fulfill your socialising needs: city, house,
  clan, oakstone, or order, plus yell, say, shout, and tell.

** This may be also called the 'general principle'.