We have a simple Economy plugin that allows user to maintain virtual currency that they can spend amongst themselves. The plugin itself has many features, but we are only using a small portion of them. These are as follows:
/econ - Will show you your current balance
/pay USER AMOUNT - Will give USER the given AMOUNT of your money
This money is also usable in the Marketplace.
The Marketplace is a location for the users to buy and sell good without having to actually be online at the same time. Whether these goods are finished products, (such as armor, swords, and cake,) or raw materials, (redstone dust, iron ore, and sand,) they can be bought and sold automatically in our marketplace.
The Marketplace is located near the Spawn point, and can be accessed by warping to the Spawn point, and then taking the rail line to the Marketplace. Within the Marketplace, you will see a large array of chests.
First off, in order to get money easily, you can sell items to the server. This works the same as selling to a chest-shop, (see below,) simply without the chest. The server-store is located at the center of the marketplace, and is simply several signs along the walls, used in the same way that the chest shops are used below. The items sold to the server, however, are the only way to create more money within the game, and any items sold to the server are gone forever.
In order to buy or sell to an established shop, simply right-click on the appropriate sign, (for either buy or sell,) and you will be asked if you are sure you wish to continue, and will have a chance to review the details of the transaction. Right-clicking the sign again will finish the transaction; the appropriate money will be added or removed from your account, and the appropriate items will be added or removed from your inventory. Its as simple as that.
If you wish to buy or sell items with your own chest shop, setup is fairly simple. Choose an unclaimed chest, and first off lock it to yourself with Lockette. To do this, simply right-click on the short side of the chest with a sign. This will lock it so that only you can access it. After it is locked, stock it with the product that you wish to sell and/or buy.
Next, place a sign in one of the two blocks in front of the chest, and put your sales, (or purchasing,) pitch on that sign. The sign text does not have to say anything specific, but please be sure it includes the relevant information, such as the item you are buying/selling, the amount you wish to buy and/or sell, and the price per unit. For instance, if you wish to sell Iron Ingots at 10 coins per 2 ingots, make sure the sign says something along the lines of "Buy 2 Iron Ingots for 10 coins."
Once this sign has been placed, you should get a message that says "Sign has attachable. Type /shop for help." At this point, you can type /shop to get the command syntax to create your shop, or just follow this guide.
The command syntax is "/shop new [buy:sell] [amount] [item] [price]"
As an example, to sell 2 Iron Ingots at 10 coins, you would type:
/shop new buy 2 iron_ingot 10
If you wanted to buy Iron ingots from people with your chest shop, you would type:
/shop new sell 2 iron_ingot 10
If the easy name for an item does not work, (for instance, if "iron_ingot" wasn't working correctly,) you can also use the data value from the item. These can be found at http://www.minecraftwiki.net/wiki/Data_values This is the most common problem encountered when attempting to setup a chest shop. So if you're having issues, check your spelling and make sure the command syntax is correct, and then try using the items data value instead.
Here are some pictures of an established chest shop. Notice that there are two signs on the front. One can be clicked to buy items from the shop, and the other can be clicked to sell items to the shop. Also notice the locking sign on the side of the chest, in order to keep people from stealing items from inside it.
The Buy/Sell option does look backwards, but keep in mind that the command is designed around what the customer will be doing, not the person setting up the shop. This is why a shop that SELLS iron ingots uses the BUY command; because the customer will be BUYING the iron ingots.
Money and items are automatically transferred from player to chest and vice versa. If you are running a shop, money will be automatically added to or deducted from your account according to the transactions that occur in your chest shops, regardless of whether you are logged in or not. Please be careful leaving chests that buy items from players, because you have no way of stopping people from selling you as many of that item as they want, and they could legally take all of your money that way.
This seems really complicated, but it's not that bad once you get down to it and open a practice shop or two. Just remember to LOCK the chests that you use, otherwise people can simply come up and take the items they want without paying.
