Opinions for a new mod: What kind of businesses would you like to mana

[littleork]

Hey all

 

I am currently on a small break from modding my Jobs of Skyrim project while it is being tested so I figured I would start doing some ground work for my next project that will add some businesses for you to buy into the game. My questions for people who like that kind of mods is: What business would you like to buy and manage?

 

This is a few things that I wanted to integrate in the mod, the example here is a forge.

 

You will be able to buy it for let say 30 000 gold and you will also need a specific blacksmith skill level( obviously some business won't have that but an alchemy,enchanting shops could use that).

 

You will possibly start with the strict minimum, here it would be only the anvil/forge.Then you will be able to hire a manager that will allow you to buy a grindstone,tanning rack,smelter etc and will also offer you special quests from customers.

 

You will be able to hire an armorsmith, weaponsmith and arcanesmith that will do those jobs for you if they aren't busy(jobs that they can do will depend of what they are specialized in), otherwise you might have to do them yourself.

 

As you buy more features for your business, you might get more gold in you profit chest that will probably start with a small profit of 100-300 gold/day.

 

Another thing I would like to integrate is the possibility to do deals with some merchant to have low prices on ingots,ores and other objects you might need to do those jobs.

 

 

 

Those are a few feature that I thought of integrating, of course they will be different depending of the business.

 

ideas that I received or found so far are those:

 

-farm

-blacksmith forge

-alchemy shop

-lumbermill

-caravan

-brewery

-Inn

-enchanting shop

-merchant shop

-jewelcrating shop

-smuggling ring

 

(Thank to everybody who gave those ideas)

-Fisheries

-Bakeries

-Mines/quarries

-Mints

-Wheelwrights/boatwrights/carpentry shops

-Stables

-Barbershops

-Tailors

-brothel

-Skooma den

-newspaper

-Library

-Export/import business (shipping ?)

-Archeologist company

 

 

But again, what would you like to see? I am probably going to make them all as stand alone to avoid filling skyrim with multiple building for people who don't want them.

Edited September 23, 2012 by littleork

[JanusForbeare]

Hm, an interesting idea, and too tempting to pass up.

 

Off the top off my head:

 

-Fisheries

-Bakeries

-Mines/quarries

-Mints (political affiliation would be important here)

-Wheelwrights/boatwrights/carpentry shops (where the heck do all those carriages come from?)

-Stables

-Barbershops

-Tailors

 

Also, I have a few thoughts on features that would be nice to see in a mod like this:

 

-Competition: Most of the businesses mentioned so far have competitors in vanilla Skyrim - the most obvious example being the breweries (I can't see Maven being too pleased about a new meadery threatening her monopoly). It would be nice to see the personalities and abilities of your competitors being taken into account when expanding a business - particularly as you begin to become successful.

 

-Customer loyalty: In certain lines of work, you would expect a lot of repeat customers (bakeries, for example). It would be nice to have to work to build and maintain customer loyalty.

 

-Permanency: If you sell a boat or a pair of pants (for example), the objects sold should ideally appear on or near the property of the customer. It would be a shame of the impact of your business didn't expand beyond your own four walls.

 

-Costs: While I can appreciate that the end goal of the mod is to make money, Skyrim is sorely lacking in gold sinks as it is. To counterbalance the increased income, I'd like to see regular and irregular/unanticipated costs of doing business. A few simple ideas are tax collectors, "protection" money (Skyrim is the new Italy!), tool and building maintenance, and of course employee salaries.

[littleork]

Hm, an interesting idea, and too tempting to pass up.

 

Off the top off my head:

 

-Fisheries

-Bakeries

-Mines/quarries

-Mints (political affiliation would be important here)

-Wheelwrights/boatwrights/carpentry shops (where the heck do all those carriages come from?)

-Stables

-Barbershops

-Tailors

 

Also, I have a few thoughts on features that would be nice to see in a mod like this:

 

-Competition: Most of the businesses mentioned so far have competitors in vanilla Skyrim - the most obvious example being the breweries (I can't see Maven being too pleased about a new meadery threatening her monopoly). It would be nice to see the personalities and abilities of your competitors being taken into account when expanding a business - particularly as you begin to become successful.

 

-Customer loyalty: In certain lines of work, you would expect a lot of repeat customers (bakeries, for example). It would be nice to have to work to build and maintain customer loyalty.

 

-Permanency: If you sell a boat or a pair of pants (for example), the objects sold should ideally appear on or near the property of the customer. It would be a shame of the impact of your business didn't expand beyond your own four walls.

 

-Costs: While I can appreciate that the end goal of the mod is to make money, Skyrim is sorely lacking in gold sinks as it is. To counterbalance the increased income, I'd like to see regular and irregular/unanticipated costs of doing business. A few simple ideas are tax collectors, "protection" money (Skyrim is the new Italy!), tool and building maintenance, and of course employee salaries.

 

I like those ideas. There is a few points I would like to bring about the features you talked about.

 

Competition: Definitely like this, while you could team up with some of your competitor so they make some money off of you by selling you stocks, adding some kind of tension between you and a few of your competitor could be a nice addition to it.

 

Customer loyalty: Not quite sure how I could expand on this unless I try to make the jobs specific to a certain number of npcs instead of random ones, but I am still not a super experienced modder so with time I might find a way to integrate something like this.

 

Permanency: I will consider that for sure,it might clutter the game a little bit too much after a while though since I would like to make those tasks infinite, there must be a way to make it at least so the last couple of customer keep their product in view.

 

-Costs:This has been the main reason why I wanted to put high prices on everything and lower rewards (my current project: Jobs of Skyrim pay you really small amount of gold instead of the usual 500 gold that you sometime get by doing nothing). The starting price of those business might actually be a lot higher, i am thinking possibly in the 60 000 gold. Salary could change depending of who ended up doing the task, if it is your apprentice, then part of the profit should go to him instead of you. I could also do something that after a while, your grindstone can disappear because it got too old and needs repair and you need to pay a certain amount to get it back. I am not going to make the tools you need cheap, I know that a lot of people like stuff for free but I want the player to feel like they have to work hard for what they get and be ready to pay the price so getting any business and the money attach to it will require some effort from the player.

 

 

 

I want these businesses to be expanded a lot so it can be fun and immersive, I am far from being able to do all those features right now but I have a few years ahead of me to do them so I will take my time.

Edited September 18, 2012 by littleork

[AnkhAscendant]

Brothel :P

 

Seriously though, I'm liking what I've seen from you and Janus. I don't know how you're going to do an inn, but I'm very interested in seeing.

 

What about a general store? It wouldn't be quite The same as the others, since you wouldn't have as much to buy, just a building and maybe some expansions, but I think it would be very nice to be able to actively sell the junk you collect adventuring. You could still have special requests, but you'd actually have to go find them or buy them from somewhere else (like a merchant ^^ )

 

Instead of a manager who appears after you buy you business, would it be possible to use the Jarl's steward or a new (named) NPC who lives in the palace, as a sort of financial manager for the city or hold? They could handle the store leases and equipment sales, collect taxes, and deliver special requests for all of the businesses in the city. I think that seems more realistic than Magical Appearing Housecarl Syndrome.

[assterixxx]

This sounds to good to be true! Been peeking in on your other project page too - can't wait to play!

 

I would love to be the owner of that skooma den from Dawnguard - or mayby another rivaling one...

And where are all the shops getting there merchandise from? Maybe some sort of delivery service?

I like all the ideas Janus threw around. If you can build I will definitely play it!

Edited September 19, 2012 by assterixxx

[littleork]

Brothel :P

 

Seriously though, I'm liking what I've seen from you and Janus. I don't know how you're going to do an inn, but I'm very interested in seeing.

 

What about a general store? It wouldn't be quite The same as the others, since you wouldn't have as much to buy, just a building and maybe some expansions, but I think it would be very nice to be able to actively sell the junk you collect adventuring. You could still have special requests, but you'd actually have to go find them or buy them from somewhere else (like a merchant ^^ )

 

Instead of a manager who appears after you buy you business, would it be possible to use the Jarl's steward or a new (named) NPC who lives in the palace, as a sort of financial manager for the city or hold? They could handle the store leases and equipment sales, collect taxes, and deliver special requests for all of the businesses in the city. I think that seems more realistic than Magical Appearing Housecarl Syndrome.

 

The inn will probably be more a managing thing than doing jobs for a customer I think, you will have to hire a bard, a cleaning person,a bartender. You will have to make sure that the beds, table, chair are in good shape and make sure to order food, meads from the local farmer and meadery etc. I will do a general store, that's for sure, The way you are describing it is the way I would probably do it, you will probably only have 1 assistant and you will probably also have a stall in the city that you are the closest to.For the manager thing, the original idea was to hire the person who sells you the business, while he might have sell it for you, it doesn't mean that he doesn't want to work in the field anymore, he just wants less responsabilities. I might do a brothel who knows, they are all gonna be uploaded as separate file so I will just flag that one as adult :).

 

This sounds to good to be true! Been peeking in on your other project page too - can't wait to play!

 

I would love to be the owner of that skooma den from Dawnguard - or mayby another rivaling one...

And where are all the shops getting there merchandise from? Maybe some sort of delivery service?

I like all the ideas Janus threw around. If you can build I will definitely play it!

I haven't play dawnguard yet but a skooma den? That's pretty awesome :D, I will do something like that!

 

For the merchandise, well a delivery service could work, or at some point, you could hire your own merchant who would sell you some good or just the first idea where you get deals from someone in the city, then you would need to pick it up yourself. I might give options to the player on what to do.

 

I will definitely build that mod, I will do one business at a time so I will just do as many as I can.Some parts will be hard to do but that's what the tutorials and forums are for :).

 

 

Edit:Added all the ideas to the main post, I will probably do 15 businesses, then I will probably be move to the gambling dens but it will all depend of what users think of the mods I release.

Edited September 19, 2012 by littleork

[NoAardvarksAllowed]

Sounds like a cool project indeed. I'd like to see the whole supply chain implemented, from extracting the base materials to selling the finished consumer products.

 

To get the base materials for production, you'd have to buy it from the mines, farms, hunters, loggers, fishermen, etc of Skyrim, and then later, as you become more successful, you' actually buy your own mines, farms, fishing boats and so on. And then pay and manage the workmen.

 

Then you need to transport the materials to the production center. Either hire the carriage drivers or get your own ships, caravans of pack horses or wagons.

 

The workshop, where the goods are produced, can grow from a simple anvil or tanning rack, to a fully fledged water wheel powered factory, with tons of workers.

 

The finished goods need to be sold. This can be either to the merchants of Skyrim, or through your own outlets with shops and vendors. These also can be developed from simple hawkers who pander their goods in the streets, to market stalls and, eventually, your own shops. And of course the goods need to be transported if not sold where they are produced, so now you need more hauling services.

 

Furthermore, ways of marketing your superior wares can be added, like criers who let everyone know just how good they are, or maybe you have ad pamphlets written and distributed. It's also good to get the celebrities of Skyrim to use and endorse your wares (kind of like how those snotty elves in Solitude want you to wear one of their outfits when talking to the jarl).

 

I know there are mods that change the economy of Skyrim, but I'm not sure if they tackle stuff like supply and demand. Which I would deem essential for a true business mod. The rarer and pricier the good, the smaller the market would be for it, and vice versa. And the more goods that are dumped in a market, the lower the price would get. Which may be bad for the profit margin, but good at undercutting competition and taking market shares. Getting a local monopoly, one way or another, is always nice.

 

Then you can put all kinds of other things in the mod to spice it up. Of course all transports need guards against bandits. Of course your warehouses can burn down (hello, dragons), and you might also be able to hire arsonists to burn competitors' shops. And yes, you can use both the Thieves Guild and Dark Brotherhood to strike at your rivals. Or why not get those Blood Horker pirates to attack the East Empire Company's ships. And the more successful the player gets as a merchant, and the uglier methods that s/he uses, the more likely other businessmen are to resort to extreme measures to strike back. Moreover, soon all the crooks, both high and low, will start asking (not very nicely) for protection money (rulers call it tax), to avoid unfortunate 'accidents'.

 

I realize that it's a lot easier coming up with ideas than implementing them, but I guess it's always better to have too many ideas than too few.

[lolozori]

Slavery> being able to capture slaves and sell them after in solitude market

 

Cheese maker>because skyrim cheese look delicious

[DreamKingMods]

Variations on a theme of books and printing:

 

1) A library. Convince a Jarl to support a library in their city, find a building, fix it up, acquire the books, hire staff, deal with various problems (rats! fire! censorship!), etc.

 

2) A newspaper. I miss the Black Horse Courier from Oblivion. Again, you'd need to choose a location, and buy/find equipment (printing press) and supplies (blank paper, ink). Then it's a matter of talking to people like innkeepers to get them to carry the newspaper, finding stories to report, making sure the papers get delivered, managing expenses vs. circulation, choosing sides on some stories like the Civil War and managing the political fallout from that, etc.

 

or

 

3) A general import/export business. What is selling well, where? Make shrewd deals, make sure your werehouse has full utilization and good turnover, send your goods by land or sea, handle lost cargo, hire guards, etc.

Edited September 20, 2012 by DreamKingMods

[AnkhAscendant]

Slavery> being able to capture slaves and sell them after in solitude market

 

Yes.

 

But that might be a bit outside this scope with all hte new mechanics it would need, and I think there's at least one team already working on a hardcore slavery mod.

 

Cheese maker>because skyrim cheese look delicious

 

Cheese is awfully specific.. A chef would be more like it (and awesome, because I love to cook in-game), but that's more a job, not a business. So instead of chef, maybe a catering business? You have a home base and you get courier messages of people hiring you to come cater in X location on Y day (with a list of requested recipes, so that you can gather the appropriate materials beforehand, and an option to accept or decline), and you show up, with your supplies, and do the cooking they requested... If you don't do it, you don't get paid; if you don't do it to their satisfaction you don't get paid as much; if you satisfy them, you get paid the agreed-upon amount; if you fulfill special requirements you get paid and a bonus. :) It would also be nice if you had a repute that rose or fell with your completed jobs, and the better your reputation the further and more prestigious jobs you could get. If you get really successful you can hire assistants. Et cetera.

 

I know, that's a whole lot of work. ^^; Just an idea.