We seriously need a new shop/trading plugin.

I do think a shop plug-in is nice and handy... As for what and when, I have no clue... Maybe we could see (whenever he's on) if Puckey would like to fix his, but otherwise... Idk.

Find one or write one I guess?

I'd love to fix the current one/code a new one, but I simply have no time for it atm. :/ If Puckey doesn't pick it up, I might give it a go some time next week.

might aswell turn emeralds into valid currency.

The only kind of trading plugin we really need is one that allows you to trade stuff when the other player is offline.

We might be able to use the Villager GUI for such a mod though.

Have Karl, Blood and the lot, ever thought about using the Spout API for bukkit? GUI's could be quite handy when making plugins, and could indeed make the trade-plugin a lot easier.

Spoutcraft is a great client but conflicts with other client mods like OptiFine, ModLoader or shader mods.. and the Spout server plugin takes quite some time to update, so those features would be unavailable for longer. :/

Ah okay. Well then people will have to do with text-based plugins.

A simple solution would be to modify chests, a plugin which would only allow someone to take something out if they put X emeralds in?

A simple solution would be to modify chests, a plugin which would only allow someone to take something out if they put X emeralds in?

a plugin similar to HPG's but uses emeralds as currency
instead of X of item Y to get Z of item Q

have it X amout of emerald to get Z amout of Q

That would be very simple to make. Would need to have a failsafe though, so people can't put stuff in it, if there isn't anything left to trade for, and keep track of payment, if they pay too little.
INSPIRATION! As my internet is borked atm, I might just start a little project. Been ages since I have coded anything in Java, only been doing HTML, CSS and JavaScript lately. Could use the change.

Could people specify some requirements? Should the currency be emeralds? That would make a very slow start, as there isn't much emeralds around atm. is there?

I could add some technical requirements.
Make it a "maven" project, makes it so much easier to compile and pull dependencies.

First I'll work on getting a local copy up and running, THEN I'll worry about what the hell "maven" is.

EDIT: Aha. I know what maven is, but haven't actually used it before. As previously mentioned, my internet is really borked, so I'm being forced to using my mother's work-connection, until I move to my new apartment, and it's really restricted when it comes to TCP connections, so it probably wouldn't work.

Its not what you think it is (not a SCM), its for managing java library dependencies.
You could for example add a "bukkit version X.Y.Z" dependency and it will automatically download the right jar from the bukkit site (if you use the bukkit repo) and put it in the right directory. No fuss with classpaths and the likes.

Oh! Then I admit I had no idea.
Sounds great. I'll have to pull your sleeve later on about that.

I'm totally hijacking this thread, and I'm not even sorry!
Since we're using chests, it's easy to make many different trades in one chest, but should everything be strictly 1-to-1 trading? (i.e. one block-type for X minerals) In that case, it could all be based off a simple vertical layout.
Since there's 3 rows, it could be something like: Top cell = Wanting/Selling, Middle = Enum to define selling/buying for that row, Bottom = Cost. Either that, or simply have it anything on top, is traded for the thing on the bottom.
Problems with this: Where to store excess stuff to sell/emeralds? So I would perhaps limit it to 2-3 different trades per chest. What do you think?
Also, a substitute for emerald should be found, when defining price, as not everyone will have emerald to start out with, so they wouldn't be able to define their price without it.

Should the currency be emeralds? That would make a very slow start, as there isn't much emeralds around atm. is there?

Do we really want to use only emeralds? If I recall correctly, emeralds are even more rare than diamonds, which means one may receive more of an item than they wished to buy or isn't able to buy the near-exact amount they want.

Although emerald does make a good currency, might it be worth it to throw the other valuable ores in there?

Emerald>Diamond>Gold>Iron>Gold Nuggets

- or any of the above.

Come on now people, do we really want currency? Now I think it will work if we prevent admins or moderators from cloning Emeralds, but I and others will find it useless if we can't trade useful stuff for useful stuff.

Say I'm in need of sticky pistons, an Enderchest, and/or 43 blocks of obsidain. I create three trading s and offer 3 diamonds for every sticky piston (and I only want 6), offer a diamond block for an Enderchest, and 9 gold blocks for the 43 blocks of Obsidain. That would be useful.

The way I will probably end up making it, will support any type of trade, as long as it's 1-to-1. If the person wants to use emeralds, then they can go ahead and do that.
The only problem as I see it, is to "define" trades without having to leave the blocks you want, in the chest, (So if you wanted pistons, you would have to leave a piston for the plugin to know, that that is what you want to recieve), but then again, that might make things a bit more interesting, as it would make shops a bit more "expensive" to make, which I don't think sound like a bad idea.

EDIT: Also I have decided to make chests hold 1 trade each. I was going for either 2-3 in the beginning, but I think it makes it confusing that some chests have more trades. Then it's easier both for me, when I'm coding it, and for the players, to make sense of what is being traded.

Should the currency be emeralds? That would make a very slow start, as there isn't much emeralds around atm. is there?

Do we really want to use only emeralds? If I recall correctly, emeralds are even more rare than diamonds, which means one may receive more of an item than they wished to buy or isn't able to buy the near-exact amount they want.

Although emerald does make a good currency, might it be worth it to throw the other valuable ores in there?

Emerald>Diamond>Gold>Iron>Gold Nuggets

- or any of the above.

keep in mind that NPC villagers can trade emeralds for items.

like Iron Pick for 2 Emeralds

on a sidenote , i was going to open a NPC shop at new-new-newspawn
it basically has different npcs , caged in a shop windows where you can trade stuff.