JCShops Update | Veterancraft Dedicated Server | Forum

The newest version of JCShops will no longer allow an owner to set an item's buy price that is higher than its sell price; or a sell price that is lower than its buy price. This check will only be performed when prices are set (/shop set buy|sell ...). It is the owner's responsibility to ensure that currently configured item prices do not offer unfair advantages to their customers.

Prior to this update it was possible for shop owners to set buy prices that were higher than sell prices. Obviously, this is not a good thing, because it allows an enterprising individual to sell items to a shop only to buy them back at a lower price resulting in a negative profit (i.e. loss) for the owner. This sell/buy cycle can be repeated many times until the owner's balance drops below the shop's minimum balance (/shop set minbalance <amt>); and, in the worst case, if no minimum balance is set, the owner risks being bankrupted.

JCShops has two commands to protect owners from such problems, listed below verbatim from JCShops/Localshop user's guide:

• /set max <item name> <max amount> - Used to set a maximum stock limit for a specified item. Note that the owner of the shop will still be able to add items above the maximum stock level, but the shop will not buy items from players if the current stock level is higher than the maximum specified amount.
• /set minbalance <amt> - Sets a shops minimum balance that must remain in the account at all times. Helps prevent players from selling to a shop and completely bankrupting the owner.

Offering to buy items and not using these commands to protect oneself, is just a recipe for disaster. If you happen to be one of the individuals that learn this lesson the hard way, there is nothing that can be done. You set the prices and JCShops blindly and diligently offered your items to the public. It not a bug, its not a cheat, its just pilot error.

For those of you that took excessive advantage of such price imbalances, kudos to you for being unscrupulous capitalists; but time will tell whether that was a good move, or not.