The Mall of Loathing
The Mall of Loathing is where items may be be sold for meat in player-owned stores.
Entering the Mall
A player may enter The Mall to search for items once he or she reaches Level 5. When entering The Mall for the first time, the list of stores displayed is merely the list of stores with the highest advertising budgets (see below.) As a player becomes more familiar with The Mall, or gains more friends in the Kingdom, that player can then add specific stores to a list of favorites. Any favorites that are defined will then appear at the top of the list when entering The Mall (again, in order of advertising budgets).
Attempting to enter the mall before attaining Level 5 will result in the following :
You approach the Mall, but are stopped at the entrance by a big burly guard.
"Sorry, kid," he says, "but you gotta be at least level 5 to shop at the Mall of Loathing. Come back when you've got some more hair on your chest."Finding Items in The Mall
The stores are searchable by clicking the "Search the Mall" link at the top of the page. It is possible for a player to search for a particular store within The Mall, or for prices of a particular item. When searching for an item, the player may also choose to see only the lowest N prices of each matching item rather than the entire listing.
Searches in the Mall of Loathing return a list of stores with the cheapest price listed first. If multiple stores have the same price for a given item, the stores will be listed in order of their advertising budgets.
To search exactly for an item, rather than any item containing the term you're searching for, put the search term in double quotes ('"'). For instance, simply searching for
- lime
will return results like tiny plastic sabre-toothed lime, while searching for
- "lime"
will only return lime, the fruit.
If the search query brings up nothing the following message will be displayed:
- No such item was found in the Mall.
Mall Prices
The mall has a minimum price for items - 100 meat or twice the autosell value, whichever is higher. (Previously, the minimum price allowed on an item was ten meat.) The current maximum price limit is 999,999,999 meat. Items priced at 999,999,999 meat will not show up in mall searches. Additionally, shopkeepers may choose to place limits on the quantities that can be purchased by each player daily. An individual's limit for a particular item in a particular store is 2,147,483,647. That limit resets at rollover.
Purchasing a Store
Players may purchase their own store once they have reached Level 9. Stores cost 50,000 meat and can be sold back for 30,000 meat. When purchasing a store, shop owners can choose between several different shopkeeper avatars, and choose what their avatar says to their customers. The shopkeeper may also choose an image to represent their storefront, ranging anywhere from a bar to a frat house.
After purchasing a store, the new shop owner will have access to a Mall Management page. This page contains the following items:
- Drop down menu to Put Stuff in Your Store.
- Link to Manage Prices for All Items (option to change prices of items in your current inventory, giving the autosell value, minimum mall sale price and cheapest mall price as comparitors).
- Link to View Recent Store Activity (shows every item sold in the past 48 hours, the price paid, and the player who bought it).
- Display of your current inventory, with option to remove them from your store to place in your inventory.
- Your current rank with regards to advertising budget, and an option to add to your budget.
- Button to Refuse Purchased by Ignored Players
- Option to change the store text (what your shopkeeper says to your customers)
- Button to sell the store for 30,000 meat
- Option to change the shopkeep and its name
Advertising
Every store has an advertising budget. Advertising determines the order in which stores are listed in the Mall, and the order in which items with the same sale price are displayed in Mall Search results. The store's current advertising budget, as well as current rank can be viewed in the Store Management Page (see above).
Each store's advertising budget is updated at the end of every Sunday. If the value is 1, it's changed to 0. If it's greater than 1, it's square rooted and rounded down to an integer.
If a player is in Ronin or Hardcore, they will not be able to purchase any items from The Mall. However, The Mall is still searchable, and players may add stock to their own stores from their inventory (but not from Hagnk's), but added stock may not be removed and placed back in their inventory. Meat earned while in Ronin or Hardcore goes to Hagnk's Ancestral Mini-Storage.
A player may not sell their store while in Hardcore, nor may they buy a new one.
Technically, a player is allowed to purchase items from the Mall even if they are under level 5 if they have ascended at least once, but it is likely that the player will be past level 5 when Ronin expires.
Mall Scams
The mall is home to many shopkeepers, however there are often scammers on the loose. Techniques include:
- Price-Switching
- Holding a raffle for an item the store owner does not have
- continually adding tickets to raffles
- making obscene profits from raffles (though technically not a scam, it is largely frowned upon)
- "fixed" raffles, where the store-owner awards the prize to one of his or her multis.
Also keep a lookout for mallbots, who like to take your antiraffle items.
Messages
The Game Messages page lists various error messages you can get at the Mall.
