How I Accidentally Started A Pumpkin Pie Empire (In Minecraft)

In media, we usually prefer stories about heroic quests or valiant efforts to save people, gather treasure, and partake in glorious battles. Roleplaying is no different. The most common place you see folks roleplaying (naughty bits withstanding) is playing Dungeons & Dragons. Today, however, we’re talking Minecraft, specifically the Stoneworks Worldbuilding Minecraft Server. In its world of Eldham, I set out to roleplay in this fantasy world and accidentally started a pumpkin pie empire instead.

Entering The World of Stoneworks

In the world of Eldham on Stoneworks, the name of the game is lore writing, world-building, war, and international politics. Of course, you can be whoever you want, and although playing in character is encouraged it is not required. Still, even if roleplay isn’t a hard and fast rule, people tend to fill roles in communities. They write stories and adventure in an alien world based on self-expression. Everyone wants to belong.

Dagnolio Scragglefoot, Doge di Wiltzia, Signore delle Zucche

Unfortunately, roleplay has garnered a negative stereotype because of people’s self-insert power fantasies. Because who would want to play someone normal? We’re normal everyday. Most folks want to be knights, lords, kings & queens, great conquerors, or even despots. But, these aspirations are often quickly dispersed.

People join this server looking to conquer and thrive. Unfortunately, they’re often met by established empires led by capable leaders, all backed by mighty armies. Some even have very well-organized supply lines managed by complex logistical command structures. As you would expect, the few upstarts that squat on these very well-organized empires’ lands don’t last long. It’s an unfortunate reality that this fiction imitates life. It can be challenging for someone with little power to come up in the world.

Quickly, previous aspirations to be powerful nobles transform into people adopting the role of the peasant. The challenges of being great are often too daunting. But that’s okay because being an average person in this world can still be entertaining. Those who aren’t turned away by the sudden realization that they are small fish in a vast pond often join nations, religions, and groups. These groups help them become established and shake the role of a peasant in this fictional world.

A mysterious golem appeared in the town of Fresco.

These groups enjoy having members as well; populous is power, after all. Members could be farmers, soldiers, builders, etc. One such group on Eldham, and coincidentally the one that I joined, was The Pale.

Joining Eldham For The First Time

When I initially connected to Stoneworks, I intended to be a wandering merchant with no particular allegiance. The goal was to wander the lands, meet new people, and maybe make some coin. I had played on a server like Stoneworks before, and I held a power position there. Unfortunately, there was very little desire on my part to repeat having to lead a large group of people. The people are often kids from around the world playing the game after school. As a twenty-something adult, it got exhausting dealing with the drama of mixing that many adolescents of varying cultures. All this was also integrated with the toxic virtual nationalistic politics and arguing of nerds on the internet.

However, as I mentioned before, the goal was simple, make some money and meet some folks. Therefore, when I initially connected to the server, being the industrious individual I am (at least virtually), I asked for a job and a place to sleep. I wasn’t interested in being homeless and bullied by bandits, brigands, or overzealous barons.

I had joined late at night, and after sending my message, I only received one response to my query. A message from Wolffox13 greeted me, who I would later know as Jarl Viola Lightbringer of The Pale as she identifies in the lore. Jarl Lightbringer was the leader of the northernmost province of the Pale, Grünwald.

She invited me into her town, Fresco, which was the province’s capital, and promised me work. Shortly after my arrival, I was welcomed by her Steward, Cadon Ironback, who gave me a tour of the land. After returning, Viola let me know that she was heading across the river to the neighboring town of Little Greywatch. She was on the way to help construct a sizeable multi-story pumpkin farm that would be used later for the production of pumpkin pies. I accompanied her to help create it and make my first coin in the world.

Enter, Pumpkin Pies

Why pumpkin pies, you ask? Well, on Stoneworks, there is a currency that you may use to buy and sell goods, and pumpkin pies are a killer moneymaker. The critical thing about pumpkin pies is that they can be sold back to the server in infinite amounts. They are one of the few items in the game that can be sold this way. So, theoretically, in a perfect world, you could have massive capital if you could produce an enormous amount of these pumpkin pies. Unfortunately, I didn’t understand the significance of this at the time.

So, I went over across the river and helped construct the pumpkin farm. It earned me my first paycheck of $10,000, with a bit of workman’s comp from the foreman of the job because I had died twice. Unknowingly I had made the unfortunate mistake of joining on April 1st. As an April Fools joke, the admins of the server had switched phantoms to what they referred to as dragons. Unfortunately, they were phantoms that could breathe fire; it was terrible. Fortunately, after getting some experience, I realized that it was pretty easy to avoid them. Also, on any other day of the year, they don’t breathe fire, which is pretty nice.

The Major Issue

That first job set the tone for my experience on the server, the kindness, and the work, that is, not the awful hellacious creatures that dive-bombed me. I’ve been playing on Stoneworks and with the Pale for over a month now. It has been a wonderful experience, and I’ve met many people from across the real-life world. I even proved myself to the local populace and the Pales High Council and was promoted to mayor of a new town, Wiltzia. But, of course, the problem with founding and managing a city is that you need money, and I had very few citizens to tax.

You might be wondering, what does this have to do with a pumpkin pie empire? You might be saying, “Dagnolio, you haven’t written almost nothing about pumpkins!” And you would be correct, but I just wanted to set the stage for why the title claims are significant.

It all comes back to that pumpkin farm that I helped construct.

The Imperial March Begins

Pumpkin pies are made with one pumpkin, one sugar from sugarcane, and one egg. They could be sold infinitely to the server because of how hard eggs are to get on the server. Unfortunately, the server had software in place that limited how many animals you can have in one area via the plague, roughly nine in a 20 x 20 block area. Conventional egg farms are almost impossible to make. This is not average, considering egg farms are usually some of the first automatic farms that people make in Minecraft. The server also had a rule against automated farming. The accumulation of massive amounts of eggs was substantially more difficult.

An underground sugar cane grow operation in Wiltzia.

The Giga-Egg Farm

Fortunately for my new Palean comrades and myself, the foreman that I mentioned, Lord Seny, the Squatinator Supreme¹, had also commissioned an enormous custom egg farm. It was designed explicitly for the regulations of the server. I cannot express how large this egg farm is; it stands over 240 meters tall. It would be taller than the Madison Square Park Tower² in New York if it were a real-life structure, except for making chicken eggs.

The advancements involving this egg farm and the infrastructure provided by the pumpkin farm had ushered in a new era of prosperity. The citizens could now print money with enough time, and I was no different. You could make money from nothing if you farmed enough pumpkins, gathered enough eggs, and harvested enough sugar cane. You didn’t have to rely on the open market and demand, you just made money, and much like the real world, money is power.

I realized, however, that it could be done better. Many people didn’t want to make pumpkin pies, surprisingly. You could essentially print money with them! People didn’t like collecting all three ingredients end clicking two buttons to construct the pies. At least in massive amounts.

The efficiency could definitely be improved. Multiple people were using the same farms, or someone was collecting eggs simultaneously as you. Sometimes you lacked one of the ingredients and had to wait for them to grow. People were making a lot of money, but I felt like we could make more.

A Business Begins

The initial egg shop that started the business.

So with the permission of the Squatinator Supreme ¹, I established a shop inside of the egg farm; the objective was to purchase eggs from people. I wanted to provide an easy job for my fellow citizens. I also had acquired an enormous surplus of pumpkins and sugar. The optimization in this situation was provided by encouraging other people to farm the eggs for me.

The egg farmers were paid a large sum of 2/3 of my total profit roughly to make sure that people would do it. I even advertised it in our local trading Discord channels. I was utterly shocked at the overwhelming response I received; people were selling eggs to my left and right. The shop runs when I’m not playing, so people who are in different time zones or playing at other times can work for me, and many people did.

Supplies that I had set aside for what I estimated would be about a week or diminished in a single day. I was hit even harder by the demand to sell eggs the first night I went to bed. I woke up with almost no money. I completely underestimated the fact that we were playing on a server with people in multiple time zones. I was purchasing product while I was sleeping.

I also had to start importing pumpkins on the second day and the third-day sugar cane. It was so popular because people didn’t have to do much. They could make close to $60,000 an hour by simply running in circles because I had substantially overvalued the eggs. For perspective, my going rate was $10,000 an hour per person for construction jobs, with many folks not wanting to spend that much money.

Where We Are Now

As it stands now, I am employing people from three different fictional nations and at least four real-life continents. My pumpkin pie operation has paid out over $600,000 imaginary dollars, and I made over $300,000 in three days. I had earned around 200,000 in a month of daily effort to put that in perspective. That’s more money than some people I know had made in their entire career on the server after playing for over half a year. Nations have probably been purchased for less than the number of pies I have sold.

The current pumpkin and sugar cane shop.

If I’m being honest, I know there are operations with larger output than I have in the world of Eldham. However, due to the unique situation and strong community bond in The Pale, I doubt they will compete. Even though they theoretically can produce more than us very quickly, our nation may rise to be one of the richest in the world in short order. Even if someone is better, we’re still doing better than we could have imagined.

I am already in talks with someone to do the actual crafting portion of the pumpkin pie making as well. This would altogether remove me from the equation. Other than collecting the ingredients and sourcing the product, that is. While these may be standard practices in the real world, the thought doesn’t often occur to people. There are also talks of constructing extra egg farms. I also know of at least three more pumpkin farms being built to meet the demand of our growing enterprise.

Although I may not have a massive profit margin (roughly 10–20% if I buy every component), I think the economic change I am making is large. It is all purely based on community organizing. It is genuinely so interesting we can learn about humanity and the societies we form in these microcosms that develop from our hobbies.

My emphasis on making sure the people doing most of the work are making more money than me for my organizing will be what separates us. Unfortunately, people are often manipulated and taken advantage of to make a profit in even a virtual world. But, like in the real world, ultimately, generosity and kindness will win.

Long live the Pale! Morsu Resistere! — Dagnolio Scragglefoot, Doge di Wiltzia, cittadino delle Pale, e Re delle zucche.

Stoneworks Minecraft

If you’re interested in joining Stoneworks, the IP address for the server is Play.Stoneworks.gg. Also, if you want to read more articles like this, please let me know! You’re welcome to contact me on discord if we share a server I have DMs open on, or you can email me at Dagnolio (at) vellum.gg — (Sorry, that’s separated to avoid bots.)

Footnotes

¹ — Seny’s title Squatinator Supreme is in reference to destroying squatters on his nation’s lands, a play on words for “Terminator.”

² — Madison Square Park Tower, previously 45 East 22nd Street, is, as of July 2017, a topped-out skyscraper located between Broadway and Park Avenue South in the Flatiron District neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City. When completed, it will be the tallest building between Midtown and the Manhattan Financial District, standing at 237 meters or 778 feet.