| Homerdome (Fearless Blue) | Saturday, March 24, 2012 - 03:11 am 
I posted this in another thread but Tom M stated it deserves its own thread in hopes the GM takes note:
I think the GMs should just leave us alone for a couple months before they change anything else if they feel the need. Every thing they do effects everything. Mostly bad for us, but things calm down in a few days. With all the constant changes nothing gets to even out and no one can get adjusted. It can be a real pain and especialy confusing to the "Young ones" |
| nix001 | Saturday, March 24, 2012 - 03:27 am
Slow down and think?...... that's just not capitalistic! |
| CorporatePartner (Kebir Blue) | Saturday, March 24, 2012 - 04:23 am
Quote:...constant changes nothing gets to even out and no one can get adjusted.
Agreed. |
| Tom Morgan (Kebir Blue) | Saturday, March 24, 2012 - 05:53 am
I think the GMs need to stop changing the game so rapidly. I would suggest that for the next 2 months, no 'new' features be implimented. How about fixing bugs in the War Game? There are many things which need to be fixed before anything new can be added.
I think its not too much to ask- if anything we're giving the GMs a two month holiday...
T |
| Inanna | Saturday, March 24, 2012 - 06:29 am
I can distinctly recall "change" being the thing that most vets desired. And with every new change came a resounding, "bravo GM!"
I strongly warned most of you on nearly all the dramatic changes you requested and encouraged the gm to implement. The many voices of reason were drowned out in favor of a select grouping of veterans with a clear agenda, and an impressive execution at pushing GM to believe that this is what everyone wanted and would be great for the game.
I don't like to say I told you so, but I told you so. I also told you, "be careful what you wish for, it won't always be what you expect."
Just a random though from my random thought generator. I don't mean for this to trump Homer's point. But the point he is making has been echoed for months before some implementations and nothing changed.
I think GM would do well to ignore the whining of players and rightfully so. Allow their account renewals to do the talking.
The reaction to the perceived majority of quality players whining about "this" or "that" led to, in my opinion, the largest and most notable exodus of quality players of substance whose presence was positively good for the diversity of the game, in the wake that followed many changes. Many quality players have been lost due to reactions and changes made on the whims of their whining. Many players are now long gone or at least changed their names and created new accounts to take full advantage of changes they encouraged despite not liking the changes they boxed the gm into making.
I'll stop now. |
| Homerdome | Saturday, March 24, 2012 - 08:51 am
i called once when the GM didnt show any resonce to the game in about 3 months, was woried about the game in general(i was a newb about 8 months into it) and one of my first posts, saw game changes now and the, good. THE GAME IS ALIVE. Thing is it was good to hear from them , not to now actualy partake in the actaule playing of the game. I recall a small change, i wondered why my country was losing tons of money.. a vet told me, just ride it out it will go back to normal, it did after about 2 or 3 days. this happened once a month, the "butterfly efect" where a small change effected everything. same as this programe. no biggie, we delt with it. we vets had to explain the same thing again to new people, perhaps once or every 2 months. NOW its going on to the point where the GAME cant get a grasp of whats going on, thing are tiltering when they shouldnt and cant recover from the multible changes. riding it out now is hard to do and imposible for the "YOUNG ONES" which are THE FUTURE OF SIMCOUNTRY! |
| Tom Morgan (Kebir Blue) | Saturday, March 24, 2012 - 09:10 am
Wendy, it's fine to say "I told you so!" in hindsight, but that will get us nowhere. This post is directed at the GMs to slow down NOW, not to say "We shouldn't have done that!" I do recall having conversations with you on EXACTLY this topic, where you said EXACTLY what we are suggesting now.
The big problem right now is that the updates are coming thick and fast, and as a player with limited time, I cannot spend hours just scrolling through my countries changing settings every 2 weeks. I'm sure many players feel the same way.
Also, Government Costs... We know where the money goes. The GMs pockets. So the recent rise... hmm... I'm going to shush now before the mute button is activated.
Cheers,
T |
| Homerdome | Saturday, March 24, 2012 - 09:26 am
Wendy, I know your just itching to condem tom or me, let it go, i bitched to the GM well befor you did and i think it got one reply, going back about a year ago or more when things got out of hand. and tom, your right, people are finaly listening. At this point, i couldnt give a rats ass about my trillions, as far as im concerned, i beat this game many times(if theres a such a thing lol) im concernened about the future and where its headed. My only thing i think i could say to the gm's is to stop playing the game, we are NOT trying to beat YOU. WE(membership) want to play each OTHER, not YOU! YOU(GM)need to manage the game, improve on it, make it more inviting and have US vets stay longer to help the YOUNG ONES to cement simcounties future. And maybe, the only way is to for now, let it run.................. |
| Scarlet (Little Upsilon) | Saturday, March 24, 2012 - 10:22 am
Eh, I don't figure I have any influence in the decisions they make so whatever on that end.
I think a roll-up of changes in a quarterly update would probably be better than constant small changes, but then there is the issue that the GMs very clearly don't understand the net effect of any specific change, the changes are always poorly documented and explained, and the changes usually are bugged for the next three years.
I don't know what to say other than, "It can't be helped." More could be said, but there's little point.
EDIT: Frankly, the war game should just be removed. There's no point in even having it. If both players understand the wargame, multiple factors ensure neither player can win. |
| Inanna (Little Upsilon) | Saturday, March 24, 2012 - 11:45 am
Quote:EDIT: Frankly, the war game should just be removed. There's no point in even having it. If both players understand the wargame, multiple factors ensure neither player can win.
I can't believe it's not butter! Proly the only reasonable thing left to do. Trash and revamp completely. If you guys can't come up with a better way to war, outsource or consult with some gms in games with a thriving war model. |
| Inanna (Little Upsilon) | Saturday, March 24, 2012 - 11:47 am
To be honest, I wouldn't mind the war game being reduced to axis and allies rolls of the dice. If the battles are left to chance those who excel at econ would rule since they could purchase and support larger armies. Maybe an oversimplification but I cannot quantify in words how disgusted our war games makes me feel at times. |
| Inanna (Little Upsilon) | Saturday, March 24, 2012 - 11:54 am
Funny thing is if you google Simcountry you'll find loads of outside forum posts where gamers congregate and they are full of "That game is going to die" becuase of resets, charging to play some worlds, and the list goes on. This game has been "dying" or "doomed" for over a decade now. But here lies simcountry. As much as we all hate it, we love this game all the more.
I just wonder why the GM seems to do that pisses every player off regardless if they mean it or not. It just seems that is what is happening repeatedly.
I think it is just some big conspiracy to get you all to quit once this top secret government project to scan your hardrives and your surfing habits is completed.
The last paragraph was a joke...(for those of you who are too dense to realize it on your own)  |
| Christopher Michael (Little Upsilon) | Saturday, March 24, 2012 - 05:38 pm
I agree with Homer and Tom......let the game ride for a while.
The government cost posts that I've read indicates that a good many of players are having trouble in that area.
When my gov. costs skyrocketed on GR, I cut services, Social security, etc, and they went back down.....I have no clue if that would bale out those who are having severe problems with the costs or not.
I did have something to do with one of the most recent updates that was released by the GM's. I complained 4 or 5 times to them in emails about the fact that I had countries that I bought from other players that had 100 fortifications in them. Being an econ only player, it hurt my economy due to paying soldiers sitting on their arses in the forts.
The GM's were gracious enough in the last update to include letting presidents destroy their forts without that annoying blue screen saying 'your defense is too low'.
Changes like that, I welcome.
This new thing they are getting ready to implement concerning natural resources, having to go find them, and the companies eventually dieing once the resources are extracted is something they and the few players that have expressed interest in should think very hard about before introducing it.
BE careful what you ask for, as has already been stated in this thread! |
| CorporatePartner (Golden Rainbow) | Thursday, April 5, 2012 - 07:11 am
36 hours after this discussion started, the 'Gamemaster' un-leashed arguably the largest changes, "announced" or otherwise, in recent past.
There are so many ways that profits have tried to be manipulated down-ward recently, it's not even worth trying to list them all.
But, take a look now, at the workers used in "High Tech Services", CEO corporation, as it has nearly doubled for High Tech Engineers since the time that it was announced that "corporations would increase in size by about 10%":
Current Employment and Salaries in the Company
| Occupation | | Employees | | Estimated employees at 100% Hiring | | Salary | | | | | | | | | Low Level Worker | | 52,000 | | 52,000 | | 19,800 | | | Medium Level Worker | | 54,250 | | 54,250 | | 26,400 | | | High Level Worker | | 19,500 | | 19,500 | | 33,000 | | | Low Level Manager | | 7,100 | | 7,100 | | 39,600 | | | Medium Level Manager | | 5,825 | | 5,825 | | 52,800 | | | High Level Manager | | 2,650 | | 2,650 | | 66,000 | | | Executive | | 1,115 | | 1,115 | | 198,000 | | | High Tech Engineer | | 87,250 | | 87,250 | | 52,800 | | | High Tech Senior | | 18,700 | | 18,700 | | 99,000 | | | High Tech Executive | | 1,950 | | 1,950 | | 264,000 | | | | | | | | | Total: | | 250,340 | | 250,340 | | |
|
| Inanna | Thursday, April 5, 2012 - 08:47 am
CP you are thinking about "Services" Corporations. They use about 40K HT Engineers. "High Tech" Services use 80K last I built one and this was a few weeks ago.
The increase is about 7250, up from 80,000 which in this case is actually less than but really close than 10%.
I'm not trying to argue the point, I just wanted to make sure you weren't confused or mistaken. I could be wrong but I'm pretty sure HTServices always used 80K HT Engineers. |
| Andy | Thursday, April 5, 2012 - 09:05 pm
There were no changes in the numbers of workers of any type, in any corporation for quite some time except for several nuclear corporations.
Numbers of high tech engineers have not been changed. The example above does not show a change. This is unclear. There were many changes in the last 5 years and indeed, numbers may have increased significantly.
On average, over the years, the numbers of workers in corporations went from 150.000 to 250.000. luckily, or we would not be able to run nearly a million corporations game wide, 6 times per day.
Some changes in the composition of corporations occurs automatically, when you upgrade the corporation (efficiency). Then, the number of workers declines and the numbers of managers and high tech people increases a little.
This has always been part of the game.
recent changes were aimed at proportional reduction in the base numbers in the game.
base salaries and base product pricing along with the consequences for corporations.
This caused gradual declines in the income and cost of countries.
Compared to several years ago, numbers are now probably 10 to 20% of what they were.
We try to make these changes small and proportional. The effects however, have a different pace. Some are immediate, some take time to influence the game, mainly because of product stocks in countries and corporations and the averaging of the price of raw materials. |
| Arccuk (Little Upsilon) | Friday, April 6, 2012 - 12:54 am
Here are the worker requirements for a couple of UNUPGRADED corp types (notes taken mid november 2011) :-
HT Services
Low level workers 56000
Medium level workers 57000
High level workers 22000
Low level managers 4600
Medium level managers 3800
High level managers 720
Executives 600
High tech engineers 77000
High tech seniors 15400
High tech executives 1220
Services
Low level workers 93000
Medium level workers 74000
High level workers 22000
Low level managers 7700
Medium level managers 4900
High level managers 750
Executives 400
High tech engineers 38000
High tech seniors 7600
High tech executives 550
I'll let someone else have a look at the precise differances between then and now, however I feel the need to point out that the reason I have not updated the spreadsheet since then is that worker types upgraded too often to keep accurate. For instance I also noted that HTE requirements for UNUPGRADED HTS corp went up to 80k shortly after I noted the above and compiled the sheet.
Andy I guess "quite some time" refers to weeks not months! You been caught with hand in cookie jar on this one, or is it just that the left hand dont know what the right hand is doing?
:P |
| Arccuk (Little Upsilon) | Friday, April 6, 2012 - 12:56 am
PS. If anyone wants the worker requirements from any corp in november 2011 let me know.
At the time I had made a note of all requirements for corps avaailable to build on WG at level 4 and below. |
| CorporatePartner (Golden Rainbow) | Friday, April 6, 2012 - 01:02 am
All corporations have seen dramatic increases in the use of all High Tech workers, gradually increasing in every corporation over the past [earth] year. These changes have continued until now, and this has been closely followed in many corporations, including High Tech Services, as listed above, which previously used about 40-45,000 High Tech Engineers. In fact, the number of High Tech Executives has increased much more, around 5-10 times, and if you look at the actual data, it is very easy to confirm. Corporations in the High Tech category used to use about 250 High Tech Executives, and that was before the "increase of 10% in corporation size". In addition, the number of High Tech Seniors has also dramatically changed, where the numbers are much higher than before, and the comparison of numbers needed to the High Tech Engineer amounts has also dramatically changed, so that what once was about 4 High Tech Engineers per 1 High Tech Senior is now closer to 5 per 1.
In addition, many corporations that previously used few, very few, or even --0-- High Tech Engineers, High Tech Seniors, or High Tech Engineers, were dramatically changed and began suddenly needing at first small numbers, and then later until now, over the past [earth] year, large numbers of these high tech workers. It is a joke to claim "no changes were made", because the changes have been so large, so obvious, so easy to verify, and occurring over a very long time, until now.
Another way to understand this, is to look at the workers needed for all "new" corporation types, which would include Nuclear Power, but also space, new weapons (Stealth), Seleenium, and the two military upgrade and two military components corporations. Consistently, the workers were completely out-of-balance, and caused major disruptions to countries who "hosted" such corporations, because the amounts of high tech and also High Level Managers needed were and continue to be grossly over-weighted. |
| CorporatePartner (Little Upsilon) | Friday, April 6, 2012 - 01:54 am
[Example of a corporation that used to have --0-- high tech workers.]
Corporation type: Cattle (CEO/private, upgraded corporation, with medium (310) salaries)
Current Employment and Salaries in the Company
| Occupation | Employees | Estimated employees at 100% Hiring | Salary | | Low Level Worker | 82,500 | 82,500 | 20,460 | | Medium Level Worker | 78,750 | 78,750 | 27,280 | | High Level Worker | 14,500 | 14,500 | 34,100 | | | Low Level Manager | 13,500 | 13,500 | 40,920 | | | Medium Level Manager | 8,850 | 8,850 | 54,560 | | | High Level Manager | 2,920 | 2,920 | 68,200 | | | Executive | 288 | 288 | 204,600 | | High Tech Engineer | 20,875 | 20,875 | 54,560 | | High Tech Senior | 5,225 | 5,225 | 102,300 | | High Tech Executive | 210 | 210 | 272,800 | | | | Total: | 227,618 | 227,618 |
|
| CorporatePartner (Fearless Blue) | Friday, April 6, 2012 - 02:08 am
[Example of a "new" corporation type with highly un-balanced workers]
Corporation type: Weapon Quality Upgrades (CEO/private, upgraded, with low (157) salaries)
Current Employment and Salaries in the Company
| Occupation | Employees | Estimated employees at 100% Hiring | Salary | | | | Low Level Worker | 11,250 | 11,250 | 10,362 | | Medium Level Worker | 9,000 | 9,000 | 13,816 | | High Level Worker | 50,000 | 50,000 | 17,270 | | Low Level Manager | 15,350 | 15,350 | 20,724 | | Medium Level Manager | 14,200 | 14,200 | 27,632 | | High Level Manager | 6,425 | 6,425 | 34,540 | | Executive | 1,600 | 1,600 | 103,620 | | | High Tech Engineer | 81,250 | 81,250 | 27,632 | | | High Tech Senior | 40,000 | 40,000 | 51,810 | | | High Tech Executive | 4,625 | 4,625 | 138,160 | | | | Total: | 233,700 | 233,700 |
|
| SuperSoldierRCP (Little Upsilon) | Friday, April 6, 2012 - 02:57 am
Medical materials
Occupation Employees Estimated employees
at 100% Hiring Salary
Low Level Worker 77,000
Medium Level Worker 87,000
High Level Worker 17,000
Low Level Manager 11,400
Medium Level Manager 8,800
High Level Manager 2,640
Executive 380 380
High Tech Engineer 46,800
High Tech Senior 10,600
High Tech Executive 520
thats upgraded
look @ them on any world explain to me why they need 99K Low level workers and 98K medium level workers...Thats a shit ton of workers. Id love to hear a GM reasoning on that
When your ready Andy... Id love to hear the GM reasoning for the need of so many workers. *waits for response* |
| CorporatePartner | Friday, April 6, 2012 - 04:47 am
The general message is what's really important here, not bickering endlessly over this-or-that detail. And, frankly, the one who should have addressed this and the many other perplexing, deleterious, and ubiquitous changes is Jozi.
There was a "Jozi Chat" promised many times, but he has not been heard from for a very long time, more than an [earth] year or more. And, really, his absence has really shown, as it has apparently allowed some "rogue" changes to the fundamental structure of the Galaxy/site in his absence. |
| Inanna | Friday, April 6, 2012 - 07:50 am
Quote:And, really, his absence has really shown,
This is very obvious. Painfully so in many cases. |
| Andy (Kebir Blue) | Friday, April 6, 2012 - 08:54 am
The number of workers being so large was explained many times but I am glad to repeat.
There are two main reasons:
1. You cannot have small corporations like in the real world because then, countries would have 500.000 corporations each and no one will be able to manage.
you can have 1000 services corporations with a tiny man power each and a tiny profit or loss or you can have 1 with 1000 times the production, man power and profit/loss.
2. Each corporation requires many transactions each game month. There are 80.000 to 100.000 in each world and they require 2 million multiple data table transactions daily on each world.
Running 2 or 3 times more corporations will, even with the current generation of the fastest 8 processor servers, be impossible.
The population keeps growing.
In the past year we have gradually increased the size of corporations by an average of 15.000 or maybe even a little more.
This has compensated for the increase in population and the total number of corporations, game wide, did not change much.
This process could continue for another year or two and we might end at an average of 300.000.
By then, the processing power might catch up.
new functionality in the game, more continuous operations, and more game months each day increased the processing requirements.
More planned features, will require even much more processing power while we need to keep running each world on a single server. |
| Arccuk (Little Upsilon) | Friday, April 6, 2012 - 12:51 pm
as requested:-
Corporation Cattle
Level Required 1
Low level workers 115000
Medium level workers 74000
High level workers 14000
Low level managers 9500
Medium level managers 4900
High level managers 380
Executives 80
High tech engineers 15000
High tech seniors 3000
High tech executives 70
Total Employees (No Upgrades) 235930
Corporation Weapon Quality Upgrades
Level Required 4
Low level workers 50000
Medium level workers 64000
High level workers 50000
Low level managers 4100
Medium level managers 4200
High level managers 3300
Executives 1100
High tech engineers 70000
High tech seniors 35000
High tech executives 4000
Total Employees (No Upgrades) 285700 |
| Star Polarity (Little Upsilon) | Friday, April 6, 2012 - 08:20 pm
Good - I thought I was crazy. I have watched my total corporate employment slowly grow each month as my population slowly grows, but at the same time it seems more and more corporations are DROPPING in total employment percentages. I was wondering if my efficiency upgrades were somehow wearing out...
Not crazy, whew, not crazy... at least, not PROVEN crazy yet...
John Gilbert |
| Redman (Little Upsilon) | Friday, April 6, 2012 - 08:41 pm
Then you are saying right here that since we have larger amounts of people in larger corporations that any time you adjust anything to do corporations or industries the ripple effect throughout individual countries will be super sensitive and much more damaging to it's economy then in the past when the work force and corporation was smaller and able to absorb or dodge issues.
Profits in our countries are being effected more then before with these larger numbers in taxes, larger supply needs, unemployment compensation, profit transfers and a list of other things. We have the same amount of corps essentially but they are bigger with more people and anything effecting them has a larger impact on our countries.
Profits are much more down in our countries then the 10% you claim. The numbers you give us are not correct as you need only look at your own country profit history to see you are low-balling
us. I'm willing to go as high a 35-50% loss in profit recently.
Given that you are making many more changes then in the past you are rippling the heck out of our countries and world economies. This just adds to the cases we bring before you about slowing down your constant tweaking. Every change is compounding the ripple effects to the sim worlds much more then it has at any point in the past.
Please recognize this enigma. We know you want to keep the game playable but in doing so you are creating much more stormy seas for us as players to navigate.
In such cases it is even more important you release the formula to government spending so that we may help reduce these ripple effects on our countries. Give us more tools to tweak against you constant adjusting.
Regards,
Redman |
| nix001 (Fearless Blue) | Friday, April 6, 2012 - 10:20 pm
Quote 'I'm willing to go as high a 35-50% loss in profit recently.'
Easily I say from whats happened to my main econ. |
| Keto (White Giant) | Friday, April 6, 2012 - 10:25 pm
I have to agree with redman with at least 50% loss in profit, if not more. |
| SuperSoldierRCP (Fearless Blue) | Friday, April 6, 2012 - 11:07 pm
Profit has dropped massively.
1year ago oil corp made 30M units per year with 770base cost made 23B income.
(times that by 2.96 to simulate Q and double the income to simulate the goods sell for 2times over base) means you went from 23B income to 136(or higher if u factor in production increase).
1year it was not uncommon for a corp to have 150B or more in sales.
---------------------------------------------
now - it makes 18.6M per year with 770base
(same math brings it to 84B maybe 100B if with increase)
Fact is the GM increased costs, decreased profit.
again... fairy tale land |
| Jo Salkilld (White Giant) | Friday, April 6, 2012 - 11:08 pm
Likewise.
Hugs and respect
Jo |
| Andy | Saturday, April 7, 2012 - 04:09 pm
In the past year profits may have decline by 50%.
You can find examples where it went down by 90% and I can find ones where it is 10%.
It all depends on the product, market situation etc.
the exchange rate declined from more than 200B for a gold coins to 80.
I did not see any specific numbers here that show a declining profit in terms of gold coins.
Numbers will most probably keep declining, gradually, as they did in the past year but the profitability parameters in our economic model and its structure are not changing.
We also have some data on the total assets of the accounts (including everyone in this trail) that show a HUGE increase in the asset value of the accounts.
Some are making more than 1T and up to 4T in profit per game month. Obviously, tuning is not settled yet but profitability will remain, at about the same percentage of the turnover, as it was before.
We could/should shave off a zero from all numbers at once, including SC $ amounts.
Profits would be 10 times lower and so would be all cash amounts and assets.
we have chosen a gradual change and neglected to correct the cash amounts in all the accounts. |
| WildEyes (Little Upsilon) | Saturday, April 7, 2012 - 08:29 pm
the exchange rate has only declined, because you allowed it to andy, you set the market price with you're infinite amount of gold coins, it hasnt been the players posting 4000T dollars and 10,000 GC.
Cant we just reset the game get rid of the war levels having a dictation on who you can declare on all worlds if you are war level 3 you should be able to fight any war level player on any world. war level 0-2 should be maintained as new player and new war player levels and shouldnt be allowed to be declared, however the profits of the game dont bother me, I still make a good deal in my countries and CEOs. but the structure and consistency of the game is certainly an issue. it's hard to help players when we ourselves cant keep our own countries in line...stop with all the updates, just downgrade to decemember of 2010 or something leaving the space market intact, and all the complaints will stop. lol
:P thats my 2 cents for what its worth.. |
| Crafty (Little Upsilon) | Saturday, April 7, 2012 - 08:42 pm
OK, asset levels may well have remained more or less constant, but the devaluing of the GC and all adjustments has made sc$ much harder to earn. Yes there are a greater number of GC which seems to be your justification Andy but then you need 5X as many now to get an equivalent amount of spending power. When most everything we do in SC is cash based this tops out as a problem.
You must have noticed several players selling GC for real money, is this your game plan? to have people making real money off of the game. |
| David Walker (White Giant) | Saturday, April 7, 2012 - 09:02 pm
Before the days of GCs, the game was a game. There was war and economics. Ever since GCs, the game is about real money, and has been that way for many years now. I was against it at the time, preferring to pay to play and have fun.
Now, players have invested real money and that is what is at stake. I now make real money and use it for a good cause.
@Andy, thank you for interacting on the forum but please comment on the Governemnt Costs thread.
For new players who see declining values and problems caused by this, it must be incredibly confusing. GMs want more players but them bring them in at a time of uincertainty and confusion.
Saving off a zero would have been much better. Everything stays the same proportionately and then IPO thresholds etc. don't need constant manual changing.
How far will the reductions go, where is the bottom? Are the empire penalties being reduce in line as well automatically? |
| Crafty (Little Upsilon) | Saturday, April 7, 2012 - 09:21 pm
David, I admire what you do in your case with making a few quid to help your cause. I have no problem with anyone who wants to go this route, for personal gain or whatever. But surely we wouldnt want everyone to be doing this, well obviously not everyone could do this but extrapolated we could have everyone trying to sell GCs to everyone else. This is what I'm asking Andy. And we need cash to operate, I need a lot with 26 countries and 5 CEOs. Ok, I can make enough, just, to get on with atm but the overall amount of cash or equivalent is falling IMO not keeping track with the increase in GC.
And now Andy is considering changing C3 victory profits to GC as well.
See, the only way out for me is to continue to drastically reduce my military...we dont need such big armies now says Andy, but says I, there are still people (on FB particularly) who are willing to spend lots of real cash to keep large military or run massive losses doing so. Military eats cash as we all know. The big armies still remain. Are we all to be forced into econ and selling GC? I hope not, that seems like an even worse vision of the future of SC than many paint now.
So lets think of making more trade with GCs, (products for one) so reducing need for cash and keep level reards as cash or even make the regular levelling and ranking awards cash, then we could buy GC if wanted or have the cash. And I'm talking of a better translation of the GC to cash for awards than 1 - 80b.
Bring back the cash please!!! |
| Christopher Michael | Saturday, April 7, 2012 - 09:59 pm
"Bring back the cash please!!!"
I totally agree Crafty.
Nothing wrong with selling gold coins like David is doing to make real cash.
But we still need cash to buy most things in the game with......population, materials, etc. and the exchange rate certainly needs to be better in cash's favor.
That, or go to the extreme, and make the entire game GC based (and I don't see that happening).
AND YES, we would really like for you, Andy, to comment on the government cost issue on the Gov.Cost thread....please. |
| Tom Morgan (Kebir Blue) | Sunday, April 8, 2012 - 12:59 am
Agree with you Crafty, but doubt the GMs are listening. They're too busy drooling over the creation of Space Wars. FML.
T |
| QueenBikini (White Giant) | Sunday, April 8, 2012 - 01:43 am
Andy,
I think you are missing a big point. Something that is the most important factor above all your economic models, above all player egos and above the value of GC's or profit. IS THE GAME FUN? And no, right now it's not. Only the players are making this game fun for each other. You have completely lost us and our faith. We cling to each other now.
You talk about players here with high account totals. This is but a handfull of players compared to the game total. In any game you are going to have a certain group that will be at the top. That will never cease to happen. Looking to shave their totals isn't solving anything and is in fact hurting 94% of the players playing.
How is this game fun when you can't make a profit? How is this game standing out from other games when the players fill the forums with every post being about how you are hurting the game? There are so many complaints about what you are doing there is not many post these days without that point in the discussion. Can you not see this?
Why would any new player be attracted to a game where ALL your players are up in arms over what you are doing. How can we have FUN when there is little to no profit being made? What does a new player have to look forward to? Grinding away over numbers and stats?? What, no 1st person shooting? No 3D effects? Be for real here.
You have long time players quitting and thinking about quitting. You have newer players thinking about quitting. Without FUN you have an empty game. You have no sustainability. You have players that play for 3 months and leave. And for what? Why are you taking the FUN out of the game to satisfy a goal that itself seems to be unraveling this wonderful game?
How is it fun when I have to adjust my trade strategies down every month? It's not. The FUN is being taken from the player and that's what most of the anger at the gm's is from.
Regards,
Redman |
| Laguna | Sunday, April 8, 2012 - 05:02 pm
Game money is needed to play freely. Make it easier to earn. Otherwise, this thing is just a frustration test. |
| Inanna | Sunday, April 8, 2012 - 07:13 pm
Quote:Are we all to be forced into econ and selling GC? I hope not, that seems like an even worse vision of the future of SC than many paint now.
This point is kinda catch 22 because if you make cash using the economic model you are under no obligation to exchange your cash you have made into coins and sell it for real money.
Therefore, no one is forcing anyone into any econ model or to sell your GC.
In my opinion, and as a matter of fact, if you make enough cash to turn into coins, then you could alternatively use the cash to purchase, support, and maintain you army. There is no absolute there. Not sure why this has been said.
But, the amount of cash that can be made is becoming harder to accumulate, so it is a testament of players using the economic model to make enough GC to consistently sell coin, and the fact that money is there to be made. In very large quantities. I have curbed my money making routines as the demand for GC seems to have subsided temporarily. But if people began demanding coins for a discounted rate again, I could just as easily spend and hour or two a day and produce some coins to suply the demands.
The money is there is my point. It can be made. It won't just fall into your lap.
With GC so low, people who war will be less willing to bitch their way out of the game when they can replace a 60 million population country with relatively minimal profits from their main country. In other worlds, losing a country isn't "so" terrible anymore. Before when GC was high priced, so was population, and earnings never bought you as many coins. There is the possibility to mimic past earnings but the GC reward is far greater.
There are some of you ignoring that for Gawd knows what reason.
You can play the war game freely, or you can play economically and become a financier of war, or a sponsor of inter-world terrorism or whatever your heart desires.
Honestly the game is expanding. Cash or GC is not the problem,. The way cash ends up in your hands in your CEO is maybe an issue but realize, you only need less than 3T total profit in a months time span, to renew and pay for your empires and CEOs respectively.
This opens up those retained profits for whatever you wish to use them for. GC and selling, or War and Army. The replication of lost countries is far easier to accomplish in the event of a loss. Back when GC was 600B a pop rebuilding took way too much time and recovery of lost assets was way too painful.
The issue of rapid changes forcing you to stay active and continue adjusting as the game changes, should not be clouded and obscured by profits, GC, and the ability to sell coins.
4, almost 5 years ago, I read in the docs on the simcountry fast track that if you played your cards right that you could earn enough assets on this game and possibly turn these earnings into real life assets.
To be honest, in my opinion, this has never been more true than in the present day of simcountry.
No one is forced to buy GC from players. It is offered as a benefit to the player selling and an added bonus to the players who buy them. Any playter can log in and spend the time it takes to make an extensive amount of GC. This is not limited to a select few.
If more people learn to play the game, this will lead to many players earning more GC, which will expand their gameplay. As more players have enough GC to offer and the game floods with them, players earning large profits will have no choice but to play with a portion of their earnings in the war game. For sport, for bragging rights whatever. As GC are easier to acquire, more players will experience longevity in the game. A portion of their account will become "risk-based" assets or SC capital tan be used to expand the present war game.
Botoom line, the reduction of devalued GC coupled with nearly the same profit capacity for countries to earn money should lead to players lasting in the game instead of having to pay out of pocket several times per year to renew your countries after only 90 days of gameplay, they are out of coins. When they realize they will have to dig out of their pockets to continue playing, they are more likely to quit given what has happened in the last 90 days of their gameplay. This is a definite good thing for simcountry. As well as for the prospect of the war game coming back. More profits + less buyers of GC = boredom which leads to wars. Wars will be much more fun once it will not take you 2 years to rebuild what you have lost and instead 2 years is reduced to 2 months, and the game goes on, no one quits becuase they have lost anything.
This ride has been bumpy, but you all are looking at the glass half full. 30GC to renew a country or empire was tough to earn 2 or 3 years ago, especially with an army. It is less than 3T to renew any enterprise or empire. That alone should make you all rethink your position. Although profits have reduced by %50, the cost in terms of cash converted to GC has be reduced by more than 5/6 of what it was previously. In simpler terms, It costs you 1/6 of what is used to cost to run an empire. With their being 5 worlds you could, hypothetically speaking, afford to run an empire on all five worlds now with the equivalent cash/gc that it used to take to run a single empire on a single world. That is insane. You can't bitch your way out of that. Why would you want to anyway?
Think about that. The problem here is the changes, and how quickly you can adapt to them given the time you have to play this game regularly. Do not mix the two issues any longer, or it may result in you or many players digging into your wallets to continue playing, like it used to be.
w3c can have 20 players who make money and remain to play after many renewals are due. Or they can settle for a few thousand that play the game and pay only account renewals every year and expand this game substantially.
I prefer the latter. A vibrant game with an expanding player base. In place of a dedicated few who are bored of playing and would rather sit in chat and shoot the chizz instead of being assed to log in and click, wondering why they stay to play.
This is a good thing, get past the popular lines being thrown around and see these things for what they really have become.
Bye now, Stop Bitching. |
| Inanna | Sunday, April 8, 2012 - 07:26 pm
I miss you big guy
Glad to see you present.
We need more Lagunas around here.. |
| Homerdome | Monday, April 9, 2012 - 09:00 am
Whats the deal? Too many spankings? WOW, what an about-face LOL. |
| Laguna | Monday, April 9, 2012 - 10:47 pm
WEEEEENNNDDDYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!
I miss you too. That's why I still log in every so often.
Sounds like Homerdome wants to be part of something... |
| Inanna (Little Upsilon) | Monday, April 9, 2012 - 11:05 pm
Yeah I couldn't make out what he meant with %100 certainty. |
| Andy | Tuesday, April 10, 2012 - 09:18 pm
Wild eyes:
Yes, the exchange rate is down because we pushed it down.
It does not matter why it is down. The numbers are lower. Game money increased in value and many prices and work became cheaper in terms of game money.
This results in lower cost, lower income etc. As long as this is generally proportional there is no problem.
you earn a lower amount of SC$ but what you purchase costs much less.
weapons went down by 50% and the numbers you need went down by another 50%.
other products and items are also much cheaper.
Instead of trading tens of trillions we are now down to trillions. Numbers remain far too high.
We could argue about gold coins or about changing the game but it has nothing to do with numbers going down.
We used to have 1000 bombers being lost in 5 minutes in our old wars, and I remember a war with several millions weapons lost. This is ridiculous and those days are over. The reduction in numbers made this kind of numbers old history and players joining the game today think that a trillion is a huge amount. It should be.
The US economy GNP is probably 1T per month. A country with a population of 25 millions could do with a GNP of 1T, a budget of 300B which is 25B per game month. a poor country should do with 10% of that.
Long way to go. I am not sure we will get to this kind of numbers. |
| Star Polarity (Little Upsilon) | Wednesday, April 11, 2012 - 06:24 am
No worries Andy - as I type this it is the year 2952 on Little Upsilon. I am sure by then, a trillion won't be near as much as, what year are you in again? 2012?
Wow, that is really old!
;-) |
| Andy | Wednesday, April 11, 2012 - 12:42 pm
No avatars? |
| Jiang Hu Warrior (Fearless Blue) | Wednesday, April 11, 2012 - 12:52 pm
oh look a new feature.....avatars |
