GM's need to back off a little (Fearless Blue)

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"

Slow down and think?...... that's just not capitalistic!

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...constant changes nothing gets to even out and no one can get adjusted.<!-/Quote-!>

Agreed.

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

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.

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!

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

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..................

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.

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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.<!-/Quote-!>

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.

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.

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)

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!

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

[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

[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

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*

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.

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And, really, his absence has really shown,<!-/Quote-!>

This is very obvious. Painfully so in many cases.

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.