Virtual Reality Public Transport IPO - Discussion

[Oleg]

You talk a lot about how this would benefit and strengthen the economy. Have you considered taking advice from, or perhaps even employing, someone who has knowledge or expertise in economics? I don't mean randoms on the forum who think they know what they're talking about, I mean people who are actually economics professionals or academics, for example.

[Fifth]

You talk a lot about how this would benefit and strengthen the economy. Have you considered taking advice from, or perhaps even employing, someone who has knowledge or expertise in economics? I don't mean randoms on the forum who think they know what they're talking about, I mean people who are actually economics professionals or academics, for example.

I know you think we're all idiots here and that's OK.

I like your idea of employing someone who has knowledge in economics! This is a very good idea indeed.

However, mindyou, just having a degree in economics might not be enough. It would be useful if this person also understands the basics of game theory.
I once had a long public conversation with one of the key investors (another game, not EU) who had masters degree in economics. I tried my best to explain the very basic concept of RCE to him. After several thousand words of detailed explanations I had to give up. He never understood anything, it was like running into a brick wall.
I suspect this guy got his degree in Russian Federation but still, serves as an example, I suppose?

Anyway, it's not to justify my incompetence. I'm almost as bad as ND, I know that.

[Magyar]

http://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/...bo3620704.html

Read this book. It's a good place to start.

It was written by an economics professor at the University of Indiana who first identified the idea of virtual goods having a real value.

He currently teaches classes on virtual economics now at the same university.

Very knowledgeable fellow, and a pleasure to chat with. Usually quite polite, although his disdain for the Entropia model is pretty clear from the outset.

[mastermesh]

How is this plan going to affect the shops, apartment dwellers, etc. with estates in places that are somewhat difficult to get to by foot? A very long time ago Mindark removed the 'rent' fee for apartments, shops, etc. It seems, from estate owners' perspectives', that this is a way to re-add that fee that was removed long ago, just in a roundabout way by adding it as a fee to get 'home' instead of as a fee attached to the estate terminals themselves... Actually, it's slightly worse than rent since it'll keep potential buyers of things in the shops from going to the shops as often as they do currently... Back when rent existed, many did not pay it to keep their estates open. Why do you believe that they will be willing to pay a similar daily fee to get home instead of the monthly one that existed previously?

In the past, you, yourself had the ability to utilize multiple avatars to run certain estates, such as the bank, without having to pay transport fees, pay your 'time' to move your own avatar around to get to the estate from wherever your main avatar was, etc. Will this new system allow shop owners, etc. to create multiple avatars to run their estates too? How can estate owners better manage their estates when there's a hurdle of tps with daily fees in their way?

In past 'wishlist' threads, it's been suggested that those that are 'citizens' of any given planet be allowed to tp to that planet for free regularly (once a week, or a day, etc.)... with citizenship being granted through ownership of some type of deed tied to that planet, such as the Calypso Land deeds, Arkadia Underground deeds, apartment or shop ownership (ok, management rights since the word owner was removed from those types of deeds long ago), etc. Any way that something like that could be implemented to encourage those with assets tied to their planet to 'go home' with free, or at least reduced travel costs utilizing the public transportation system?

If this system is added perhaps the 'fee' can only be to LAs, outposts, etc. and TPing to a 'city' with apartments or shops on any given planet can be free?... or at least much 'cheaper' than anywhere else?... Maybe the lower level tp chips can be changed too so that even the level I has a 'tp home' function, which currently is only on the III and up versions?

Also, does this 'plan' include tp between planets or just between the tps on the same planet? When Planet Partners were just starting we had the ability to tp between planets. Now we have auctioneers that can connect things between planets. Why not bring that ability back in game to tp avatars between the planets?

[mastermesh]

Also, thinking about this idea and some of the questions I just posted, I believe that quite a few avatars utilize revive terminals as a way to move around using a type of free public transportation... since they know that if you get over halfway between two revive terminals and hit T you'll end up at the nearest revive. On some planets, that don't have a lot of revive terminals yet, that's a way to get half way across the planet, or at least a third of the way, if you know where the revives are vs your coordinates... Is it possible that a part of this plan might be to remove some of the many revive terminals in game and/or move them around a bit?

Currently, a lot of LA owners have already paid to get revives and terminals in game..,
http://www.planetcalypso.com/opportu...e-development/

Teleporters
A teleporter on your Land Area makes it easily accessible for other participants and opens up other development upgrade options to better promote your Land Area.
Frontline Battle Teleporter - 75,000 PED
City Spire Teleporter - 75,000 PED
Calypso Tri-Teleporter - 75,000 PED
By default, Teleporters inherit the Land Area name.
Custom Teleporter Name - 10,000 PED

Revival terminal – 15,000 PED

Maybe, all revive terminals and tps that haven't been paid for at the above listed prices could be removed, except for those in major cities with apartments, malls, etc. kinda like Entropia was many, many years ago?... (heck, maybe even make it so that all of the mall towns actually have tps that everyone has since folks currently don't start with Emerald Lakes or Twin Peaks, etc.)

or work it in to the new system so that those LAs that already paid the to have the above listed tps installed would have access to their tps by all avatars be free since they already paid to get the tp from Mindark, but access to other tps would have the fee you want to add in put on them... perhaps even go another step, and have those tps that were paid for at the above listed prices be 'added' to all avatar's maps instantly without having to find the tp first... so they'd sort of become new additional 'starter tps' that everyone has... kinda like New Oxford and Port Atlantis were way back when before the new starter locations were introduced.

[Sionkiewicz]

Very little out there has RCE at this time, but I think this business model will be the wave of the future, even if only on a small level for most games... Currently players spend billions on Micro-transactions and get nothing back... The TP system can be a device for introducing rewards to all kinds of games.. Only some may actually include your avatar hoping back and forward.

As I build traction for my plan outside of Entropia Universe, then that will help in partnering with existing games, but also it might be the next wave of worlds and games that are more important and realistic to partner with.

I fail to see how this will achieve the following..

The goal of The VR Public Transport IPO is to secure significant investment from outside Entropia Universe to fund the process of interconnecting Virtual Reality via Teleportation so that either avatars, items, skills or virtual currency can become interoperable, which will in turn fuel exponential growth of monetized avatar skill development and truly solidify virtual and augmented worlds as a new frontier for users, creating immense investment and job opportunities for the future.

To me, if you are trying to bring in investments from outside Entropia Universe, you would start with trying to secure investors from outside Entropia Universe? Not increase the cost of playing an already expensive game? If I was looking at putting money into this, that would be a huge detractor. And, as you have stated, the RCE of this game is unique so there is no way to compare this to any other MMO out there.

Simply stated, privatizing the TPs and charging 1 PED per TP is a bad move and one that will drive customers away from the game when you want to show that the playerbase is growing.

Now, Replacing MASSIVE with some modern advertising companies would be the best start and an easy way to bring in some advertising dollars into the game.

Has there been any investigations into this option before the thought of making the players pay came in?

[maddocks2379]

if lets say 30-40% of players stop using TP's, whats the backup plan to cover the losses in TP revenue and Hunting/Mining Turnover, it could potentionaly wipe %'s off the the profits from hunting and mining which would dwarf the gains made of TP Fees

what exactly will be involved in the paid work? you say hard work, do this mean lots of running & Tping or is it hunting/mining/crafting turnover meaning the top wage would require top turnover

interplanetly space TP, whats the likely costs of this? and will stackables be blocked? allowing stackables to be cheaply tp'd from planet to planet risks killing all auctions except Ark and Caly. Plus this would likely end Space in its current form, if tp'ing between planets is priced anywhere below 30 (no stackables, 75 with) then space needs to re-purposed first, more than transport missions, it needs a PP, more ships, guns, missions & Mining

Will there be a system of Free Teleports? the major cities, shopping areas?

[KikkiJikki]

The goal of The VR Public Transport IPO is to secure significant investment from outside Entropia Universe to fund the process of interconnecting Virtual Reality via Teleportation so that either avatars, items, skills or virtual currency can become interoperable, [snip]

I can understand the vision here (Ready Player One?) but I just don't think it is feasible. The concept is that I take my avatar and gear and drop it into another game where I can use it. (currency is easy, that's just exchange rates). That means that there has to be a mapping between EU skills/professions and what ever skill system is used in the other game. The damage done by my weapons has to be rebalanced for the other game. Every single EU weapon needs to given new attributes for that game so as to not cause chaos through being overpowered. Similarly for armour.

That is a huge, huge task that scales exponentially with every new platform that participates. And so does the cost to all participating platform developers.

I'm not necessarily opposed to the idea of monetising tps if it delivers net benefits but at the moment I am not seeing any realistic benefits other than the impact of token crafting.

Regards,
KikkiJikki

[Coz1969]

There are very few countries in the world with FREE Public Transport. Why should entropia universe be any different?

Ummm, perhaps because EU is NOT a real country, solar system, universe. Also, yes, in the real world, transportation has costs associated with it. Want to take the subway,. bus, trolley, train, airplace, etc? You have to pay. Why? Because there are direct and indirect costs associated with simply operating those modes of transportation. First, there's the cost of the actual vehicle. Then, there's the cost of paying the operators of that vehicle (bus drivers, pilots, etc). Then, there's the fuel to operate that vehicle. Of course, there's other associated costs such as maintenance, insurance, etc. THIS is why public transportation in the real world costs money. Many people are involved, and many costs are involved. We already have this system in EU. It's called vehicles. People pay to transport already, when they pay taxi's on each planet, when they pay mothership, privateer, quad, and VTOL owners to transport them between planets. There are already costs associated with operating a transportation service: fuel, repair costs, planetary landing fees, etc.

How many people are involved with me using the TP? One, that's me. Yet, here you want to take a system that has no operating costs, a system that players have been using since the beginning of the game, and you want to charge for it.

Paying for the use of teleporters will absolutely drive the demand for TP tokens, which will drive the demand for the resources to manufacture them, driving trade between players.

Creating something new that players will value will help drive the economy. Creating a BS tax on the TP's will not. Sure, create a TP token that is crafted. Make the TT value of that token 1 ped. How long before the market value is driven up so high that now the token will cost 3 ped, even 5 ped. How long before the market value of that token is so low that it simply isn't worth crafting? Where's the economic benefit then?

The revenue generated from the token sink will be split the same way that current revenues are split between Mindark, PP, deed holders, affiliates and a new share will be allocated to VR Jobs

Charge us for something that is currently free, and then return a tiny portion of that to players, I don't care what you call it, it's a tax, plain and simple. It's a money grab. We have enough of those in EU, fortunately, I don't have to change my game play in order to avoid the most obvious money grabs, such as merry mayhem, gold weeks, kong, etc. Implement a TP fee, and my game will change significantly, and not for the better. And, ultimately, it would mean LESS money for MA, PP's etc, because while I am traveling between locations, I will be spending NOTHING. I will not be simply deciding oh, I want to hunt (insert mob name), then TP there, start spending money. Nope, I will be transporting myself there, enjoying the scenery, picking up dung and fruit, and not spending a single PED. I am certain that many other players will do the same. Where the stimulus to the economy then?

[Fifth]

The concept is that I take my avatar and gear and drop it into another game where I can use it. (currency is easy, that's just exchange rates).

Even currency is not as easy as just exchange rates. Ingame currency is not (legally) convertible back to the RL currency in non-RCE games. Opening a link between games means we're providing a secure and 100% legal money laundering mechanism for all the botters and goldfarmers who currently have to rely on the illegal black market websites.

Pandora's box you DON'T want to open.