How to make a million dollars, stimulate the economy and make people happy

[harmony]

I won't comment on the TP initiative because it's already bloody obvious how i feel about it

I'll just put forward some thoughts and calculations about how MA can very easily make more money, increase the economy and raise player happiness.

I'll also add some basic maths (not a thousandfold increase in playerbase in 4 years as some other 'maths' i've seen recently (oops i went there, didn't I?). I'll keep adding ideas in this thread until i've reached 10 mln ped extra income a year.

How do to reach that goal? It’s easy: add simple functionality that will at most cost a few hours work on existing systems.

non yearly income:
1.990.000 peds on Taming
1.250.000 peds on Space
1.150.000 peds on landplots/harvesting

yearly income:
609.000 peds on Taming
500.000 peds on Space
730.000 peds on Auction
110.000 peds on landplots/harvesting
1.052.000 peds on scanning


1. Easy updates on taming.

Added benefits: increased markup on fruits, sweetstuff, animal essence and rare animal essence, increased value of skilling, more trades.

Initial revenue:
Buffs for pets: 250.000
Added functionality for stables:240.000
Allow the usage of more then one pet at a time: 1.500.000 peds

Yearly revenue:
Buffs for pets: 219.000
Added functionality for stables:25.000
Allow the usage of more then one pet at a time: 365.000 peds

Buffs for pets, through stables

People are crazy about buffs, unfortunately the buffs pets give aren’t all that interesting to most players. So let’s introduce buffs for increased attack speed, increased chance of critical and increased defensive rates. A lot of people will go for it.

I think we have 12 stables, say 10 sales per stable per day times 1 ped income is 120 ped a day. Then those pets will be out consuming sweetstuff, so let’s add another 240 ped income for that. Also let’s not forget that stable owners have to pay an arm and a leg to offer the buffs, so that is another 240 ped a day. This gives a total of 219k ped yearly income.

But that’s not all, off course not any pet level can get those buffs, let’s give skilling a purpose again: you can get them starting at level 50, and the highset buff goes for a level 150 pet.
So we have:
250 people getting a pet to lvl 150 -> 125.000 peds
250 people getting a pet to lvl 100 -> 50.000 peds
2000 people getting a pet to lvl 50 -> 50.000 peds

Also you can add about 25.000 in buffs and brushes to get there faster.
So there is 250.000 peds initial income.


Add shopping booths for stables

Sell two shopping booths per stable for 10k each (like promised over a year ago). That gives 240.000 peds initial income. The booths will increase trades on all planets so that’s a plus. And also not unimportant: it allows stable owners to sell nutrio bars easily, increasing pet usage across all worlds.

What’s the yearly revenue?
Let’s say 5 sales per stable a day, times 1 ped tax. That makes 21.900 ped a year, and with the increased pet usage let’s say 25k a year.


Allow the usage of more then one pet at a time

Off course only high skilled tamers can do that, maybe 2 at level 30, 3 at level 70 and 4 at level 100?

Potential incomes:
people skilling up to reach a higher level:
10 people trying to get to lvl 100 -> 10*50.000 = 500.000 peds
250 people trying to get to lvl 70 -> 250*20.000 = 500.000 peds
1000 people trying to get to lvl 30 -> 1.000*500 = 500.000 peds

Then we have auction fees for skills, whips, brushes, nutrio bars. Let’s say 200 peds a day, which makes: 73.000 peds a year.

And off course using, more pets will also increase the nutrio bar and buff usage due to the second (or third/fourth) pet. Let’s say there will be 200 extra pets walking around per day with buffs, that makes 200*365*5=365.000 extra peds a year.


2. Easy updates on space.

Why wait till the end of the year when you can make space a lot more interesting today?

Added benefits: increased fun, increased markup on resources, less complaining on forums.


more mobs in space (144k/year)

Currently the motherships can handle 100 mobs at the same time, why not give them the oportunity to hunt full time: now they spend 80% of their time collecting the mobs. Just fill a few places with a lot of mobs. This will increase the the turnover in space by 500% (probably even 5000% since a lot of people don’t even bother now).

Let’s say turnover in space will go up from 30.000 a month to 150.000 a month, with a 90% tt return that is 12.000 extra income a month which leads to 144k per year.

higher damage mobs in space (292k/year and 250k one time)

Current mobs hardly put a dent on upgraded motherships. Why not add a new generation of the space mobs that does 10 times the damage of the current ones. This would increase the usage of welding wire, welding wire blueprints, lyst,stone,alternative and off course bigger repairing tools and the ingredients needed to craft them.

Potential incomes:

Decay of welding wire blueprints: 100 ped a day -> 36.500 peds
Decay of welding wires: 200 peds a day -> 73.000 peds
Decay of (higher level) tools: 400 ped a day: 146.00 peds
Auction fees because of increased trades: 100 ped a day -> 36.500 peds
Increased usage of warps, space fligt and mines: 64.000 peds a year

Giving a yearly extra income of 356k peds

And off course there is a onetime income from people upgrading their vehicles (and increased markup on the required ores): let’s say 250k peds.


Talk to John Black Knight (1.000.000)

For some strange reason he still believes in space. He’s practically begging to throw money at space, and made dozens of suggestions on how to improve it. Spend a few hours talking to him...


3. Change Auction orders (730k/year)

Added benefits: losses due to resellers/auction bots is a lot lower, and also lower withdrawals by profitting resellers.

Haven’t we all seen the threads were some reseller makes tens of thousands of ped profit over some auction mistake? Why let the resellers have all the fun?
Change it so that the difference of asking and selling price doesn’t go to the buyer. Split it three ways: 1/3rd to MA, 1/3rd to seller, 1/3rd to buyer. That will still make three parties happy.

Let’s say with all the orders it’s 6k per day that goes to the buyer, after the change 2k will go to MA, making it 730k peds yearly income.



Well that is already a 500.000 dollars extra income for MA within a year.
I’ll add some more next week

[Fifth]

I can add the remaining 500k.

Althou, if implemented right, the combined direct and indirect (eg. increased motivation to skill up) influence to the rest of the game can easily exceed this number more than 10 times.


Create interactive playfields that enforce few simple but entertaining rules.
For more demanding ones can create instances but most should work fine simply as areas in the normal open world.
Simple global match-making system recommended.
Variable average cost to play recommended, not only the usual "cheap for noobs, costly for ubers" but also cheap and costly for medium level, cheap and costly for ubers. The general idea being not "force in" but "lure in" and also more flexibility by providing different options for ppl with different playstyles and budgets to find the common ground acceptable for everyone.
Could be PvE (all human players in one team), could be PvP (team vs team). PvP doesn't necessarily mean shooting at each other.

Content-wise the possibilities are endless. One possible example here. (something I have actually played, with very few changes)

[mastermesh]

Make estates 'stable'... There's been at least three major estate bugs that keep people from utilizing their estates over the years, sometimes for many months and/or quarters of the year... People's trust in estates are not going to get too high if they know they'll be paying for something that will stop working.

Once you do that, release all of the estates that the estate broker on every planet holds... making the cities ghost towns is not attracting a lot of customers.

[harmony]

It seems I have no time this weekend to make a follow-up post so i’ll just do a small post now, and save some for the weekend after.

So next step to make a lot of money for MA:

Landplots and wood harvesting

They are introduced on calypso, but have no functionality at the moment and haven’t been introduced on other planets.

-add landplots to other planets (1.15 mln peds)

I think there are 150 land plots on calypso, where the small ones go for 3k peds each.
Since other planets are smaller let’s say: 100 for arkadia, 50 for cyrene and RT, 25 for Toulan, next island and Monria (why not)? sell them for 3k peds for the smaller ones to 10k peds for the bigger ones. that makes 200*3k + 50*5k +25*10k = 1.1 mln peds additional income. And the best part they don’t even need the additional functionality at the moment, just squares on the ground somewhere.

Also the bigger plots on other planets would require the composite planks, giving a temporary boost to wood harvesting. giving about 10k peds in auction fees/profit from people in that profession and 40k tt loss when acquiring the plot.

-Add functionality to land plots (110k peds/year)

The problem with wood harvesting (and the general economy) is that there is no continued demand for the product. If the taming improvements are implemented there will be a bigger demand for the already high markup nutrio bars.

So why not enable land plot owners to plant trees in order to get fruits from them. To plant a tree you need wood (for fences or whatever) and dung/fertilizer. After X time the tree would produce the fruit, and you would need to repair the fences and add dung again for next season.

That way:
-the plot owners makes peds on selling fruit
-miners get markup for growth molecules
-there is enough fruit available for taming
-fruit walkers loose a bit of markup on fruits, but gain it on dung
-there is a continued demand for wood harvesters (JOBS! )

In total i would estimate an income for MA for:
24k: decay of wood/fertilizer per year
12k: auction fees on wood/fertilizer/fruits
24k: decay on harvester/refiner tools
50k: crafting losses for the composite plank crafting

Coding doesn’t even have be hard, it can just be a text screen popping up, no need for fancy visuals.


Scanning (1.05 mln peds a year)

A few years back it was possible to afk scan mobs/robots/people and keep getting (generally considered pretty useless and expensive) skills while doing that. Right now it is no longer possible to scan the same mob twice and get skill gains.
People were scanning a lot afk while having dinner.

Let's do the maths: 1 pec per scan, 20 scans per minute.
Let's say 10 people scanning 24 hours a day (or 30 for 8 hours a day) that would give 0,01*20*60*24*10=2.880 peds a day which makes a bit over 1.05 mln peds a year.

And best part: they don't have to code anything for it, they just have to remove some code.

[shadowfire]

...

I will open up with first, you have a lot of systems in there that do not look at what secondary effects they cause are. Lets just start with the first....
If a person can have multiple pets, where do you draw the line? Will server lag become an issue when people each have 10x as many avatars as actually exist, can the system support it, and what about the average player? We all know its a zero sum system and in the current form, allowing more ways for people to become extremely economic compared to the average results in them pulling a profit while increasing the loss for everyone else below them.
This furthers the problem that in EU many people cannot afford to play as you either have to have a lot of money in the game to reduce your net loss, or you pay more constantly and lose that money ultimately anyway, thus ultimately discouraging people who do not have exorbitant amounts of money from participating.
You need to be careful of the breadth of the horizontal stretch of each system before saying that its an easy source of peds. With deeds, all the new types of items, and more, we are for the first time starting to see the effect of stretch on the market and its risks in relation to collapse. Introducing too many deed types all at once in itself caused a major crash in arkadia deeds that even threatened to send it under the 50 ped mark. The compets deed cost was 120 ped after they delayed things, which destroyed faith in the deed. This in itself has already as of this moment reduced price back to 120 merely days after the end of sale, and due to no revenue as we were promised being seen in site, these deeds will plummet even below their initial 100 ped sale point very quickly for a significant amount of time, rendering permanent irrepairable damage to future sale of deeds.


Additionally for systems like scanning, you should think of the bigger scope of things. Perhaps the restriction was added to solve a problem. They could be adding professions based on this that will utilize skilling up this profession, and need to address the afk infinite skilling first. Money is not everything. They key is introduction of new content that makes wise use of programmer hours.