Affordability isn't a digital measure, with uber on one side and 90% classed as not uber on the other.
Not sure why your making this division, Affordability is in reference to what people can afford to deposit from the real world as USD into the platform and has no bearing on what level of development they are upto in Entropia.
As a mid-level player you can afford a hell of a lot more than some day old newb, and yet there are many complicated division within each group, not clearly defineable by time played or free cash.
Refer to above, you make the assumption people in the real world are well off at this point. I am a mid level player buying mid level items 1k USD (1.5k AUD) - 2.5k USD (3.5k AUD) and these prices are still way out of context for someone who has money saved up to make such purchases. 2yrs ago most of these items were 500 to 1k USD or less.
Again this needs to be brought back into context with what people in the real world can afford, across the world in both the lower and mid classes of society. Placing items outside the reach purchase wise leads to mass demotivation.
That being one point, the other is the chance to loot such items today is pretty much nil, no matter how much time, effort and money you put into it. This is pretty much being a fact of the current day workings of Entropia at this point in time leads to further demotivation and degrunted participants;
Whom for those who are foolish enough to give it a shot, eventually leaving to a trail of carnage and bad reputation in the real world.
If you then decide to make everything affordable, then you'll very quickly find resellers buy the whole damn lot up, creating a real problem.
Resellers are found everywhere in all economies, yes they are a problem, but they are factored into the drop rate ratio, hence why things need ot be monitored. Correctly adjusting the drop rate ratio, can allow for resellers to buy up to the point that their buying and reselling values are kept within an affordable tolerance range. This is all part of economic management. (Something we have not seen managed properly here in Entropia to date)
Here in the UK, you now have the pleasure of renting a home and paying virtually the same amount of money per month as if you mortage the property. This is because they make a house cheapper with special initiatives to lower cost to purchase, but 'resellers' aka buy-to-let obtain the housing stock, result = still just as messed up, but now we have even higher demand.
Same case in a lot of the parts of the world, except the US which has been horribly slow to move in such matters under the Bush administration
.
Again you need money to be able to do this, most do not, so your approach is very one sided. I am keeping in context the affordability of an entire economy at all levels whilst doing my best to address the negative consensus that is starting to build in the real about Entropia (A consensus in the negative is very hard to shake and can take years of proven positives to come out of), not just focusing on my own circumstances or those of minority groups within an economy, such as resellers.
Nice high-school geography lesson, but the economy of calypso is not a model that can be directly equated with a country of the real world. We don't (curently) have any external trading, we don't have (anymore) a stock market, we don't have employment or rival companies that operate as a business unit to generate wealth. Simply put, GDP is a great measure, but it's not relevant here; GDP itself doen't mean good or bad for anyone or anything, it's not a direct measure of anything other than total income or total spend. It infers that an economy is doing well or not, and the % involved are then used as a ratio to give a guide to the severity of any expected impact.
It was more to keep things simple for people
Same concept applies within an isolated economy. If you produce or harvest more resource than is consumed, the produced end products or resource either go to waste, or their values are trashed in an attempt to move them.
MA has already tried the backburner approach by reducing loot output of each participant which starts to end up in revolt of people complaining about loot (Backburner approach being the additional PED still owed to you is recorded in your accounting records being builtup)
This is then further compounded later on when this PED needs to be eventually released back to the particiapnt, in what we saw as, 'Are daily ATHs good for the economy' (Thread here on EF). So a second lot of people become demotivated over this occuring. (Double sword, both edges MindArk did not fair so well from this time around)
This is where continued growth is required to continually increase and build the economy, as people level up, the economy need to grow also as at higher levels the average participant harvests/produces a lot more (Higher level of PED weapon output decay/mining AMPs/Crafting higher end items with greater PED value)
Yes at this point we do not have external trading, we may at some point, but my demonstration is an isolated one, interested only in FPC's development & growth.
Nice high-school geography lesson, but the economy of calypso is not a model that can be directly equated with a country of the real world. We don't (curently) have any external trading
As a secondary response to the above quoted and bolded;
Of course we do, every participant in Entropia is an external trading partner in their willingness to deposit financial equity into the economy as quoted from my previous post :
Footnotes :
1. Financial entry points into the RCE environment - Investment & ongoing sustainability/profitability
Primary points of USD entry into the universe stemming from *wider-scale* (meaning a drop rate/ratio ensuring affordability by the average day folk, lower to middle classes, and not just the upper class & super rich) Virtual Item (Unlimited Weapons, Armor & higher end mining/healing/etc tools), Virtual Assets (dwellings/LAs/Hangars/Vehicles/etc) along with Accelerated Investment into skill chip-ins and/or faster progression of the skilling cycle through consumable (L) items providing faster skilling offsets (see next footnote), also as mentioned next from those investing into areas of production.
I think what you meant to say is we do not have any intra-internal trading partners, as in other partner worlds.
As far as external trading partners go, they will always be the participants in making deposits of financial equity into the system across all virtual worlds upon the Entropia platform.
When baking a cake, if you open the oven every 5mins you're not likely to get a good result; Likewise sometimes you need to know when not to interfere in real world models.
It is also not good to open it every 2-3 years, same thing, your not going to have much of a cake left by then.
Change is required, look at our economy and what is occuring, use the tools on the tracker if your not sure of participation levels and how many are burning enough ped to global daily & weekly across the spectrum of hunting, crafting and mining. You would be surprised to know that less than 300 people global daily and less than 750 global once or more weekly. (That 750 including the average 300 that global daily)
The point being not how many people are globalling/HoFing, the point being activity levels are right down, the economy is not inspired or motivated, most are finding Entropia to be a non viable nor affordable environment to participate in (even worse for those who are starting today or those who started in the last few recent years) which does not provide the elements which MindArk boast about at there shows and events, in the media, etc.
This eventually leading to a further bolstering of the negative consensus forming about Entropia. Brillant hey, bad management I say.
People hate to be lied to when it involves their hard earnt real life money. And plainly this is what is occuring, people are being lied to, intentionally or what I think to be, not intentionally due to people in MindArk being somewhat out of touch with those on the other side of the table. (Their Cashcows/customers/participants)
We are an economy in decline with negative growth, yes this has occured from time to time, but not at this rate. Further real world issues do impact the accelerated rate of negative growth, though this goes to show how weak our economy is in the motivation and inspiration which drives it.
Another lot of participants hopefully will come through the door from the Vegas show (Hopefully not a gambling crowd, but at this point I really don't care, as long as they spend big to burn up resources. We can deal with the negative offspins later <--- MindArk's general attitude to such things being as long as they come to the platform, how they come really doesn't matter, again not properly planned economic management for inspired and motivated growth and prosperity)
I read complaints about the rising economy, but I read in the next line complaints about market falling. This is a real world model, people see benefit in being here, they invest. People see less benefit that money is worth in pocket, they take money elsewhere. These cause natural fluctuations in market. With the recent rl economic issues effecting Calypso, and the resultant reduction in spending, coupled with some people chosing to move some money out, we see a reduction in the value of many items. So now is the time to be watching the market and gaining tools to take your game forward. This action is the stabalizer, and will kick-in when the value drops enough that the benefit to stay increasingly outweighs the benefit to take some/all peds out. But it's so important to remember this is a gradient. For some people the leave/reduce spent point has not been reached, for others the buy-in point hasn't been reached.
Agree with you on this point, that is nature cause and effect of any economy, yet still within a motivated and growing economy, this cause and effect would be much more balanced than what we are finding in Entropia at this point in time.
The current drop of L weapons is designed to promote their use, provide something other than oils in loot, and provide a stabalizing effect on the L item prices.
LOL. Sorry have to point out they have failed greatly here. Re-read my initial post about offsets with (L) items.
Having used many (L) items, they do not give less oils or common drop resources, that is just a fallacy no matter what others may try to tell you, tested and proven many times.
Increasing UL drops reverses this process and drops of UL SIB weapons is very dangerous to the economy and L item usage.
Again read initial footnotes on (L) items in original Economic Strategist post. This would not occur if implemented properly, (L) items would actually enhance the economy along with give a viable option for those wishing to use the benefits of (L) item offsets if they were to be implemented properly.
Again I think the model your proposing is not thought through fully. The 1:10,000 ratio sounds great, but consider that the tt or near L weapons make up the bulk of drops and will simply be tt'd, thus they'll play little or no part in slowing down inflation, every quicker the point will be reached where a sizeable proportion of the population have access to weapons that preclude the use of L entirely. Then MA's only action left to control economy is to nerf everyone, thus it'll be more difficult to skill, more expensive to play per hour, loot will be lower - all so we can move towards the inevitable point where a significant proportion of the population have UL weapons....
Even though I have a strong background in economics, I am not a professional and don't pretend to be one, this is something that an Economic Strategist needs to do considering and keep in context all elements of Calypso. All I have outlined is a concept for improving things, not a defined answer on what the rates should be.
The goal here is to MOTIVATE people and encourage growth through affordability, motivation and inspiration for achieving their own aspirations.
(refer to your own example of housing prices in the UK and the ability to mortgage them out at the same rate as paying rent in another, hopely the UK does not start another sub-prime trend in over leveraging under-pinning assets with the new iniative)
At the end of the day, MindArk is asking us to pay 10 ped (1 USD) per hour vs other *games* which charge 5 ped (0.5 USD) per *day* (ie. 60 pec per hour for the average gamers 8 hour day)
MindArk needs to realise of which I am sure it does, that this is not a game economy and needs to be lead/guided as a proper real world economy since it revolves around real world currency.
All they have developed as an organisation (FPC/MA) is an environment to which others can play our their own inner ambitions & desires (aspirations) to make money in an entertaining environment. They have also clearly stated this in their EULA in that Entropia Universe is not a game and that Calypso is a world of Entertainment.
If the Economy is not to be managed properly in the use of real world currency to provide this reflected service (be it entertaining or not) they have simply failed their original mission statement.
If they wish to provide a game to play without a properly managed (lead/guided) economy, they should *not* be charging the participant who plays an average of 8 hours a day a fee of 3000 USD per year (30k ped) to do so, but instead charge the going rate of games which is about 15 USD a month, 180 USD a year. (1800 PED)
Otherwise they are lying to those whom they lure into using the service, and rightly so, for those whom know a scam when they see it after initial investigation and time spent, will further impact the external negative consensus. (Note : It is not a scam, just the balance is not right in providing the offsets for people to realistically achieve what motivated them to join in the first place)
Again, I can see the first move being played out in your mind, but I don't think your looking several moves on. Items have value, because demand outstrips supply. Demand outstips supply, because either the supply is low or the demand is high. If the supply is increased without a relative increase in demand the prices will fall though the floor. We have people who skill up in certain areas to do well and become the icons of their speciality or mix; People wont bother if their isn't sufficient reward, thus we could really mess up the future growth of Calypso with a terrible, yet innocent policy change as raising drop-rate on BP's.
Again another basic economic concept.
I feel your being a little melodramatic with thinking values would go through the floor. Again a professional would need to handle this, though with it done properly, an economy which is growing will consume these items, and there have ben suggested limitations in my previous post to negate some of the negative human behavioural patterns that could adversely effect the value of an item or the economy of a multitude of items within the same range.
At the same time, the rate needs to be raised consistantly with the level of growth to keep the potential of looting one a reality and not a lotto fantasy to drive economic motivation to extend activity.
Buying is one thing, but does not address the lower 50 - 60% of any economy not able to afford these now affordable items (speaking in future context where items have been adjusted down, ie 150k items worth 25k now, 25k items now worth 5k). So 60% of the economy will require motivation and inspiration in knowing that their aspirations of liking to loot one are achievable. This is not the case today.
Never ever hunt for item specific loot unless it is a very often or common drop on the known loot table, your just wasting your time and PED if that is all your after from your hunts. With time, this trying demotivates people to no end, eventually leaving the system disgrunted, again with people liking to be heard, they will be commenting externally in the real world since they were burnt in the use of their real life hard earnt money.
If the solution was simple, it would have been implemented. Limiting over time is terribly restrictive, durring the recent competion we saw ppl invalidating entry by chosing to play because they were bored and cared less about competition than restricting their game time to perscribed levels. Apart from generating a sense of disapointment when you get a big hit, with the idea that you'll now be certified bad loots for X time, you're only pushing the lawless mind to actions such as multi-accounts. Also we generate lots of paper-doll skilled avatars, as we're pushed from skill area to skill area, avoiding looting restrictions. This ruins not only diversity and player enjoyment, but destroys the opportunity for business interests and the belief that 1 person can work to better themselves. Without this belief system, we'll lose untold amount of investment.
The solution will not be a simple one, there are many elements to consider, hence a professional should be brought onboard to address them, at the same time, the concepts of providing growth and development through motivation and affordability, which really is not rocket science.
The the secondary points/any of the melodrama can be address along the way. Some of the issues you have addressed above occur as normal negatives, in cause and effect from human motivates.
I think what you mean is to move the carrot nearer the donkey
No, I mean, remove the carrot on the stick concept totally out of the workings of the environment. Participants are not Donkeys and treating them as such will only lead to them kicking MA in the arse one day (ref disgrunted customers leaving a trail of carnage in the real world bolstering the negative consensus)
MA needs to build a level of trust and confidence with it's customers the participants, bringing into place a happy and balanced unison between the two. Not one where people come to the point of wanting to
This does not mean that MA gives away it's bag of toys at the first chance it gets, though it does mean at an equilibrated (bringing into balance and harmony) approach must be achieved through rewarded progression and activity at regular intervals to keep the participant's motivation inspirational.
As the old saying goes, you scratch my back and I will scratch your back.
MA is is saying scratch it baby, more more, harder harder, yes that is the spot, keep going, keeeep going ... oh yea ... what, no it's not your turn, keeeeep going ... that's it, you got the right spot there, no not your turn yet, keep scratching
LOL, what normal person does that, none, only a selfish person would.
MA is not living upto it's standards in providing the reflection of it's service to meet those desires which brought it into original existence.
The carrot metaphor represents postive desire, motived by self will. With a carrot further away or not present, the donkey won't have any motivator left accept the stick.
LOL, yes I know what the carrot resembles in the context of Donkeys, again we are not Donkeys and MA treating us as such will lead to no where good, Human beings can motivate themselves through proven knowledge that meeting their inner ambitions & desires (aspirations) are realistic and not some sort of lotto fantasy.
I get quite sick of reading on industry sites how much Entropia is Gambling, I don't even bother to reply to defend MindArk/Entropia, as I see exactly where they are coming from, a lot of things in Entropia sadly conceptually resemble gambling, even though the design of the core mechanics (accounting platform wise) is not.
These elements have to be rebalanced to bring things from conceptual gambling state back into achievable rewarded progress state, otherwise this consenus will just keep building as time goes on and ultimately destroy a lot of the hard work MA tries to do in promoting the platform/system/new ideas & implementations.
Getting the balance right is most important, motivating and inspiring the participants through realistic achievement of their inner ambitions & desires, and for the upper 40-50% of the economy rather than the just the upper 10% upper class, bring these rewards back down to a level of affordability.
And yes, this will hurt and disgrunt a few people whom currently have items of high value, yet this can be management in the way it is done, hopefully to a degree of *finesse*, though I do ask, what worth are any of those items in an economy without strength ?
There is no offset to paying high prices if you can not generate wealth to any substancial measure to recoupe the over inflated investment in a weak economy.
Problem with people is their lack of willingness to see this, as the larger portion of the participant base finds items our of their affordability range, or as a fictional lotto style looting chance (ie. Nil chance) then they leave or reduce participate dramatically, negatively impacting on the economic strength of the economy and hence those who invested such outrageous amounts to have any potential on recouping such amounts.
It is a vicious cycle, but human nature also, and without proper measures of growth to support it, people that are greedy being when it comes to their own self interests without considering most of the external elements of where they are at and what they are involved with and in as a whole create their own graves when it comes to times like now when we have a declining economy and where bubbles will burst and loses will be incurred.
(Ref to generating wealth and distribution vs the generalisation of 'making money'). These self interests can not be overcome, it is the nature of most human beings in this financial ERA.
6yrs and I'm still waiting, however short of 100k I'm not going to run naked though the streets screaming with joy. So your point is true. Yes I'm jaded with my age here.
I really don't need to comment on this, you have been here long enough to know.
But I don't see how increasing the big loot frequency will help this, instead it hurts everyone else more. I'd sooner have better economy than massive one-off hit, I'd rather have a smile on my face the majority of hunts, than 1 heart attack.
It would need to be done in gradual, yet sustancially noticable steps to produce an effect of inspired motivation in what participant base we have with us presently today.
A professional will need to handle this to do it right, to get the momentum going and to draw both the previous and the non-motivated (just hanging around till the edges of Cry2) crowd back into active willing participation, slowly increasing that participation and with the hope of drawing in new participants via the participant base along the way.
Word of mouth is the most powerful tool here, the outlay which MindArk is spending at this time in roadshows imho is pretty much wasted to a large degree and in the end are just paying for more to add to eventually to the negative external real world consensus, retaining only a few participants longer term in the process.
Fairly wicked I know, but this is what is occuring, MA is actually paying to have their reputation destroyed in the long run through it's luring efforts via roadshows and events.
And this I grow tired of seeing.
Sure bad-press is bad press, but... advertising is always good
Some people join just to find out if it really is that bad, alot of people will investigate and be drawn-in with the quick logic - "if it's so bad, why is
anyone playing".
Refer to above
Please don't take this as a personal attack, you've just been kind enough to cover a wealth of ideas in your prolifically long post that I desired to balance out. Sure I appear to have 'fought the MA side' here, but I'm no brown-noser, I've just got different priorities and see a different set of dangers in getting their.
You don't know me well enough if you feel I would take this as a personal attack, yes I can get fiery, but that is me by nature. I do try to research things out best I can, and I do not feel I am incorrectly representing the majority of the particpant base, including those no longer with us doing the majority of the damage at this time with others still with us close to that 'Line in the Sand' point.
I understand your not a brown noser, of which I am the same, I have fought for what I have believed in. And I do believe in FPC/MA and it's path and direction.
At the same time, I feel they have come out of touch with both their offering, real world circumstance and the participant base whom use the service as a majority.
My overriding concerns are the false representation of the player base (even though this itself has good and bad points ingame and investment wise for MA), as I believe that the falsely inflated population, derived though the white-lie of created accounts = active accounts, is actually causing people to think that Entropia isn't a budding place to get in and start investing. When in actuality we are at the very start of a time where people really can enter Calypso with serious investment and a real chance to make it big.
I understand and respect your concerns here, though I think you have blown out of context the "When in actuality we are at the very start of a time where people really can enter Calypso with serious investment and a real chance to make it big".
This is a fallacy for 99% of people. No good having only the upper class catered for and none of which is the real workhorse of any economy.
ROI potential along with earnings shall fall through the floor and devalues the initial investment long term inevitibly creating a loss at the end of it all within the context of a weak/weakening economy.
(refer to previous postings upon Virtual Asset Investment vs sustained economic growth/strength ensuring ROI potential and asset value retention - not the part on constrained releases causing over appreciation when investment opportunities are present & abundant, seperate issue)
Really it's like turning 'The American Dream' sour by saying we've already peaked, and from here on in it's only going down hill.
I really hate commenting on specifics on the society of a people in the real world, even as a stereotyped generalisation, as people generally get their arses up over it.
Also probably a bad example to use since the majority of American opportunities in the past decade have heavily leant to the side of 'Who can we screw over to get ahead' rather than truely ethical opportunities to make progress upon.
Though having followed to some degree American history. Americans are great dreamers, though usually only make progress in getting things done, after the fact (meaning after the shit hits the fan is when they band together and make these achievements) and generally at the expense of the rest of the international community to some substancial degree (financial/lives-lost).
Not saying they don't take the brunt of this, though they are the creators of their own demise (eventually getting the job done).
Even in business as travelling as a Core Systems communications engineer are the world very month dealing with VoIP & SS7 interconnects, I found them to be a very self-righteous the sun shines out of our arses society of people (I call it the Mighty Mouse complex, too proud in their approach to situations that it usually turns out to be a very destructive way of handling it) vs any other location in the world I have been to. (Most 1st & 2nd world countries);
So it is not their fault, just a trademark of their society's up-bringing and early years of society/cultural/social conditioning though from experience has never proven to be a conducive approach to forming solutions, getting resolutions & change in place to make effective progress.
I am sure someone here will pick on me for having commented upon that;
(Special Note : I have nothing against Americans, I treat every person as an individual, no matter what race they are, though in expectation management, I do not become upset when such things do occur)
Though besides the point the above has a direct reflective relevance to what is occuring with MindArk at the present time ...
Personally I am not into just dreaming, dreaming is great and is the first step of empowering any thought form through the various levels of existence into physical reality.
I am more of a doer at the end of the day, following processes through from dreams to reality, then improving upon their initial existence as time goes on.
Again a point MindArk has to take onboard with the getting too comfortable, forgetting their roots from conditioning, being too proud in their approach, hence losing touch with what motivated them and others to make Entropia what it is today and to a greater extent what it will become tomorrow.
Otherwise I would not put all this time & energy into trying to create such an awakening through these posts
Also of serious concern is the awful ped lock-in required for so many items in the Entropia Universe, items that really can't justify it in any way. I've made many masks, I've listed them in my shop, I've advertised in-game for sales at 10%. Great deal, but no sales what-so-ever. I tailor (###) many items, items with 40, 50, 80 and more ped locked into tt. These don't sell, people simply don't have a taste en-masse for in-game clothing that costs as much as a pair of basic jeans in real life (or jeans in-game that cost as much as much as my Levi's
). I'll get though hundreads of k (or k of k
) in tailoring res to make full tt item that will look good with colour and texture, only for it to sit undesired on a shelf.
Brilliant, now your starting to see things a lot more clearly and why sustained growth and inspired motivation of participants is required to keep up consumption along with the knock on effects as secondary consumer demands of each of these active participants grow.
We need arses, lots of arses, sat at computer, logged into Entropia. The current ability to manufacture goods outstrips the demand by so damn much, it's crazy. The price won't come down any further for alot of items, the floor is the cost of materials and efficiency, with the hugely false raised floor of massive tt values and 90% condition limits.
Hehe, I knew you would see through the clouds at some point, always seems to be at the end of people's responses
This is why we need to create an equilbrated environment where people are motivated to achieve their aspired to inner ambitions & desires. (Where FPC/MA actually starts to offer it's intended service long-term, rather than the recycling participant base routine we often see them doing today)
What I have suggested (requiring a professional to do it & monitor it properly) is something MindArk can directly effect in creating this balance and harmony in both the core Hunting sphere which all other spheres hinge off along with replicating the same in crating sphere, in unison of doing this, demand on both hunted and mined resources will also be achieved, so we cover all 3 core spheres along with catering for all secondary consumer requirements in a sustained fashion over time. (Tailoring, makeup masks, colouring, dwellings, makeup/body services, transportation flights, homestead furnishing yadda yadda the list goes on)
Rather than having no othe rplace for these to reasonably go other than the TT machine since the 3,000 odd relatively active (burning enough ped to global/HoF at least once a month) already have most of their needs and requirements met.
This is where MA will be required at some point to make the decision to look into planned continued growth, rather than recycling and reusing the economy to a per-determined size.
Yes this will require hardware planning (short term leasing being a good option incase major decline occurs at some point) amongst other things.
Working upon a basis of continually maintaining then trashing an economy to recycle the participant base and their needs is never a good approach to good sustained business long term and with doing so, continues to build a negative external consensus which will linger over MindArk as an organisation for when it comes to IPO, and future share evaluations and invested ground value to be gained/lost as time progresses.
On a final note, just to be clear, I do love Entropia, even with it's flaws, I will be here for many many years to come, 5 - 10+ easily. Due to real life family circumstances which will surround me for the next decade at least, this is my last big venture as far as putting all my time, effort and affordable financial resource into for the period. I do not go back on decisions once something is started, even if my approach may change.
(eg. Changing from running as a business to playing a game due to low to no viability in any eventual sustancial life supporting business sense for a middle class participant <-- has not occured yet, but may if systems are kept as they are)
On the broader scope, if MA is truely looking to participate as an organisation on the world stage, in the international environment as a publicly listed company effected by external opinions, consensus and professional evaluations (once RCE environment regulations hit, which will be addressed on the world stage sooner than people expect with China and other parts of Asian coming online soon);
It sure does need to pull it's act together, the company's service offering into what it offers and how it is managed at this point is quite laughable sadly, no matter how you dress it up with eye candy & storylines.
A Real Cash Economy without a properly lead/guided economy and limited/restricted economic motivative strength. Any investor would laugh at it's economic potential and ability to fair any negative internal and/or external economic forces.
It would be considered weak and flimsy at best without long-term participant & continued activity retention potential nor continued sustainable growth potential.
This is what needs to change about FPC/MA's Calypso offering.
This *intentional* throttling (chocking) and recycling of the participant base while retaining a few in the process, while luring new participants to the service to create new demand will not work long term, which is starting to become more and more apparant. This process being repeated after a while becomes very destructive.
(I strongly believe it is intentional, most do not keep in mind why MA may be doing this in reference to infrastructure & personnel overheads for the required continuous expansion required to support sustained growth)
FPC/MA needs to start to look at measures of sustained growth and the growing of inspired motivative strength within the economy to give it grunt, to be able to fair through ups and downs of internal and external pressures and
to be *REAL* in providing the level of service it boasts about in meeting people's aspirations on their lowest motivative levels to inspire them to participate.
This will mean expansion to their server farms on a continual basis including factoring space & staff requirements to maintain this sustained growth into their plans.
MindArk/FPC has the opportunity of becoming another Microsoft/Google but fails to acknowledge & proceed with the requirements in making this transition, instead being destructive to their own long term aspirations in the real world including factors such as reputation and revenue generation, along with longer term aspirations of publicly listed shares of which their value and strength will be based on such factors.
Especially when environment regulations come into play and real world economic analysts start playing their part of evaluating the internal strength of each virtual world's economy and viability.
They need to start sooner, rather than taking the later course of action, otherwise this current day destructive approach will greatly impinge upon their long term goals when they finally get to them.
Anyhow, let us wait and see if the interview with Marco and Dion sheds light onto any of this. My guess it won't and that Marco is still building upon enrichment of the environment through storylines and paths of choice.
This still will not address the under-laying long term financial viability and motivational factors which drive the strength of the economy or meet the current MindArk's mission statement in providing a reflective environment for which it is designed (upon RCE) with a hefty $ 3,000 USD year fee for those living full time virtual lives. (1 USD per hour averaged across the participant base, meaning some pay more, some pay less)
$ 3,000 USD a year average is going to be a rather expensive game to play imho
Never the less, at least in the short term, the economy will improve whilst being masked by such distractions.
See you in a few years for further discussions on this same subject
once those distractions have diminished and the next lot of people are churned out of the system. (Or as inactive/minimal activity)
Hopefully this will not be the case and change has been made by then, not holding my breath just yet though.
Cheers,
Sparkz
PS. Something that has lingered in my mind for a long time is the affordability MindArk's side to be able to proceed in achieving this and their unwillingness to go out on a financial limb to acquire the capital to make the necessary expansion.
If this is the case, I do hope the additional worlds coming online in the platform, provide the required revenue to make this expansion occur at some point driving the true economic growth and expansion of FPC/Calypso, in turn meeting the level of service to their customer base.
The intention to go public with an IPO draws me one step closer to this conclusion at this time.
