Calypso Land Deed Update

[h=2]Calypso Land Deed Update[/h] [h=3]Gothenburg, Sweden - April 12, 2012 /MindArk/[/h] - As MindArk announced last week, all of the 60,000 Calypso Land Deeds have now been sold. Several thousand Entropia Universe participants took advantage of this unique opportunity to become official citizens and share in the future success of Planet Calypso. Land Deeds are now trading at market value on the in-game auction; allowing anyone with an Entropia Universe account still the chance to acquire deeds.

MindArk would like to clarify a couple issues that have been raised regarding the Calypso Land Deeds. Several participants have expressed concern over the possibility that the revenue share of the Calypso Land Deeds might become diluted should a future offering of Land Deeds take place. We would like to take this opportunity to assure everyone that each of the existing Calypso Land Deeds will always receive 1/60000th of 25% of Calypso’s Gross Planet Partner revenue, and this revenue share will never be diluted or reduced. MindArk currently does not have plans for any further Calypso Land Deed offerings. If the decision is made to offer additional Calypso Land Deeds at some point in the future, such an offering would in no way diminish the revenue share received by holders of the original deeds.

Another issue that has been raised relates to voting rights associated with the Calypso Land Deeds. Although the full details of the forthcoming citizenship system are not yet finalized, one solution we are strongly considering is a political system that includes all Entropia Universe participants, with each avatar’s voting power calculated based on a formula that includes various factors such as: account age, deposits, estate ownership, number of land deeds, level of activity, etc. A properly constructed formula will allow us to create a citizenship system that prevents any single participant from gaining an excessive amount of voting power simply by owning a large number of Land Deeds or having deposited large sums. Full details about the voting power formula will be provided as the release of the citizenship system draws closer.

Originally Posted Here

Nice to see other things will be taken into account for the political system, sounds very interesting. Also the clarifications about CLD's will ease many people who had worries.

Bertha Bot said:

Another issue that has been raised relates to voting rights associated with the Calypso Land Deeds. Although the full details of the forthcoming citizenship system are not yet finalized, one solution we are strongly considering is a political system that includes all Entropia Universe participants, with each avatar’s voting power calculated based on a formula that includes various factors such as: account age, deposits, estate ownership, number of land deeds, level of activity, etc. A properly constructed formula will allow us to create a citizenship system that prevents any single participant from gaining an excessive amount of voting power simply by owning a large number of Land Deeds or having deposited large sums. Full details about the voting power formula will be provided as the release of the citizenship system draws closer.

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Sweet! I'm glad I didn't buy those deeds just to vote now

~Danimal

yes yes and yes

+rep to MA for coming out with this

Well this is good news, im also glad they have been on top of things recently. Very uplifting.

I agree Jimmy, it would be nice to clear that up...

But excellent news.

Should calm the fears of some of the chicken littles out there.

Also, the updated news on how voting may work is interesting and happy news. It seemed kind of wrong to leave out players who decided to not buy deeds. But that is voting privileges, hey? Never did have really universal voting rights on the planet earth. This could make cosmic history if everyone on planet calypso had voting rights.

Uvas said:

I agree Jimmy, it would be nice to clear that up...

But excellent news.

Should calm the fears of some of the chicken littles out there.

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Chicken littles? lol. Before this statement there was no concrete statement this was the case. And if you bought you were buying with that risk. It's about time they released this statement. CLD owners should be grateful some people pointed out this issue.

Jimmy B said:

Thanks for the clarifications.



Is that to say of all revenue generated that is attributed to Calypso (I appreciate some of this will be on other planets by Calypso-born players):

25% goes to Calypso Planet Partner (or the appropriate branch of MA whilst Calypso remains owned by MA)
25% goes to Land Deed Owners
50% goes to MA

or

37.5% goes to Calypso Planet Partner
12.5% goes to Land Deed Owners
50% goes to MA?

I always thought it was the former, effectively the 60000 deeds receive half the revenue a proper Planet Partner who fully owned Calypso would receive, but the wording in the article above sounds more like the latter, ie. the 60000 deeds are receive a quarter of the revenue a proper Planet Partner who fully owned Calypso would receive.

In other words I thought the 60000 land deeds received 25% of Calypso's revenue, not 25% of Calypso's Planet Partner revenue.

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They said 25% of Calypso GROSS Planet Partner Revenue - which implies the full revenue prior to any cuts, splits, or costs. This is also consistent with previous explanations - 50% for MA, 25% for Calypso, and 25% for Deed Holders. I don't see where there is any question about this anymore.



Miles

Jimmy B said:

Is that to say of all revenue generated that is attributed to Calypso (I appreciate some of this will be on other planets by Calypso-born players):

25% goes to Calypso Planet Partner (or the appropriate branch of MA whilst Calypso remains owned by MA)
25% goes to Land Deed Owners
50% goes to MA

In other words I thought the 60000 land deeds received 25% of Calypso's revenue, not 25% of Calypso's Planet Partner revenue.

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The distribution you describe here is the correct one, which we tried to make clear in this latest announcement by stating "Gross Planet Partner revenue"-

Bertha Bot said:

We would like to take this opportunity to assure everyone that each of the existing Calypso Land Deeds will always receive 1/60000th of 25% of Calypso’s Gross Planet Partner revenue

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I am eternally grateful.

This announcement should help reward those who took the risk.

Bjorn|MindArk said:

The distribution you describe here is the correct one, which we tried to make clear in this latest announcement by stating "Gross Planet Partner revenue"-

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Thanks for the response, Bjorn (and Miles). My mistake, my confusion was self-inflicted

deleted...........

no sorry this is still confusing.

Bertha Says: 25% of Calypso’s Gross Planet Partner revenue

MA website Says: Planet Partner Gross Revenue will be divided as follows: 50% paid to Land Lot deedholders


So basically.

50% of Gross Caly revenue to Mindark
25% to Gross Caly revenue to deed holders (50% gross planet)
25% for Gross Caly revnue for Calypso development.(50% gross planet)

Rick

Bjorn if you agree with Jimmy's distribution, then:

The word "partner" needs to be omitted if referring to 25%

And words inserted "Gross Planet Revenue" is 25% to deedholders.

Becasue from a "partner" point of view the split is 50%/50% as clearly stated on your main website (and shown on my previous post).


Rick.

ps: please excuse all my edits, I've had this going around in my head for the last 2 hours.

Bertha Bot said:

If the decision is made to offer additional Calypso Land Deeds at some point in the future, such an offering would in no way diminish the revenue share received by holders of the original deeds.

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The quote below may stay the same

Bertha Bot said:

We would like to take this opportunity to assure everyone that each of the existing Calypso Land Deeds will always receive 1/60000th of 25% of Calypso’s Gross Planet Partner revenue

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But surely each time more land deeds are added then the "planet partner revenue" gets smaller which in turn diminshes the returms of the original land deed holders, they then get 1/60000th of 25% of an ever shrinking pie, the more you add the more it shrninks or am i just the dumb one?.

Hopefully the 2.5mil investor is cool with this. I know if I were to spend that amount of dough expecting power, i'd be a little miffed about them taking that away. What if the whole reason that the investor, and others who bought deeds was so that they would have power equal to the amount invested? Voting power that is... I dunno, I bought a few with the idea that i would have that amount of voting power... I do like the idea of the voting system being based on amount of ped cycled. It makes good sense that the actual players, not the investors who bought deeds just to cash out every week, would be in control of some of the direction that the planet is going. So,the big buyer would still have a substantial amount of power, or at least the opportunity for it, but he/she/they would have to work for it. Kind of on the fence about the whole thing. Would be interesting to see how it plays out.

Mathamus said:

Hopefully the 2.5mil investor is cool with this. I know if I were to spend that amount of dough expecting power, i'd be a little miffed about them taking that away. What if the whole reason that the investor, and others who bought deeds was so that they would have power equal to the amount invested? Voting power that is... I dunno, I bought a few with the idea that i would have that amount of voting power... I do like the idea of the voting system being based on amount of ped cycled. It makes good sense that the actual players, not the investors who bought deeds just to cash out every week, would be in control of some of the direction that the planet is going. So,the big buyer would still have a substantial amount of power, or at least the opportunity for it, but he/she/they would have to work for it. Kind of on the fence about the whole thing. Would be interesting to see how it plays out.

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I doubt the big investor was thinking much about the voting rights, he probably was primarily or exclusively interested in a 25% APR.

Butch C said:

But surely each time more land deeds are added then the "planet partner revenue" gets smaller which in turn diminshes the returms of the original land deed holders, they then get 1/60000th of 25% of an ever shrinking pie, the more you add the more it shrninks or am i just the dumb one?.

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The only way Berta Bot's statement works is if new deeds aren't sold through an equity issuance.
What this means is that if MA would make another 10k deeds, those would have to take money from MA's share, not the already existing deeds.

I hope I make enough sense to be understood.

Butch C said:

But surely each time more land deeds are added then the "planet partner revenue" gets smaller which in turn diminshes the returms of the original land deed holders, they then get 1/60000th of 25% of an ever shrinking pie, the more you add the more it shrninks or am i just the dumb one?.

Click to expand...

I was one calling them out on this myself with some bold claims that that was exactly what was going to happen.

The way i understand the statement, the only option for additional Planet Calypso Land Deeds is now coming from the Planet Calypso Partner effectively diminishing the 25% they receive now.

Any other possible change i see about the Deeds is only a split in the future.
If things would go so well that Deeds trade, for lets say 3k PED for a prolonged period of time MA might reissue them, three to one, to make them more affordable/easier to trade and so keep demand reasonable.
The amount needed to claim land and in the voting algorithm would have to be changed accordingly.

I still wonder why they choose the 1k PED per deed approach, it obviously worked, but i think 500 PED, or best only 100 PED per deed would have been a so much better approach.
Widely broaden the appeal to almost everybody, to put in 10 bucks, for a tiny share in a Planet/game company (that is what it is in the end)and getting people excited, word of mouth out, much easier compared to the 100 USD one.

Ah well MA still wants to be very premium/elitist i guess.

Bertha Bot said:

Another issue that has been raised relates to voting rights associated with the Calypso Land Deeds. Although the full details of the forthcoming citizenship system are not yet finalized, one solution we are strongly considering is a political system that includes all Entropia Universe participants, with each avatar’s voting power calculated based on a formula that includes various factors such as:

account age,
deposits,
estate ownership,
number of land deeds,
level of activity, etc.

A properly constructed formula will allow us to create a citizenship system that prevents any single participant from gaining an excessive amount of voting power simply by owning a large number of Land Deeds or having deposited large sums. Full details about the voting power formula will be provided as the release of the citizenship system draws closer.

Originally Posted Here

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Level of activity can be directly linked to previous decisions that have been made,
which influenced that level of activity.

Gotta be careful with these cycles.

---

Another thing, watch out for the extremism of the center ideology.

Nice Reply +Rep

Nice to see a reply - and quick too

I'm not sure I understand the distribution but since I do not own any deeds I will leave it to those that do to figure it out with MA.

Maybe now people won't be so worried/afraid to ask questions -even if some on this forum try to stomp out any view they feel hurts the game.

I am happy for those that bought in and this answer should help make a nice market for these deeds.

Bravo MA and happy profits to the deed holders

Bertha Bot said:

with each avatar’s voting power calculated based on a formula that includes various factors such as: account age, deposits, estate ownership, number of land deeds, level of activity, etc. A properly constructed formula will allow us to create a citizenship system that prevents any single participant from gaining an excessive amount of voting power simply by owning a large number of Land Deeds or having deposited large sums.

Click to expand...

What I would like to see out of this is, if there was ie. 10million voting points available in PE.

...and that Deposit was max 10 points. Going from a range of depo $1000 a year for 1 point to depo $10000 a year to maximise your voting power.

...same with account age, gain 1 voting point every 2 years from 1 to 10 voting power.

...10 CLD could be one voting point, in the "owership section"

...activity should maybe not be based on ingame time, cuz many could just be afk... there should maybe be some sort of turnover that where equal for all professions. Like 100 attributes combined would give you 1 voting point...


Just brain storming here....

Kimmi said:

Just brain storming here....

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Yeah, curious to see how that exact formula will be shaped.

I hope that level of activity will be a significant contribution. After all, active players shape our world every day. An avatar that got created around 2004, deposited a shitload to buy skills and uber gear, yet still sports only 72 agility and 9 stamina does not get much respect from me and should not be granted much voting power.

At the same time, a non-depositor that grinded his way up to midlevel should be rewarded for his dedication and time with voting power, and not punished for lack of a deposit track record.

Maybe we need a Senator List, where we rank the players according to their voting power

I think its good MA finally came clear on the key problems of dilution and voting distribution, those have been holding back people to invest. Too bad it's done only after all deeds were sold.

/Slupor

slupor said:

I hope that level of activity will be a significant contribution. After all, active players shape our world every day. An avatar that got created around 2004, deposited a shitload to buy skills and uber gear, yet still sports only 72 agility and 9 stamina does not get much respect from me and should not be granted much voting power.

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I would rather have 9 heavy depositors not so active, and 1 "super" active guy... then 9 super active none depositors and 1 heavy depositer....

Like with all things a good balance is needed.

I think it would be good if there was a discussion about the proposed formula.
That way all the pros and cons can be made clear and some adjustments can be made to the formula before it is implemented. I think it will be important that most people will look favorable towards the formula in order for the voting system to work properly.

Cheers
Siam

CrestIV said:

I still wonder why they choose the 1k PED per deed approach, it obviously worked, but i think 500 PED, or best only 100 PED per deed would have been a so much better approach.

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Maybe they wanted to make sure people buying them stayed active or at least sold the CLD if leaving... less risk of unused votes and piles of CLDs laying around in storages if they have a higher value

Kimmi said:

I would rather have 9 heavy depositors not so active, and 1 "super" active guy... then 9 super active none depositors and 1 heavy depositer....

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Ideal is to have big depositors being super active . We need a continuous net influx of cash (deposits > withdrawals)to keep the game running, just as we need a continuous turnover ingame to keep the economy running.

rhogenbe said:

Like with all things a good balance is needed.

I think it would be good if there was a discussion about the proposed formula.
That way all the pros and cons can be made clear and some adjustments can be made to the formula before it is implemented. I think it will be important that most people will look favorable towards the formula in order for the voting system to work properly.

Click to expand...

As Siam says, it's all about balance. Also acceptance is key here, I totally agree. We can start collecting ideas and views on the formula components. While the decision ultimately lies with MA, understanding why your voting power is as it is and how you can influence it will be pivotal for the voting process.

/Slupor

awesome and awesome

However, how this announcement was worded, makes me think that MA has thought about selling their 'extra' 25% share for another $6mil in the future.

doing so would not 'devalue the current clds' technically. but an influx of another 60k clds would in fact devalue them as there would be a shitton more available.