Should shop and apartment fees be abolished?

With the announcement of the new Medusa's Head Islands land area being auctioned off, the shop and apartments on this new land area will, according to the FPC announcement, be RENT FREE.

So, what are the thoughts of the rest of the community? please vote on the poll and/or post what you think about this. Please try to make your comments constructive.

Yeah, only makes sence that if some appearmtents are rent free, all should be.

Wait and see what happens on the 7th i guess

I agree! No more fees!

I think you are probably misinterpreting the announcement. I suspect it simply means that the Medusa buyer will not have to pay rent in order to hold the properties, but if someone buys and uses one they will have to pay rent as usual.

It's a typically vague statement which could use some clarification.

of course it would be reasonable that all would be the same for all apartments.

In dutch we say: "Everyone is same for the law" Meaning, what goes for one, should also go for another.

It would be nice if those appartments are rent free, but then all should be. Or the opposite: all appartments pay rent, only in this case (part of) the rent would go to the island owner. Which would make a bid on those islands even more attractive.

Without a doubt, get rid of the fees.

It will provide a boost to shops, keep things fair and even,
solve the problem of some shops being empty (at least, help a lot).

I imagine any money ma/fpc earn from rents must be fairly low anyway, that
could be offset by the economy picking up and more people shopping/selling.

Even if these new shops were meant to have fees - I think this change is needed to help
the economy.

I think this would help everyone.

yes, get rid of the fees please. Would actually help the economy massively I suspect as a lot of shops that are unused would now get some use.

I agree with oleg, the statement made by MA/FPC is very vague and mis-understandable

However if the plan IS to charge no fees on medusa, I totally agree with the majority in saying that everybodys fees should be abolished

hmm I certainly like the idea of no shop fee... then again everyone who owns a booth in the current system is fucked. Basicaly a booth is a downgraded shop but its big + has allways been that they are tax free. Changing the system and thus nerfing the booth might create a bigger havoc than introducing something completely new without taxes because that will not affect previous booth/shop owners.

ACEwoK said:

With the announcement of the new Medusa's Head Islands land area being auctioned off, the shop and apartments on this new land area will, according to the FPC announcement, be RENT FREE.

Now, as a long term shop owner (and apartment owner) this really annoys me when a unilateral change can be made without taking in to account existing infrastructure. Basically, if these new shops and apartments are going to be RENT FREE then i believe that ALL existing shops and apartments should retrospectively be made RENT FREE from the same date as these new ones are opened up for public purchase, regardless of the number of item points they have.

So, what are the thoughts of the rest of the community? please vote on the poll and/or post to let us (the community) and FPC know what you think about this. Please try to make your comments constructive.

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Do you really think MA is gonna give up a cash Cow. Come on man think about it before you post it

With the Press relelase and the sale of a new Continet. oh look just after all the press with CND Sale. and close to end of year books. lots of ppl deposit trying to buy land just right to give the books a boost

Useless thread to be honest

If it will be as the OP has interpreted it, than i agree. How many really good shops are there available atm? All the high end crafters will move to this location and the malls will die out completely...

DaveFoz said:

Do you really think MA is gonna give up a cash Cow. Come on man think about it before you post it

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The 'rent' fees do not go to Mindark or the planetpartners, but in the so-called loot pool. So it doesn't matter to MA one way or the other.

I doubt the rent would make much difference to MA/FPC's bottom line, considering the amount of apartments and shops that are closed due to unpaid rent.

Doing this would stimulate the economy, and no doubt lead to more trade/turnover/sales.
Overall I imagine it would be of benefit to ma/fpc, the ingame economy doing well is worth far more than a few
rent payments.

ACEwoK said:

With the announcement of the new Medusa's Head Islands land area being auctioned off, the shop and apartments on this new land area will, according to the FPC announcement, be RENT FREE.

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I suspect those will be quite different, from the picture of the building and the number of apartments it seems they will be much larger than any that currently present and who knows what other features will be available in them, so their prices may turn out to be high enough even without any fees.

Ace Wiseshadow said:

overall I imagine it would be of benefit to ma/fpc

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Sure it would. Personally I sometimes feel an urge to play around a bit with furnitures/textures/etc in my apartment but often don't want to pay 10 ped for the 10 minutes urge . I'd perhaps be more active customer if there wasn't the fee.

Considering the arguments the Deer Mall owners went through and that even Marco said the rebalancing was to do with keeping the rebuilt shops inline with the other malls it seems a bit of a double standard to then completely ignore it and an insult to the booth and shop owners who've been paying so much for so long. How are they supposed to compete with a shop with no standing fees attached.

Marco|FPC said:

For a while now, some of the shop owners in New Oxford Mall have had their business affected by the conversion of the game to the current CryEngine technology. FPC and MindArk constantly try to restore and improve on the experience for all players that have been subject to having their investments altered due to this conversion, and our latest effort have seen the reconstruction of the New Oxford Mall, with new shops installed and previous owners offered to reopen their business. Because of this, some stats was altered to balance the shops against all other shops in the game. However, this meant that numbers such as item points was reduced, not to give the owners a disadvantage but to better balance their estates.

But since this approach contradicts our general stability policy (to not change stats on previously player-acquired investments unless it's absolutely necessary) we've decided to restore the stats to a pre-VU 10.0 state for the affected shop owners in New Oxford Mall, if they so prefer.

Each player affected by this will be contacted separately by support to handle this.

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I doubt we'll see the end to fees and just a change to the shops on the island

They should ALL be rent free. It would easily make 10x more people want apartments.

Its also a joke going to the malls and constantly getting bounced out of a shop that didn't pay the fees. Like half of all mall shops haven't paid their fees. It looks really really bad.

Its also retarded that you cant even make it as a shop owner unless you have certain key items to sell. But try to open a low end armor shop and the rent will eat you alive for instance. This again is retarded. Having the entire low end equipment market cut off to shops because of rent is dumb. This hurts equipment avaliability on a lot of fronts. For instance a lot of the stuff that is only TT+1 that cant be sold on auction because the fees disallow that as well, could find a home ina low end shop, except the rent makes that impossible. Again its just dumb.

I remember being quite frustrated with the equipment supply side at the low end when i first started hunting. Its because it wasnt sane to try and sell that stuff because rent, or auction fees make it so.

this is a silly post...

they are unique shops... 24 of them?

this is like a new weapon comes out... with the most amazing eco... currently the best eco is A-3 Justifier Mk.II Improved... at 3.28... let us say this weapon does around the same damage... and eco is around 3.50!...

they just introduced this weapon... now all impmk2 owners are pissed... and post a vote on the forum demanding to change their eco to 3.5... that is basiclly what i see here...

all the shop and apt owners are going to vote for free fees... but the problem is you dont know how much these shops will sell for... or apts... i would guess they are worth a premium because they are rent free... which makes them kinda unique...

it would be a disservice to the community to change all other claim deeds because you demanded it... would set a terrible precedent...

Joker said:

this is a silly post...

they are unique shops... 24 of them?

this is like a new weapon comes out... with the most amazing eco... currently the best eco is A-3 Justifier Mk.II Improved... at 3.28... let us say this weapon does around the same damage... and eco is around 3.50!...

they just introduced this weapon... now all impmk2 owners are pissed... and post a vote on the forum demanding to change their eco to 3.5... that is basiclly what i see here...

all the shop and apt owners are going to vote for free fees... but the problem is you dont know how much these shops will sell for... or apts... i would guess they are worth a premium because they are rent free... which makes them kinda unique...

it would be a disservice to the community to change all other claim deeds because you demanded it... would set a terrible precedent...

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Just like the New Oxford cave shops were worth a premium, then on a whim, MA changed the way they were and upped the prices like crazy on ALL of them til a few of the owners of those places took notice and finally begged until FPC gave in and lowered the monthly fees on a few of them, and the rest of them got one year rent free. Just like on a whim, they changed every deed in game to remove the wording to associate the activity the deed owners have with "owning" something in game vs just maintaining it?....

If would not set a terrible precedent, because as has been proven over and over again, MA and FPC actually want us to demand and ask for things here in the forums. Actually, some many months ago, I think Marco actually said something in the forums somewhere about wanting participants to play a bigger role in determining the future of estates... How is threads like this not doing that?!? They want us to roleplay? Here we are on the forums they bought and now own, doing just that.

hmm I certainly like the idea of no shop fee... then again everyone who owns a booth in the current system is fucked. Basicaly a booth is a downgraded shop but its big + has allways been that they are tax free. Changing the system and thus nerfing the booth might create a bigger havoc than introducing something completely new without taxes because that will not affect previous booth/shop owners.

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They could remedy that injustice to booth owners as they did similarly several years ago... I don't know all the intimate details, but somewhere there was a thread a few years ago, in the era before I bought my shop, where booth owners in Hadesheim (prior to the eviction and movement to Corinth - nice of a Government to support these homeless vegabonds by putting them near an ocean that may someday remove the beach as the global tide gets higher and wipes out Corinth - I digress) but... anyways, it is said that at that time couple of years before there were problems for the booths (for a much smaller amount of time then the quarter of a year booth owners got screwed right after vu 10, when they owned booths but could not put anything in them as others could pick them up) the booth owners that had the problematic booths at Hadesheim got the problems fixed eventually, and got free shopkeepers out of the deal too.

Solution - either increase number of item slots or give all the booth owners, and house owners with free rent estates right now, free shopkeepers when the switch is made to remove the fees on all estates!!!

The 'rent' fees do not go to Mindark or the planetpartners, but in the so-called loot pool. So it doesn't matter to MA one way or the other.

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I'd like to see you prove that with a quote from an official website or FPC or MA. Prior to the time that I sent in a support ticket about taxes at Genesis, Sakura, and Omegaton, some believed that that money went to the loot pool too, but the support ticket clearly explained that that's FPC's income right there. I suspect it's the same with the monthly payment to keep the doors open on the various estates... but I'd definitely not call it a cash cow as many estate owners choose to not pay, and even if they did, in a shop like mine, it works out to be a little over 14 bucks a year - not too much money there... probably not even enough to pay one hour of developer's pay.


==== below copy of part of a post I made on another thread not too long ago====
Link to original thread this is from

http://www.mmogamer.com/06/11/2007/...ness-to-attract-150-million-users-to-entropia

The MMO Gamer: Does MindArk take a transaction fee when players trade with each other?
Marco Behrmann: No. We also don’t take any transaction fees converting real-virtual currency.

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Case Description
Category: In-world (game play)
Subject of query: Other in-world questions
Details: As an owner of a shop and booth in Omegaton, I wonder where taxes on my shops are going. Normal LAs and Malls have participant owners that collect the Taxes. Omegaton, Genesis, and Sakura seem to have no LA owner or main estate terminal for the entire LA. Therefore, I'd like to know, where the heck are taxes collected from shops in Sakura, Genesis, and Omegaton going? If it's going back in to the loot pool, is there any way you can prove it? If it's going to Mind Ark or FPC, why? It seems a bit like taxation without any form of representation since there's no LA owner to talk to like there is with other shops on other LAs, malls, etc. If you can collect the taxes together, similar to the way ammo is collected in events to give to the winner of an event as a prize, maybe you can do similar with shop owners in game or maybe collect it for something for LA owners in the cities to vote on how it will be utilized in a voting booth or something, making the community stronger?

....

Hi,

Thank you for your patience regarding this issue. Please accept my apology for the delayed reply.

I have been informed that in such cases MindArk and / or Planet Calypso are the owners in such cases and therefore receive the tax fees.
Kind regards,

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===============
http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/setview/features/loadFeature/120/gameID/31/from/features

We are very reluctant to change the stats for any item in the virtual universe, as such measures would bring instability to the ingame market, which is just plain bad. We are a business and our main priority is to have pleased customers for the long haul. Anything else is just plain stupid.

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================

Seems the promise to not take money from the transactions between players that Marco came up with does not have a place in shops, which is sad since so many shop owners paid so much to own the places. Both the taxes and the monthly fees seem like a transaction fees to me.

If the fees are removed, the shop owners can likely sell for cheaper then they are now... which can only be a good thing the the whole community. Can't see why people would not want to be able to buy things cheaper then they are right now?!?

It also seems to me that introducing this whole new rent free continent is , in essence, changing the stats of every deed that's in game now, irritating customers that have been here for the long haul instead of pleasing them, and IS and WILL introduce instability in the ingame market, and "is just plain stupid" for that very reason.

Well, I think its about keeping the current system competitive.

Even if these new shops had fee's, thats not the only point, the point is this
is a measure that would help the economy, shop owners, I think pretty much everyone would benefit.

I think most people accept something needs to be done to help shops, I don't think its just about saying
"the new shops are great, upgrade my shop", more the fact that the current shops need help...
and it seems MA/fpc clearly know the rent hurts business so removed it in the new shops.

Well, we have four malls, tons of shops, major sales by MA/FPC, abandoning them and doing it right this time (removing rent) is not an option, certainly, not a fair one.

This seems like a solid way to improve things, I can't see any strong reasons against it.
Any concerns about balancing, or booth owners being left out could be addressed by adjusting item points
to make things fair. (adding more)

After all, A strong economy and shop sector is in everyones interest,
but if someone has a better idea...

So 24 shops don't have any fees except tax and the rest have a standing fee and tax. The shops with all the fees have to charge more markup to cover those fees and these new ones could possibly have none (depending on 0% tax). Only a slight advantage there.

They're only a free tp away, no transport costs who's going to go to the existing shops knowing the new ones might have lower prices that the others cannot match.

Why isn't it fair that all shops have the same conditions applied?

If they applied the same reasoning to these shops as they did the Deer Mall they should all be 200ped / month as they'll be the only shops on the island.

I've said this before both on the forum and to support... I have never understood why MA/FPC feel it is in their best interests to make any shop prohibitively expensive. I don't understand why they feel that it is in their best interests to have high rents and have shops empty, maintenance fees expired, owners complaining... all for the sake of making the few that are trying to run a business pay more in up front fees.

Even some of the people that recently bought deer mall shops from FPC via auction seem to have been caught out by the high fees.

Surely it makes sense when you are running an RCE based virtual world to ENCOURAGE shops and businesses to be successful and make your fees solely from initial estate sales and trade tax?

If the new shops are indeed rent free, then great, I fully support that. Now how about making the fees on the existing shops more appropriate?

Oleg said:

I think you are probably misinterpreting the announcement. I suspect it simply means that the Medusa buyer will not have to pay rent in order to hold the properties, but if someone buys and uses one they will have to pay rent as usual.

It's a typically vague statement which could use some clarification.

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Agree that FPC (and MA for that matter) are not known for their clarity, but i'm pretty sure that i haven't misinterpreted the statement. seems pretty clear English to me. I did ask the question of Hanne in the other thread, we'll see whether she can clarify it for us.

DaveFoz said:

Do you really think MA is gonna give up a cash Cow. Come on man think about it before you post it

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I did think quite a bit about it and i concluded that the question needed to be asked. How you can call it a cash cow is beyond me when at least 75% of the shops and apartments are not used and maintence fees unpaid. Just a single walk around the 3 malls will tell you all you need to know (EL Mall is the best example; many of the shops are "still owned" by Marcus Callendar). Look at the number of service/shops list threads around here and see the last time they were updated and what shops are actually working operating.

Omegaton West Habitat Delta Tower:
Booths - N/A - no monthly fees...

Block A:
Shop 1 - my shop (Delta Discounts) - paid up til 5/2/2011
Shop 2 - Sid's Shop - paid up til 10/5/2011
Shop 3 - Garkham's shop - not paid (fee was due 12/1/2010)
Shop 4 - Funbot's shop - not paid (fee due 10/11/2010)
Shop 5 - Macce's shop - not paid (fee due 11/12/2010)
Shop 6 - Impzar's shop - not paid (fee due 6/8/2009)

Block B:
Shop 1 - Lexie's Shop - Paid up til 1/1/2011 (had a freebie table just like I do and he does refill it often)
Shop 2 - Michelle May Smith's shop - not paid (fee due 11/30/2010)
Shop 3 - Amaury NamoKiller Puma's shop - Not Paid (fee due 10/2/2008)
Shop 4 - Cressi Cress Stardust's shop - Not Paid (fee due 1/8/2008)
Shop 5 - Rothgar GRoth Goodnar's shop - Paid up til 12/23/2010
Shop 6 - Imewi Ime Dira's shop - Not Paid (fee due 8/23/2009)

Block C:
Shop 1 - Zindy's shop - not paid (fee due 10/28/2010)
Shop 2 - Squee Da Bomb Doe's Shop - Not paid (fee due 9/15/2009)
Shop 3 - Fed Solo Solotiev's shop - Paid up til 4/8/2011
Shop 4 - ARE WARASE STARE's shop - Not paid (fee due 9/10/2007)
Shop 5 - FOUNDER GOD GENESIS's shop - Not paid (fee due 2/18/2009)
Shop 6 - Johnny Lucky Seven's shop - Not paid (fee due 9/11/2009)

Might do the other buildings in town later if someone else doesn't do it... would prefer everyone do their own building to at least put in a little effort forth in this exercise... not even sure I want to go upstairs to see how many apartment monthly fees are not paid up.

Also... looks like there's something screwy in some item points listings in some estate terminals.

Hmm really its only 24 shops and 24 apartments that will most likely go for double or even triple the price so what big impact does this have on the rest of us. Its a new island where the rules differ a little bit from Eudoria and Amathera just like Amathera that is mostly Player owned and and PVP outside of LA's compared to Eudora.

So in short The rent fee on those shops and apartments will be offset by their initial sales price.

Abolishing fees will harm the booth owners and it's a total over reaction as always on the forums.

Fopsie said:

Hmm really its only 24 shops and 24 apartments that will most likely go for double or even triple the price so what big impact does this have on the rest of us. Its a new island where the rules differ a little bit from Eudoria and Amathera just like Amathera that is mostly Player owned and and PVP outside of LA's compared to Eudora.

So in short The rent fee on those shops and apartments will be offset by their initial sales price.

Abolishing fees will harm the booth owners and it's a total over reaction as always on the forums.

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i don't think ive seen but 3 booths still in use and all of the goods on them were way over MU.

so if anything it will make booth owners give reasonable prices.

Get rid off the fees

I think MA should get rid off the ees, it is unfair, tax especially when that shop doesnt sell much or anything at all, and they then have a choice whether to keep paying the fee for another month of no sales or close the shop, and i think it is a shame that there is soo many closed shops because of the fee issue,
ALSO if there is fees still, even with the new RENT FREE ones,
they should all be the same amount, even the new deer mall shops should be, it is totoally unjustified on MA's part, further more, the deer mall shops will drop in price because of the high fees they have, who will want to buy them,
but then you might think it might be busier there, but that is only a guess too and they might not even get the fee every month paid for by sales.... so my conclusion is, stop the fees for everyone or make all fees the same 10ped rate a month fairs fair MA....!!!!!

RJ Rob

Fopsie said:

Hmm really its only 24 shops and 24 apartments that will most likely go for double or even triple the price so what big impact does this have on the rest of us. Its a new island where the rules differ a little bit from Eudoria and Amathera just like Amathera that is mostly Player owned and and PVP outside of LA's compared to Eudora.

So in short The rent fee on those shops and apartments will be offset by their initial sales price.

Abolishing fees will harm the booth owners and it's a total over reaction as always on the forums.

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How many good shops are there? I woudn`t be suprised if auktuma, alive, buzz and others would just move to the new location and the malls (not even talking about the shops in appartment buildings) will be deserted. Malls are rubbish even now with only a few good shops, but what is going to happen after those are gone?

Well I doubt MA will do anything about the fees, they also refused to lower the fee on my shop to a 10 PED/fee.

My shop got 100 itempoints at 100 PED/month fee. When I bought it, it was 100 itempoints at 8 PED/month fee. (Thorkells Thomb Shop)

At the same level at Deer Mall exists a shop with 150 itempoints at a 15 PED/month fee (originally old Oxfort Cave Shop).

Thats how MA does balancing.
MA gives a shit about their investors!
MA gives a shit about their customers!
MA gives a shit about fairness!

Well, if I have to pay fee again in Feb 2011, I know that I won´t pay it. Empty my shop shortly befor fee expires and then let it be closed and collect some dust.

I will operate it again as soon MA lowers the fee to acceptable 10 PED/month (what is still more than my original purchased shop) or get rid of the fee completely (what won´t happen!). Untill that miracle will happen, I swear this shop will be closed!

Its really useless thread, as said MA gives a shit about it!

GoNi said:

Well, if I have to pay fee again in Feb 2011, I know that I won´t pay it. Empty my shop shortly befor fee expires and then let it be closed and collect some dust.

I will operate it again as soon MA lowers the fee to acceptable 10 PED/month (what is still more than my original purchased shop) or get rid of the fee completely (what won´t happen!). Untill that miracle will happen, I swear this shop will be closed!

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Yep, thats pretty much what I'm gonna have to do too