Why Mindark going bankrupt would be great for EU ...

[SpikeBlack]

It's more of a liability now. It doesn't serve a purpose for the company and they've been trying to sell it for years. Think of all the land taxes it has accrued and all the maintenance costs.

The whole point of restoring a place privately is to either move in or to sell, not to hang on to it for years.

If MA were to file bankruptcy someone might step in and buy up the assets but if they decide to run EU they may choose to reset everyone's account. The last time this happened a few got warned what was happening and started selling everything they could to withdraw the cash. It was only because a management buyout happened that the players accounts weren't reset as they didn't want everyone to withdraw the cash.

The first thing a receiver will do is to turn things around then sell the MA as a going concern, if that doesn't work they close shop and start selling assets to recover as much cash for the creditors as possible.

If the doors closed and a new EU opened a few weeks later with a different owner then it's possible that we'd all be nubs again.

 

[OZtwo]

If Mindark goes bankrupt there is nothing. Mindark would most likely go bankrupt when there is almost no money left (can't pay the bills, salaries etc.). And you are asking if they will allow to withdraw your assets first? Sure, in monopoly money.

Lets hope it never happens but this is exactly what will happen..a lot kind of forgot that servers are connected to one big power switch. With that one big power switch all will be turned off. One day we will try to long in getting connection errors...website will be up but none of the features seem to work. Only weeks later we will learn most likely from ND or A-Team that MA is no more and they are sorry but they will try and figure something out for us. Years later..we move on.

 

[valentin]

I am personally convinced that if MA has retained the trend that lasted 2003-2006 where players amount increased constantly, even MA's income all the time if you look at their financial statements, It was good times with that one could feel that they could develop their avatar with items in loot and not too expensive to play.

What if they had kept this trend they had a player base of about 30,000 to 40,000 active players do not like today of about 5000 ( because we all know that it takes time to build something ), to build a stable o well structured company with a good reputation will take at least 5-10 years.

If they had just had the patience so they had not had to make the game so expensive (but I think they became impatient and wanted very much to fast and everything went to hell ). They tried to expand the company in the other direction to get more money for early with bad advisers and expensive contracts this cost too much money and they had to find money quickly it was probably because they've already started in 2006 to solve all their problems with nerfs ( as we all know they did this for seven years until 2013 ). A major contributing factor was also that someone or something forced to build in Cryengine 2 prematurely they did not realize that their players enjoyed the game as it was, ok ... you have to think about the future, but they could not afford it at the time.

The result was less in money to MA and disgruntled players who later gave this the game a bad reputation because most of them got the notion that MA has become a cash cow, So that even this resulted in that it became more difficult to recruit players to the game that helped the economy got even worse.

The decision to build in Cryengine 2 came in a desperate situation where MA certainly had jumped on that this would be the solution to get out of the crisis, unfortunately, the result was just that the game became more attractive to look at but the fact was that MA just continued to the nerfs. Also another mistake that they made ​​is that they hired CryEngine 2 and not bought out the rights to it, which also meant that the game became more expensive probably because they could not afford it at the time, This entire process has also contributed to MA has become more anonymous and taking distance from players.

Last desperate acts was the sale of CLD's that gave them extra money how much it will cost us players remains to be seen.

Think if they could have been a little more patient and not rushed so much.

 

[Menace]

Lets just wait and see how the next big RCE MMO makes out. Maybe we won't need MA anymore.... Supposed to go Alpha this year.... time will tell.

Appears to be a group with extensive knowledge of EU building it....

Menace

 

[billairboy]

A bit off topic, but I wonder if the 50 % share of income going too the planet partners may is a bit too much. Maybe MA should keep 70 % and 30 % goes to the planet partners, because in the end it's MA that have the biggest cost for the development and maintenance of the game.

 

[Sn0wst0rm]

Lets just wait and see how the next big RCE MMO makes out. Maybe we won't need MA anymore.... Supposed to go Alpha this year.... time will tell.

Appears to be a group with extensive knowledge of EU building it....

Menace

And the next big RCE MMO is ? I can't find any info on any upcoming game.

 

[Magyar_Republic]

And the next big RCE MMO is ? I can't find any info on any upcoming game.

It's a scam. They promise far too much, and far too many things that require expensive external licensing. No, it's not a scam. I take that back. They probably want to legitimately try, but sadly have no idea what they are really attempting.

The proper word is: Vaporware.

Yes, I am talking about After Time Diaries.

 

[Kitch]

Lets just wait and see how the next big RCE MMO makes out. Maybe we won't need MA anymore.... Supposed to go Alpha this year.... time will tell.

Appears to be a group with extensive knowledge of EU building it....

Menace

its bloody aweful tho art is ugly and depressing, totally unimaginative

i hope everyone doesnt jump over there "just in case" it becomes the next eu and they can be ubers in it

 

[crazy]

its bloody aweful tho art is ugly and depressing, totally unimaginative

i hope everyone doesnt jump over there "just in case" it becomes the next eu and they can be ubers in it

if it is fun, costs a fraction of this game to play, and the markets are moderated to stop crazy over inflation on items like what happened in EU, then maybe EU will suffer

if it is like afterworld then it is doomed

 

[Arkhainn]

its bloody aweful tho art is ugly and depressing, totally unimaginative

i hope everyone doesnt jump over there "just in case" it becomes the next eu and they can be ubers in it

Realistically, it goes something like this: you need big investors (depositors) to make an RCE game economy work and stabilized, you need a healthy in-game economy to bring in the regular (small deposits) players to populate the place, you need a stable, time-tested RCE game to bring in both small and big investors, as they wouldn't have money to invest if they took a chance on every risky investment, and you need time and money to make a new game (rce or otherwise) stable, which would, in an RCE game, mostly be coming from either big investors or hordes of small depositors.

I'm sure you see why they tend to fail. I'm not saying that it will, just that I'm taking a wait-and-see position on other RCE games, much like I do with reincarnation.

 

[Kitch]

well i would say i feel some loyalty to eu

i would prob stick to the bitter end but withdraw all at first sign of trouble...

while keeping an account on that new turd of a free market not rce yet game just in case



if there was a way to open source a game - like this one, u would get the linux effect of becoming (imo) hugely superior to ur rivals in a relatively short space of time, kinda hard for that system to work in game industry tho

 

[morey]

In my own opinion I do not think they will fail here only because of the uniqueness of this game, appeals to business folks, gamers, economists, researchers, all of a very broad age group. The developpers are always adapting to changing times as well.

I mean, where else can any player change the actual game with just abit of cash? Make a planet? add a booth, get your storefront designed?



In the past, MA has always done what players wanted and requested... they've listened... you appeal the crowd or you wont have one. Yes some things are not finished by ma, and that is because of the priority of things. Taming is nice, but just not that important to the sucess of the game and not linked much to other professions, hence it's on low priority. MA develops the moon instead, it generates more users, investors, and is a much better move overall.

Some players argue that their support is not being answered, and that's just because their questions are usually very trivial and can be found in the faq or ingame "?" button / tutorial, or just common sense. LIke if you send an ingame a support asking why is the loot so bad, you probably wont hear anything back.

It's all based on priority use of their staff resources. I've had to contact them before too, they reply to me from 30min for major account issue, to 30 days for a simple display bug i reported.

Anyways, just my thoughts

 

[Oracle]

In the past, MA has always done what players wanted and requested...

Can you give examples of this please?

 

[Pyhä Antero]

As a great thinker Larry Flynt once said "there's two types of people who are defending Mindark: those who don't know what they're talking about, and those who don't know what they're missing"

 

[morey]

Can you give examples of this please?

Nea's shop added by player.

EU needed more players, MA run ad campaign

Keep new players enticed, CBS added to help newer blood finance themselves on caly.

etc


Also please note next sentence: "Yes some things are not finished by ma, and that is because of the priority of things."

 

[Arkhainn]

As a great thinker Larry Flynt once said "there's two types of people who are defending Mindark: those who don't know what they're talking about, and those who don't know what they're missing"

And those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable, according to JFK.

Forum posters do more harm to the retention of new players - and by extension, to the community itself - than any MA snafu ever would.

 

[Spawn]

Can you give examples of this please?

Back in 2009 the community was asked what their main frustrations were (before the move to cryengine 2)
there was a large response from the community. I categorised the main frustrations in this thread:

https://www.planetcalypsoforum.com/...p-Marco-deal-with-his-quot-frustrations-quot-!

below is the top 20 of those frustrations, let's check if they listened to the player base:

1 auto arrange auction list/find/search/alerts

there have been improvements in the auction, there is a search function now, you can rearrange auction items, alerts are not there yet. So they definately listened there.

2 Item not currently available,busy, locked items

this is still a common bug, frustration
Bigger Friendslist 38

done.

3 Cost of playing, low return in entertainment,rebalance loot

with the introduction of puny mobs, and puny weapons the cost of playing has definately been adressed. No shots fired when too far away or shooting in the air helps too, and other improvements in this category

4 no offline message/mail system

still not here

5 autoclick, batch processing, autoshoot on clicked mouse, autoextracting

yes, batch processing in crafting, autoclick is ingame, autoshoot on clicked mouse is here, autoextracting is here

6 improvements on map, resizable/zoom, higher res

there have been improvements on the map

7 Lag, extra misses, decay, know if there is lag, miss!!

is adressed, changed to mob evade, and miss due to lower hit ability

8 when chatting in all/soc chat, trade/chat request causes main to lose focus and lots of windows opening|( on keystrokes)

is still here

9 give players reason to skill, no more noob ath, more meaning to skills

with the introduction of high L weapons and generally new L or UL sib weaponry with higher requirements or lower requirements, there is a reason to skill. no more noob ath has been adressed.

10 Remove unl plates from L armour, unequip all armour

yes you can now make a set of armor and equip/unequip it with one click

11 Better mob Ai (mobs running off), berycleds hunt in packs, armax go in protective circles 16

no

12 Shops inventories on auction screen, ingame shop directory, shop search

no

13 Events: more prices, list of placement, reminders,expansion, non-hunting events

we have caves now, feffoid/marcimex, daily mining event, ahh the egg has been here, 10-events etc etc.

14 No auto-tidy feature for storage, Automerge stackables, auto placement

its all here

15 contracts/system for lending/borrowing/renting/crafting

no

16 switch fap/pistol loose ammo or fap

haven't encountered this anymore

17 type in exact coords for teleporting

yes

18 More functions to pets, taming, pets in city, appartment, pets as itemcarrier, rideable,flyable

no

19 Useless, dull, static buildings, Hadesheim, abandoned cities

hadesheim is no longer here lol, but this is still a problem

20 Vehicles,Boats, Planes, etc

yes , plenty of those now

Mindark fixed 12 out of 20 player base' frustrations. 12 out of 20 is a pass in my eyes.. Mindark listens to their customers and fixes things, although the time schedule of some of them is quite lenghty.

 

[DiabloP]

1 auto arrange auction list/find/search/alerts

there have been improvements in the auction, there is a search function now, you can rearrange auction items, alerts are not there yet. So they definately listened there.

5 autoclick, batch processing, autoshoot on clicked mouse, autoextracting

yes, batch processing in crafting, autoclick is ingame, autoshoot on clicked mouse is here, autoextracting is here

6 improvements on map, resizable/zoom, higher res

there have been improvements on the map

14 No auto-tidy feature for storage, Automerge stackables, auto placement

its all here

1, 5, 6, 14 are basic functionalities that should have been implement without players asking (imo they should have been implemented before the game left beta mode)

13 Events: more prices, list of placement, reminders,expansion, non-hunting events

we have caves now, feffoid/marcimex, daily mining event, ahh the egg has been here, 10-events etc etc.

20 Vehicles,Boats, Planes, etc

yes , plenty of those now

13, 20: The difference between an mmo and a single player pc game is that stuff like this is supposed to be added. Don't think any extra credit is deserved here.

3 Cost of playing, low return in entertainment,rebalance loot

with the introduction of puny mobs, and puny weapons the cost of playing has definately been adressed. No shots fired when too far away or shooting in the air helps too, and other improvements in this category

7 Lag, extra misses, decay, know if there is lag, miss!!

is adressed, changed to mob evade, and miss due to lower hit ability

9 give players reason to skill, no more noob ath, more meaning to skills

with the introduction of high L weapons and generally new L or UL sib weaponry with higher requirements or lower requirements, there is a reason to skill. no more noob ath has been adressed.

10 Remove unl plates from L armour, unequip all armour

yes you can now make a set of armor and equip/unequip it with one click

16 switch fap/pistol loose ammo or fap

haven't encountered this anymore

17 type in exact coords for teleporting

yes

3, 7, 9, 10, 16, 17 : So basically in 10 years they only accomplished 6 requests that the player base has asked. Thats approximaitly 1 request every 20 months!!! wow

 

[Kitch]

if it is fun, costs a fraction of this game to play, and the markets are moderated to stop crazy over inflation on items like what happened in EU, then maybe EU will suffer

if it is like afterworld then it is doomed

actually i have just been playing it for a few hours its pretty good

 

[Nobleone]

... i have just been playing it for a few hours ...

Playing 'what' exactly?

 

[MG Mighty]

Bankrupcy would be bad for this virtual universe and any left over remains.
If trust is lost in such an harsh way, then the most important and probable long term goal of MA initial investors will be gone
(and it wasn't a game what they had in mind, the game just was to help implement to concept).


To understand better the following:

the reason why there's no competition, or no one has taken over, its a niche idea that no one (serious) wants to get involved with commercially. if there were venture capitalist waiting, they'd be in by now. someone mentioned the liability above, maybe thats a factor, they dont want to get involved with the complications.

Try to do a search about the following matters to get a proper view
Black Friday (United States v. Scheinberg)
US Money laundry laws.

and for extra kicks paypal consumers complains (hint it survives because the parent company has enough power to enforce it).

 

[Kombinator]

Just as a side question, how does this functionality work, didn't actually know we had this:

yes you can now make a set of armor and equip/unequip it with one click???

 

[jqkill]

Create Item Set: Armor

 

[Fifth]

if there was a way to open source a game - like this one, u would get the linux effect of becoming (imo) hugely superior to ur rivals in a relatively short space of time, kinda hard for that system to work in game industry tho

Yes, and it already exists. Unity Engine is pure classical Open Source. Torque went opensource about a year ago (the engine Afterworld uses).

Engine level is actually all you can make open source. RCE is not possible if everybody knows exactly how mob AI works, what exactly in the system is montored/what isn't, loot tables, loot distribution... You get the point.


That shaking hut of EU stands in an empty wasteland. I would rejoice if there's a possible competition rising from, well, anywhere. I really would, because any competition is good.
Bitter truth is, up to this point, there's none.
It might go down one day, and then someone will surely try to build a raft, or fix some of those countless unfinished ones. Regretfully, chances that those will be better than EU are trifling.

Nothing easier than whip up some code for teenies. No problems with palyerbase, guaranteed success, at least for a while.
Make something so complex that it requires a working brain to enjoy fully and u will always remain a niche product. Despite everything else (average cost to play, RCE or no RCE).

 

[Spawn]

1, 5, 6, 14 are basic functionalities that should have been implement without players asking (imo they should have been implemented before the game left beta mode)



13, 20: The difference between an mmo and a single player pc game is that stuff like this is supposed to be added. Don't think any extra credit is deserved here.








3, 7, 9, 10, 16, 17 : So basically in 10 years they only accomplished 6 requests that the player base has asked. Thats approximaitly 1 request every 20 months!!! wow

well, this was only the top 20.. feel free to analyse all the other frustrations from this thread...

https://www.planetcalypsoforum.com/...p-Marco-deal-with-his-quot-frustrations-quot-

 

[Acro]

I replace the original text with something more usefull

 

[crazy]

Asset?

Do they receive rent from renting the building; and the rent is high enough to pay for all expenses and still have something left.

If the property does not generate money it is a liability. Because there always will be costs; from restauration, cleaning, taxes,...

And don't say it is an investment. you said it was an asset. While the castle can appreciate in value; it also can depriciate. This is a gamble (real estate speculation.

Asset: any intellectual property, real estate, business,... that creates extra value over time. This value must offset it's cost and be greater then de devaluation of the currency.

liability: anything (house, car,...) that costs money over time and potential income does not offset the cost

investing: buying assets with the intend to make money; the fact that the "thing" may appreciate in price is not a determing reason in ROI calculation.

speculating: buying liabilities to sell at a higher price.

ohh, and yes; your house if you own one is a liability; unless you sub-rent a part of it. it is ofcourse a necessity; and the other alternative (renting) is even a bigger liability.

And if MA, in stead of buying a "castle" had bought an apartment building instead; they might make a monthtly income of 20$-30$ for each apartment. This might not be the biggest profit in the world; but it would 1. improve their financial statement (buildings worth and income); would be accountable to invest further (mortgage, extra leverage...).

and TBH, in time of need; selling an apartment block will go faster and value higher than selling a castle.

as·set

/ˈaset/



Noun


1.A useful or valuable thing, person, or quality: "quick reflexes were his chief asset".
2.Property owned by a person or company, regarded as having value and available to meet debts, commitments, or legacies.

Synonyms


property




in simple terms, MA goes bust, then the castle will be sold to pay for debts, making it an asset

 

[Shard-Angel]

If you truly believe all of these things, why wait for a MA bankruptcy?

Gather up some investors, a load of financing, and approach MindArk with a partnership offer, or even a buyout offer.

I wish I had the money.... hmm... any billionaire arab oil tycoons (preferably female!) out there to gift me the money? Heck, I'll even marry you and do unspeakable unmentionable things.....

 

[starcollector]

It's a scam. They promise far too much, and far too many things that require expensive external licensing. No, it's not a scam. I take that back. They probably want to legitimately try, but sadly have no idea what they are really attempting.

The proper word is: Vaporware.

Yes, I am talking about After Time Diaries.

You should check ATD forum....not doing false acusation....They don't ask money and they say that they don't need......*Cough! Are they working on a project with low funds ????

 

[aia]

Just as a side question, how does this functionality work, didn't actually know we had this:

yes you can now make a set of armor and equip/unequip it with one click???

There is just one Catch: Clicking a "set" Icon equips.
To remove, you right-click the Icon and select "unequip". (For some reason I thought second click was unequip.)

Be aware that for some set, if you have a make up mask it will be removed aswell... (maybe should be fixed).