How important you are for MindArk!

Alexis Starfire said:

I will as long as you can tell me how I get psychtropy skill (The reason I nerve blast) with an opalo.. I thought you knew about mindforce?

Jezz..

Click to expand...

Sorry, guess I misunderstood.
Seems a little unfair to MA to complain about low loot, low return percentage if you use a weapon that is maybe 1/3 as efficient as say an opalo.

If psychotropy was cheap to skill, guess everyone would do it.

Make a choice - accept the losses and do mindforce (or wait for them to overhaul the system), or switch to something which is less of a money drain.

Can't just arbitrarily blame MA if you take losses - MA take a lot of flak from us all regarding loot, but to start on a rant because you lose money Nerve blasting?!?

did you get my PM?

Alexis Starfire said:

I will as long as you can tell me how I get psychtropy skill (The reason I nerve blast) with an opalo.. I thought you knew about mindforce?

Jezz..

Click to expand...

Jezz to you too.

You bitch about loosing cash when you make no effort at using something remotely efficient?

Either try and break even then talk about losses, or burn cash away how you like and keep quiet.

C'mon. If you're going to whine and throw around your cash numbers so much, at least do it properly.

gurkha said:

Jezz to you too.

You bitch about loosing cash when you make no effort at using something remotely efficient?

Either try and break even then talk about losses, or burn cash away how you like and keep quiet.

C'mon. If you're going to whine and throw around your cash numbers so much, at least do it properly.

Click to expand...

Dosen't seem to matter either way, wither blowing away snot and dakis with nerve blast, or hunting trox/meff/atrax/agro whatever with ep-41 serenity and BGH 4440...
Well, I won't be bitch about that any more, MA can go whistle for more money from me till they make it worth it again..

Cheers

Originally Posted by Mikah

As Fade has previosly mentioned, I think it is time to create a Players Union.. then maybe we can be heard and acknowledged...

Click to expand...

This is what a 'Players Union' will do...

From PE/EU Conditions and Terms of Use

14. Participant Responsibility
"If your participation is terminated for any reason, MindArk is under no obligation to supply Entropia Universe to you in the future."

All they have to do is put in 'No Unions' and...

17. Final Agreement
This Agreement terminates and supersedes all prior understandings or agreements on the subject matter hereof.
By accepting this Agreement and becoming a participant you agree that MindArk may, at any time, update, revise or change this Agreement. If MindArk makes material changes or revisions to this Agreement, MindArk will provide notice to you, via the e-mail address you provided upon registration. Your continued participation in Entropia Universe after notification of changes means that you accept the changes. If you do not want to accept the changes proposed by MindArk or to any of the terms in this Agreement, your only remedy is to cancel your account and cease using Entropia Universe.

Nuff Said??
MA own you when in EU..virtual body and soul...

I am reminded that the marxists, in thier absolute conviction that their way was the way history would move towards, discouraged any other solution to the problems of unrestrained capitalism and fascism.

They didn't support unions, or democratic reforms, and told everyone that they were pointless and would only delay the innevitable. They sat on their hands as the fascists crushed democratic dissent and and refused to help those that wanted to relieve the sufferings of those abused by raw greed for wealth. Their mantra was....'it will never work, why even try".

We hear this even today....'politics is rigged, it doesn't matter that you vote, etc' and by believing this.... we make it come to pass. All the while, companies are outsourcing to workforces that don't have extant or functional democracies which can prevent unfair treatment of workers through a peacful representative mechanism. There is a natural pressure for companies to do so, as if they don't their competitors most certainly will. (on a tangent, I think the only solution is for democratic countries to place their own restrictions on companies operating in non-democratic environments...and to penalize trade with those that don't follow suit, yet compete with thier own restricted companies....but this is a side issur from RL). The point is, that by believing the false prophecy, we make it come true.

There are some excellent posts here about why a union would not work..and they may be right. Personally, I would never support an union that was overly confrontational, or did not appreciate that MA's primary function is to make a profit (and profit is a good thing...it is not evil). But I do think there could be a place for combining our voices into a clear messege, to improve communication with MA, and if necessary in dire situations, to stand together with those that we don't feel are given a fair shake.

As far as it potentially being against the Eula, well, who says any such 'union' had to be formal?...what, can they supress all free speech between players?

As far as MA being like god...not so... We have a business relationship with them..... and that means reciprocation. God does not need anything, and all things take thier being and existence from God. Business relationships are not like this. Sure, in game we have no power....but as consumers of a product in RL, we do have the power and the responsibility to communicate with the other partner in the relationship about our wants and needs. As long as they are rational, and they find a rational ear on the other end, as I suspect they would, there should be no big issue.

Could MA pull the plug... I guess they could. Viagra may be right, and I would have repped him if EF would let me, but I can't agree at this point. I am hopeful that MA still has a vision for what EU is and what it can become. Now, if they only see it as a quick gambling scam...then I will eat crow... yes, as soon as the suckers wise up, they will pull the plug and go their merry way with all our deposits over the last several years....shouting 'Suckers' over thier shoulder as they get out of virtual Dodge.

In spite of all my issues with how MA seems to treat us, I am actually hopeful of better things from them. I think there are some moves they have made that show a desire for longer term success...and that provide the potential to lower the average cost of play. As I don't know the leadership of MA personaly, I could be totally wrong. Maybe the only vision they have is for quick money....but then again, maybe they have a greater vision of breaking new ground in the world of technology and entertainment...and maybe they are just struggling getting it to all work in a way that keeps the consumer happy, as well as the shareholder. I am hopful of better things from them...even though I have often been disappointed.

So, there may be leverage the community has, should it be necessary to use it some exceptional case. It may even be that such an institution could even be useful to MA as well.

Perhaps one of the things that disturbs people, is the image we get in our mind when we think of union.... of people overpaid, underworked, who whine and use extortion techniques to drain more capital from the company...and producing very little wealth in return. Or perhaps we think of how corrupt some unions become because of the great power they can wield. I can't stand unions for this reason.... as they usually see themselves as competitors with their company rather than teammates....it is the same problem of how managment view the employees in the first place that likely inspired the unions. Ideally, all companies would be like IBM, where they treat people so good, that there is never a need for a union. Perhaps a union could demonstrate the same understanding of its employer/supplier...seeing themselves as part of a team, whose goals are to help the company to be profitable....but to do so without abusing consumers or resources in the process.

So, maybe a term other than union would dispell some of the mental baggage we associate with the term. perhaps, a player's association or guild would be better. perhaps the MindArk fan club would be even better than that. Too bad, we all can't also be shareholders in MA.

There is a move afoot by some to create some institution like this....how it is doing, I don't know... I am not involved. I just hope it is done in a mature and respectful way...not with selfish motives of simply trying to force MA to give better loots. It may be, that if MA could explain all their challenges, we would understand why loots are exactly where they need to be. (and it may be that they are perhaps getting away with a bit too much because they dont' have to explain it).

I think we are important to MindArk...when seen as a body, not as unconected individuals.

There has been ONE large-scale actually WORKING player petition about PE. It was however a LONG time ago. The topic was permanent decay. The result was that we, the players, made MA scrap the plans about making all item decays permanent. What happens later? They introduce (L) weapons and blueprints that HAS permanent decay...
To MAs defense those (L) items does have features the normal items dont..

Tigerman said:

There has been ONE large-scale actually WORKING player petition about PE. It was however a LONG time ago. The topic was permanent decay. The result was that we, the players, made MA scrap the plans about making all item decays permanent. What happens later? They introduce (L) weapons and blueprints that HAS permanent decay...
To MAs defense those (L) items does have features the normal items dont..

Click to expand...

(L) items are MA's attempt to save crafting. Crafting permanent items in large scale will always be futile. In game of 100k active players you probably cant have even 1k crafters who are able to craft something usable and permanent. When even couple players can make profit by crafting something, market will slowly become saturated with that item.

Permanent decay was probably designed to make the biggest profession group of players (hunters) somehow depend on others. I dont think EU's economy can fully work before most of the players are somehow connected to other players. Now most of the players are hunters who trade mostly with other hunters (with looted items) and get supplies from trade terminals.

Miners, crafters and tailors have to participate in more complex economy.

ViagraFalls said:

My guess is that MA would choose to let the game go tits up before they allow a union. They love the control they have over us (Heck, Jan's reply to Hunter proves Jan thinks his god-mode works everywhere), and they will do whatever it takes to keep control to them, and away from the players.

Should players ever decide to buy a majority share, I expect MA's reaction would be a limited reissue of new shares, just enough to be able to tip the scales.

(Perhaps if MA opens up more (they seem to be on the right path lately), people will stop assuming they are just after your money. Until then, well........)

Click to expand...

Depends what players union is after. Player union could be united way to tell MA what players want. I doubt MA would be against that. Or players union could be led by small fraction of players to black mail MA to convert EU into something that suits those players better.

I think it's a bit misleading to think that democratic players union with all EU players would really go for ubers or even high/medium level players. New/inexperienced players are probably largest group in EU players and their concerns would probably be mentorship, sweating, oil rig, land grab and so on. Who knows if players unions first demand for MA would be degrading all high end equipment

I'm personally not even sure who I would want to let to affect MA's decicion making. Sure MA could use some transparency and customer informing teachings from business life. But I have been checking EU (or PE) for over 2 years with long breaks between and looking such "snapshots" gives impression that MA has been doing quite good job. Not always what players would want but I'm sure they have had their reasons (mostly limited resources) for it.

Strikes and players unions etc were planned on official forums already and I dont remember they really ever took off. One reason is that players arent that united or want same things. Instead of players union we might have crafters union, hunters union, miners union and tailors union etc. But I'll be a bit pessimist and say that we would provide MA lots of entertainment with our own fights then.

Fade said:

I am reminded that the marxists, in thier absolute conviction that their way was the way history would move towards, discouraged any other solution to the problems of unrestrained capitalism and fascism.

Click to expand...

Damn excellent post... I love this forum for posts like that I'd rep you but I need to spread the love first

I seem to remember drawing a similar parallel a while back about the Marxists, and you're right...

They want us to believe that it's not a business relationship we're a part of, and that the money we invest gives us no more rights than anyone else... It's definitely not the case and I think we need to make it very clear.

Unions do have their place. They are often the only way of getting a message across. We can post in here about the problems with EU and MA until we're blue in the face, but it won't do us any good if we're sending an entirely different message with the money we deposit.

We're effectively saying "MA, we all hate what you're doing and the way you do it, but here, have a few hundred bucks anyway!"

Damn, I want to own a company who can do that!

BubbleBlip said:

(L) items are MA's attempt to save crafting. Crafting permanent items in large scale will always be futile. In game of 100k active players you probably cant have even 1k crafters who are able to craft something usable and permanent. When even couple players can make profit by crafting something, market will slowly become saturated with that item.

Permanent decay was probably designed to make the biggest profession group of players (hunters) somehow depend on others. I dont think EU's economy can fully work before most of the players are somehow connected to other players. Now most of the players are hunters who trade mostly with other hunters (with looted items) and get supplies from trade terminals.

Miners, crafters and tailors have to participate in more complex economy.

Click to expand...

Well, if you stopped dropping whats the very REASON why we hunt, good items, with a high market value, people would stop to hunt. If people stop to hunt and you screw the "uber" players/depositers/spenders like that youre gonna have a reaction. Which is probably why there are no top-end (L) items out there. The (L) weapons is and should be, aimed at the midlevel market and scratching the surface of the highend weapons. It kinda works as a stepstone from the lowend weapons to the highend ones.
When it comes to tools, more or less crafted is the only supply atm. Mining amps is not looted and its been a LONG time since i looted a mining tool of any kind. Decent first aid packs have become very rare loot. If you want anything better than a fap-50, your best shot is to go for the crafted ones. BLP amps i have yet to see in loots, plates is not looted altho the parts to make them are.
Clothing is not looted anymore and tailored clothing is not colored, so you have to go to a colorer to get the colors you want. The paint cans is looted by the hunters.
The minerals that the crafters use to create mining amps, blp amps, mining tools, midlevel (L) weapons, attachments, plates? They come from the miners.

The main reason for the need of the (L) weapons is that MA fucked up when changing the crafting system back in the day. Before they changed crafting, you had to be smart about crafting in order to make an item at competative prices as you had to create components from ore, weapon components from components and weapons from weapons components. And each component, weapon component and weapon had 3 different designs all with different success rates and costs..

All in all, Id say that the hunters does already depend quite much on the crafters, as do the miners. The depency is also highly mutual. So, in conclusion, I dont see what youre talking about when you say hunters need to become dependant on others. They always where and they allways will be. Yes, the top-end hunters deal with other hunters for top-end weapons and armor, but their plates has to be made, just like their amps and attachment.
Also, the opalo skillers have to go somewhere after the opalo, and the breer m2a (L) or what its called is a nice option as the crafted (L) weapons have bonuses the looted similars dont...

Tigerman said:

All in all, Id say that the hunters does already depend quite much on the crafters, as do the miners. The depency is also highly mutual. So, in conclusion, I dont see what youre talking about when you say hunters need to become dependant on others. They always where and they allways will be. Yes, the top-end hunters deal with other hunters for top-end weapons and armor, but their plates has to be made, just like their amps and attachment.

Click to expand...

You say that hunters were dependant on others when there was almost no useful crafted stuff around? Yes it has changed now to some extent but is still far from other other professions. Faps and armor plates are not absolutely necessary. You can do pretty well without ever using any crafted stuff if you only hunt.

What I said is for "why there are (L) items?", "why MA planned perm decay in first place?"

Take any permanent item and have it crafted by 100 people for a year and it becomes almost TT-stuff. (L) items are only items that exit markets too. No hunter will buy 3 or 4 sets of same armor plates or half dozen maddoxIVs. When player base stops growing markets will get saturated quite quickly with almost all crafted permanent items. Thats what I'm saying. And it's quite basics of EU economy.

Got it?

I posted some excerpts from the EU Terms of Use in another thread, basically section 14 and 17.

MA owns the game, and they own your virtual soul..the only way you could get them to sit up and take notice is if like 80 or 90% of the game population told them to get screwed..this ain't gonna happen..

I have made a few enemies here stating my mind about MA's treatment and get back 'stop whining'. Fine, I will, I will leave that to the rest here..

..End of Line..

Cheers

BubbleBlip said:

You say that hunters were dependant on others when there was almost no useful crafted stuff around? Yes it has changed now to some extent but is still far from other other professions. Faps and armor plates are not absolutely necessary. You can do pretty well without ever using any crafted stuff if you only hunt.

What I said is for "why there are (L) items?", "why MA planned perm decay in first place?"

Take any permanent item and have it crafted by 100 people for a year and it becomes almost TT-stuff. (L) items are only items that exit markets too. No hunter will buy 3 or 4 sets of same armor plates or half dozen maddoxIVs. When player base stops growing markets will get saturated quite quickly with almost all crafted permanent items. Thats what I'm saying. And it's quite basics of EU economy.

Got it?

Click to expand...

As i said, MA changed the crafting system and removed the complexity from crafting and thats why they needed the (L) crafted stuff...
If they hadnt, the crafting would have regulated it self.

GOT IT??

Tigerman said:

As i said, MA changed the crafting system and removed the complexity from crafting and thats why they needed the (L) crafted stuff...
If they hadnt, the crafting would have regulated it self.

Click to expand...

How does crafting regulate itself when no new customers come and no item ever leaves market? Tell me that.

Will you keep crafting some amp or fap when everyone have one already. It doesnt matter if it takes 100 steps to make the item if no one will buy it in the end.

BubbleBlip said:

so elitist and yet no clue about economy

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I have far more clue about the PE economy than you will have in a LONG time dude.
Believe it or not, but fucking over the poeple that invest a lot of time and money into this game and has thousands and 10s of thousands of USD bound up in top-end equipment is NOT a good thing to do for MA economically or otherwise.
I also have more clue about what has been changed and why, than you do and In adittion you dont even TRY to understand what im saying about the changes that was made to crafting. If you did, youd realize that there couldnt be a lot of people making the same items at the same prices with the old system.
Only those who could make it and sell it at the most competative prices would be able to, and it would regulate itself.

But you seem to be a crafter and want EVERY item in the game to be crafted and preferrably perm-decayed. If it fuck over every largscale investor dont seem to bother you too much. It does bother MA tho..

BubbleBlip said:

How does crafting regulate itself when no new customers come and no item ever leaves market? Tell me that.

Will you keep crafting some amp or fap when everyone have one already. It doesnt matter if it takes 100 steps to make the item if no one will buy it in the end.

Click to expand...

It DOES come new customers. And you dont keep making the same amp of fap, you go to the next one.
Anyways, I rest my case. The statement that no new customer comes along really says it all about how much you pay attention to PE (EU)

Alexis Starfire said:

I posted some excerpts from the EU Terms of Use in another thread, basically section 14 and 17.

MA owns the game, and they own your virtual soul..the only way you could get them to sit up and take notice is if like 80 or 90% of the game population told them to get screwed..this ain't gonna happen..

I have made a few enemies here stating my mind about MA's treatment and get back 'stop whining'. Fine, I will, I will leave that to the rest here..

..End of Line..

Cheers

Click to expand...

First off Buddy... don't worry about people that hate whining...just as many of us support your right to make your point....repeatedly if necessary....and even if you are wrong .. (but you are getting this from a guy for whom MB had to institute a new "# of words" limit per month)

MA owns the virtual me...but not the Me me. The part where I give them money, and discuss things with my friends...that is all mine.

And we don't know what percentage would be necessary to have an impact were they to suggest that MA recieve fornication. Actually, such a strong measure would have to be an absolute last resort...and never done in the spirit with which you describe it.

But let's imagine that such an extreme situation warrented player abstinance from depositing for a period of time....the percentage necessary to get noticed (which could alone be sufficient) would probably be similiar to their profit margin. i.e. if after paying all the bills, MA gets to keep 20% for a rainy day.... 20% of players taking a break could get thier attention.

I am not saying that this would hurt MA. the goal should never be to hurt MA anyway. And MA can handle slumps...they weather one every summer, where their deposits drop off for normal reasons....so they clearly have a plan to manage down times. But, if such a drastic measure were taken... just getting a unusual report across the desk of managmetn might be enough of a victory to encourage MA to engage the players to find out where the discontent is comming from.

Yes, if you wanted to do more than get noticed...if you wanted to impact MAs bottom line significantly, you would need a larger number of people working together.... But if things ever got this bad....that players felt they needed to twist MAs arm by force of massive boycott...well, I don't even want to think about how bad things would be at that point...that would be the time to sell out.

But again, a group of playes temporarily abstaining from deposits in order to get some issue noticed, is one of the most extreme functions of a player group. There are other functions much more benign than this. Idealy speaking of course.

Tigerman said:

I have far more clue about the PE economy than you will have in a LONG time dude.

Click to expand...

And when you run out of smarts you start neg repping and throwing that elitist shit. You must be really proud for your effort in a computer game. I wonder how you can respect people who dont even play EU at all.

Believe it or not, but fucking over the poeple that invest a lot of time and money into this game and has thousands and 10s of thousands of USD bound up in top-end equipment is NOT a good thing to do for MA economically or otherwise.

Click to expand...

Never said such. Seems like even mentioning perm decay which was scrapped for a good reason was too taboo for you.

I also have more clue about what has been changed and why, than you do and In adittion you dont even TRY to understand what im saying about the changes that was made to crafting. If you did, youd realize that there couldnt be a lot of people making the same items at the same prices with the old system.

Click to expand...

And why there cant be lots? If player base stops growing and quitting players transfer at least some % of skills to new players, the average skill level will keep raising. Average BP QR rating will keep raising too. Markets will get smaller from every single crafted item.

Only those who could make it and sell it at the most competative prices would be able to, and it would regulate itself.

Click to expand...

What you dont get it is that that regulation doesnt mean that only couple people will keep up doing items but that slowly items become uneconomic to craft. Crafters need to move to new items all the time to get profits. First item will sell for example tt+800, then tt+400 when another crafter comes to markets price might drop to tt+50. With couple more crafters the price would be around tt+30 but crafters are not interested to craft it because they arent necessarily doing any profit with those prices anymore.

(Yes crafters do sell with losses since they necessarily dont have resources to hold up items for really long times waiting for better markets.)

Maybe some highest level crafters can make profit with those prices but at some point everyone has that item and only buyer is TT.

So crafters will need to move on to new items all the time. But what those new items can be. How long MA can introduce new furniture, clothes and equipment so that they will have markets. Equipment would need to be better but on same time MA doesnt want to end having crafted mod mercs.

But you seem to be a crafter and want EVERY item in the game to be crafted and preferrably perm-decayed. If it fuck over every largscale investor dont seem to bother you too much. It does bother MA tho..

Click to expand...

This so deep bs that you are saying because I dont bow into your arrogant and illusioned direction.

Im thinking about working economy. I understand why perm decay was scrapped and why they introduced (L) items. It's your problem if you cant talk discuss about opinions like an adult should.

Fade said:

First off Buddy... don't worry about people that hate whining...just as many of us support your right to make your point....repeatedly if necessary....and even if you are wrong .. (but you are getting this from a guy for whom MB had to institute a new "# of words" limit per month)

MA owns the virtual me...but not the Me me. The part where I give them money, and discuss things with my friends...that is all mine.

And we don't know what percentage would be necessary to have an impact were they to suggest that MA recieve fornication. Actually, such a strong measure would have to be an absolute last resort...and never done in the spirit with which you describe it.

But let's imagine that such an extreme situation warrented player abstinance from depositing for a period of time....the percentage necessary to get noticed (which could alone be sufficient) would probably be similiar to their profit margin. i.e. if after paying all the bills, MA gets to keep 20% for a rainy day.... 20% of players taking a break could get thier attention.

I am not saying that this would hurt MA. the goal should never be to hurt MA anyway. And MA can handle slumps...they weather one every summer, where their deposits drop off for normal reasons....so they clearly have a plan to manage down times. But, if such a drastic measure were taken... just getting a unusual report across the desk of managmetn might be enough of a victory to encourage MA to engage the players to find out where the discontent is comming from.

Yes, if you wanted to do more than get noticed...if you wanted to impact MAs bottom line significantly, you would need a larger number of people working together.... But if things ever got this bad....that players felt they needed to twist MAs arm by force of massive boycott...well, I don't even want to think about how bad things would be at that point...that would be the time to sell out.

But again, a group of playes temporarily abstaining from deposits in order to get some issue noticed, is one of the most extreme functions of a player group. There are other functions much more benign than this. Idealy speaking of course.

Click to expand...

However, the problem with "unions" or as they often become "mobs" is that they DO hurt themselves by hurting the one they trie to "get some sense into".
Say that MAs margin DID infact disappear. What would happen?
Loots would get lower. Lower loot would keep hunters from hunting, amplifying the lack of income even further. Now youve put yourself in a position where the people you want to improve is working at a negative balance.
What happen when the balance get negative? They need to make more money. So it becomes yet more expensive to play. Yet again more people stop playing because it cost to much. The spiral continues, PE(EU) go up in smoke and the company you tried to improve went down together with all the values you already had ingame.
SAS (Scandinavian Airline Systems) went with a massive loss this year, much because of misc. stuff the unions did during the year. So yeah, this DO apply.

This reminds me of a case in USA history a long time ago... With Ford Motor Company.

The employees of Ford were going to stike, shut it down for better wages, the report was that the CEO at the time (one of the Henry Ford's of direct decent) stated "Go Ahead and Stike, "I" will shut the doors, you will all be out of work, and the Ford Family will still be extremely rich for the next 20 or so generations"

I'm all for a players council to liaison with MA, but I can see it might be cutting our own throats..especially if they decide to play hardball like Mr. Ford.

Cheers

yeah, what you are to ma is nothing, for every 1 that quits 10 other suckers .

Only thing special offered by this software are the people.

Why is it that there is so little effort being done to entertain us?
If we want real social entertainment we have to make it ourselfs and with it we pay MA. One thing that keeps the majority going: the promise of a chance to win something that will never be yours. its all MA property. isnt it?

This whole setup is so full of sheit and contradictions it can only boil down to one thing.
Good example from ford, its the truth. That guy never had one good idea, all fortune was made by his ancestors. But arogancy enough.
Al live by the grace off our money(we produce/we buy) and they treat us like shit. That is quit easy to do when your dealing with masses and not individuals.
Yeah sure they pay the people that work. if they wouldnt they had no clients to sell too in the first place. no one would be able to buy.
Yes Economics are inherently flawed.
Show me the first person who actually got born with his own personally made fortune and that person has a right to say something, all the others have only gained by taking something that is allways free (just have to find where it is) and/or reshaping/reselling it. That is why that ford guy should have kept his trap shut.
What good is it when you are rich but very alone?

I liked the beachparty , i would have liked to see the wedding but that costed cash just to get there so no show.

I want Jim Morrison lyrics, i want to see depth, not the shallowness it is now.
more arty farty please.

Greetings

Thx Mirand, it is really interesting: We were meanwhile at a discussion about unions.

But the whole discussion shows one thing: Many people feels not well respected and entertained from MindArk. And this produces negative emotions.

If I would be asked I would recommend to Mindark the following action items:

Show more respect to your custumers.

1. Means: Identify clearly the requirements of your customers. Invent more attachments for social interactions and community building instead of adding streaming technologies.

2. Means: Provide more quality instead of quantity, e.g. lesser bugs, more performance instead of a additional city like New Oxford, what is empty all the time today.

3. Means: Interact respectfully all the time with your customer, e.g. in support cases.

4. Means: Entertain your customer activly, e.g. with events for comunity support, official challenges like "EU Olympia", or other events where you can see, how much ppl are in the game.

5. Means: Make you more transparent, this helps you to gain more sympathy form your customer, e.g. regular "reports from back stage". Show the ppl behind. Explain more the technology behind.

MindArk should handle their customer more as a real customer. Fair, straight and in the same time, should Mindark never forget, all the customer spend their freetime to play. You have to entertain!

Just remember, sadly, you say all that, but all MindArk probably hears is this:

We're effectively saying "MA, we all hate what you're doing and the way you do it, but here, have a few hundred bucks anyway!"

Damn, I want to own a company who can do that!

Click to expand...

Which I LOL'd pretty hard at, btw...

Tigerman said:

However, the problem with "unions" or as they often become "mobs" is that they DO hurt themselves by hurting the one they trie to "get some sense into".
Say that MAs margin DID infact disappear. What would happen?
Loots would get lower. Lower loot would keep hunters from hunting, amplifying the lack of income even further. Now youve put yourself in a position where the people you want to improve is working at a negative balance.
What happen when the balance get negative? They need to make more money. So it becomes yet more expensive to play. Yet again more people stop playing because it cost to much. The spiral continues, PE(EU) go up in smoke and the company you tried to improve went down together with all the values you already had ingame.
SAS (Scandinavian Airline Systems) went with a massive loss this year, much because of misc. stuff the unions did during the year. So yeah, this DO apply.

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Excellent point Tiger.... this is why IRL, I hate unions more than companies....even though there was a time when I would have just as easily hated business as it was practiced 100 or so years ago.

I do think that keeping this danger in mind, things could be worked into the rules, verbiage, culture, and structure of such an organization to makes sure that it does not become a sesspool of greed, laziness, selfish ambition resulting in short-sighted and hurtful decisions.

Things that we have in our favor that could help prevent this, is the inclusion and experience of older players...who have a larger influence than an army of noobs that just want their way without thinking about the results.

People love to complain about the ones in power...but give them just a little power...and why how THEY abuse it. It is human nature, and we must always try to balance human freedom with the potential for the danger that abuse of those freedoms can allow.

There are some countries in the world, for example, that while not perfect, have done a pretty good job trying to establish this balance in thier power structure.

I think that if intelligent and well meaning people were behind this... those concerns can be addressed.