Potential Issue with MindArk’s treatment of Hangar owners

Hi Entropia Community,

I have been tracking an issue for some time now regarding how MindArk handled the conversion of the hangars and their ships to the new space system and I’d like to get some feedback from the community to see if the issue deserves further attention or not.

Whilst many aspects of the conversion were handled ok in general I have not received (as I still own my hangar), or heard anyone else receive, the following:

• The PED contained in the hangar ship, representing its repair state, which could be up to 2000 PED.
• The Fuel contained in the hangar ship, which was up to 500 PED worth of Oil (TT value only).
• The full functionality of the ship as represented by the parts which were needed to make the old hangars functional.

Specifically this functionality included the ability to fly to and from Crystal Palace and the Asteroid, meaning the ship was powered and could travel in space (also reinforced by the types of parts needed to make it functional).

Equivalents in the new system would be the Energy Supply and Sub-Warp drive (as inter-planetary travel technically did not exist when the old hangars were disabled), both of which would be unlimited as the old ship was.

Other aspects of the conversion have been addressed reasonably well:

• Lost business opportunities due to the disabled hangars were compensated with PED via a share of the temporary teleporter system fees, even though this did not seem to differentiate between active and inactive (incomplete or otherwise) hangars.
• The Unlimited Thruster was provided as a replacement for lost surface to space (and vice versa) transit functionality.

To date all hangar owners have received the same hangar, same ship, and same compensation so it seems that MindArk has overlooked the state of specific hangars and thus the value people had stored in them.

Since space has now been out for more than a year (and was supposedly a focus during 2012), does this issue deserve further attention?

- Deathifier

My main concern over the ships is that we are expected to pay through the nose to upgrade a ship that in some cases ie mine, were paid for many years ago (2005} in full and final payment. The ships retailed up to 250K peds, admittedly only one person actually paid this amount but a few paid close to this, so why the hell would a company expect someone to pay this amount Again to actually make the ship strong enough to use in space? Also we seem to have been deemed second class citizens as MA's main focus seems to have been cash grabbing by inventing Motherships instead of returning hangar ships to players, some of whom have owned ships since they were invented.
We were also promised landing ability on Caly - at least, this has never materialized I wonder if it ever will?.
As to fuel and repair returns this seems to have evaporated like most of MA's promises!!!

I was under the impression that the current space vehicles were the replacement for those old ships, and that the hangers while still in the world, will certainly not be developed or used. (according to an MA response here about 14 months ago.)

Originally Posted by Kim|Calypso
There are currently no plans in place to develop the hangars.

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The current ships represent a significant value , and an exclusive number of ships all the same. They are still a proprietary function of Calypso, because of the existing investments people had I think. And I don't foresee the need for more ship options with the apparent excess now. But it is MA.

45k is lowest I have heard in the year for the base privateers, which isn't near some of the original amounts paid, but almost everything ingame isn't going to fetch nearly as much as they did in 2007-2008 (peak economy) either. If the playerbase grew and retention was high, they could perhaps get back to those levels on their own.

When I think of 45k as a starting base, Fuel and the repair rate amounts (fairly small in comparison to total value) I would assume to be considered integrated in the conversion, however varied. Repair costs and decay is now unlimited and free for the owner, players pay that repair while they skill and use tools. Over the life of a ship used with any frequency, it would add up to alot of PED. That savings I think is not noticed by many, but it still represents a value that would have been paid out.

Ships in general now have more viability and potential PED returns than the original ships, where pilot lines were somewhat rediculous and frustrating for the 2 destinations. Now we can offer all sorts of destinations, to all kinds of needs, besides one for extreme hunters and one for extreme miners. So profitably has been increased as well I think, or at least the potential for profit.

The most effective solution and effect on pricing (essentially compensation) in my opinion would be a solid game, and much improved customer service/communication. Playerbase and demand growing is good for ship owners and values.

Hangar owners got more than they deserve IMO because afaik MA never sold one for more than 10K PED. Just because some idiots paid 250K for them does not mean they were ever WORTH that much.

edit:

After a night to sleep on it, decided to stay out of the politics.
Best of luck, what ever happens.

Rick

With estates, don't expect much from Mindark. They tend to break promises a lot.

Justin|MindArk said:

Hi

We are aware of the shopping booth issues and are working on relocating them back to their pre 9.4 positions.

There will also be an upgrade to the booths in the near future

This is just a quick post to let you know that we are working on it and sorry for any frustration caused by this delay.


Justin.

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that 'upgrade' never happened and in the mean time booth owners were basically without any functional estates at all for nearly two years or so. Be happy your hangar at least still exists and has made you bit back over time.

Well a functionality privateers used to have back in the days was autopilot. I remember the autopilot engaged message lol and I would love that back for sub warp flights.

For landing on planets I think the UL thrusters could get an added functionality of engineering item when installed into a slot on the engineering console of privateers, which would solve the 70 landing holes needed on planets to dock all the ships in. Not likely to happen though.

As far as the differences in peds locked in hangars I don't think the records will be available. If they had been the distribution of tp fees between active and inactive ships would have been different indeed as well, or that would have been logical. If you had a lot in it yourself I think you should keep pushing. Never give up!

The thing is now a lot of hangars and ships have changed hands. MA can still verify who the original owners were when they introduced the current ships.
The thing that concerns me is that it was SEE studios or that sub-contractor who created the Privateer and hangar did a great job, but as it wasn't the Calypso development teams original work they seem reluctant to do any further work on it.
Things I would like to see,
1. Privateers landing in hangars
2. Upgrades to Armament Devices MkII-IV, 2 out of 6 gunner seats is silly. Also the pilot should be able to shoot.
3. Upgrades to Sub-warp drives Mk II-IV, the current SubWarp speed should at least be as fast as a Quad.

Unfortunately there isn't a specific team for space. Ideally they need a pseudo planet partner to take over space and do some work on it. MindArk is in trouble as there are some very exciting MMOs coming out with planet and space based gameplay with graphics to match EU. Space needs a major overhaul very soon.

sorry, I just got done with killing 16,600 argos. whats that now?

Well for the most part I agree with Deathifier.. Some of the points I'm about to list are the same as his.

1. MA went against their own EULA and modified the TT of the privateer around 1976ped without reimbursement.
2. Some hangar owners had 500ped TT of oil in our ship before VU10 which also vanished without reimbursement.
3. Now here is the most important part... Some hangar owners invested 150-200KPed in hangars. This wasn't because of hype or anything silly like that some people might have suggested, but it was a figure generated by a fairly lucrative business for an active pilots. Revenues made by active pilots were more then your average Land Area. What hangar owners invested in is no longer the same business they had before.. Basically you can think of it like this: Your mod fap turned into a "Fap blueprint" that when crafted is turned into a dramatically less efficient, uneconomic fap.
4. One of the other big reasons people invested in hangars is the ability to place a shopkeeper "outside", that way people running by would know there is a shopkeeper npc there. This feature just like practically all the other features hangar owners invested in are no longer available.

Of course I'm not happy how MA has handled the situation.

No question that you have not been treated fairly and deserve additional compensation in this case. But you of all people know who you are dealing with here, it is MA for God's sake...think of taming and consider yourself extremely fortunate that you have indeed been compensated for lost business opportunities and effort and not brutally assraped instead.

In my opinion the original hangar owners got very well compensated, and no further actions from MA are required. Better yet i would prefer they'd focus on stuff that affects more then a few persons. I wonder how many of the people that actually offered a service with the old hangars are still around? More then 10?

Hijacker27 said:

Hangar owners got more than they deserve IMO because afaik MA never sold one for more than 10K PED. Just because some idiots paid 250K for them does not mean they were ever WORTH that much.

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Ofc, the prices were crazy and was a very high risk (some will probably say stupid) investment. But still - What did hangar owners get? Useless estate (imho the value of it is 0, but it is traded for some ped - speculative price, that maybe in distant future it will have some use or will be compensated in some way), kinda useless thruster (was useful for a few months maybe? before the L ones became cheap) and a starship with no SI which more or less is unusable (technically you can use it ofc, but in reality its a different story, because you actually need a lot of SI to be able to run a decent service).

Kombinator said:

No question that you have not been treated fairly and deserve additional compensation in this case. But you of all people know who you are dealing with here, it is MA for God's sake...think of taming and consider yourself extremely fortunate that you have indeed been compensated for lost business opportunities and effort and not brutally assraped instead.

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Yes taming is another issue that needs to be addressed for sure.

Hi everyone,
Thanks for the feedback thus far.

I’d like to point out that I’m not addressing the market valuation of the hangars (old or new), the valuation of the ships, or the many issues that space has experienced since its release.

I can certainly do this however the topic is extremely broad and the rather small issue I've identified here would be completely lost in the discussion.

I am specifically concerned about MindArk taking away player assets and functionality that were present under the old system and not returning or replacing them under the new.

For me it is a minor issue – I’ve already spent another 200k PED or so supporting the new space system, including large SI upgrades and all the items needed to make the Privateer functional.

However the issue may be of more significance to other Hangar owners and possibly to the community in general as it may represent the start of an undesirable trend, particularly if something similar happens when Taming returns.

If there are other issues people would like looked at I’ll be happy to examine them – the community puts up with a lot, esp. given the amounts they spend, and I believe the community should be treated fairly and reasonably by the companies that they invest their time and money in, particularly if they are attempting to make a go of the business aspects that MindArk promotes as being possible with the RCE environment.

This issue could be fairly and reasonably resolved by:

• Returning the repair state PED value to the owners or adding its equivalent value to ship Structural Integrity.
• Returning the fuel value to the owners or adding it to the fuel state of the ship.
• Delivering to the ship owner’s one unlimited energy source and one unlimited sub-warp drive.

These can be delivered at their lowest level (e.g. level 1) and represent the missing functionality that the old hangar parts installed in the ship provided – i.e. the ability to fly to Crystal Palace and the Asteroid.

If ship owners want to upgrade their ships in the future (e.g. faster sub-warp) they can choose to do so with higher level items and they will still need to buy new types of functionality like weaponry and warp drives.

I’ll address the specific points people have made in another post.

Bye,
Deathifier

Yes, these peds should have been at least converted in SI, and the devices, since there was no need of replacement in the old system, should have been repairable but unlimited, Warp Drives included.

Not last... Sleipnirs and Quadwings imho shouldn't be able to travel from one planet to another, in this way the old profit is mostly gone, and it makes often the MS empty or close while travelling.

It would be very cool to see the MS full of passengers and Quadwing that can head to deep space only when they are supported by a MS. That would make the MS usefull and Quadwings and Sleipnirs would be just short range ships.

And I would love to travel in a mothership with 100 passengers on board or so, and why not, with maybe some pirate attacks in meanwhile, that for sure would worth the price of the ticket.

The system atm is just:
- Low profitable
- Boring
- SI is useless or close to
- Quad travels are not realistic
- Dispersive

Deathifier said:

• The PED contained in the hangar ship, representing its repair state, which could be up to 2000 PED.
• The Fuel contained in the hangar ship, which was up to 500 PED worth of Oil (TT value only).
  

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Would agree with those two points but your missing an even more important point. Hangar owners had a business which could generate revenue but the current system as is cannot really be used by hangar owners to generate any revenue.

So the only conclusion I drew and continue to draw is the hangar system update is not yet complete. For a small company like MA with many systems to update, a full implementation can take a long time and even years. So in the long term once the system is fully updated we would be able to see it as a viable system for generating revenue. At least thats what I hope.

They have left us many clues including the above 2 points by deathifier that indicate the system is not yet fully implemented.

A lot of my thoughts I posted here:
http://www.entropiaplanets.com/threads/hangars-facts-speculations.7609/

The last point in that article was interesting. I interpret it as the hangar ship may not yet have been returned to hangar owners because of the missing fuel and peds in ship repair.

There is everything to indicate hangars are a work in progress. Some points that I left out of the above article were:

* Originally hangar owners were not given the deeds to the hangars. Only after players made a fuss that they were not allowed to trade hangars were they given to them. This indicates to me they were trying to protect hangar owners from themselves i.e. so that they could not trade them until the system was fully updated.

* There is the also this article:
http://www.entropiaplanets.com/threads/hangar-owners-the-long-wait.5786/
which refers to franks quote, "
"Well obviously, when space opens up, it's going to be a
lucrative business to own a hangar, that's for sure." I think that speaks for itself but I left that out of the article because most people interpret that very differently from me. I see it as a positive statement. I left it out precisely because most interpret that in a negative way and so not to cause offence.

* There is also the statement by David Dobson in a radio interview which I think is very significant. He was talking about how they were lookign at how estates can be used to generate revenue would they work as a one of cost for useage or taxed like an LA. Ok so there were not too many details but if you look at what he was saying it is I think extremely important. Most people believe David Dobsons other crap he churns out but for some reason this which is likely to be one of the true things he said continues to be ignored. If estates can be used for generatign revenue then I see no reason why that would not be implemented on hangars. Earler I used to think David slipped up but now think he deliberately wanted to discuss that to further his own agenda but failed to take into account the affect that can have on players.

* I continue to see further evidence, in small bits which indicate to me hangars will be worth it in teh end but I'll stop here...

Deathifier,

Sadly, I woudn't be surprised if MA actually didn't have this info anymore, so simply they don't really know how much each owner should be compensated.

If everybody receives an unlimited energy device and subwarp drives, then who would ever need the limited ones?

I obviously don't agree with nerfing the present space vehicles to only consist of the major ships. And I think the idea that the disappearance of easy interplanetary travel will lead to a lot of revenue to the privateer and mothership owners is delusional at best.

Since it gets pretty long and I don't want to leave people out I’ll address some specific points in this post.

Ace also makes some good points and I’ll address those in the next post to keep each one manageable.

forgo said:

When I think of 45k as a starting base, Fuel and the repair rate amounts (fairly small in comparison to total value) I would assume to be considered integrated in the conversion, however varied. Repair costs and decay is now unlimited and free for the owner, players pay that repair while they skill and use tools.

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If the repair state and fuel was integrated in the conversion the ships would have had a different initial state representing this. They did not – they were all immobile ships with no fuel and having the same 500 Structure Integrity, with the new Motherships also having 500 SI – so the privateers had no advantage.

As for decay being free and unlimited it is not - a ship has several components, all of them currently limited, and MindArk has stated that they will decay over time in the future. This will probably happen in much the same way as 'movement decay' does on the freebie vehicles.

Repair is actually much the same - you put PED in (old - repair state, new - Structural Integrity and parts) and it decays (old - when used, new - when damage is taken and when used). You then spend PED to repair the decay (or replace the broken limited item) with the added option of allowing other people to contribute to part of the repair process.

RickEngland said:

We don't have to stop at hangers though do we?

We could review every asset we've every owned, and attempt to seek some type of compensation. I've got good friends that paid over 20K for a res chip, and now we have limited res pouches dropping. Then there's the 4K or so I paid for a IV fire chip, or 2K I paid for V heal chip (all deposited).....point is nearly everything old asset has been devalued in some form due to new game development.

I heard the hanger owners got them for free originally by collecting a few parts (slightly before my time). You got a free ship in compensation and an unlimited thruster.

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I’m not addressing the issue of the hangar and ship market value though.

A better comparison would be MindArk taking away an unlimited weapon with 2500 PED TT value and replacing it with a 0 PED TT one that now needs half a dozen attachments to fire whilst only giving you one of the attachments.

As for the earliest hangar owners it’s stretching my memory a bit however I believe they got a hat of a yet to be released type (at the time, it was released to the general public later) because the initial implementation of the old hangar system, in to which people poured 10’s of thousands of PED’s in parts to make them functional, simply did not work.

The resurrection chips came from MindArk removing resurrection terminals after they realised that forcing players to drop them on the ground (so they could be used) without any security was a stupid idea. A few did actually get picked up by other people, which most people would consider stealing yet which was technically perfectly fine.

Luckycharm said:

For landing on planets I think the UL thrusters could get an added functionality of engineering item when installed into a slot on the engineering console of privateers, which would solve the 70 landing holes needed on planets to dock all the ships in. Not likely to happen though.

As far as the differences in peds locked in hangars I don't think the records will be available. If they had been the distribution of tp fees between active and inactive ships would have been different indeed as well, or that would have been logical. If you had a lot in it yourself I think you should keep pushing. Never give up!

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I expect at some point the Privateers will be able to land again and the thruster or an equivalent item will be needed to do so.

As for records you can have them and not use them.

It’s not much different to MindArk deciding not to attempt to recreate your previous avatar appearance in VU14 when they updated the avatar system, even though they had no trouble attempting it when they changed platforms in VU10.

It was quite amusing to have survived the VU10 change as an average build white guy pretty much unscathed only to turn in to a large fat black guy (who almost didn’t fit through doorways) in VU14.

Both times MindArk allowed us the edit the avatars so the big difference is the effort they spent converting the old to the new.

Kombinator said:

No question that you have not been treated fairly and deserve additional compensation in this case. But you of all people know who you are dealing with here, it is MA for God's sake...think of taming and consider yourself extremely fortunate that you have indeed been compensated for lost business opportunities and effort and not brutally assraped instead.

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When taming returns I will be more than happy to support those who invested their time in and money in it if needed.

Harmony. said:

In my opinion the original hangar owners got very well compensated, and no further actions from MA are required. Better yet i would prefer they'd focus on stuff that affects more then a few persons. I wonder how many of the people that actually offered a service with the old hangars are still around? More then 10?

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I don’t think many are still around – when your small business that you built up is completely obliterated for a few years and the new system is a broken mess for several months (and still has multiple problems now) there isn’t much incentive to try again.

Futurama said:

Deathifier,

Sadly, I woudn't be surprised if MA actually didn't have this info anymore, so simply they don't really know how much each owner should be compensated.

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Then they can simply give all the privateers the same upgrades, ensuring they have a slight edge over new ships of the same type that are sold off in the future.

2000 PED of SI doesn’t actually do much, although the fuel would last a while, and the parts as indicated would be basic versions – enough to get you from A to B given time, not enough for someone who wants instant inter-planetary flight or a warship.

remontoire said:

If everybody receives an unlimited energy device and subwarp drives, then who would ever need the limited ones?

I obviously don't agree with nerfing the present space vehicles to only consist of the major ships. And I think the idea that the disappearance of easy interplanetary travel will lead to a lot of revenue to the privateer and mothership owners is delusional at best.

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When Entropia expands and space becomes highly active then those buying new types of ships (including motherships) will need them.

In addition there are higher levels of at least the sub-warp drive so if you want to go faster you can use a limited version.

In practice I suspect the only devices that get a much use are Warp Drives, and maybe at some point armament devices - neither of which were present before.

As for the scale of space I preferred it as it was in the initial release and you are correct - MindArk increasing the scale to make it more laborious to travel in a small vehicle did not do much for the larger ones.
They have yet to deal with the core problems inhibiting space travel and when they deal with those everyone will benefit without needing arbitrary changes to try and force people to use a certain type of ship.

- Deathifier

and what about those special hangar on top of mall ? did MA do something special for those ?
i am just wondering...

anyway , i think hangar was bad idea from the begining.... space travel should have been handled only by teleporter...

as for hangar , owner should have get a special unique ship with some advantage over other...

since i am at it , how much hangar owner did get from the tp fee share ?

Knowing MA, the features being worked on at the time would have most certainly not made it, if they spent the time dividing out differences. I would rather have a VU implemented for many versus, a deadlock in development so devs can hash out the perfect solution for few.

And then, what do you do for the many people who broke up hangers and ships prior to space changes?
This is probably a big factor in the decisions. I think it was a mistake to allow the separation.

They are ultimately MA's assets, and the compensation was more than sufficient, even generous. IMO

Deathifier said:

I expect at some point the Privateers will be able to land again and the thruster or an equivalent item will be needed to do so.

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Deathifier said:

MindArk has stated that they will decay over time in the future. This will probably happen ......

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Expectations and reliance on MA's words will very often lead to frustration. "Probably" is a dangerous word, especially considering any investment.

GeorgeSkywalker said:

There is everything to indicate hangars are a work in progress.

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except...

Kim|Calypso said:

There are currently no plans in place to develop the hangars.

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November 2012....under 9 months ago.

Hangers will not see a use period. Its amazing how people will read into vague statements and draw conclusions to the contrary full of "what ifs", and "when it changes...". We have complete confirmation hangers will not be used. Until it is announced and actually ingame, I assume nothing else will be implemented, because MA says alot of things. My blood pressure sure appreciates the caution.

Deathifier said:

MindArk has stated that they will decay over time in the future.

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I dont see any rush to go out and start decay on ships of that value. This complaint would pale in comparison to those complaints, from owners and passengers alike. (costs would be passed down to the passengers in the end)
They also originally had a vision for the hangers and use. They obviously shifted priorities away from space additions/changes at some point.

The only costs for a ship owner are optional SI and a warp drive/ parts, all of which can easily be paid for with the ship itself, with only time as the cost.

Deathifier said:

Repair is actually much the same - you put PED in (old - repair state, new - Structural Integrity and parts) and it decays (old - when used, new - when damage is taken and when used). You then spend PED to repair the decay (or replace the broken limited item) with the added option of allowing other people to contribute to part of the repair process.

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Yes decay still does exist in a way, but there are skills involved now where they did not before. So that cost can be recouped via skills to a decent degree. And if you have people willing and interested in going to repair ships, it wont affect the owner much at all, except perhaps more welding wire / RK sales.

MA did do a good job in that regard. People are in space everyday skilling like mad, its a benefit, an alternative, ,has a beneficial use for more than one party, and people want/are compelled to do it.

Deathifier said:

[*]The Fuel contained in the hangar ship, which was up to 500 PED worth of Oil (TT value only).
[*]The full functionality of the ship as represented by the parts which were needed to make the old hangars functional.

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I have a couple High TT UL items,
I could complain if I poured all of my PED to fill the TT value, and it got nerfed,
or I could say...boy maybe I put more PED into it than I should have, without any plan to use it right away.

And those parts were highly overvalued by the players at the time. Just like the Quads were at 700 ped a pop, or new BP drops can be, or DNA parts or new UL or.... so many other wildly fluctuating things in game.

I think of SBI as the biggest space success story. He took full advantage of the situation and gained far far more than any owner IMO, virtually free of charge (profit), and SI donations consistently for years. Instead of complaining, he went out and got the compensation for himself and then some.

It seems many owners complain it doesn't work out as fair, but yet I don't often see the effort to maximize the use either.

I am guilty of that myself. I could go full tilt and start getting reliable income, It just is frankly time consuming, and the game already has enough time sinks. I am the idiot for not capitalizing on my investment, no-one else.

Would the 2k ped in fuel compensation all of a sudden spur a vicious drive to make more use of the ship? Probably not for anyone. Those who actively provide service, already are doing so.

Dont get me wrong, I think these are valid questions to bring out. If I was an original owner, I would have felt slighted to say the least as well. And in your case recently, the feeling of slight has been only compounding. But then again, almost everything I owned in 2007-2008 gives me and many players a similar feeling of slight.

IMO anyhow.

GeorgeSkywalker said:

* I continue to see further evidence, in small bits which indicate to me hangars will be worth it in teh end but I'll stop here...

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If only i could bottle your optimism, i could make a fortune selling it!

GeorgeSkywalker said:

Would agree with those two points but your missing an even more important point. Hangar owners had a business which could generate revenue but the current system as is cannot really be used by hangar owners to generate any revenue.

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I’m not ignoring the change in commercial viability of hangar ownership, it’s a very real issue too – the new system has potential however it requires substantial additional investment and the entire system has been poorly thought through, poorly designed, and poorly implemented.

Still, the foundation is there and can be built on.

GeorgeSkywalker said:

A lot of my thoughts I posted here:
http://www.entropiaplanets.com/threads/hangars-facts-speculations.7609/

The last point in that article was interesting.

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The first 4 points are cosmetic.

Point 5 is the city area zone added to each hangar group.

Point 6 has some merit however if MindArk wanted to give hangar owners the old ship type it could easily be done by converting it to a 5 seat VTOL.

They did not do that and I suspect it is because they legitimately wanted to make Hangar owners a key part of the new space system and so they built a new hangar ship (the Privateer) that works better with the functionality in the new system.

GeorgeSkywalker said:

* Originally hangar owners were not given the deeds to the hangars. Only after players made a fuss that they were not allowed to trade hangars were they given to them. This indicates to me they were trying to protect hangar owners from themselves i.e. so that they could not trade them until the system was fully updated.

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When was that? I recall the deeds may have not been tradeable for a while however I don't think the deeds themselves ever went anywhere and it wasn't until the ships appeared that we received the actual deeds for them.

Etopia said:

and what about those special hangar on top of mall ? did MA do something special for those ?

since i am at it , how much hangar owner did get from the tp fee share ?

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The landing pads on the malls and scattered around various towns are still just decoration or simply no longer there.

The mall owners are probably a little upset about the missing features however those features were never implemented in the old system so it's more a case of "yet to be done" and not "was there, now isn't."

As for what the hangar owners received I will go get the numbers for you, along with some numbers about the effect of SI upgrades.

forgo said:

Knowing MA, the features being worked on at the time would have most certainly not made it, if they spent the time dividing out differences. I would rather have a VU implemented for many versus, a deadlock in development so devs can hash out the perfect solution for few.
And then, what do you do for the many people who broke up hangers and ships prior to space changes?

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Actually if they spent a bit more effort sorting things out properly from the start they would have far fewer problems in general than they currently do.

As for those who broke up the two objects the value and the functionality has always been on the ship itself, unless you want to factor in the assembly needed to access the hangar ship in the first place.

forgo said:

I dont see any rush to go out and start decay on ships of that value. This complaint would pale in comparison to those complaints, from owners and passengers alike. (costs would be passed down to the passengers in the end)

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There is obviously no rush as it remains to be implemented, however it will happen and when it does the added costs will flow through to the consumers.

MindArk wants their decay income and they have shown in the past they will nickel and dime the community (e.g. clothing equip fees) to get it.

forgo said:

The only costs for a ship owner are optional SI and a warp drive/ parts, all of which can easily be paid for with the ship itself, with only time as the cost.

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The SI is not optional unless you don’t mind exploding whenever someone hostile glances in your direction. Even using all the funds received from compensation will still only buy you a few minutes if attacked by more than a couple of Quad’s unless you happen to have a full crew or are next to safe zone.

forgo said:

Yes decay still does exist in a way, but there are skills involved now where they did not before. So that cost can be recouped via skills to a decent degree. And if you have people willing and interested in going to repair ships, it wont affect the owner much at all, except perhaps more welding wire / RK sales.

MA did do a good job in that regard. People are in space everyday skilling like mad, its a benefit, an alternative, ,has a beneficial use for more than one party, and people want/are compelled to do it.

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This is its own whole topic.

The impact of repair skilling on the economy has been quite large as a lot of the manufacturing that used to take place to get those skills no longer happens – it’s far easier and massively cheaper to just repair skill in space.

Sure people like it however think about what effect that has on the mark-up of loot that used to be consumed and the value of the affected skills.

forgo said:

I have a couple High TT UL items,
I could complain if I poured all of my PED to fill the TT value, and it got nerfed,
or I could say...boy maybe I put more PED into it than I should have, without any plan to use it right away.

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Not nerfed, removed.

It’s more like if you repaired your weapons and armour to max because you intend to use it in the near future and then find out that MindArk has zero'd the TT of the items and now requires you to repair it again plus need a bunch of other items before you can make use of them again.

forgo said:

Dont get me wrong, I think these are valid questions to bring out. If I was an original owner, I would have felt slighted to say the least as well. And in your case recently, the feeling of slight has been only compounding. But then again, almost everything I owned in 2007-2008 gives me and many players a similar feeling of slight.

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Yeah there are plenty of things in the universe that cause people heartache, some of them caused by players and some caused by MA and PP’s.

This is only a minor issue however one has to start somewhere

Bye,
Deathifier

Deathifier said:

When was that? I recall the deeds may have not been tradeable for a while however I don't think the deeds themselves ever went anywhere and it wasn't until the ships appeared that we received the actual deeds for them.

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From memory I think around the time hangar buildings and ships were given. At that time before deeds were given to players there were complaints that some people wanted to trade hangars but couldn't since they didn't have the deed. I think in reaction to that deeds were given to players. So perhaps in 2011.

I was not a hangar owner at that time. So perhaps hangar owners who called for deeds to be given to them could give more details.

Deathifier said:

If there are other issues people would like looked at I’ll be happy to examine them – the community puts up with a lot, esp. given the amounts they spend, and I believe the community should be treated fairly and reasonably by the companies that they invest their time and money in, particularly if they are attempting to make a go of the business aspects that MindArk promotes as being possible with the RCE environment.

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Can you please look into the issue of Arkadia catering to the whims of a couple landowners and placing materials required to make the aakas keys only on their taxed land areas? How about the unfair treatment of other land owners who have to pay for fertilizer when these major arkadia land owners don't?

It is impossible to please everyone.

You cant have your cake and eat it too.
With the space update you got something better than an expensive teleport between calypso and cp/foma.
On top of that while space was not implemented you got compensated with the TP fees.

With UL thrusters you guys could have continued ferrying people between those 3 locations for much much much cheaper than any of the (L) competition when space started. (of course price has gone down so thats not as big an advantage anymore, but you had that option then)

You were given a spacecraft that is capable of so much more than your original one, you can not only go between caly/cp/foma, but now any of the new planets as well as space hunting and exploring in real 3d.

You have all the social aspects added as well as ways to remotely contact passengers for a flight (summons) (still needs some work imo to make it less unpleasant for some people)

It is each and every privateer owners own fault if they did not use their new ships to their advantage and profit. Their lazyness and greed made room for the new players such as myself to prosper and enjoy the new aspects of the game. (the Privateer is currently a much better ship in space than the Mothership for a few reasons, I run both so know the differences)

If it is value you want, the easy 'fix' would be to lock quads/vtols from crossing space server lines. (2ped fee to cross or something with land grab type events each week for each servers fee profits)

I wouldn't like to pay more to quad around space since even as a MS owner I do it a lot, but that would increase the use of warp ships and the value of yours.

IMO its up to MA to make hangers more or less than they currently are, the ship/thruster makes up for what you had before space.

I realize that my opinions are slanted just as yours are, but feel that MA has done ok with this, and hope that they can continue to make improvements on all aspects of the game.

narfi

This all needs to be addressed simply because the fact is by what we have seen with the sale of Medusa and the moon people are not willing to trust there money in MA anymore. I've been playing for 9.5 years and the first 4 years i was thought putting money in this game was a smart choice cause it paid off almost always with TI and CND but over the last 4-5 years MA has done nothing but shown me that they are making a very unsafe environment to invest in and that they will change the rules and screw over even the biggest of investors including planet partners! Glad I havn't LOST anymore but gained. But MA will need to do a lot to get me to deposit money again and it starts with fixing crap like this.

They've kept the hangars as they are partly to stop other planets requesting the same number as Caly has.

But just because they've no plans at the moment for hangars doesn't mean that won't change in the future. IRL we've seen similar statements only to find a few months later it being implemented. Where the original statement meant only to prevent loss of sales on existing models or loss of votes.

Linking the hangars to a Privateer would give credence to the other planets requesting that they also have them and they also be able to sell larger space craft. The current Motherships and Privateers are in space and as such a MA commodity where any revenue from sales of new ones goes to them rather than a PP.

Imagine if each new planet was allowed to add just as many Privateers as we currently have.

It could have been where the hangar owners were the only ones able to get into space and they'd ferry passengers to the Motherships or local destinations but this would have resulted in every planet requiring hangars.

Karmic said:

Can you please look into the issue of Arkadia catering to the whims of a couple landowners and placing materials required to make the aakas keys only on their taxed land areas? How about the unfair treatment of other land owners who have to pay for fertilizer when these major arkadia land owners don't?

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The resource placement was part of Arkadia's efforts to manage their contractual obligations.
It didn't work out so well (balance issues) and you will now find at least the 8 Coins resources elsewhere.

The lack of a need for fertilizer and DNA in general was mandated by MindArk as a result of a rather interesting sequence of events.

Please note that Arkadia would not exist without the funds those Land Areas raised - not by a long shot - and whilst Arkadia was economically efficient the fact is Planet Development is not cheap and finding investors is not a trivial matter.

If you want more detailed information please post a new thread and I will see what can be done to answer your queries.

Of course if these issues concern you I would like to direct your attention to the upcoming moon as it will have all of this and quite a bit more (notice there aren't many estates on 8 Coins) with universe-wide impacts.

narfi said:

You were given a spacecraft that is capable of so much more than your original one, you can not only go between caly/cp/foma, but now any of the new planets as well as space hunting and exploring in real 3d.

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Does it do more though?
The other planets did not exist when the old hangers were removed, there were only three destinations (CP, CND, and Calypso), and various aspects of the old ships (e.g. weaponry) had not been implemented.

In the new system they implemented some of these features and added more destinations since three new planets launched whilst the hangar system was offline.

The systems are fundamentally very similar though - ship upgrades are still needed to access the new features (e.g. weapons needing armament devices), just as the ship needed upgrades to obtain its previous functionality.
Some features of the new system, such as shields and heavier weapons (see MindArk's 2011 buzz bulletin) remain to be implemented just as features were yet to be implemented in the old system.

They only actual difference with the new ship is that it can carry more people and it needs to with the way MindArk setup the space environment.

I was never at risk of being looted in space under the old system after all

narfi said:

It is each and every privateer owners own fault if they did not use their new ships to their advantage and profit. Their lazyness and greed made room for the new players such as myself to prosper and enjoy the new aspects of the game. (the Privateer is currently a much better ship in space than the Mothership for a few reasons, I run both so know the differences)

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It can still be made to work just as the old system could be made to work, particularly now that space is reasonably stable.

As for activity there were very few active hangars before (it was, as it is now, a very time consuming activity) and it is those who were running an active service that were hurt the most - their business was destroyed and they got exactly the same compensation during the transition as those with completely unassembled hangers.

narfi said:

If it is value you want, the easy 'fix' would be to lock quads/vtols from crossing space server lines. (2ped fee to cross or something with land grab type events each week for each servers fee profits)

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That's not a fix, that's just another change which would try to 'encourage' people to use the bigger ships.
I disagree with such 'encouragement', including the increased scale of space (which also forces use of the more expensive warp drive by the big ships), as it reduces the diversity of space activity.

The issue I'm highlighting isn't about the competitiveness of the Privateer vs. Mothership vs. small vessels or the market value of the ship and hangar structure or the design choices (good and bad) and other issues with space in general.

Rather this particular issue is about MindArk taking away people's assets and functionality and not fully returning them, and whilst it is very small I am well aware of how small issues like this, if not addressed, lead to much larger and more worrying issues in the future.

- Deathifier