2/1/2017 - Stimulus February

[Azaghul]

Someone has to buy that credit though.

I would hope Sheepy would intervene in some way if there weren't enough credits on the sell market.  

[Azaghul]

I still hold firm this is the worst idea imaginable for the in-game economy of P&W. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperinflationis exactly what privatizing Credits is going to do. When you produce more of something then needed, that thing looses it's value rapidly. Already players are not getting the 12 mil or whatever for 1 credit, they're only getting 8 mil or so. This is a sign of what's to come. Credits will become insanely cheap, ruining the profitability of the game for Alex, and completely defeating the reasoning of 1 credit to start an alliance, as credits will be worth dirt essentially. But hey, I'm willing to sit there with Popcorn and watch it all burn down. After all, it's only a game.

For this to be a problem, credits would have to be a much bigger part of the game's economy.  Most in-game inflation is driven by the average nation becoming larger, which will happen naturally as the game ages.

[Patrick Higgins (Old)]

I still hold firm this is the worst idea imaginable for the in-game economy of P&W. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperinflationis exactly what privatizing Credits is going to do. When you produce more of something then needed, that thing looses it's value rapidly. Already players are not getting the 12 mil or whatever for 1 credit, they're only getting 8 mil or so. This is a sign of what's to come. Credits will become insanely cheap, ruining the profitability of the game for Alex, and completely defeating the reasoning of 1 credit to start an alliance, as credits will be worth dirt essentially. But hey, I'm willing to sit there with Popcorn and watch it all burn down. After all, it's only a game.

But most, if not all, people here don't want the game to die. What I feel we need is a better admin. But hey, that's just my opinion.

[Alex]

But most, if not all, people here don't want the game to die. What I feel we need is a better admin. But hey, that's just my opinion.

 

[Edward I]

All those reasons we gave him as to why they were. Go check out the thread for further reference.

I read it. Unless I missed it, I didn't see anyone address his main concern, which was that people would treat inactive or semi-active players as tax and resource farms.

 

I assumed that gray nations no longer being taxed was part of the decision, but I wanted to see if it was something else as well.

[Kemal Ergenekon]

It wasn't intended to be much of an argument anyway, but I suppose there are different rankings. Last I had seen UMN was ranked #10.

 

No, it hasn't been top 10 since 20 years at the very least. It's good at macro, but very lacking in other areas. And in macro, it's the old people, not new blood. Economists rank it at 15-20 overall.

 

Top 11 is MIT, Harvard, Princeton, Stanford, Chicago, Berkeley, Yale, Penn, Northwestern, NYU, Columbia.

[Bezzers]

Welp, so much hate coming from the player base. I'm going to come at it from the angle of your credit redemption increase was a move to boost larger nations slightly, and your cities boost was to get all those small nations teetering on the edge between playing and not playing firmly in the game with some very rapid growth, overall increasing the size of the player base. At the same time this 10 million per credit thing gives the nations sitting in the middle ground, IE the mid tier a major boost, because they are the ones most likely to be investing into catching their nations up. Whilst I agree with some people that this could be a pay to play feature, and that Alex needs some extra cash in his pocket, I don't think he intended it that way. But then, what do I know.

[Charles Bolivar]

I would increase the credit cost for forming an alliance to a higher mount to be honest. I think making it more costly for alliances to be founded so as to deter people from making low tier pleb alliances to be a great idea and one which will guide new players into the more established AAs where they can learn how this game truly operates.

 

Bump it up to 4 or more credits I reckon.

Edited February 2, 2017 by Nemesis

[Odin]

I would increase the credit cost for forming an alliance to a higher mount to be honest. I think making it more costly for alliances to be founded so as to deter people from making low tier pleb alliances to be a great idea and one which will guide new players into the more established AAs where they can learn how this game truly operates.

 

Bump it up to 4 or more credits I reckon.

 

Paying Credits for that is a lousy idea. Some people just don't live in the US. 5$ per credit can be a lot, depending on where you live.

The most rational solution would be to just make it cost ingame cash. So the players can at least decide whether to buy credits to turn into cash or just take it from their daily income.

The current change is nothing more then pay 2 play. I wouldn't wonder if one of the future changes is customized treasures for credits

[Charles Bolivar]

Paying Credits for that is a lousy idea. Some people just don't live in the US. 5$ per credit can be a lot, depending on where you live.

The most rational solution would be to just make it cost ingame cash. So the players can at least decide whether to buy credits to turn into cash or just take it from their daily income.

The current change is nothing more then pay 2 play. I wouldn't wonder if one of the future changes is customized treasures for credits

They do already cost ingame cash though. If you do live in a part of the world where $5 is an excessive amount, you simply save up the ingame funds and buy the credits from someone else on the trade market. That's what I typically do when I need a quick credit.

 

40m or so in order to found an actual alliance does sound pretty reasonable if the goal is to stop the mass proliferation of pleb tier alliances. Larger nations can make that much in a few days so larger AAs acting as protectors could easily raise that amount of cash in order to help a protectorate establish itself and the amount of cash spent might make protectorates and alliances in general focus on achieving more ingame.

 

Persons spending actual money get to make a profit ingame, people from poorer parts of the world get to establish alliances without having to spend excessive amounts of RL money and sheepy gets to make some income. Everyone is a winner.

 

At the end of the day, nearly every game has some pay to win features, it is necessary in order for most games and their developers to survive. Can't expect sheepy to provide us with a game completely free of charge, if he can implement new content and features on a regular basis then surely no one can fault the guy for wanting to make a bit of $ from people wanting to pay it for whatever goodies the $ can get them.

Edited February 2, 2017 by Nemesis

[Donald Trump]

Why are people arguing about "Forcing players to pay for AAs" when the market exists?

 

Plus, in order to buy forums and web hosting for actual sites, you technically need to pay for alliances anyway, if you want a half decent one. 

[Dalinar]

They do already cost ingame cash though. If you do live in a part of the world where $5 is an excessive amount, you simply save up the ingame funds and buy the credits from someone else on the trade market. That's what I typically do when I need a quick credit.

 

40m or so in order to found an actual alliance does sound pretty reasonable if the goal is to stop the mass proliferation of pleb tier alliances. Larger nations can make that much in a few days so larger AAs acting as protectors could easily raise that amount of cash in order to help a protectorate establish itself and the amount of cash spent might make protectorates and alliances in general focus on achieving more ingame.

 

Persons spending actual money get to make a profit ingame, people from poorer parts of the world get to establish alliances without having to spend excessive amounts of RL money and sheepy gets to make some income. Everyone is a winner.

 

At the end of the day, nearly every game has some pay to win features, it is necessary in order for most games and their developers to survive. Can't expect sheepy to provide us with a game completely free of charge, if he can implement new content and features on a regular basis then surely no one can fault the guy for wanting to make a bit of $ from people wanting to pay it for whatever goodies the $ can get them.

Building on your idea of upping the initial credit cost of an alliance -- it could cost 4 credits to create an alliance, and make the first flag uploaded free. Credit neutral to the current system, but enough of a barrier that it should encourage Sheepy's goal.

[Inwegen]

Paying Credits for that is a lousy idea. Some people just don't live in the US. 5$ per credit can be a lot, depending on where you live.

The most rational solution would be to just make it cost ingame cash. So the players can at least decide whether to buy credits to turn into cash or just take it from their daily income.

The current change is nothing more then pay 2 play. I wouldn't wonder if one of the future changes is customized treasures for credits

You must have missed the memo that it's "America First" now.  

[Keegoz]

Why are people arguing about "Forcing players to pay for AAs" when the market exists?

 

Plus, in order to buy forums and web hosting for actual sites, you technically need to pay for alliances anyway, if you want a half decent one. 

Says the guy still not playing the game...

 

Forums are outdated. Discord is free as are other forms of communication these days.

[Donald Trump]

Says the guy still not playing the game...

 

Forums are outdated. Discord is free as are other forms of communication these days.

Nor do you even as such quickly looking over alliances

 

I can't see how scrapping forums for Discord is going to end up doing much other then help kill the game.

[WISD0MTREE]

I can't see how scrapping forums for Discord is going to end up doing much other then help kill the game.

than*

 

KT appears to be going forum-less and only using Discord. Let's call it an experiment. 

[Charles Bolivar]

Building on your idea of upping the initial credit cost of an alliance -- it could cost 4 credits to create an alliance, and make the first flag uploaded free. Credit neutral to the current system, but enough of a barrier that it should encourage Sheepy's goal.

A very good idea if I do say so myself.

[Keegoz]

Nor do you even as such quickly looking over alliances

 

I can't see how scrapping forums for Discord is going to end up doing much other then help kill the game.

First statement, lol.

 

Second statement, lol.

[Rache Olderen]

Nor do you even as such quickly looking over alliances

 

I can't see how scrapping forums for Discord is going to end up doing much other then help kill the game.

Eh. At CS we mostly used Slack and barely even used our forums, then we shifted over to Discord. Seriously I only looked at the forums when I needed to check some document or another or we had an election.

[Blackatron]

There really is very little need for forums nowadays, guides are pretty much the only thing that forums are better at that is widely needed.

 

 

At the end of the day, nearly every game has some pay to win features, it is necessary in order for most games and their developers to survive. Can't expect sheepy to provide us with a game completely free of charge, if he can implement new content and features on a regular basis then surely no one can fault the guy for wanting to make a bit of $ from people wanting to pay it for whatever goodies the $ can get them.

 

 

This.

 

Also, so what if this causes inflation? At least that way the game is actually undergoing meaningful change.

[Patrick Higgins (Old)]

This whole thing with paying credits to make an alliance is total and utter bullshit. You're telling me that this is supposed to keep the stronger alliances permanent rather than a group of like 7 people starting their own little alliance? I'm calling total and utter bullshit on this one. All Alex wants is more money to fill his greedy little pockets. Who actually cared about all these tiny micro-alliances running around? Nobody. They honestly didn't affect the bigger alliances in any way, shape, or form. Everybody's already pissed off about this, but on the P&W discord, Alex said he's gonna raise it to 4 credits to make an alliance! Seriously, what the f*** Alex?! "Oh, well you'll be able to make your own flag now too when creating your own alliance", I can hear him saying. Well woopdie-friggin'-doo, how generous of you (not).

[Alex]

This whole thing with paying credits to make an alliance is total and utter bullshit. You're telling me that this is supposed to keep the stronger alliances permanent rather than a group of like 7 people starting their own little alliance? I'm calling total and utter bullshit on this one. All Alex wants is more money to fill his greedy little pockets. Who actually cared about all these tiny micro-alliances running around? Nobody. They honestly didn't affect the bigger alliances in any way, shape, or form. Everybody's already pissed off about this, but on the P&W discord, Alex said he's gonna raise it to 4 credits to make an alliance! Seriously, what the f*** Alex?! "Oh, well you'll be able to make your own flag now too when creating your own alliance", I can hear him saying. Well woopdie-friggin'-doo, how generous of you (not).

 

Alliance Flags already cost 4 Credits. It would make it revenue neutral, and again, not about making money at all.

 

I never claimed that anyone was complaining about small/low-quality alliances. They don't impact larger alliances in any way. What they do impact is player retention - new players that join and form their own alliances, or join small/low-quality alliances quit shortly after. New players that join bigger, established alliances tend to find a sense of community, have resources to build their nation (money, knowledge, advice), and tend to keep playing for more than 30 minutes.

 

No one is stuck in an alliance forever. A group of players that signs up, joins a big alliance, learns the game and grows their nations a fair bit, can then split off and form their own alliance and know what they're doing and be far, far more likely to succeed.

 

At the end of the day, having more players in the game, and more quality players and alliances, benefits everyone.

[Patrick Higgins (Old)]

Alliance Flags already cost 4 Credits. It would make it revenue neutral, and again, not about making money at all.

 

I never claimed that anyone was complaining about small/low-quality alliances. They don't impact larger alliances in any way. What they do impact is player retention - new players that join and form their own alliances, or join small/low-quality alliances quit shortly after. New players that join bigger, established alliances tend to find a sense of community, have resources to build their nation (money, knowledge, advice), and tend to keep playing for more than 30 minutes.

 

No one is stuck in an alliance forever. A group of players that signs up, joins a big alliance, learns the game and grows their nations a fair bit, can then split off and form their own alliance and know what they're doing and be far, far more likely to succeed.

 

At the end of the day, having more players in the game, and more quality players and alliances, benefits everyone.

Why not just make different requirements to make your own alliance? Like, reach 700 score or something like that, rather than choosing whatever makes you the most money, Alex.

[Queen M II]

The OP says it will be 1 credit to start an alliance. Now it's 4 credits??? Is this a rumor, a floated thought, or confirmed?

 

Hashtag: yikes hashtag: Please don't

[WISD0MTREE]

The OP says it will be 1 credit to start an alliance. Now it's 4 credits??? Is this a rumor, a floated thought, or confirmed?

They're saying nobody takes an alliance seriously unless they have a custom flag, which is 4 credits. Thus, that is more or less a "tax" on alliances without punishing the small groups of buddies who start PaW together.

 

Alliance Flags already cost 4 Credits.