Quoting alestor:
1. Major issues & suggestions
1.1 The Big Reset
While I am all for capitalism, especially in games, this is a player-driven community, where imbalances are more noticeable compared to a PvE or single-player game.
$ 87.094.432,93 total in circulation
$ 16 895 228.58 - 1 player (19,4% of total)
$ 25 000 000 + - top 5 (~29% of total)
$ 29 000 000 + - top 10 (~34% of total)
Some players have been active for over 8 years, which deserves its own recognition. If there would be a reset, all players would have a section on their profile for their previously achieved status, with their wealth displayed, and also their cumulative wealth displayed separately. There would be a regular highscore list as it is now, that would see the seasonal (yearly?) characters' wealth. On the other «all-time-high»-list, it would show the wealth they have accumulated over their total career playing the game.
I propose a yearly reset. The players who have reached top 10 have achieved most, or even all, that can reasonably be achieved and possess so much resources and wealth it discourages new players.
What is the point of having one player who owns 100% of land in Germany, 100% of land in Brazil, 100% of land in Finland and over 50% in the United States. Most of this land is empty and unused, and requests to buy any land are ignored. 👎
If a player possesses this immense amount of resources and doesn't, or barely, engages with the community, apart from collecting all remaining land and resources, it does nothing but harm the game long-term. It's almost like a dragon sitting on a mountain of virtual wealth.
The initial reset wouldn’t happen until all other issues are addressed.
1.2 Worker Shortage
There is an immense shortage of workers. This number of worker bots needs to be increased drastically, or the system needs to be overhauled. Players have to offer very high salaries to attract both human players and worker bots.
I also believe it is one of the main reasons some players are creating large amounts of alt accounts. (Also see 1.5.1 Cheating = Bad)
1.3 Taxes
• Tax on dividends:
A simple wealth tax, if players have a net worth over a certain threshold, they pay tax on dividends. Higher net worth, higher tax. I'd suggest 5% starting from 100k, up to 10% for over a million.
• Sales Tax:
On every Retail Store sale, 5% tax gets collected automatically
• Increased tax for empty land only, up from $50 to $250-500 to motivate development of the land or reselling, and combat the massive hoarding of land that's currently happening. If possible this would be a sliding scale, starting from $50 for the first 7 days of ownership and scaling up weekly to ultimately reaching $500 a day if the land is still empty after multiple weeks.
These taxes are collected into a game-controlled fund, that then again distributes this to buyer bots that buy items from player stores. Stores are randomly assigned and the game checks if a price is reasonable, meaning within a certain percentage of market value of a particular item, before buying
This tax collection is an additional fund, working on top of the already existing buyer bots
1.4 Empty Land
On top of the empty land tax, if a plot of land is empty/unoccupied or no construction has been planned within 60 days of ownership, it automatically gets put up for auction. The player will get a notification in advance if their land has been unoccupied for too long. This will encourage players to actually build on and use the land, not just hoard.
1.5 Cheating & Income Disparity
There is relatively little money to be made if you play fair. At the very least, you are at a disadvantage.
1.5.1 Cheating = Bad
Rule 7 has been broken so many times because of alt accounts, it’s no secret, anyone who’s played MoneyGame for more than 2 weeks can see that. While I do understand some aspects of it, the main one being a lack of workers, it simply is against the rules you agreed to when you signed up.
An average player with 10 jobs, that pays $65 each, will make $650 in a day.
Now, a player who has on top of their own account, for example 10 alts, could potentially make $6500 a day from just the alts. Alternatively, they hire them for extremely low or free wages in their own factories. Cheap labour results in cheaper goods, which then causes the honest players to have no chance of having any fair competition. If you're an honest player and wonder how water, grain, electricity.. can get sold for less than it costs to produce, now you know.
Let's look at Electricity. Yesterday, Electricity got sold for less than $0.3 per kWh. If you pay your employees a modest salary of $60, and an employee produces (no weather effect) 200 kWh a day, this would result in:
$60 / 200 kWh = $0.3/kWh
The cost of electricity is $0.3, every penny under this price leaves no room for profit and is only possible because of cheating-funded bankrolls. To be clear, this is bad for a game, but especially bad for one with a small community and player base as this one.
1.5.2 Restriction for Cheaters
Cheaters will be investigated on a case-by-case basis and will get severe restrictions, economic sanctions if you will.
These cheaters will not be able to trade on The Exchange and all their open sell and buy offers will be cancelled.
They will be fired from all their Director positions. Can’t turn out dividends.
Can’t transfer money out of companies. Can’t bid on auctions.
Can’t delete companies. Can’t trade shares or land.
Hit them where it hurts. 💰💸
The cheaters can still work and their companies can still receive money and pay employees.
The length of the restrictions would depend on how long the player has been cheating and how big of an impact it had on their account and community.
The starting length for the restrictions will be 30 days, going up to infinity for the worst or repeat offenders. Cheating destroys the game, and honestly the fun, and should be strongly punished. Additionally, they will receive a permanent cheater symbol and/or warning message on their profile and next to their name in the high scores list.
Examples need to be made. Stop while you still can because I have mounting evidence against the large cheaters. Don’t become the example.
Their cheating absence from the market will give honest players a chance to trade and play without their market manipulation.
Hi Alestor!!
Those suggestions are
great.
But, let's snap back to reality. No matter what one does to stop cheating, one would never be successful. Because that's how human nature works. Wherever
there is a group of people and an economy there is a deception of resources within the economy.
Let's imagine we reset everything, within a span of some years everything will be as it is today once again. Frauds, scams, exploitation of resources through loopholes have always been happening throughout the history of this game. There is nothing we can do to change this human nature. But, we can curb excessive cheating, not stop it.
Also, the admins must check out the forums on a regular basis to see if there are any malpractices happening in the game. It looks like admins are completely oblivious regarding the affairs of the game.
Regards,
warren buffet.
