Next move

[Skyld]

Information in this thread may not be strictly accurate anymore.

Okay, so most of you are probably aware, I am Manager of Era again. I know most of you probably think it's a terrible thing but right now, that's not up for discussion. What is questionable is what should be done about Era.

Right now, Era faces a problem. Everything is crazily unbalanced and things are messing up. The economy is ridiculous, and I am sure that a considerable amount of you could list a number of things wrong with some aspect of Era right now.

There are two options.

1. Era can be reset, along with a new world being introduced to replace the current overworld.

• The businesses can be more fairly balanced and arranged, so that bizzes and player-run businesses are more distinguished and fair.
• Gangs can also be set up to be more balanced.
• Quests can be inserted around the place without there being any hiccups.
• Better methods of making money can be implemented.
• Much improved systems can be brought onto the scene without causing disruption.
• More weapons can be introduced from the range on the server.

2. Era can be left as it is.

• Eventually the economy will become crazily unbalanced.
• Bizzes will continue to cause damage to larger businesses. Deleting small bizzes is not an option.
• Larger gangs will eventually lose their meaning, and gang weapons will become less rare. Deleting parties is not an option.
• Other problems will start to arise from both current and previous glitch abuse, and other related problems.
• It is not likely that the same level of development will be applied to the old world.

I have considered grey areas in between these two options, but in the end, it is down to a reset, or things being left as they are.

I am not going to make this decision myself. I want your input.

Please note that if a reset were to become the best option:

• Era would not be taken offline during development. The existing world would remain until we have prepared and perfected the new one.
• I would be prepared to welcome new ideas and suggestions.
• All progress would be delivered to the players in the form of updates posted in a thread, mass messages, etc.

Now you have read what I have to say, please vote on the poll that you see when you log onto the server. Please also feel free to discuss things in this thread related to these two ideas, however, any disruptive, abusive or unrelated posts will be deleted.

(Poll obliterated.)

Thank you.

[Crono]

How about a reset but some kind of compensation? Possibly keep one weapon or something? A 100% reset would suck because a lot for some people because they've gotten so far.

[Spyder-z2]

Skyld, small bizes KILLED the economy in the first place..
If we leave small bizes but do a reset, Era will just fall apart again in another 4 months..

[Skyld]

Originally Posted by Spyder-z2

Skyld, small bizes KILLED the economy in the first place..
If we leave small bizes but do a reset, Era will just fall apart again in another 4 months..

Small bizzes are subject to a lot of change, and being mostly, if not totally moved out of the weaponary area into more tertiary areas.

[MistyWhite]

i like Gerami's idea... reset the world yes, but cant we atleast hold onto one thing? o.O i mean.. it sucks in a way cuz some people actually worked their way to get what they have.... and to just loose everything in return just sucks really bad....

[Shotoo2]

Originally Posted by MistyWhite

i like Gerami's idea... reset the world yes, but cant we atleast hold onto one thing? o.O i mean.. it sucks in a way cuz some people actually worked their way to get what they have.... and to just loose everything in return just sucks really bad....

Skyld wants to keep the small bizes. Don't worry, that means the economy will get screwed up again and you'll end up losing that one item in the long run anyway.

[MistyWhite]

Originally Posted by Shotoo2

Skyld wants to keep the small bizes. Don't worry, that means the economy will get screwed up again and you'll end up losing that one item in the long run anyway.

Thats not what i mean.... something like a Gun Or Our Money You kNow. dont start trying to be smartass.

[Henry5001]

Originally Posted by MistyWhite

Thats not what i mean.... something like a Gun Or Our Money You kNow. dont start trying to be smartass.

Lol, keeping money wouldn't be an option. And Mange just said that one item won't help you in the long run. Small biz's rape the economy and they have to be deleted eventually. You know I just came back for this Era, I really don't want to have to quit again z.z


P.S. I'd like to keep my ET tag =/

[BlueSamurai]

your players are running around like chickens with their head cut off
every reset..soo funny yet never gets old xD

[Skyld]

Originally Posted by Shotoo2

Skyld wants to keep the small bizes. Don't worry, that means the economy will get screwed up again and you'll end up losing that one item in the long run anyway.

I'm not sure if you read what I wrote but I said that small businesses would be moved out of the weaponary area and into tertiary areas. I thought that small businesses should have two or so weapons to sell, but Hachi disagrees, so I will leave that decision to him.

Originally Posted by deathbarrier99

Skyld, what I heard is that you demoted and made your self Manager. You are absurd. Go away. There's better people for manager.

Andrew quit. I did not fire him.

Originally Posted by marche186

Firstly, if you are going to reset, do it SOON! Era is going to lose players again if everyone has to wait around in a "pre-reset" world. The last time we had to wait for the reset, it was horrible and the player count dropped tremendously.

If Era were to be reset, I do not really want to rush the process. I would want to make sure that things are right and spend some time making it right.

Originally Posted by marche186

MORE STAFF!
The number one complaint from everyone that plays Era is that the staff do not reply. You guys are busy, we know. Staff should be hired that have limited powers, but are there for the sole reason of helping people.
They should almost always on their staff tag and can help with everyday problems such as glitches and people issues..I know I can vouch for half of Era when I say that several Player Relations admins would be awesome.

That can be done.

Originally Posted by marche186

Second, small businesses were a complete disaster. If you insist on keeping them make many changes. Create a minimum price that each item could be sold for, a reasonable one. The bizs were constantly lowering their prices for competition to the point where they were losing money to sell them.

Small businesses would stay but again would be changed. Hachi had a long list of problems with them and I asked him to fix them. That's up to him.

Originally Posted by marche186

Third, gang weapons ****ed up the economy too. I agree that gangs should have their own weapons, but don't make them so outrageously good. If they have to be that good, don't make them so easy for the gang to create. Make the prices as high as the quality and "l33tness" of the weapons.

Hmm, would have to see about this one.

Originally Posted by marche186

Fourth, if there is a reset, don't give the same old people their gangs and businesses. A reset is a reset and it is only fair if they are reset just like everyone else.

It's undecided if the same gangs and businesses would be there after the reset. It might be good to introduce a whole new range, but that's not decided yet.

Originally Posted by Bl0nkt

Skyld, player bizzes should NOT HAVE CONTROL OF WEAPONS. A place run with temporary ownership and half-assed working will really set a bad example on behalf of large businesses and guns in general. Please do me a favor and keep the biz system away from weapons (I know you refuse to get rid of it, despite my belief and previous power. Think on a scale of importance, not what Stefan thinks.).

If you think that is best, go for it. I won't argue with your judgement, because you seem to have a better idea on small bizzes than I do.

Originally Posted by White_Roy

If you're not going to get rid of the small businesses how are you going to keep control of the economy?

By following Hachi's suggestions and changes and keeping them away from major selling points.

Originally Posted by White_Roy

How are you going to stop gangs from losing meaning?

Possibly each gang having the same member limit, having only select people being able to recruit, improving gang bases, working out ways to give gangs an incentive to raid other gangs (perhaps a serverwide status board, some sort of randomly generated reward? opinions, please)

Originally Posted by White_Roy

How are you going to maintain the rarity of the gang guns?

By making sure that only gang members can have them.

Originally Posted by Celarion

SkyID, how precisely are you planning on compensating people for their gym levels?
I'm currently level 10 speed and level 5 strength. That's somewhere around 75 hours of gym training.

Before you answer, please go and try to do 1 straight hour of treadmilling. Then just ATTEMPT to multiply that by 60 in your head.

Then do 1 hour of strength training, and multiply that by 15.

Yeah. Please. What the hell.

I am not entirely sure how the gym system is working, but ideally it would give a much better boost (being able to carry even more items, maybe being able to use melee weapons faster)

Originally Posted by Celarion

In the case of people having ridiculous amounts of money, that's mostly from scamming. Have a look at Nubszz, he is (or was the last time I checked) the richest guy on Era. Incidentally, he has barely done any work himself. He just suckered a whole bunch of people. There's no way to stop that, really. People are always going to be stupid, and others greedy and ambitious.

The amount of scamming that has occured makes it difficult to just go back and solve problems like that. One of my primary points of thought is improving the item trade so that it is more reliable, making it easier to access and endorsing it's use. There are too many people who just drop items without thinking about it and that can't really be helped.

Originally Posted by WanDaMan

If you plan on a reset, why would you need a new overworld? It's asif you're taking this project as a walk in the park. Anyway; If you decide to create a new overworld, hopefully it'll be ready after Christmas - fully functional, new quests etc which would be worth the wait.

The current overworld has had so much thrown into it over time that it hasn't been very well thought out. Introducing a new overworld allows us to ensure that everything we have that we want now fits, whilst catering for additional things, such as quests, new areas, etc.

Originally Posted by GarethOmni

Your right, i don't care. Not anymore. Maybe i don't care that Skyld obviously doesn't know how to handle this job.

There is a good reason why I ran this poll, and that is to find player's opinions. If the majority vote was 'Leave things the way they are', I would not reset the server.

[marche186]

Originally Posted by Skyld

The amount of scamming that has occured makes it difficult to just go back and solve problems like that. One of my primary points of thought is improving the item trade so that it is more reliable, making it easier to access and endorsing it's use. There are too many people who just drop items without thinking about it and that can't really be helped.

There is a lot more scamming going on than items being dropped, although that does happen often..The biggest scams were when someone with a lot of recognition (Nub) trick people into giving LARGE amounts of money. This brings us back to what I said. More staff. Most of the people who donated to him were a little hesitant and had questions, there were no staff to answer them...

Originally Posted by Skyld

Possibly each gang having the same member limit, having only select people being able to recruit, improving gang bases, working out ways to give gangs an incentive to raid other gangs (perhaps a serverwide status board, some sort of randomly generated reward? opinions, please)

The member limit: Sounds like a good idea, it would make it "fair", which is what everyone is crying about...fairness, but reality is that one gang is going to have more people than another. I can't see a gang saying, "Sorry we've reached our limit" in real life...

Improve the gang bases! They've looked the same for how long now?

A status board and rewards would definitly make people want to raid, but you should add something cool too..
Maybe each gang should have its own NPC that sits outside talking smack to everyone. When another gang raids them successfully, the NPC should start talking smack about its own base..In order to fix it, the gang would have to get its base back. If an NPC is sitting outside saying, "LC sucks! Don't bother raiding them, it is too easy" (no offense) I'm sure LC would want their base back...
Just a random idea..

[WanDaMan]

Originally Posted by Skyld

The current overworld has had so much thrown into it over time that it hasn't been very well thought out. Introducing a new overworld allows us to ensure that everything we have that we want now fits, whilst catering for additional things, such as quests, new areas, etc.

Fair enough, how many people will be working on the new overworld? Will it be bigger than the current Era?

[KuJi]

Originally Posted by MistyWhite

i like Gerami's idea... reset the world yes, but cant we atleast hold onto one thing? o.O i mean.. it sucks in a way cuz some people actually worked their way to get what they have.... and to just loose everything in return just sucks really bad....

ahh, you mean similar to my lose of 180k, bher, and axey?

[shrimps]

Here's an idea, have stefan make a Era2, make it how Skyld wants it, everyone who is anti reset stay here, hire back old staff, keep things the way they are. Delete parties and small biz's.

[shrimps]

Axes should have been deleted from players anyway... =(

But who cares now reset! YAY!