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  #1  
Old 02-10-2010, 11:08 PM
cbk1994 cbk1994 is offline
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Businesses on Era: The Life and Death of a Businessman

As promised, I'd like to start being more open about Era's development, including getting real player input. I've discussed this idea with both Exolia, the business admin, and Squirt, the manager, and I believe we've come up with a reasonable plan for businesses both before and after the reset.
To explain this system, I'm going to walk you through the life and death of an Erian businessman.

(there's a summary at the bottom!)
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Originally Posted by The Life and Death of a Businessman
Our demonstrative character will be named John. John has been saving his money with his friends for the past several weeks in hopes of purchasing one of Era's several businesses. Just a few hours ago, a business went up for auction when the old owner failed to pay his expenses for the second week in a row. John has the money, and purchases the business.

Hence, John's store is born. John decides that he will first sell some ammo. He has chosen to produce handgun ammo and uzi ammo. With his remaining money, he purchases licenses for each of these items, as well as enough production machines to get him started.

He places the little money he has left in the safe, and calculates the payment rates at which he will be able to hire one employee and still be competitive. This will involve looking at what his competition pays their workers. He has decided to pay $5 per iron mined, $4 per lead mined, and $3 per each handgun ammo and uzi ammo stock. He specifies a maximum he will spend for each item for the week. He hires a miner. The miner knows from checking into the business info that he will be paid $4 per lead and $5 per iron. He goes out and mines enough to fill the weekly quota, then stocks. The money which the miner earns is "reserved" in the safe; in other words, it can't be withdrawn by the owner or anyone else.

The owner also has to factor in weekly costs, including utilities (steady rate), maintenance (depending on how many production machines he has), and taxes. Using these figures, he plans out a budget. When the week is over, the workers receive their pay directly in their ATM accounts. The owner can then set his weekly maximums for each item (including stocks), as well as what he will pay for the week. This can also be set the week before for convenience.

This week, John set his caps so that he spends $10,000 in employee expenses. He pays for his utilities, maintenance, and taxes. The total cost comes out to $15,000. He only makes $10,000. He is now at -$5,000. However, he had the foresight of putting extra money in the safe in case this happened. Because of this, he still has money in the safe, and is able to set new caps for the week. He also decides to start selling a gun. He purchases a license for producing and selling the M16, and sets a cap for the M16 at $6,000. The gun costs $2,500 to produce from gun parts, therefore two can be stocked this week, assuming he has the minerals needed. He sets the stock payment at $500. This $5,000 is not reserved as it does not go to an employee, but the $1000 used for stocking is reserved. It is up to the business owner to make sure that he doesn't go in the hole for part purchases.

When the week comes to a close, he has sold two M16s, both priced at $4,000, and made $3,000. He has made $14,000 from ammo. He has now made a profit of $17,000. After paying $10,000 for his employees, he pays the $5,000 for weekly expenses, and is left with $2,000 of personal profit. He can take this out and use it himself, or leave it in as insurance.

John decides to take the money out and reward himself. He hires another employee, and raises the caps. This week, he loses money, and now has negative money in the safe. However, because the money paid to employees is reserved money, the employees are paid what they were promised. His caps can't be set higher than he can afford to pay, therefore he cannot pay his employees this week. If he has some stock left over from last week and it is purchased, he can then use this money to set a cap and mine some minerals. He can also use personal money to add to the safe. John fails to pay his expenses the next week, and is shut down. The business is automatically put up for auction.
Also note that to prevent people with money from squatting on businesses and only paying weekly expenses, all businesses would have to receive at least a certain amount through sales each week.

The money amounts used in this example, as well as any items, are all rough estimates and are probably not even remotely accurate.

This plan would basically take the old, much-loved business system and fix its flaws. It would not affect businesses like Era Hotel which are not stocking businesses.

Summary:
We plan to create a business system which lets owners choose what to call their business, what items to produce, how many to produce, and what to charge for them. There would be money reserved in the safe which the owner can't touch to prevent employees from being scammed. Employees would automatically be paid at the end of the week. If businesses failed to earn at least a certain amount in a week, or failed to pay their expenses in a week, for two weeks straight, the business would automatically be taken and auctioned. This is very similar to the old system.

We plan to put this system in place on Era before the reset, but it may take a while to create.

I would love to hear comments and criticism before the system is built, and address any potential issues before they become a problem. Please let me know what you think.
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  #2  
Old 02-10-2010, 11:18 PM
DuBsTeRmAn DuBsTeRmAn is offline
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I want to say that i really like the idea of the new Shop System, I always wanted this on my own server but we never got to it.. I would love to see it here tho!

This way the system will be much better because of the pays and stuff..

I vote yes!
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  #3  
Old 02-10-2010, 11:20 PM
Diesel_P2P Diesel_P2P is offline
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Sounds good to me
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Old 02-10-2010, 11:21 PM
DarknessShadow DarknessShadow is offline
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tl;dr

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  #5  
Old 02-10-2010, 11:22 PM
Andre2006 Andre2006 is offline
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I will invest money in different business, I will make a fortune!
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  #6  
Old 02-10-2010, 11:42 PM
k_killar k_killar is offline
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hope this isnt like noctorious's system were you buy the stuff and drag and drop on ur shop table................. didnt bother reading the wall of text
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Old 02-10-2010, 11:44 PM
DuBsTeRmAn DuBsTeRmAn is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by k_killar View Post
hope this isnt like noctorious's system were you buy the stuff and drag and drop on ur shop table................. didnt bother reading the wall of text
Far as i know our system has changed :]
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Old 02-11-2010, 12:18 AM
swift swift is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Andre2006 View Post
I will invest money in different business, I will make a fortune!
Why not actually make a loan system where a player can invest his money to a business to help it out, and the Owner can accept the loan or decline it. (Depends on if it's needed.) Over time the business pays back the player with a small interest rate so the player can earn money. There should also be a way a business can pay the full loan back if they have the money.
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Old 02-11-2010, 12:25 AM
Dnegel Dnegel is offline
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I like this!

Yes, yes and yes!
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Old 02-11-2010, 12:25 AM
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Why are the businesses re-auctioned or auctioned at all?
Couldn't you simply place "lots" or empty stores on the map, in which players will have to purchase for a certain amount? To begin this process.
Also; if the player feels as though he can't handle the business anymore, there should be a function that allows him to sell his business (paying his employees for that week), and cut his losses. (Sell it back to Bank or whatever it is, or AUCTION it him/herself).

Note: If he sells back to BANK, he of course is not returned what he initially paid for it. He should also be able to sell his licenses for an amount as well. Or sell them to other storeowners.

That sounds to me like a better system, it keeps money rotating in the economy and does not simply "delete" all of it.

As well as it takes away a certain degree of staff-involvement which can get messy, as we know. The GBA can take care of the auctioning and etc.
Its most-definitely more interactive.

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Loans can get messy, what if a player doesn't pay back?
Its not like irl, where you can imprison them... that'll get things too complicated.
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Old 02-11-2010, 12:33 AM
cbk1994 cbk1994 is offline
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Like Wil said, loans wouldn't work out, there's no way for them to be enforced if the player doesn't have the money.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Venom_Fish View Post
Why are the businesses re-auctioned or auctioned at all?
Couldn't you simply place "lots" or empty stores on the map, in which players will have to purchase for a certain amount? To begin this process.
Also; if the player feels as though he can't handle the business anymore, there should be a function that allows him to sell his business (paying his employees for that week), and cut his losses. (Sell it back to Bank or whatever it is, or AUCTION it him/herself).
This is a good idea, though if it's sold it might be better to keep everything in-tact (licenses are kept, etc).
Quote:
Note: If he sells back to BANK, he of course is not returned what he initially paid for it. He should also be able to sell his licenses for an amount as well. Or sell them to other storeowners.
Not sure about this but maybe.

Quote:
As well as it takes away a certain degree of staff-involvement which can get messy, as we know. The GBA can take care of the auctioning and etc.
Its most-definitely more interactive.
What do you mean? This new system would automatically auction the shops, staff wouldn't really be involved at all except determining the cost of licenses, what an item takes to produce, how much to tax, etc.
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Old 02-11-2010, 01:03 AM
cbk1994 cbk1994 is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by cjclark
I disagree with the system due to the fact is most shops do not sell everyday.Gun Point is a perfect example they can stock 100 plus but few people will buy there unless they are close by.This will cause the business to fall because you have employees wanting to get payed yet everything is doing fine on stocks yet no money is being put into the safe to pay the employees.
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Old 02-11-2010, 01:24 AM
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I like the idea, its getting more realistic however something I notice.

4 per lead
3 per stock
automatically sets the price at 7 and if owner wants a profit its more. People will go to NPC shops unless you set NPC shops veerryy high, which would deter new players.

I know your numbers are theoretical but this is the problem I see
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Old 02-11-2010, 01:37 AM
cbk1994 cbk1994 is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by CharlieM View Post
I like the idea, its getting more realistic however something I notice.

4 per lead
3 per stock
automatically sets the price at 7 and if owner wants a profit its more. People will go to NPC shops unless you set NPC shops veerryy high, which would deter new players.

I know your numbers are theoretical but this is the problem I see
It's the same now. If Ammo Mart pays its workers $2 per stock and $3 per iron, and it takes 1 iron to make something, they have to sell for at least $6 to make any kind of profit. The only difference is that AM and GP can't set their own prices.
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Old 02-11-2010, 01:52 AM
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There's no mention of protection fees, and this sounds like quite the project but good luck.
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