The Era Problem

[Lime_O_Matic]

Chooch and Shrimps, I wasn't being serious. It was just a joke. Obviously you can be against it and not be a USDer or a cheater.

I personally would like to see a reset, but it won't bother me if it doesn't happen.

[Supaman771]

Originally Posted by Chorchizcool

No one is addressing the point where people have LEGALLY SPENT HUNDREDS OF USD on this game in the gelat shop.

This was one of my main points.

Originally Posted by Venom_Fish

A reset is unnecessary as of this moment, since the players are more engaged in the game than ever.

Precisely.

Originally Posted by shrimps

As long as there's an economy there will always be a gap between the rich and the poor. New players will always be at a disadvantage against older players, that's just how it works. Older players/ Nolifers (me) will always have an advantage over people who don't play much or are new.

Correct and Agreed upon.

Originally Posted by paintballdude956

So, I really do think our current model is sustainable if and only if we keep doing things.

This is key.
The Era model in general has sustained for over a decade with a majority of the same player-base because they are easily amused (release one item and everyone logs on to check it out/try to get it/etc. same with events/holidays). You really get out what you put in (from a developers perspective).
This can be seen in a very simple way by looking at GK... the player count is low constantly because the game/content was 'beat' by this player-base; but the server easily can reach 50-100 players by hosting a special event/on holidays/new item release. The players are there and remain; you just need them to want to log-in.

That's what we're doing right now on Era. All the times in the past we wanted to reset is because we weren't doing these things (shitty managers/staff teams... Vulcan, Zach, Deo, etc.) and the player count dropped. This results in the GK effect; where when there aren't enough players (a certain % leave) to sustain the competition the whole concept of the server goes out the window.
------

Overall though; it seems like the majority of us came to the same conclusion on this topic.

[Demisis_P2P]

No need to reset, just keep releasing quality updates.

[swift]

I really don't understand why reset now.
4-5 months ago when I was a mere developer and 20-30 players logged on daily we didn't raise a single discussion about reset.
When player activity was at an all-time low, gang bases were empty, and the only people online were idling, it was not considered.

Now, after myself, Ishmael, and other development staff have released several updates that deal with gangs, weapons, and other content, the playercount has skyrocketed to nearly 100 players every single day... but the management wants to reset the server..?

I really don't understand that ideology at all. Players today now can earn weapons, money, whatever they want if they decide to work for it (which is how it should be).

This new economy, and new gang system has clearly brought life back into Era (even though they may need some tweaks) and if we reset now we'll lose a lot of old players who came back, and a lot of the newer players who just started a couple months ago and worked their way into this new system.

I think we've easily proven that if we work with the players and work through errors in these systems, we can actually change the game without saying "hey lets just reset everyone on the game once again and start over".
It solves no issues, it is a weak and short-term solution, and only leaves the same problems to be solved by a future staff team.

[Godzilla]

A reset? Ridiculous idea.

How about we start making the game look a little more professional. I mean for heavens sake we have 4-5 different GUI's that are being used, we have chat commands that no one knows about and a team of 10 year olds bossing 20 year olds around.

That's what we need. Professionalism. We don't need a reset. We need Professionalism, perfection and word of mouth will easily get us past the 125 mark we hit the other day.

[Sinkler]

So here is where this idea is stemming from:

Since the last reset, duping, spawning, and a variety of other corrupt practices by staff have led to unfair economic advantages for a select few. Those people still retain these unfair economic advantages. This is in the form of one-of-a-kind weapons and highly valuable rare items.

The reason we need a reset is to eliminate this excess that has been plaguing Era's economy for quite some time. I agree with all of you in keeping with the high pay-off structure that has been enacted, but that was only enacted to try to fill this wealth gap. Unfortunately, this wealth gap is still not closed, meaning we need to find a different solution: this is a reset.

Now, Tim has an excellent idea that I think would make Era extremely fun. He would make the gunshop have a certain amount of items, priced at some market level and with a set quantity depending on the tier of the weapon. Each week, new guns would replace the last week's old guns with the attributes applied. This would lead to two things:

1) A more diverse gun economy (not everyone will have the same high-tiered guns, placing emphasis on PK skill)

2) There will be more trading in the secondary market. This is good because it creates a more complex and enjoyable market structure. People will now be able to merchant.

Finally, in regards to the potions issue: this is easily curtailed. People who have potions will not lose them. People who have already sold their potions already gave up their right to own the potion, therefore is neither liable to Graal nor to the Era. They are subject to Era's macroeconomy.

[geneticfrog]

did you guys remove the shop that has most of the guns or something? that was the best way to balance prices. (im stillbanned)

since all players no matter how rich needs to give better prices then the shop gives and if you cant sell an item at worst sell back to shop at low price.

you only get rich people controlling prices when there is no shops. shop price = max possible sale price cuz if anyone tries to sell over it they buy from shop.

same for sale they have to sell higher then pawnshop buys back. no matter how many are duped its always the same price for all.

if anything duping would reduce its price and make it affordable in this scenario. (supply vs demand + restricted prices.)

[xAndrewx]

limiting weapons? make them a really high price.

[Demisis_P2P]

Originally Posted by Sinkler

So here is where this idea is stemming from:

Since the last reset, duping, spawning, and a variety of other corrupt practices by staff have led to unfair economic advantages for a select few. Those people still retain these unfair economic advantages. This is in the form of one-of-a-kind weapons and highly valuable rare items.

The reason we need a reset is to eliminate this excess that has been plaguing Era's economy for quite some time. I agree with all of you in keeping with the high pay-off structure that has been enacted, but that was only enacted to try to fill this wealth gap. Unfortunately, this wealth gap is still not closed, meaning we need to find a different solution: this is a reset.

Now, Tim has an excellent idea that I think would make Era extremely fun. He would make the gunshop have a certain amount of items, priced at some market level and with a set quantity depending on the tier of the weapon. Each week, new guns would replace the last week's old guns with the attributes applied. This would lead to two things:

1) A more diverse gun economy (not everyone will have the same high-tiered guns, placing emphasis on PK skill)

2) There will be more trading in the secondary market. This is good because it creates a more complex and enjoyable market structure. People will now be able to merchant.

Finally, in regards to the potions issue: this is easily curtailed. People who have potions will not lose them. People who have already sold their potions already gave up their right to own the potion, therefore is neither liable to Graal nor to the Era. They are subject to Era's macroeconomy.

I agree with geneticfrog.

The moment they increased the payouts from jobs any advatage that people had from having spawned guns was diminished proportionately. So that weath gap is effectively already filled (or is easily fillable, given that the most expensive gun can be bought in just a few days now). No need for a reset.

I think that players having access to wealth and the current gun shop which contains almost all of the guns is a fine system, and probably the most equitable situation we've ever had on Era. The system you described actually seems less equitable because a temporary advantage (like having spawned guns) could become a much longer advantage depending on the rotation and supply of the guns.

With the current system eventually there will be market saturation of all gun types and nobody will buy guns from the store anymore and the secondary market will take over, but players haven't had access to wealth for long enough yet for the supply of weapons to drop the price enough for that to happen yet.

[geneticfrog]

Originally Posted by xAndrewx

limiting weapons? make them a really high price.

not limiting weapons, having a shop with a sale price for all weapons and that automatically makes the shops price the highest possible sale price. (if no one has any yet) and shop buys it back at 25% of sale price.

so players are forced to sell between 25%-99% of shops price and the more there are the closer it gets to 25% for players who are not rich as there would be high supply (duped scenario). automatically over time the price go down.

only the rich will buy the first weapons in stock but again over time prices would adjust as high supply from all the people buying from shop over time.

each time you add a new weapon to shop it would e high demand rich ppl spending money then later it adjusts for less rich automatically.

[geneticfrog]

btw the idea is having unlimited stock so that over time players stop buying that gun from the shop and its fully supported with buy and selling over players.

so the shop ends up being the price regulator that staff can controll stats (thus the value aka sell and buy prices) of the gun.

isn't this what all staff want? controlling the economy and basically making the desperate rich people who require strong guns right off the bat basically help out the poor by increasing the supply of the gun "on the streets".

(or take a page form delt make a OP wep all rich buy then reduce its stats after a month to vertually useless stats so all of a sudden millions are taken out of the economy do it over and over lolool LOL DONT START DOING IT TOO)

makes people hate you and dont want to spend their time jsut to lose money and items so its a lot of power over the money and people basically 100% power as you can make any weapon useless. if it cost 2 million and you nerf it to 100k theres 15 its 28.5 million gone.

[Reddy548]

I still dont know what sinkler want to do, really i came back to this game after 1 year , and it was 1 week before the cash update, and i came back with navy and pbp.
Now i own 3 rare guns , and i bought them with my own cash and effort, theres no point on what you said about rare weapons , because rare weapons are being released constantly in auctions and EC/gang shop, if you have EC/Cash/Gang Points , you can buy them.
Also when i came back the newest release was the Sable/Tempest , now we have alot more guns on the shop, and theres alot more on era database like Tar21 , SG17 (etc) and we have the best gun admin (ish) to release more weapons and give new players a chance to have them , even if they dont have to , because these weapons are balanced with the ones on shop.
Sorry, but a reset now, will destroy all the job that this new admin team did.

~best br player

[ooger]

Originally Posted by Reddy548

~best br player

I must concede that Reddy is in fact the best BR on the server and everything he said was right. Resetting will create more problems than it 'solves'.

Like Swift said the server basically fixed itself without a reset. (Thanks to staff for all your recent hard work, you guys are killing it.)

I don't see why 'rare' items are a problem when Ishmael is a balancing genius. The only reason for rare items is to play more to pay more and have some street cred (or look like a loser with a bunch of pink hats ) Things get balanced and nobody has a significant advantage because their gun is one of a kind.


"A more diverse gun economy (not everyone will have the same high-tiered guns, placing emphasis on PK skill)"

This statement literally makes no sense.

[geneticfrog]

you could always soul bound rares so you cant sell it xd

[Sinkler]

Originally Posted by Demisis_P2P

I agree with geneticfrog.

The moment they increased the payouts from jobs any advatage that people had from having spawned guns was diminished proportionately. So that weath gap is effectively already filled (or is easily fillable, given that the most expensive gun can be bought in just a few days now). No need for a reset.

I think that players having access to wealth and the current gun shop which contains almost all of the guns is a fine system, and probably the most equitable situation we've ever had on Era. The system you described actually seems less equitable because a temporary advantage (like having spawned guns) could become a much longer advantage depending on the rotation and supply of the guns.

With the current system eventually there will be market saturation of all gun types and nobody will buy guns from the store anymore and the secondary market will take over, but players haven't had access to wealth for long enough yet for the supply of weapons to drop the price enough for that to happen yet.

So this is not true for a few reasons:

1) The wealth is still centered around those who were able to get access to weapons unfairly (we have all agreed that the previous staff administrations have been rather corrupt when it comes to permitting duping/spawning). In addition, wealth is centering around those who own player-businesses, which in my opinion should be eliminated. You keep reiterating that the wealth gap has been filled - NPC data has shown this to not be true, in fact, the gap is increasing.

2) The convergence to market saturation will not push for an efficient secondary market. In fact, once the market is saturated and everyone has the gun they desire, the game loses its secondary market. With my model, we'll be able to allow for the constant change of weapons (with effective price controls and qoutas) and make the secondary market a great aspect of the game. Right now, you can but any weapon and that's fun, but with my new system, high-tiered weapons will randomly be available weekly. This means that there is:

a) incentive to accumulate money (so, PK, work, etc...) in order to get those top tier weapons when they appear (which is randomized). This randomized model allows for their to be temporary rarity which means prices can fluctuate on the secondary market based upon quantity. I think this price fluctuation adds a more interesting dynamic to Era than the current ability to purchase every gun.

b) trade more goods in the secondary market to attain a higher-level good. This makes Era not only a PK/gang based server, but also an economic game.

You are right that I am giving a temporary advantage to players who have the capital to purchase these low-quantity, high-tiered goods, but due to the fact that the players are aware that that item will occur in some random time in the future, it forces the player who wishes to sell to act as imperfect monopolist - the player won't be able to set absurd prices because of the information the players have.