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Huge barriers to new players


Roald Adriaansen
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New players have a MASSIVE boost from advertising for stores for instance, use it! (There that's 1 way many of you seem to ignore)
There are many more tricks a new player can use to more than double their networth every day, when you get to my size, that's impossible, it became so a long time ago -> time, you can only build so fast or research so fast, and in research it increases exponentially.

World average, what do you think has the biggest effect, 1-2 guys with high quality and large stores or 100 guys with lower quality and small stores? the answer is the 100 if it wasn't obvious, because they drag the world average down drastically.
Also, tons of people are selling things at ridiculous prices, do you know how much stuff I'm making 1000-10000% profit on AND I AM STILL SELLING CHEAPER! (That's without even factoring in economics of scale) So that's why tons of people are earning crap, because they put insane markups on low quality.


2. It shouldn't take more than 2-3 days to get Q15 for a new player in any new (non high end) field, at which point you should have enough money to invest in more R&D centers and branch out etc.

Many people significantly neglect expanding their R&D centers. If you don't have Q25 in whatever field you chose (on more than 1! I.e 6 different fruits) within 1 week (again non high end ones), you are doing it wrong.


ps. Starting with 5 mill loan isn't bad, when I started we started with way less money but no loan. I'd take the loan any day, the interest rates are nothing.
Brent Goode
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Now I am the one amused.

Wuvil stared his response by laughing at Aaron, and speaking in what I read as belittling terms. That is my complaint there.

As for the rest, I readily agree there are strategies to start out running. None of them are delineated, at least until some of the ideas above started out, but they do exist. I have grown at a reasonable pace. I am having fun doing it. I am never-the-less amazed at the "screw you, figure it out" attitudes that pervade these pages, and the defensiveness that follows when people are called on it.

I am further amused by the "reality" arguments. This is not, and never will be reality. Or even close. Until Scot starts deriving weather patterns, political upheaval, war, weevils, global warming, disease and correlations between Super Bowl winners and the stock market, just to name a few dynamic at play, this will never be anything more than a sophisticated GAME. If the idea really is about the most realistic economic simulator, go to MIT, Harvard or maybe Cal Tach and enroll in a PhD dept. I suspect they are further along already.

I don't know how you will keep players when you already have people fixing markets (.09 is now the going rate for the glutted electricity market, I see) and I just read about how Dave crashed the strawberry market because he wanted to.(I like Dave. He was honest as sin about it all. Good man.) If those things can happen with s few hundred people here, then the milieu is just to small from an NPC point of view. Period.

I am not here to hurt anyone's feelings. But I won't watch rudeness go on and not engage. I am, due to RL, in a place where I don't have anything to gain or lose. I likely won't be around long enough to care. I am living on borrowed time. So I call it like I see it. Take it or leave it. The one thing I can promise is that it is unvarnished truth, as I see it.

As for Aaron. There are ways to succeed. I made the offer of assistance. You didn't take it. Your choice.

Now I must go reset my research. I am trying to make a golf ball that goes straight when you hit it with a Q6 tennis racket. :D
Roald Adriaansen
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I wasn't laughing at him, I was laughing at him saying the game has no strategy to it, BIG DIFFERENCE!

And yet, electricity still makes money.... funny that huh? Oh and look.. strawberries sky high.. I might have bought them, that's how easy it is, AND even at those low prices strawberries STILL made over 100% profit! So technically, they hadn't crashed, they had just reached another stage in supply and demand.
The more people -> the harder that will be.

There are many helpful points by me, but sure, keep ignoring them.

I am sorry if someone found me offensive, rest assured that was never by intention, I am good with numbers and stuff, not people, far from it.



Supply and demand, that's you other key.
Billy Vierra
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The #1 issue with the internet... no sarcastic font. I keep asking Google for it, but alas it has not happened :(

Roald, you have had some great tips, been making a list of them as I go on :) Just know you have at least 1 person not ignoring them.
Scott (Admin)
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BB Goode
Until Scott starts deriving weather patterns, political upheaval, war, weevils, global warming, disease and correlations between Super Bowl winners and the stock market, just to name a few dynamic at play, this will never be anything more than a sophisticated GAME.


It'll get there with the weather/diseases (random events), government, war (global quest), but it'll still be a game even then.


If the idea really is about the most realistic economic simulator, go to MIT, Harvard or maybe Cal Tech and enroll in a PhD dept. I suspect they are further along already.

No, they're probably busy doing more detailed but less interesting things such as profiling the lift and drag for different air foils in a wind tunnel.


I think of it this way, if people hate school but love playing games, then there must be something really good about games that we're not seeing. Why don't we make it super complicated - even more complicated than school - and see if they'll still play?
Roald Adriaansen
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Glad to hear Billy :)

I'm also happy to answer specific questions (other than what to produce) should there be some.



Scott, given the fairly large following games like Dwarf Fortress etc has, I'd say yeah, people still play them, they just weed out a lot of people in the process :P

I've always been in favour of using games to teach with, sadly that rarely seems to happen, or if it happens you can't even remotely call them games.
Billy Vierra
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Roald,
Thanks :) If I have any questions I will be sure to ask... While I don't have a degree in economics its always been an interest of mine. I look at the game as a challenge to see everything I don't know :)

Also for games to teach. This is relevant: http://minecraftteacher.net/
Andrew Turner
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I'm new, just a few days, and I've made money. Not ridiculous amounts, but a decent return. But I've been thinking: what happens some months down the line when the new players are competing against established companies selling Q100 goods? It seems retail will be the only avenue for new players where they can compete on even terms. It'll get harder and harder for stores to sell Q15 goods profitably and eventually only the export market will take them.

In the real world, even established companies go bust, get reorganized, taken over and asset-stripped, to be replaced by upstarts. Size isn't everything. The game doesn't seem to model this at all, and I think there do need to be some game mechanics that favour small companies.

Perhaps the running costs of research labs deserves to grow with your quality level as well as the sq m. And if you blow up the lab to save on running cost your quality should slowly degrade.

Or, how's this for an idea? Knowledge eventually diffuses into the whole economy, so that even garage startups have access to it, modelled by periodically lowering everyone's Q level by 1 rather than increasing the level for new companies. You could still have a quality lead but you would have to keep running just to stay in the same place. And - oh! that's neat - it would automatically cost more to keep your quality at a higher level.

And there could be a store you can build that works better at small sizes (market stalls?) so new players can get a boost that'll eventually go away as their empire expands.
Happy Johnson
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Well, you see, I just started here yesterday, and what do you know? I've made a good profit right out the stall! Sure, I had to be smart and take on a market which wasn't oversupplied, but that ain't too hard to find if you're canny. I see it like this: the big folk can't do everything and are too busy fighting among themselves to worry about the little folk. You just have to find the gaps and get going. Sure, it would be pretty nice if they occasionally crashed and burned, freeing up space in the market, but why believe that they won't?

Things'll come along, they always do.
Matthew Suozzo
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Firstly, there are some really good ideas in there. That being said, I think one needs to be weary about making the playing field too level. I completely agree that a long-term solution for quality inflation is needed but I think established companies having an advantage is a necessity.

I like the idea that maintaining a high level of quality should require a maintenance fee but in that scenario, the tax equation would be solved and no one would progress beyond a certain level because it would be less profitable. Having quality degrade makes sense in real terms because of the ever-rising bar of quality like in phones and computers. While the profitability of R&D could still be solved in this scenario, I think this would be the better system.

While brainstorming now couldn't hurt, I think the time to worry about that is a long way off. The exponentially rising difficulty of R&D (time, facilities, and cost) will prevent an explosion of quality at the high end. At the low end, however, there may be a problem.
David MacIver
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It's also worth noting that quality is really overrated. The cost/benefit ratio really starts to soar after a little while.
Roald Adriaansen
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Yup, it will take years to pay off quality levels after a point, or even years to research the next level.

Getting Q100 takes MAJOR effort and dedication. All the current high tech was primarily researched before the research formula change.


Brent Goode
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"I wasn't laughing at him, I was laughing at him saying the game has no strategy to it, BIG DIFFERENCE!"

Fair enough. Given my first day here, I think my guards are up. My apologies.

I appreciate that Scott answered specific points of view. And if that is where you are at, then I can accept that and hope you succeed. The more complex the better in my mind. I suspect that, at some point when the beta is less bets, you will open a new server and people can all start on the same page if they wish.

I have now been playing about a week, and I have hit the 10mio marks on both character and company. Don't kow if that is good, but it is where I am at. I have made big mistakes and still nailed a few quests, bought some stocks, (Scott, I am already afraid of the stock market. Remember, I walked in on the Great Drama on my first 10 minutes on the site ;-) ) and have made lots of money on the B2B and export markets, both. Even selling lots of electricity, oddly enough!

The more I play, the more I like it, see lots of opportunity to succeed, and get less critical of the platform everyday. Though I would now like to see quality taken into account on the export market, like it did my first couple days when under-pricing the B2B?

Oh, and emoticons. We need emoticons. Have I mentioned that?
Josh Millard
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We need emoticon .gifs on this forum like a fish needs a bike; in this scenario the bike manufacturer gets murdered by folks who don't want forum comments littered with fish bicycles.

Metaphor got a bit hazy. But for christ's sake no.
Control Volume
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No, they're probably busy doing more detailed but less interesting things such as profiling the lift and drag for different air foils in a wind tunnel.

Them's fighting words, Ratan.


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