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Floating an economic plan

  • Thread starter imported_CherryBomb
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imported_CherryBomb

Guest
I have not been too kind towards the devs's handling of the economy, so I'm gonna make an extra-special effort to be constructive. I thought I would float it here in City Hall so y'all have a chance to point out the errors for me :).

1) Adjust payouts for job objects to yield 500 emu per hour for a max skilled avatar with max support from extra workers. 500 emus gives you room to ladder up the payouts from low skill levels as before.

2) Set the cash-in/cash-out rate to one million emus for 10USD and forget about running multi-avatars on the same account. Someone farming the job objects 23/7 could make about 350,000 emus a month if he evades detection, so noone could make more than his subscription fee that way. This would turn anti-bot actions less of a life-or-death struggle for EA. Someone working 2 hours a day would earn about 30,000 a month.

3) Keep the drains about where they are, and expand the range of catalog prices from cheap (which you could afford with game-play alone) up to millions for luxuries like prestige lots, high-end items and CC (that you could only practically buy by using an ATM). There would be a medium price range of stuff you COULD get by working a loooong time, but you could shortcut by using the ATM. I suspect this range is where most of the ATM money would go: the main reason people buy game currency is to appear that they worked hard in game, lol.

4) Make sure this is bulletproof and wipe. (OK, I'm a radical, but EA has shown that they are willing to do something similar with the way they treated pirated CC.)

I think this would let people have meaningful game play if they only wanted to pay the monthly fee, but leave some goodies for the ATM. If it were up to me, I would just dump cash-out, but I'm trying to be helpful.

CherryBomb
 
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Guest

Guest
I like it. It gives everyoene a goal that they can reach depending on their game play.
 
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Guest

Guest
I don't know about the 500 per hour thing. Its a little complicated. Of course, I don't like the 3k thing either, but I don't really like the idea of cap offs in general. At least not cap offs that sound low. Its a better plan than I've got, but I'm still not convinced.

I think they should just take the cashout out of the game. I don't see what good its doing anyone except maybe scammers. And even then it just isn't very profitable.
 
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imported_Gracie Nito

Guest
You mean 350,000 per avatar X 8 avatars = 2.8 million a month. Don't ya?
 
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imported_CherryBomb

Guest
Ya, Gracie. That's why running mutiple avatars simultaneously would have to go. Any plan I can think of to implement cash-out is ugly, this is just the least ugly I could come up with. And any cash-out at all while keeping money objects and jobs has "hack me" written all over it. If I were EA, I'd be afraid to do it.

CherryBomb
 
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Aelisa

Guest
Maybe they ought to just scrap the idea of cash-out, period. It seems an impossible task to keep sims from breaking the bank while also making earnings worth skilling and working for.
 
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Guest

Guest
<blockquote><hr>

Maybe they ought to just scrap the idea of cash-out, period. It seems an impossible task to keep sims from breaking the bank while also making earnings worth skilling and working for.

[/ QUOTE ]

But that still wouldn't get rid of 3rd party sales which would effect the RL money that EA could be getting from the players.
 
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poppet

Guest
TTL

I dont see a problem with the average player selling simoleans, its nice to have someone work a little more to fund those who cant or dont like to work. The problem is really with botters who make millions in short periods of time, that is really the issue. I'm sure an average person who happens to make 20k more a month than he needs should be able to sell it to a person who doesnt have the time to work that much. We need a way to stop the botters not the people who happen to have a little more time to earn money.
 
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imported_CherryBomb

Guest
<blockquote><hr>

Maybe they ought to just scrap the idea of cash-out, period. It seems an impossible task to keep sims from breaking the bank while also making earnings worth skilling and working for.

[/ QUOTE ]

This is pretty much what I have been harping on for the last six months. At least now most people understand what the real problem is with cash-out, and in my contrarian way, I have decided to argue that it is *not* impossible. Hard (and ugly), but not impossible.

CherryBomb
 
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Guest

Guest
<blockquote><hr>

TTL

I dont see a problem with the average player selling simoleans, its nice to have someone work a little more to fund those who cant or dont like to work. The problem is really with botters who make millions in short periods of time, that is really the issue. I'm sure an average person who happens to make 20k more a month than he needs should be able to sell it to a person who doesnt have the time to work that much. We need a way to stop the botters not the people who happen to have a little more time to earn money.

[/ QUOTE ]

I've considered that myself, but the moral dilemma I have with it is if I sold simoleans that I got through my custom craftables and custom content, sans any bots at all and I undercut EA's prices thereby making it more profitable to get it from me than them, yeah it'd benefit me and I could probably sell enough to pay for my two accounts pretty easily, but now that EA is selling simoleans that would be basically like stealing money from them, wouldn't it? Because every dollar that somebody spent with me would be one less dollar that EA would get....and with EA being in the financial straights that it is I'd be afraid that undercutting them too bad would make the whole game go under. So bleh, I dunno
 
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Guest

Guest
<blockquote><hr>

...now that EA is selling simoleans that would be basically like stealing money from them...

[/ QUOTE ]

Thats how I see it. Except it is stealing, not even a question. I know I know some say the simoleans are mine I worked for them! Not true, they belong to EA, as do all accounts and everything on them.

I do not believe we should have the right to sell simoleans, trees, accts etc.
 
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imported_CherryBomb

Guest
No, Carrie and Niki. That is not stealing. Any economic system that does not allow people to trade what they own with each other for what they both see as fair value is unfair. edited to add [It is also doomed to failure.] In fact, the whole purpose of cash-out is to give CC creators actual money for making good content. If EA would give up on the idea of actually buying back the money themselves, a lot of mess would be avoided. They could even facilitate player-player trades, let the market find its own level, and relax. They might lose some currency sales, but they would gain peace of mind from not obsessing over every emu earned.

Anyway, the main purpose of my post was to try to deal with their obsession and try to come up with a plan that could not be "gamed". What I really wanted to hear is how people could cheat it.

CherryBomb
 
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Guest

Guest
Perhaps you misunderstand, I'm referring to 3rd party transactions outside of the game involving real world currency. Such as simoleans gained by botting sold to players thus taking income from EA.

In game sales and trades are fine with me. If EA allows me to sell a tree for simoleans and then is willing to buy the simoleans from me for real money thats fine.
 
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Guest

Guest
I can't see anyone being able to cheat the system in the way of making real life profit from botting or anything else they could do in the game.
That is if the ability to use all 8 sims on your account at once is not brought in as you have said.
The only thing I am wondering about and am trying to get my head around is the effect that $10 for a million emu's will have in the game.
It may turn the game into everybody coming in and just buying 10 bucks worth to get their property, build a house and place all the regular items on there.
Would'nt there be a huge flood of emu's in the game at that price?
Please don't get me wrong here Cherry, I know how much thought you in particular have put into the economy and I have a great amount of respect for you with that.
I can see you have put a lot of thought into this and I am serously putting a lot of thought back into what you have proposed.
That question I have asked is the only concern I have found, so if you have an answer to that then I believe your idea to be a very good one.
 
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